#45 - Anthony, The Daily Dungeon Master, is back sharing the real-life magic of starting and sustaining organized tabletop RPG groups. From running Adventurers League tables to launching a high school gaming club, Anthony shares stories, lessons, and practical advice on building community through shared storytelling. Whether youāre thinking of starting a TTRPG club, joining an official play program, or just want to get more games going consistently, this oneās for you.
Discount Code for Daily Dungeon Master Store: Claim2Game - 15% Off Anything in the Store - https://www.thedailydungeonmaster.com/store46debe35
High Ground Hobbies - Madison, AL - https://www.highgroundhobbies.com/high-ground-hobbies
Games & Modules Mentioned During the Episode:
- Tales From the Loop - Like Stranger Things - (PDF) - https://claimtogamepodcast.com/talesfromtheloop
- Dread - Uses Jenga Tower (PDF) - https://claimtogamepodcast.com/dread
- Call of Cthulhu Starter Set (PDF) - https://claimtogamepodcast.com/coc
- Cyberpunk Red (PDF) - https://claimtogamepodcast.com/cyberpunkred
- How the Lich Stole Christmas by Wizard Sleeve Studios (PDF) - https://claimtogamepodcast.com/lichstolechristmas
- Baldurās Gate: Descent into Avernus (Remastered - Roll20) - https://claimtogamepodcast.com/descentintoavenus
- Frostwind Dale: Rime of the Frost Maiden (Roll 20) - https://claimtogamepodcast.com/rimeoffrostmaiden
- Keys from the Golden Vault (Roll20) - https://claimtogamepodcast.com/keysfromgoldenvault
- Eberron Campaign - Oracle of War (PDF Bundle) - https://claimtogamepodcast.com/oracleofwar
- Alien RPG (Starter Set PDF) - https://claimtogamepodcast.com/alien
- Rune Quest (PDF) - https://claimtogamepodcast.com/runequest
- Pendragon (PDF) - https://claimtogamepodcast.com/pendragon
Resources Mentioned:
- Puffin Forest (YouTube) - Adventurerās League - https://youtu.be/0O_77DTXVgI?si=l6M-z7x0QVfGOiMU
Connect with Anthony
- Anthony on Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/thedailydm.bsky.social
- Anthony on Instagram - http://instagram.com/thedailydmblog
- Anthony on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@the.daily.dm
- The Daily Dungeon Master Blog - https://www.thedailydungeonmaster.com/
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00:00:00
>> Clint Scheirer: Anthony, the author of the Daily Dungeon Master
00:00:03
is back sharing the real life magic of how to
00:00:05
start organized crime.
00:00:08
organized crime, Whoops. I
00:00:11
mean, how to start organized tabletop RPG groups.
00:00:14
My bad. Whether youre thinking of starting a tabletop RPG
00:00:17
club, joining an official play program like the Adventures
00:00:20
League or Pathfinder 2E Society, or you just want to get
00:00:23
some more games going more consistently, stick
00:00:26
around, stick around. Let's go make your claim to
00:00:29
game.
00:01:02
>> Clint Scheirer: Hey, welcome back Anthony. You're here for round
00:01:05
two episode two for you.
00:01:08
And what we want to talk about today is
00:01:10
organized play. there are a lot of
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different ways that people can get into
00:01:16
organized play. However, you have a
00:01:19
unique, experience where you have created
00:01:21
organized play in different facets with people that you've interacted
00:01:24
with, different gamers that you've helped start up
00:01:27
their groups. And so I wanna come
00:01:30
in hot and ask, can you tell me a story of how
00:01:33
you first got involved first and organized play
00:01:36
and what motivated you to start Adventure League,
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an adventure leagues group in, in the first place?
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go ahead.
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>> Anthony: yeah. Oh my gosh. so, as I mentioned last one,
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my wife and I used to be foster parents.
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>> Clint Scheirer: Okay.
00:01:48
>> Anthony: And we specialize in teens.
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and
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I had two sons on my own, and then several teenage
00:01:58
girls, that we fostered for. And
00:02:01
long story short, my wife, I want to give her a night off
00:02:04
once a week, at least once a week. Just to give her a night off
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and take the kids, go do something together.
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>> Clint Scheirer: What?
00:02:09
>> Anthony: Ay, yeah. And just to
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give her a break and you know, take. Kids
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don't do something. So, there was a new game store that opened in
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town and I really liked their concept, I really
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like their vibe. Great vibe. And
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so I said, hey, I.
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>> Clint Scheirer: Do you remember what it was called?
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>> Anthony: Yeah. Syndicate Games.
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>> Clint Scheirer: Is it still around Syndicate?
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>> Anthony: No, it's not, unfortunately. no, they closed down.
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Yeah, big bummer. I said we like to come in weekly just to play.
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And they said, yeah, here we got table space, go ahead. And
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so we sat down and I was running, Tomb of
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Annihilation. I was finishing it. I already been playing with some of
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the kids at home. But it started with
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me running this for just my foster kids and my
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kids. And then they invited their friends
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and their friends as friends and their friends as friends as
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friends. Until, I was running the table with
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the middle schoolers and I had other high schools
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running the tables for the other high schoolers and there was like four
00:03:04
tables worth of People. And this woman comes in with her
00:03:07
kid, who is, a middle schooler. All my
00:03:10
middle school kids knew him. she goes, hey, are you the dad that
00:03:12
runs this? I stop. I kind of do this
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whole thing where I'm, like, looking around. yeah, I
00:03:18
guess I am. And they said, cool, what do we need? I
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said, can you bring pencil and paper? That's what they need.
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Oh, they got that. I said, cool. Then we're good to go.
00:03:27
And so, you know, that was
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accidentally how I started, the Adventures League
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program in this little town in the middle of nowhere,
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Nebraska. Eventually I said, you know what?
00:03:38
because I'heard of Adventures League, I found out, if you're not familiar.
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>> Clint Scheirer: With it, check out is Adventuresly.
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Because there some people are like, I don't know what he's talking about.
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And, you know, it sounds like you're just playing a game. What is
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Adventures League?
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>> Anthony: well, as Puffin Foreresst had said, it's a bunch
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of people playing the same campaign, in their own
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tables. When I discovered that, I'm like, let me really
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dig into this. And it was a really cool idea. And so what the idea
00:04:02
is that organized play, at least back then,
00:04:05
is you maintained a character and you had a
00:04:08
worksheet that goes along with your character sheet that talks
00:04:11
about what you did each session. You have a DM that signs
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off on it every time you put who your DM is
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and they're Wizards of the coast number. And
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you had all this stuff, with it. And
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you would be able to take that character to any organized
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play event. So
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this character, if you're playing through Tomb
00:04:30
annihiation, right, the current, or whatever the current,
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module is that you're working from, and you're at this point in
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the story and you're like, hey,
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I'd like to play adventurously with you guys. You could take your
00:04:43
character with your documentation and show up and
00:04:46
say, hey, this is my character dm. This is
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I'm at where I ended in the story. And you can play
00:04:52
anything before that. You just don't get the rewards,
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or experience levels, whatever, until
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that group catches up to where your character is. And then you
00:05:01
can start getting rewards again. But the idea was that you could take
00:05:03
this character to any table anywhere,
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to play. Nowadays, it's a lot different. They
00:05:10
don't require the documentation
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they ask you to. Where are
00:05:15
you at in the story? They can put you on a table that's close to where you
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were in the Story. so they've taken away a
00:05:21
lot of the organized play there, but nowadays it's just turned
00:05:24
into more of a club_ay where it's like a bunch
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of people playing the same module. You generally have
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one person who's organizing it who makes sure that
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everybody has the resources and whatnot that they need.
