What's the Deal With: Dungeons & Dragons?

Grab your D20 and roll initiative — it's time to talk Dungeons & Dragons. Inspired by their recent Triple Quest journey, the gang talks about their experiences playing with Matthew Mercer this year. They also get into their personal D&D histories, the game's recent surge of popularity, and how Baldur's Gate 3 has impacted it all.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Jason Schreier?

  This week, the PlayStation turned 30, but there have only been five of them. Come on PlayStation, get a move on. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we are talking about Dungeons and Dragons, a game we've all been playing recently, thanks to Triple Quest. Let's get into the ups and downs of D and D.

• 0:30Jason Schreier?

  I'm Jason Schreier.

• 0:31Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm Kirk Hamilton.

• 0:32Speaker 02

  And I'm Maddy Myers. Hello.

• 0:34Jason Schreier?

  Hello, hello, my friends.

• 0:36Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 0:36Jason Schreier?

  How was your Thanksgivings?

• 0:38Speaker 02

  It was great.

• 0:39Jason Schreier?

  Kirk, how was your Spatchcock turkey?

• 0:41Kirk Hamilton?

  My Thanksgiving was great. As I mentioned on that episode, on last week's episode, we had a brisket at my friend's house.

• 0:48Speaker 02

  All right.

• 0:48Jason Schreier?

  But you had a turkey the weekend after.

• 0:50Kirk Hamilton?

  But Emily got a free turkey at the store. They were like giving out free turkeys. I think there was a turkey surplus this year. So we had this big turkey. It was like an 18 pound turkey or something in our fridge. And we just made it and had some friends over for post Thanksgiving, not Thanksgiving. And we did Spatchcock the turkey. Emily did the honors of all the gnarly stuff that you have to do. So you'd have to ask her how that part went, but the turkey came out great. And it felt very good to do it after you so enthusiastically endorsed Spatchcocking. So yeah, I cosign, I cosign your endorsement of that method.

• 1:23Jason Schreier?

  My shop right also gives out free turkeys. It's like a promo every single fall for like, if you have their loyalty card or whatever, you have their membership thing, get a free turkey. So, hey, it's a, I guess it's a thing. There are turkeys, turkeys everywhere, frozen turkeys everywhere.

• 1:39Speaker 02

  Is it before Thanksgiving, they give you a free turkey? Or is it like a Halloween candy situation where it's right after? Oh, wow.

• 1:45Kirk Hamilton?

  It's before.

• 1:46Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:47Jason Schreier?

  They're giving out frozen turkeys. Yeah, they, they offered me when I already had it. So I had them give it to charity. All right, well, if you want to hear more Spatchcocking tips, you of course should become a member.

• 2:00Kirk Hamilton?

  You're in the right place.

• 2:02Jason Schreier?

  Maximum Fun. Maximum Fun is our podcast, Eric. We are a listener supported podcast, which means that we are only able to do this show because of. All you fine supporters out there and hey, guess what? Everybody can be a supporter. All, every single listener, every single person listening to this right now can become a supporter. Yeah, we don't stop you. If they want by going to, we do not discriminate. You just go to maximumfun.org/join and you can become a supporter. We, we welcome everybody. Every, we have a big tent here at TripleClick. And not only do you get to be inside of the tent, you also get bonus episodes from us every single month. Once a month, we put out a new one, including the ongoing Triple Quest Saga, which is our triple,

• 2:47Jason Schreier?

  triple D and D campaign, triple part D and D campaign, our three part. Extravagance DM'd by the one and only Matthew Mercer. We just put out, Kirk just finished up the epic finale and put it out on the bonus feed. So if you're a member, you can listen to that right now. If you are not a member, um, episodes one and two, as well as our kind of pre-planning episode, are all on the main feed and you can sign up to get the finale a little bit early. It's pretty cool. I recommend it. But also we do bonus episodes on all sorts of stuff. And we will be recording many more in the near future, including uh, some games talk. For those of you who are, who are members and are like, oh man, like this D and D stuff. I don't wanna, I wanna hear them talk about things instead of play a game.

• 3:32Jason Schreier?

  Not to fear, we have more of that coming. There's a certain JRPG we've all been playing and all finished up and might wanna talk about uh, some more. Uh, and of course our annual tradition of talking about things we like this year that are not video games. So lots to talk about, but you know what? If you're not into the D and D stuff, you should just shut off this episode right now. Kirk, what are we talking about? Yeah, that's a good point.

• 3:56Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, we are talking about D and D this week. We're talking about Dungeons and Dragons and its uh, vast legacy. The shadow of D and D looms over a lot of video games. And we just spent a lot of time playing it this year together. And also I just spent a lot of time like really, you know, editing and working on this three-part saga of Triple Quest, which is now, yeah, as you said, Jason, complete. At least in the members feed and everyone will get to hear the finale in December. So I, you know, I've been thinking about D and D a lot. I've also been playing D and D for the last few years with a group of friends. And it just seemed like this would be a good opportunity for us to talk about it some, to talk about tabletop role playing, role playing in general.

• 4:39Kirk Hamilton?

  A little bit of an addendum to an episode we did, I think, last year about role playing games and what a role playing game even is. And of course, 2024 was such a banner year for role playing games, which we have also talked about recently. So this is kind of the ur role playing game, or at least one of them. The rule set and the approach to role playing that that sort of looms over a lot of video games. So I guess let's start this conversation about Dungeons and Dragons with just each of our histories with D and D and our kind of, I don't know, our, our relationship with Dungeons and Dragons. Jason, why don't you go first?

• 5:14Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I mean, I haven't played much. I played a little bit with some college friends before I had kids and then haven't played a while. But I fell victim to the kind of the common joke that you hear all the time about the common meme about how impossible it is to schedule an ongoing D and D campaign and get a bunch of busy people together for like five hours on a Saturday or something like that. I did manage to get a couple of games together and I DM'd, which is super fun. I enjoyed that experience of writing a campaign and kind of improvising on the fly as things happened and creating puzzles and stuff like that. That was super fun. And then, of course, our three parter. But the majority of my D and D experience is really through video games. Baldur's Gate 3 is the most recent one, but before that,

• 6:00Jason Schreier?

  all of the old Forgotten Realms games like Baldur's Gates 1 and 2 and Icewind Dale and a few others from back in the day. And so that was always, that was my first real exposure to D and D. It was like picking up Baldur's Gate 1 for the first time. It came in one of those big like five disc sleeves. It was ridiculous. It had five CDs. And going through that and just like trying to understand Dungeons and Dragons for the first time by playing that game, which is really interesting experience. It had Stuff like Fako and other kind of mechanics that have been really done away with over the years as the game has become more approachable and accessible to people. So yeah, it's been interesting having kind of that early experience to or early, early

• 6:44Jason Schreier?

  kind of exposure to D and D. It's been really interesting to see the modern revitalization with fifth edition and all of the kind of the popularity that it's experiencing now.

• 6:55Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, nice. We'll definitely get into all of that. Matty, how about you? What's your experience, your history like with Dungeons and Dragons?

• 7:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, it's similar and different. It's similar in the sense that I played D and D at the exact same age group as Jason, which is like late teens, early twenties, but I played with a very different type of person, which is to say exclusively theater kids. So I talked about this a little bit when I was talking about Les Mis on the last episode, but I was very ensconced in various musical theater and acting scenes in that era of my life. And I did theater in college and community theater even and was very into it and actually had not great experiences with D and D as a result of that because theater kids, and

• 7:45Speaker 02

  again, I don't want to make a generalization here, but the specific people.

• 7:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Let me tell you about theater kids.

• 7:51Speaker 02

  The very specific people that I was playing D and D with really wanted to be the star of the show. And this is a problem.

• 7:57Kirk Hamilton?

  Every single one of them wanted to be the star.

• 7:59Speaker 02

  Yes, you are picking up what I'm putting down. Every single one of them wanted to be the star of the show, wanted to be the funny one, wanted to be the hero. And it just created a lot of bottlenecks. And I think we can kind of talk about that group dynamic as we kind of get into the different pitfalls that can happen with D and D. But even at the time, I was like, wow, I'm really noticing the difficulties of having like a group role playing game with a bunch of people who are really into acting, like capital A acting. And so at the time I was like, maybe I just don't like D and D. I don't know what it is. It just doesn't seem like it's for me. I think maybe I just like scripted theater. But then, you know, the years went by and. I have a really different take on it now, and I'm really glad to have gotten to play it with you two.

• 8:43Speaker 02

  I also don't think I've ever been a particularly good actor myself, even back then. I was always a good singer, but not a great actor. So it was really fun to play it in a super different social context with the two of you. And just have like almost a healing experience with D and D. I'm getting kind of deep right now, but I do kind of feel like I had that experience playing with you two. And remembering something very pure.

