Ethan: 1:00

Joining the X-Ray team today are… Jason Beaumont.

Jason: 1:05

Hello.

Ethan: 1:05

Eric Saltwell.

Erik: 1:07

Howdy, people.

Ethan: 1:08

And myself, Ethan Schoonover.

- Ethan: 1:10

As always, before jumping into the main course, we like to start things off with an amuse- bouche we call…

Ethan: 1:14

Appendix X.

Erik: 1:19

So in Appendix X, we do a little summary of all the media we're currently Jason, why don't you kick us off?

Jason: 1:28

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, Eric, I believe you talked about this in a prior We've been playing a game called Solium Infernum. This is a game on Steam. that we've been playing it via asynchronous multiplayer.

Ethan: 1:42

Thank you.

Jason: 1:42

So almost like an old school play by post thing that you could imagine from the days when wargaming was done. over play by mail. What I'm really enjoying about the game It takes some things that you're used to in strategy games and really So at the heart of the game is a very limited number of moves you can make And this really makes. every decision you make much more higher stakes than I think it does in a Where it feels like you're not really making high stakes decisions until But what I especially like about it is it has this diplomacy mechanic. where not only can you forge alliances with each other like you can in many strategy games. but you can insult each other And you can demand things from each other. And the currency of the game, the way you win is by racking up these points And so if I were to say, insult Eric, and he were to take that insult, then I would gain prestige. Like the Lords stuck it to Eric. But if Eric were to push back on my insult, like not take my insult. He then has to do something back to me. He has to, like, go to war with me in some way or. these things that they call a vendetta. So like maybe destroy one of my of engagement. that only lasts for a few turns. And he kind of wagers his own prestige on that. And what I thought was really cool about this is I think that oftentimes in tabletop RPGs. There's not. like really any kind of codified moves to use like a play by the apocalypse when it comes to things like diplomacy. I think there are often times it's like, well, you're in the land of pure role playing at that point. Some really limited skill check things you can do, like am I influencing is these kind of moves like demands insults or saying you're going to have a that has some mechanical heft to it and isn't just role play. And I think that that led to a led to more high stakes play. but, It was so thematic and it was so part of how you can imagine the lords of

- Jason: 4:19

even when role- playing, even when there is no mechanical heft to it.

Jason: 4:22

And I think oftentimes we've discussed on this podcast that you kind of sometimes need that little bit of mechanics in order to make And so now I'm wondering, has there been a game? maybe you two know of one, that has really explored diplomacy some mechanics

Erik: 4:38

For me, one of the things that makes this work for the game is that, it is surprisingly difficult to attack someone. for being a game about being in hell and backstabbing. the Lords of hell have a, compact or conclave that says you cannot attack each other unless you're in a state of either vendetta or something similar. And this to me, lends to there being a lot of cost and stakes to your diplomatic decisions, because either you're going to going to give another player prestige. because you bow down to them. or is going to cost you prestige because you bow down to them. or is going to open up the gates of attack. And so given those sets of options, and those aren't the only options. It really does imbue each choice with costs and benefits. It makes it… gives it a ton of mechanical heft.

Ethan: 5:37

So I realize that you guys are talking about Solium Infernum being a like a corporate management simulator. I'm just imagining your player characters wearing suits and backstabbing

Jason: 5:55

Yeah, absolutely. You could easily take this game and change the theme and keep most of the rules intact and do exactly what you

Erik: 6:04

I feel like that was a very Sartre comment, Ethan, that hell is other people.

Ethan: 6:08

Yeah, well, hell is certainly a corporate environment.

Jason: 6:10

Thank you.

Ethan: 6:10

in my experience.

Erik: 6:11

Thank you. I did want to respond to Jason, question about other games that do this. The only game I can think of is that

Jason: 6:22

Yeah. That's right, yeah.

Erik: 6:23

At the very beginning of red markets, when you're acquiring a mission, there is

Ethan: 6:29

you

Erik: 6:30

negotiation phase.

Jason: 6:31

Hmm.

Erik: 6:32

where there's like a track And you're taking actions that move you to one side of the track or the other. And

Jason: 6:43

That's right.

Erik: 6:44

And that feels to me like the closest very hefty mechanical.

Jason: 6:48

And I felt like that. mechanic really does a good job of setting up the push your luck kind of theme of red That's a great example.

Erik: 6:57

And it sets those stakes, right? And the fact that every player has…

Ethan: 7:01

you

Erik: 7:01

in a very delta green way has this, oh, here's my character's backstory with respect to I'm going to have a bond and that bond.

Jason: 7:10

Mm-hmm.

Erik: 7:11

has a need and that need requires money, whether or not that's medicine for

Jason: 7:17

Yeah, I think like one of us had to like feed our sibling or something. And the wasteland.

Erik: 7:23

Exactly.

Jason: 7:24

Thank you.

Erik: 7:25

Ethan, you want to tell us what your appendix X is?

