We meet back up with The Great Dez to find out if he enjoyed his first time experience with Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). We also delve into the freedom and spontaneity of the game, the role of the Dungeon Master (DM), and recap their recent game night Highlights include the excitement of role-playing, the strategic battles, and some humorous instances such as a failed transformation attempt and a near character death due to in-game conflicts.
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All right. So we're back with a great days and finally got a chance to play D and D. It was awesome. I was going to ask you how it felt, but I take it. We were only scheduled to be there for two hours and we ended up being four. Yeah. So time just disappears when you're playing.
Yeah. Yeah. It was once you get involved in the story and everything that the mechanics and everything that's going on, you can lose track of time easily. I was actually upset. I looked at the timer and I saw those two hours had passed and I just didn't say [00:03:00] nothing. And I was just like nobody else is saying nothing.
I'm just going to keep it going, keep it rolling out. Library, come kick us out. I was concerned that they were going to come and knock on the window and be like, Hey, somebody else needs this room. But then we realized we were in the wrong room anyway. So it was just like, okay nobody's coming. So we just keep going, yeah, it was a good time. I take it that you enjoyed it. Oh, yeah. What was your favorite part? Honestly, I think my favorite part was, it was really just the role playing. I think what it was, what I didn't realize was that it was, You're somebody that's giving input into the story and the DM has to counter you with whatever he wants to input.
I didn't realize it was so free like that and it required the DM to really be on his toes like when it comes to responses and rebuttals. You know of like things that you're going to do you know because I was really like I'm really forward when it comes to what I want to do I have a plan and he was there to counter me.[00:04:00]
Like every turn I took, he was, had something I had to roll for or at some counter Oh, you threw the, it's like some counter to what I was doing. And I'm like, ah, man. So it was a bit of back and forth. Yeah. I like that though. It wasn't like a free for all. Yeah. And speaking of the DM had to be on his toes, I remember one particular moment, at the beginning of the game, when, as soon as we started, And if you remember the story where the blink dog or whatever had taken all of our items and we had cornered the blink dog and he was like, what do you do?
And he's murder it. I just saw the DM's eyes like get wide. He's just if they kill this dog, then that just eliminates my entire story.
So I was just like wow. That's a question. Why is when we begin off the first thing, it was like murdering, kill it. So my objective is. Always to if [00:05:00] something has been robbed is to get it back as quickly as you can, because you only have a little bit of time to get whatever item, that you've got stolen from you back and a reasonable amount of time.
So incineration was, and to me, the most logical choice to make in that scenario. That's the incineration was the shortest point to A to B from A and B. That was the shortest point I could quickly deal with the dog. We all got our stuff back. Maybe y'all tip me. And then we're good to go.
So I've played a handful of adventures and then once I saw everyone was not everyone. It was, I think it was two. Your character and Will's character. We're yeah, destroy it, burn it. And I was like, wait, hold on.
It's going to be a long night when I'm the voice of reason. But you need that. That's what I like that in the team. I like having a diversified team now that I understand the game. Yeah. [00:06:00] Having a diverse team makes it really fun. There are some games where I've read where People just go they call them murder hobos, where they just go in and no matter what it is, they want to Rampage and pillage and ransack everything.
Oh, yeah. Yep. So actually when we played Divinity 2, a little off subject, when we played Divinity 2 I know that's similar to the boulders gate style, but that's all we, so we took, we stole from everybody. We took everything and we would do the story quest, but right before the act finished, we would go through and kill every single thing we could in that act before we moved to the next one.
So yeah, I know what you're talking about. I didn't know there was a title for it, but I know what you're talking about. They had murder hobos is what they call them. A little bit of chaotic evil as well. You said your favorite part was the interaction. I think it was just the interactions itself.