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and that the
00:05:38
DMs get together and say, hey, what's going on at your
00:05:41
table? where are we at? Try to make sure
00:05:44
everybody's at roughly the same place. but it
00:05:46
turns it into, a tabletop
00:05:49
club. Right. that you're all just
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playing the same thing.
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>> Clint Scheirer: Playing as well.
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First off, you said that your DM hat, your
00:05:58
dungeon master has a number, like an
00:06:00
organized number.
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>> Anthony: Yeah.
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>> Clint Scheirer: How do you apply for that? How do you. Is it just online?
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>> Anthony: It is on. It was online. wizard of the coast,
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it's the number that you would use. they use the same system M
00:06:12
as for Magic the Gathering. It's actually the same number. It's a
00:06:15
Wizard of the coast whatever
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member number or whatever they call it nowadays. You,
00:06:21
you would go in and you would record. you would
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report your play on. They like
00:06:26
the store would create an event and you would put in your number.
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You would give them your number. They didn't put it. And they'd
00:06:33
say, okay, so we have done official play
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for Dungeons and Dragons or Magic, you know, whatever you're
00:06:38
doing. it was Wizard Play Network, I think.
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>> Clint Scheirer: okay.
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>> Anthony: which they still do the Wizard Play Network thing, but
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it's really organized plays really gotten
00:06:47
away from that, which to me is, is much to its
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detriment. u from what organized play used to be.
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>> Clint Scheirer: Paizo has the Pathfinder 2E Society, which I think
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has a very similar setup where you get your number.
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So this leads me to my next question. Right? You go to the table,
00:07:01
you go to a different store where Adventure League is
00:07:04
happening and they're playing through the same campaign.
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If you're a person that has like your paper copy, I
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know there's different ways that you can use D20 & D beyond and have
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like a digital format of your character.
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what happens if you. You've already
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created your character at a certain level?
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Ageta, what did you say his power level
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is?
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>> Anthony: It's over 9.
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>> Clint Scheirer: You mentioned that if you go to an Adventures League
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table and the people at that table are not
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as far along in the stories, you. You
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don't get any of the rewards or the levels or the goals
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or the equipment or things that you did previously, how do
00:07:42
you inject yourself into that story? If you came to the table with
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your character already leveled up and these other people
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aren't quite as far.
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>> Anthony: Correct. basically, according to how League used to
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run, which I'll refer to Adventure League, it's
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just League. they, you could play through a story that you've already
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played through. but, you wouldn't get any of
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the level rewards or any of that stuff
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to make it fair, because you've technically already gotten that
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stuff. You've already gotten those rewards, you've already got
00:08:10
through that. And it takes a good player who
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is not going to meta game.
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Right'and? that's one of the understandings
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of if you show up at a table and you're at a table where
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you've already played through a story, you're not going to spoil the story for
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everybody else. Right?
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>> Clint Scheirer: Yeah. Meta. Yeah. So I'm goingn. I have some listeners
00:08:27
that like, totally understand what metagame means. Yeah, the
00:08:30
listener who doesn't know what metagame means. you said it doesn't.
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You're not spoiling the, the story for somebody
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else. There's also other ways. You know, metacognition is
00:08:39
talking. Thinking about your thinking.
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>> Anthony: Yeah.
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>> Clint Scheirer: U.
00:08:41
So, so what are some ways that metagaming could
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ruin a table if somebody already has gone through the
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adventure? Like, can you give an example of how that would just really
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stink.
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>> Anthony: This stinks. It's metagam is the idea of using
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player knowledge instead of character. Player knowledge versus
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character knowledge, right?
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>> Clint Scheirer: Yes.
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>> Anthony: and the idea is, you know, that in this next room,
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there's a trap in the middle of the room that if you step on a
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specific spot, it will set off a
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trap. metagaming would be
00:09:09
walking into that room and say, I avoid this area
00:09:12
right here. And everybody's like, why are you doing that? and it's
00:09:15
like, oh, there's a trap there. Well, how do you know there's a trap there?
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Your character would have no idea. ###eah right.
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If you were at that point in the story, your character would have no idea. So you don't
00:09:24
want to spoil the story for other people. there was an
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online. I cannot remember what it was for the life of
00:09:29
me. but there was an online, game
00:09:32
that you could play where you could take one
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action. One action, and
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whatever that action was usually resulted in your death. and I
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love using this phrase, check inventory. So you
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check inventory and Find out that you are wearing a shirt and pants and oh
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wait, there's a bomb in your pants and it blows up. Right. So
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what's the next thing you do for next, your
00:09:52
next action that you take? We're starting the game over.
00:09:55
I remove pants. Pants. What pants? You are attempting to use
00:09:57
knowledge from a previous existence. And I've used that
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phrase for ages. My kids know what it means. I have to explain
00:10:03
to other people. But, but yeah's, that's the
00:10:06
metagaming. It'it's knowing it's your player knowing
00:10:09
that a troll is susceptible to fire and
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acid. But you, but your
00:10:15
character would have.
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>> Clint Scheirer: No way of knowing you're able to go in. You're able
00:10:18
to, you know, just recognize that you're not going to share knowledge that you
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already have.
00:10:23
The official process for officially setting up an
00:10:25
adventure group, is it just having
00:10:28
the Dungeon Master with their number
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hosting the game and then uploading the progress
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of the, you know, their characters and the people who
00:10:37
are playing? Is there anything else that you officially need to
00:10:39
do in order to set up an Adventures League
00:10:42
group?
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>> Anthony: Well, and that's where it gets interesting because you don't.
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The only thing you're registering is that you've played.
00:10:49
Each individual player character was used to be
00:10:52
responsible for keeping track of what their character did, does.
00:10:55
Whatever. Adventures League play has evolved.
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Like I said earlier, it's evolved away from that. I'm personally not a
00:11:01
fan of. I liked. Yes, there was paperwork
00:11:04
involved. Yes, there was a lot more work tracking things,
00:11:07
but being able to tell everybody at the end of the session, hey, everybody
00:11:10
check. Make sure you check your paperwork. Dungeon Masters, make sure you're signing
00:11:13
off on your players characters, what they
00:11:15
did today, what they got,
00:11:18
whether they leveled things of that nature.
00:11:21
and it was interesting because the idea is that if
00:11:24
you lose your paperwork, sure, you can continue
00:11:27
playing with that group because that group knows what you got and what you didn't
00:11:30
got what you didn't have. But
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you can't take that character anywhere else.
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Right. To play organized play. And I like that
00:11:38
because that was the way it was.
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That's the way it made organized play what it was
00:11:46
organized play.
00:11:47
>> Clint Scheirer: It. It held somebody accountable.
