Tey: Oh,
I don't know how far in advance I'm listening to episodes.
So, am I the first guest?
Alison : You're the first guest.
You're the first guest.
Tey: I'm of gonna cry!
That's that's beautiful.
Matt Start: Hi Alison.
Hi, Alison.
Alison : Hi Matt.
Hi Matt.
I'm so excited.
Matt Start: I know we're super psyched today because...
... Alison : we have our very first guest for ADHd20!
Matt Start: Doooooh!
That's amazing.
Yeah, it's our very first guest and he's someone that we both respect so, so much.
He's an inspiration to us.
He is, a kind of a full time, game master for you every Thursday night.
Alison : Living the dream.
That GMing for me is the dream, but like being a full time game master.
Tey: It is.
Matt Start: Yes, is, it is.,
Tey: That's how I, that's how I'll introduce my voice.
Hi everyone.
I'm Alejandro Tey.
I use he/him pronouns and I am living the dream of being Alison's GM every Thursday.
That is the dream.
Matt Start: That's the perfect intro.
Alison : So, you guys have heard me talk about Tabletale Games,
I feel like in most episodes.
Because Thursdays, they're the days that I get to play with the Tabletale crew.
They're my favorite days of the week now, because of that.
So yeah.
Give us, give us a little introduction.
Tell us about yourself and then tell us about Tabletale.
Tey: Bwawm!!
The year is 2020.
It is January.
Everything is going great in the life of this sweet little theater nerd.
I'm getting ready to, start a workshop production of my play, The
Isle of Sugar, which is a tabletop RPG slash theater experience, that
is also based in my grandparents' experience with the Cuban revolution.
So yeah.
Oh my gosh.
We should talk about this.
Yeah.
So how to take an uninitiated audience member, cuz that's
the thing with RPGs, right?
Is like.
you go in knowing I'm gonna play an RPG, even if you don't know the rules, someone
has said here's what you need to know about the rules, or don't worry, I'll
walk you through the rules, but you know you're gonna go into play in an RPG.
So, so the question there was, how do you take an uninitiated audience
member, an audience member who's maybe just like I'm coming in to do a play.
Maybe I've heard there's some participation.
That's all I know.
And then secretly we're gonna play an RPG also, it's based
into docudrama also, yeah.
Yeah.
So this is very cool.
So I'm getting ready to do that.
Um, me and my wife are like going on our honeymoon.
I'm like running games online for strangers that, you know, I convince
myself this is research for my play uh, but maybe it's also just for me?
So I'm doing all of that.
Nothing could possibly go wrong.
We have an extension.
The run of the show does fantastic.
It gets extended.
We're gonna go into March in like a new space and everything.
And then something happened that y'all might have heard of, or might be aware of.
Alison : Oh, my.
Tey: And everything shut down.
And all of the gigs that I had been doing, even beyond Isle of Sugar, like
all my theater work and all my teaching work just vanished into the wind.
(breath)
And then, uh, I said to the internet, Hey, there, I'm a dear sweet theater
nerd who just lost all my foreseeable employment for who knows how long, Uh,
I'm gonna be running some games online.
Maybe you want to play, and maybe you wanna toss a coin or two to your Witcher.
And it went really well.
It went really well.
I did that for a couple weeks and, and there was such a massive
need at that time for connection.
'Cause you know, we were all, we all had to quarantine.
We all had to be away from each other and
Alison : For just six weeks, right?
Tey: For only six weeks, I mean that's right.
You know, we're gonna flatten the curve.
This is gonna boost me until we get through the other side and then we'll
pick up the pieces and see what's left.
And so when that did not happen, my, my friend and player from my home game,
Zack Berinstein, called me up and was like, Hey, I see what you've been doing.
It's a great idea.
But A.
You are charging way too little.
And B.
Would you like to take this more seriously as a business?
And I said yes to both of those things.
And then we went on a two year journey into Tabletale Games.
Um, yeah.
Yeah.
Matt Start: I did not know that origin story.
I am heartbroken that I missed Isle of Sugar.