Ethan: 7:27

Yeah, so this week or this episode, I am reading 1491. It's a book. New and it's by Charles Mann. He's a science journalist and Basically, just over years, kept encountering and accumulating a lot of 1492, so prior to Columbus. Which is, you know, obviously Columbus as the It's used as sort of a placeholder for general European contact. And it's regarding the population of the Americas, but the general trend, the position that he seems to take is and that a lot of the research presents is just absolute phenomenal scale of the population of the Americas prior to contact, which of course, you know, there are a variety of reasons why it zoonotic disease, smallpox and what have you. And it's an outstanding book, coverage of the different populations. and different civilizations over the course of thousands of years that rise and fall in

Erik: 8:50

Does that have for you some overlap with gaming?

Ethan: 8:53

So I guess sort of the way that civilizations are presented has changed for sure.

- Ethan: 9:01

And I think about the way that we present civilizations in role- playing, which I mean,

Ethan: 9:06

obviously D&D has a very like Not to overuse the word problematic, but as a problematic history with the way and that kind of oversimplification. And then the other thing that I think about for sure is just sort of the The complexity of these civil, the true complexity of these civilizations and Inferno and the way that you guys are presenting,

- Ethan: 9:35

the turn- based conflict. There very much was turn

Ethan: 9:40

hundreds of years conflict, like for example, the Incas, the way that, um, There was constant. conflict between different rulers and quite often almost exclusively quite bloody conflict. the rise and fall of different kings. I don't know. It's certainly grist

Erik: 10:00

I feel like you've brought up two potential new topics for future episodes.

Ethan: 10:07

Sure.

Erik: 10:07

but especially historical gaming and I've been reading Eat the Reich, which is a game where you play vampires and you go to eat Hitler. And the topic of how do you do horror in historical situations that were

Ethan: 10:38

you So for my second quick Appendix X topic, I am also planning a bunch of And so we're just getting some more backcountry plans in place. and, For those who may not know, front country is, you know, like you drive up to That country, meaning that you're hiking in.

Jason: 11:17

How long do you go out?

Ethan: 11:18

It depends. I mean, you know, a week overnight. It depends more. It's I. We're in the situation right now, just with the age of our kids, We're planning around everybody's schedule. So. My son has track meets now and my daughter is getting ready to go work. and all this stuff that now it's like when we're trying to plan an RPG thank goodness for modern calendaring applications which like i mean Pro parenting tip, everybody, is get your kids on calendars early and teach

Erik: 12:03

Oh, yeah. We do weekly family meetings because we do not have the

Ethan: 12:07

Interesting. Do your children do quarterly reviews? Do they submit reviews

Erik: 12:12

they do it's always a horrible time yeah we get terrible scores

Jason: 12:15

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Ethan: 12:16

uh,

Erik: 12:16

So Ethan, help bring hiking back to the gaming world for us.

Ethan: 12:20

So I have never done like a hike, not since I was a little kid. I've always And, you know, again, like I grew up in Wisconsin, used to go out camping all

- Ethan: 12:30

And if you look at the history of D&D, it's like a bunch of guys who grew up in rural Wisconsin making a game about going out in the woods. And I always think about playing role- playing games when I'm out. I always think about hex crawls and…

Ethan: 12:43

Of course, you're faced with the brutal reality of what a hex crawl is like

Jason: 12:54

Ha ha ha.

Ethan: 12:55

And I mean, when I say army surplus, I mean like Korean war era tents The tents were so heavy and they had steel poles. It was just crazy. I'm sure those tents are still around. probably the same ones. They'll never deteriorate. Future archaeologists will discover the civilization based on army surplus.

Jason: 13:21

Yeah.

Ethan: 13:21

But I do think now it's all like ultra light gear that I have. very lightweight stuff, which is great. But yeah, it's still a slog. You're

Erik: 13:31

when I was In high school, we ran a dark sun campaign. which takes place on a desert planet and is supposed to really evoke how hard And I would always try to get my players lost. out in the desert. and never could capture that feel of like, how hard it would be because it turns out that that hardness is like that slog Like you can't just continually repeat how hot you are and how the next

Jason: 14:03

To add to that, and I think this actually ties it into Ethan's book as And they end up getting attacked by… a cougar or something. And just the sense of the density and wildness of, of the woods of that era. really hit home in just those couple of paragraphs for me. And my family and I recently went to the San Diego Zoo. We went, did a spring And there's two parts of the San Diego Zoo now. There's a safari park. you But you kind of go out on like a little Jeep into, you know, where animals and the sound. is just very different than a zoo because you just hear the overwhelming noise of animals. And I remember thinking like I've never been able to bring those kind of And when I think about what it feels like to be in a desert or what it feels just the sensory descriptions. are something that I think I lack a great capability to do. But it really hit And then also at night sometimes, how much louder it is at night than you'd

Ethan: 15:31

Well, I'll just tell you, if you're into the sounds of the wilderness, they reintroduce Grizzlies to the North Cascades, which is right around in the Could be some exciting times for you guys if you want to come out with me. Which brings us to random encounters, of course.

