Transcript
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I didn't feel like I was represented in TTRPGs until I saw Carlos Luna, and that was like, hey, he looks like me.
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So I became a communist.
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I didn't feel good enough to be call myself Mexican or play Mexican characters because I felt like I was like a phony, obsessed with furs.
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Yeah.
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And then in the quote, I put gotta have it.
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Hello, friends.
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Welcome to Characters Without Stories, a TTRPG podcast about the roads not yet traveled.
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I'm Star.
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This episode, I'm joined by Adrian Lawrence.
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Adrian is a Mexican American DM who co hosts a podcast called Dungeons and Degrees, where he interviews individuals in the TTRPG space to show that the path to creativity isn't just a single path.
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They have also been a part of many charity events for numerous causes that use TTRPGs as outreach to raise money.
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Adrian, how long have you been playing TTRPGs?
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Oh, boy.
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I had an early experience back when I was just a wee lad.
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I want to say like eight or nine or something like that.
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My dad got the starter set and I was really wanting to try it out.
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And, uh, he was our DM with me and my brother and we played a game.
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We got jumped by a bunch of rats, and we had died.
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And we were just rolling horribly.
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And I'm like, I'm never playing this game again.
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And I stopped until college.
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Wow.
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Yeah, it was dramatic.
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And then I started There was, like, a weekly game.
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I would get off of work at, like, 3 a.m., and we played until the donut shop down the road was open, and then we just knocked out.
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It was a good time.
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Wow.
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College.
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So carefree.
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Uh, now, couldn't imagine doing that.
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Oh, my goodness.
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I used to stay up so late.
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If it was really up to me, I think I'd be up till two and three in the morning.
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But unfortunately, my kid likes to wake up at six a.m.
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So.
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Wow.
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Yeah.
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An in house timer.
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I love it.
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So you're bringing a character for Call of Cthulhu today.
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How long have you been playing Call of Cthulhu?
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I, for Call of Cthulhu, I think I've played roughly around three games in the past, like, two years.
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It's really hard to get a DM to learn a new system and understand the finer points and be able to then teach it to other people.
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So, like, I was the one being taught.
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I've made two characters and the one that I've brought to the table was Don Rigals.
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A character that was only made for a half session that unfortunately got cut short, just times didn't match up.
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But I was just so interested in the different side of character creation, because you roll a d100 versus the d20 for Call of Cthulhu, versus, you know, most, I guess, d20 systems.
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Or like, Dungeons and Dragons, which is like the, to be honest, like the catch all for most people who are laymen into the field.
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But yeah, it was, it was fun.
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I got to show some of my, be more outspoken in what I believed in like a political field.
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Cause they're like, Oh yeah, one of the characteristics we rolled for was like, Oh, you just have to be like really, really outspoken.
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I'm like, I think I can do that.
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So I became a communist, uh, which was funny.
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I'm not, I'm not like full blown, but like I have very leftist values.
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So it was just fun to, to express them there.
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It's like, yeah, the means of production should go to the worker.
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And then everyone's like, Oh, he said it!
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Your friends that you were playing with, how did they respond to that?
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Are they, do they have the same values as you?
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Oh, see, because there was only one other player with me, he was just, like, egging me really hard, but he was in character.
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He was like, oh, you're one of them red bastards.
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And I'm like, I'm just, I'm just saying, man, like, like, just, it seems like it's just all at the top and the working man's getting nothing.
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And I'm just, like, really kind of sticking it to him.
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But they're like, like, I think that's where we ended the session of me just ranting about communism.
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And then I didn't get to go further with that.
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I'm curious.
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Sometimes when people build a character, they make a lot of choices on their own.
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Sometimes they do a lot of rolling to figure out what their character's good at, or even basic characteristics.
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For this character, did, you said that you rolled for your stats.
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Did you roll for all of them?
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Did you make certain choices and leave the rest to the rolls, to the dice?
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Let's see.
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I think because in the system, you get pointed to your main stats, which are like, strength, constitution, size, dexterity, appearance, which is like the charisma adjacent, intelligence, power, which is more like strength and stuff, education, and luck.
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You roll 3d6, times it by five for most of those things, and then there's special rolls for the other rolls, but then you get to put points into your actual character sheet.
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It looks like so much stuff.