Tey: You didn't, it's gonna, it's gonna come back around.
I'm going to find some way to do it.
you might have to go to another state to experience it, but it'll live somehow.
Alison : I also don't think I realized that we got to play with you so close
to the beginning of all of it, because I think our first game was June.
We bought Matt as a birthday gift cuz of our mutual friend Corinne had, when
Tey: Yeah.
Alison : started up said, look at the cool thing that my friends are doing.
And so we just kind of on a lark, we were like, this would be a cool birthday gift.
So we did a private session with you.
Tey: And y'all are some of my favorite players.
Like that's the thing, like I wanna keep playing with y'all
as long as I possibly can, too.
Matt Start: Oh, okay.
Alison : Yeah.
Twist our arms.
We will.
Yeah.
So With Matt and Evan and Fitz, we have played several one shots, a four shot
series that we've talked about before, to
Tey: Sharp-eared listeners will recall that I murdered Alison's first character.
Alison : You murdered Lav.
Yep.
Tey: And I listened, I listened to that episode and, had a little minor
anxiety attack where I was like, oh God, I've caused real life pain!
Alison : You elevated a story.
That's the whole point of that is that you gave something made up, fantasy, right?
Meaning and stakes and that's, that's beautiful.
Tey: But like a really interesting thing to talk about with these games because,
and I feel it especially being a GM.
You have to have such care to the humans involved because we invest so deeply.
And like you all have talked about before there is a piece of you in
these characters and being aware of that and being respectful of that.
And also allowing those pieces of you to rise to heroic challenges is
sort of what the game is all about.
Like, you can't leave the kid gloves on.
But at the same time, you know, there are people for whom I know that GMing is
like a power trip and I am just here to be able to express some kind of control
maybe that I don't have in my life.
Alison : And it's a very dangerous place to be in because you have such power
and you need to wield it responsibly.
That's my soapbox moment.
I'm not blowing smoke.
I'm staring at two of my favorite GMs to play with, Matt and Tey.
And I don't feel that way about either of you.
I mean, you're, you both are very good at challenging and pushing on players.
We have to play at our level.
But I, yeah, I don't, I've never felt a power trip situation, so
Matt Start: Thank you.
Thank you.
We are kind of supporting the players and yet Lav's death made it onto a
podcast, it was such a big event.
It was so important and it's so necessary to do.
Alison : Of all of the ways for Lav to go and all of the NPCs to kill her, the fact
that it was Vecna and everything going on with Stranger Things and Vecna is.
I've had so many friends now because I had told them that
Vecna is who killed my character.
See, I didn't say Tey.
I said Vecna..
Becca, um, And they now have watched Stranger Things.
They're like, that's the same one that killed you and, well, yes and
no, not really, but yet, but yeah.
So
Tey: It's a big multiverse out there.
Matt Start: I would also like to point out that, that Vecna killed
us before Season Four 4 premiered.
Tey: True.
It had not announced.
And,
Matt Start: I think you were ahead of the curve there, as Vecna the killing machine.
Tey: We were doing multiverse shenanigans before, before Dr.
Strange, before Everything Everywhere All At Once.
Big plug for that movie.
Go see that movie.
It's so good.
Matt Start: I gotta see it, I gotta see it.
Tey: It's so good.
Yeah.
Matt Start: Oh, speaking of which side note, apparently,
I have not seen the movie yet.
I'm dying to see it.
Tey: Oh, Everything Everywhere All At Once?
Matt Start: Yeah.
Yeah.
Sorry.
Everything Everywhere All At Once.
The directors during that
Tey: The Davids.
Matt Start: Thank you.
I think it's the Davids.
There was some, some aspect of the movie that, kind of speaks to the, the
mindset of someone with ADHD in some way.
And he discovered during the filming of that, that he does in fact have ADHD.
He's like, oh, wow.
Okay.
That makes sense.
That's why I wanted to go there.
And that's what it is.
So.
Tey: There's something so fascinating about that because so those
directors, I would characterize their style as like sensory overload.
