Finishing a Campaign (with Molly Ostertag) 

I just read through all of Strong Female Protagonist and got to the most recent bit that's like "Whoops! Sorry, no page today, Brennan and Molly have gotten a very heavy workload recently- Molly's writing for this little show called _The Owl House_ and Brennan's working on this brand new Collegehumor show called _Dimension Fucking 20."_ Just fills you with this bittersweet despair like, oh there's _never_ gonna be an update to this huh.

If I could play DnD with Brennan, Molly, and Noelle Stevenson I would literally explode

Watching Brennan talk about a subject he's so passionate about with a good friend who ALSO loves the same subject: YES. I never knew I'd love this so much, I could listen to them talk about d&d all day

I'm a guy and I've never considered being trans. I sometimes play female characters because I found that when I play male characters I always press 1 to do the good option. When I play female characters I play as if I'm watching a friend make decisions and I think "what would I want for my friend?" and I play a rounded character who is sometimes selfish and likes getting rewards for risking her life. Recently I've been getting better at role playing as male characters with flaws but I found it would be automatic with female characters as I didn't see myself in them.

Thanks for the shoutout to Wayfinder. 18 years since we started that company in 2001. Additional thanks goes to Howard Moody and Brian Allison, who started the direct inspiration for The Wayfinder Experience: The Adventure Game Theatre (over 30 years ago)

I screamed when I saw the title and I got hit by my sister because of that. Fair. But also!!!! Brennan and MOLLY!!!!!!!!!!!

Loving all the insights on Pilgrimage!! Been waiting for Molly's ep since the start - incredible storyteller, incredible storytelling!

2019 BRENNAN: Life is a nightmare - 2020 2020: [quickens]

On the topic of whether or not to fudge the dice, and how that can mess with your narrative and stuff, I actually had an object lesson in that fairly recently. It was basically my first time introducing a real villain, and the players almost caught her right then and there. And I realized, this is why villains would have minions, so that they aren't just one misstep away from their schemes being foiled! It can be really interesting to think through the logic of that kind of thing, because it can help ground your world and make things feel more solid because they're taking that randomness into account.

additional tricks to naming stuff: a simple way to come up with names that have meanings, just take the meaning and translate them into a few languages related to the rough cultural vibe you're aiming for with this place or person. this doesn't always work and sometimes you need to rephrase the meaning a few times but it can produce some really cool results. Also scientific or cultural specific names of plants and animals can make great fantasy names. When using plant or animal names I like using names that hint to the nature of its owner so if I wanted to be super on the nose I may name an assassin Belladonna Atropa (Atropa belladonna being the scientific name of deadly nightshade, which is also often simply known as belladonna hence this name being on the nose) but if i wanted to be more subtle about it i might call that same assassin Convallaria majalis (Lily of the valley). And you don't have to stick to the precise spelling or full name either, for instance: I actually feel like Atropa is a better last name than Majalis so i might just combine the two plants into one name. But Atropa still feels a little awkward to say out loud so maybe..... Atropio? and wouldn't it be fun to just throw in Belladonna just as a middle initial? I certainly think so! et voilà, may I please introduce you to Lady Convallaria B. Atropio, royal assassin of the flower court?

Brennan is hot. Molly is hot. This podcast is hot. The topics and opinions from these wonderful people? HOT!

The first bbeg that I made was named Thalus Blackmire. 14 year old me was very proud of this edge lord’s name. The party was supposed to be terrified of his grand entrance, but the moment I said it everyone starts giggling. It took me forever to understand why and they ended up tricking him into revealing his plot to the high priest of an empire. Which was very climactic for them, but anti-climactic for me.

it might be the sleep deprivation but the way I almost CRIED when I saw that two incredible inspirations of mine in a video together... and the fact that they're old friends?! amazingggg ahhh

"You were killed by a goblin that fired a weirdly good arrow." One of the most memorable moments in any of my games was when a bandit took a blind shot from behind cover and somehow crit in a system that used exploding crits to straight out kill the party's tank. It happened early in the campaign, but set the tone for a year of play to come that the world was hard and unforgiving. That moment changed the broader narrative substantially for the better and I'm very glad that I didn't fudge the dice to somehow save the PC.

some players catch every little hook you give them and run, others stay silent waiting for the quest giver. it's hard to predict how much railroading will be necessary ahead of time.