Okay. Was there anything that you didn't enjoy? So it's I don't think it's fair to say I didn't enjoy it. It's just, like, when you're doing the battling, it's fun, but to [00:07:00] me, the problem is when I played Baldur's Gate 3, I think that's what spoiled it a little bit. Because, you're on a console and you're looking at a screen of things that are actively moving.
Had I never, but I could still play it, though it's just, it's long. The battling portion, it's long, it's, It can be a long stretch, so it's, that's the part that you have to sit down and really be excited for, which I can. I was just getting hungry. So there was that, but now I know like these things are, they're lengthy even for one shots, even for a one shot, yeah, you get some snacks, you just hang out and I was like, keep going the whole time.
Okay. So no, there was nothing really that I didn't like. It was just unprepared for how long a battle would take place. That was about it. Gotcha. I think that the comparison is that is I haven't played Baldur's Gate three. Yeah. Shame on me. But I imagine it's single player. No, it's four players.
Oh, it's four players. Okay. I was going to say however, but in D and D it's a, you can have [00:08:00] it, what? Four to six people. And each of those person gets a decision as far as what they're going to do. And. There was a lot of text on the sheet to comb through, a lot of information to comb through, so like everyone like assimilating that Information and coming up with a plan on what they want.
Like you say, you always know what you want to do But I may not Know what I want to do when it comes to my turn. Can I'm still like trying to like, I'm still trying to look through the information and pay attention to the story. You pick up on clues. Yeah, so it's by the time they get back to me, I'm like, Oh let me come up with something real quick.
Yeah. Fireball, Sometimes it's like that. And sometimes if you've been playing like a campaign long enough, your character long enough to where it moves along a little quicker. That makes sense. Because I am starting with, a predetermined character that's here you go, you're level four.
Here's your sheet. You figure it out, [00:09:00] so from there, you're like, okay, that's fun. But so when I'm, I initially picked my guy, I'm like, okay, drew it. I'm used to the game. I want, I think it was like, I forgot what they called it. Like circle of the moon or something like that. So instantly I'm excited because I'm like, Oh, I'm about to wreck shit.
But then I was like, Oh, this ain't that Druid. This, ah, I fucked up, I ain't that type of druid. And so I see spell casting, which I absolutely hate because I don't like throwing firewalls. I don't like wizardry. I don't like magic. I don't like anything to do with it, but I was like, that's no big deal.
I'll make it work. This looks fun enough. I made the most out of it and it turned out to be a lot of fun to even just play with a mage who I despise. As opposed to somebody like, sword, shield, whatever, something like that, so it's, but yeah, if I started at level one, worked my way up, man, it'd have been, yeah, whole different story.
Yes, we have predetermined characters for the interest of time. Cause if we went through the character creation process, that probably would have been four hours in itself. Oh man. They usually call that session [00:10:00] zero. Where you backstory.
Yeah. So I just wasn't, I just didn't realize it would be, quite as long as it was. But it was still really cool. Like I enjoyed pretty much everything about it. I can see why it's been around for so long. Cause they just celebrated their 50 50th anniversary.
Yeah. 50 years of D and D. And that's crazy. I can see why, especially after playing for this one shot this time, like I can. I can definitely see why, especially taking it back from starting at level one and kind of working your way all the way up to the top or the finish level 20 and then completing a full campaign.
Oh yeah. Like I could, man, I'm sure you're going to put in some man hours doing that. It'd be a ton of fun though. Now I know you said that you didn't really have a least favorite part, but I remember there was one instance where your Druid was you were trying to wild shape, use your wild shape for your Druid.
And you wanted to change into. Turtle. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're like, I want to change it to the turtle. And the DM was like, you're a [00:11:00] tiger. Yeah. And you're like, oh. Okay. You know what? So there you go. That was my least favorite part. Okay. That was my least. Yep. I'll take that one then. So I blame the DM.
So it's the DM's fault on that one. Seriously. Because if I could have turned to a turtle, everything should have worked out. If I could have turned into my teammate because he was a beast. He was the barbarian, right? The barbarian turtle, right? And if I could have turned into him, my plan would have worked out.