Erik: 15:47

you So for my Appendix X, I am reading the book

- Erik: 15:52

Co- intelligence by Ethan Mollick. I was turned on to Ethan Mollick by

Erik: 15:56

in Ezra Klein Show podcast episode. Ethan Mollick is a researcher. He's actually a professor at the Wharton School of Business. He focuses on but he has. been consistently focused since ChatGPT came out. on how do we use large language models. and how do we use them in ways that are actually useful and productive? And I amongst the best on this specific topic. He's not going to give you 10 tips and tricks for prompt engineering. but in terms of thinking about use cases. And his focus is, is on learning. So he's a professor at Orton, and he wants to use LLMs to help And. He wrote an article about this, and in the article, he presents some and practice. And the fact that if the practice can be run by an LLM.

- Erik: 16:53

You can get a lot more variability in your scenarios. You can get real- time feedback.

Erik: 16:58

It's a very strong scenario. And he writes an article in one of the first. Scenarios he talks about is role playing a negotiation scenario. And I know a lot of people talk all the time about using an LLM as a game But… I have this bugaboo about GM advice. So there are people out there who give great advice. I think the angry GM is favorites. The Runehammer guy's amazing. Justin Alexander's amazing. But You're so focused on maintaining pacing that… trying anything new is a near impossibility. So I feel like even if I They never make it into the game because they never make it through that

- Erik: 17:58

And so I've been reading co- intelligence and I've been reading his paper with an eye towards maybe we could build or maybe I could build or whatever.

Erik: 18:07

a LLM that lets you practice specific tools and tricks that are taught as part One of the things I most love to do in every role playing game is something And this was invented for blades in the dark. And it says, yes, I will offer you an And coming up with good creative costs is freaking hard.

Jason: 18:36

Mm-hmm.

Erik: 18:36

And it's something that you could get practice at and you could get feedback on. described to the LLM here's the type of feedback you should be giving. Here's what makes a of GM best practices and tips and tricks and would actually get you over

Ethan: 19:10

When Skynet achieves sentience, Eric, we will blame you for it coming back

Jason: 19:17

Derek, this might be a little bit too weird, but you're far more of an AI you But the idea… that you could have an LLM listening to a game session. and giving you advice in real time in this style.

Erik: 19:31

you

Jason: 19:32

of one of the DMs that you admire would just be, I would love a little way I could glance down and like, what would Eric do

Erik: 19:41

Or you could maybe come back in the. right after the session and you're like on your ride home and and your phone in the car is like, hey, remember this moment from that game? Here's how I, Justin Alexander, might. have done that differently or something you could think about.

- Ethan: 19:58

like a GPS voice for real- time role

Jason: 20:05

Game Master Garmin.

Ethan: 20:06

Yeah, yeah, kind of, right? This is a really fascinating use of AI. I had not I love this description of a hurricane wall. It's really a good which is, you know, especially for those of us who have been gaming a long that contribute. There's an inner and outer part of this hurricane wall. The our experience. and our habits. as game masters. And then the inner part of the wall is sort of just the chaos And they both contribute. And breaking through that is so tough because in the moment is really hard to do.

Erik: 20:59

I actually think this is one of the reasons why I appreciate how often we as a group, as a table are trying play new games is because while on the one hand, and I love your discussion, Ethan, of the two walls. On the one hand, it makes one of those But on the other hand. It is an opportunity to really break some habits and practices because you're The other thing that I think is interesting about this approach, which is that It leverages what LLMs are really amazingly good at rather than just, oh,

- Erik: 21:37

I'm going to use it to write my role- playing game book, or I'm going to use it to generate my role

Erik: 21:46

we really couldn't do at scale if it weren't for having something like an LLM there. Awesome. So let's move on to… the main episode. Today's episode is randomness. As usual, let's start by defining our terms. I like to think of randomness as a form of uncertainty, but a very specific one. Uncertainty in games can come from a number of topics. It can come from the other players. So I don't know what what Jason is going to do when my character takes an action and how he's going to respond. Same is true there is information asymmetry, which is I may not have all of the information that either the GM has or other players But randomness is, I think, a very… distinct form of uncertainty. And I would propose that you could think of it as a type of authority. So we have talked previously. In prior episodes, we did an episode on authorities. And an authority is when a role or a player And that could be the system. It could be the dice. has the ability to say something about what happens. and what doesn't happen. And that's what, to me, randomness does is it is. Another authority at the table who gets to say what happens and what doesn't that is totally unrelated to the scenario. or two, the individual players who are currently playing at the table. Randomness can come in a number of forms. It could be a die that gets rolled. And that die could be rolled as part of, resolution mechanics, like do I hit the thing? Or it could be something like what happens in the world, right? So random What do you guys think about that definition? Is there anything you would

Jason: 23:48

No, it makes a lot of sense to me.