• 9:10Jason Schreier?

  We healed you. I love to hear it. I'm very glad to hear you.

• 9:13Kirk Hamilton?

  We did heal Key, right?

• 9:15Jason Schreier?

  That's true.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:16Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, we didn't really. It was an NPC that did it.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  Key gets into scenarios where she needs healing a lot. Key, Key is a real whack job sometimes. But I do feel like I went on a journey mentally with D and D. And I've, I've reached a new place with it now where I think it can be a creative outlet for a lot of different kinds of people, even people who aren't into acting, either for a living or as a hobby, and just want to do storytelling with their friends. And I think that's really cool and really powerful and

• 9:47Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 9:47Speaker 02

  fascinating that it exists as a hobby like this.

• 9:50Jason Schreier?

  It's really interesting that there's kind of the dual nature of it, the storytelling and theater and improv of it all. And then the game, the game of it all, the design and the mechanics. And I think one of the, I'm imagining, I don't know, you'll have to tell me this, was it like playing with the theater kids? Did they just kind of ignore the gameplay side of it all?

• 10:09Speaker 02

  Often, yes.

• 10:10Jason Schreier?

  Kind of help, that can kind of help pull those kinds of people down to earth.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 10:15Jason Schreier?

  Cause I played with college friends who are also actors. But like, once I gave them a tough puzzle, they kind of, it helps the kind of me, me, me-ness of it all.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  For sure. And I think also the fact that you were the DM, Jason, I mean, that's a credit to you. And I know your organizational prowess and also your ability to like command a room when you want to. I think some of the DMs in my situations didn't quite have that capability to wrangle the crew, which is another really important skill as a DM to like get everyone back on track, stop the improvisation if it needs. To stop and move this story to where you want it to go. That's really hard to do. And it's even harder if it's your friends and you don't want to like throw cold water on the fun they're having. These are all really difficult parts of the game, I would say, that don't have to do with the mechanics, but are part of the social dynamics of a very social game experience.

• 11:09Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, Jason, I'd love to hear a little more about your dungeon mastering. Since you came up playing the games and kind of had that experience where you were a player in a world where the DM was like custom designed to, you know, acquiesce to whatever you wanted within an actually very constrained set of parameters. And then you actually decided to be the game master. And I just, I'm curious what that was like, that transition.

• 11:33Jason Schreier?

  Well, so for me, so I've talked about this a little bit on the, on the show, but I've told you guys about how when I was in high school, when I was much, much younger, I made, I like wrote these text based muds, these online games. Being a DM is kind of like that, like game design, essentially. You're creating a game for people. And so you have to think about things like pacing and you have to think about, I would write each episode pretty like last minute, right before they came over. And so I would know like, okay, they're going to be here for four hours. I want to make sure I hit this beat, this beat, this beat. I'm going to keep an eye on the clock the whole time and stuff like that.

• 12:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:07Jason Schreier?

  And so that was, that, that part was, was kind of like the, I mean, it's essentially game design. You're just imagining a world and a game and puzzles and characters and creations. And then a lot of it just kind of plays out on the fly, improvising NPCs and like just joking around. And if you have good kind of, if you have a good group of people you've known for a long time and you have chemistry with them, a lot of it just kind of flies from there. But yes, you definitely need to do some wrangling. The, the biggest challenge I found was actually seeing people just kind of like on their laptops, like getting distracted.

• 12:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:41Jason Schreier?

  That, that's the, that was the biggest obstacle was like trying to make sure that everyone was actually like paying attention to other people and like, um, just kind of like focusing on the game.

• 12:51Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I would imagine that it would help to really establish the vibe of the room and get everybody to kind of share the space.

• 12:58Jason Schreier?

  I actually just remembered, sorry to interrupt you, but real quick, I actually just remembered that my buddy Drew, who was part of our D and T group, was like an avid split screen listener at the time. I wonder if he's kept up with Tripocle, I haven't talked to him in a while. Drew, if you're listening, text me.

• 13:14Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, tell us what you thought of Triple Quest.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  And also, yeah, what did you think of Jason's DMing? That's what we really want to hear about.

• 13:20Jason Schreier?

  Yes, write a letter to Kirk or Matty telling them that.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  How did he do?

• 13:24Kirk Hamilton?

  When I was a kid, I had this magical experience. I went over to my friend's house, or like, he was a guy named Jordan, who I guess I was like friend of a friend's with. Like, I knew him, we went to school together, but we weren't super tight. But a group of us went over to his house and his dad DM'd a game for us. And I don't think we finished. It wasn't exactly a one-shot. And I had been getting into D and D, but had never really played in this way. And his dad was amazing. And it was very much the thing that I was just talking about. Like, the vibe of the room was so cool. The lights were set a certain way. And he was really, really good at it. Like, it was just, it was like nothing I had ever experienced before. And as a kid, I was probably like 13 or something. I remember thinking, this is the coolest, most fun thing I've ever done on the weekend.

• 14:09Kirk Hamilton?

  All I want to do is do this. And then I never played again with those guys or with that guy's dad. And I actually found out later, I was hanging out with an old friend who was there. And he said, and I don't know who this guy exactly was. I can't remember his last name. But apparently the dad was like a writer for Wizards of the Coast at one point. Like, he had worked on D and D and was like very deep in the D and D world. And so he was almost a professional game master, which then explained why we had this amazing experience.

• 14:36Jason Schreier?

  Wait, why'd you stop playing with it? Why didn't you play more with him?

• 14:39Kirk Hamilton?

  It was just kind of one of those things, I think. You know, like, when you're 13, you don't really have as much control over your schedule. And you just, you want to do it again. And then we just didn't really make the time. It's not dissimilar, I think, from what happens to a lot of adults, where they start a regular game, but then they kind of can't keep it going. It's just that we were in middle school and busy with other things as well. But I kind of wish that I had. And I think about it a lot now, especially because the three of us got to have this experience of playing with like maybe the greatest game master in the world.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  It's absurd. I mean, no wonder I healed. No wonder I healed from my experiences. I got to like have a really positive experience.

• 15:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Having him guide us. So I edited the third episode, the finale. My friend Sam, who is the game master for my D and D game, came over and hung out. In the studio with me while we edited it and we just kind of talked about it. He gave some good feedback and ideas and like it was very cool to talk to him since he's put a lot of thought into being a GM just over the last couple of years because he had never done it before. Starting for our group and he had a lot of really cool insights or just reactions to things that Matt would do. One that I can think of that's from episode, I think it's from episode two. Is when we are trying to get into the tower, the three of us. So for anyone who hasn't listened to Triple Quest, we play as Bing, I'm a barbarian named Bing. Jason is Leon, the rogue and Matty is Key, the sorcerer. So we're like a trio, a pretty standard adventuring trio.

• 15:59Kirk Hamilton?

  And we're trying to get across this gap from a wall, like the kind of ramparts of a castle to a tower. And I'm throwing a grappling hook, like Bing is throwing the grappling hook because he's really strong. And I have, I think advantage, I think I get three shots at it, like Matt gave me a million tries not to fail. And I keep rolling badly and it becomes this funny thing. I'm like singing a song to like get into rhythm and then Key helps out and the two of us sing the song together. And it's my final try and I throw it and I fail again. And what Matt does that's so funny is he's like, you do it. You see that the grappling hook is flying and it's going to land and, and oh, then you see the rope is flying behind it and you let go of the rope. And, um, and it's like a great way of having us fail in a very funny way that isn't the same as the previous failures.

• 16:42Kirk Hamilton?

  And then Jason really quickly is like, I use mage hand to grab it and kind of improvises this use of mage hand and Matt is totally on board and is like, great, okay, like you do it. And manages to get us, you know, up into the tower in a way that like works and gets us there. That still acknowledges me failing all those roles and leads to like a very funny and creative outcome. That's really cool stuff, like improvising in the moment and coming up with a much funnier failure than I might've come up with if I was just like put on the spot.

• 17:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's like a genius or something. I don't know. Yeah.

• 17:13Kirk Hamilton?

  He's very good at it.

• 17:14Speaker 02

  I forgot about that moment.

• 17:15Kirk Hamilton?

  He is good at it.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  Coming up with like improvisational ways to fail is so important too, but yeah.

• 17:20Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes. And like how to fail and yet still get where you want the group to go. Which is also a really interesting thing about D and D because sometimes I talked to Sam about this. He'll come up with whole like groups of characters and subplots that just never happen. We just never do because we'll just go right instead of going left at some intersection.

• 17:38Jason Schreier?