I'm a linguistic anthropologist and everything about the names bit made me so happy

Sitting here around 38:00 just thinking about my previous game session. The boss I had built up for the whole session as the leader of one faction within the old castle, one of my players wanted to assassinate him, the others were on board and I was happy to let them go along with it because they were all being super engaged in this tactical stealth attack. When the fight began it was intense, the tank and cleric pincered the minions, the ranger and rogue were taking shots with their bow and crossbow. The warlock activated his armor of Rakdos (Homebrewed armor of agathys dealing fire damage instead of cold) Pharblex bit and poisoned the warlock while being scorched. When the second round came about, they realized that Pharblex could heal himself... it was tense because the players had a look of "Oh shit! he's a mage!" and I was like "Yes!" then he rolled a Nat 1 when he tried to hit the warlock. I opened the app that I have to determine the effects of critical hits... and he knocked himself out for 3 rounds. Mentally, I had that defeated matt mercer sigh while I informed the warlock that he could attempt to insta-kill Pharblex. he took it, pharblex whiffed the constitution save... and proceeded to die.

My group actually finished a campaign the other week. It had been running for 1.5 years and we ended up at level 18. It was pretty sweet.

19:09 "My relationship to the idea of divinity has to become about gods representing not what is right, but what is true"

The last 15 minutes is absolutely packed with knowledge

Playing D and D with Molly sounds like a hella fun night

Brennan: "You can not think about names without thinking about history" Molly: "Names can be totally random"

"FALAS!!" - That is gold on toast... I've been there and it's hard to realize that the 7yr old little boy still exists inside myself and the group I play with... giggling ensues. Thank you again.

Thank you again Brennan - Molly is delightful. I'm learning so much in all these videos. It is sparking so many ideas I cannot type fast enough.

Y'know I was curious if the Molly they were talking about was THE Molly Ostertag. Writer, cartoonist (love witch boy and the girl from the sea btw), and y'know. ND Stevenson's wife. Creator of the original Nimona comic, showrunner of She-Ra, writer for Lumberjanes. Honestly ND and Molly are a creative powerhouse of a couple. What a small world that Molly also DM'd a game Brennan was in. That's just... wild

Now I just want to see an elemental's labor union in a campaign

Great Wizards who don't have complex names, Pug and Ged from The Magician and Earthsea respectively. You could actually make a Wizard with a typical Wizard name, but it's just a moniker they made up to sound more like a Wizard.

This is such a good podcast!!! Makes me really happy :))

Absolutely loved this Adventuring Academy episode

*_This podcast gud_*

This is like the 5th or 6th time I’ve come back to this video. Thank you THANK YOU Brennan and Molly!

I think a better solution to fudging rolls is to add on more HP during play. That way all your players can still get the satisfaction of getting those big hits in, but you can still hold on to that satisfying tension of a longer battle.

I fudge dice when players aren't having fun. An example that has come up before is that I turned a nat 20 into a regular hit, because the targeted player had just been rolling poorly and having terrible luck, and he was feeling crappy about it. I didn't want to pile on, so he just got hit regularly, and for an amount of damage that wouldn't take him down that turn. Because I wanted him to have fun!

I checked out Owl House because of this episode and gotta say… that show is adorable

I love how Molly basically did Baldur's Gate 3 before Larian did.

Molly writes on my favorite show, writes some of my favorite graphic novels, AND she plays dnd?!?

I have no prior knowledge of Molly but watching this podcast makes me love her! I'm super excited to see her content!

Brennan is Chidi Anagonye

Such an amazing episode!

I need more videos of Brennan explaining language and history. PLEASE!

I'm totally using "Fallis" in one of my games now and have part of his personality being "It's a common Elvin Name!"