Erik: 23:50

you

Jason: 23:50

Are there games, Eric, that you would say, handle randomness in an unexpected way. that. you found novel or interesting.

Erik: 24:00

When you think about the types of randomness that you could have, I think So the first is very interesting, is the difference between what people have And output randomness is the one we all think of every day. It is. I go to do a thing. And then I roll to find out what happens. But there are other games. There is a Marvel superhero game, and I'm trying to We'll add it to the show notes. where the randomness occurs, if I'm recalling correctly, early in the round where before you've even said, here's my intent, you get a set of randomness that, for example, could roll how many action points For direct force, you only have three action points, but for deception, you have And so that telling you what you can do and having it be a random, you can right, a specific action in an encounter, into a set of pieces, right? here's my goal. I want to defeat the bad guy. I want to kidnap the princess. Here is how I'm going to do it. I am going to sneak into her room while she's And then there's a moment of resolution. Do I successfully sneak into And then what does that mean, right? And so somebody is gonna say, usually the Here's what happens. You successfully sneak into the room, but you only get as You walk into the room and you're super stealthy and you pull back the and it's not the princess. So these are all places… in many of them, are opportunities to place. to place randomness. I don't know about in the goal section, but in every by some randomness.

Jason: 26:08

Yeah, I love the idea of the input and output randomness. I'll give another Have any of you played any of Richard Borg's war games? He did Memoir What's interesting about those games is they're games that I definitely Because one thing that I think can get difficult with war games is you see And you have so many choices that you just become kind of paralyzed with do. And the way his system works is actually you draw a set of cards at the the parts of the board that you're allowed to make a decision in on that And this drives some people crazy because they're like, well, I'm going to Actually, people sometimes get frustrated because it's not very But it creates a bunch of tactical interest in the game where the input never know whether your opponent is going to be able to react against you on And then as a player, your strategies end up getting either accelerated or delayed based off of the game is a lot more interesting.

- Jason: 27:36

And I'm really excited to hear about the Marvel example you just gave, because I've rarely encountered a similar system in a tabletop role- playing game.

Jason: 27:45

I really like that idea.

Erik: 27:47

I feel like you find this much more commonly in board games these days. But is that it's a design constraint. It's a constraint that is fostering new And so if the input randomness says that, you know, hey, your wizard can't cast Fireball this round, then now scramble in for a backup plan, which is the moments I love the most.

Jason: 28:13

Ethan, you brought up an example when we were discussing this show earlier some randomness mechanics that you like. I think it was cards and chits and, things other than dice that create randomness.

- Jason: 28:28

Do you want to explore that a little bit? Was that something that you enjoy in tabletop role- playing games, things other than dice creating randomness?

Ethan: 28:35

Yeah, so I think the card example, the classic card example is that you have then determines events or conditions or inputs or outputs, I suppose, to the randomness of the scenario. And I really like, I like cards. My gut is that we could. utilize them in maybe ways that we're not utilizing them currently. Quite take the place of sort of a randomized table. of events or descriptions. And one of the reasons I really like cards is a table is very game master And cards tend to be a little bit more group or player facing. you're sort of developing a state machine right, to use computation terms, right, you're developing this state that world state to have it really be present in the players minds. And it's a

- Ethan: 29:48

You know, for example, in Yellow King role- playing game, shotgun injury cards are present for the players on a per- player basis. But they really also help the game master offload some of that processing that needs to happen to the players.

Ethan: 30:02

Yeah, I guess I really like using alternative tools for randomness where And. There's nothing wrong with that. I love dice. I think, you know, we've talked to use during play as much as anything. But cards are just a much richer surface.

- Ethan: 30:22

to provide that kind of semi- random component.

Erik: 30:26

The other thing I like about cards is that It creates or can be used in a way that creates an interdependence between you can use a dice in two ways or cards. You can shuffle the deck. have somebody pull a card. put the card back. shuffle the deck. Well, let's say you only had a deck with, say, five cards or 10 cards. I'm going to say five. And, the score mattered in terms of output randomness. So am I going to be successful It is. interesting that you know that there's a certain amount of predictability in that randomness. you know in five roles you're going to get every option. And it also plays a tension mechanic where Oh my gosh, there's only one card left. And it's the worst card. And I feel like that is… an interesting mechanic that I don't see people play with because I'm of just the aesthetic love of the dice. There's, you know, just like you said, Ethan, Dice's props are so

Ethan: 31:37

Yeah, you did a, what were you playing recently, Eric?

Jason: 31:40

It was a dread.

Ethan: 31:40

Yeah, was it Dread where you were also including cards?

Jason: 31:43

you

Ethan: 31:43

uh,

Erik: 31:44

Yeah, so it was kind of my variant of dread.

Ethan: 31:45

Right.

- Ethan: 31:46

The one thing I want to mention about that, too, is there are some other semi- random scenarios where you could have people. OK, let me give you an example. So we used to do purely random stat generation in D&D back in the day, where you'd roll 3D6. You'd roll them in order, and those were your stats. And you hope that your friend was looking away when you rolled a 6.