  That May Chan thing is a good example of like a really good DM because I think there are DMs out there who see it as their goal to kind of stymie the players whereas Matt as the best DMs, including Matt Mercer, like see it as their goal to allow the players to do as much as possible because that's what's fun. It's like you want to find ways that the players like can like you want to say yes as much as possible, the way a good video game does.

• 18:03Kirk Hamilton?

  Or the way a good improv comic does, right? It's very yes and and yes and it's all it's so close to improv comedy. Matty, when you were talking about playing with the theater kids, it made me think about that that experience because I've done some improv comedy as well. I believe you have too. And like the experience of doing it with people who are really good, a really big part of being good at improv comedy is that you don't always want to be the one making the joke. You're actually like, sometimes you're just, you're just like acting out a realistic scenario and it's just funny because it's unexpected. It isn't always like outsized and hilarious or you're not always trying to be the biggest ham because that it's like a kind of collaborative thing. And D and D works that way as well. I think that's something that critical role, the group that that Matt is the GM for, of course, the very famous D and

• 18:48Kirk Hamilton?

  D players. That's what they're really good at is they're sort of collaborative and supportive because they're all actors and they kind of have a good dynamic together. I think the Adventure Zone is similar, like the McElroy's really know how to do comedy together. Like they're very funny and they're a very well tuned comedy machine. So when it's time for them to like get into the rhythm of a story, they understand like intuitively almost at this point how to make that work, which is a lot harder for people who don't spend that much time acting and working together.

• 19:15Speaker 02

  That's exactly right. And I also think some of my old friends probably grew out of those tendencies. Like there's a big difference between being like that when you're 19 years old and doing it when you're older and just kind of learn how to respect other people's time and also give them the chance to shine because some of it is like yes and in your other players, even if you're not the DM, you're just kind of setting up other people for success too.

• 19:40Kirk Hamilton?

  I would think that that would be a really great exercise for theater school. Like, for people who are learning how to act. Is to, is to, you know, do a D and D campaign, not for, not for the least because you're like, could then become a professional D and D player.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  Well, yeah.

• 19:55Kirk Hamilton?

  Because that's like actually a job that an actor can have.

• 19:57Jason Schreier?

  That's more stable than a normal acting gig.

• 20:00Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's one of the coolest things about Critical Role is that all these voice actors, who we've seen, you know, over the years, especially recently, how hard it is being a video game voice actor, even when you're in huge games, their union is like always fighting for better pay and better conditions. And then to watch these voice actors kind of form their own thing and create this company that's wildly successful is really cool.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  It is.

• 20:20Kirk Hamilton?

  And yeah, they did it because they're all really good at role playing together.

• 20:23Jason Schreier?

  So I think that like, we, we've seen and we've talked about, but just to say it here, like there was this big surge of D and D popularity attached to kind of like Fifth Edition and the, the rise of Critical Role and other Adventure Zone, other kind of play. What are they called?

• 20:40Speaker 02

  Actual Play.

• 20:40Jason Schreier?

  Podcast, Actual Play.

• 20:41Kirk Hamilton?

  2014, 2015 is about when this happened.

• 20:44Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, that sounds about right. And I think, I, I think you can really point to Fifth Edition itself as a big reason for that, because Fifth Edition really streamlined a lot of more hardcore aspects of D and D. And there's still some hardcore stuff. I mean, there's still a thick players manual, you could read that thing forever and, and still not understand all the rules, but like, it's much, much easier to get into it and it's much, it feels a lot more accessible and approachable than it ever has been. And so I think that like, just hearing you say like, it's a very easy to imagine an acting group, a group of actors or a college club or something like that, just kind of regularly get into it, even people who aren't really into tabletop games or any sorts of games, just because there isn't a ton you have to memorize.

• 21:28Jason Schreier?

  It's a lot of it is just kind of playing on the fly and a good DM will kind of smooth over the rules when he or she needs to, or like, just not to worry, not worry too much about exact specifications of a spell description. And then also on top of that, there's Baldur's Gate 3, which is such a good way to learn all the rules in another really approachable, really accessible way, that I feel like, I feel like it's, it's just, D and D is in such a good place right now that anyone can just pick it up and play it in a way that I don't think was possible 20 years ago in the days of Thaco and A D and D, two pointer rules and stuff like that.

• 22:09Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, can we chew on that a little? Because I think you're right broadly. Though, having played like other types of role playing games, like Fiasco, which I talked about on the show, which, you know, or Our Last Best Hope, some of these indie games that are kind of post D and D role playing games that are designed to really streamline the rules and really make it possible for you to just act and play characters and tell stories. Fiasco is so good at that. It's just these very simple cards and most of what you're doing is just telling stories, like just coming up with what happens next and like, and it gives you a really great framework for creating a very funny Fiasco. But there are almost no rules, there's no dice in the most recent version that I've played.

• 22:50Kirk Hamilton?

  And like, it does really simplify things and it would be an even easier exercise for a group of actors or even just people who want to get together and act to do than something like D and D. And there were complaints about Baldur's Gate 3 that because Baldur's Gate 3, you know, adapted the rules of fifth edition, that it actually was like too complicated. I think there were people out there who wanted to play BG3.

• 23:12Speaker 02

  Complaints from me, you mean?

• 23:13Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, well, and Maddie, right, you had this experience, right? Like where you wanted to play it because the story and the branching narrative and all that is really cool, the role playing. But there is a lot of like pretty crunchy stuff in that game.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  For sure. Yeah, there is.

• 23:26Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, that's interesting. Well, so when I say D and D fifth edition, I suppose my comparison point is other D and D iterations.

• 23:33Speaker 02

  The previous ones, which were worse.

• 23:36Jason Schreier?

  Okay, so a couple of thoughts. One is that like Fiasco and other tabletop games, they might all be well and good, but D and D is almost, it's become the Band-Aids of tabletop RPGs. It's become that kind of, that is so highly associated with it that the, that the trademark is almost gone. Like, it's like you don't just say, more people would say, I'm gonna play D and D than I'm gonna play a tabletop game. I'm gonna play a role playing game or something like that. It's just become the way that we talk about this sort of thing. And so I guess I'm kind of, I'm looking at D and D, it's almost its own category from the others. And then, yes, when I say fifth edition is more approachable, more accessible, I'm comparing it with past iterations. I guess I see what you're saying.

• 24:19Jason Schreier?

  You're saying, and yeah, I've definitely seen some people like Matty, uh, under complaints about Baldur's Gate threes, uh, uh, kind of impenetrable nature in some ways, but, um, yeah, I don't know. I feel like some of the crunchiness you can ignore and still have a good time with it, especially in the tabletop stuff. It's not like when we played triple quest, it's not like we were good, like thumbing through every single spell to make sure our characters were as optimized as possible. It's not like we were going through every possible mechanic of the game. We're just kind of like picking what we wanted to play around with and having a good time of it. And I think you can do that. Um, uh, I think the rules are to, are, are allow for that in a way that maybe they didn't in the past.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, especially in a tabletop setting.

• 25:04Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I think, and I'd be curious to really go through the new DMs guide in particular, the Dungeon Master's Guide.

• 25:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, the one that just came out. Yeah.

• 25:11Kirk Hamilton?

  Literally just came out and I haven't had a chance to read it, but I think it'd be interesting to look at that because it's really kind of up to a DM to make those choices that you're talking about, Jason. Like in, in my game with my friends, we don't deal with encumbrance. And money actually also is like very abstract. Like at one point, we got hired for a job by a guy at the very beginning of our quest and he just gave us a bag of gems. And the bag of gems is just worth an absurd amount and we can basically afford whatever we want. Like we can't just, I don't know, we can't buy like a massive war machine to go stomp the enemy.

• 25:42Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 25:43Kirk Hamilton?

  We still have to be industrious, but we're not counting coins.

• 25:45Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. And also like when I played, I instead of leveling up, being based on experience, I just had it tied to like story milestones. Which again, like these are ways that you can kind of reduce the crunchiness.

• 25:57Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. And I wonder, and I wonder how much guidance the DMs guide gives, like a new Dungeon Master for that sort of thing, since it could be overwhelming for coming in and being like, oh my God, I have to deal with encumbrance. Are you kidding? I don't even like when video games do that.

• 26:09Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 26:09Kirk Hamilton?

  And then not realize maybe, oh yeah, you could just get rid of all of that. You could, you could streamline almost everything and just use the character creator. And then just wing it the entire rest of the time. If you're having fun, that's totally valid.

