Rolling the Dice... On Camera! (The Die Guys) with Moira Joy Smith

Listen to this episode here.

Moira Joy "MJ" Smith is the Dungeon Master for the Try Guys D&D actual play show "The Die Guys". She created the show in 2024 along with the Try Guys, and I was her right-hand dude during production and the show's video editor.

Today, ahead of a whole series I have planned later this fall on actual play, MJ and I sit down to talk about how we made The Die Guys. We start with a bunch of background - how shows get made for YouTube at large, how the Try Guys specifically make shows, and how this show came about - but we get granular to, all the way down to how I made choices in the edit about whether to leave in or cut individual jokes.

Further Reading

The Try Guys streaming service, where you can find The Die Guys season 2

The Die Guys episode 1 on YouTube

Socials

Sam on Bluesky and itch

The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com

Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.

Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!

Support Dice Exploder on Patreon!

Transcript

Sam: Hello and welcome to another episode of Dice Exploder. Each week we take a tabletop mechanic and shine a spotlight on it. My name is Sam ald and my co-host today is Moira Joy Smith. So for my day job, I'm a video editor, Andy 2024. I spent most of the year editing for the try. Guys, if you're not familiar, they're former Buzzfeed producers, turned YouTube comedians who do a lot of food related videos, some comedy game shows.

You get the idea. They got 8 million subscribers and as of Spring 2024, their own streaming platform, they're great. A Few months into freelancing for the guys, I learned that they were planning a Dungeons and Dragons actual play, like a bunch of improv comedian friends doing some goof kind of show. And obviously I had to get in on that.

So I did. As of this recording, the Die Guys has run for about 11 episodes across two seasons and a Christmas special, And I thought as I gear up for a dice explode miniseries on actual play this fall, that it'd be fun to first check in on where I'm coming from with actual play and how the die guys got made.

To do that, there was only one person I could possibly have on the show. Moira Joy Smith, the Die Guys, dungeon Master, and in-house video editor for the Try. Guys, MJ and I worked together really closely to make this show happen, and honestly, it's her show.

She's at the top. She set the tone, and frankly, I think she kicked ass at it and we weren't thorough in this episode. You may have noted the runtime on this Chunker.

It is officially the longest episode of Dice Exploder, yet we start with a bunch of background, like how shows get made for YouTube at large, how the DA guys specifically make shows and how this show came about. But we get all the way granular down to how I made choices in the edit about whether to leave in or cut individual jokes, how rolling dice works on camera.

If you're interested in watching the actual play before listening to this season one episode, one of the Die Guys is on YouTube now, and there's a link in the show notes. The rest of the series is available at 2ndtry.Tv. That's two ND TY tv. I recommend starting with season two, which is primarily what MJ I talk about on this episode.

Thanks to everyone who supports Dice Exploiter on Patreon. And with all that, here is Moira Joy Smith with rolling the dice on camera and the die guys

Sam: Mj, thanks so much for being on Dice Exploder

MJ: Thank you for having me, Sam.

Sam: such a pleasure. We made so much D&D actual play last year and I am really excited. I feel like we have really needed just professionally to sit down and do like a post-war about, like how did it go?

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: And I'm really excited to get to do that on camera here. we are in the try Guys podcast studio right now. This is a first for me to be in in studio.

MJ: I did break us in over the weekend. Nobody, nobody besides the podcast studio like. Owner knows that I'm here. don't tell. the Try guys that we are stealing their they're away right now and they don't know that I'm doing this.

Exactly.

Sam: So, yeah. Who are the tri guys? Who, who are these people we're talking about? What's going

MJ: What's going on here?

So the try guys they were a crew of guys from buzzfeed way back. And the current two tri guy members are Zach and Keith. And the extended TriCast are 10 other people that not that we don't care about them, but I'm not gonna name all of them.

Zach and Keith are the owners of second try, LLC and they're the ones that I answer to every day of my life.

Sam: Yeah. So you're an assistant editor here?

MJ: No, no. I am a post-production coordinator now

Sam: Amazing. Congratulations on the promotion. It sounds like, and I spent most of 2024. Making my primary income being a freelance editor for y'all.

MJ: Mm-hmm.

Sam: And about halfway through the year you, it sounds like you had had about a year long quest to get like a d&D actual play made by this

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: But yeah, I would love to hear like from you, like what was the journey like initially conceiving of this project to getting on camera for the first time back in july or whenever

MJ: I guess this all started because I wanted more practice being a dm I am, I wouldn't call myself a novice, but I would say like, not, not advanced I was like dipping my toe in as like the, the rules master, whereas prior I'd only been a player.

Sam: And When did, like, how long have you been playing

MJ: I feel like I did a little bit in high school, took a big break, but that was about the time I discovered listening to them and like finding shows where I could enjoy other people playing.

Yeah.

Sam: What kind of shows were you listening to?

MJ: I was introduced first to critical role, which I immediately dropped. I loved it very much, but I couldn't stay consistent. And that's one of the things that I struggled with in like the con conception of this show. And then when I couldn't keep up with critical role, I ended up finding the Adventure Zone.

That was the, that was the next one. And the adventure zone, I listened to the entire way through. I remember summers when I was lifeguarding and they let me keep super not safe, let me keep one earbud in. And I was listening to the like, ending of the show and thankfully it was like kind of a rainy day and nobody was there.

And I was just sobbing, like in my, in my lifeguard tower, like crying completely inconsolable because of the beautiful ending. Oh. It was so good. Anyway. And so

Sam: then at some point you got got hired at the try

MJ: right. Yeah.

Sam: And you were getting back into playing D&D, presumably with friends and stuff, and

MJ: I got into the try guys and I had been listening to more tabletop games and I was just like, man, all of my friends are out here now and we're all getting back into doing things together.

Let's all play a tabletop game. And so I started playing here and there with them one shots, but I was never running them. And I was just like. Nobody's, we're doing it so sporadically. I wanna do it. I wanna do something consistent, or at least, at least get my practice in. So I pitched it in my work Slack.

I pitched it to people at the office. I was like, does anybody here wanna play D&D? And I was able to convince four people to do it. And we all just, this was another instance of me breaking into the office without telling anybody. I have keys, by the way, I have keys. It's not breaking in 'cause I have keys.

So I came into the office over the weekend and tried to host a one shot that turned into a three parter.

Sam: Yeah.

MJ: And interestingly enough, I hadn't told anybody that I was gonna be there, like I said. And on the first day we were playing, Keith showed up. Oh, Keith was just, he just like was grabbing something at the office and he was like.

Is somebody here, and he found us in the conference room playing, and he was like, what's going on? And I was like, I am hosting a D&D game. Nobody said I couldn't. So he showed up, was like, okay, you kids have fun and left. But I think from him seeing that was where the first dialogue opened up for us to maybe have a show about.

Sam: Yeah. And then my understanding is it took you about a year to get on

MJ: pretty much

Sam: of like production delays and

MJ: Yeah. It, it was, so the, the story is that I did that show or that I did my one shot. Yeah. Nothing came of it because it was just like friends hanging out, playing the office.

Yeah, totally. Right. And I was like, I'm, you know, I'll never get a show out of this. I'm still trying to like, you know, get my footing at a relatively new job. So I hadn't been doing any pitching or anything. And one day like. Maybe five months after the one shot had happened I was hanging out in the kitchen and Keith walked up to me completely unprompted and was like, you know, if you wanna do like a D&D game for Patreon, we could just do that.

That's green lit. And I was like Okay.

Sam: Yeah,

MJ: That's the thing. I was like, not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth. So I was like a gift. Keith in the mouth.

Sam: No, no, no. A gift. DA gift D&D game in mouth.

MJ: Exactly. And I was like, you got it boss. And started writing immediately. And then I had, I had something ready maybe like a month or two later 'cause I'm doing this on top of my regular job.

And then it kept changing in scope and scale. Yeah. Like, so it originally was just gonna be a couple of us from the staff for Patreon, and it wasn't gonna be anything bigger than that. But Zach and Keith approached me and they were like, well, I, I kind of wanna play. And I was like, O okay. Sure, that's fine.

But now we have to schedule with you guys in mind and they have a much bigger schedule. They

Sam: They sure do.

MJ: And then we kept delaying because trying to get four people together. Yeah.

And then they were like, yeah, so you know when this comes out on our second channel. And I was like I thought this was just going on Patreon.

And they were like, yeah, but like we're in and now it's gonna be on our second channel. I was like, okay, well, okay, hang on. I have to do some rewrites and I have to like fix some things and, and if we're gonna be, so we're filming it now, so I have to like do a, and it just kept growing to become like bigger and bigger until it ended up on our streamer, which hadn't even been announced internally when the D&D game was like being talked about.

Sam: Yeah. It feels to me like pretty typical of how I'll say like digital media productions work at large. Like I used to work at the Onion, and it used to be very similar there too, of. like, Someone has an idea and it, it just like grows a little bit. Because they're passionate about it or like someone's championing it and suddenly it's like gone from like a thing you were gonna bang out in an afternoon into something that is like a year in the making.

And like you know, like this scale is always thrown around and like, then we did it and like, are we gonna do more? It, it was like, it went pretty well. Are we gonna do more? Well, maybe not. Maybe.

MJ: Yeah. And

Sam: two years ago Yeah. suddenly we're gonna do six more of, 'em. or you know, like it's,

MJ: it's just, that is a schedule that is so literally what is happening to die guys as we speak.

Yeah. It's very interesting because on one hand that's so, like, the only way I, I am, the way I imagine it is like, wow, that's the American dream, right? Like it's, it's, it's, you're able to come in with this idea and you, it, it has the capacity to grow and be whatever you want it to be. But the, the reality and the downside is that.

It's actually because nobody knows what they're doing. It's actually because in digital media, like you said, specifically in digital media anything could be big. Anything could like, catch a wave of virality and like be worthwhile. But it's so hard to predict that, that they're throwing their eggs in as many baskets as humanly possible.

And it makes production particularly incredibly difficult to Yeah. To like conceptualize and conceive of and execute. Yeah. So it's, yeah. Anyway, it's fascinating. I think it's also really interesting and the reason that I wanted to bring in all this Yeah. Is because I think it's really interesting to put that context in contrast to most people making actual, play.

Sam: 'cause I think most people making actual play are like, starting from the point of it's the pandemic. I've got my friends, we've got a Twitch channel, let's get on there and we'll like become famous doing actual play. And like. You know, that hasn't really worked out for most people. Like, but

but A lot of people, it has worked out for a lot of like people having 30 viewers and like a fun time just streaming their weekly D&D game.

You know? And there are people who are trying to do that, that are still trying to get famous that way. And maybe we'll start to see success there eventually. 'cause you know, it's only been a couple of years here since this sort of big wave of people coming in on the pandemic,

But on the other, like Die guys and the try guys are like coming from this other side of it of already having a lot of success, a lot of fame in the kind of YouTube world.

MJ: Yeah. And

Sam: like looking for any kind of adjacent medium or content or like kind of video to explore and to make. I remember talking with will the post supervisor who was talking about how the die guys seemed like a really natural fit here because relative to the kind of video that y'all are often making, it's pretty cheap and easy to produce.

And that is an insane thing to say. To a lot of the people who are gonna be my regular listeners

MJ: Yeah. Who

Sam: are trying to make actual play or like, you know People from that community trying to make actual play. If they heard how much I was making on this show, I mean, I got paid five 50 a day to edit this show. Like it was my full-time job to edit this show and like, I was like one of 12 people working on the show or something. Right. And so that's the, the scale at the, the starting point is so unique, I feel like, for die Guys relative to the actual play

MJ: Yeah, I would agree. It is. I think the way that they're viewing it is almost a podcast or almost a, a hangout. It's, it, it is like way chiller for them than our regular shoots. Like it is,

Sam: Yeah.

MJ: I, I wish I, I knew how to explain it. It's kind of when I think of the scale of our other productions and I think about like all that goes into them, the large casting without a recipe is a great contrast. So

Sam: this is the next thing I wanted to talk about. So let's like get into this formally, like tell me about how many people are working on a without a recipe shoot. And pitch me what without a recipe is. And then let's go and talk about what the Die guys like set looked like.