Ethan: 32:08

whatever. or two, like on whatever stat was important to you. might reroll. But if that didn't happen, you were stuck with some terrible scores. And of course, now we have things like, you know, matrix assignment where character. I wouldn't say that that's random. I mean, that's you're getting a pool of you know, a character draws, say, five cards and then has to discard down to this happens in board games all the time, right? You get a starting And so you have a random pool to select from. And then there's some player agency and choice that gets involved to then what you're going to do. I guess that actually goes back to your wargaming where you can play on the board, you're still selecting from that subset

Erik: 33:04

Some other cases I think where interdependence becomes interesting and that you can't do with dice or is Jenga. So the great thing about Jenga is every time you make a pull every time you do something where you use the randomness. that randomness always gets harder. and I think actually later on in the episode, we should definitely talk about Randomness is to create tension. It is, to me, one of the two main things that But in addition, there's also this mechanic that I think, Jason, you push your luck mechanics. And this can be done with dice. But as an example, again, I think All of these examples are way better explored in board games. But there are some games where you'll say like, Roll a d6. And your goal is, to get to 15. but no higher.

- Erik: 33:56

And whoever is rolling, we're playing a three- player game. Jason rolls a six. I roll a two. Ethan rolls a three.

Erik: 34:05

We do this a few times and now you're thinking, okay, I don't want to push my but Jason's beating me.

- Erik: 34:13

Do I push my luck or do I not? And that's an interesting interdependence between… I don't know any role- playing games that are using today.

Jason: 34:22

I wanted to explore a little bit Eric, you mentioned dice and randomness. I should say randomness as a And Ethan, you brought this up when you inadvertently, or indirectly, I should whether you're sticking to the roles. or you're fudging them. And so, And Eric, I think you've done a lot of thinking about just the role of

Ethan: 34:49

you

Jason: 34:49

And I wonder. how you feel about fudging dice and fudging randomness. Is that a, the GM gets to subvert authority? Is that a, You know, how do you think about that and the relationship with those? Bye. Bye. I don't know.

Erik: 35:11

Um, The… heterophenomenological world of the game world. and how important it is that it feels almost real. And so I'm very interested to

Jason: 35:23

Hmm.

Ethan: 35:24

Okay, so this goes back to AI and all sorts of stuff, right? back in my young days. playing like roguelike video games was a thrill because I was like, ah, this has very little appeal to me if it's like just an infinite if the overall substrate on which I am walking is completely randomly generated and there's, there's no plot or premise. it kind of sucks a lot of the joy out for me now. And I, so like in a, and Jason, we play the hex crawls with you, right? hex crawls are weird. I would love to talk about this and maybe you can dig text scrolls still have a map is important to me. and that that map has some intent behind it. Like, I can imagine using a but there has to be, some sense of what is where on the map. And there's some reason for those I want there to be a sense of intentional discovery. Like there's a payoff. I feel like if, everything is just purely randomly generated. There's no real payoff for me There's no mind behind it.

Erik: 36:37

Is it about that there's no meaning to it?

Ethan: 36:40

Ah.

Jason: 36:42

or authorship.

Ethan: 36:43

Yeah, yes. I think there has to be meaning. I think the meaning is derived So if we're dealing with a fully sentient AI, this is a different For me, I want sentience. I want somebody to be trying to like mess with me. You know, I want somebody to be challenging me. not, me to just be I don't want this to be purely like The challenge is just the world is hard. It's just random physics, just the collision of atoms. That doesn't appeal to me at all. That's why I really want to have some sort intent behind whatever game I'm playing. Now, There can be randomness as flavor. I think that's interesting. And I think sometimes even randomness can be then used as another because you can be like, well, this random thing happened that really And now the quest is to, you know, they have to take that person to a but there's authorship. happening there.

Erik: 37:43

And How does that make you feel about dice fudging?

Ethan: 37:47

I'm very pro fudging the dice. 100%. Okay. So.

Erik: 37:52

But doesn't that violate your sense of like, there's an objective world out

Ethan: 37:56

Yeah, okay, okay. Let me clarify that. I'm not in favor of fudging the It's because… you failed as a, Game Master. to properly engineer the situation or make a decision in the right way, and you let things go too far, you're You know, it's the classic, like, they didn't find the secret door. Right. If you've designed a dungeon where the secret door has to be found or And, then you like, Well, you didn't make it. Let's move over to the next person in the party and then why are you rolling?

Jason: 38:35

Right.

Ethan: 38:36

Don't roll for important stuff.

Erik: 38:38

That's right. That you've engineered a moment of randomness that has potential

Ethan: 38:47

But you see, this is why I think D&D ultimately is a badly designed system. because we do end up being motivated to fudge dice roles in D&D more than any And we haven't provided tooling to the game master and instruction and during play.