• 26:20Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. I mean, you can wing everything also, even when you get, so I, I played almost entirely, um, custom campaigns, either the one that Matt created or the ones. That I created myself because I just find that way more fun. But even if you're using, like I have a couple of the books of the pre-made ones, even if you're using those, a lot of times they'll give you a lot of different kinds of options as you read through them and it'll be like, well, if you want this kind of adventure, you could go this, or if the players choose to go this way, you can, you can present them with this. And so I think, I think it allow, I think D and D is kind of rule set allows for as much of that as possible. And also it kind of, it allows you to just like get rid of the rules you don't want, or like not pay attention to what you don't want to pay attention to.

• 27:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, exactly because it's tabletop, because it's just literally people having a conversation. I mean, like we were saying that the DM or GM can just yes and whatever they want to or need to in that moment. And they can choose even what they need to ignore, whereas Baldur's Gate 3 cannot do that because it is a video game and it's doing its best to say yes to everything that I want to do. But just by its very nature, it's always going to have some resistance to me. I mean, that wasn't the only issue I had with it. I think there's other things about it that are really crunchy that I just got used to over time. And it's, it's amazing how much the narrative says yes to choices that you make and remembers things the way that a DM would.

• 27:49Speaker 02

  But there's, I mean, you can't beat just a human being sitting at a table being like, okay, like Kirk just failed this role five times. What's a funny way that I can make this work? Like that is, that's unbeatable by its very nature. It's, it's like, it's someone just telling you a story. It's like the greatest.

• 28:06Kirk Hamilton?

  And like reacting to your choices. I mean, one of the most fun moments, or there are several of these, are when Matt would get excited about something we would do.

• 28:13Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:13Kirk Hamilton?

  And it really did feel like he was jazzed that we had an idea or something. He'd be like, oh, hell yeah, like, let's do this. And then he would be kind of yes standing us in a very, you know, like, like sort of supportive way. You know, I'm going to shout out, have you ever, do you know Mages and Murder Dads? The, the Range Touch Podcast? Cameron Consolman does this with Danny, I think is his co-host's name. I've been listening to it. They've been playing through the whole Baldur's Gate series. I just listened to their episodes on Baldur's Gate 3. They're really fun. Because both of them, I think, have a really strong sense of D and D and have played a lot. And it's super interesting to hear them analyze the different sequences in Baldur's Gate 3. They talk about the grim forge. They love that part of the game, which I think is technically optional. You remember the grim forge? It's like in the Underdark where there's this forge and you can like make a couple pieces of armor.

• 28:58Speaker 02

  I did really like that part. Yeah, that was cool.

• 29:00Kirk Hamilton?

  It's cool because it like, they describe it as really feeling like one of those modules you referenced, Jason. Like, like a really good one of those where it's a self-contained thing. You can get into it a variety of ways.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:12Kirk Hamilton?

  There are, you know, a number of different ways to solve it. There's a whole hidden story behind the forge that you learn, or you can sort of miss if you don't care. And then it, it kind of ends with this really huge kind of trick boss fight. It's a little bit of a puzzle boss with that huge like colossus that you have to trick into walking underneath the stomper or whatever. And I don't know, like, I think it's really cool to look at Baldur's Gate 3 as really replicating a variety of different types of D and D game. Where you, it's almost like there is one DM, there's one narrator, and of course, one group of people made it. But there's a lot of variability and especially listening to them kind of play back through it and process it. It, it kind of broke it up into a really bunch, a bunch of cool and kind of digestible bits of varying quality.

• 29:56Kirk Hamilton?

  And it was a really neat way to see the game. People should check that out for sure if they're interested in D and D.

• 30:00Jason Schreier?

  So, okay, so when I talked earlier about the kind of the two facets of it all, the kind of improv collaborative storytelling nature of it. And then the game design part of it all. I think that like, no matter how hard it tries, a computer game is not going to be able to recreate the former, the collaborative improv and storytelling. And even when we have like AI dungeon masters who can like, who can, who can supposedly react to any choice you make.

• 30:24Speaker 02

  And take our jobs.

• 30:26Jason Schreier?

  Sure.

• 30:27Kirk Hamilton?

  Take Matt's job.

• 30:28Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, take Matt Mercer's job.

• 30:30Kirk Hamilton?

  Unlikely.

• 30:31Speaker 02

  Good luck.

• 30:31Jason Schreier?

  Even, even when we have that, something's gonna be missing because you know, you're not gonna have that human connection. And it's just not gonna, you're not gonna be able to impress Matt Mercer with your own like reactions to something and unexpected ways. And surprise the DM into having to think outside of the box. It's just not gonna be the same experience. On the flip side of that, the game side of it all can be much, much better because it's being tracked by a computer and you can kind of see it on your screen. You don't have to worry about like keeping track of charts and stuff. So that is always something I find really interesting. And even when I'm playing, when I, all the times I played D and D, I've always found combat to be the worst and least interesting part. Whereas when I'm playing a computer version of D and D, I think combat can be great and can be really interesting and strategic.

• 31:14Jason Schreier?

  And you have to think about it and build a party and think about composition. And the reason for that is because the stuff that would be, that makes combat interesting is stuff that you don't want to have to spend a bunch of time talking about with your friends. It's stuff that a computer should handle and that you want to kind of prepare by yourself or maybe like do a little bit of co-op if you're playing with someone else. But still, for the most part, that sort of strategy, I think, is much less interesting when you're doing it in person. So to me, it almost feels like despite Baldur's Gate 3 and D and D experiences having the same rule set, they almost feel like playing different games to me because one feels like it's so much about the mechanics and the kind of the pre-written

• 31:56Jason Schreier?

  story, whereas the other feels like it's so much about the collaboration and the improvisation that you're doing along the way.

• 32:03Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I've definitely noticed that that sort of rhythmic quality to combat, which, so when I edited Triple Quest, especially that finale, because there was a lot of combat in the finale, and also we were in separate places, so it was easier to edit. But also, when we were in the hotel room together, I cut out a lot of nonsense. Like, there is a lot of times where we're like, wait a minute, okay, sorry, this is a dexterity check.

• 32:28Speaker 02

  What's my score?

• 32:29Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, is it plus two? No, actually, it's gonna be plus three. Oh, okay, it's plus three. Oh, I dropped my, oh, the dice is cocked. Hang on.

• 32:35Speaker 02

  Wow, why didn't you leave that in? This is already, this is so fascinating.

• 32:39Kirk Hamilton?

  I'll just keep acting this out for another 10 minutes and people can get a sense of what they missed. So it's, yeah, this stuff is like, I would say probably my biggest criticism of D and D is that the combat, when you're playing around the table, no matter how hard you try, it's just slow. And it just takes a long time. Like, I find with my group, we'll start a fight at the end Of, you know, we only get together like once a month. We'll start a fight, it'll like end with us, you know, running into some guards and then the guards draw their weapons and we can't talk them down. The fight's about to start. Okay, and then I'll see you next month. We'll spend the entire next session just in this fight and like almost nothing happens because, you know, each turn is whatever, 10 seconds or something. So like, it really just takes forever to get through it.

• 33:21Kirk Hamilton?

  And listening back to the podcast where it like moves right along and you're like, oh, this is exciting and fun. Like, it kind of works as a listening experience because I've edited out so much of that stuff and only left in a little bit. But it does really, um, I don't know, like, I think it highlights something important and something that could probably work better in D and D and kind of a difference between playing D and D just for fun with your friends versus playing D and D for like a performance, like for content, which is a really different experience in general, editing notwithstanding.

• 33:53Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I think the rolling of it all has a big impact on that because so much of your decision making is just not up to you. It's just kind of chance. It's like, uh, I don't know, playing the percentages in XCOM, which is not quite as fun.

• 34:06Kirk Hamilton?

  It is with the exception that you can do what you did a couple of times, Jason, and you can just say to the DM, actually, hang on. Like, I don't think this should work this way. And the DM can just be like, yeah, you're right. Like, I totally agree. I'm gonna change it right here.

• 34:17Jason Schreier?

  Well, that's the super fun part. And yeah, I think the kind of, maybe the ideal version of D and D combat would be a little bit more of that and a little bit less of the dice rolling and the kind of the number crunching. And yes, the times that I DM'd, um, and I think if I were to DM in the future, I would think a lot more about this, how to streamline combat. I did a couple of things. One is that I made combat as, as limited as possible. I tried to have like each session be like a, a mix of everything. So like some dialogue challenges, some puzzle challenges, and also some, maybe one or two combat rounds. But like only sparingly and only like important encounters, kind of like the way that, that Larian designs their games. Um, and then the other thing I did was like, I tried to, um, just make the combat encounters quick if I could.

• 35:01Jason Schreier?