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>> Anthony: Exactly. And it made sure that you didn't walk into,
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say, a game with a vorpal
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longsword and the Superman. I'm here to
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fight for truth and justice in the American way. The Superman.
00:12:00
Exactly. And the Superman. And,
00:12:03
and everybody's like, where'd you get that?
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You're like, oh, I got it in this adventure.
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Well, where's your documentation that you got it? And who
00:12:12
signed off on this? What DM possibly signed off on
00:12:15
this?
00:12:15
>> Clint Scheirer: Who signed off on this? I didn't sign off on that.
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>> Anthony: Okay, exactly. so,
00:12:20
yeah, it is
00:12:23
Adventurers League. I liked
00:12:26
back in the day and age where
00:12:29
you had the organization. More of the
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organization. it was
00:12:34
more of, the. Like you said, the
00:12:37
accountability. so
00:12:40
Adventurers League, like I said, it's turned more into
00:12:43
a, club than actual, organized
00:12:46
play. I still like it. I still like it. in
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fact, I started my second group.
00:12:52
Well, not started. I inherited my second group,
00:12:55
on accident as well. I moved to where I am right
00:12:57
now, from that Nebraska location and found out the
00:13:00
store that had Adventures League. And I was like, great, cool. Let's do
00:13:03
this. So I show up and I'm like,
00:13:06
hey. I tell the organizer, hey, my name's
00:13:09
Anthony. I'm a dm. I
00:13:12
started my own AL group, where I
00:13:14
was last. I'd like to get involved. How
00:13:17
can I get involved? Et cetera. And he goes, well, actually, I'm
00:13:20
trying to step back from stuff. O.
00:13:23
Okay. And then I look and I see everything
00:13:26
about this Adventures League group is completely out of the
00:13:29
rulebook. Like, completely against the rulebook. Tables of
00:13:31
10 players. And I'm like, I twitching because I'm like,
00:13:34
Al says you can't have more than seven players plus a DM.
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>> Clint Scheirer: Admit you have fair guparents.
00:13:40
>> Anthony: Okay. and they're not doing any of the paperwork. They're not
00:13:43
creating that accountability. I'm like, but
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how can you call it Al if you're not following the
00:13:49
AL guidelines? and then they're all playing different
00:13:52
things, which Al is not. You can technically
00:13:55
all play different things and still be Adventures League. That's
00:13:57
fine. Generally speaking, if you have an organized
00:14:00
store with play, everybody's playing the same
00:14:03
module. It was one of those things. I was like,
00:14:05
oh, okay. He's like, I'm actually stepping back. Would you
00:14:08
like it? Like what? Would you
00:14:11
like to take over? Well, sure.
00:14:14
Are you going toa be okay if I do it my way? He's like, well, you might get
00:14:17
some pushback, but yeah,
00:14:20
I think they'd be okay with it.
00:14:22
So, I said I'd start with the newest
00:14:25
adventure that released that year, which was, Baldur's Gate Des
00:14:28
sent to Avernus. And, at one
00:14:30
point, I had. Cause this was pre
00:14:33
pandemic. I had nine tables
00:14:36
wor of players. including one table that
00:14:39
was. And I don't know how this ended up this way, but that's
00:14:42
how it ended up. nothing but 11 year old
00:14:44
girls. Yeah. And
00:14:47
again, I don't know how it ended up that way, but they brought their friends and stuff
00:14:50
like that. And there were other girls that wanted to play and they were
00:14:53
playing and there was a table full of 11 year old girls. They
00:14:56
were all like 11. Various
00:14:59
points of being 11, but they were all 11. And they were the
00:15:01
most adorable little group of murder hobos you would
00:15:04
ever meet. like to give you an example, one
00:15:07
said one's a barbarian and one was a druid. The druid says, I
00:15:10
wild ch champ into a crocodile. Okay, you wild shapeing the
00:15:13
crocodile. The barbarian says, I pick up the crocodile,
00:15:16
my friend who's a crocodile and throw it at the enemy.
00:15:19
And the dm, afterwards had this like thousand
00:15:22
yards stare look and I'm like, what was? He goes, it was uter
00:15:24
chaos. It was hilarious chaos. It was fun chaos.
00:15:27
But that was utter chaos. And I said, so how'you do
00:15:30
with it? He goes, they seem to have a good time. I said, then we're all in the good space.
00:15:33
We're all, we're all in a good place. That's a good thing.
00:15:36
That's what we're going for. And of course the pandemic
00:15:39
happened, and we lost a lot of players. I
00:15:41
very quickly had to set up a Discord server where we could
00:15:44
try to get everybody on, try to get
00:15:47
everybody back at tables, virtual tables.
00:15:49
Now, it worked. It didn't really
00:15:52
work. I had two tables survive, mine and
00:15:55
another. but you know, we played. It was okay post
00:15:58
pandemic. We came back and we ended up being six
00:16:01
tables worth. Five, five to six,
00:16:04
depending on the DM availability that day.
00:16:07
But, five to six, and then the worst
00:16:10
happens. the store shut down. so we
00:16:13
had to find a new home. Right. and we found a new home,
00:16:16
thank goodness. and I'm going to give them a shout out.
00:16:19
high ground Hobbies in Madison, Alabama. It
00:16:22
is one of, it is literally
00:16:24
the like every game store. This is
00:16:27
what the game store should be, right? This is what a game store should
00:16:30
be. Has great food, has gaming space,
00:16:33
has private gaming rooms that are
00:16:36
affordable. just everything. And
00:16:39
we moved into there permanently. When we moved in there, one of the
00:16:42
things we decided we were going to do was finish the campaign we were
00:16:45
running, which was the eberron Oracle of War.
00:16:47
we were going to finish that campaign and we were going
00:16:50
to because of the way Al had
00:16:53
evolved. We had all decided that maybe we want to
00:16:56
play something different. Which is how I created May. As
00:16:59
I mentioned last episode, my homebrew
00:17:02
sell Suria World, this big west marches
00:17:05
style. So we still call it league per se. It's
00:17:07
more of the. The term we
00:17:10
use for that group is league. But it's more
00:17:13
of just ah, a game D20 & D Game
00:17:16
club that basically inherited
00:17:19
that I kept going for the last six
00:17:22
years. Now this year will be six years.
00:17:25
congratulations. Thank you, thank you. actually I
00:17:27
step because I'm for the listeners. I'm actually
00:17:30
in the middle of a move which is why you'll
00:17:33
see this gap in my posts for my
00:17:36
website. I have a gap there because I am in the middle of a move
00:17:39
and sometimes as we all know things get tic.
00:17:42
but in any case, I recently
00:17:45
very painfully in my own mind gave the
00:17:48
reins over to the guy who was like my right
00:17:50
hand. And I said hey
00:17:53
man, you've got the reins now. I prepared
00:17:56
the store. I was preparing him. You know, he's like when are you going
00:17:59
to announce it? I said as last minute as possible
00:18:02
because I don't want to,
00:18:04
you know. Yah. but you know, I did it.