Omg I did the same thing with naming a dragon when I was in high school. I thought it was a cool, dramatic name, and I didn’t say it out loud until years later when showing my artwork to a friend, with the name prominently written: Paenous.

Fudging rolls is definitely good if narratively satisfying. I had a knight character who was fighting this Pit Fiend pretty much the whole combat. Teh Pit Fiend had low HP and was about to be taken out by the knight. The Sorcerer (Who has been standing in the background the whole fight, taking barely any damage) casts Chill Touch and kills the Pit Fiend. But because it would suck for the Sorcerer to take the Knight's kill I just said ok and then moved onto the next person, allowing the knight to get his well deserved kill. He kills the Pit fiend and gets a sick epic how do you want to do this where he does a crazy gory kill and it was a very satisfying moment. It would have sucked for the Knight if the Sorcerer got the kill because he wasn't the one mainly ifghting the pit fiend. The sorcerer then gets his own cool moment later and everythign is ok.

This is the episode I needed right now. There's almost nothing talking about ending campaigns

I am still somewhat surprised that my first, long-form English campaign (as a non-native speaker), that I ran about seven years ago, using gestalt (sic!) Pathfinder rules, and with completely random people found on Roll20, reached it's conclusion after a year and a half of playing. There were plenty of trainwreck elements, but I must've done something right, because the party stuck by me and we had reached the ending. It wasn't the best kind of finale, but it was something. And, as years went by, that random group of people became another group of friends :) Anyways, that was another interesting episode and great guest ^_^

When can we get Dropout in the UK so I can hand you my money in exchange for wonderful content such as this?

I love the discussion of ethics in roleplaying! The space to explore different ethical ways of thinking inTTRPGs is one of my favorite things, and this discussion was great! I mean, Molly Ostertag is amazing, so I kind of assumed this discussion would be great. But still, knocked it out of the park!

"Brithombar and Eglarest were located on the west coast of Beleriand in the region called the Falas." - Don't feel too bad, that Tolkien guy made the same mistake. Personally, I just lean into it, my campaign map has a Falas, West Falas, and North Falas.

Please have Molly Ostertag be your co-host. This has been the most entertaining, sweet, interesting, fun conversation to listen to, out of all your guests. Would love to listen to you two talk regularly!

The scariest thing is playing a larp that's normally just fantasy la la la, night hits and the tavern building's lights go out and red eyes appear in all the windows and someone who was outside screams as they are being killed

40:15. This recently happened to my first D&D character, though there was some symbolic meaning in it. I was playing a bard, who was level 3. I had -1 constitution, and both times I rolled 1 on my health up with each level up. So I had 7 HP. Then I got hit by a Bugbear for 14 damage

"You would find a taste for blood"

in my D&D world I made the "outcast" (orcs, goblins, ectra) characters have a more roman name just to revers expectations

“Legolas gets shot by rando” - you should see how Richard the Lionheart died (it’s such a good example of actions having consequences)

WAIT MOLLY IS MARRIED TO NOELLE STEVENSON???? HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS???

Having an elven name that sounds funny to humans is very realistic.

28:55 Fabian inspo?! (minor spoiler for Fantasy High Freshman Year) I love it. It's so incredibly good.

OMG I love Molly!!

53:02 is a fact that has lived rent free in my head since the seventh grade when I read it as a totally random aside in the start of Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe

So...this episode taught me that words are fun but names are hard.

Man, I'm a big fan of Strong Female Protagonist, I'm so looking forward to listening to this podcast.

I don't fudge dice rolls but sometimes I really am tempted as the creature my players are fighting miss their third attack in a row. We have a curse at my table that is passed around, one person will keep getting trash rolls and then at the silliest time they get a nat 20 an that passes the curse to someone else, as the DM I have had this curse for 2 sessions now :( it is always funny when someone gets a nat 20 on deception when they lie about their name for no reason

The Railroading vs. Sandbox thing is also heavily dependent on the PC/players. You should first discuss what you want to play and to what degree. There are just groups that don't work with a "pre"-written story. Still, If it works it can be an even greater experience than sandbox campaigns (because the ending and the story as a whole have more defined meaning).