  Um, and tried to give people kind of heroic things that they could do that were a little bit beyond, um, like a little bit more puzzly. Encounters rather than just kind of the standard, I'm going to smack you with my great sword. Because the other, the, the cool thing about T and D combat as a player is getting to feel badass and heroic and do something awesome. And a lot of the times in these long combat rounds, that is not the case. So you want to try to present those experiences, but you also can't have too many or else they don't feel special. So it is a tough challenge. But yeah, could definitely, could definitely be streamlined. Although I found when I was playing triple quest, I found that like having played Baldur's Gate 3 and understanding bonus actions because

• 35:43Jason Schreier?

  of that and like all the other kind of fiddly mechanics, that helped me get better at playing combat in D and D, which is interesting.

• 35:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, like specifically for 5E, which I wasn't what I was playing way back in the day. I'm like, well, at least now I know how this version of it works with the bonus actions and like, especially playing as a sorcerer, which I chose a hard class to figure out.

• 36:08Kirk Hamilton?

  I was so glad you did though.

• 36:10Speaker 02

  And then I had to like, keep track of more math, which I, I mean, even as we're talking about this, like this is part of what I'm realizing all those other shows must do, but that I'd never really thought about before is that they must also be editing out all of these moments where you're like, okay, so wait, my deck score is this and da, da, da, da, da. Like I, God, I've listened to the Adventure Zone. I don't know. I'd seen Critical Role and I just never really thought about all the editing that must go into that where it makes it seem like you're watching a TV show or, you know, listening to an audio drama because D and D just seems so much more fun. It's like we're creating a false advertising situation almost.

• 36:47Jason Schreier?

  It's true.

• 36:49Speaker 02

  It's not that bad, but like you get what I mean.

• 36:51Kirk Hamilton?

  And I actually, I don't know how much editing those shows do. I know they do live shows. Like they do live streams. So they're, I think they're, they're so good at it probably that they don't need to do nearly as much as we did. Cause sometimes we just would forget the rules or not remember, not know how to do a role and it would just be kind of just lame. Like, oh, you got to do it. You know, like this is what this role means. Like we're like, they're certainly beyond that. And so they're probably a lot faster. But yeah, I actually just, I have no idea. I should ask Justin and Griffin how much they edit the Adventure Zone.

• 37:19Speaker 02

  I bet I bet it was the same where like in their first season, they probably edited it a lot. And then over time, they just get really good at it and they know everything and how it works and how to take advantage of the systems that are available, because that's also a part of quote unquote, getting good at D and D is not just getting good at the role playing part and being comfortable with yourself enough to engage in that and having good chemistry with whoever you're playing with. It's also just being really quick about what the skills are and just knowing what all of them are and remembering them all and being like, oh, I could actually use this obscure thing or oh, I packed the thieves tools or whatever. And so I can take advantage of that here or whatever it may be.

• 37:57Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's something that Baldur's Gate 3 actually really sort of embodies or like replicates in the game where by the second act, you're really like you've narrowed down your party. You know what skills everyone's going to use, even though there was a huge possibility space at the beginning, you've kind of gotten down to a few core skills that you use. And then the best scenarios then, instead of forcing you to like learn new skills, they just put you in a situation, you know, a timed escape from a high pressure situation or something where you have to think kind of differently about the fight and rather than like learn new skills and kind of do more fiddly stuff. I really liked, there's an article I think people should read that we'll link in show notes by Luke Winkie from last year where he interviewed

• 38:37Kirk Hamilton?

  Matt Mercer and just talked to him about D and D. And the article is just sort of a cool wide look at the rise of D and D. And he talks about something that is known as the Mercer effect, which I didn't know was a thing that we have definitely like furthered with Triple Quest, which is the fact that like now a lot of game masters see the standard that he and other sort of great actual play celebrities have set as like how good you're always supposed to be. And then their players are probably out there listening to Critical Role and being like, man, why can't we be as good as them?

• 39:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:11Kirk Hamilton?

  And are like voice actors and are so good at this kind of thing. And especially with Matt, because he is, he is such a good DM, which I just think is funny that like, you know, my, my D and D game, we are not at all trying to turn it into content. We're just screwing around. And as a result, we've really like play a game that is tailored to us. I mean, We have a couple of engineers and like, you know, like kind of problem solving thinkers in our group and we'll just spend forever talking about like reinforcing a boat's hull and like how that works. And it's fine because like everyone's sort of having fun getting nerdy about like what kind of timber you would use or whatever. And like it would be terrible content, but that's not the point. We're just having fun as friends.

• 39:50Jason Schreier?

  One other, one other advantage of home games, speaking of someone who's DM'd home games, is that you can just steal stuff from places, which is also fun.

• 39:58Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes.

• 39:59Jason Schreier?

  When I was doing, I would like steal bosses from Final Fantasy games and stuff like that, which like, who cares? Because it's not like you're putting this on the internet and installing it as content. You just, you just do that, which is super fun. It feels like you're playing out in these like kind of fan fiction-y worlds you've created.

• 40:15Kirk Hamilton?

  It's a funny thing because D and D is so derivative of like the Tolkien verse to begin with.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  I know. It's already stolen anyway, so it's fine.

• 40:22Kirk Hamilton?

  I mean, the whole premise of Triple Quest is not actually that dissimilar from the D and D movie that came out where it's like, there was a failed heist and we lost someone. And like, you start to realize like, oh, like these tropes like just come up again and again and again, to the point that can anyone really claim to own them?

• 40:35Speaker 02

  Well, there's a reason why they do. I mean, they're fun. It's, it's hero's journey stuff.

• 40:40Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, no, it's right. It's doing a one-shot. You just need to, like, there's a ton of tropes in our one-shot, but that's, what makes it fun is the particulars, like the things that we just sort of came up with in the spaces between the bigger sort of familiar plot beats.

• 40:51Jason Schreier?

  The best stories are familiar but different, I think.

• 40:54Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, that's a good way of putting it.

• 40:55Jason Schreier?

  Tropes work for a reason.

• 40:56Kirk Hamilton?

  And certainly for, for something like D and D where you're, you have enough to worry about just remembering all your stats and like figuring out what your character's gonna say, like let alone trying to come up with like a really original groundbreaking story. There's a thing that Matt does several times, especially in the finale that I really like, that I think Dungeon Masters, I think the Dungeon Masters guide encourages this. When you get a critical hit in particular, where the DM will say to the player, I want you to describe to me how you destroy this slime monster. And like, he does that whenever we land a killing blow or get a critical hit. And there are just a few times where each of us gets the chance to kind of, we get to describe what happens. And that's like, I think a, maybe a kind of newer thing with D and D.

• 41:39Kirk Hamilton?

  And D. Sam, my, my game master, my group's GM, there have been times where he, there was a moment where he really tried something experimental. I'm not totally sure. I don't know where he got this idea, but basically the party had been split up and one party member was like back at the base. And the rest of us were off taking care of something, but we hadn't played in a little while. So he was talking to the one party member who's in the base and then he's like, there's a knock at the door. And so the, the one guy who's in the base goes and opens the door and he's like, standing in the door are, you know, the other, the three of us, like the three guys who are missing. And he's like, they each look crazy. They're wearing a crazy outfit. What are you wearing? And then he had us each like describe, just make up a weird outfit.

• 42:23Kirk Hamilton?

  And then because the guy who had stayed behind was going on, like going away and he wouldn't be able to play for the next few games. He had us do like a side story where we basically then had to tell the story of what happened between when we left and when we came to the door, wearing those crazy outfits. And so we had to like collaboratively come up with an explanation for like, why one guy was wearing like a leopard print bikini and like had his hair dyed pink and why the rest of us looked this way. That wound up, we were like, wound up being performers and going undercover and a whole thing. But it basically, he gave us the opportunity to define the, like the outcome of the story that we were then about to tell. It was really cool. And I think that kind of thing, it's difficult and it's not for every group, but it's really cool.

• 43:04Kirk Hamilton?

  And I don't know. I thought about it every time Matt told one of us to take the reins and sort of tell the story in our own words.

• 43:10Jason Schreier?

  Uh huh. Yeah, that's a fun way to do it. And yeah, that's how you get people engaged as a DM too. Cause you don't want it to feel like you're just, you're just lecturing at them about what happened.

• 43:19Kirk Hamilton?

  You can kind of offload some of your work for a second too. You can just be like, I don't know, you tell me what happens.

• 43:24Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. Yeah.

• 43:26Speaker 02

  It feels like such an honor to like, at least that's how I always felt in those moments where Matt would throw to us.

• 43:32Kirk Hamilton?

  Definitely with him. Yeah. You're like, oh boy, no pressure.

• 43:35Speaker 02

  Come up with something as cool as what Matthew Mercer regularly says. Let me see if I can try my hand on it. But it also just like felt really, really good every time too, to be like, all right, let me try to be really creative for a second. And that's like the whole point of the game. And it's really neat.

• 43:50Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it is really neat.