00:18:07
I kept this group together. and it evolved. You know,
00:18:10
players came and went. But
00:18:13
organized play doesn't have to be
00:18:16
Pathfinder 2E Society. It doesn't have to be adventurous league. You
00:18:19
can do organized play in a myriad of ways. And
00:18:22
that doing the West Mar Style campaign,
00:18:25
really highlighted our ability to do
00:18:27
that and evolve as organized play.
00:18:30
>> Clint Scheirer: You've mentioned this term a couple times like
00:18:32
tabletop club, RPG club.
00:18:36
You recently helped a high
00:18:38
school, teacher. High school teacher friend.
00:18:41
>> Anthony: Yeah.
00:18:41
>> Clint Scheirer: Start a D20 & D club in the high
00:18:44
school. How did that work? What were some of the unique
00:18:47
challenges of doing it in a public school setting as opposed to a
00:18:50
game store?
00:18:51
>> Anthony: Oh my goodness. That was, that was a And that was
00:18:53
a monster all of its own. u to
00:18:56
overcome. first off, she had tried to start it up
00:18:59
last year. she wrote to for those who don't know,
00:19:02
wizard of the coast, and games,
00:19:04
workshop. Have an educator program where you write them
00:19:07
from your educator, email address
00:19:10
and say hey, we'd like to be. We'd
00:19:13
like to start a tabletop club. And they're like cool. They
00:19:16
send you a Care package full of stuff. and that's
00:19:19
how she got started. And all the students want to
00:19:22
do is play Dungeons and Dragons and Warhammer, which is
00:19:25
fine. And magically gathering. Those were the things that they got sent. So
00:19:28
that was cool, right? Everybody was having a good time with that.
00:19:31
Well, this school year, school year
00:19:34
for 24, 25, my friend was like,
00:19:37
hey. Because I told
00:19:39
her, hey, I want to get involved. I want to help out. What can I do?
00:19:42
And she said, hey, I'd really like them to get to
00:19:45
learn other systems, not just Dungeons Dragons. I
00:19:48
said, that's awesome. That is cool. Let's do that.
00:19:51
So she started writing these other game companies.
00:19:54
and even game companies that are like, they don't make games
00:19:57
necessarily, but they make, like, accessories. she
00:20:00
got Chess x Chaosium.
00:20:03
Talsoan sent stuff, and sometimes they sent
00:20:06
materials. free Leaks Publishing was really
00:20:09
generous. Chaosiumed.
00:20:10
>> Clint Scheirer: Love that company.
00:20:11
>> Anthony: Yeah, Free Leagues and Chaosium were super
00:20:14
generous. and it
00:20:17
was just so awesome to see
00:20:19
these companies go. You want your students to
00:20:22
be interested in games? Let us give you our game
00:20:25
so you can try it out. And they
00:20:28
all sent care packages, or they're like, hey, we can't send a care
00:20:31
package, but we can give you a discount code, an educator discount
00:20:34
code off of anything you buy. So the club
00:20:36
will ended up, fundraising,
00:20:39
for multiple things. But one of the things they fundraise for to
00:20:42
get materials from these other game companies.
00:20:45
and that was amazing. I ended
00:20:48
up teaching them. I ended up running Dungeons and Dragons to begin
00:20:51
with, just to see. Just to meet the kids, get them
00:20:54
comfortable with me. and then
00:20:57
I ran. let's see, what else? Dread.
00:20:59
Have you ever heard of dread?
00:21:01
>> Clint Scheirer: Oh, yeah, with the Jenga tower.
00:21:02
>> Anthony: Yeah, that was almost a disaster because
00:21:05
my friend forgot the regular size Jenga.
00:21:08
You the normal Jenga. And she's like, I have a friend.
00:21:11
one of my other teacher friends has a giant Jenga.
00:21:14
I said, how giant? She's like, it's pretty big. And I'm
00:21:17
like, okay, I don't want a child to have a concussion. She
00:21:20
goes, no, it'll be fine. And this Jon tower got big.
00:21:23
And this one student pulled one. And I
00:21:26
watched in horror as the tower is falling. I'm like, no,
00:21:29
okay, this is happening. And thankfully, they were.
00:21:32
>> Clint Scheirer: Character died.
00:21:33
>> Anthony: Yeah. and their character dying. Exactly. But I was
00:21:36
like, I was like, watching this giant Jenga tower, like,
00:21:38
we're talking, like, each piece was like 18 inches long
00:21:42
type Jenga tower. And I'm watching in horro as this tower is
00:21:44
falling on this student. And I'm like, no. You know.
00:21:47
But, I taught them Dread. I taught them Tales from the Loop,
00:21:50
which was very interesting.
00:21:52
>> Clint Scheirer: Watching, that's like Stranger Things esque, right?
00:21:55
>> Anthony: Cor correctir. The weird 80s.
00:21:57
Yeah. I taught. They got really excited about Call of
00:22:00
Cthulhu. they really wanted to play that. But the one that they were
00:22:03
most excited about, that I had to learn myself,
00:22:06
was, Cyberpunk.
00:22:09
I ran Cyberpunk Red for them. But, I used
00:22:11
the, 2077 box set that
00:22:14
update. And they were into it.
00:22:17
They were like, this is so awesome. Let's
00:22:20
do this. and, I
00:22:23
did run D20 & D for them one other time, which was
00:22:26
around Christmas, because I like doing holiday,
00:22:29
themed adventures. even when I'm running
00:22:31
games with my friends, I do holiday
00:22:34
themed adventures. And one of my favorite ones to run for a new
00:22:37
group is how the Lich Stole
00:22:39
Christmas.
00:22:42
And the entire adventure is in metered
00:22:44
rhyme. Like the tagline is your a foul one,
00:22:47
Mr. Lich. Your flesh smells like decay.
00:22:49
For the crimes you have committed. There will be hell to pay when
00:22:52
the heroes come to save Christmas Day. That is
00:22:55
the tagline for the adventure. And for me,
00:22:58
I like those kind of things.
00:22:59
>> Clint Scheirer: Y fun.
00:23:00
>> Anthony: So I tell my players, I was like, if you do the shtick,
00:23:03
when you find out what the shtick is for this adventure and you
00:23:06
participate in the shtick, I will give you
00:23:09
dm, inspiration every time you engage in the shtick.
00:23:13
>> Clint Scheirer: Yeah.
00:23:13
>> Anthony: And they loved it. They got into it. They're
00:23:16
doing meter grime themselves. They or re figuring out meter rhy how they want to say
00:23:19
what they want to say. and I'm not going to spoil the
00:23:22
adventure, but, I recommend if you're going to run that adventure, run the
00:23:25
lowest level. Possiblell do the tier
00:23:28
one. Because the tier one big bad guy is
00:23:31
the best, in my opinion, of all of them.
00:23:33
>> Clint Scheirer: How the Lich Stole Christmas.
00:23:34
>> Anthony: Yes.
00:23:35
>> Clint Scheirer: Can that be, Drive Throughu rpg? Is that an easy way?
00:23:37
>> Anthony: Yeah. And there's actually more than one.
00:23:41
it is the one with the green Lich
00:23:44
on the front. It's the one on the DMs Guild or
00:23:47
drive thru RPG by Wizard
00:23:50
leave Studios. Wizard Leave Studios. I had to look
00:23:53
it up real quick. Wizard Leave Studios. That one.