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And to be honest, at first, when you glance at it, and it's like, you know, skill page for 5e is just like maybe 10, 12.
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This thing has like a row like that, but three columns down across the field.
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And I put a lot into psychology.
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I put a lot into photography because like those as an individual, those are my, my interests.
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I have a bachelor's in psychology in high school and college.
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I took photography classes.
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I put that part of me in there to kind of develop my character to kind of like seed myself into it.
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And especially with like a new system, it's hard for me to be like, oh, I know what's good and what's not good or what's going to come up and could not come up.
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Because from my experience, it all depends on the dungeon master.
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It all depends on how they play.
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And then also what the hell am I doing?
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I have no idea.
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And just choosing each of these things, it was tough, but you're going to have some dump stats and sometimes you're not going to be able to roll it, but it's good.
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It's cool.
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It's cool.
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I like it.
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I've only played Call of Cthulhu, two or three times, and Every time I've used the like quick start character builder thing because I'm like, oh my god, this is very confusing.
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It's intimidating.
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It's yeah, it's pretty intimidating.
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But one of the things that I like about the kind of quick start approach is that they give you, you choose an occupation and then it's like this and this and this will be good for that occupation.
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But it's funny because one of the times I played and I don't even know if this was like a book standard quick start kind of thing.
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I was playing an artist.
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And you'd think, fine art, like painting, where is that going to come in?
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And because of the person running it, my friend Meadow, it was very important.
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I used that skill a lot and it's not something that you'd immediately think of using.
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I think of photography as maybe one of those things where you're like, maybe this will come up, maybe not.
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Oh my gosh, I put so many points into it.
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I put 80 points into it.
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I was using it because like Okay, this guy is a journalist.
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He's going to use photography in order to take a picture of what the anomaly.
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And I was mainly just like being able to use it as like a way to potentially filter myself away from the horrors that were going to happen.
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And that was my mind.
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It was a potential shield.
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I was used it a couple times, but this GM, played it very RP heavy, which I'm fine with.
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I'm not opposed to it.
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So I'm trying to remember if it felt like I used it a lot.
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I think I've used it enough for a half, half session.
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Once is good enough.
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In a half session, that's pretty good.
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Exactly.
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So you mentioned that you bring a lot of yourself into a character, particularly when you're learning a new system.
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Is that something you use as an approach every time you play a character or build a character?
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A lot of the characters don't get to see enough light, or I'm the DM, so I'm usually just like, all the characters I make are like, on the spot, and sometimes, because of who I am, I need to be a little silly.
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For one shots with my friends, I have one name, because names are hard, so I just use the same name over and over and over, but the person, the character itself, is completely different.
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And it just makes, helps me relax.
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I'm not taking myself serious.
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I don't have to worry about the game mechanics as much.
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I just have to, I'm here to have fun.
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So I'm going to push that to the limit.
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So I play ridiculous one off characters all the time, but like for.
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Call of Cthulhu, that's not the thing.
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Yeah, yeah, you're not playing a ridiculous little monster, kobold, or goblin.
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Goblingnomeno, all the short people.
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I like the little, I like the little guys of the TTRPGs.
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Just the little guy, yeah.
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Yeah, they're fun.
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I don't know why, I don't know, I think, I think elves are boring, if that's controversial.
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It's like, it's like, Like, the vanilla of TTRPG, I mean, also there's humans.
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I feel like humans are actually less vanilla than elves, because everybody wants to be an elf, because they get darkvision, and they're all, you know, beauty, whatever.
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Longevity.
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How many people play humans?
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I actually think that there's not as many people as we might assume that play humans.
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Usually the min maxers, because they want that extra, like,
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Variant human.
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Yeah, exactly.
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You already know.
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I know, I know.
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I've done it myself, okay?
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We have to know, we have to know what it tastes like, you know?
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I'm really curious, you say you give your characters the same name over and over again?
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Is it Don or is it something else?
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It's Jimothy McTavish.
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And then it was Special Agent McTavish, because he was a cop.
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And then it was Jay, Moth, McTavish, and Moth, it was like a leopard person.
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So it had like the patterns of a moth.
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And then there was, there was one more.
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I think there was just Jay McTavish.
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I think that was, oh, just Jim.
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And then just like shortened to McTavish.
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And that guy was, I was late to a game.
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I didn't prepare.