• 43:51Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I enjoyed every minute of it. I also, I think it worked well as a three parter and us just kind of defining that in advance because it made for a really good, just kind of three act story with some clear beats along the way and then a very, very epic ending. I think it was, and obviously Matt did incredible job crafting it. Yeah, it was super fun. Should we, should we do it again sometime?

• 44:18Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm gonna need a break. I spent so much time on those ads.

• 44:22Speaker 02

  I know, for Kirk.

• 44:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, at some point it'd be fun. It was fun. I learned a lot about the music and sound effect, like all of that stuff. I got so much better at it by the end.

• 44:30Speaker 02

  That part is so impressive. I really can't emphasize it enough because Kirk, he will only slightly tune his own horn, even though proverbially he's tuning it all the time in these sweet, sweet musical edits that he's putting together for Triple Quest. It's so, so good.

• 44:45Kirk Hamilton?

  That part of it was really fun.

• 44:46Jason Schreier?

  We should just do a live, a live episode.

• 44:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, right.

• 44:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure. We'll just stream it on our Twitch channel.

• 44:54Jason Schreier?

  And then the audience gets to watch us, like, be like, what's our deck?

• 44:57Kirk Hamilton?

  They would realize that when you have a conversation and then when you have a conversation with like a cool, groovy, like, piece of music playing underneath it, the second conversation sounds a lot cooler. Like, I guess we could have a little music board or something that

• 45:10Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, you'll have, yeah, you'll score it on the fly.

• 45:12Speaker 02

  And it like edits out us like looking for the right dice and like looking at our pieces of paper and all that stuff. All that would be back in there where we'd be like trying to remember our stupid stats and everything. People don't need to know.

• 45:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, we'd have to up our, up our game a little bit, as it were.

• 45:27Jason Schreier?

  Kirk, I'm just imagining you with like one of those soundboards with like a fart noise every single time one of us talks.

• 45:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, easy, easy.

• 45:34Kirk Hamilton?

  Sword swinging sound effect. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It was, at the very least, it was, it was a very fun project. I think it gave us all a good, a good new perspective on D and D. And yeah, man, it's just a D and D world that we live in. So it feels appropriate that we, that we spend so much time with it.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  It really is.

• 45:51Kirk Hamilton?

  Spent so much time with it this year. So anyways, yeah, I'm sure we'll have more to say about it in the future. I'm looking forward to everybody getting to hear Act Three as well because that was a lot of fun.

• 45:59Speaker 02

  It's really good.

• 46:00Kirk Hamilton?

  But for now, let's take a break and then we will come back with one more thing.

• 46:10Speaker 03

  Hey, is this Meredith?

• 46:11Speaker 04

  This is.

• 46:12Speaker 03

  This is Alex Schmidt from secretly incredibly fascinating. I'm calling because you have been named the Maximum Fun Member of the Month for the month of December.

• 46:21Speaker 04

  Hooray!

• 46:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, as the Member of the Month, you are going to get a $25 gift card to the Maximum Fun store, you get a special Member of the Month bumper sticker, and you get to use a special parking spot at the Maximum Fun headquarters in Los Angeles, California.

• 46:37Speaker 04

  Definitely getting plenty of return on my investment. I have not worked through all the bonus content yet.

• 46:44Speaker 03

  If you're a Max Fun member, you can become the next Max Fun Member of the Month. Support us at MaximumFun.org/join.

• 46:54Speaker 05

  Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicky Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience, one you have no choice but to embrace, because yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls.

• 47:37Speaker 03

  And we're back for one more thing. Maddie, why don't you go first? What's your one more thing?

• 47:41Speaker 02

  Sure. So I got a pre-release version of a free-to-play game called Infinity Nikki. And this game is really fun and really strange. I don't know if you two remember the trailer for this game, but I'll kind of try to describe-

• 47:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, tell me about it, because I don't.

• 47:59Speaker 02

  Just the vibe of it. So it's an Unreal Engine 5 game, so it's beautiful. And it really is beautiful. It's not, it's not lies. The trailer is not lying to you. I really, my computer is feeling its age. I ran it on PC, and it was feeling its age as it was playing Infinity Nikki with me. And it looks, it looks incredible. It's a, it's a very like anime-style look to it. You play as Nikki. This is like a long-running series of free-to-play games. Chinese developer. I'd never played any of these other games, but they're gotcha games. They're they have like randomized mechanics and because they're free to play, you're like paying to unlock things. And also you like get free draws of like random items in the game.

• 48:44Speaker 02

  But this is the only one I've played. So it's the only one I can speak to. And it's a significantly bigger scope than any previous game in the series. And it's definitely something where they're trying to get more people to get on board. And it's really, really weird because well, for a few reasons. One is because it is such an unabashedly and wonderfully feminine game. And that's weird because I don't see it very often. And it's incredible at the same time. Like this game is entirely about you collecting outfits. The entire you are in like a fantasy worlds where you're like shooting balls of fire at like evil enemies and like climbing hill and veil and like exploring Breath of the Wild style.

• 49:27Speaker 02

  But you are this this cute woman named Nikki, and she is a fashion designer. And every single one of your abilities is tied to a different outfit. And by the end of the game, you have like hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of outfits that you're collecting. But at the very beginning, you just collect like an outfit that makes you jump higher, for example. And like, as soon as you press the jump button, Nikki will magically transform into this different beautiful outfit that makes her jump higher. And then as soon as she lands, she's back in her original outfit. And so you're like instantly switching between these different outfits. So it's kind of like Barbie or like a doll dress up. And the outfits are all beautiful. They're incredible, like just splendor Disney princess style gowns that you just like you get each new one.

• 50:08Speaker 02

  You're like, whoa, this is amazingly beautiful dress. And so then you get another outfit that's just for shooting fireballs. And like, that's your fireballs outfit. And as soon as you you just instantaneously change. And so you just like keep unlocking these outfits and like, that's it. Like, the whole game is just unlocking outfits. And like, I don't know. I I didn't love the gotcha parts, obviously. No surprise there. And the the plot is like hilariously and self-awarely stupid in a way that I found extremely charming. Like, all the characters are like, okay, like, you've been transported to this mystical land. Like, you, all we do is collect outfits here, and outfits are magical. Like, you're a normal person, I guess, but you've been transported into this mystical land.

• 50:50Jason Schreier?

  Can you elaborate on the gotcha part? So the gotcha is the outfits? Like, you have to?

• 50:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:55Jason Schreier?

  How hard is it to get new outfits without paying?

• 50:58Speaker 02

  So, obviously, the pre-release code gave me, like, a ton of free currency. So, it's hard for me to say whether, like, the current version of the game, which I believe is out this Friday, so it'll be like tomorrow, as you're listening to this, listeners. So I don't know, and I think in the coming weeks, people will make it clear, like, how bad the gotcha stuff is. But the part that did confuse me, as somebody who had free currency, or like, a lot of different currency, is the opaque part is that there's multiple kinds of currency, to a degree that I found absurd. It's like, my main beef with the game, is that there are so many systems, and it's intentionally opaque. So like, there's a, there's like, you know, six or seven different ways that you can unlock different outfits.

• 51:42Speaker 02

  So like, some of them are, you need multiple kinds of the same one.

• 51:45Jason Schreier?

  They all do this, all these.

• 51:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I know. And it's like, you need to combine certain, certain of the same outfit, and then that'll create a new one. Or you need to collect a whole bunch of different things around the world, like, certain type, number of flowers, certain number of whatever seeds, and then you combine those to craft an outfit. Some of them are, oh, you have to, like, do this randomized puzzle, or solve something, or whatever, but, or you spend various kinds of currency to get different outfits. That part of it, I was just like, this is way too many systems, and I can tell it's intentionally way too many systems to confuse me, and also make me want to, like, spend money to speed up the process, and I don't, I don't know how that's gonna work. But I, I, so I can't speak to that. But I did really enjoy playing a game that was just so unappassedly feminine, and like, I have mentioned the combat. The combat is so easy. It's like, sillily easy. Like, it doesn't

• 52:31Speaker 02

  need to be there. But like, really, you're just going around, you're collecting magical, mystical outfits, and I guess you're saving the world. There's sort of A plot. It doesn't matter, though. You know what I mean? Like, it's just like a perfect, just smooth, wonderful experience that reminded me of like, playing dolls as a child in like, a really pure, enjoyable way. And like, that's why it's effective and might be a very successful game.

• 52:55Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, so I was looking at this for my five-year-old daughter potentially, but the gotcha stuff immediately just, I'm just like, no, I'm not gonna do this.

• 53:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I feel like you need her to be older. You need like, a middle schooler who has like, a sense of how much things are worth to play this. But I do feel like, once you're old enough.