MJ: like. Yeah. By comparison. Sure. So one of the bigger shows on the try, guys, this is probably our like main hitter on YouTube are the Without a recipe series. Yeah. And it's basically the guys and also the extended cast coming into the kitchen and competing on making a dish but with no recipe.

Sam: Yeah. Like there's one that's like making Girl Scout cookies without a

MJ: recipe. Right. Making Girl Scout cookies. Making mahons. Yeah, making bagels was one of the first ones. Like just without a recipe is like our big thing though. And it takes a very large group of people in pre-production to do a lot of the coordinating for like, because we'll have real chefs on it who are our judges, and that takes people to coordinate and scout.

And then we have people who are getting all the ingredients. I'm trying, like, if I'm visualizing it, I think we're talking like. A crew of at least 30. Yeah. '

Sam: cause you, you know, you've got three, four cameras going at a time. You've got at

MJ: you've got sound saying

Sam: got like a head producer, but also like PAs are gonna be around.

MJ: Yeah. You've got

Sam: the two chef judges. You've got at least two

MJ: two contestants. Yeah. You know,

Sam: I haven't edited without a recipe, but some

MJ: No, some editor. I'm included with DIT and, and then there's the syncing and the post-production. It's

Sam: gonna be coloring and mixing and that's not gonna be the primary editor. And You've got Will who's coordinating post production. Like it's a

MJ: it's large company. It's large,

Sam: Like this is what the company

MJ: And not to throw some shade really.

Sam: around.

MJ: You can cut this out if you want to. But nothing bothers me more than people on our Reddit. And it's terrible that I look at Reddit.

I already know that I shouldn't. But there are so many people who think that the try guys is still just kind of like Zach and Keith and like. You know, an editor and a sound guy. Like they, it's so much larger than that and production is so much larger than that. And so it's, it's fascinating to Yeah.

To know it from the inside of like, yeah, these, when you release two videos a week, which is basically what we do. We're like a, a pretty large production company in the YouTube space.

Sam: Yeah. Like I remember when there was all the controversy around the watcher was Coming out with their original streaming platform. They were talking about leaving YouTube. And one of the big things that people were mad about was this idea of like, the watcher was pitching, we wanna bring you like TV quality

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: Yeah. And people were like, we don't care about those. We just want to like, watch y'all hang out basically. Like, you don't, we don't need all these bells and whistles and so forth. And I think that. There is some truth to the idea that like you can be lower fi like, I think like people in the production Often we want to make things better. We want the highest possible

MJ: Yeah. Like

Sam: I do take the time to remove all the ums and

MJ: buzz from 'cause I

Sam: that creates a better product.

MJ: Yep.

Sam: like there are people who tell me my, like, I have fans, I have friends who tell me,

MJ: you have fans.

Sam: I want the, I want the 90 minute cut. man. Like, I don't

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: Care. Just like put it, I just want to hang

MJ: out. Yeah.

Sam: And like, I, I think that that is valid, but I think that people also like fans often don't understand how much, even just the turn on a camera and hang, out stuff takes in terms of

MJ: Yeah.

Production quality. No,

Sam: No,

MJ: absolutely.

Sam: Especially when you're talking about. A show like without a recipe that involves a whole fucking kitchen. Like

MJ: yeah, yeah. The, the beauty of editing, the, the one thing that attracted me to editing back in the day. 'cause that's like what I went to school for. Yeah. Yeah. The, a good editor is invisible.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, that's why these hangout shows are heavily edited. You just can't really see it. And that's, that's what makes so many of these shows really work and be fluid and be like a, a good pace. You feel like it's natural because the editor designed it to be that way. And I just like that very much.

Sam: Yeah. I, I just wanna like, call out

MJ: that

Sam: I believe probably we are about 12, 13 minutes into the runtime of this episode, including now my like two minute intro.

MJ: Yeah. And we've been, we're recording for 40 minutes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Sam: you know, like, yeah. So, okay. So, that's what, without a recipe looks like, right?

MJ: So what does die guys look like? So after our first ragtag season the improvements that we got for the second season, were having a real producer. That wasn't me. And Noelle did a lot of amazing work that helped us build it into a more official official show, just completely. So we had me still working on the story and you did touching base.

And then Noelle helped me. I was like the touch point for a lot of things. People would ask my opinion, which that was cool. You,

Sam: you are the,

MJ: you

Sam: the point person. for die guys,

MJ: pretty much. And I love that. I love that. That's something that I get to even do. I literally didn't think that it would become this.

So I am, I am thrilled and it's been a blast. But so Noelle would like, she would be the one who would create these documents for me to look at about, like, I think Set should look like this. And I would be like, yeah. And I would give my notes and she would then touch base with our production designer and

Sam: who was doing all the like

MJ: set, work and stuff. Stuff, right? Like season one I bought tablecloths off of uh, Amazon. Yeah. And that was the set. So the, just having those two people already made it feel a lot more official. Totally. And then we had Jack and Armando doing a lot of our tech work where I would be like, I want the cameras here. And they would do that and.

That was pretty. So I would say that like, besides you and I we're looking at like an additional crew of maybe five people. And then a bunch of people would sit in because it was a fun show to watch. Yeah. then

Sam: And Then, then of course we have four on camera talent. Players. So that's Zach, Keith

MJ: Joyce and Miles. Yeah.

Sam: yeah. And, and then me, of course. And I was, I would say I was like touching base with you, to like

MJ: you were sort of my support animal.

Sam: Yeah, totally.

MJ: Yeah, totally. But

Sam: I, you know, I'm there to like talk for an hour just like through what the, the plan is. While I'm dropping off a hard drive on another

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: or something. I'm the editor and we know that in advance. And I remember like showing up to set and Noelle and like zach basically saying to me, Hey, you can just be director too, man.

MJ: Yeah. Just

Sam: like, get

MJ: sit here and it was so helpful. Truly nothing is more helpful than having. The editor who already has not a vision, but kind of like, is watching it with a critical eye.

Yeah. And being able to be like, this is gonna be funny. Let's have them clean it up a little bit. Yeah,

Sam: yeah. Like for example, in the conversation that we have just been

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: You were talking about Noelle, the producer. And I cut out of the edit a moment when I asked you what was her name

MJ: again?

You were

Sam: And you were

MJ: like, yeah. Oh,

Sam: it was Noelle. And I was like, great. And then I set you back up. I like repeated the

MJ: sentence Right. That

Sam: had said to get you into that. And then you came back and explained, with her name.

MJ: And what's hilarious is that you've cut that part out and now put it back in by describing it. Exactly. Well, but

Sam: that's the kind of of thing. It, is

MJ: it is funny. It's funny.

Sam: That's the kind of thing where I think everyone really likes having that on set. Just someone whose like. Job It is.

MJ: Yeah. On

Sam: to be there and be like, oh, I'm gonna need you to just say this sentence into the camera Zach.

MJ: Yeah, please.

Sam: that I can cut these two things together where we had 60 seconds in the middle of someone asking a rules question

MJ: that doesn't matter. Right. Or

Sam: maybe we wanna leave in the rules question but we wanna like get rid of this whole like deranged bit that someone

MJ: is Yeah. Like

Sam: actually that funny? Or like whatever the thing is. So I was doing a combination of that, of like thinking ahead to the edit and of being a rules support

MJ: Right.

Sam: For y'all. So when there were rules questions, I could like be the person who has the books and y'all can just like focus on being

MJ: and I'll say this, I noticed in my watch through that I fucked up like two times and it's perfectly fine. Yeah. On the perfectly fine. Nobody like, who the fuck cares? I don't care.

Sam: Yeah.

MJ: But like it is so funny. To me, this doesn't have to make it in, this is just a personal anecdote. It is just like, I know that intimidation is a wisdom saving throw, and I'll never forget it now, but I did a strength saving throw and I'm so angry that's funny.

Sam: But you can

MJ: Call for that.

Sam: Yeah, it's

MJ: whatever. That's, but so it, I, I'll say by the end of it, at the beginning, I definitely felt far more nervous about the rules. And by the end of it I was like, I don't know this.

Sam: Well,

MJ: And that's just fine. Yeah. Yeah. finish first. Yes.

Sam: So the last piece then I wanted to set up was how long it took us to shoot.

So the, the whole thing was five episodes long plus a little debrief at the end. like a 20, 30 minute, like, you know, how do we feel about how that went? Stars and wishes kind of thing. It was cute. And each episode was around an hour. except for, There's

MJ: that, there's one that's two. Yeah. So

Sam: it's about like six hours worth of, of playing. And originally the, and we shot over two days.

MJ: Yes. Right.

Sam: So the original intention was like, we're gonna do episode one is before lunch or like, you know, a little past lunch On day one. And then we'll have episode two in the back half of the day. And then we like take a break for five days.

MJ: Yeah. Come Which by the way, they weren't gonna let me take days in between. I had to like, specifically, they, they tried to be like, so let's do it on Thursday and Friday. And I was like, I cannot talk for that long. I need a weekend in between please.

Sam: you would've been fine.

MJ: I would've been, I, you don't understand. I think I covered it pretty well. And I don't remember if I mentioned this to you, but during the scene where re

is like telling them exposition, I had a complete out of body experience. Yeah. I forgot I was there. I just like slipped out of my own head and I'm like, wow, I'm thinking about this as I'm talking in a terrible accent.

And then I come back into my head and I was like, I have got to focus. Yeah. So I Can

Sam: being on,

MJ: you imagine two days of just that? I would

Sam: you, but you were a lot more comfortable with it by

MJ: the end. That's true. It's 'cause I was tired.

Sam: It's really hard to convey just how different it feels to like, be there under the

MJ: lights. Oh yeah.

Sam: I, 'cause you put me on camera for this like, debrief thing at the end. And I was like, yeah, I've been on camera I, I like

MJ: rollercoaster

Sam: Isaac Splitter. I'm gonna just show up and do the thing. And I got there and it was like, huh?

MJ: Yeah. Yeah.

Sam: Lights. These people seem so far away because of like, we're sitting in weird places for the camera angles and stuff. Like it, it all just. it does not feel, it's not like sitting around your couch.

MJ: Yeah. It's sitting Yeah. It does feel

Sam: I do wanna come back to that idea too though.

MJ: But, finish that thought again.

Sam: another pin. We're putting pins in everything, but like, so we've done, we did two shoot days and another interesting thing that I think I did as editor was identify pretty early on in the first day that we were probably gonna be able to get more than four episodes out of it.

Yeah.

So we, we started like, adjusting for that. And ended up with five. And that was cool. And that was it. Like, then we made the thing, we did post-production post-production took me, it took me probably six days an episode or something like that. To, to

MJ: lot of footage

Sam: and you know, then you're doing color and mix and now it's up on the channel.

And anyone can go and watch it. And like, that was the process. Behind making the thing. Now we are in.

The trying to publicize the existence of this thing phase. think both of us would really love for there to be more of this. Uh, and, you know, I.

I feel like uh, there's a really strong chance that there will be more of this, and it's sort of a question of whether it'll take two years for them to remember that they wanna do more, or whether it'll take them uh, a couple of weeks. But, you know,

MJ: I'm like this close to like getting on my Instagram and just begging people, like, please watch my show. Please watch my, like, I don't, I don't wanna be desperate, but I'm like, it was so fun. And the thing is, Zach and Keith and everybody

Sam: had a

MJ: working on it. Everybody had blast.

Sam: was, it was really interesting. Especially like, I think people had fun with the first

MJ: season. Yeah. We

Sam: fun with the holiday special. Right.

MJ: Right. But

Sam: off that second season, it felt like we finally know how to do

MJ: this. Yeah. We ironed it out. Everybody knows what they're doing.

Sam: time. And I, you know, I've not always been the biggest fan of Actual play

MJ: Sure.

Sam: I just. It has never really been exactly the medium for me. And I think that that goes back to how I feel about like improv. because that's what this kind of show is. Like, actual play can be so many different things. It can be so many different things.