00:23:55
There's another one out there that's like, looks like more of a Dr.
00:23:58
Seusses type cover. Not that one. You want the one with
00:24:01
the green.
00:24:02
>> Clint Scheirer: Looking The Green Lich.
00:24:03
>> Anthony: Yeah.
00:24:04
>> Clint Scheirer: Very good.
00:24:05
So, okay, so you created, organized play
00:24:08
game stores. You've created organized play,
00:24:11
at schools with wild success. That is
00:24:14
so cool that all those game companies were
00:24:17
helping. I heard a study, and I'm gonna butcher this,
00:24:20
but it. I used to teach fifth grade, and back
00:24:23
in fifth grade, deodorant companies
00:24:25
would actually give free deodorant
00:24:28
to teachers who were teaching health. Because
00:24:31
there's a study that shows over 80% of the people who start with
00:24:34
a certain deodorant keep that for the rest of their life.
00:24:37
>> Anthony: Yeah.
00:24:38
>> Clint Scheirer: So it's like getting the kids on the Kool aids.
00:24:40
>> Anthony: Oh, no.
00:24:40
>> Clint Scheirer: Oh, yeah. So of course
00:24:43
Free League's going to want them to be like, yeah, go, go play, this
00:24:46
game. Because that might be the game that they just love and they stick
00:24:49
with.
00:24:50
>> Anthony: Absolutely, absolutely. and I was actually kind of
00:24:52
impressed because what they sent was Talail from the
00:24:55
Flood, the alien rpg. And then one other. I can't
00:24:58
remember off top of my head. But, yeah, it was just
00:25:01
like, I was blown away. Chaosium was the
00:25:04
same way. And I give a big shout out to Chaosium because they're such a
00:25:06
great company. They're so generous and they'so. They engage
00:25:09
with their audience so well, in a way that,
00:25:12
most other game companies don't. and they're
00:25:15
free with their engagement. Like, they're just like,
00:25:18
you could engage in their director of game design or
00:25:21
their creative director and write this guy and say,
00:25:24
hey, I've got an idea. What do you think of
00:25:27
this? And they are re the first
00:25:30
ones to say, hey, cool. You may want to think of this or think of
00:25:32
that. Just really awesome people.
00:25:35
but, they gave us, Call of Cthulhu
00:25:38
r Quest and, Pendragon,
00:25:41
which is one I had never heard of before. which is.
00:25:44
>> Clint Scheirer: You're playing King Arthur.
00:25:45
>> Anthony: Hm.
00:25:46
>> Clint Scheirer: Yeah.
00:25:46
>> Anthony: Very nice. Yeah. So, a lot of cool ones out
00:25:49
there. my teacher friend, she even wrote some of the
00:25:52
smaller indie companies. They were big on sending
00:25:55
stuff. And she told them, she's like, hey, look,
00:25:58
my students, I try to teach them different games,
00:26:01
game systems. whatever
00:26:04
you give, we'll teach them. and these
00:26:07
game companies have been eating it up. I also do DM training.
00:26:10
That's another big thing with organized play. Because one of the
00:26:13
biggest things you always run into with organized play is a lack of
00:26:15
DMs. There's just a shortage
00:26:18
of people who want to DM M want to run the game,
00:26:21
which I am the lovingly
00:26:24
from Forever dm. I have the forever day. Me
00:26:27
too. And I do it because I love doing it.
00:26:30
Those chances I get to play I treasure. But I love
00:26:33
DMMing, GG and I have
00:26:36
a class I did for the high schoolers, called
00:26:39
how to DM101. And it goes over the basics for
00:26:42
dming and how to make it work and what it looks
00:26:45
like. and it is,
00:26:47
it got a lot of good reception. I mean we had probably
00:26:51
five students who came who wanted to do that instead of
00:26:53
play with the others. but they paid attention, they got involved and
00:26:56
eventually some, even some because it was a two parter. And
00:26:59
so some of the other students who are listening, half listening, they're
00:27:02
like, maybe I want to learn about this. And they started
00:27:05
coming over and of course the teacher was like, go
00:27:08
ahead, go learn. And we had
00:27:10
them, I gave them homework. I said,
00:27:13
based on what you've learned, I want you to write an encounter for me.
00:27:16
I once you to writeiting theounter. And not a full
00:27:19
adventure, just an encounter. And I want you to have it ready for
00:27:22
next time. Okay. And the encounter, I said I want
00:27:25
the encounter last no more than 20 minutes.
00:27:28
And they said okay, we can do that.
00:27:31
I said cool, it could be whatever kind of encounter over all
00:27:34
the different kinds. We went over whatever you want. And
00:27:37
you can preface it however you want. So the adventurers are,
00:27:40
hey, you know each other. This or this has happened. This is
00:27:43
what you know. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go,
00:27:46
go, go, go. And I had them run it for each
00:27:48
other. So I had one dm, come up and
00:27:51
go, okay, in this encounter you're a bunch of adventure and everybody
00:27:54
use the same pre gen characters. in this
00:27:57
adventure, this is what you're trying to do. This is what your goal
00:28:00
is. Here's the encounter. Go. And
00:28:03
they did amazing.
00:28:05
>> Clint Scheirer: Were they pretty on spot with the time of 20 minutes?
00:28:08
>> Anthony: no, no. and
00:28:11
mostly due to the players. some of the players are total
00:28:14
chaos Gremlins, you know, which is fine. because one of the
00:28:17
things I actually talked about is how to deal with chaos Gremlins. They did
00:28:19
great. we did, ended up doing it in two parts. Two, different
00:28:22
days. that club met and that was really
00:28:25
important. We did the same thing
00:28:28
with our Adventures League group. We did a DM
00:28:31
training. we actually partnered with a LEGO store.
00:28:34
Not LEGO brand, but it was a
00:28:37
minifigs and more type store,
00:28:40
where they sold Lego and LEGO stuff, whatever. We partnered with
00:28:43
them, we said hey, if we can get
00:28:45
these minis to these minifigs
00:28:48
and stuff and some Legos to make terrain,
00:28:51
we will promote your store.
00:28:54
And in return you make a
00:28:57
deal where somebody can go in and buy one of your
00:29:00
minifigs and they can come over and play in our,
00:29:02
our LEGO adventure. And I took an
00:29:05
old adventure from Dungeon magazine, if you remember
00:29:08
that Bench magazine, a second edition
00:29:11
adventure. And I adapted it for 5e. It's a really cool adventure.
00:29:14
It's called Clars'sepulcher A little bit of role play, a
00:29:17
little bit of puzzle solving, a little bit of dungeon crawl with a really unique
00:29:19
BBEG at the end.
00:29:20
I did that completely with minifigs. People
00:29:23
would bring their little LEGO wizard or their little Lego fighter or
00:29:26
whatever have you and they built these
00:29:29
minifigs. And we actuallyuse,
00:29:32
we couldn't find something for a troll that was affordable.
00:29:35
Right. So one of the guys in the store
00:29:38
3D printed, and
00:29:41
I wish I had it available right now, but they 3D
00:29:44
printed a Lego troll.