I was cheated. And that was my least favorite part. However, it was still fun. Was there anything that you would change at all? Change? No. There's probably nothing that would actually change. I would just, like I mentioned before, I just bring some snacks, and be ready.
That's about it. I wouldn't change anything personally. I liked it just the way it was. So I know you mentioned you had played Baldur's Gate three and Divinity do you feel playing those two helped you prepare for the pen and paper D and D? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So when you play Baldur's [00:12:00] Gate, it was the same setup.
As the, as that paper that he gave us. Okay. Yeah. It's a character sheet that you had. Okay. Yep. Same thing. Every, the stats look the same, the way you're making it look the same. I'm familiar with most of the stuff that was up there. Excuse me. I'm familiar with most of the stuff that's up there. When it comes to like your perception plus one, for example, and what you need to roll to do certain things, although I'll be at like BG three, you're like, it's automated, so you don't have to really worry about. Oh, I couldn't beat his 12. I need to roll this 13 and I have to roll for, it's a lot of rolling you have to do that part. I wasn't familiar with only because I've never seen it, but I knew that was happening just automatically like bg3, like the checks and we had to do like a investigation check or an AC check to see if you beat the armor class of the villain and it was that like, Does the bulge gate do that for you?
Yes, it's all done. That's all done for you. So all of that's automated. You don't even see it. You're just like, oh, I miss him [00:13:00] or oh, I hit him, so that's it. But you can actually look at there's a back screen page to where you can see the role. Of what you've done. So if you really want to see everything that's happening, and there is a way to see it on Boulder Skate, but I didn't really care.
So I just never put that as long as you hit, it was fine. You just kept it moving. Like I understood what was happening. I understood how to increase my armor class and things like that. But I was like, eh, I don't need to see all this stuff. So with that the mechanics of, for, from what we played the four hour, even with the four hours that we played there was still.
A lot more mechanics to get into as far as like D and D came over. That was just like scratching the surface of like actual like D and D cause there are some instances where it can get even more elaborate than that. And you will have people set up like miniatures, forests, [00:14:00] Forestization. So actually show like an entire world, towns that you can go through and all with the miniatures and it is, it would be just like almost playing a chess version of Baldur's Gate.
I see. Okay. But with that is like where the mechanics easy enough to the pickup is. Oh yeah. Yeah. Once they explain it to you. Yeah. Yeah. You'll start to get it pretty quick. Besides the multitude of dice you have to use. Yeah. D 20, D 12, D 10, D sixes. Yeah. So there's quite a few dice. You have to get used to once you get, actually, I think the dye was the hardest part was yeah.
The dye was the hardest part. So you constantly have to figure out like except the d20 dice that one makes you know It's only 120. Yeah, but outside of that the other die are like Okay, Which one do you even, what's the one, the 10, so you're just, you're taken aback for a second because of the die.
That's the hardest part. Outside of that. No. Everything else is once you get it the first time and they're like, Hey, you gotta do this. This is the thing you have to roll to hit and you gotta hit up this. Okay, gotcha. I understand. And at [00:15:00] that getting used to the D each d, the D six is, we know what the D six is, but the tens and the twelves, the more you play.
And the more you be able to recognize like which dice to use and speaking of the confusion with the dice, but what about all of the spells and what do each one of them do? And cause even it was my first time playing a wizard and never played a wizard before as many times I played D and I'm looking at the spells and I'm like, okay, what the heck does this do?
Yeah. And I know there's a, an entire book or you can use the D and D beyond app to figure out exactly what each spell does. Yes. They have an app for it. And they have a book. Some of the player's handbook is a good guide, but like we said before, it's just, it's like a lot of information and it's, but it's interesting [00:16:00] information, which you wanted to know.