And I think next week's episode probably is gonna be with Ken Lowry about this game void 1680 am Which is a solo RPG in which you make a playlist, you're a radio dj, and you make a playlist, and then you use a deck of cards to like randomly generate a caller

MJ: that's calls problems. Very cool. Actually. It's

Sam: it's very cool. And you like are supposed to record yourself as the dj, like between sets, like as you're

MJ: doing the That's so neat. Oh, okay. I really like this.

Sam: And then when you're done, you have like, I have a couple of these,

MJ: right? Yeah. Of

Sam: like, it's you and then it's your Spotify playlist so that it's back to you and you have the thing and, and you have the thing and you can share it with other people and Ken ends the rule book of Void 1680 am with void radio is real. I broadcast it out of my backyard, like on an am. radio station.

MJ: Oh my God. And

Sam: every week on Sunday nights he broadcasts a real fan submitted, like player submitted one of these on YouTube and streams it. And there's this whole like community that just gets in the comments. And you know, it's not that big.

MJ: know what I'm doing, like next week,

Sam: Yeah. Yeah. It's,

MJ: you

Sam: 20 people or something watching these YouTube

MJ: streams. Yeah.

Sam: Yeah.

But it's like a fun, cool thing to do. And it's a really, it's like, is that actual play? That's totally actual play? But it is also like, it's not, it's so different for, you know, we're gonna do a whole episode about

MJ: Yeah, yeah. Don't get ahead of yourself.

Sam: so different from like the traditional kind of Dungeons and Dragons. dimension 20 Critical Role Die Guy style, actual play that, we're talking

MJ: oh, I'm up there with the big dogs

Sam: like, so I, I'm not like opposed to actual play as a medium, but like I have, you know, I have this long history also of like going to see improv and being like, that looks really fun to do. And I'm like, not having a great time.

Like, it's just kind of they're just up there being goofy, and like, okay. Sure. And I think Die Guys, season two we like found something where, and like maybe it's like the Stockholm Syndrome, of just like being involved with the production,

but like I, a lot of people out there clearly love the kind of like improv and actual play that I'm talking about here too. But I really feel like we figured out how to make something cool and I, I'll probably cut that whole fucking ramble out because it's me shitting on actual play. But Like, I don't know, like

MJ: that's, that

Sam: that is kind of, that's where I'm coming from and where I was coming from, coming into this show too.

MJ: I get what you're saying. I think that I watch a lot of shows and I am I'm questioning how genuine the people are.

Sam: The So, so this is one of the pins that I wanted to come

MJ: back to. Okay, cool.

Sam: So M Friedman is a professor of, I don't remember what she's a pro professor of, but she's a professor who studies actual

MJ: play. Cool. And

Sam: like well known in the actual play community. And the RPG community is a person who is Very cool and very smart, and hopefully I will be having her on later this season.

MJ: Yeah. But like,

Sam: one of the things that she talks about is this idea that a lot of people out there are like saying the same thing as you. Like there's no way that like Dimension 20, like Brennan's home game looks the same as Dimension 20. There's no way that, like Matt Mercer's home game looks the same, but like when she has gone and talked to those guys, they have been like, it's the

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: Yeah. It just is the same. Yeah.

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: And like I am. Really curious about that idea. And I wanna like, break down a lot of the details here today of like, what. is that true for us?

Right? Like what was different and between like, if you were getting together Miles, Zach, Keith, Joyce, and maybe me to like be there with the rule

MJ: books. Yeah. Like

Sam: play D&D

MJ: Over

Sam: the kitchen table. Like, would that look different from what we did? And I think the answer is yes, but I think like the ways in which it looks different are not how you are DMing. Right. No,

MJ: I, I, I can agree with that. I think that, and, and I would say it at the beginning, it also was, there was a larger breadth between Yeah. How I would play and, or like how I would naturally play and then on camera. Yeah. And I think it narrowed as we got towards the end of it.

Sam: So talk about the beginning then. so what was different for you at the beginning?

MJ: beginning was. Set up, I feel like in, in a way that I don't naturally do for my games because it is more collaborative. Mm-hmm. Not that this wasn't collaborative, but it was collaborative in a show way as opposed to collaborative in a story way. And I'll maybe try and elaborate on that. Yeah.

But at home, I think I would almost, I would prepare less with the expectation that my friends are gonna bring crazy shit in and we'll all sort of like, figure things out together. I still want a strong story and maybe I'll have beats that I wanna hit,

Sam: Yeah.

MJ: I think that I feel far less anxious, I guess, about where a story will end than I did at the beginning of dag guys like I.

was like, I need to have some real beats because one, these are all fresh, fresher players and I wanna be able to support them and make sure that they know that like no matter what they do, like I'll have a plan. I'm trying to seem perhaps a bit more prepared than I feel but I, I was thinking when doing the planning and when doing my preparation that I was almost writing a script

Sam: hundred

MJ: initially. It felt far more like I'm doing, I'm writing a script as if I were writing a show. Yeah.

Sam: Yeah.

MJ: At like a TV show. And this is how I imagine an opening scene. And I think that was really important for Die Guys, for the setup to give everybody a place to like grab onto. And then as we started going along and forward we were playing off of each other more and I was.

Watching them explore the space in ways that I hadn't anticipated. Yeah.

Sam: Yeah.

MJ: And then it became more natural.

Sam: It's so they're all coming outta like second city,

MJ: right? Yeah. Like they're

Sam: coming outta that improv world. And like the thing that they are going to naturally be bringing in is that like moment to moment do and

MJ: Yes.

Sam: And providing a stronger railroad, let's call it what it is. in D&D

MJ: terms. Yeah.

Sam: gonna provide like more space for them to just like find goofs, focus on

MJ: goofs to do Yeah. Interestingly enough, it gives them more space. Yes. Like it makes a a something the time. Yeah.

Sam: Like we were talking on an episode a couple of months ago about like this idea of play to find out

MJ: Mm. It's

Sam: like a phrase in the indie world that a lot of games have adopted originally from Apocalypse World by MAA and Vincent Baker. And it's like we're trying to don't plot anything. Right. Don't plan anything. We're playing to find out what's gonna happen.

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: the original intention of this phrase, but I think. I was talking with Sharang Biswas on another episode about like, you can be playing to find out a lot of other

MJ: Mm-hmm. Like,

Sam: can lock down what's gonna happen And then play to find out how are we gonna feel about it. Or We, we can play to find out where are the goofs gonna be. You know, and I, there's nothing wrong with that.

MJ: Yeah. Let's tell a little story. I know where this will go. Well, that's not true. I knew where I was going to have it go, and then some things went awry at the end. But that's,

Sam: D&D,

MJ: that was fun. Yeah. That was what it should have been.

Sam: Okay. So we more or less agree that like the actual playing of the Dungeons and Dragons, like doesn't the sentiment that we are coming in with to play the Dungeons and Dragons doesn't change a lot when the cameras are off versus when they're

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: So

MJ: I

Sam: talk about like, what does change, and that finally brings me to the title of this fucking episode. Rolling the Dice on camera. 'cause I think this is really 40

MJ: 40 minutes in. Yeah. Like

Sam: Like thi this is the perfect thing to. to show off how production works.

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: Because what happens when we're just sitting around playing Dungeons and dragons and you call for a skill check, right? Like let's role play that. Let's just do that right now. Right? Like,

MJ: brought Tyson me,

Sam: you brought the ice. Hell

MJ: I brought Tyson with me.

Sam: Yeah.

MJ: I knew that they would come in handy.

Sam: so mj, you are in a dark forest and you are sneaking along to your, to your next place. What are you hunting?

MJ: I have always had a penant for Venison,

I'm, I'm, I'm

Sam: I think you're hunting. The elusive white stag.

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: It's uh, supposed to be especially delicious. And you're moving through the woods. You're, you're doing your best. When you hear something behind you like a, a twig snaps. You want to gimme a perception check to see if,

MJ: a 12.

Sam: You got a 12. Well, what's your perception? modifier?

MJ: I think that I'm very astute. I have beautiful hazel eyes and they let in quite a bit of light. My halfling hazel eyes. hazel eyes. So I'm gonna say a plus three.

Sam: Plus three. Okay. So that's what you have like a 17. Is it wisdom for perception?

MJ: Yeah, I think so.

Sam: so. Let's say wis. so. you've got like a 17 wisdom. Are you, pro you're not proficient?

MJ: I'm proficient at looking. I always be looking.

Sam: probably another plus two, right? So you probably get a plus five here? And would you say you old, you were old at 12. Okay. So you got a 17.

Yeah. Okay. So thank you for perfectly demonstrating what I was trying to

MJ: get at.

Sam: here,

MJ: Yeah, yeah. Which

Sam: the, like, there's something behind you, right? Like we're building tension. What could that be? Maybe it's the Meguey stag, the the mother stag is

MJ: behind you, don't

Sam: what is it? What is it going to be? Roll the D Let's find out. And then we do 30 seconds of like, okay, you roll the 12. what's your perception? Like all this and like so much tension gets let out of the

MJ: moment. Yeah, and

Sam: think like in. Just straight conversation between us. That's not a huge deal. Like it's a much less big of a deal. It still matters. Like I think in a game where you're trying to do to build up tension, but like broadly speaking, any moment of randomness in a roleplaying game is a moment of like, ah, ah.

You know? And like it feels better when you just, you roll the dye and you look at it and then everyone gets to go, oh, all at

MJ: once you really pri I'll say like, you really prioritize that on set. And I hadn't because I was so used to doing it just with friends. I hadn't really thought about that before

Sam: Yeah. and I hadn't either. It

MJ: was, striking. It was striking how different,

Sam: It wasn't until I was editing the first

MJ: mm-hmm. Die

Sam: guys where I was like, oh, this

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: Because like, moment I I want is like, call for the perception role We roll and here it is

MJ: yeah.

Sam: And like, here's the results. And like either it's no, or it's, yeah. Like you get the triumph or the, the failure. Yeah. And so on the second season, I was constantly telling people like, like I was, I, like I did a whole little mini

MJ: Yeah. You did.

Sam: The

MJ: Mm-hmm.

Sam: like, I want everyone to say up front, like, like you call for a role And then we discuss what's my bonus on the roll.

MJ: Yeah. And then

Sam: we all say out loud, that means like there's, this is a DC

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: You have a plus five. That means on a on the die you need to roll a

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: And so then we will say, I need to roll a 10 In order to get this. Because that was the other interesting thing about Dungeons and Dragons and modifiers is anyone on camera was naturally looking at the die and then saying the number on the die.

MJ: Yeah. So

Sam: you'd often get a thing where you're like, it's a DC 15. And then Zach would be like, I got a 10. And that's a success. But that sounds fucking

MJ: weird.

Sam: And so like, and like we're also trying to make a show for people who've never played D&D before. And we want them to be able to follow along, at least to some extent.

And so that like that. Let's sit step back. Let's like, get in there. and Let's do all this setup ahead of time. Then say the number we need to roll on the

MJ: Yeah. And Yeah.

Sam: and then oftentimes there'd be all this negotiation. right. That like, like, we, because you don't, I don't think you wanna like remove the idea of dice rolls entirely. There are actual plays that do that. and

MJ: Oh, interesting.

Sam: That's fine. You know, then, then you're sort of like using roleplaying games as a way to Inspire your audio drama, Right. To

MJ: Yeah. I was gonna say that's collaborative storytelling of, and just talking it it through

Sam: Um, So, so I didn't I think it was right to like, remove the roles entirely. But like building Yeah. Just like, like getting those roles to like function properly. Was such an ordeal and such a like, designed experience too. Right. Having the immediacy and ironing it out I think was so important for. Also everyone else's Yeah. Because they, they're professionals.

Like all, all of the people that were talent this season are professionals in like the improv world and the digital space, and they know how to make like a, a fun reaction or like be in the moment and they are excited. Like, to be clear, I think every single one of them was in the game. You know, it wasn't just like we're playing the game.

It was all of them seemed pretty invested. And when we distilled the rolls down to be immediate, their performance I felt was aided. Was it,

MJ: they were able to like. Not be broken out of character. And it doesn't matter how professional you are, if you like have to take a beat back or like are thrown off for a second, it will take a little bit to get back into it.