• 53:11Jason Schreier?

  That's, I mean, middle schoolers are the ones.

• 53:13Speaker 02

  I did, I feel like I was, but then again, I was raised in a household where for every commercial, my parents would sit me down and be like, do you understand how, what's really, you're being lied to. Like, I got, I got a lot of commercial lectures in my household.

• 53:26Jason Schreier?

  Very different experience. No, Maddie, middle schoolers are the ones who are throwing money at Roblox all the time and like, asking their parents, hey, I just need to spend this, this and this.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  I think it depends on the kid.

• 53:37Jason Schreier?

  Uh, I think, uh, by and large, that's who games like this are targeting.

• 53:41Speaker 02

  True. And it's also true that like, you know, having some of those proclivities is genetic. And I, I can brag and, but I am blessed to be able to stop when I want to stop and know that I don't need anymore. That, that's very difficult for some people to like, stop playing of any age, middle school or not. Some of these games are very hard for some people to quit. So that is a danger. But also, I do really like the look of the game and I had a lot of fun with that part of it. And I think it's, it's fun.

• 54:08Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I'm looking at it.

• 54:09Speaker 02

  So I can't say it's all evil.

• 54:11Jason Schreier?

  It's just like Genshin Impact for like, the dress up.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  It's kind of, it's kind of Breath of the Wild-y, but like, with pure dress up mechanics. You are exploring a world and there's like, some, I mean, I can't emphasize enough, the combat is barely even combat. Like, it's just, it's, it's all about collecting those dresses and, uh, being like a Barbie in a world of other Barbies who are also collecting dresses.

• 54:32Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm looking at screenshots. It looks really pretty. And yeah, it looks like Genshin. These games, these like, beautiful games that are built over just a sea of dark patterns that are designed to trick you into spending money or like, break your brain.

• 54:43Speaker 02

  I'm like, I don't know yet. Cause also, I got to play a version of the game that was like, not preying on me. You know what I mean? So like, I got a best case scenario in some ways.

• 54:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Getting the influencer deal.

• 54:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know. I know. So I don't love that. But I got, I gotta admit, I did enjoy playing it. So that's the game I played this week.

• 55:01Kirk Hamilton?

  It looks very pretty.

• 55:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I'll be very curious in the coming weeks as people discover the gotcha patterns and what they think of it. I will keep an eye on that.

• 55:08Kirk Hamilton?

  Stay tuned. Jason, what's your one more thing?

• 55:10Jason Schreier?

  So my one more thing is a game that is a sprawling, like, open world action RPG, but does not have gotcha mechanics.

• 55:17Speaker 02

  Good.

• 55:19Jason Schreier?

  This is a game called Secrets of Grindia, which might sound familiar to you too, because I talked about it a few months ago when it came out in like February or March of this year. So I, at the time, I played a few hours of it and was into it, and then recently picked it back up after doing a Bloomberg post last week that kind of rounded up some of the best indie games that I played this year, including this one. And I was like, hey, you know, I kind of, I abandoned this for other games, I should go and give it another chance. And it really, it is really, really good. I think you two might enjoy it. So Secrets of Grindia, it's a Super Nintendo-looking game, very heavily inspired by The Legend of Zelda, a link to the past in that it is a 2D action, 2D top-down action RPG.

• 56:04Jason Schreier?

  You go around and you smack enemies with your sword, and you are in this kind of, this fantasy world where there are lots of slimes and goblins and other creative monsters, and you fight them, and you do quests, and you solve puzzles and go through dungeons, and it's just kind of, it's your, your classic Zelda-ish affair. But it's got a couple of cool, interesting ideas and twists. One of the reasons this game stood out to me is because it was in development for 13 years, and you can tell that it's in development for 13 years. It's a team of three people. I spoke to them for a Bloomberg piece that we'll link in the show notes a few months ago.

• 56:46Jason Schreier?

  A team of three people, and they're in Scandinavia, and they have been working on this game, like, in various forms for 13 years. It entered kind of early access at some point along the way, and it's just been updated every month, and it's still being updated. Even now, they're like working on new game plus and stuff like that.

• 57:05Kirk Hamilton?

  Console ports. Real Stardew Valley situation.

• 57:07Jason Schreier?

  It is, it is. It even looks kind of like Stardew Valley. And a couple of things that I think- are really unique about this game. One is the skill system. There is this kind of in-depth skill system where you can pick from like dozens of different spells and weapon skills to use and just kind of focus on those and then assign them to hotkeys and use those to take out enemies. And there's so many and they go so deep that it makes the kind of the standard Zelda fare a little feel a little bit deeper and more interesting. There's one ability that I'm in love with that's like a blink ability that you can just kind of zap across the screen.

• 57:40Kirk Hamilton?

  Jason loves a blink almost as much as he love a double jump.

• 57:43Jason Schreier?

  That is, yeah, the combination.

• 57:45Speaker 02

  They're both great.

• 57:46Kirk Hamilton?

  Double jump and a blink.

• 57:47Jason Schreier?

  A double jump and a blink and bam, I'm sold. So having a blink in a 2D action RPG is pretty fun. You can also like go full on sword user or full on spellcaster or just kind of hybrid of them. There's a lot of cool gear you can pick up and customize and stuff. The puzzles are really, really good. And the story is really, really interesting. It's got this unique idea where like you play as a quote unquote collector, where you have to go around the world collecting these artifacts. And there's a story involving kind of bringing your dead mother back to life potentially. And these artifacts that you find, they all talk and have personalities and it's got a lot of humor and a lot of warmth to the humor. And then it gets, it goes in some unexpected

• 58:27Jason Schreier?

  directions and has some really fun and surprisingly emotional twists and turns along the way. There's one dungeon, like maybe midway through the game where it involves time travel and you're going back and forth between the past and the present and kind of changing things to alter reality and doing quests that way. But also you get to experience these stories that progress over time and and watch these kind of these arcs of these characters unfold. And it's really interesting. So it's got a really good mix of storytelling with the kind of the Zelda gameplay that is really smooth and satisfying and fun to play. So yeah, it's really good. It might wind up on

• 59:07Jason Schreier?

  my top 10 list for the year. I'm still still in the still not finished with it yet. I'm still making my way through, but I'm glad I picked it back up. I'm really enjoying it. Also, I picked back up Belot. And we'll not talk about that.

• 59:23Speaker 02

  Speaking of dark patterns.

• 59:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Playing on your phone?

• 59:25Jason Schreier?

  Well, yeah, the like hours of my life. There's no way I'm putting this on my phone.

• 59:31Speaker 02

  Thank God, there's no microtransactions.

• 59:32Kirk Hamilton?

  Stagerous, but it's great.

• 59:35Jason Schreier?

  Well, the problem with putting it on the Steam Deck is like you'll take it into the bathroom and it'll be like suddenly your legs will fall asleep.

• 59:41Kirk Hamilton?

  There are dark patterns in Bellatro though. Bellatro is like just straight up. It's not trying to trick you into clicking a button that you didn't mean to click.

• 59:47Jason Schreier?

  Well, dark in a different way. It's just, you just lose your life entirely.

• 59:51Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's just addictive because it's good.

• 59:53Speaker 02

  It's not trying to trick you, but it is addicting.

• 59:56Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 59:57Speaker 02

  It's right there. It's on the surface.

• 59:58Jason Schreier?

  The problem with Bellatro is that like, once you do it, when you start a run, it's really hard to like take a break and then come back to that run.

• 1:00:05Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:00:06Jason Schreier?

  Because you kind of forget some of the strategies you're doing.

• 1:00:07Speaker 02

  So you have to complete the run.

• 1:00:09Jason Schreier?

  You have to complete the run and that's like a solid 20, 25 minutes.

• 1:00:11Speaker 02

  But then when you complete the run, you're like, well, I may as well do another run. That one didn't go the way I wanted it to.

• 1:00:15Jason Schreier?

  Might as well start again. Yeah. And suddenly you've spent an hour in the bathroom and your wife is knocking on the door.

• 1:00:22Speaker 02

  Are you dying?

• 1:00:22Kirk Hamilton?

  A dark pattern is more like when the like auto subscribe thing pops up and there's a cancel button, but it's way smaller than the subscribe button. And it doesn't show you that you can skip it. It's that kind of crap.

• 1:00:31Speaker 02

  Or like the timer that unlocks and it's like pay this to speed up the timer. Infinity Nicky has some timers that I was like, oh.

• 1:00:38Kirk Hamilton?

  And like tricks you into clicking on something or not realizing you had the option to quit.

• 1:00:42Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, to be clear, Bellatro is a perfectly like lovely game. It's just fiendishly addictive. It's like terrifying.