Like it's like constant sensory stimulus and input, but there's
something really interesting.
And I think over the course of their career, you see them honing it and
defining it, cuz Everything Everywhere All At Once definitely has a sensory overload.
But I don't know.
I felt carried in it.
I felt buoyed.
Like I could make my way through the movie, even if it was a lot
happening, it was never like, oh, whoa.
I'm just totally lost and shutting down.
I don't know.
There was like, there was such a clear, cohesive through line and like a pull
that's not just we slapped a bunch of stuff on the wall and now it's all there.
Now you sift through it, you know?
Matt Start: Um, Alison, you, you do have some topics cuz otherwise
we'll just, we could just tangent for
Alison : Would be on brand and I wouldn't mind.
Um, so in preparation for Tey coming, one thing I have gotten to know
is that Tey loves a D100 table.
There are tables in all that we do .Your wild magic surge table
is a thing of art and beauty.
So in that same spirit, this is actually something that I've been meaning to do
pretty much since we started this, I have finally put together a D100 table,
an ADHD100 table that will become, you know, just like the outline, the thing
we'll probably forget about half the time, but, you know, keep us honest.
And in the spirit of my ADHD, naturally it is not finished.
Cause why would I have finished something I started?
So I'm hoping that maybe you could help with a, like a couple of questions to
like cherry on the top of the sundae.
But I'd also like for, to also go ahead and roll some D100s so
we can break open this table.
Tey: I'm so I am so happy.
I am kid in a candy store right now.
Because the, Okay, so right before we get into this, the reason why I
love random tables is because to me, that's, that is the third element of
what makes a tabletop game so good.
And so juicy is you, have, your players each coming to the table,
you have a mechanics system of some kind that allows for, you know,
resolution of these narratives, strings and conflicts or whatever.
And then you have random chance, just random ass chance and the way
that can spur creativity and allow stories to take new directions that
you did not conceive of in your mind.
It's fantastic.
Especially if you're in the GM chair, you are naturally always
thinking a couple of steps ahead.
You're always thinking of like, Okay, well, if they do this,
then probably will do this.
Even if you're a very fly by the seat of your pants, improvisational
GM, which I am like, I do not don't script anything ahead of time.
Even if you have that, you already have in your mind, maybe like the next
five or six moves at least, but when you roll it on a table, you can't plan
for that and you just have to react.
And that state of being of just reacting is my favorite thing.
So that's a very long way of saying I'm ready to roll.
Alison : All right.
Tey: What, what order are we?
What
Alison : Well, why don't we roll initiatives?
Tey: Oh, dang.
Oh, dang.
Okay.
Oh, seven.
Alison : I rolled a four,
Matt Start: Twelve.
Alison : Matty!
Tey: Matt.
Alison : The big winner today, Matt, what was your D100 role?
Matt Start: My D100 role is 79.
Alison : This is so exciting.
This is our first ADHD100 read.
I love it.
I'm so happy.
All right.
79.
What advice do you have for someone recently diagnosed with ADHD?
Matt Start: My advice, for besides listen to this podcast, because I think you could
both learn about ADHD & D&D at the same time, maybe something you're not, you
know, doing currently, which you should.
Definitely I feel like number one, congratulations.
Like you're lucky.
I think that before I was diagnosed with ADHD before I kind of started to put all
of these pieces together, there was loss, there was depression, there was confusion.
There was just beating the shit outta myself, because I didn't understand that
it is my brain that's working differently and that's totally okay, right.
You're born with what you get.
And so the first thing I would say is.
You wanna have coffee?
Let's talk about it.
Seriously.
Let us, let's just talk.
Let's just, what questions do you have?
And do that with everybody that you can possibly find
that knows that they have ADHD.
And, yeah, just find that community that instantly exists, right?
Find your crew and hang out with them as much as you can, because you're not alone.
That's the main thing it's like, The joy definitely is.
Oh, thank God, you're not alone.
So that's what I would do.
Call me up, is what I would say.
Tey: That's really beautiful.
Can I ask a follow up?
