[Second Wind] C02 - Ep. 43 - Vengeance in Vainia - Fengpik and Choose
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Hey little stinkers, until we figure out the future of the show, any upcoming premium content is going to be free to everyone. I just want to say thank you for supporting the show. Hello, welcome to Second Wind. Here we go. My name's Gus. I'm the dungeon master for Tales from the Stinky Dragon. With me, Chris Damaris, who plays Barney Farney. Barney Farney.

Micah the editor writer composer for the show and more importantly birthday boy. It is my birthday We just finished recording episode 43 of the grotesque campaign of tales from the stinky dragon the party Finally exited the clawstread got to fang pick. What do you think about it? What's what's going on here Chris? I mean

There's there's just it's still a lot of questions and we're I feel like we're slowly getting answers and pieces to the puzzle But it's like you know you've ever done a puzzle. Yes, I have no Pieces and you start and like you're sorting them by color and stuff you're like oh yeah These probably go over here these probably go over here these probably go over there And you're like it'll start getting easier as you start

Putting these pieces in but it doesn't really get easy until like right in when you're like yeah, yeah, yeah It's I feel like it's like that. We're just like organizing puzzle pieces and slowly you've got all your edge pieces Yeah, and now you're just working on filling out the middle and then the cat comes over and bats off The last puzzle I did

Missing one piece really yeah, yeah, yeah, I I it was at a coffee shop And I nearly tore the coffee shop apart looking for that last piece you never found it No, how long were the coffee shop you did a puzzle well? It was like halfway done, and then it was like we set there. I was waiting for a bus And a long wait for a bus yeah, and Yeah, it started doing puzzle, and yeah, it didn't finish anyway. What's what's up? I?

So I think you know every time we do second one we have a we be primed audience for questions the things that we can talk about and we try to talk about some of our fun moments favorite parts of the episode And I think that he's not here, but I think Mati trying to get hemo pieces from every sfrato Was was a great running gag. He's really an inspired piece of playing

John did that before not with tithing like we're in a religious sense, but he oh he bet it That's what he did he bet in the brawl. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was like John wants some money he's going That honestly I thought the most clever moment was John putting the fruit and more dapple in the app and the in the stew in the stew the blood buckets and

Okay, he had blood buckets. I thought that was really smart, really clever. Yeah, it was a good idea. We should play a game sometime and just have, like, play the whole session and then have Chris write down everything that happened. Oh. And just see what happened. See, line up the two modules. It would be like when he draws a map when we go somewhere and then seeing what he drew versus what the reality actually is, which is one of my favorite running gags that we do. Yeah. So I'm going to ask you another question, Chris. What happened to Eddie?

Y'all had him cornered in the sepulcher. Did- did- was Eddie in the coffin and they got drug around? I don't know. I'm asking you. I was like, "Wha! I got it!" Like, I had that, like, burp- My mic just froze. Uh... I was like, "That's the only thing I could think of," 'cause we searched everything, there were no- seemingly no trap doors or anything, and then... like, that little, uh, uh, uh...

Helper dude was like I'm I'm getting out of here and drugged the cap coffin away, and I was like that's probably it That's probably it, but why would Eddie why would Eddie want to go in there Eddie was in there? I didn't know hmm. You broke Chris's brain wait Eddie what wait was that Eddie gosh darn it I like who's Eddie yeah, we met an NPC named Eddie. I don't know anymore

Yeah, so I think there was a lot of fun exploration. So, you know episodes like this Always make me a little nervous because sometimes you know Micah when you have a module It's very clear. There's very like clear flow to it. The party's gonna do this the party's gonna go here They're gonna do this like it's a very linear approach to it episodes like this is very wide open. It's just like oh

An area with different rooms. It's like, and it's just descriptions of the rooms. It's a lot more like we're at, I feel like at the mercy of the party and what they're going to do and how are they going to try to break things and poke at the edges and, and do whatever it is that they do. Yeah. So I always get a little, a little nervous. I think it's,

