Playing a Cooperative Game (with Nick Marini) 

Brennan: "You could have watched this 2 weeks earlier on Dropout!" Me, watching this 3 years late: "Thanks, good to know."

Theres a great quote from Chesterton along the lines of the last question: “Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.

I would love to be a fly on the wall for any of the campaigns they’re talking about

I could not agree more with the collaborative storytelling and background details between the DM and the Player Character. My character is an Eladrin Elf, Circle of the Moon Druid named Aurora, and essentially in her background, long-backstory-short, she was abandoned by her father and left in the fey wilds, however with a letter that was sealed with high level arcane magic. No one knew what the letter contained initially, not the DM or myself, I specifically and intentionally left the contents of the letter to the DM, which in turn, created an authentic intrigue and curiosity to go throughout this story to find out what the letter contains, for not only my character but for me as a player as well! Collaborative storytelling adds such a great potential of investment from all characters and players involved, and I am in love with the concept.

Nick - "Get in there, embarrass yourself." No truer words have been spoken about playing D&D or any role-playing game. You wanna do a voice, do a voice. You wanna act a fool then act a fool. If you're in the right group of players everyone will laugh with you or enjoy what you're doing and the play will be that much better. Thank you for another great episode Brennan.

I love the little pauses nick does. Because I feel this is so important to him that he needs to find the word that perfectly expreses his idea

Who else just clicks to watch whatever Brennan says? Oh that's right everyone does

"a flying mount is gonna be sick" idk why but that fucking killed me. but dude is right.

I love the "level 0" idea for brand new players. I'm still a pretty inexperienced GM, and it gives me a lot of latitude for teaching the mechanics of playing a character to a brand new player without worrying about all the extra details

Aww, this sweet boy.

9:34 No fuck that, fight harder for alliteration SCIONS OF THE STORM, fixed.

Nick does an EXCELLENT Brennan impression

Yes, talking with your group is a point that keeps showing up, but it needs to be hammered constantly as I treat it as rule 0 of every tabletop roleplaying game :) Also, that was a fun guest and a cool episode :D

fucking GOOSE EGG, my guy!

Can someone please get Brennan a reusable coffee cup?

I actually really, really like that analogy about the elephant. I will try to keep that in mind.

I adore the parable of the Elephant. Especially when talking about religion.

these interviews contain so much great and useful D&D advice and insights, my new favourite resource, thanks!

This is my favorite episode so far. Nick is very insightful and the conversation was very interesting and educational. Tell me he comes back on! (Just discovered this series recently)

I tried being the “traitor” character, but it didn’t work. The party was somewhat forced to do a job for a powerful Fae. My character despises the Fae and everything from the Feywild. After speaking with an enemy military captain, my character stayed behind to tell the enemy that another army is on their way to fight them. Basically giving them warning of an upcoming attack. The DM said “No, you don’t do that.” Never enjoyed playing that character afterwards.

Super insightful episode. Nick's input was fantastic and he seems like a cool dude.

If anyone had any doubts about your points on doing the opposite of what your character would do, there is a RAW example of that very idea in the form of the oath breaker paladin. By definition of the class(and subclasses) the PC has strong beliefs and ties those to their actions (I won’t lie, I wont harm the innocent, etc) and yet the rules give the oath breaker as a way to show that your character may choose at some point to go against what “they would do.”

Long time watcher, 1st time commenter. Been GM'ing since '76 and wanted to add my own spin to the question "Is it OK to kill a player for another player's choices?" 1. A GM should never plan to kill a character without that character's foreknowledge and consent. Feel free to set up difficult encounters, personally target the character, etc, but to deliberately set up an encounter to murder a character betrays trust, removes agency, and is demoralizing. Characters are going to die, it happens, but to pre-determine "Joe is going to die this session" and not work it out with Joe in advance (he's leaving the game anyway, he wants to play another character, etc), is a serious betrayal as a GM. 2. Never do something like this without *CONSENT*. In this case, the consent of both the betraying player and the affected one. Make sure both are OK with this decision, especially if it's going to involve death. Now, if it's just a tough encounter that has a chance of death but the party can also rally and survive it, and this is how the target discovered they've been betrayed, that's a fantastic story, but if a devil shows up, flat out murders the target, and the warlock goes "sorry, guess I'm breaking up with you", that is a HORRIBLE way for that player to discover it. Consent is a huge part of any campaign table. The players come to the table and give the GM their trust, the GM should return that trust by engaging them to get their consent for such things. Again, death is going to happen, you don't need to have consent for a tough encounter that goes South, feces doth occur. But if you're deliberately targeting a character, or worse another character is doing it and the GM is the instrument by using encounters, consent should definitely be gotten in advance. What if that target player has developed genuine feelings and has no idea that the warlock is doing that? They could be devastated, to the point of never playing TTRPG again. Seen it more than a few times, it's not worth destroying someone emotionally for a "great story beat".