May I just grab the wheel of y'all's podcast for a second?
what, What is involved in a diagnosis?
Like people talk about diagnosed, not diagnosed, et cetera, like for
y'all what was that process like?
What did that look like?
Do they poke you with a needle?
Like, I don't know.
I hope not.
Matt Start: And that's a funny thing, because that was 20 years
ago that I got that diagnosis and I wonder now what it would be like.
Um, It seems to still be just a list of questions.
Alison : I was diagnosed seven years ago, so yeah, it, I
Tey: With a list.
It's a list of
Alison : Mm-hmm
Matt Start: Can confirm.
Alison : Mm-hmm
Tey: Questions?
Like like a, like a, Like a quiz?
Like,
Matt Start: Yeah.
Alison : I'm sure it's different for children, teens.
because I basically walked into the doctor's office and
said, I know I have ADHD.
I've always had ADHD.
What are we gonna kind of do about it?
but even, Once I got officially diagnosed in my doctor's office, I
didn't do anything about it for years.
I, I was 37 before I started any kind of therapy practice for it.
I've only just now tried medication for it in the last six months.
So the diagnosis then was, was oh, okay, cool.
There's There's a label for this I'm part of something.
This whole time, society has been making me feel lazy, unmotivated, you know, like
something's wrong with me for not being able to finish projects that I start.
For being anxious about things that the rest of the world deems dumb.
I've had many, many people in the past tell me you're being really
dramatic about something stupid.
Matt Start: I will say though that, because that does sound
super confusing and it is true.
it's just a, I think it's just a questionnaire.
And so yes, there are lots of people who kind of just walk and say, I have ADHD
and I, you know, so I need some Adderall.
I think there's probably tons of people that do that, which, you know, makes
getting Adderall more complicated.
But I think that when I was diagnosed and it's many times in the last 20 years, I
have not believed it or believed in it.
But more recently, as people are speaking out about it and talking about it there's
no question that I do now, but it, but it isn't, I wouldn't say that one
questionnaire just 100% pegged me, right.
Like I think it did enough for the doctor to say, okay, yep.
That sounds about right.
Because there are some things, that someone who doesn't know that they
have ADHD takes as granted or takes as neurotypical, that aren't, right?
So I think, I think that maybe a good therapist can go in and say, okay,
based on how they're acting, what they're doing, are they stemming?
Are they like, you know, are they playing with their hair
or do they have a little thing?
Are they, and all of it together with these, you know, 20 questions or whatever
it's I think they can kind of make it more qualified, but yeah, it's totally random.
And they're now of course discovering, is it related to autism?
Is it related to all these other things?
So I don't know if there'll ever be a, like a blood test, maybe.
I dunno.
Tey: That's really fascinating to me because I, as I imagine, probably many
of your listeners do, I, I hope so.
I don't wanna be alone, but I certainly would listen to y'all
tell stories and go, oh wow.
I really identify with that.
Oh, I'm totally different than that.
Oh, wow.
That sounds like something that happened to me.
Right?
Like I'm basing some of my own memories and experiences off of
what y'all are bringing up and going like, do I need to look into this
further or do I just really like these people and wanna be in their club?
Like What is happening right now?
What is happening?
Matt Start: Both.
Alison : We
Matt Start: kidding.
Alison : We welcome you in either sense.
Matt Start: Either way.
however, However
Alison : Um,
Great tangent, you guys, Tey, what did you role on your
Tey: uh, Well, I rolled 81.
Alison : Tey, you and I both rolled an 81!
Tey: Oh my gosh.
It's perfect.
Okay,
Alison : So, yeah.
So the question that you will now answer is What about your life
right now would a younger version of yourself find hardest to believe?
Tey: I think my younger self didn't actually have a whole lot of ambitions.
I don't know.
I think I have generally gone through my life with a plucky optimism that
like infuriates my partners, um, that, no, but honestly that like what's right
in front of me, it's what I'm doing.
My dreams as a kid were like, I want to be making theater,
I think, with people I like.
And I knew more about what I didn't want to do than what I did want to do.