It's funny that I've had multiple people in the cast and crew mention that this is a unique arc, the way we played it. And I think part of that is like, yeah, it's one thing to do a sandbox out in the wilderness. You can do that, and it's very possible. It takes a lot of preparation. But if you do it in an enclosed space where it is limited, there are a finite amount of rooms in this place. Then it's a lot more...

fill in the boxes and there is a lot more prep but it's it's a lot more manageable i think and so like yeah you can let them run free and just like see what happens and i think that that really came across in the way the party interacted with the sfrato a lot this episode specifically where you know at first they're hiding and they're afraid then they like elga comes up with his idea to play hide and sink with them and then by the end of it you know they're

Sitting next to them on pews, stealing money from them and then trying to relieve them from their duty, telling them they're off the watch and taking over. I feel like we got better at dealing with them. Yeah, I was talking with someone who's DMing as well, just started DMing, and they were saying they weren't expecting the party to do this or that. I'm like, yep, that's D&D. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so like sometimes you know they come across this like I really don't think this should work or this should happen But the roles are good, and I like the idea. It's like yeah sure we'll go with it We'll see we'll see what happens. What's the worst that can happen you know? Yeah in the end as long as long as everyone's having fun. That's it um Okay, so I want to hit up a few questions that we primed from the audience here for everyone here um

So Lady Ghost Ghost asks, when playing for the first time or when writing your first campaign, what's the most common mistake? Is there anything obviously you should think of and or avoid? I can say from whenever I wrote The Chosen Ones, there were

There were places where I overprepared, where I was like, I wrote out too much. I was like, oh, and also it might be worth, you know, we do shorter sessions, but like I overprepared and over had all these different things. There's no way everyone, they were all going to get to it. I think also one thing I realized is,

When you go into a location, not to over-describe the location, because it can be overwhelming to try and visualize and think through everything, but just give a baseline thing, and then as the party explores, then you reveal more for what they look into. Because then I think when...

You leave it open-ended and the party's asking questions. You find out what they're interested in. You can fill in those blanks as opposed to like filling in blanks that don't need to be filled. Yeah, like you don't have to describe every little detail of everything in the giant room. Yeah, I think one of the things that I learned early on as a DM or writer is like,

You're going to make mistakes. I think that's a farce thinking that you can know all the rules, you can know exactly what the party is going to do or have an answer for everything the party wants an answer for. And that's not true. Give yourself a break, especially when you're DMing for the first time and it's a homebrew campaign or something like that. You're going to make mistakes and if you need to, take a break. Or if you need to, just say, I don't know the answer right now, but we can answer that after. Or make up something and just go with that for the time being.

And some of that's easier said than done. But as a player, I think there's a couple of home rules that you want to keep in mind. You want the party to work together. That's one. So don't take the spotlight all the time and steamroll over what someone else wants to do. And make sure everybody's having fun. Role play, if you're comfortable with that. If you're not, maybe say, this is what my character does and be descriptive about it, that kind of thing. I think another thing, too,

And this is more on a player side. But if you're DMing, maybe whenever you're on session zero, maybe encouraging your players to not... There's a trope of the lone wolf who doesn't like talking to people. And it's like, well, that's not necessarily a good dynamic for a party. Yeah.

you know, a character who wants to engage with people and wants to, you know, meet the party. Because otherwise, if they're just a lone wolf who doesn't want to talk to... Then it's like, yeah, they're just not... Then you can play a solo DM sesh with your DM. But yeah, encouraging players to create a character that has a reason to want to talk to the other players. That's a good one. To Micah's earlier point about like

Making mistakes and you know looking stuff up. I've been playing D&D over 30 years across many editions in this episode I saw it last episode. I still have to look up. What specifically does stunned say? What does that entail? Don't be afraid to look it up be like yeah, I don't know. Let's read it Let's find out and sometimes sometimes you come across a weird thing like in the last episode like yeah a flying creature stunned Does it fall you know?