Yeah. And I think it really served the entire thing to have that. There are plenty of moments in Die Guy's second season even where you have the thing where it's like Miles rules 12 and then we have a little conversation about it and then I'm like, can we just Miles have you roll the dye and then say it's a 12 and have everyone react.

Sam: And then everyone does. And like I think then, then oftentimes what you have is like the buildup to the initial role. And then the Result from From the Yeah. The reshoot. Yeah. And I think even then sometimes you can feel like for a small role this works, for a low stakes role, this works pretty well.

Because the kind of reaction you're getting from people. is like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's

MJ: great.

Sam: Whereas like for the really big dramatic stuff, yeah.

MJ: Yeah. Because it. Like,

Sam: you can just feel it when it's Yeah. Quick aside. Yeah. Yeah.

MJ: Really interesting for me as somebody who isn't talent normally. Yeah.

Sam: Yeah.

MJ: I think that that was new talent. Yeah. I'm, I'm, new talent. I think that I, you know, I've had experience acting and doing like stage productions a lot when I was younger, and I think that I can be pretty animated for sure, but I just never had the experience that they had all being like buzzfeed alumni,

Sam: Yeah.

MJ: Of like knowing what it's like to be in a YouTube video and making a YouTube video that does numbers and then building a persona perhaps around the way that people had perceived you in your hits.

So I, it's been really interesting and striking for me as a dm. Who is like, I, I can't call myself like the lead actor. That's not what I mean here. But I, I am most of the people in the D&D world. Yeah. And so trying to act with all of these people in so many different ways was such a particular challenge, but also really fun for me to like do that with them as somebody who I, I like don't have a persona yet, but maybe I will.

Sam: One of the ways they are also very talented Is they have experienced, playing off of people who are new to being on camera.

Yeah. Like you, right? Right. And like they, they, know how to make you look good. Yeah. In it's a remarkable

MJ: to be able to do that. They lift each other up and they,

Sam: Yeah.

MJ: I felt myself being lifted up as we all were there.

Sam: So another thing I, I was kind of interested in getting into is like, what did, I learned a lot about Dungeons and Dragons itself

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: By working on this show. I'm curious if there's anything about Dungeons and Dragons, maybe I'll go first. to like lay this out.

MJ: Sure. So

Sam: for example, like I, I made this whole like series on Dungeons and Dragon on Dice Exploder last year. And that was happening like right at the same time that we were making the First episodes of Die Guys. And something that I feel like I really walked away from that series thinking about was like.

almost all of the, like, mechanics in Dungeons and Dragons are not interesting to me. Not necessarily Good per se. Like why do we need all these different numbers? And like, some people like getting into that math

MJ: and punch

Sam: and that kind of stuff. But I think like, even in those contexts, like there are better ways to do that. Like, there's a difference between a really complicated board game where you're like, what is going on?

And like Arcs or Twilight Imperium. like these really big games that have a ton going on, but are like still really elegant. And i, I think D&D is less that, but the thing that

MJ: clunky,

Sam: the thing that D&D does have is like really sticky stereotypes.

MJ: Mm. For

Sam: to like pick up and either run with or bounce off of, like push off of.

right? Like, To me the like strength of Dungeons and Dragons is race and class. That like, I'm gonna be a dwarf, but I'm, I'm gonna be a dwarf wizard. And what does that mean? Because that puts me in opposition to what it normally means to be a dwarf and what it normally means to be a wizard.

And suddenly I can like imagine the ways that like I'm in conflict with my culture because Why am I a wizard, but I'm also like lagging behind the other wizards because I'm a dwarf and like not naturally good at this. And you can get something from that, like out of every race class combination.

Even something like an elf drew it like a really classic thing. It's like, what, what is it that's gonna make you different from a normal Elf druid? And I think that. that sort of set of things that Dungeons and Dragons has is a really, really powerful set of, for lack of a better term, suggestions from the audience, right?

Like

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: sitting down to do improv, and that to me is what makes Dungeons and Dragons actually pretty good as a system for actual play. That you are getting these strong suggestions for people to do goofs off of and you're also getting the like swings of the die roll, like for a particular kind of comedy that is maybe not necessarily my typical like go-to brand, but is I think the like try guy's go-to

MJ: Oh yeah. That

Sam: like critical hits and critical misses. Like we had a whole half hour long like, like divergent from someone rolling a natural one at us just like piling on nonsense. on

MJ: funny.

Sam: it.

MJ: And

Sam: don't need to get into the details, we don't need to

MJ: Miles the wonderful details. I just wanna say Miles was so mad, but also he was so angry and it was real anger at first until he realized how funny it was. Like,

Sam: but he's also like, he's smart enough to know, to like play up the

MJ: to Oh, totally. An in that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Sam: and like that's, that's what the Swingy D 20 rule, that, which is I think the other great strength of d&D for this kind of actual play is like leading into the, the comedy of it. And the,

MJ: yeah, the

Sam: variance of it, like the, the reason that you bring randomness into a game that like turns actual play into something special and not just sort of like long form improv. Which is special in its own way to be clear, but like that that randomness forces you to deal with the

MJ: mm-hmm. Forces

Sam: you to go in new directions. And so those that like, as much as I still think like there's too many skills, I don't care about the

MJ: No, totally everything out. Yeah.

Sam: Like

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: this stuff that I don't really like about Duns and Dragons and think does detract from the actual, like the It would be so much easier to just be like, you always succeed on a 10

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: And like then we don't have to deal with the shit I was talking about earlier with all the, like setting up the die roll. I do think that like the race class stuff is like really effective for actual play. And I do think that the, like swingy die roll is really effective for this kinda actual play.

MJ: A little anecdote about that specifically and about the character building being suggestions basically.

I remember. Learning the difference between the point by system versus like going random with the D rolls. And the very first time that I tried rolling for my stats, I had such a great time because it helped me define a character. And I remember like what numbers I got absolutely don't matter.

But like I was, a wizard that was so stupid or like something, you know, like it was so interesting to have and, and for clarification for anybody, intelligence is how wizards usually like do all of their shit. So I think once I had stereotypes to work with, like starting points. Yeah. And then I rolled those stats and they challenged maybe my initial thought of like, oh, okay, I am.

an elf wizard. That's pretty cool. I could do something like that. And then they're stupid and they're beefy. I'm like, okay, that changes a lot.

Sam: Kimbo

MJ: Let's exactly, let's do it. Right? And, and I, I really love that. 'cause that's how I do some of my MPCs, frankly, like I am, I it, if I don't have a person in mind, I'm in the back.

Like okay. This is, you know, Chimble shanks. He fucking loves eating dirt and

Sam: He loves

MJ: eating dirt. He loves eating dirt. And, and he's so smart. Dude, you don't understand how many minerals, like I roll too high in uh, in intelligence chat. He eats dirt, but he is a fucking super genius and you're about to learn so much from him.

Like it's, it's fun to, to play in this space with myself first and then throw it to the people that I'm playing with and see what they do with the weird shit that I'm putting down. Like it's, that is, I agree a strength of Dungeons and Dragons, because I, I guess just by virtue of it being kind of like, I can't imagine it's one of the oldest, but it's like very established, you know what I mean?

Like it's, it's had so many iterations and it has a big following. So I feel like there is as, as much as that can sometimes be negative because people are like, you're playing it wrong, you're playing D&D wrong.

Sam: lot of discussion about what makes D&D like not a great

MJ: action place.

Sam: And pe the audience coming and yell at you about getting the rules wrong is

MJ: Yeah. And that shit sucks. But there is, when people can open their hearts and open their minds to. Fucking with the rules to playing around in the space. I think that that leads to truly interesting

Sam: going off that idea you were just saying of, um, fucking with the rules.

I wanted to talk about Zach's disguises. So

MJ: how can I love a man so much and yet hate everything

that he is with every fiber of my being? How, how,

Sam: How

so let's talk about Zach's disguises. Do you wanna talk about the basic premise for what Zach's character was? And then this essentially like whole cloth mechanic that he showed up to the table.

MJ: Yeah. Zach was a tortle rogue, tortles being like the turtle race in D&D. And Zach can't be somebody that isn't like somebody else already. He loves to just like rework movie characters. 'cause that's how his brain works. Yeah. And he was like, I gotta be the master of disguise

Sam: Yeah. From

MJ: from fucking the master of disguise.

I have to be like, totally enough for the turtle club. So he came up with the idea, almost didn't do it, but I said, Zach, you've already been a bird. I think it'd be really funny if you were a turtle. Yeah. And then came up with a, a huge list of ideas. I think it was more than 20, but like 20 at a time uh, for the D 20 of different costumes.

And I like, you know, characters that his turtle would take on. And he was like, every time we're in a situation that doesn't require. a disguise. He was like, I'm just gonna roll this D and we're gonna see who I become. And it was really fun

Sam: And then,

MJ: until he was a hot dog.

Sam: Yeah. Yeah. Well, so then, so like he's already in a turtle costume on

MJ: camera. Right.

Sam: Right? Right.

And then on top of that, whenever he decides it's time to put on disguise, he like randomly determines what the disguise

MJ: is. Yeah. And

Sam: I would hand him a prop From a giant prop table Of like costumes from previous videos That was somehow related to that disguise, right? So I believe one of the first ones is he becomes this like Justin Beaver, like pop star

MJ: of

Sam: like character. Right. And so I gave him some enormous, I gave him some enormous plastic novelty sunglasses. And so I just found so many interesting things to be going on with this mechanic.

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: was like, it's, like, would you show up to your home game with this mechanic? Probably not because you're probably not bringing an enormous costume

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: To your home game. Although I have done an episode about how you should do that but you've got this enormous costume bag, you've got all this effort. It's also like very attention hoggie, Right. Like it's very like taking the spotlight

MJ: Right.

Sam: And in a group that has a lot of trust I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Like I'm gonna do my like, big spotlighty thing And then I'm gonna sit back and let you do your big thing.

Right.

But I think when you are on camera making like an entertainment thing and everyone is being paid to be here Like it's, it feels much less bad to like do that. when you think it's a good bit.

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: And everyone else, like you trust everyone else. Again, going back to the improv stuff, to be able to like react to your Jar Jar bank costume. And go like, that sucks, dude. And like make the like, fuck this sucks. Like to, into a

MJ: moment. Everybody played with it so perfectly. Exactly. It was the interplay was exactly what I wanted. And then when he let it slip in that one moment where he was like. Actually I'm a 14-year-old kid and that Yeah. Yeah. I just up.

Right. Big character. And it completely changed the way everybody interacted with him and saw that mechanic. I think that it went through like a perfect metamorphosis. It is exactly what it needed to be. I loved it.

Sam: There's this cool thing to do on camera, 'cause I think it works better on camera. It's also like a very visual thing. Which makes it a great choice for a camera. And the joke of he's already in a turtle costume. And then he is putting another costume on top of that, like, makes it funnier than it would be at home where he's probably not showing up in a turtle costume. Although again, I did an episode about how you should do that. Um,

MJ: Um,

Sam: and like, the other thing I found really interesting about it though is that it felt like such a. I am new to Dungeons and Dragons and I don't fully understand the rules.

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: I just know that like, sometimes we roll at D 20 and like, that's fun. And so like, I'm gonna show up with my own, like home.

Like I think the, the most memorable moment for me

MJ: mm-hmm.

Sam: any part of Die Guys was in the first season. There's a moment where like, you, are, you are trying to just say what's happening. And Zach, like, is coming in like stepping on your toes, like taking over a characters.

Yeah.

And he's doing a voice and he's like, just trying to play along.

MJ: Hello

Sam: like, zach. Zach, I get to do this part. And he's like, oh, I get it. Being the DM is the fun

MJ: Yep. Yep. That to

Sam: that

to me, I mean, that to me says so much about how like, I, I love GM-less games, like like I, I want everyone to be able to

MJ: that. Yeah. I

Sam: think that's the best part. I wanna be able to share that with people.

And It like at, at the same time, like a show like this really benefits from someone who is facilitating and keeping people on

MJ: Totally.