I will now have an elven npc in my campaign named "Falas", and they'll attack my players verbally of physically if they laugh. Btw I love these videos, I feel I've learned SO much. And I feel incredibly more confident in what I now bring to the table as a DM, these videos helps me to get a new perspective on how to handle different aspects of the game. And I LOVE IT.

Funny enough. My favorite video game RPGs are ones where you're given the option to create your own character. If the option is given to make your CAC a female character, my brain usually has me ask "Huh... wonder what might be different if I did this?" and so usually my first character on games where you can create your own is a female one for no other reason than to see how it might affect the game (Which, I might add, is usually no affect aside from the appearance of clothing.) In D&D my first character though, had been an Elf Fighter... I think... Like I was, 12 or 13 at the time... and the entire game just got me hooked from session 1

I have used a Star Wars name generator, and it gave me "Vital Zaku" which I love, because it makes my mandalorian exile sound like a Gundam character haha

Suicidal road trip is a rhythmic twin with Everybody Dance Now. The metaphor of rubber characters in a hard world is brilliant. College is a railroad. Backpacking through Europe is a sandbox. Being a hobo in 1937 is sort of a sandbox on rails.

When they started talking about wizard names, all I could think of was Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "There are some that call me.... Tim."

This sent me into a deep spiral to discover the meaning and origin of York lol it's a lot and has made me want to create a new fiction location called New Everwick

I'm putting this here because I know my players won't see this video until quite likely after my campaign is done. I'm taking a bit of inspiration from a post I had seen either on Giant in the Playground or Reddit or something like that, but it was an idea that I wanted to run with. Starting with a small, central town or city, have the first bunch of sessions be small stuff where the world doesn't hang in the balance. Throw out a few strong threats that the PC's potentially can go after... but wait until they've really started connecting with the Townsfolk that are recognizing them and rewarding them for sticking around and helping out. Just as everything feels like "Wow, this is nice... I can't wait to get back to tell [adorable fan kid character who loves asking about the interesting lives of the PCs] about this adventure." That's when you suddenly have an outrider or scout arrive, badly wounded and exhausted as he/she ran or rode with all their might to call upon the aid of the town's heroes and tell them that the city is under attack. Then the players are gonna go "No! JIMMY! We'll save you! and the rest of the town!"

50:41 Matt didn't follow this advice and now we got Mick Hunts forever.

On names, I had a character I named Teanus… slowed down a pinch, we get “Te Anus”.

Falas: It's normal where I come from!

One of the recurring things I'm seeing from this series is people talking about (1) things they like/prefer/do that D&D - as a system - isn't well-designed for, & (2) things they dislike or avoid doing that D&D has built into it or focuses on. And I can't help but feel like many would be better off at least _trying_ non-D&D games; more "rules lite", more narrative-based, or more collaborative systems especially. (Systems designed to address things like: pressure on one person, or not liking the maths involved, or lacking support from the rules for things they'd like to focus on, or wanting the mechanics and narrative to mesh in a certain way.)

One of my NPCs is High Priestess Zekthrala. Another is General Boom Daddy. These two characters are bitter rivals that have fought each other on different sides of a war, and the battle between them was legendary on both sides. Zekthrala versus Boom Daddy. Though, what helps Zekthrala's case is that her people, the Halbtot, don't know the names of the monsters they're fighting, so they don't know that she was temporarily killed by a guy named Boom Daddy. But, something I've noticed about how I named characters is that I tend to give higher class characters more original-sounding names, whereas I tend to give lower class characters simpler names. Like, for example, General Boom Daddy works for a smaller, smarter mutant named Malisand. Abom Nation's caste system puts mutant scientists at the top, like Malisand, followed by "normal" mutants, then giant explosive mutants, like Boom Daddy, then mutant zombies, and finally sewer-dwelling degenerated mutants. Whereas a runt of a Halbtot that betrayed The Nest for a different faction, The Renegades, was named Megahawk, a self-given name based on his adoration for his own mohawk. In the Halbtot caste system, at the top are albinos, followed by necromancers, such as Zekthrala, then there's siege troops, and then shock troops, then the undead slaves, finally runts are at the bottom below the undead. So Megahawk is *way* below Zekthrala in their society, merely livestock to the higher castes, which is why he turned against them in favor of one of their enemies.