Sometimes you just gotta you got to go with it and figure it out and don't be afraid to Open up a book and read yeah I I play with some people that have been playing for years as well, and I haven't played for a long long time I've only been playing for a couple years now or a few years now and That person that I play with has always added their proficiency bonus to damage Which is not in the rules it means like they always hit really like high damage So we finally pointed that to them. They've been playing for years. I'm pretty sure I was like oh

That's actually not how you play. Yeah, you can't have a shield with a bow and arrow. Yeah, the proficiency bonus should help you hit. Yeah. And it doesn't help you hit harder. Right.

Interesting. It's just rules. Like, that's why they have, you reference them. You have a book or you have a, like a cheat sheet or something like that is always really helpful. How did you figure that out? How did you figure that out? How did that come about that y'all? Because they do the math out loud. And so like, we don't, we don't use digital dice. We like roll everything in and do stats and stuff. And like they were, the way they were adding things up didn't make sense. Or I think also they said it to someone else like, oh, you should add like this to your thing because you're this, right? You're proficient in this. I'm like, no, that's, that's not true. That's not how it works. That's not how it works. Yeah.

All of a sudden, like, the backlog of, like, all the damage that they took is turned on them. They're not actually dead. They're all here now. Yeah. So I think this is a very pertinent question, especially considering the episode that we just recorded here. From Emily Womily asks, what is or is there any presence of gods or deities in Groteth?

And we've talked about this in the past about the Great Maul and the Great Paw. And I think that now, you know, in this episode specifically, the party's finding like religious temples and ceremonies that they're coming across. So I think it's starting to get fleshed out a bit more. Maybe not necessarily the Great Maul and Paw like explicitly like we've talked about in the past. But, you know, there is maybe some stuff to be explored there. Yeah, for sure. I've...

I'm not being cagey about it. I just know that like the way I built the world, you have to dig in certain places to find out about spirituality. And I think that that's the thing about Groteth as well is like even our cast, like our party members are, we have a monk and a cleric and neither of them are super religious in the way they play. Yeah.

Is that accurate? Yeah. And I think that's telling of like how to live in the world is kind of, because I mean, you have all kinds of people that say they're religious or came up with an upbringing and stuff like that. So it just depends, you know? But I think that's the, that's part of the mystery as well. It's like, what is, that's what the cast keeps asking. Like, what is the deal with Ma and Pa? You know what else I want to know? What is that? You didn't submit a question in discord, so we can't answer it. I'm just thinking about, you know, like this is a way, way back thing is whenever, I

I don't remember who we were fighting, but every time we got knocked out, there were voices talking to us. And I'm like, we never got any answers to that. That's another puzzle piece. I was going to say, another puzzle piece. Because in this group... It won't...

It won't fit. It's not an edge piece. I don't know. Well, speaking of which, there's somewhat a related question from Shell asking, was there ever a moment in both campaigns where you were seriously considering killing off a player because they made you so angry with something they did in character?

And I think it's related to that I think Emily Wembley again had a question that was somewhat similar said have you ever had a monster change its target mid combat or an enemy changes its target mid combat to avoid Killing one of the characters like saving them Yeah, I think I will say from for the changing target one I try I

Every round I try to make it make sense who's being attacked whether it's someone in close proximity to the enemy Someone that's damaged them what you know if they're maybe further away, or if there's something that's drawing attention I try to make it make sense so I don't think I've ever pulled away from someone intentionally unless there was a

Like some kind of motivation or reason for them to do that. Yeah, a diversion of some sort. Go ahead. You also roll sometimes to see if it's attacked. Oh, yeah, if it needs to be more randomized. Yeah, I'll assign everyone a number and then just roll a die to see who they go after. That's if there is no motivation. Or which direction they go. Yeah, I think it's a weighing game of the balancing the scales of like,

you don't want to TPK the group every time, but if you're, if you want it to be high risks and high reward, then yeah, sometimes you, you need to knock them down to zero hit points. Cause like, it depends on like, if you're, if you're a party at level one, you're going up against a dragon. Like things are going to happen. Like party's going to die. Um, but,

use it as a narrative device rather than just like punishing you. Yeah. Yeah. To me, I don't know. To me, it would all go back to the story of it. And it's like, if a character died, then they would just need a narrative device.