Sam: You know? leading the Circus as it were. But it felt so much out of that spirit, out of this man who like really wants to like dig into that world to be that dM kind of thing to show up with a whole fucking

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: And that's such a joy too. Like that and like, it doesn't make any

MJ: Like, because

Sam: either you're, it's like, first of all, why is his character not deciding what

MJ: costume? Yeah. Why is it random? Why is it he's in?

Sam: on the thing. It make sense.

And then like sometimes, know, he is showing up and he is putting on like a Jar Binks costume and then rolling a NA 20 on his follow up persuasion check. And then like we have to like abide

MJ: it. Yeah. Like

Sam: that's stupid.

MJ: But

Sam: like the point D&D is a comedy game. right? Like the way we are playing it, it's a comedy game. So that all works out and this feels like a really welcome edition for all those reasons. So I I, It felt like this, this mechanic that was so actual play

MJ: Yeah. Was

Sam: Dungeons and Dragons and also was so different from the rules of Dungeons and Dragons.

MJ: I could see pulling that on like a real stringent DM and it not going So that's, it's, it was perfect for

Sam: could dissolve a whole group that way. I'm Like I, I

MJ: RPG horror stories,

Sam: a more responsible way to, to use that mechanic would be to show up and sort of tell you about it in

MJ: Right.

Sam: If you never on board. But then like at a table where I'm sitting down with

MJ: yeah.

Sam: I would want to sort of know what the hell we're doing in advance, but when we're showing up on camera, there's like entertainment to

MJ: be the surprise. Yeah. In

Sam: this, like what is the, what is Zach

MJ: Yeah. Like

Sam: but then also the power dynamic is, is different and interesting 'cause he's your boss. Like I, I don't know the whole thing.

MJ: can I tell, this is another aside. Can I tell you the, because like d&D is perhaps a notoriously horny game. Yeah. Many tabletop games are gotta tell you at the beginning when we were all trying to figure out like,

How do we flirt? How do we interact with a place? Yeah. The way that, like, I don't know if you remember this but there was a moment where

Sam: I know exactly what you're

MJ: I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The fucking Zach was like flirting cause Mr. Beaks was like a weirdly horny bird,

Sam: Yeah.

MJ: and he was like trying to flirt with a character that I was playing.

And I was like, Zach, I'm happy to do this with you, but like, you have to understand, are you attempting to flirt with me? Like, are you comfortable with us acting out a sex scene? You and I, my boss? And he was like, Hmm. Point taken. And then he immediately pivoted to flirting with Keith and then them having their own moment.

I was like, that's fine. And it's not that I'm not comfortable, I'm happy to do it, but there is, you know, we have audience members that maybe would feel less.

Appreciative of the moment that happened. So anyway, this isn't anything but, well, it, this is really interesting, but it's a whole episode of talking about safety, right?

Oh, yeah. '

Sam: cause I found that moment really interesting. And really demonstrative of how safety works in practice at a

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: Which is something you don't get to often see on camera. Because on camera, usually a moment, any kind of safety discussion leads to the thing getting edited

MJ: Right?

Sam: But you know, it's this, this really interesting it place where you have a, a lot of different power dynamics going on, right? You have the traditional dungeon master and player power dynamics. You have all the workplace power dynamics. You have the like knowledge gap, power dynamics, of Like, who knows how to play dity and or who's familiar with the Indian and who's not.

and then you have Zack coming in and doing the classic, like, I mean, I think this is a classic meme of like a thing people hate. is like the guy who comes in and just like tries to fuck.

MJ: Wow. What a hot bartender. Let's,

Sam: yeah. Exactly. And in a lot of ways like that, like I, that's another interesting thing with actual play where like around the table, like, I really don't wanna play with Zach when he is doing, that. like, I really don't wanna play with that guy.

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: But like, once you put it on camera, then it becomes funny again to me because it's like, oh, it's it's Like he knows that this is annoying to everyone else at the table. And everyone else can play up being annoyed. And now it's like a bit. Yeah. That like is for the, the audience to laugh at him doing it and like suddenly I'm on board again.

Yeah. That is really interesting.

MJ: It's interesting what like the lens of viewership does to things like it. It is a fascinating way to go about any entertainment. Yeah. Because there are so many things that I'm like, I would hate this. This is like reading, like all of the books that are on book talk that I don't read, but are about like being kidnapped and stalked by this really hot vampire. Yeah. And I'm in the safety of my own home when I read that and I like I'm consenting to this experience. Yeah. But in real life, pretty upsetting. Right?

So there's something to be said about like when the expectation is that there is safety and we are all communicative on the show. And I think people rightfully assume that we are all cool with this. It makes them feel comfortable to enjoy. Right. Something that would otherwise be kind of like dubious.

Sam: Well, and this is what I was trying to get to exactly. Of like, I did a whole episode on. Safety tools. in LRP specifically, but also like with a lot of overlap with tabletop play and you know, there's the X card, there is lines and veils.

There are all of these tools try to ensure safer play and like fundamentally, none of those tools can ensure that you are safe at the table. Like none of the, there is no tool, there's no magic fix to ensure that you are safe having a conversation with another human being. Yep. You know,

and it's nice I think to have frameworks like the X card, like lines and veils when you are out playing with strangers especially Where even if we like all assume the best in each other, we like don't have an established rapport To like build up and talk about stuff. But the best safety tool is just trust at the table.

MJ: Yeah. And

Sam: liking and respecting each other. And that plays out in exactly the moment that we then saw on camera here where like, Zach's going around flirting with everything.

MJ: Yeah. It's not

Sam: getting far, but the like when it finally starts going far

MJ: Yeah. That

Sam: like, hey. the,

MJ: we'll be going somewhere.

Sam: I, i, consent to keep going, but we should check in. On the power dynamics here. And then Zach being like, good call. I will pull back on, and like redirect.

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: that's. That's, how safety actually works. And that's like a really, I think,

MJ: yeah. A

Sam: model of safety at the table. A great model of how to approach these kinds of conversations is that particular moment. And it's maybe it becomes less of a great model again because like, because we're on camera It becomes a moment of humor, right. Like we are, we are having a safety conversation right now. But we also are like aware that we are performing at the same time. And so then we are we're like playing it up and making it into a bit

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: that is maybe not ideal. Like maybe the better way to have that conversation would've been for me to cut it out. Or to, to have stepped in at the si at the time and been like. 'cause I don't know that I could have cut it out just given from the way the content worked.

So like maybe i, that would've been a moment where it would've been nice for me to step in and be like, Hey, we should take that again in a way where we can cut out that awkward moment.

But also like, because we all trust each other, because like y'all do have like a pretty good rapport. Like it, I think everyone was comfortable the whole time. Like, I don't think there was any problem. And like, that's safety at work

MJ: Yeah. It's trust. And it's also the true belief that not a single person in there has any malicious You know what I mean? Like, because I think what I've dealt with in the past at tables that were problematic was like defensiveness and an immediate tendency to lash outward. But the safety at this table was exemplified explicitly by everybody being so ready to pause, think, understand themselves.

And I just couldn't ask, frankly, for a better like. A better situation or a, a better handling of those types of

Sam: situations. There has not been a person that I have directly worked with at this company. that I did not feel like I could like Completely

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: like that has felt really?

MJ: Yeah. I truly feel

Sam: way.

So I wanna come back a little bit to rolling the dice. On

MJ: the titular rolling of the dice.

Sam: but I wanna talk about the sort of the mother load of Rolling Dice. I wanna talk about combat on camera and d&D Combat at large.

So let's start with Dungeons and Dragons combat off camera.

MJ: Yeah. it. Yeah, it's not great. It's not great.

Sam: It's not great.

MJ: It's always slow.

Sam: Like, this is another thing that I sort of took away from this D&D series that I did is combat is kayfabe Tactical War Gaming. Where

do you know kayfabe? Kayfabe is the pro wrestling thing where you are like, pretending that this is

MJ: Okay. Got you.

Sam: So in some ways, like Kfab is role playing, right?

Like it's, we're just pretending to be our guys when we're running around doing our things. But I think specifically DD Combat is kfab smart guy. Tactical, crunchy gaming. Because actually the way D&D works, like it's really hard to like, make a choice in combat that matters. right?

Like mostly you should just like

MJ: hit,

Sam: hit them with the thing that does the most damage.

MJ: Yep. You round. Yeah. But

Sam: not fun. so you let, but like also D&D tries to make it so that essentially no matter what you do, it does about the same amount of like hitting them, you know, it's, it's like, and maybe you're running around and helping people up and that's part of it too, and, whatever, but like, it's so much, it's so complicated for.

What goal, but, but also like some people really enjoy that K Fabe, You know, like Keith, if you're listening to this, like I know that you really wanna do a combat on

MJ: Yeah. Like Yeah. Keith and Miles absolutely are both Who enjoy the grittiness and the numbers, and I frankly enjoy it a lot too.

Yeah. I, it's valuable for me personally. It is not valuable for storytelling. It, it is, it is fun because I'm somebody who likes video games and that's pretty much it.

Sam: It can be fun. I mean, KFAB is

MJ: Yeah. Doing that

Sam: kind of thing is fun. And like, like if, especially once you have Some amount of mastery of the thing like, Of the way the rules work, then you can do the thing and feel clever without having to actually become like a next level chess player.

MJ: Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You,

Sam: you, you, you need to sort of understand how the machine works, but that's a different skillset than, actual strategy and tactics. Right. Right.

And it, it can be really fun to like narrate your character being really cool.

MJ: Yeah. Badass moments are always excellent and fun to get into,

Sam: and I think there are better games for doing that, but like I found it really interesting to a, like how combat ended up playing out on camera In the edit. Because in the first season of Die Guys we had a couple of combats. And by the time I was done editing them, it was kind of fun to watch. It was

MJ: nice. Okay. So

Sam: I, I wrote down some numbers here 'cause I'm a psychopath but like in the first episode of. Die guys. there was an one hour, seven minutes and 22 seconds of combat, which edited down to in the raw

MJ: Yeah. Okay. Which

Sam: edited down to 26 minutes and 14 seconds. of combat. So only 39% of, of the runtime remained. which when you think about D&D combat feels about

MJ: That's about right.

Sam: You're taking out all of this dilly

MJ: Dalia a lot of paper shuffling and can I do this? Yeah, no. Um, Yeah.

Sam: this is really where we learned how to do that dice rolling thing we were talking about earlier. Is like, even in the first episode, every, we were learning by the end of combat, you needed to sit down and be like, okay, I'm gonna take my 30 minutes or whatever, like, figure out what I'm gonna do on my turn. And then at the end it's like, okay. Summarize for the camera. What have you decided to do and how are you doing it?

And you wanna like, keep in all the mechanics still, but all the dithering. Just went out the window. And you ended up with this like pretty snappy feeling combat.

And it's still like, not my preference But like, I, I found it remarkable how much more entertaining it was than I was expecting it to be.

I think an important point of comparison here is what about the non-combat stuff? right? how much did that edit down? So we had one hour, three minutes, and 30 seconds of non-combat footage, which, you know, about the same amount as combat footage, which edited down to 33 minutes and seven seconds, or about 52%.

MJ: Okay. That's

Sam: honestly a lot less of the non-combat footage remaining than I Yeah. I, I expected, you know, you'd end up with like 60, 70% of like the sort of more conversational part of the game. And then 40% of the combat stuff. Mm-hmm. But it's a lot closer than you'd think, which really just shows how much fucking dithering there is in any conversation.

And this is like a huge strength of any. Post-production produced actual play, like non streamed actual play Is the ability to go in and just make everything

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: Like this is why I like the adventure zone and Dimension 20 more than critical role. Because I don't really wanna watch the full raw eight hour footage of playing. I wanna watch the one hour of everything condensed at the end. Um,

MJ: I agree.

Sam: But so I found, I found this really interesting and something this was really educational about Dungeons and Dragons combat to me that like, probably it is a lot more entertaining once you are playing with a group that a hundred percent has system mastery. People have made their decisions before their turn comes around and you can really go like, bam, bam, bam. Bam.

Maybe it says something that I've never played in a group like that. Uh, No one I think has ever played in a group like that. Very few people anyway.

