Wanna Play D&D?
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game originally created, designed and published in 1974. Since then its been growing in popularity taking on many mediums such as music, movies, videogames, and livestreams. Now a days there has been a greater social acceptance of interest that were once considered "nerdy" or geeky" and even then there are still folks out there who have yet to play. Here is where we find them, so how about it? Wanna Play D&D?
Wanna Play D&D?
Embarking on D&D Adventures with The Great Des"
In this episode, The Direct Edition introduces The Great Des, who has never played Dungeons & Dragons, to the fantasy tabletop role-playing game. They discuss The Great Des' limited exposure to D&D through Baldur's Gate and other media, his curiosity about the game mechanics, and his expectations. The conversation covers topics like character roles, role-playing comfort levels, and hypothetical scenarios. The episode aims to demystify the game for newcomers and set the stage for Desmond's first D&D adventure.
All right, guys, I appreciate everybody listening in. Today's guest is going to be a good friend, Desmond what's going on Desmond? What's up, man? Is Desmond alright, or do you prefer Des? I prefer the great Des if possible. The great Des. The great Des, my mistake.
So Des, we met at a content creator meetup, right? And I was taken aback when you revealed to me that you had never played D& D, aka Dungeons Dragons. Unfortunately, I get I'm a lame nerd. [00:04:00] You're not doing your job as a nerd. So when I heard that, I had, I mean, to me, it felt like it just all coincided together because I had taken a podcast class and I came up with the idea of wanting to, help folks who've never played Dungeons and Dragons experience a first time.
And then you were like, Oh, I've never played Dungeons and Dragons. And I, and it was just, light bulb went off and it was , Hey, can I take your Dungeons and Dragons virginity? That sounds excellent to me. You take it big daddy.
So do you have any type of like D and D exposure? Anything like that? Nothing outside of boulders gate. I know that that's yeah. Boulder's gate three, the newest one that came out. That's it. In terms of board, no. So no pen and paper? No pen and paper. Any type of tabletop RPG experience or anything [00:05:00] like that?
Nope. Zero. So this is just coming out the gate fresh? Oh yeah, this is brand new. Okay. Alright. I've only ever seen videos of people that kind of recorded it. And, they'll go around the circle and they're having fun. And I'm like, man, those guys they're having a good time. So what about, so outside of Baldur's Gate, you've never seen any, you didn't never see the movies or TV shows or that.
Whatever that last movie was that came out. I thought it was it was dumb, but that Dungeons and Dragons movie they have some kind of Chris Pine. Chris Pine? One of the Chris's? He was Michelle Rodriguez was in it. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Okay. I know the way you talk. I know her.
Yep. Fast and Furious girl. Yep. Yeah, so you've seen that one, and you've played Baldur's Gate, and you saw videos of people playing Dungeons Dragons, and that's the limit to your experience. That's it. So how do you [00:06:00] expect it going?
I mean like based off of just what you've seen. I mean, I just, you just have somebody who makes up a story and you just got to act it out and I have no clue. So when you say act it out, you like, you thinking the role playing part of it? Yeah, yeah. Role playing. Okay. In person role playing. In person role play and, are you thinking that's something that's going to be required when you play D& D?
Cause, okay. Cause there are a few different aspects of it. Some, it depends on your DM, your dungeon master, really, I would say, and like some focus on the combat, some focus on the story, some have a heavy role playing aspect to it and whatnot, but. Usually from what I've found out recently is that sometimes they'll do like an interview of characters or people that are coming to sit down and play and try to feel out what type of story that they want.[00:07:00]
So while role playing is encouraged is not absolutely necessary, I would say, I guess it depends on your comfort level, so how comfortable, I would ask, are you? With role playing. Cause I feel role playing is intimate Not sexually intimate. It's karaoke to me.
It's you're putting yourself out there in front of people. So I would ask, how comfortable would you be, role playing? For a first time in Dungeons and Dragons. Are you allowed to partake in a drinking ritual first? I wouldn't put it past, I wouldn't say no, to loosen up to get that liquid courage or anything like that. Oh, then that'd be great. Yeah. Let's act it out.
As long as we got liquid courage, then we'll be fine. Yeah, that's all I need. [00:08:00] But let's see, do you know anything about the classes or like Barbarian, Hunter, Ranger, what type of class that you probably would prefer?
Paladin. It's gotta be a, yeah, I don't know the spec. I mean if they have the specs like they do in Vulture's Gate, but I'd be probably like a, I think it was a, whatever that evil one is that Oathbreaker. Oathbreaker. We haven't even started and you're already trying to go evil.
Did I ever ask you the scenario? No. The scenario about the cow. Yes. Okay. All right. Well, for, for these purposes, I'll repeat it. So the scenario goes is that you've come to the end of a campaign and you've defeated , the big bad, the, last ending boss, and he gets transformed into a cow by a magic spell.
And after he's transformed, you [00:09:00] have to decide, do you eat the cow? Okay. And I'm stuck on the island, right? No, you're not stuck on the island. You're still in the world. It's like you've gone through the campaign. Imagine Frodo come in to the end with the ring and Sauron appears and they turn Sauron into a cow after they beat him up.