work around for it. Another thing on top of that is like if there is a player and I've heard many stories like this that is testing the fates like there's a lava pool in front of them and they're like I'm going to jump in the lava pool you take you know 10d10 fire damage or if there's a boiling pool of blood exactly what I was thinking of exactly what I was thinking of

But yeah, I mean like don't hold back like if they're gonna you know test you like them's the rules There's a great Netflix anime series called delicious in dungeon. I don't know if either you watch it Yeah but the whole premise of that show is that a party goes in to fight or goes up against the dragon to fight it and

And one of the party members gets eaten by the dragon and the rest of them are killed and then resurrected. So then they have to go back into the dungeon to find the dragon to kill it and save their partially digested party member to resurrect them. So it's kind of the same thing where it's like that's almost like if you have a party member die, then it's like that becomes part of the story. And you have to go and try to deal with the aftermath of that. I think that the anime is really good because it deals with.

Party like in D&D parlance like a party wiping and then getting resurrected Yeah, what does it cost and what does it involve and all of that's really highly recommended if you're not watching it delicious invention And that's why you always have an extra character sheet with you Never know be ready to go Oh, but then following up back to what shell asked was there ever a moment where? Seriously considering killing off a player because they did something to make you angry that whether they did while in character I don't think that's ever come up in in these campaign and these two campaigns. Ah

Think you've wanted to do damage for sure that was to Chris not to his character. Yeah, I

You know what I mean? Even if you're a DM, like, you want to have fun too. And so, like, if you roll a bunch of ones, like, yeah, it can be funny at first, but, like, every once in a while you're like, okay, it'd be nice to get, like, a nat 20 now. Yeah, why not? I think, you know, that's kind of, like, the DM thing to play up that rivalry, like that, you know, that me versus you kind of thing. You know, in the end, you're all playing together. You're all on the same team, but trying to play up that, watch out, I'm going to hurt you. Yeah, it can be fun to be, to play that,

Even even role-playing - it's fun to play that you know I mean like if you're the if you're the big bad or something like that But it's it's funny to see that happen at tables like The DM enjoying that sense of competent not competition, but you know what I mean it There is like there is a sense of right I also find it more entertaining when combat is like hard mm-hmm you know like there's

Okay, there's there's the combat where we did really well and things are like cool and like oh, yeah We we cast the right spells. We did the right we prepped correctly We're all moving and that's really fun when we're just like oh, yeah Look how good we did and it's also fun whenever it's like oh crap this we are getting our our butts handed to us and this is like we're Barely coming by and that's that's satisfying too because it's like you've you know to come out of it on the other side You're like yeah, that was tough

Cool. We made it. Yeah. Yeah, we did it. It's a thing you shared. Yeah. Share any comment. But that middle ground of like, yeah, this was just like hitting sticks at each other until someone falls down is like less exciting. I think that's the difference between like setting up an encounter with just stat blocks and...

hitting things you know versus like every creature has a motive and tactics and reasons that they're there I think that really helps flesh it out a bit more and it seems more realistic you know like you were saying you you want to have there to be a flow between how the combat like who you're focusing on that kind of thing yeah again going back to last episode so I was very excited to have

Mateed outside of the vamps fire like that idea like oh I'll have one of this fraught to become mist go outside and then try to Drown Mateed or knock Mateed out of the sky. Yeah, it didn't end up working out But it's like fun to try to raise the stakes like that. Yeah All right. I think that's about it for this episode of second win again if you're watching this Thank you so much for supporting the show and for watching the content we make and we'll see you next week And happy birthday to you as well Bye

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