MJ: I think that combat is a very particular struggle for me as a dm on camera. Like it's a struggle in real life already, but everybody is hanging out. We're all having drinks and snacks, and it's sort of whatever. It doesn't feel nearly as much as as much as a performance as it certainly does on camera. And then nobody cares. We're all just here to hang out, have a story, you know?

Yeah.

Sam: Yeah.

MJ: I'm still trying to keep it engaging and have a story in my home games, but it's far more Yeah.

And then to do it in a setting where I felt the stakes of the story as well as the stakes of the production day, that was a totally new

Sam: It's so time consuming. And like time is the scarce resource.

MJ: Yeah. When Right? Yeah. I can't tell you how often I'm like looking at the clock and. Panicking. 'cause I'm like, how the fuck am I gonna wrap this up? Like, we gotta get outta here. I can't keep them for X number of hours over. Or then, you know, then our budget has to expand to pay for people's like extra half day or pay for meals.

And I'm like, it's always like a battle of resources and I think it's a battle of resources and a battle to go back to the combat.

Sam: Yeah.

MJ: Beautiful seguey, mj, I keep that in Sam. The, fighting aspect, specifically combat is, it's so tempting to want to skip through that shit. Like, it, it is hard to keep people interested.

And I, we've certainly improved from season one by leagues, you know, like it's, it's much better. And we've gotten a lot snappier, but I still didn't fully like how this one had to end because we did like. We had our big ending scenes and I had to cut combat short 'cause it was the end of the day. Yeah. You know, and I felt like I'm trying to be as natural as possible.

I'm trying to let the dice truly decide, but dice sometimes are like, actually we're just gonna hang middle of the road. Or actually everything's gonna fail. And what could have been a 30 minute encounter is now two and a half hours. 'cause you guys are almost dead. Like, it is so interesting to approach combat for this show because I want it to be real.

I want it to be fun, I want it to be hard, and I want it to be narratively enticing. And I still don't know how to do all of those things perfectly at once. And I don't, you know, this is just my cross to bear,

Sam: Well

MJ: is dealing with this. Yeah, please. I was, I've been curious.

Sam: while you were talking,

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: Like. first of all, I think a really insightful thing in there is that like pacing and like. Keeping track of

MJ: Yeah. And

Sam: facilitating the pacing of something is a very important skill on any production. It's also very important skill, I think, as a dm, as a GM at

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: I think this is something I'm remarkably good at. Like this is my superpower as a dm.

MJ: Yeah. It's

Sam: like in, even in a home game, I'm like looking at the clock, we've got an hour left. Okay. I know we need to get to X. Like I can feel we're in the middle of this thing happening. We need to get through the next thing that's happening to get To a satisfying cliffhanger.

And then we'll like stop there. Like I know how to start like speeding things along

MJ: Yeah. And so

Sam: And I think that that is a skill that you have but are also still developing. And like, It's a hard thing to do while you're doing all these other things and you're under the lights, you know? As you were talking about, another thing we're sort of implicitly talking around is the idea that the more time you spend in combat. You are getting, what was the weird percentage number I gave you? know, like 14% less footage than if you're outside of combat.

And that means you have 14% less usable footage and usable content you can put online. And when you're trying to think about like, footage online equals money

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: right? Like Combat is costing you extra money.

MJ: Yep.

Sam: And that is, that's tricky.

Then to get back into the mechanics of the actual rolling the dice, like one of the reasons I think that D&D would not be my choice for an actual play system that does any kind of combat is this thing where like sometimes you just roll and you miss, and that's your turn and then we're moving on.

And like at home, that's kind of a thing. And it's, again, it's like they're over there handling that. And you and I are like over here talking about theory and how your day was and everything. And we're eating chips and it's all totally fine. Or it's not totally fine and you hate it, but like, that you like there's.

More tolerance for that in a certain kind of

MJ: group, but it's abysmal On camera. Yeah. Just dead air. Yeah. You know,

Sam: especially if it came after a ton of dithering. Like, do I want to, like, do I want to attack this person? Do I wanna fireball them? What do I want to do? And then I attack them and I miss, well, shit. Like that

MJ: Yeah. You know? Yeah. It's, it's a bad feeling and it's discouraging. And that's, if there is a single thing that I'm always trying to avoid at my tables, it is my characters or my players feeling Like discourage is is the worst. Yeah. Because I want them to either like, be trying to think outside of the box or trying to do so like they're always trying, they're always, I want my heroes to always feel like even when things suck, I have to keep trying.

I like narratively and them at the table in the game, but the second they do something and. Nothing happens that sucks. It's so, I would rather something bad happen. Like it's so boring. yeah. Yeah.

Sam: I mean this is, this is like breaking out. There's been a lot of theory I've been reading recently in game design about like, anytime you roll dice something should fucking

MJ: Yeah. Like

Sam: you need the story to go forward. You just, like, that's the thing that you want, like anything else is just the mind killer, you know? And, and I think that is doubly true. This is the point I was trying to make about like, maybe it's more tolerable when like you and I can go over here and eat our funions and like sit, hang out, but like, we're probably getting

MJ: sort of a bugles bitch,

Sam: but like on camera, especially when the point is we are creating an entertainment product. Like

MJ: Yeah. We are

Sam: creating a story for people to follow. Like it's more important than ever. That you don't have just, I mean this is a problem I have with Netflix, you know, I like, I just watched um, the Residents, which is this like fun murder mystery show.

And on the one hand I had a lot of fun. There's a lot to love in that show. And also I could feel that like classic Netflix delay tactic to like turn this two hour movie into an eight episode series of like, well, we're gonna just spend more time doing the same thing again without changing

MJ: I don't wanna feel the gears moving. Exactly. I want to, I want the machine to function.

You know, like, yeah. It's, it, it's rough combat specifically with that. Like it's, it's one thing when they're outside of combat and I feel like I can more easily play in the space when they have a bad role or when like.

You, you know, they fail at a role and they, yeah, that bookshelf looks really weird to you.

And they go over and it's a trap or like something is, I can do something that, like you said, pushes the story along, even if it's in a way that is like hard for them to deal with. At least it's something. But in combat, and maybe this is, maybe this is something that I want to experiment more with and look into and, and try and perfect.

But like, I feel like if they fuck up, there's not much I can do. I can't, like, we're moving on. You miss is so difficult to Yeah. Yeah.

Sam: get a

MJ: A

Sam: they need it a 10 and so they miss and nothing

MJ: Yeah. And like

Sam: that sucks. I, I do think the one sort of lever that you have as a dm, and especially a DM on camera is and this is a hard skill to learn how to to implement with Dungeons and Dragons 'cause

MJ: at masterclass easy.

Sam: but

MJ: Yeah. The ability

Sam: to say and then they, then you kill the rest of them, or, and then the rest of them run away.

MJ: Yeah. Yeah. You

Sam: just like call combat as soon as we know what the outcome is gonna be. As soon as we're

MJ: It's kinda what I did at the end of, well maybe no spoilers for the end of die guys, but like when things had to keep moving forward, I was like, how do I want this to play out?

I can see where combat is heading and I wanna set up what could be if I, if I get more episodes and give me more seasons, what could be a, like a really interesting thing to come back to. Yeah. Or like a villain arc 'cause that I can see spanning over a couple seasons or episodes. I think that that was like the first time that I had sort of done it in a way that I felt kind of successful with it, where I was like, all right, let's pull the rug here and leave them wanting more.

Sam: Right. I think there is also something interesting in the act of saying, because the thing that happens there is you basically just had all the villains run away, and like, not all of them got away. But like, that was the thing that happened and we stayed in combat for it. And

MJ: Yeah. And

Sam: great.

But I also think there's a lot of value in the skill of being like, okay, you know, these guys have like 20 hit points left each, but y'all each have 60 hit points left. So like, how do you want this to end?

MJ: Yeah. And like

Sam: either given players the reward of

MJ: Oh, I see. To

Sam: This is what, like we kill the ball now. and

MJ: Yeah. And this

Sam: is how we do it and the satisfaction of that or

MJ: chop the chandelier down and it crushes the rest of them. Or Yeah. Or

Sam: we're trying to set up a choice for them. Of like, okay, these people are here. You can tell they are gonna like, fight to the death and you can brutally murder them. Or you can like, try to bring them in, but it'll cost you this or like, whatever.

Like, that's, that's not always an easy thing to do. And that is outside the rules of how Dungeons and Dragons works. But like, I think that there is a, a lever there. You can like figure out how play with I think the, the last thing I wanted to say about this, is like, I think it's really telling that we did a total of one round of combat in Like

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: intended for there to be more like there's gonna be one big combat at the end. And that like, you know, this one criticalness kind of derailed it and

MJ: and we also sort of re like, to be fair, we rewrote right before we jumped in and we were like, let's have the something.

Yeah. And honestly didn't hate it. Didn't I enjoyed that choice that

Sam: I mean, I look, this is the thing, it's like I, what we did was we leaned into the parts of D&D I was talking about earlier that I think work best on camera. Right. We leaned into the, using the aesthetics of the game which I think are just, they're more a part of the game than the rules are like

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: But we leaned into the aesthetics of the game as essentially improv prompts, To let a bunch of improv performers do their thing. And eh, I think it worked pretty well.

MJ: also hope. They get more comfortable in combat and do things like, I want them to be, this is my wish. I want them to be asking to do more wild in combat. This

Sam: is the other problem with D&D Combat. Is that D&D Combat does not reward that

MJ: It's true.

Sam: You

MJ: It's, it is restrictive, but I think that I could, I can allow it outside of it. Like that's what I would like to do, is I want them to be like, I'm gonna jump behind the bar and see if I can fashion a flame thrower out of like the alcohol and this match, this candle I found.

And I can be like, fuck yeah, let's try it. Like, I think that I

Sam: have

MJ: Free Fireball. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I want, I'm working on learning how to encourage them to do that without explicitly being like, Giving them an easy out of every combat. Like I want, I want them to be more comfortable jumping in and making stuff up outside of the confines of the very stringent rules of combat.

Like

Sam: I think, I think the difficulty really is Dungeons and dragons like combat Is such a specific framework in dungeons and dragons, it lays out so clearly, like what is effective. And when you deviate from that, it is just really hard to make whatever you're doing feel worthwhile. And make it feel

MJ: Right.

Sam: And also, you know, when we're playing on a battle map, like on a grid, then it feels like a board game. And you're like getting people into that sense of like, I'm going to move my person around the board game. Not like, I'm gonna think creatively about the fictional space that we're

MJ: in. Right. I do think they forget that there's like a ceiling. I think that they forget that there are walls and things that they can break if, if they wanted to like Samson the temple and knock it all down. I, I want to encourage them to do that

Sam: And, and the other thing there is like, it's really hard to design a area yeah. Where possible to do stuff. Like, like is there stuff in a, like a courtroom is where this battle takes place? Is there stuff in a courtroom that like, makes that easy? Not really. Like, it's much like when there's three people on a two person size platform over a pit of lava. Like that's suddenly we're talking

MJ: about.

Yeah. Yeah. Like,

Sam: okay, cool. We're gonna throw 'em over. We're gonna get creative here. We're not gonna just stab 'em with a sword. But like, d&D doesn't help you come up with any of that stuff either. Like, if you want that stuff in my opinion, you should go to the like, really, really creative module writing community that's out there in first party D&D stuff, and also like fan made stuff and fan made stuff for all these fantasy elf games that aren't Dungeons and Dragons. This has become a lot more about Dungeons and Dragons combat than

MJ: specifically how much we just fucking hate it,

Sam: whatever. No, I I do think it's telling that we just didn't do a lot of it.

MJ: Very true. Very true.

Sam: The last thing I really wanted to talk about was making decisions around what to keep in post-production. Like there was, in particular one long sequence in the second or third episode of Die Guys in, in which the, the situation is they have uncovered the beginnings of conspiracy.

They've gone to the Zen interim, which are like a, a group of mercenaries who were maybe evil, but were, they're on our side and gotten some exposition And gotten basically a fetch quest to go to a dungeon in the forest. And now they're like leaving the zen interim hideout, they're going back to their bar. then they're gonna go to the dungeon in the forest. And the act of getting there was like a half an hour long. you know, maybe an hour. Like it was a long time to get there.