I knew that I did not want to go to LA because it sounded like a place
that was all about like image and who, you know, and playing, like a social
climbing game to further your career.
Spoiler alert.
It's always that everywhere you go, it doesn't matter if you're on the West Coast
or not, so that didn't really pan out.
But beyond that, I didn't really know what form or shape my life would take
or what I would, get interested in.
But I left a lot of room open to get interested in things.
And what I found, what I discovered through living my life was that the
thing that really got me fired up was this idea of participatory theater.
It's what led me to RPGs, but I was doing it way before I ever played an RPG.
I made these weird shows in college that were, shout out to Ned
Baker my like, partner in crime.
We would make these shows that were, like stage combat stunt spectaculars that
would range all across campus where the audience would have like points where
they would decide what would happen next.
It was very choose your own adventure.
So there's always been that desire, that interest.
And I think it's about that specific relationship to audience, being someone
who like, I have a thing prepared for you, I have an experience prepared for
you, but I need you in order to do it or to figure out how it ends or to figure
out how the middle is filled, right?
Like I need the audience for that reason.
And that relationship is what artistically fires me up.
And that's exactly what I'm doing now.
So I think the that's the longest way of saying my younger self would take a
stock of my current life and go, huh.
That's all right.
Yeah, I get it.
I get it.
You know?
Alison : Yeah.
It also tracks why you are such a good and I presumably also love GMing if
Tey: I love GMing.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
Yes.
For that exact reason, I am so ready to tell a story that is also me finding the
story and discovering the story as I go.
And that's exactly what GMing is.
You're the storyteller, but you have no idea how it's gonna go.
Alison..
So question 81.
Alison : yeah, question 81
Tey: What about 99?
What's 99 doing for you?
If I just rolled 99.
Matt End: could you, do you have one that you might want to
throw out to Alison
Tey: I do.
I do.
I've been thinking about this one a lot as I've been listening.
So Alison, um, this is more of a, more of a D&D related question,
but, what is it about D&D for you?
Emotionally, what draws you in and what keeps you wanting to play this game?
Alison : Hilarious that the person who like pushes all my buttons in game is
now pushing my buttons on my own podcast.
Tey: You think you're an agent of chaos, but you have seen
nothing of chaos, you know, not
Alison : That's really why we wanted Tey here, for the voices.
I could just sit here and listen to the many voices of Tey all day long.
How do you put feelings into words?
I know that's like the age old question and that's gonna come off as such a cop
out, but I don't have words for this.
It's bigger than that because all I know is the very first time I
played my very first session, it was suddenly all I wanted to do.
Tey: Well, let, let me see, let me see if I can get at it
by like stripping stuff away.
If it was D&D, but it was not anything to do with any fantasy genre.
There's no silly names.
There's no magic, but it's still a character and it's still in
another world that's not our own.
Would it be something that you're still like, oh yeah, I wanna do that.
Alison : I think you're already finding something.
I like the, even when I think about the characters I build, I tend to
almost always wanna be a caster.
You know, I built a rogue and as soon as Matt would let me,
multi-classed her into Bard.
I've tried fighter.
It didn't work.
Tey: Okay.
So there's something about magic.
That is important.
Okay.
Let me try this.
What if I told you that we could play without any dice rolls?
We're still sharing that was immediate.
Immediate.
Okay.
So that aspect of it, what if I was like, what if I was like, yeah, there are dice
rolls, but we're gonna play a game that has, that has no combat in it at all.
That it's just magic people in a magic world putting together a, a magic fair,
like they have to put on a magic carnival and we're not gonna have any combat.
Alison : No, I would not like that.
Tey: No, not good.
Okay.
See that.
We're getting to the bottom of it.
I tell you that.
Okay.
Well, well, what if I told you this?
What if I said, we're gonna do, I wanna run a game that is like a gauntlet game.
You're a magic caster with your friends, but it's literally just,
it's, it's a gauntlet of a dungeon one level, one boss fight, and we make our
way down and that's the whole game.