00:29:47
They have a cave troll.
00:29:49
>> Clint Scheirer: That's awesome.
00:29:50
>> Anthony: A large Lego. I mean this thing stood this tall,
00:29:52
like really like hand span tall. And it was
00:29:55
perfect because there was trouble in the adventure, with a club in
00:29:58
the whole nine yard. It was adorable. and I
00:30:02
being the one organizing this, guess who had to
00:30:05
prime and paint it?
00:30:06
>> Clint Scheirer: This guy.
00:30:07
>> Anthony: so I had to do that for four different tables. Cause we ran four
00:30:10
tables worth of people coming for this event. And it
00:30:13
was a blast. It was an absolute blast. and it was
00:30:16
really successful. We had the new DMs. We trained the
00:30:19
DMs we had out of
00:30:22
those DMs. I have two of
00:30:25
them that still, that still run games for me.
00:30:27
>> Clint Scheirer: So two things that come out of that, right, like the
00:30:29
recruiting of players and DMs. It
00:30:32
sounds like a lot of this is organic. Like if you
00:30:35
I'm not going toa say the field of dreams that everybody, you
00:30:38
know, if you it they ro club or it's always
00:30:41
butchered.
00:30:42
>> Anthony: If you build it, you will
00:30:44
come.
00:30:46
>> Clint Scheirer: A lot of it people just if you have it, they
00:30:48
come. And if they're
00:30:51
interested in running it, you provide an
00:30:54
opportunity for them to learn how to do it
00:30:56
confidently.
00:30:57
>> Anthony: Correct.
00:30:58
>> Clint Scheirer: Like with the, the kids, that's so cool that you gave them
00:31:00
homework and that they had to create the, you know, the
00:31:03
actual encounter and that they were, they're
00:31:06
building the soft skills that if they ran an entire
00:31:09
adventure, might feel very big.
00:31:10
>> Anthony: Yeah.
00:31:11
>> Clint Scheirer: So you're building like a scaffolding, in a, teacher's
00:31:14
mind. That's pretty cool.
00:31:16
what about the schedule? You know, typically, I
00:31:19
think the most common schedule, I hear for most, most
00:31:22
games is once a week. others meet like
00:31:24
every other week, once a month. Like, what's a good schedule for
00:31:27
organized play to keep things running smoothly?
00:31:30
And do you, do you rotate
00:31:33
DMs? Like, do they get, you know, like,
00:31:36
hey, it's your time on, your time off, or do they just run
00:31:39
the entire adventure because it's their baby?
00:31:41
>> Anthony: Very good. Very good questions. I'm going to start
00:31:44
with the rotating VMs. Back
00:31:47
in the day of, Avernesus, I had, remember, I
00:31:50
had nine tables. so I had to have nine
00:31:52
DMs. And I had, whenever I had new people
00:31:55
come, an entire table full of new people. I had to have one of my
00:31:58
backup DMs pick up that table.
00:32:01
I had one DM, run the, For those who are not
00:32:04
familiar, there's an adventure that takes place in a tavern.
00:32:07
They ran the beginning
00:32:08
ofate the Baldur's Gate
00:32:11
encounters six times.
00:32:14
Oh, six times.
00:32:17
And they were getting burned out. And rightfully
00:32:20
so. so when we started the next adventure, which was
00:32:23
R in in the Frostmaide, you know, going from really hot to really
00:32:26
cold, I told myself, I'm not doing that
00:32:29
anymore. I'm not going to get my G
00:32:31
burned out. So I recruited DMs, and I said, I want
00:32:34
every table to have at least two DMs.
00:32:37
So when one DM is starting to get burned out and they're starting to like,
00:32:40
they're like, man, I can't do this this week.
00:32:43
Hey, cool backup dm. M, you're the man go. Or
00:32:46
woman, as case where you are it. and they
00:32:49
swap and the burn DM can play
00:32:52
or just take a vacation. I was the one DM
00:32:55
that rarely, if ever had a backup dm.
00:32:58
mostly because I like doing it. But my group,
00:33:01
would eventually, and this happened
00:33:04
later. my right hand said, anthony,
00:33:06
you need a break. I. I said, no, I'm
00:33:09
fine. They're like, no, you are obviously frazzled
00:33:12
putting out fires every week. and we'll talk about that in a
00:33:15
second to schedule a second, but you are obviously getting frazzled. This
00:33:18
is, it's okay. We'll keep the store from burning
00:33:21
down. We'll hold down the forth you need a break. And they
00:33:24
had a month. They gave me a month where I wasn't allowed to even come
00:33:27
into the Storics unless I was bringing a character sheet to
00:33:30
play. Right. O.
00:33:31
>> Clint Scheirer: Okay.
00:33:31
>> Anthony: which I was like, okay, you know what?
00:33:34
Maybe I did need a break. And I really did. And it was really
00:33:37
great of them to do that. one of the other things I did that I
00:33:40
instituted with my organized play is, what I called
00:33:43
a DM day, where
00:33:46
I would run a game for the
00:33:48
DMs, right? And I would. It's just
00:33:51
the DMs that league would take a break and just the DMs would
00:33:54
come and I would run a game just for the DMs.
00:33:57
And that was huge. Giving them all a chance to
00:34:00
play. Giving them all a chance to do their thing. And that really
00:34:03
helped with DM burnout. Because DM burnout is a thing.
00:34:06
It is totally a thing. in fact,
00:34:09
there is even me, I have forced
00:34:12
vacations. There's a vacation I took, once a
00:34:14
month to. Or not once a month, once a year.
00:34:17
That, is actually a, D20 & D retreat
00:34:20
that I go to. Roll for Joy, is the name of
00:34:23
it for the Holy Rollers. And I go to this
00:34:25
one. It's a faith based one, but it's a bunch of
00:34:28
people, that play D20 & D and they go to this retreat
00:34:31
location and we play D20 & D for like three or four days
00:34:34
and it's a blast. And I get to play and I get to do these
00:34:37
things. and last,
00:34:40
one, I brought my adult son. Ah, with me. he
00:34:43
had a blast. Who was a great father's father. Son
00:34:45
bonding time. But, no,
00:34:49
you got to be mindful of DM burnout. So rotating
00:34:52
DMs hugely important. Having a backup DM,
00:34:55
having other DMs that can say, hey, I need you to step into this
00:34:58
table because this DM's going to be gone. Or this
00:35:01
DM's got life. Life happens TM.
00:35:03
Which leads me to the other question you asked, which was about
00:35:05
schedule. honestly, I find
00:35:08
weekly works best. just
00:35:10
because everybody, if you put a
00:35:13
time in a place where you're going to be like, hey,
00:35:16
every week at this time, this is when we meet. And the thing of it
00:35:19
is, is with Adventures League, the way it
00:35:22
worked and the way the campaign, I last
00:35:25
was running the Seluria campaign. It was really
00:35:28
cool because if you were there, your character'there
00:35:31
if you weren't there, your character'not there. Right. Because at the
00:35:34
end of every session, for the organized play,
00:35:37
for at least the west marches. The idea is
00:35:39
at the end of every session, no matter what's going on, you
00:35:42
go home, back to the home base, the town of
00:35:45
Geeltar. Right. and you go to that. It was
00:35:48
really, interesting to have people go
00:35:51
back to town. They have tavern time where all the players from all the
00:35:54
tables get to mingle and talk about the things they found.