Jason: 39:18

I love the way you just framed this, because I think the beginning of the don't cede authority if you don't want another authority in play at that

Ethan: 39:34

Yes, enthusiastic nodding from me.

Erik: 39:37

So I was gonna say, If I had gone before Ethan, I would have said something that now seems super explain what I was going to say is My general idea about Dutch My general rule about dice fudging is It is okay as long as it doesn't violate willful suspension of disbelief. that there's a lot of topics like this that I come back to, oh, well, this breaks your moment of the movie. It's bad. And if it doesn't, it's good. But now I would like to say, I feel like… That's the brown belt answer to the question. And Ethan has provided the black

Ethan: 40:14

I don't know. I like your brown belt answer a whole lot, actually, Eric. That's

Jason: 40:19

I will say that there are moments where the system is so well designed that the randomness has actually cemented the realness of the world. and actually amplified it better than I would have as a GM. And I'll give One is we've been playing through the Pendragon Starter Set together. And we had just done the first kind of mass combat And I was like, I have no idea how this is going to go. You roll an absolute And I was wondering, at the end of the big battle, if it really would feel still like you all were kind of new night's or whether it would just kind of feel like, well, we rolled badly or we great that day. And I at least feel I'd like to hear your feedback on it. that it actually kind of cemented in the world to me in how brutal medieval combat can be And also how poor all your knights were at it. Because you faced a series of combatants. And you also tried, pushed your luck and faced some, highly trained combatants that were kind of over your skill level. And just through the rolling of the dice, I thought the system was so well I'm curious if you both felt the same way.

Ethan: 41:48

Yeah, I'll jump in here first. You know, one of the things that was is that the outcome of the battle was not in question. In that particular or at least as presented by Pendragon. And what I would normally consider a key part of the randomness or the variability of the game wasn't there for And the randomness was much more textural. Like you said, it was really focused on like, you know, if you look at history being bound up in that. That was really the experience that I had was there was a lot of randomness

Jason: 42:28

It's fascinating you put it that way, because now it makes me think about Pendragon as a system's overall use of randomness. Because for folks who haven't played it, One of the core mechanics of Pendragon is you actually roll against, character traits. that your character has. It's meant as a method for you to role play. not as a method for you to determine, it does kind of attempt to determine outcomes, but I think written directly in the rules. is basically like, as a player, you could ignore that if you wanted to. It's really there to guide your role playing, to discover more about what your And that's a very unique use of randomness that to me is all textural.

Erik: 43:13

I love that. And I think that is the best feature of that role playing game is. that set of attribute pairs that you can roll against to figure out what you're It's not something we see a lot of. And I think it really bakes playing your I'd like to take a step back for a second and I think we're starting to talk a little bit about what are the values that I feel like we just talked a lot about What are the different types of randomness? Why include it? right? Or should we include it? What I've heard so far is is Jason, you were talking a little bit about how, Hey, it can, it can allow you to disown in outcomes. it can allow you to say like, Oh no, that's not me. I'm going to leave this up to the dice. I also think that there's an element there that we talked about that the odds. that are created for the randomness talk a lot about the setting and about the when we were in that big mass combat battle. Holy crap, charging with a lance is just…

Jason: 44:17

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

Erik: 44:17

overpoweringly effective. Like, forget your sword. All you want to do is

Jason: 44:24

Yeah. Thank you. Right.

Erik: 44:25

Way OP. And I think that that is really an intent to say, like, look,

Jason: 44:34

you

Erik: 44:34

you are going to be a force. to be reckoned with. And so that's really, to me, creating setting in a way. What are the other values that you guys think that having randomness

Jason: 44:48

Well, you mentioned the tension it creates.

Erik: 44:52

Yeah, that is super important to me.

Jason: 44:53

Yeah, and I would say one characteristic of games that I feel when I've never experienced games where people are standing up at the table more because I think you successfully navigate the moment of randomness to a And so, you know, I think that's a major role of, no pun intended, a major

Erik: 45:28

Yeah.

Jason: 45:29

It's a high wire rack.

Erik: 45:31

Yes, that very much resonates with me. That is… definitely one of the biggest tools in my tool belt that I bring inside of

Jason: 45:39

Hmm.

Erik: 45:39

Ethan, how about you?

Ethan: 45:40

Well, I mean, I think just to go back to the history of RPGs, I think it's there was more you're doing a hex crawl or you're doing a dungeon exploration. the one of the core mechanics.

- Ethan: 45:54

of role- playing games, which has disappeared, by the way. This doesn't exist in 5e.

Ethan: 45:58

if you look for this in 5e, you will not find it, is the Wandering Monster tip. The Wandering Monster Table. That used to be like 80%. key part of any scenario that you bought. there would be a wandering monster table. So if you were in a dungeon… if you were in the wilderness. I mean, sometimes even in towns. quite often actually in towns, if I remember correctly, right? There would be every round. Not round. Every turn? interval of time. And. The results would determine whether or not the party encountered a random monster. And then you'd have a battle. Like that was it. That was baked in. And like, that's gone. It's a huge shift, right? I guess What I'm saying is like randomness used to provide the key activity in a way. which was fighting. We did this a little bit when we were playing Isle of Dread, Jason, where And it was fun. I was always disappointed if we didn't roll a random

Jason: 46:49

Yeah, absolutely. You're just like, oh, we're just looking for food today.