Alison : I would wanna play that it, and it's interesting though, but, I think
2020 Alison would've been all about that.
Whereas now, like the evolution that has happened is like, well,
no, but I'd missed the role playing.
You know, Matt has pushed on my buttons in one of our games where he
has introduced a love story into it.
And at first I shut that shit down faster than anything else I
wanted nothing to do with that.
Matt End: Which is fair.
Of course.
It's fair.
You know, you should be allowed to shut
Alison : Yeah.
Yeah.
It was very weird and very like alien for me to try.
And I was like, N no, first of all, like we're not here for that.
We're here to mash baddies.
Um, And now, like that has become something that both I and my
character get excited about is now like that, that is out in the open
and feelings have been confessed.
Tey: I think I've just discovered what I set out to discover, which is
that you and I are the polar opposite.
Alison : Interesting.
Tell me more.
Tey: I don't care if it's fantasy or if it's magic, I don't care
if we're doing combats or not.
I could care less about the system.
I don't care.
Honestly, even if they're a dice, like I said earlier, like I love dice as
like a randomizing kind of force, but there don't need to be dice to do that.
That can happen in many other ways.
And it could just be as long as there's a story.
As long as there's a narrative, as long as there's something,
some kind of role playing or story to figure out there doesn't even
need to be role playing there.
There are games out there like I've played, you know, A Quiet Year and
Microscope where it's literally just me and my friends sitting
around deciding what the story is.
We're not even playing characters, we're just bouncing ideas off of each other
and like creating a story together, like almost like a writer's room.
And I'm like, that is a fulfilling RPG experience for me.
Alison : And that's why you and Matt get along so well, as I think
Matt End: We might, we might be the same person
Tey: Love it.
Matt End: We might be
the
Alison : is,
This is Matt over the course of the last year with this world that
he's now built for us, that we debuted Castle Birthday Weekend.
Like, that was so fun for Matt.
And I was like, plug me in.
I wanna play.
I'll answer a question if you need it, but I
Tey: Wow.
Alison : Wanna play in the world that you've built.
So yay.
I'm sitting here talking to two of the same people.
Wonderful.
Matt End: So, so to, to go back a little bit about, about, you know, pushing you
were not supposed to, or should ever push someone into an uncomfortable situation.
It's just, that Ireena fell in love with AK's character, period.
Because of the things that, that the character was doing and helping
and and that's all Alison, that was all like, I did not set out
to create a romance, for anybody,
Tey: Yeah.
Most, Most of my characters are like asexual, explicitly.
Yeah.
Matt End: Yeah, of course.
I think that's probably the most, the safer
Tey: Maybe a healthy rule to have as a GM.
Yeah.
Matt End: Also healthy, but I just, as Alison became more
comfortable and you got to know the character it just happened one day.
You made that decision in my mind, right?
Tey: Let, Let me ask you Matt, because this is how I have thought about it.
And I speak it in these terms.
I think of when I'm running, I think of myself as I am the engine of a video game.
I only render the things you look at.
If you don't get invested in this thing, I'm not gonna
spend any mental space on it.
But if you spend a lot of time on that thing, I'm gonna learn things about
it, that I didn't know, were there.
Matt End: 1000%.
I was gonna say that to the point where I, you know, I tell my wife she's like
D&D today, so you'll be done at three.
But I always forget the hour or so that I have to spend making notes on what
they have changed that they have already built in that three hours, four hours.
Like I have to, I was like, oh my gosh, I just, you just invented
your dad and you didn't know it, but now I know where the dad was.
Tey: Matthew, uh, yep.
Copy paste, except it's at midnight.
And y'all talked about you've talked on a previous episode about like our
Thursday game being done at midnight and then having to like decompress from it.
But yes, I am like, we're done at midnight and now I am like writing
frantic furious notes of like, whoa, not even what happened this session,
but like, what are the implications?
What are the consequences of what just happened this session?
What does this mean for like our ongoing threads?
And then I've gotta decompress from that.
Alison : It it's all changed my mind about it.
I will say like seeing the
Tey: Well,
Alison : play into it.