And was there entertaining stuff in there? Yeah, There was entertaining stuff in there. There was a whole bit about the horses there. There's a stable boy that they didn't know existed who worked at the bar bar that they uh, were all from. And like all there, there was plenty of like, entertaining, just like improv do and goofs at each other's stuff.

And also, did anything happen in the plot? No. If you had that on tv

Yeah. You would cut from, Yeah. Guess we need to go through the woods to going through the in the woods. Ooh. What's that up ahead? And there it is.

And this is something I've been thinking about a lot lately, mechanically of Framing scenes. I did a couple episodes on that earlier this year. I think they're really interesting.

Um, I've been making a couple of games that are really explicit about framing scenes in Interesting ways. And what I've noticed is that Dungeons and Dragons not only discourages the idea of framing scenes

MJ: Yeah. The

Sam: traditional culture of play is you can't skip anything because what if something happens.

And this kind of goes back to that like high variance die roll. Right? Like if we have to roll for everything, if we have to roll for like finding the dungeon in the woods, then like what if we roll a one and we are set upon by bandits Or a dragon or something. We need to like allow the space for all that to happen.

What if we go back and have to have this interaction with this stable boy and like suddenly like we meet, we must meet the stable boy.

MJ: Yeah. And as

Sam: as the stable boy, we left all this in, but like as much as meeting the stable boy was entertaining, right? Like, And I, like, ultimately I decided, I think all this stuff is D&D. I think these people are being charming again, we just like want more content

MJ: Right on camera. Yeah. Yeah. It's

Sam: like. like the stable boy wasn't relevant to the story. You could cut that out. We wouldn't have lost anything.

MJ: it. He's gonna be a villain from now.

Sam: exactly, exactly. We have

MJ: He actually is relevant.

Sam: I find that conversation interesting in the just concept of playing Dungeons and Dragons.

'cause D&D again, the culture of play is you have to be there for everything. D&D the rule system doesn't talk about framing scenes at all. It doesn't give you any tools to do this or do this more effectively. But I personally prefer a game that has more hard framed scenes that is gonna be able to keep the pacing up and like cut to what's the next cool piece of action a little bit

MJ: I see what you're

Sam: and, and do a little bit more soap opera. And so I

MJ: so tell a novella Ass

Sam: Well, listen, Passion de las Pasiones is a game and it is a Pretty Good Game. So I have all those feelings about playing these games. Mm.

and then coming in, I remember thinking for quite a while, like, do we leave all this in? And i, again, I ultimately decided for reasons of effectively like money. And for reasons of like, there's probably something in here that like MJ loved that like, she would be sad to lose. Like, and this is what & D&D is too.

I , I left it all in, but I, I thought about it a lot and I just wanted to kind of like put that out there as something I was, thinking about while making

MJ: I'm interested in, in your way of thinking about this because, and I can see this in myself as somebody who hates I hate, what's the phrase called? Uh, Cutting my darlings. Um, Kill your darlings. Kill. Yeah. I, I am not, I love my darlings. I don't like to kill my darlings

and I know that, I know that when I do my writing or whatever stories I'm involved with, they always benefit. So I do understand that it's a really important process, but my perspective has always been maybe leaning more towards the critical role side of like, I just like seeing.

The craftsmanship, I guess is what it boils down to. I grew up like playing video games. I don't know if you've ever played any Sierra games from way back when, but like, they reward you by like, you should touch everything and you should look at everything and you need to go to a place and then come back and then go back to that place.

'cause something new is there. Like it really rewards sort of the meandering and the exploring the space. And it's because they needed to fit in a lot of, you know, they only had so much data on a disc, and so they're repeating things. Yeah, absolutely. And so I, I recognize that there is maybe a less beautiful reason for why those things happen.

Well,

Sam: just a taste

MJ: it's just a taste thing, right? But, so that's it. It's like I grew up enjoying that very much and then even later in life, really liking long form let's plays, like that's what got me into YouTube period. Like that's where I started. And I just love. F experiencing something that can cocoon around me, if that makes sense.

Like the full experience of even the mundane grounds me so much in a game and an experience. And there are drawbacks, certainly, yeah. That we've already discussed of It can, it can be boring and it can be, you know, not as enticing visually as well. Like there, there are absolute drawbacks, but I find it personally really fulfilling to have those moments.

And so what I found myself having my, the discussion that I was having with myself was like, I know that Sam is right and a lot of this is boring. We should figure out like. You know, where's good to cut? And I think you did a great job. So I rarely had to give any, you know, I would never give notes. Like, this should be cut.

It's, it really, you handled most of that. But I think that I never felt like you cut things, like you said, that I would've hated to see gone. Well,

Sam: how would you have known?

MJ: Because I watched everything

Sam: Well,

MJ: and I was there. Well,

Sam: footage? Well, that's the thing. I think

MJ: Do I remember? Yeah.

Sam: two months go by

MJ: and a joke.

Sam: that was like, you know, Yeah, you would've, for if I'd cut a whole combat, you would've noticed that. and You would've told me to put it back in. But like, I guarantee

you

MJ: there were

Sam: like one-liner things where you were like, oh, that was really funny. And like, you just never saw it in a cut baby

Like

MJ: and that's testament to the beauty of editing. Yeah. Uh, In my mind palace, I, I bet I remember.

I bet I do.

Sam: Yeah.

MJ: I bet I remember everything. I actually catalog everything. Funny I say because it's so rare.

Sam: go home in your diary

MJ: Go home in your diary. I'm like, I said something so funny.

Sam: The, the other thing, I mean, this takes us back to the very beginning of this conversation. About, god, this might have been before we were on air even of talking about podcasts, how there's like kind of two different kinds of podcasts. right? There's the dice explode kind. Which is like heavily edited even though this is like the longest fucking episode I've ever done,

But like that, like we took out all the ums and ahs. We like really zeroed in on like the topic at

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: Versus

The kind of show that is a little bit more just like show up, hit record, hang out with your friends. Yeah. Allegedly we're talking about RPGs or whatever. But like whatever. Then we hit stop and then we publish it. Yeah.

And that there's nothing wrong with either of those things. They're just really different. And they are consumed in really different ways too. Like, I mean, in podcasts maybe less so, you know, maybe in pod

MJ: everybody's just listening while they're doing dishes or driving. Exactly.

Sam: But like there's really different way to how I consume Mm-hmm. When I down and I watch an episode of severance. Yeah.

versus how I consume like most YouTube content where it's on my second monitor While I'm doing the thing here.

Or it's like on my laptop in the other room while I have my AirPods in and I'm doing dishes. You know, like, and I, I concluded that this, that the die guys were very much the latter

MJ: of the show.

Sam: That like yeah, the visuals here, kind of whatever. And even like, one of my problems with actual play has been, listen to A bunch of actual play in the lead up to editing season two. Like I just wanted to be more familiar with what was out there.

I listened to this one called Til Death Do Us Heart, which is this system Hart by Rowan R and Deckard, did a couple episodes on that a couple of months ago. which is an actual play that edits itself even more than I do. Like it's really down to the bone.

MJ: Gotcha. It

Sam: so fast. Like they have the mechanics in there. Barely, like very briefly, this is a fairly complicated game where they will explain concepts once and in like two sentences and then move on. And like if you are paying attention, I love this, this is made for me. because there's no dead air. there's

MJ: Mm.

Sam: Every something is always happening. The performers are really great. It's less comedic and more dramatic.

MJ: Mm. It's

Sam: got a mix of both. But like it's it's leaning on the drama side and you can feel it. There is always something happening. And also that's not how I listen to a fucking podcast.

MJ: Like

Sam: I, I need to be able to get distracted by what's the thing that I'm doing or I just like zoned out for a second or my partner was talking to me or whatever. And then like I'm back into it. And if the show is the Die Guys like paced the way I decided that we should pace the die guys. Then,

That's fine. You zone out and it's like, yeah, you missed a couple of goofs and like maybe something big is happening now, but like you can pick up what's going on. Because everything takes three minutes to happen. And hopefully it's entertaining for that whole three minutes, but it's like the one unit of thing is like extended out a little bit more. Whereas this kind of show, it was like, oh, I would tune up for 30 seconds and be lost. And so there's, there's clearly a benefit. Yeah. To bringing, to extending things out.

and I, I also wanna be clear, I really liked Till Death through his Yeah. Yeah. Like this was good show and like if you're interested in actual play, this is a show that is worth your time.

But it was, it was really interesting to see something that I thought did go further than I wanted in my taste.

MJ: That's neat. I am somebody who even when it is something that I should be able to be distracted by, I like cannot help but give it my full attention. I do not know. When this happened, and I've gotten better at sort of like being able to deviate, but I, this is why I like, can't do audio books.

Yeah. Because if I get distracted for a second, even if it doesn't mean anything, or even if it was like a description that doesn't matter, it bothers me to have missed it. Yeah. And I have to go back. Yeah. So I, I wish I knew like when, or like why this is the way that I consume content, but I am so enraptured by things that I'm either fully focused or unable to process it.

Sam: Yeah. Yeah.

MJ: and I feel like that's not how most people are necessarily. So it's, it's probably for the better that we do it the way that we do it. But like when I was reviewing all of Daga, I was paying attention. Yeah. And I felt like I enjoyed it even when I was paying like, as, as you should. I, you're, yeah, of course.

But it's, it is interesting to know that other people process things differently and to find a sweet spot in the construction of. Yeah,

Sam: Yeah.

MJ: some, whether it's fully audio or audio and visual, like any type of visual, audio medium that like is consumed. It is interesting to, to approach it from the way that people process like

Sam: just everything we're talking about, is just like taste stuff, you know? Like there, there's so many different decisions. Every decision that we've made it's just, been, I mean, like some of 'em, have been about money and resources and time and like there's all of that.

MJ: I think that it's great so much taste the, but what's great is I think you and I actually, despite the amount of things that we have in common, we have very different tastes really.

And I think that that's why it's really working for us because we're, we're, we're pulling and I, you know, it's, there are ways that it could suck if we like, you know, Pull too far and create a muddied identity for the die guys. But I think we do a really good job of understanding where the other is coming from.

Totally. And creating a. Successful compromise.

Sam: It's, it's really nice to be able to be like, no, in this moment, like, I insist

MJ: this is

Sam: boring. It has

MJ: To go. And I'm like, you're right. You're right. Yeah. There

Sam: But there are

MJ: are also

Sam: where you are like, no, this is so funny. You can't cut this out. Like, you, got, you gotta, we gotta do this thing. And I'm

MJ: I think that it really works.

Sam: Yeah.

MJ: This is my, it's my Ghibli. I don't know how big of a Ghibli fan you are, but the way that like, there are so many long, stretched And that I'm, I'm like drawing a connection right now as to that being like where a lot of

my appreciation for it has come from, of like being so in love with the process or the intricacies and the craftsmanship. Yeah. And all of that is where I find joy and where I find enjoyment. And I think that like Ghibli films are an excellent example of like. You know, huge landscapes that I can stare at and cons, like, you know, let it fill me up and, and I can appreciate and understand and rewatch thousands of times and always find something new.

And I think that's the type of media that I often consume. And then there's punchy, snappy, really fun, really like tight things that I think I am surprised to find myself appreciating, because that's another type of craftsmanship. Mm-hmm. And I think that that's, that's what I, yeah.

Sam: see. I, i, yeah. I like it when it feels, whenever the pacing is, when it feels really intentional.

MJ: Yeah. I

Sam: feel, I feel really like whoever the creator is I'm in good hands. you know? Mm-hmm.

And I think the nature of Dungeons and Dragons is that it's really hard to control pacing. And even when you have a expert professional, such as Sam Dunnewold coming in and crafting the pacing in post-production

MJ: And me just fucking around in production. Yeah.

Sam: And like in a way that is interesting and compelling and that I really enjoy like in when I am playing.

MJ: Yeah. And

Sam: is, is again just like less my taste as a,

MJ: it makes sense that there is also a difference between the consumption and the experiencing Yeah.

Yeah. Like that of course is like, you know, it would really bother me to be, we're in hour eight and haven't done anything in this D&D game. I don't care how much crafting that would annoy me.