00:35:57
But while the DMs have our meeting to say, hey, this is what
00:36:00
happened, we need to update some stuff in the materials.
00:36:03
The weekly thing is very helpful. But the biggest thing,
00:36:06
it's not just weekly, it's consistency.
00:36:10
Consistency saying that at this day, this
00:36:13
time is when we meet. and so for us it
00:36:16
was weekly on Sundays from 3 to
00:36:18
6pm you know, that was our
00:36:21
time for us to play. and that's when it is.
00:36:24
And so the store can advertise it and say, hey, every week we meet
00:36:27
for the Rocket City Adventurers, league
00:36:30
or whatever we are calling it.
00:36:31
>> Clint Scheirer: Yeah, I did. I did a live stream about a month
00:36:34
ago and one of the top questions
00:36:37
that I got that I talked
00:36:40
about that I went on Reddit and had over
00:36:42
10 like, views and like
00:36:45
hundreds of comments too. It's like, what's the one
00:36:47
thing that kills a game?
00:36:50
And it's a lack of consistency.
00:36:52
>> Anthony: Schedule.
00:36:54
>> Clint Scheirer: Schedule. And it was like, if anything, keep it at
00:36:56
the same time, same date. And if you don't have a quorum
00:36:59
of enough people to play, play
00:37:02
somethingh so that people get in the habit
00:37:05
of playing games. that was, it's funny,
00:37:08
number one suggestion.
00:37:09
>> Anthony: It's funny you say that because I have that in a couple of my professional
00:37:12
games where if we don't have so many of the
00:37:15
players, I'm like, hey, do you guys want to play something
00:37:18
else? And one of my games, my longest running campaign
00:37:21
that I ran, was, if we weren't playing the
00:37:24
main campaign I was running, through, What's that
00:37:27
book of anthology adventures, Keys from the Golden
00:37:29
Vault. It was the heist campaign.
00:37:33
They were all trying to steal
00:37:36
something. Ocean'Eleven everything. The house,
00:37:39
Always. And so they had the heist
00:37:41
characters, and we call the heist characters even though we're done with
00:37:44
the keys from the Golden Vault. But we have one last
00:37:47
adventure they want to run because one of the
00:37:50
things that they stole that they nat twied their way
00:37:53
through was this vault of another thief.
00:37:56
They had to steal from another thief.
00:37:58
And they littered her place with counter
00:38:01
traps and stole
00:38:04
everything. Like, literally robbed her
00:38:07
blind with NAT 20s that were just.
00:38:10
And this is RNG, you know, the random number generated in roll
00:38:12
20 and DND beyond kept throwing NAT
00:38:15
20s on everything they were doing. And I'm
00:38:18
like, according to the adventure, the DC is like this.
00:38:21
And they just keep blowing that DC out of the water. And I'm like,
00:38:23
okay, well, one of the things they stole was a treasure map
00:38:26
to an island. So I have this entire adventure
00:38:29
that I'm planning for the heist characters that they're like, we're going to take a pause on
00:38:32
the. This current campaign we're running and go back to the heist
00:38:35
characters, and we want to see what's on that island.
00:38:38
>> Clint Scheirer: The side quest has become the quest.
00:38:40
>> Anthony: Exactly, exactly. So,
00:38:42
yeah, and I'm very big on doing that.
00:38:45
Hey, there's only three of us. There's only four of us.
00:38:48
What do we want to play? We can't play with. We don't have everybody.
00:38:51
a big popular one for my groups is call a Cthulhu. They're like, yeah,
00:38:54
let's do some Eldritch horror. something like that. But, yeah,
00:38:57
getting together to play something.
00:38:59
because, you know, we do this
00:39:02
because we love it, right? We do this because we want
00:39:05
to. and that's one of the big things with organized play. And
00:39:08
that I want all of your listeners to know
00:39:11
is 99 times out of 100, when you
00:39:13
go to a store or join an organization like Adventures
00:39:16
League or Pathfinder 2E, Club or whatever
00:39:19
it is, the people who run these things
00:39:22
are volunteers. They're not paid
00:39:25
employees. I sure as heck
00:39:28
wasn't. and there
00:39:31
were perks to being there. There were
00:39:33
perks of being the organizer, being one of the people to do it,
00:39:36
usually. But the biggest one
00:39:41
is the fact that we are volunteers. And we
00:39:44
do this because we love it. We do it because it's fun.
00:39:47
And one of my biggest rules
00:39:49
is, hey. And this covers a
00:39:52
myriad of situations. Just don't be a
00:39:55
jerk, right? Just don't be a
00:39:57
jerk. Be chill, man.
00:40:00
And as long as you're not being a jerk to everybody
00:40:03
else, then we're fine. and, I've had a couple of
00:40:06
situations where I've had to step in and
00:40:09
ask a player to leave because they
00:40:12
couldn't, abide that, for one reason or
00:40:14
another. so, you know, that's a thing.
00:40:18
But the consistency.
00:40:21
The consistency. Same day, same time, same time, same
00:40:23
channel.
00:40:24
>> Clint Scheirer: The kind of thing, yeah, you know, with
00:40:26
the.
00:40:27
Have you ever had to deal with player conflict?
00:40:30
there's so much conflict when human beings
00:40:33
together and we talked in the last episode about
00:40:36
for kids, it's really great because it helps them work through
00:40:39
real world conflict in a safe environment where they can
00:40:42
learn these great skills. but that some of the conflicts that come
00:40:45
up during games is like player conflict
00:40:48
with rules. You know, that rule wasn't the right rule or
00:40:51
this, you know, rules, lawyeringe, the hand waving.
00:40:54
ah, people not liking the hand waving. Some people want to play rules as
00:40:57
written. Ye, you know, how do you keep the environment
00:40:59
safe and fun to keep people from being jerks? You know,
00:41:02
like what is the number one way you can cut it
00:41:05
off at the head before it becomes a problem
00:41:08
or before there are any problems?
00:41:10
>> Anthony: Number one, Session zero. Yeah, session zero
00:41:13
is very important for that. But number two, and I cannot stress
00:41:16
this enough, a poster with
00:41:19
these are the rules we abide by. If you can't abide by these rules,
00:41:22
you can't play. And every store I've been
00:41:24
has a set of rules posted like if you're going to play at this
00:41:27
store, this is what you do. And it has been one of those things
00:41:30
where somebody is getting all bent out of shape and I point to
00:41:33
the, the rules and say,
00:41:35
hey, you know, this is what we
00:41:38
do. and like I said, I've had a couple of times where
00:41:40
players are not
00:41:43
being acting,
00:41:46
according to social convention, we'll say right, and
00:41:49
one player I've had to ask to leave. I had
00:41:52
another player storm off because they didn't like the results of their
00:41:55
own actions. and they never
00:41:57
came back.