Tey: Let me do a follow up to that question then.
What keeps you invested so deeply in Critical Role?
And is it the same things or not as a viewer, as opposed to a player?
Alison : I have a confession, you guys
Tey: Oh,
Alison : I've failed out of both seasons one and three.
So I'm back to two.
Tey: What?
I don't get it.
Oh,
Alison : I it too much, I just had to go back to my security blanket!
Matt End: Yep.
Tey: that's
Alison : Because now I'm watching it again and I'm picking up all the
delicious little breadcrumbs that they had dropped us the whole time.
That of course, you know, watching it, I didn't realize you can see the depth.
So now I'm watching it as a player to better understand the relationship
between player and game master.
And so now that I know how it's all gonna shake out, it's really cool to watch like
how they started to set those stories up dozens of episodes, like there's stuff
going on in episode four that we aren't gonna find out about until the eighties.
And so I guess that's the answer to the question is that like you could
watch this a million times and find nuances every single version through.
Matt End: Okay.
So I have a question for Tey then along those lines.
Are you, would you consider yourself a careful person meaning Alison
goes back and she watches things over and over and over and over and
picks up on those juicy details.
That can be torturous to me.
I have a few things that I revisit, but that is just not my freaking jam.
Tey: I'm so glad that you clarified because when you
said, are you a careful person?
I thought you meant just like.
like in life, like carrying dishes, like going, you know, whatever.
I'm like, no, the answer is no, the answer is yes, I am a klutz.
No, I am not a careful person.
And I'm not a terribly careful watcher either.
I also very rarely if ever go back to rewatch something, I can probably
count on both hands, the number of movies that I have rewatched.
And I would say that like toot my own horn here, I think it has made
me a more close watcher because I know I'm like one and done.
Or something else, something that I will do actually.
And this is kind of a dirty little secret.
I don't really like to lead with this, but I will often give myself spoilers
for something I'm about to watch.
Like I will go onto Wikipedia and I will get the general plot breakdown before I
watch it so that I can pick up on all of the things when I watch it through the
first time and not have to see it again.
Alison : You just broke my brain and explained something to me about myself.
Tey: Oh!
Alison : The reason that I watch things over and over again is because I don't
pay attention the first 47 times.
And I don't want to!
I don't want to, like, I want to be playing on my phone or,
you know, washing the dishes cuz that's how my brain functions.
But that's probably why for the two of you who, because I feel like
Matt's obviously more in your camp.
No, I, I, I, I love this.
Matt End: Well is there something that would wrap all of this
this beautiful ADHD jam up?
Do we wanna give Tey one more?
Tey: I'm getting, I'm getting my dice tray up to the mic so we can
get some sweet clickety clack sounds.
Alison : Yes.
Oh,
Tey: 71.
Alison : What is the, the most likely thing to distract you during
combat when it isn't your turn?
So I need to ask you that as a player, obviously not a GM.
Tey: Almost anything.
I have, I have a really hard time being a player for this reason.
Combat specifically sometimes can be torturously boring to me.
I can't sit through other people's turns.
If you're the GM, you're always going, you are active, active,
active, cuz you must always be thinking and reacting and responding.
And every single moment is firing on all cylinders and it feels the
way that I think combat should feel.
Like, the way that I hope combats do feel.
I've never had, I've never had the, the gumption or the verve
to try the Angry GM technique.
Have y'all heard of this?
So Angry GM is a blog.
They have, a technique that is doing combat, like a dolphin where you
don't give people any time to respond.
If you don't start speaking and saying what your action is within, like the
first two seconds you've passed turn and you've lost your turn to indecision.
And it's a thing that like, I have always wanted to try, but I'm, I'm not
like firm or mean, and I'm so I'm, so pat I'm like, whatever y'all wanna do
is great by me is like my general ethos.
So I can't ever get it in me to do that, but it's the way that
I think combat should feel.
And I never get that experience as a player.
And I've had some great GMs.
I've had some great GMs, but anytime you have to sit and wait for
your turn to come around, is bad.