So now they have to decide what to do with this cow. This cow that was once a living, breathing being and Now, it's a bovine. I guess I'd have to be in the situation. I guess if Sauron gave me, if, let's equate it to Sauron. So if Sauron gave me as much of a pain, painstakingly journey to get to where I wanted to go, Sauron's getting eaten.
We having steaks tonight? Sauron's getting it. I'm having all the best parts, the rib eyes, [00:10:00] the strip. Sauron's getting it. Good. Okay. So then we throw another layer on that. So every time that you chop up Sauron, he regenerates. So he feels that pain constantly as you're dicing him up and putting him on the grill or however.
Do you still, dine on Soran the cow? Well, since he didn't seem to care about my pain, rib eyes for me. Rib eyes for me. Okay. Okay. I like it. It's 100 percent we dicing up Sauron. Yeah, he's getting smoked. So you say you have Baldur's Gate experience, with the Oathbreaker.
And so I imagine you're going to try to play like a similar type character. Cause usually the type of experience that people have, they lean [00:11:00] into that. Yeah. And I would say with you playing Oathbreaker in Baldur's Gate, do you think you would lean into that, or you'd probably try to go a different way when playing it live action pen and paper?
It depends on, I think it depends on the scenario. It depends on the DM, from what I've heard, whatever situation they create is what I want to go based off of. I want to be fully into it, if it was, Scratch and it's well, let's let's come together and figure out what we want to do.
I don't know, the DM just throws out a regular ass campaign or something. And then I'm just like, okay, well, paladin, but if there, if it's going to be something crazy, like I'm some kid in the streets of New York or something, then. Maybe I want to be a bard. I don't, I don't know. I have to, I have to be in the moment.
Okay, I get that. I get that. So it's going to depend on the scenario. Yeah. All right. Well, how's this? Let's throw another scenario out for you. So if the DM comes to you and he wanted you to play an evil character, since you're leaning into this oath breaker, he [00:12:00] wanted you to play an evil character and at the end you betray your party.
How would you betray your party? It depends. You I have so many good ways to kill my party. Wait, first of all, I said betray, not kill. I don't know why you immediately went to kill. I just, I said betray. Oh, okay. My bad. My bad. Let me, let me roll it back. Hang on real quick. So if I had to betray them, I guess it depended on the setup, Is there another villain that I'm conspiring with to, to get profit from this other villain by giving up, their powers or something, or telling, secrets, or, it just depends on the form of betrayal.
Okay. Yeah. Let's say it was another villain that you're working with. He offered you untold riches was that would you wait to everyone go to sleep or [00:13:00] you just wait to the final moment where we're about to face a boss and then you turn on them then what do you think? Man, it depends. I'm an
evil care. I could be an evil character, but. It's not always about the money. If I'm actually having a good time kicking it with this crew and it's my adventures are gone now and I'm going to hate the next crew and maybe they're going to betray me. So it's I don't, I don't know. So it's, it's tough.
I really have to be in the moment. Cause I have to see how the party is. If I'm , ah, there's John over there and he'd been tripping his whole time. Then maybe we could come to some compromise, maybe I just give up John, and get everybody else in on it. And then, cause we all hated John anyway.
Poor John. He didn't need to do nothing. Why haven't you played? Dungeons and Dragons just hit 50 years. they just celebrated their 50th anniversary. So What took so long? I don't know what the, I don't know what [00:14:00] it's. I don't know. I've seen, what was that? Show the show everybody likes. Man, it's got the kids, the paranormal, they go to the other world. Stranger Things. Stranger Things, yes. Yeah. So on Stranger Things, they got the d and d club, the help like that.
Man, I got the shirt too, and I can't even think of the name. But they got the club and on the carpet. The Hellfire Club. Hellfire and it has it on there and I still don't know the name. But but yes, Hellfire Club, they talk about D& D and that's their thing and everybody has fun, but I don't see what the fuck they're doing.
They're talking about it and they're like, my wizard goes, I roll these dice and they destroy this. I'm like, well. I don't know. It looks boring, but it's been around 50 years. So it's been around 50 years. There must be some fun to it., but I don't know.
It just, I don't, I don't know what you do. No clue. I guess scenario would go something like this. You would, cause I've played a handful of times off and on throughout the years and. Of course there's going to be a DM and however many characters, four to six, I would say [00:15:00] would make six would probably be a lot forward. Probably be a good number. DM would come up with a scenario, usually it starts off with you all meet in a bar and then you go adventuring together. What we're going to try to do is get into a one shot ordeal. A lot of people I've heard, a lot of people I've heard was that they can't commit to a full time campaign, which goes week after week or every by week, however often that that campaign does.
We're going to try to kick this off next week and see how it goes. So we try to do like a one shot so you can feel it out, see how you like it. And then if you want to play again, we'll leave it all up to you. Sounds like fun. Okay. Well, how about it? You want to play D& D? Fuck yeah.[00:16:00]
All right