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And I said, hey, because I didn't prepare, it was a one shot, and I didn't make a character.
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All my stats are 10.
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I actually don't have any abilities.
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And I want to see how long this guy lasts.
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The DM was like, sure, fine.
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It was like this magical academy, and I was just like, the guy who just accidentally got in.
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Fun, fun stuff.
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And I, the only thing I did was like, help people, and climb ropes, and just do manual labor.
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And while they're like fighting a hydra, just shooting down magic, and I'm just like, let's go guys.
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We just gotta, we just gotta hide up there.
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I don't know where that goes, but it's fun.
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Nice.
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So what of yourself have you brought into Don?
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Definitely psychology, definitely photography.
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A lot of it was just rolled after that.
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So I put a brother, which I do have, and I, we get seen as the same person.
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This last weekend, his girlfriend came down to go to her brother's graduation and I went with her to just help her chaperone and everyone was like, Oh, why didn't know?
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And then I'll just say my brother's name.
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Dante was coming.
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I'm like, oh, no, I'm Adrian.
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I'm so sorry.
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It was everybody except for the grandmother who just like, who are you?
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I'm like.
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Oh, someone noticed me.
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So I guess the brother aspect of this.
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Other than that, I can't, I can't, I'm not a chain smoker.
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Yeah, I think that's basically it.
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Everything else was rolled for.
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I don't know.
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You always got to put a little bit of yourself in some characters.
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The reason why I do is just so I don't have to process RP as much.
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I don't have to filter myself through a different lens, like a totally different lens and also try to figure out.
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how to play this game.
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Closer it is to my own kind of how I would speak and act, the easier it is to focus on the gaming aspect.
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And so that way it's still fun for people.
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I'm not like totally out of it.
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You know, I do an amazing speech, but then I'm like, all right, what do I roll?
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Which is, it's fine.
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It's fine to ask, but it's like, I want to make sure that I actively looking myself for the information.
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So it's not all in the DM.
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And I think that's just because I've been the DM for the majority of my time playing TTRPGs.
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Personally, one of the things that I have the most trouble being very different from myself is in values and morals.
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I've never played an evil character.
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You're talking about taking your own kind of political values into this character.
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Is that something that you do across characters?
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Not actively.
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But if I portray myself, yeah.
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I have some left leaning values, and a lot of people just, like, think it's crazy, like, that people should have housing.
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Like, but who's gonna pay for it?
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Like, taxes, man.
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We pay for the military.
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Why can't we pay for this?
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Recently, because, well, I knew about the, your podcast through the charity that we work together, Doctors Without Borders, and this year I've been trying to, one, play more games, and two, be a little bit more outspoken about my beliefs, stop being a passive observant, talk more, and how I translate that to my characters, or my, how I play, Is that, usually, I put some scenarios about, like, not everything is black and white, or not everything is just as you see it.
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There's some deeper message into my DMing.
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It's hard for me to be like, I know the answer to how to find affordable housing in a campaign setting, but I definitely try to avoid racism in my games, and, and, you know, because like people are like, oh, orcs are inherently evil, and elves are just these, like, holier than thou.
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And I'm just like, I don't really want to deal with that, because, uh, I've dealt with it on occasion, just as I am.
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I don't really want to think about that.
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They're like, oh, how did this, these people come about?
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I'm like, they're just there.
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That's it.
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I don't want to put restrictions on class, race, and anything like that.
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I just, like, let my players have fun.
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Don't worry about the political ramifications of race, because I don't want to deal with that.
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So I think that's the major way, just how I DM.
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Yeah.
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So you DM a lot more than you get a chance to play.
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Oh, yeah.
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I am certified DM for life.
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I try my best.
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The only way I'm going to get into games is if I talk to other DMs.
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So, like, during the charity event.
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I was able to talk with Northwolf911 to play a game there in Walking Dead, which was fun.
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And then Johnny from TalkingXP, I got to play.
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So I was super excited.
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I got to do, just do whatever.
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And it was so much fun.
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And I got to play new systems that I've never played before, which is a plus because learning games, trying to slowly shift myself away from Wizards of the Coast as much as I can.
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Yeah.
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What is it about Call of Cthulhu that interests you?
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Horror.
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The idea that you can't fully win, like these are these Eldritch horrors.
00:15:52.009 --> 00:15:53.509
You're not supposed to be the hero.