Ethan: 46:53

Yeah, like we were successful. What? We cleared that hex.

Jason: 46:56

Yeah.

Ethan: 46:57

Successfully? You know, I'm like, give me something to fight.

Jason: 46:59

Right.

Erik: 47:00

So Ethan, what is your hot take on this? What is the value of using a random table rather than the GM or some authority at the table just deciding. And, Why do you think it went away?

Ethan: 47:15

Well, so why did I find it so satisfying in hex crawl? And again, we anymore. And it's. to clarify, if people have not done hex crawls before, it's where you're and you are on a map and there is actual terrain and you you know, you're paying attention to things like, travel times and weather. And weather can be another random component. whether or not it's raining or not raining. This goes back to like my appendix X backpacking, like actual stuff that And. We just don't do a lot of that anymore. And I think that we've now we're narrative so much more and story so much more. and the role part of role playing. that the random part of play has really been kind of shunted aside. That's not a good answer to your question. You want to restate your

Erik: 48:13

So two part question, one. What is the difference that that creates in the experience of play at the And then like, do you think it's good that we have reduced that randomness?

Ethan: 48:23

I think it's good. I think it's because we have a lot more content to play I think that one of the reasons why it was like that is you would often play adventure multiple times.

Jason: 48:33

That's right.

Ethan: 48:37

Yeah, and there was a paucity of content in early role playing in terms of you It was hard to teach people to play. training wheels weren't there. As a kid, we played Keep on the Borderlands a million times. And it was, we really leaned on the random component to give it variety. until we kind of figured out like, Oh wait, I can write my own stuff. And then it was like, okay, now we're going to town on that. and the randomness. was reduced.

Jason: 49:06

Very similar experience with me. Can I bring up another role that randomness can play? This is maybe an unexpected one. which is comedy. fumbles

- Jason: 49:17

are one of my favorite things that can happen in a role- playing game. And without randomness, I don't think you get fumbles. Or maybe you do. Maybe there's a mechanic out there somewhere where fumbles happen in a non- random fashion.

Jason: 49:31

but fumbles to me. Maybe it's not comedy, but it's, I'll say maybe an extreme, action. critical successes and fumbles. Thank you. I think are something unique to randomness. And they both provide some of the most memorable moments at the table when

Ethan: 49:48

Yeah.

Erik: 49:49

which I also think is linked to the tension thing.

Jason: 49:51

Yeah, it is linked to the tension thing. That's like the ultimate release or

Ethan: 49:57

Yeah. I mean, one of the things I'm always striving for when we do playing fantasy. is I guess I'm less of a gritty fantasy player as much as like I'm a Fritz Leiber where there is a I mean, you see this in any, I think, any great fantasy series. There's you know, whether or not it's like Taryn, you know, Taryn, the pig keeper from Black Cauldron. Where there's like a lot of kind of, you know, situational humor of this kind

Jason: 50:30

And I would say we don't do a lot of play, at our tables at least, where the traumatic and grim.

Ethan: 50:38

Right.

Jason: 50:38

It does happen. especially if Eric's running the game. But I would say primarily the

Ethan: 50:45

Ha ha ha.

Jason: 50:45

turn into comedy.

Ethan: 50:47

So the fumbles that turn into grim, dark… severed limbs and horror. feels more black company to me. I guess.

Erik: 50:57

The other place where I think of Fumble… turns grimmer and darker. is when the table knows that they're doing something risky and that failure has a cost. I think the classic example in fantasy games is My partner is fighting sword to sword with some bad guy. and I'm in the back with a crossbow and I'm going to fire the crossbow. And I know. That if I fumble or even if I miss, that I am going to hit this other guy. And when we are all, broadcasting ahead of time or telegraphing. That, oh, this thing you're doing may have greater impact, but it also comes

Ethan: 51:45

Okay, okay, this is… I have an important question now, which is, so Same. situation. Okay. character is engaging in a sword fight. It's an epic sword battle and it's The fumble opportunity is… It fails and the sword breaks. Now. If we're playing… grimdark Saltwell special. company. You want… the result of that fumble to be really tragic, something bad, and you want Maybe there's a little bit more humor injected into it. And It can be. Up until that. tonal opportunity to that results from that randomness It's the same scenario. Right. But this is something that I struggle with. which is quite often especially with random events like that. I feel like players, especially players who grew up on D&D. players in general. they'll revert to kind of the humor mode I enjoy the grimdark stuff too, but yeah, How do you keep players' reactions, how do you kind of keep it on at least some sort of a and prevent. And we've all played with people like this. I'm not going to name any names. who tend to move more towards the humor, like the giggly, like, ha ha, I'm a pun here and it's going to be a silly moment instead of, retaining the tonal quality of a random event like that. Any answers?

