Brian Murphy of NADDPOD is an Encounter Design Genius (SPOILERS!) 

Live by the dice, die by the dice

I think Critical Role has the benefit that they have been playing with each other for a really long time by this point, as well as most of them have only ever had one DM and has learned that everything he says could matter. So I definitely think it is important to remember when we are running a game and people that we haven't known very long are playing, that we might need to straight up tell the players what may happen. Also in the encounter, it was important to let the PCs know they need to find the NPC as soon as possible, otherwise they might end up spending a lot of time in an encounter than they should. I haven't watched Naddpod, but I am wondering how he would have handled a flight spell or two, where a PC could just flow down to the NPC and avoid everything. Obviously he would know if his party could do that ahead of time, but it is something to keep in mind.

@@bradleyhurley6755 I'll agree, and also remark that it's almost entirely the fault of Matt's players that they don't understand what's going on because they're too busy being hilarious. They accept the consequences of their actions (with a whimper) so it's fine :P

@@danielpayne1597 That's all on them that they haven't been paying attention. I think if you are going to do something like, you have to get to the NPC in X amount of time, you really need to make that clear to the PCs, otherwise they may not realize it.

Yeah my players kinda freeze when presented with a "what do you do", so I ask them if they want a handful of options and, when the options and possible concequences are provided to them plainly, they tend to extrapolate from there with their own thoughts and questions until they come to a decision they're happy with. Eventually they get faster but sometimes they just need an extra clue to proceed or a helping hand to minimise choice paralysis.

@@danielpayne1597 I know this is an old convo, but I wanted to mention Murph talks about jokes going on way too long & getting edited, math delay getting cut, etc. in NADDPOD's behind the scenes Patreon podcast. Editing is phenomenal for creating audio with focus & flow. And I also think it's helpful for TTRPG newcomers that unedited shows like CR let viewers see the distraction, misunderstanding, fumbling/mathing, etc. so they don't get the impression expertly-edited podcasts like NADD & WBN pull that flawless rhythm off purely at the table.

And Caldwell and Jake are just there to compete with eachother as their number one shipper, that about sums up the whole dynamic of that group

Hearing all the praise for these two, I’m worried what kind of people you all are playing with. They are basic adult players.

Emily is definitely the queen of whomp - she literally always is a caster, and finds the perfect spell for every occasion.

That was a hard yes and on murphs part but he did it and you have to admire him for it, you simply have to bend the knee

my favourite bit from the current campaign is the players being mad that one of the bad guys is too cool to make fun of

Murph takes any character that he plays and severely amplify their flaws, but in an absolutely hilarious way. Probably the best example is Jens Lyndelle, and another good one is Gerard the Frog Prince.

@@MaxBerson I love that Jens never learns a valuable lesson, and the other PC grow more shitty as the campaign progresses just from the desire for his approval.

"Strike true", "for the light" and the gnomish noise "tee-hee tee-hee" live rent free on my mind

@@claire3614 Oh man every time he says it, it somehow gets more raspy and nasally. My personal favorite badass turned joke from that campaign is -Pendagost The Betrayer- Pendergreens.

Oh god I still get goosebumps when the tall dwarf grabs the hammer

He learned the hard way to always be prepared for shenanigans because he's married to the absolute QUEEN of shenanigans. The way he seamlessly dealt with Emily splitting the party in Campaign 2 by making making Em, Caldwell, and Jake roll up the Endo-Friendos was genius.

and i think he's a relatively new DM who's still learning the ropes even and is constantly growing with each campaign set up, it's so great to watch/listen to him grow as a DM

I'd argue that his storytelling is also excellent

@@AnyssaBall and I wouldn't even try to argue against that! After checking out some of his sessions for myself I found the story quite enjoyable 🙂

I think his ability for drama is amazing. I mean the confrontation between Bev and his father, Balnors backstory etc. I feel like his ability for DMing drama is easy to overlook due to the heavy focus on humour (which is why the pod is so accessible). Furthermore I feel like Murph is so great at really just building situations where the players shine, which is really what you want as a DM, but it does make Murph seem like the person taking the least space in the pod.

Oooo thats a good one!

The twist with the Starspawn killed me (with laughter)

@@LizzieNeedsALife STARSPAWN!

Starspawn!!

Starspawn!

Jabari the Safari! I still froth on the way that the three of them literally just freaking RAN across the country to to their balls to the wall mission.

She's on my list!

Yeah she does a really good job playing her character, and her characters are always just really fun. I dint think their has been a single campaign she was in where i didnt absolutely adore the character she made within like just the first few episodes, and she has given me tons of inspiration when making npc's in my campaign.

It feels like they're almost house ruling Familiars, it almost seems like it's just a way to say you have advantage on literally everything if the player doesn't have to use their action to have the familiar do something

Make emily president of the USA and her strategic genius will all but ensure world peace.

Honestly the whole Dimension 20 team is full of amazing players that exemplify different qualities of good players. Emily is the best at following her impulses no matter how absurd, Sioban is awesome at sticking to her character's traits and limitations, Lou Wilson is incredibly honest in every performance even though he builds characters that hide their insecurities. They all do all of these things to varying extents but they are all very good role models. (I still feel Travis Willingham is the best example for table etiquette I've ever seen though)

"Am I wearing a vest??"

One of their best bits hahaha

@@ork44 I like icrpg, but more than that I _really_ like Hankerin encounter design. His series of videos on traps and on the 5 rooms dungeons design have been among the most impactful on my DM career. Even if I DM since 30 years and I had already read the very insightful 5 rooms-dungeons theoretical introduction from Johnn Four at Roleplaying Tips, Hankerin videos really flashed the idea out with super smart encounters, the role of the _theme,_ the absence of trade offs between having a compelling story and giving agency to your players.