00:42:00
I hate to say this but in those situations,
00:42:04
kind of good riddance,
00:42:07
you don't want that kind of attitude. You don't want that kind of
00:42:10
that vibe at your table. so
00:42:13
it's very big that you maintain a positive
00:42:15
atmosphere even when things are looking grim in
00:42:18
the story, even when things are looking dire.
00:42:21
Don't assume people are trying to be jerks if somebody's.
00:42:23
>> Clint Scheirer: Obviously assume the best of somebody.
00:42:25
>> Anthony: Yeah, exactly. And one of my other rules
00:42:27
is, and this is part of the rules posted in
00:42:30
session 0 is DM's rule. Ruling
00:42:33
is law, period.
00:42:36
Like if you don't agree with what the DM has to say,
00:42:39
that's fine. Come to me as the organizer
00:42:42
and I'll hear you out. But chances
00:42:45
are I'm going to side with my
00:42:47
DM. There's a reason I
00:42:50
have. As DMs, I vetted these people. I
00:42:53
know these people, and I have made sure that they are gonna be the
00:42:56
kind of people that are gonna rule fairly.
00:42:58
>> Clint Scheirer: Yeah. You know, that's,
00:43:01
I'm gonna jump to
00:43:04
the question I really want people to hear,
00:43:07
and the question is, give me
00:43:10
one moment. When you were running Adventures
00:43:12
League, or if it was the school club that made you
00:43:15
stop and say, this is why I do
00:43:18
this. Cause you said, we do it because we love it. Right. A
00:43:21
lot of people are volunteers. They're not getting paid for the work of
00:43:24
prepping. They're not getting paid to work with conflict.
00:43:27
They're not getting paid to, like, paint miniature
00:43:30
trolls from a shop that 3D printed it
00:43:33
for a LEGO adventure. Which is so cool.
00:43:35
>> Anthony: Yeah.
00:43:36
>> Clint Scheirer: You know, give me an example. The. The example
00:43:38
you want people, the listener, to leave with. that
00:43:41
really made you feel. Yes. This is why I do
00:43:44
this.
00:43:45
>> Anthony: It was a moment where, it was actually
00:43:48
my hail and farewell, for those military
00:43:51
listeners, my goodbye party.
00:43:53
and I said, hey, can I jump in and play
00:43:56
or run or whatever? If you don't want me running, that's
00:43:58
fine. they're like, have you in the saddle for one last
00:44:01
ride? Let's do this. You know? And
00:44:04
so for that adventure, we
00:44:07
did an epic where it's multip. Multiple
00:44:10
tables playing the same thing from different
00:44:13
angles. there was two tables. they were
00:44:15
assaulting a hobgoblin mine. One was taking the front
00:44:18
entrance and getting the vast majority of, like, the cronies and
00:44:22
the front line soldiers, and one group to go
00:44:25
in for a surgical strike to the main bad
00:44:28
guy and literally hold the
00:44:30
line. Fight him, of course, but hold the line
00:44:33
for the other table to finish their fight
00:44:37
and get to the main group or, get to the group with a
00:44:39
surgical strike to help them take down the big bad.
00:44:42
Right. And at the end,
00:44:45
they lost a third of the characters that went
00:44:48
in. They had a
00:44:50
33% loss. And in this, they were low enough level,
00:44:53
they still don't have the ability to raise the dead.
00:44:55
>> Clint Scheirer: Yeah. Ah.
00:44:56
>> Anthony: And so they're looking at this like, we lost a
00:44:59
full third of everybody that came into this. But
00:45:02
the thing is, even the players that lost their characters,
00:45:06
there was this moment where somebody
00:45:09
said, you know what? Even though my character died, it was
00:45:12
worth it. They said, we
00:45:15
didn't die purposeless. There was a purpose
00:45:17
to our death. There was meaning behind our death. We
00:45:20
died doing something important. And these
00:45:23
hobgoblin slavers we died doing something
00:45:26
cool. And what's cool is the Discord server where we host for
00:45:29
everything for this, group actually has a channel called
00:45:32
the hall of Heroes. That's. And it's the
00:45:34
character name, race, class, all that jazz. But
00:45:37
then it says how they died
00:45:40
and why they died. Right?
00:45:42
>> Clint Scheirer: Yeah.
00:45:42
>> Anthony: and that right there, that hearing that
00:45:45
was like, this is why I do
00:45:48
this. For watching those character development
00:45:51
moments where even when a player
00:45:54
character dies, the player can say, no,
00:45:56
this was cool.
00:45:59
>> Clint Scheirer: It's moments of the heart. That is so awesome.
00:46:02
And I love the idea of a Hall of. Hall of Heroes.
00:46:05
That's totally going into my Discord server.
00:46:08
before. Before too long.
00:46:09
>> Anthony: Yeah.
00:46:10
>> Clint Scheirer: All right, Anthony. I'm going to bring it back. I'm going to bring it
00:46:13
home.
00:46:14
before I do, is there anything else that you feel would
00:46:17
be a shame if our listener didn't hear you say
00:46:20
it?
00:46:21
>> Anthony: look for an organized play. It's always
00:46:24
fun to have your home group, but look
00:46:27
for organized play. You end up
00:46:30
with forging so many more friendships, more
00:46:33
relationships. in a world where we are
00:46:36
constantly connected, get disconnected. forging those
00:46:39
friendships and those relationships. Join organized
00:46:42
play. It is worth it.
00:46:45
>> Clint Scheirer: All right, now, as I always do, I want
00:46:48
that 10 word phrase. The activity from Eric
00:46:51
Newsom, NPR News. Give us
00:46:53
10 words, no more, no less. That helps
00:46:56
us remember and consider everything that you've talked about
00:46:59
when considering starting or joining an organized play.
00:47:02
What is your phrase?
00:47:03
>> Anthony: Oh, absolutely. This one was actually really easy for me, and I was
00:47:06
thinking about ahead of time. Playing together is
00:47:09
always better than playing on your own.
00:47:11
>> Clint Scheirer: Playing together is always better than playing on your own. It's a very
00:47:14
different experience playing on your own. Yeah, solo
00:47:17
RPGs are a thing. I think National Solo
00:47:20
RPG Day is in October this year. And
00:47:23
u, there's some really cool people trying to make that a big online
00:47:25
event, but it is just different. There is
00:47:28
nothing quite the same as playing with other people.
00:47:31
>> Anthony: It is U.
00:47:32
>> Clint Scheirer: And I can't wait to try some organized play. I might. I might jump
00:47:35
in sometime to. To. To get some firsthand
00:47:37
experience. Well, thanks for being here, Anthony. Thanks for your time
00:47:40
today. super cool, dude. I can't wait to have you on
00:47:43
again.
00:47:44
>> Anthony: And I'd love to be on again. Thank you. Take it easy.
00:47:46
>> Clint Scheirer: Playing together is always better than playing on your
00:47:49
own. So go find some organized play. Let's
00:47:52
play. I mean, unless you like solo RPGs, and in
00:47:55
that case, you can just stay alone.
00:48:01
Please, hit like or subscribe if you enjoyed what you heard today. If
00:48:04
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00:48:10
may you keep having fun as you continue to have a great time with friends
00:48:13
and tell amazing stories through tabletop role playing games.