• 1:00:50Speaker 02

  It's just destroying our lives.

• 1:00:52Kirk Hamilton?

  It's really good on phones though, I gotta say. I love having it on my phone. I play it all the time.

• 1:00:56Jason Schreier?

  God, that's scary. So Secrets of Grindia, really cool game. I've been also, I've been playing it like jumping back and forth between my desktop PC and my Steam Deck. Runs great on Steam Deck and it's a great like watch TV while playing this game, although the music is really good. So don't miss out on that too. Kirk, you would enjoy the music of this game. I actually, this is not like a turn-based JRPG. So I actually recommend you both play it. Before the end of the year, you should try to check it out. It's really cool. I really enjoyed it and you can, you jump right in and you'll get a feel for it. And I think you'll be able to tell within the first 30 minutes if it's the kind of game that you'll want to keep playing or not. If you're, if you're into like 2D Zelda, like pretty games that feel really good and have cool stories, like I am really enjoying it.

• 1:01:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:42Kirk Hamilton?

  Jason, have you played Mini Shoot Adventures, speaking of Zelda life?

• 1:01:45Jason Schreier?

  I have, yeah, and I think I talked about this-

• 1:01:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it was the one more thing where you didn't like it.

• 1:01:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, was it a one more thing?

• 1:01:49Speaker 02

  I remember.

• 1:01:50Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm just forgetting.

• 1:01:51Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I didn't like it, because like the Twinsix shooting just did not feel good to me. Like, the core gameplay of it, just I did not enjoy, whereas with this, I really do. This game reminds me the most of Crosscode, which is the game that-

• 1:02:04Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:02:04Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. That I- It looks kinda like it.

• 1:02:06Jason Schreier?

  Is my predictions back game. In fact, Lea, the main character of Crosscode, has a cameo in Secrets of Grandia, so-

• 1:02:12Kirk Hamilton?

  There you go.

• 1:02:12Jason Schreier?

  Clearly, some compatibility there.

• 1:02:14Speaker 02

  Some influence there, yeah.

• 1:02:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Nice. Uh, well, I'll go last. My one more thing is a PC game that I played last week called Mouthwashing, that I loved, that I can't stop thinking about. That is a pretty messed up narrative horror game, that's just really, really great. And I wanted to go last, or I had myself go last, because if you're at all interested in that kinda game, or you're interested in this game, I think you should just go play it totally blind. Like, just play it. It's like, three hours long or something, and if you like, you know, speculative fiction, horror, like, kinda, I don't even know how else I'd describe it. Like, games that are like genuinely, kind of psychologically disturbing, but, but also like really engrossing and, and kind of just great, uh, I really recommend it, and you should play it blind. But I'll describe it a little bit now.

• 1:02:59Kirk Hamilton?

  So, I'm last, there's not gonna be anything after me, you can just stop listening now, if you don't wanna hear anything about it, but I'll give a little of the narrative setup. Uh, this is a game, it's made by a five-person team, they're called Wrong Organ, is the name of the development team, which is pretty great. And it's another game, uh, sort of like Crow Country earlier this year. It looks kind of like a PS2 game. It has that kind of aesthetic, those, I don't even know how I'd describe it, it's very warm colors, and everything is a little, like, oversaturated.

• 1:03:27Speaker 02

  Low poly, right?

• 1:03:29Kirk Hamilton?

  It's low poly, yeah, it is low poly, and the character models aren't super detailed.

• 1:03:33Speaker 02

  I've seen some screenshots.

• 1:03:34Kirk Hamilton?

  But it's also like, it's a really strong vibe from the start, and that's a big part of the experience of playing it. Um, it starts, it's like, it starts kind of confusingly, and the whole story is told, um, in, out of chronological order, so you're doing a lot of sort of, you know, four days after the crash, three days before the crash, and the environment really tells- You kind of where you are and what's happening. You play a number of different characters on a small crew, like, I think, five-person crew, on a shipping vessel that works for a company called Pony Express that's sort of like Amazon, like, space Amazon in the future, like, a giant corporation that just ships stuff all around the solar system or galaxy, it's not really clear, but they do, like, interstellar shipping. And you're on a crew that's on this ship where something goes wrong at the very beginning,

• 1:04:17Kirk Hamilton?

  you have, like, an impact with an asteroid or something, not totally clear why or what happened, and you're all stranded and probably screwed because you have, like, a couple of months of food left, the five of you, but you're not, like, no one's really coming and you're sort of just stuck out in space because you were supposed to be just, like, on an automated, you know, trip from point A to point B. So that's kind of where it picks up. And you're playing as a guy Jimmy who, like, assumes command and is kind of like, I'm gonna be the captain now, because the actual captain is, like, horribly injured in the crash and is, like, on a table, he's wrapped in, in, like, bandages and, like, only one eye works and he can't talk and it's, like, really horrifying.

• 1:05:01Kirk Hamilton?

  And you're the nurse, another character, is her name Anya? She's keeping him alive by, like, just, like, feeding him opioids, basically. And, like, you're all just, there's, like, a sense of doom, but also everyone's like, okay, we're gonna work together and we're gonna try to survive as long as we can. So this is all in the very early goings and they initially decide, okay, we're gonna crack into the warehouse because we have this giant, like, shipping warehouse because we're on a shipping vessel. We're gonna see what we were shipping because we don't even know what it was. And maybe it's food, like, maybe it's something we can use to survive. And they crack open the first container and they're shipping mouthwash. Like, they're just carrying, like, a million containers of mouthwash and that's all they have. And so that's kind of the setup. And then just horrifying things happen.

• 1:05:43Kirk Hamilton?

  It's just, like, the gradual, sort of, everybody falling apart and the just, like, the, like, dissolution of this group as everyone's, like, People kind of turn on one another in various ways, but it's also like an interrogation of the darkness within people and the way that certain systems and in particular like certain workplaces can set up the incentives and the scenarios that allow that darkness to come out. And it's like, it's, I think it's simplif-, it's oversimplifying it to say that it's like a critique of capitalism and that's the real villain because there are people who do very terrible things in it and, you know, that, they are the villains too. Like the, you know, they chose to do those things, but they were in the position to do

• 1:06:27Kirk Hamilton?

  them because of the systems around them. And it winds up being, I think, a really insightful and chilling and just unforgettable experience. Like they, they come up with these set pieces, these sequences inside of a character's mind or like these hallucinations that are like genuinely disturbing, but kind of, you know, really compelling, like they really pull you in. And by the, you know, there were points where I was just like, oh my God, okay, I have to finish this game. I can't believe I'm doing what I'm doing right now. Like it has that kind of feeling. And I've really found, I've really found it to be a remarkable achievement. Like I think it's a great, a great creation. Like it tells a great story and it does require you to kind of think about it. It doesn't just lay it all out for you. I did a lot of reading about it.

• 1:07:10Kirk Hamilton?

  There's a lot of actually like great forum posts and like Reddit posts and even like Steam reviews where people have written their whole like, their take on what they think it all meant. And that's really cool too. I love that kind of horror game. The game Soma, it's not, they're different in a lot of ways, but Soma sort of, it reminds me of Soma in some ways, particularly in that I finished Soma and I was like, oh my God. And then I just couldn't stop thinking about it for a long time, which I felt that way with Mouthwashing too. It's been a while since I've played a game like that. So I really, really liked it. It is a feel bad game. It's like not a game for like, when you want to have a relaxing time or like feel great about people.

• 1:07:46Jason Schreier?

  Back of the box quote, a feel bad game.

• 1:07:48Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's a real, a real feel bad hit. But you know, like that can be a really cool, a really cool experience or a worthwhile experience. And I think this is one, I think they should be really proud of what they've done. So it is a great game that I was glad I played. So that's Mouthwashing. It's on PC and Steam right now. I don't know if there's plans for it to come to consoles or anything, but I played it on PC and it was great. Awesome. And there you have it. Sounds great. Yeah, three games, three one more thing games. Yeah, we played games. We did it. We're gamers, man. Look at us. Yeah.

• 1:08:17Speaker 02

  We decided to check out some video games for you.

• 1:08:19Kirk Hamilton?

  We did.

• 1:08:20Speaker 02

  What do you think?

• 1:08:21Kirk Hamilton?

  We thought we'd change it for one more thing this week. Well, we'll be back to talk about many more games in the future. For now, though, I will see the two of you next week.

• 1:08:29Jason Schreier?

  See you next week.

• 1:08:30Speaker 02

  Bye.

• 1:08:34Kirk Hamilton?

  Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddy Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join. Find us on Twitter at TripleClickPod, send email to [email protected], and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

• 1:09:31Speaker 06

  Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network. Of artist-owned shows. Supported. Directly. By you.