Sam: I know people who love games So the last thing to really bring us

MJ: out. Yeah.

Sam: I want to do like big picture.

MJ: Mm.

Sam: Did you have any goals coming into this? If so, did you accomplish them? And if not, what do you think you sort of got out of

MJ: for Die Guys season two, my goal was to create more of a cohesive story than season one was. Season one felt to me a bit disjointed in places I had ideas, but none of them felt, I felt like I was grasping.

Sam: Uhhuh

MJ: and it never felt the way that I was hoping and how I enjoy stories, which is to come to the ending and like you said, feel like I've been in somebody's hands the whole time. Feel like it was intentional and like, oh, everything that I've just experienced is re-contextualize and I grasp it and I, I feel this like moment of elation realizing that there has been this clockwork going on that has been.

There the whole time, and I just saw it like, I was just able to like, understand it's a moment of clarity. It's a eureka moment. And that's what I really like in things that I consume and shows that I watch. And especially when it's an actual play. I love it because I then am so appreciative of the dm and the players, the way that everybody came together and like, not to throw buzzwords, but like synergy is like real, you know, like, it, it really excites me to watch people create a story and to see like the glow in their eyes as they realize like they're, you know, they're throwing things to each other and they're getting it passed back and it's all working together super well.

And I would say I caught glimmers of that in, in the Die Guys season two. It was a really long explanation. My goal was to do kind of like that or to set up what I hope. Could be a long form thing where I could have more opportunities to, you know, dust in cool little story moments that will ultimately coalesce in like a cohesion and an explosive finale.

Sam: Yeah.

MJ: And I think that we had a really good start. I think that I created a good story and if we never get back to the Die guys, which is my worst nightmare actually, but if we never get back to the Die guys, I do think that this story had like a microcosm of what I was looking And we got to an end.

It, I guess if I had to distill all of that long shit that I just said, that will certainly be cut down by you, Sam, is I, I made something intentional last time. It didn't feel like season one didn't feel intentional. Season two felt much more intentional. I like that. I,

Sam: I got the impression that like your main goal was Yeah.

MJ: You tell me. 'cause I clearly did. Yeah. Like

Sam: Yeah. Was like, prove that it was worth making more of this. Yeah. And I feel like we did do that. Like we're, you know, life happens, you know, like I, I think everyone walked out of there and like, even now it kind of feels like, yeah, it would be worth making more of this, but also like, at what cost, maybe the cost would be too high.

MJ: Right. But I, I feel like we, we did

Sam: make a cohesive season. We left a lot open, but also nothing else happens, then it was sort of like, cool, we got this, like this book and it's got a cliffhanger at the end, But this is the end of a book. Like, it, it felt good.

My goals for this season were, did I have goals? I didn't think about this in advance. In a lot of ways this like, was just a job for me. You know? I like my long term goal is like, get the try guys to play on camera any game that's not Dungeons and Dragons, Because I want to raise the profile of games that aren't Dungeons and Dragons.

Like that's I think I even told you

MJ: that you did the that we had, and I, I want it too, but they, Hey, my bosses love ip. They fucking

Sam: well

MJ: ip.

Sam: because

MJ: like

Sam: gotta eat. you know? People gotta

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: And I think being able to say it, it's Dungeons and Dragons, but we're using a Jenga Tower and it works like this, and actually it's called Dread. Like You hey,

MJ: Yeah. We listen. We'll totally say that. We would totally lie like that

Sam: that.

Yeah. And I do I think that I accomplished that goal. No. But I also think like we made like the first step on that goal is like, let's make something pretty good. Yeah. And I feel like we figured out how to make something pretty good. I feel really satisfied by that. I didn't realize that one of my goals was to like, learn a lot about D&D,

but I learned so much about D&D in a way that I am like. So glad that I had the experience and the opportunity to learn. Like, I, I really it changed and nuanced my, I I'd come in with such a negative opinion about D&D And you know, I still, in the middle of this process, I left a D&D group because I wasn't having a great time. You know and that wasn't the fault of the players. That was the fault of the game, and

MJ: the game.

Sam: Yeah. And like, and I stand by that. And I don't wanna play D&D, but I also, like, I, there was, there's so much more to appreciate there, and I, I really appreciate this process for having gotten me there.

Okay, so then to finally end, let's say that, on Monday they say we're doing season three. What are your goals for the next season? Like, what do you, what are, what do you want next?

MJ: I want them to all have their debonair I know that that's like very neat, like very particular. I want them all to go to a fun little ball. I want them all to have like a really nice high society moment.

Sam: fun. Because

MJ: I think that we talked about this when we were setting up, like if we do more of this, how it would be really cool for everybody to sort of have their own space in and their own season. Yeah. Because that's, this was, this was season zero to me of like Totally.

Sam: of what Totally. This was the

MJ: This was the pilot season, right?

This was establishing the team. Yeah. And I think in my dream world, we get four seasons of one per each character. Yep. Season zero plus four seasons, and then a final coalesce. Yeah. Yeah. That would be like my If I'm only being, you know, guaranteed one more season I'm probably just gonna act as if I do have the rest of that because confidence is half the battle.

So I would go like. Where we left off was leading into what could be Down's season. That's Miles's character. And he's from high society. And I would love to have everybody because I think that all of these, a season that focuses on one person still should have room for everybody.

Sam: everyone.

MJ: everyone. Exactly.

Sam: Even if we're doing miles big metal plot thing, like every one of those characters, having to figure out how to be in high society

MJ: is fun. Exactly. Exactly. Fucking Pupa, specifically with all of his stupid, like, you know, his high side of disguise. I would love to see Tubmans in his, like his, his, he is the most managerial of all of them. I think he could succeed in high society and maybe actually he does. And everybody's surprised about it. And like, or, or even honestly the raunchiest character having a really.

Sam: Yeah.

MJ: successful

Sam: juice.

MJ: Exactly. Yeah. She's like pussy martinis. Like I, I would love to see all of them in that space. And my goal, I guess specifically would be to like, have them all grow to love each other more and experience, experience life from each one of their perspectives.

Mm-hmm. In each season. I would love to, you know, when you have like a campaign and everybody comes in with like silly joke characters like fucking Boo Boo the Clown and, and like Jor Johnson, the fucking Yeah. either. Exactly.

Sam: Yeah.

MJ: And then we all are playing and it's silly and it's whatever, but then by the end everybody's like in real tears because like, they love these characters and they love what they've built.

exactly that. Nothing is like more. Beautiful for me than those moments. And I don't, I don't know why. It's a, it's a subversion of expectation, I guess. And it just gets me every time that this stupid found family that is like, you know, even though it's silly, like that's real, real life is like quirky and awkward and, and strange.

And I think that that's why it's so beautiful for me to see all of these. It, it's, it's so indicative of like the natural human spirit to find love in these places and find beauty and, and you know, the willingness to be there for each other. Come out in this story that everybody planned on just fucking goofing around in.

And that nothing like gets me more than that. So that's what I wanna see happen here, is that it become real. Like they all, were all performing and it's all, you know, it's everybody's day job here to like come in and play these games. But it was really exciting for me that at the end of filming, like both Zach and Keith came up to me and were like, that was really fun.

And it wasn't. They're like, good job, mj. Like you did great. It was like I had a good time doing this and that. That's amazing. For me, that is like the one thing that drives me as a DM is like, ha making people feel things. So that's my goal.

Sam: your goal is to become a better dm?

MJ: Yeah. Yeah. It, that's, that's my personal goal for, for me. And my other goal is to force them cry. I want all of them to sob. Yeah.

Sam: yeah. That's a great place to end. But I'm gonna I'm gonna do my goals.

So

MJ: I wasn't sure. I was like, we were both here and I was like, do I need to like wrap this out in a nice way?

Sam: No,

MJ: No, you don't.

Sam: Um, so, um, I feel like my goals for season three to Die Guys are like, then it happens so I can get paid

MJ: because

Sam: because,

MJ: you know what my, this

Sam: this

MJ: is

Sam: fabulous day job. I love this fucking day job. Yeah. And I feel like I love this as a job and I love supporting you and like the thing that you were talking about, it feels, it feels so much like your show that I am like really happy to contribute to,

But it is not, it's just not the show that I would be making you know, it's so much not my thing, even as I've gotten a lot out of it. But I feel like I've developed a lot of goals around RPGs and actual play out of going through the process of making the show.

MJ: Yeah.

Sam: And that has been, a lot of, that has been like experimenting with actual play that I think actual play is really interesting. Both in this very traditional format, but in other formats.

And so part of that for me is like doing this series, so I'm accomplishing my goals by doing this series. Of like talking with you and hopefully talking with other people about how actual play gets made and different kinds of actual play and what else is out there.

Because I think that sort of survey of how people are making actual play is I'm sure other people have done that, but like not in my corner of the internet. And I want to make it for my corner of the internet. And I'm just sort of curious to document the process of going through all that. I'm also really curious to make a version of actual play that is the kind, that I'm really, excited by.

And I have actually started doing this, so I I launched a Patreon for this show back in February. And the only thing initially behind the paywall has been like an essay, a memoir, a game recap. It is like equal parts, all of those things. I modeled it after like a, this American lifestyle essay Of like I'm gonna go in and like, have the experience of playing this game, and then I'm gonna come back and like talk about what happened and what it meant to me and like, analyze the game and do like a review of the game kind of at the same time.

And it's like this 20 minute piece. And it has made a lot of my friends cry and like, that's very cool. I'm very proud of this thing. Like it's, I think it's very cool. And is it actual play? No, because it's happening after the fact. It's not actual play, but is it related? It's definitely related to actual

MJ: play. Mm-hmm.

Sam: And I'm doing another project where I have a game that I've made where essentially like I do some journaling and then I pass it off to you and you do some journaling, and then you pass it off to Will and then Will does some journaling and then passes it back to me and we Like go around in a circle.

And I've been playing this game with some friends and we basically have a novella now, right. Because we're each like writing A thousand words every time we do

MJ: this. Yeah.

Sam: And so I'm really curious to see what happens if we like make the audiobook of that novella and it's that actual play. Maybe, maybe that is 'cause it is the like words of us. playing, even if we're recording it.

And I don't know. Like is that actual play? I don't know. Is the void 1680 am stuff actual play that I was talking about earlier? I, yeah, probably. Yeah. What is that though exactly? And I'm really, I'm really curious to like, push on the edges of what actual play is right now. And sort of see what happens.

MJ: I'm, I think it's so funny that you're here with me playing as basic a game as possible. Yeah. As you attempt to, to press on the fringes of, of what could even be considered a game. I, I think that's neat.

Sam: think like learning and spending a lot of time with the most mainstream ass shit really helps you make the

MJ: I have never been called mainstream in my fucking life. How dare you?

Sam: This is the try guys are super mainstream.

MJ: Yeah. Well, I'm not a try guy. Yeah. I've always been not like the other girl. Sam, how could you do this to How would you do do this to me? I can't believe I'm mainstream.

Sam: Dungeons and Dragons went mainstream. I don't know what to tell you.

MJ: That's awful. Yep. I was around when it wasn't, I not, not to, not to be like i, i, was listening to this band first, but like, I was playing Dungeon and Dragons when it was weird.

Sam: I was playing. Dungeons and Dragons before you were born.

MJ: Oh, fucking you're not that much older than me.

Sam: I know. But I started playing very young. Um, well, I think that's a great place to end. Uh, MJ Thanks so much for being on Dice Exploder.

MJ: Thank you very much for having me on Dice Exploder. I am going to explode my dice. Ready?

Thanks again to MJ for being here. You can find her streaming on Twitch at Miss Joy 99. Thanks to everyone in Sports Dice exploiter on Patreon. As always, you can find me on

Blue Sky at Dice Exploder.

Sam: or on the dice exploiter discord. And you can find my games at s dun dewald.itch.io. Our logo is designed by spore.

Our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Gray, and our ad music is Lily pads. But my boy a Travis Test spur and thanks as always to you. For listening. You made it to the end of this enormous episode. Oh my God. Thanks so much for listening. I will see you next time.