Cool video. I would love to see Puffin Forest on here & get Brennans take on “absurd”, “tricky starbright”, & “detective Clancy”

29:18 Imagine how bad your initiative has to be in order for your turn to come two weeks after everyone else's.

...I was that unhelpfully mature kid... I will like this opportunity to say sorry, to all the grown ups that I met my first 5 years of RP 😅

37:14 if the pc that may die has the player ok with it then it’s ok

41:41 wise words to explain to someone after they say “That’s what my character would do”

"They botched a roll, so instead of finding Bone Gnawers they find Black Spiral Dancers". YOOOOO. That's just WRONG. That's a TPK. That is basically sending them to the slaughterhouse.

With the whole devil is going to kill another player plot, I think I'd be pissed off if my character died because of some shitheads poor decisions and not my own and I'm going to be upset with the player. I'm down for my character to die if it's mildly poetic but not for someone else.

36:47 PLEASE DONT EVER, EVER KILL A PLAYER, THAT'S A CRIME

Forget Brennan, Nick is the friend everyone needs.

Come hang with Brennan on our Discord! Sign up for DROPOUT: bit.ly/2KOHLyr Download the INTERNATIONAL app here: bit.ly/2OiNNoP

9:06 you can hear Brennan drinking

A friend wants to play as a plane shifted Mike Tyson, I think he has the means to pull a full arc out of this would-be one-off

Love

Man looks like Bobobo Combobo.

Brennan I have to push back on a statement you can't get mad at a fictional character. Did you not get mad and hate Dr. Shou Tucker or Envy when he killed Mase Hughes. Or did you not get mad at Denethor when he was about to burn his son.

7:11 So... these are gonna be One Piece pirates rather than Pirates of the Carribean pirates haha

This kind of conversations remind me of this Ted Bundy documentary where he starts talking about himself in the third person, to have the ability to describe his actions. Distance from yourself let's you unearth so much of your personality. The reference might be flawed (and not at all a comparison) but I'm so intrigued and amazed by these meta psychograms that are drawn by d&d campaigns. It's like reading Dostojewski and being allowed to take part in the deeply detailed and ever evolving narrative... Damn that was a lot! Brennan, props to you and your team :)

So I've watched all the episodes on RU-vid at this point and I'm trying really hard to synthisize all the information about the pre-play investment. What sort of specific actions can I take to get the players and characters to be interested and "in motion" and work cooperatively?

is this guy ezra koenig's estranged twin crossed with zach sherwin or not i need answers

I cant be the only one that thinks nick could be daniel tosh's brother lol

Man I typed way too much and eventually lost track of my original point and then ended up not agreeing with myself. So typed all this instead. Why do we play DND? What is "Fun" from a chemical stance, and additionally what is "fun" from a philosophical stance? What does your character sheet say about your mind? How about your player actions? Does everyone play DND for different reasons or is there a very specific list of reasons that everyone repeats without writing down? Do people play DND badly? How is that possible? Do people play DND Correctly? How is that possible? Everyone says "you can't win DND" so how is it a game, and why can you lose? Can you even lose DND? Is losing opposite to winning? What is the difference between someone losing DND and someone being a bad player? Is being a bad player the same as being bad at DND? Should every player also be a Game Leader? That's impossible right, because we are not all smart/creative/brave/stupid/able to copy enough? So what if you are a game leader, why are you different than a person who can't do it? There seems to be general agreement about the sensation of good players and what that feels like, and good leaders how it feels to have a good leader. However The actions we take to create those feelings can be entirely opposed. we cannot define those actions in a form that is separated from the story and campaign and humans you are playing with. There is no list of laws and rules that works for everyone. There is no fun that is exactly the same level of fun for two different humans. There is not any way to prove any answers given to the previous questions. We cannot even expect humans to understand this and be in charge of it in their own mind and then also be good at sharing their "laws of personality" with other people. How is it you read this far down here and didn't stop halfway through just to argue with me? The answer to that question is the answer to how to play DND. Everything else is chance.

I thought brennan was going to reveal something about himself with that intro

To new player , pls for the love of god. If you joined a group and by the 6th Session you have still have never touched a page in the PHD, do not have your own dice or char sheets/notes , or even a pen and rubber , just get your shit toegher. Like come on it at least been two mohnts, you only need to commit 15 mins per day to do be a good player. Just commit a bit.

Lol a person that betrays and loses is a traitor, but if they win their a revolutionary

Brennan is so yummy 🤤 lol. But seriously if I wasn't married...he could GET it