What the abilities of your character is? so That's just one thing like when I first started that was one of the more difficult things to me It was like what does this do? Yes, I know it says fireball, but what does it do? And you say fireball my I was thinking Street Fighter But it was like no, there's an area that it affects There's a damage that is affects and it's just stacks on to more to it than that What's up?
That part is dope.
So we did do a recording when we were doing our mission. But at the end of our campaign, our one shot, I keep saying campaign, but the end of our one shot got cut out. I don't know if you remember how we ended. We were surrounded by The cobalt, I will whoop in those cobalt ass. Let me say that first and foremost.
I just, I want to say that I was putting it to the cobalt and we ended up the, I think it was a [00:17:00] troll. Yeah. The troll, the giant troll was the last guy. And who, someone who delivered the final move? It was, I know it wasn't me. Oh, she could. Okay. So she could deliver the final move. Did you have any big moves?
That you were particularly proud of? No. . I got stuck as the tiger . Honestly, I was just waiting for the thing to drop my house so I could transform back. So you could transform back . Then I gotta throw my fireball. That was my standout moment. That was your contribution to it? It was . I'm just gonna take this damage so I could turn back.
And then Fireball.
What else do I have? No,
I think I hit everything. Oh.
Yeah you enjoyed the experience. I'm sure I don't want to assume but would you like to do it [00:18:00] again? Oh, yeah. Yeah for sure. Okay. Yeah, for sure I have to start my own dude and then I need the session zero he was talking about I need to carry the creation from the beginning. I need a full one.
Although I could do a one shot I could do one shot. Actually, I wouldn't care. I could do a one shot pretty easily again. Okay I think those are easier to just keep playing of course like your time schedule like you know what I mean? Like you got a life outside of d and d. I was gonna say that.
Yeah. Those I like the one shots 'cause they're drop in. Drop out. Yeah. And sometimes with the campaign, if you can't. If you can't, contribute to a long standing campaign is disheartening where people are depending on your character to show up and the DM has to come up with excuses of them not being there.
Sometimes that can be a bit of a problem. So Like these one shots they do them a lot at conventions too. Or if you go, you can just sit down, you get a character sheet, drop in, [00:19:00] play for a couple of hours and then you're done. Oh, so can you come in the one shots? You can come in while somebody's actively playing.
Like they're already playing. Or do you start at the beginning? That's up to the DM, whether it's a campaign or a one shot. I just mean if you were in a campaign, we would try and meet the same time each week. I meant one shot. Oh, I'm sorry if I say it again. Yeah, even with the, it's with both with one shot or the campaign, if the DM allows me, if somebody was, if we would have started, cause I remember One of our players got there late.
If we would have started, he could have came up with a reason to like, for the player that came in late for him to find this later on in, in the story somewhere. Gotcha. Gotcha. So it's all, yeah, I guess he's the master. He's the story crafter. And just the same way with the campaign, if we were playing like weekly and then somebody couldn't make it either, he could have came up with a reason why they weren't there.
And it, it really falls heavily on the DM. Some are a lot lenient. I've had some that will do a makeup session [00:20:00] with a character on his own. Say he went off on a quest on his own and he'll catch up with the group later. So he'll do a makeup session with another character that one soul character to keep him like leveling up with everybody else, even though he's not with the rest of the group.
And then they come together later on. So it really depends on the DM. Have you dealt with like crappy DMS? I have,
I have I've there, there was an instance where the, there was, I was coming up with some, what I felt like were creative ways to use the abilities and the DM was just flat out saying, no, you can't do that. And just left it at that. No explanation or anything. It was just, no, you can't do that. So it got to a point after several of the, no, you can't do that.
I was just like, okay, what the hell can I [00:21:00] do? And it became one of those and it just soured the experience for me. I understand. So it's really important. I think to have a DM that's malleable, I guess that's able to, because I've talked to some DMS and they've said, you create a story and be ready to throw it out because you don't know what any of these players can come up with that can derail your entire story.