Wow if brennan this person is the shit, they must be hella great

With fudging dice, it really only comes up because I'm not a confident enough DM to trust my encounter building enough for it to be able to stand on its own. I've built boss fights that my party destroyed in one round. I've designed quick encounters that dragged on way too long. Neither of these are fun for anyone at the table and I'll manipulate a die roll or HP pool here or there to suit the narrative and to make the story fun and engaging. For the most part though, if I have a well designed encounter that just goes poorly, sometimes the dice land how they want to.

I NEED TO SEE THAT TIEFLING WARRIOR I'M IN LOVE

So, the elven sorceror assistant is banging the dragon, and the dragon names people based on the role they play for them. The elven sorceror then translated the name into elven spelling. There you go ^^

Funny the meaning of the name Quinton Niles Radigast is Queens settlement son of champion passionate tender of beasts😂

First trick: Say it out loud. Second trick? Google it. You never know when a made-up word or name might turn out to be an ethnic slur or something.

Matt Colvile did the video on the railroad v the sandbox

My thought was "hold the girl up to the portal", like it's a retinal scanner instead of taking out the eye. Do portals consume the portal key? Or does the key just need to come close or in contact... Brennan went straight to the eye scoop, though. It would have been funny if that didn't work, because it required a specific eye not just any eye.

50:20 Anyone remember Purvan from CR?

I went to school with a guy who's last name was Fallus but was pronounced like Fai-iss

I know that D&D is popular and well-known and might be what everyone at a table is most comfortable with, but I really feel like if you have the urge to fudge *a lot* for narrative purposes, it might simply not be the best system for the kind of story you want to facilitate. There are other systems more conducive to telling the collaborative story the way you want it to happen narratively without needing to fudge any rolls because not as much stuff depends on the core numerical mechanics as it does in D&D.

"Real life is a nightmare!" 😄

Molly looks a lot like Rebecca sugar

Mm yes very good, much logic and ethics. NOW, how do i stop my players making dirty puns out of all my npcs name?

19:15 Literally Sokrates?

StarStruck Easter Egg...

regarding the names: Real Life Names are often so stupid. Eg. there's a big river in the UK named "River Avon" -> Avon is just an old world for "River" making it technically named "River River".

I think the dice are the hard realities of the world. Not much more. They are the walls you either overcome or hit and fall into the pit. They should be used in a way when the DM asks you to roll, then that has meaning and that there are possible consequences with the risk and the reward is possible greatness. With the DM I believe if he is fudging die roles on the least important parts of the story, fine. But if it's the bbeg or the political confrontation with your nemesis or if it's a key part of the story more than a one session side quest then it becomes a way of devaluing what the DM is doing with the world.

Just a little thing. Everytime you refer to Radegast you always say it's from Tolkien, but Radegast was a Celtic diety, I know that it's probably most renowned from Tolkien, but jist so you know. Love the show!

Wow, I'm so glad that RPGs have allowed folks to better find themselves and their identities. I'd be happy to make room at my table for that. It literally costs me nothing and would not detract from my game. Not that I'm entitled to someone thinking that my table is a safe space. It has to be a conscious act from Session Zero onwards. Even if it requires talking to players who are interfering with the safe/fun space.

If you dont want your players to lie about their rolls, then dont fudge rolls. The dm is the one the call for rolls, and the dm doesnt have to call for rolls! Only call for rolls when you want the result to be left up to chance.

Bruh owl house is lit

31:38 there is something inherintly dark very deep buried inside myself i think. if an apocalypse happens, i would try saving and protecting the people i care about, and if i fail at that and loose myself i can see myself becoming a quite grewsome person

Good golly, Miss Molly.

It is “absurd” that Puffin Forest has not been on yet.