Erik: 53:17

I think that is the hardest thing in all

Ethan: 53:20

It is so hard.

Erik: 53:20

gaming.

Ethan: 53:20

Thank you.

Erik: 53:21

We should do a whole episode on tone and how to maintain tone.

Ethan: 53:25

Yeah, maybe if we can figure it out.

Erik: 53:27

Yeah, that's exactly, exactly right. I think I'm a weird duck in that. amongst the ways in which I'm a weird duck is that

Ethan: 53:35

Thank you.

Erik: 53:36

My style is a GM. is super Grimdark, like you've said, is a very gritty game. super high consequences, very high tension. But as a player, I often find myself, and not even without intending to, but I am at that going absurdist or going to comedy or going into places that are Not what I want to make at the table as a GM, if I'm perfectly honest. It's

Ethan: 54:02

Well, I think, you know, we could say like we should we should definitely maybe off my comment off by saying that it reminds me of. what the purpose of laughter is, right? Which is sort of like a social And I feel like there's a natural human response or a natural human for kind of tension resolution and avoidance. and saying that we were in a dangerous place, but now we're in a safe It's comedy. Yeah. Ha ha. You know, they fell down in the cave, but you know, we bring that into gaming unconsciously. all the time. It takes some real gaming metal. to persist with the grimdark results.

Erik: 54:50

Totally agree.

Jason: 54:51

If I could just cap that a little bit, I actually think some of what we're Because I would say oftentimes, Eric, your behavior, regardless of which game we play or class you're playing And to me, the barbarian class, we could do an entire episode of barbarians as a class, I They're a player type. that creates input randomness at the table. where they're doing something unexpected to the rest of the table that And I think having somebody at your table And this is, goes back to table composition, which I think is another really important But having somebody, your player, that propels the narrative and propels the interesting and unique ways. opens up the play space for everybody. And that kind of randomness is something that a GM can ever prepare for. and the other players weren't expecting. And I think that creates a ton of delight. at the table.

Erik: 56:00

Yeah, when I'm being… really kind to myself in thinking about it. my behavior at the table as a player. I sometimes think that I'm just This is two sides of a weird coin that as a GM, I want to make tension as a

Jason: 56:14

Yeah.

Erik: 56:15

And in a scenario where there is not, it's not just already super tight and

Jason: 56:21

Thank you. Thank you.

Erik: 56:22

I'm going to go do the thing that's going to go make it tense. And honestly, I'm just going to freaking dive in or something like that.

Jason: 56:30

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, totally agree with you.

Erik: 56:33

So I feel like we're pretty close to wrapping up. I would like to… end with a comment that Keith Baker made the, maker of Apocalypse World. That's Keith Baker, right? And he said that the role of randomness is to create an outcome that nobody at the table would individually want. yet is compelling anyway. And I think that that is. perfect randomness that It creates that. Ron Edwards refers to this as bounce, right? Which is that there's something And that that helps create variance in story. And it helps create that sense of objective reality we've talked about. And it's what also allows you to create tension because it is, there's a

Jason: 57:24

I love that. I love that. I think that's a great way to end.

Erik: 57:30

Excellent. So let's wrap up. And the first thing we're going to do is what we

Jason: 57:40

One thing I'm going to take away from this episode and start to think about Is there a type of, input randomness that I could add to the system. that would make it feel unique and maybe thematic to the world or kind of fit in with whatever we're doing that session. So I really liked that part of the conversation. I want to explore that.

Ethan: 58:06

I guess for me, the takeaway is going to be, Thinking about adding in randomness to push against, this goes back to Eric, even your appendix X, which is the idea that We have inclinations. unconscious or conscious, but often unconscious. that it's so hard to fight against in the middle of play. but. I think judicious and appropriate use of randomness can help. push us out of that. And this goes back to your wrap up as well, right? But judicious can really help to fight against. falling into those ruts. and narrative and tonal ruts. And I. Those ruts, those are my real enemy in gaming. Throughout this whole series of and so like you talked about an LLM in the beginning and your appendix X, like, give yourself clues, having like a copilot to like, adjust the controls during the game or give you some tips on how to respond in And I think randomness at its best does that as well. So. I'm starting to actually break down a lot of the tooling that we have for role fighting against habit. So that's what I'm thinking about.

Erik: 59:24

That's awesome. For me, It's really… thinking about Every time I fudged a die. as being a form of, failure. And I'm really taking that to heart to think about, I mean, it's not like it's

Ethan: 59:38

J'accuse!

Erik: 59:39

And like, you know, it may be relatively harmless if it's not breaking I wouldn't be willing to pick anyway. And I think that's super interesting and compelling. The other thing is, Jason, Pendragon is the role of randomness in creating that setting of those nights and one of the rules of randomness is it actually informs you about the world and