I see. I see. I got you. You want to be, for DMs, I guess you want to be flexible, malleable, and able to go with the flow, and maybe even come up with a later scenario to get them back to the point that you want them to be at. Like that I got you, and big ups to our DM Like that's my first time dealing with the DM, but I see how they can really make or break a game Yeah, so like he did a good job like, at first he started off You can tell me he's just adjusting but as he keeps he [00:22:00] started going like you can the world building like the mental world building starts to happen as he was Like talking like man, this is actually getting pretty cool That was the point at that point like when he was really in his rhythm Was when I really started to enjoy it.
Cause I'm like following the story and I see it opening in my head. It's almost like you're reading a book, you're creating the imagery. And so that's what he was doing for me. So I thought it was doing a fantastic job. And so that's when, of course, I, to our market, I was like, eh, I hope the man sees this shit.
Cause I ain't trying to stop. Not ready to go yet. But no, that was, it was a ton of fun. I really enjoyed him. I think I would, if I was to have another DM, I would Hope it'd be the same guy again. And once I as I continue to do one shot to just get more involved In dnd. Huh.
I don't think I want to switch because I think if somebody's no, you can't do that And no, you can't do that. I'm like, yo Like I need this Like i'm already role playing. I need this right like you're shutting me down. I can't role play myself I don't feel like playing anymore. Just kick just kill me [00:23:00] Just kill my character
I've had,
there was an instance where I got not physically attacked, but in the game I got attacked by another player. And I, luckily I almost killed him and he got upset. Like our characters came to a battle and he got upset. The, cause I, I liked the thing. I can come up with some creative stuff. It was, and I always remember this story. It was one of the greatest stories of my life. As we were in this mining town, I found a, I was searching around and the DM was, I rode low and he's Oh, you find shovels and stuff.
I'm like, can I keep the shovel? Sure, why not? So I kept the shovel and then I got to the next town and it's is there a weaponsmith? He's yeah. It's I want to weaponsmith the shovel. And they're like, What? Everybody's looking at me like, what do you want a weapon? I'm like, yeah, I want to turn this [00:24:00] shovel.
The shovel I found into a weapon. And each as a campaign went on and on. Every town I went to, I had them work on my shovel to make it a proficient weapon. And to, it came to the point where that player attacked me. Did he attack you unprovoked or was it like a reason? It was something that I found.
It was an item that I found that would solve a puzzle and he wanted to take it from me. Gotcha. And so he drew his sword on me. And when he drew his sword on me, I drew my shovel.
But they weren't paying attention to how much damage my shovel had gotten up to. And I hit him once and put him on death's door and he was living. So it's not just DMS that could cause a bad game. [00:25:00] Also some players could also cause a bad game. I think the thing about the player though, is if the DM is still like you're having a good time with the DM, like in the player tries to draw a soul, if I was in your situation and I dusted them off, it's like you did, you don't got shit to say now, carry you somewhere, like you're dead, like we have to actively bring you back now.
So I don't care. We'll just leave you dead. So you don't count anymore. But I get what you're saying. I get from like another person's perspective, if they were dealing with a toxic player, how that can ruin the experience for them. So I get that. So all he had to do was explain to me.
He was like, Hey, this is the last piece of the puzzle that we need. Let's solve it. Instead of he, he's give me the piece. I'm like, why? And he's I draw my sword on him. I'm like, seriously?
And even the DM was like, really? He's yeah. It's okay I returned by drawing my shovel. So what was the [00:26:00] conclusion? After I put them on death store, I threw the item away and it landed in where it was supposed to go. And it solved the puzzle on its own. Oh, okay. So it was like some waterfall and he was, I was like, I tossed the jewel away because everyone else was like, Oh, this could take it from, I was like I toss it into the waterfall.