Alison : So I literally yesterday edited the podcast episode
that will be out tomorrow.
And it's hilarious that you brought this up because the biggest chunk
of what we talk about in that episode is Matt's feeling vexed
about combat taking too long.
Tey: Oh, what?
Alison : And
I.
You are like it's
Matt End: I know, I
Alison : need to just, I need to just leave and just let you two bro it out.
Matt End: Yeah.
Don't ever leave.
Tey: No,
No, no, no.
We need, we need you here as the balancing force.
Otherwise the engine will just, and then explode off into space.
Alison : Well, and in that episode I say that I have never experienced a
combat that I think takes too long.
Cuz I think combat is, I know, I know like I'm now like
Tey: Shocked faces, shocked
Matt End: I was stunned, I was stunned when she said that.
Alison : That it was yeah.
When a Critical Role episode that the entire episode is combat, I am here for.
One of our games where the entire thing is combat.
I am here for.
So hilarious.
Tey: What are you doing?
What are you doing with all your downtime?
Alison : Prepping for my turn.
So that way, if I ever do encounter an Angry GM I'm, you know, so like I'm
listening to what other people are doing.
So what is, and isn't working, I'm going through my spell sheet, like,
what is the like baddest possible move I could make, especially
Tey: That's why you're a great player, but I'm also shocked.
Alison : And I love it.
I live for that.
It is the most fun thing in the world
Tey: well, and I live for your joy.
That's
Matt End: It makes me happy to hear this.
I mean, I, it I'm stunned, but it really makes I'm glad.
I'm glad
Alison : I was stunned when I heard that, like the reason Matt was trying
to play with some home brew rules and make some different, you know,
combat configurations was because Matt thought combat took too long.
That shocked me.
So we're just all in here, shocking each other.
Matt End: And also, because I think that it should be deadlier.
That's yes.
Faster and deadlier combat.
Alison : I will say I hear you both on.
Because my immediate knee jerk reaction to what you just shared about the angry GM
was no, but I hear you both on the stakes.
It's gotta matter.
And if you're too loving and you know, oh, whatever experience
you want today, like that's dumb.
Tey: A lot of, but a lot of players are really into.
Playing it like, like a board game where you can just sit and
think and tactically talk it out.
And I'm not here to crush their joy.
And my true kryptonite as a GM is like a player's puppy eyes.
Like all they have to do is be like, but can we?
And I'm like, yes, of course you can do whatever you want.
Like I'm so permissive in that way.
Alison : I will say, as you guys share the things that you like crunch on
your soul in game, the way apparently com like combat taking too long does.
That's why I feel the way I feel about shopping episodes and strategy episodes
when we spend entire, because it's all, it's everything we've been saying in
this episode, it's all gonna go to shit.
So why are we gonna spend two hours pouring over like, how
are we gonna open this door?
Just kick it open.
We'll figure out the other side on the other side.
That's, when I get like, this is taking too long, when we go through
like every possible multiverse option for walking through that door.
So players beware.
If you're playing with me and you take two hours to come up with
a strategy, I'm gonna get mad.
Tey: Well, and it's all tempered and it all has to be balanced.
And if there's anything that two straight years of running for,
like dozens and dozens of strangers on the internet has taught me.
It's just that everyone has their own version of fun.
And trying to get all of that in a game is quite a feat, and respect
everyone's version of fun and let everyone have a bit of what they want.
But that's also the experience of being human.
So it's also my favorite.
Matt End: Wow.
that's it?
Bravo.
That's it.
That's the end of the podcast.
Alison : I'm already.
preparing for the next time Tey comes on.
I'm already preparing to be the first listener and number one fan
of y'all's forthcoming podcast.
Tey: I'm so thrilled.
Alison : So, thank you for being on a part of this and it's just always so
great to listen to you, talk and share.
Tey: Thanks.
Matt End: Period.
Yeah.
This is, this has been amazing.
Thank you so much Tey.
Tey: Thank you for having me, y'all are my favorites.
Matt End: You're our favorite.