I'm super interested in what you're speaking about here, could you elaborate on the temporal agency component? I'm a newer DM so some of my descriptions are lacking just because of nerves/inexperience, so I've independently noticed that a sort of rules framework has been improving how my PCs feel, but you put it into words exactly what I was feeling. For the temporal agency part with the short rest I often do things like that: I'm factoring in how long they took, if they forego a short rest etc to determine how far along the event would have progressed. In my mind I feel like I'm offering a ton of agency that way (and overpreparing as a newer DM!), not choosing for them. Is it because those mental calculations I'm doing are behind the DM screen doesn't convey the same sense of urgency?

@@des757 You are spot on, let me try to flesh it out for you. Imagine that a dragon is going to attack the players city in 1 hour, unless the kobold ritual controlling the dragon is interrupted. Once the dragon starts his rampage, it will take one hour to fully destroy the city. The characters are now in front of the kobolds cave, and they have to decide how to act: they are pretty bashed up, low hp, few slots: they could really use a short rest before the final battle. What will they do? Now, let's imagine the two cases. First, let's imagine that the players don´t know the exact timing and you are keeping track of timing behind the screen. Do they have enough time to take a short rest? How can they know? In real life they will have a hunch if they are late or not, but in the game they will try to understand from your vague answers if they have time or not. It will be an exercise in master reading, and unless you make them understand _clearly_ that time is really sharp, they are not taking a real choice: if I ask you to choose between envelope A and B, and I don't tell you anything about the two envelopes, it is _not_ a choice. Only if you know _some info_ about the envelops you are actually choosing. Indeed, now let's go to the second case: the players have a clear idea of when the dragon is going to attack. At the beginning of the adventurers day you set a d12 on 1 on the table, and you will increase the dice by 1 every hour. In the morning you tell the players that the dragon will attack when the dice is at 12. Now every step during the day, every choice of searching for loot in a random cave, every short rest up to now, it has been an informed choice, an opportunity for roleplay while they consume a finite resource they know about. And now, at the end of the day, because of their previous choices they are too late or just in time, and they are now facing a very precise choice: should they rest, and attack when the dragon already started the attack - likely causing a lot of civilian deaths - or attack now, without a short rest, risking their life and the whole city? This is a very interesting choice, both on the strategic layer of the game and on the roleplaying layer. Can even spark heated discussion among players! You will never have a heated discussion if they have to choose envelope A and B without any info.

@@bobon123 Cheers! Thanks for elaborating, given me a lot to think about.

@@ork44 I'm about to homebrew an ending to lost mines, because It's taking too long to get through the module, and I want to run my world. Thing is I started the campaign playing pathfinder 1e, and homebrewing the entire thing. Then to save time on the learning curve I switched to 5E cause imo it's a lot easier to pick up and play than pathfinder. I also prefer some of the design choices in 5e, and didn't have the experience to just steal those rules and put them in PF. When I made the switch I got kinda lazy with setup, but now I really just want to run my world, but I don't want to have the players make new characters. so fast forward to now and the players are 1/4-1/3 of the way through the final dungeon. I'm going to shrink the amount of encounters. Tweak them with some ideas stolen from Matt Colville's action oriented monsters episode of running the game series. Dash of a bit of things I like and poof we have a finale. Bonus points I think the party has most of their resources so they might be able to nova the boss. I don't even think I'm going to track the boss's hp, I'm just going to wait until each party member does something really dope then when it feels right the next source of damage will end the encounter.

Its such a good encounter!

Another amazing DM I admire for this is Mark Hulmes on High Rollers. He does a lot of absolutely brilliant encounter design, like summer blockbuster movie style encounters. He will seriously set up a lot of encounters in the way games and movies set up certain set pieces. Yet is still able to reign it in for D&D and be approachable for his players. He might have a boss fight have their own unique mechanics that the players need to puzzle out during the fight, but he is always up front about the rules and mechanics while still leaving a sense of mystery up to the players on how to overcome it. And if the encounter takes place over two episodes, he is willing to adjust rules and explain the adjustments to the players. He is willing to say "Hey, this didn't work last time. Here is how I'm going to change it so you guys have more fun." He really gets his players and how they will enjoy the session, and tries to make things fresh and unique when he can while still making sure they are having fun. High Rollers is worth getting into. I'd say a there is a chunk of the earlier episodes that are pretty standard fair, but ultimately has been one of my favorite Actual Plays in the long run.

Thats an interesting point! Hard to disagree with Tolkien haha And thank you!

Thank you!

Thank you!

Haha thanks!

Thank you!

Glad you enjoyed!

@@castlecaster Yup! Found the second example most helpful. Having a goal a little further away to get to gives the players a reason to not just surround the boss and have the fight end up a bit of a slogfest. I think the hardest part to manage in a fight is getting the players to have reason to move around (mainly at low levels) without throwing too many enemies at them.

@@ItMeansSun Low level encounters are a challenge to balance, let alone to make more dynamic. So I feel you there haha

@@castlecaster I've had *great* success using minions (inspired by both Matt Colville and 4e D&D).

Thanks!

Thanks!

True lol

I recently started listening to it! Its absolutely insane lol

@@castlecaster Ohmigod yeah, shenanigans galore

Probably won't do DM videos on Emily and Caldwell. Or at least not any time soon. Mostly because I could never get into trinyvale and Emily has only DMd one short campaign. I may do videos on their player styles at some point though

@@castlecaster works for me dude! I get you didn’t like Caldwell’s style. I didn’t either but I do think you should check out the one shots and live shows. He’s much better in those in my opinion