And then you see the DM's head drop. I can't believe he just solved this by mistake. Shout out to Jeremiah DM from long ago. So he's just drop this hand. It was like, I can't believe this motherfucker just solved this by accident. And that was the end of that, dang, so you spirited him.
You're a good guy. He was like one hit point away from dying. I finished him real quick. I tossed that thing back, and then finished him. Nah. So no nonsense for toxic players. No. I'm cool. I think as y'all play with me, I'm not like, it takes a lot to really get me upset in a game.
[00:27:00] Cause I legit don't care. So if you draw your sword on me with the intent to kill me okay, let's fight. I don't care if you want, if it's unprovoked, you're not going to make me upset. It's a game. So do what you, as you please. But if I kill you, I'm going to say something. So I'm just giving you a heads up now.
You say unprovoked. I remember another particular instance we were talking to. What was it? A bobble, a gobble, whatever that little thing was. Oh yeah. The smeagol looking thing. And he told the turtle, he was like, he had, what was the turtle's item that was missing? The turtle's item. Oh oh Froggy.
Froggy. You like, he took Froggy, he was like, what? He took Froggy and he grabbed him by the neck, I was like, oh, but yeah, we like to call that keeping the DM on his toes. I see. We'll get it, but all around [00:28:00] good times. Good times. Yeah, that was fun. That was really fun. Oh, but yeah back to one point where things so I like these kind of games because I feel like I can do as I please and so like even when you had the map on you and you had that stone that you picked up, but you had a duplicate.
So my goal was to steal it from you. Yeah, you steal my stones. That's right. I took your stone and I took your map, but it wasn't it what she wasn't against you. My plan was to use the map as a layout. to really like chart, like where we were and really see some of the best stuff. So that way, once we went back home before we went back home, my goal was actually to interrogate that one guy that we met at the beginning, the good looking elf guy was so as to interrogate him.
The was that the Seder? No, that wasn't a Seder. The good looking elf guy. So the doggy, the blink dog, he goes back to his master, the master's name. The Seder then. The Seder, okay. Yeah, I can't remember. I wrote it down on my other notepad. That's, that was the Seder's name. That Seder guy, I wanted to interrogate him to figure out how to get that spell to come [00:29:00] back to that place, and then once I had that, I would go back, hire like a whole army, and we would storm that place, and I was going to rule that land.
That was my goal. That's why I wanted the map, so I could chart things out. And the stone I took just because you had it and I wanted one too. I, maybe I didn't need all the stones. So before we even started, you had planned to rule the entire Faye. Wow. I was thinking small. Cause I was thinking it was like.
Collecting things from the Feywild to sell when we got back and didn't go that way. That's why there was the instance where he said there were dead minnows or dead fish or something around there. And I was like, can we collect the dead fish? And he was like, you want the dead fish? He's they're just dead fish.
I'm like, ah, from the Feywild, they're dead fish from the Feywild. Yeah. We don't know how much those are [00:30:00] going to go for. Yeah, that's true. I got what you were saying when you said it, but I was thinking so much bigger. I was like, nah, man, I can have this whole land. I'm already in debt back to where I'm from.
I don't want to go back there. This is like my Isekai. So now I'm teleported to this new world and I can start fresh. Like I'm not leaving this. There's all these monsters and stuff and I'm going to tame them and control them and then I'll be a God. So that was my thinking the whole time. Oh man.
That just proves the show that goes to show that how, okay. Like different players approach different situations when it comes to things like D& D. Yeah, which is really cool. Again, another reason I really like it. That pen and paper setup where it's it's pen and paper. You make the rest of it yours.
It's, that's crazy. It's awesome. All right. Great days. I appreciate you joining us. I'm glad I could give you your first experience with D& D. And I definitely would be giving you guys a call if I need any extra players in any future one shots, future episodes that may be doing over here.[00:31:00]
Just tell me the time. You didn't say, Oh, okay. You may just tell me, Hey, it's going down this day. And I'll just be there. All right. Awesome.
