My group also spent allot of time discussing inherent bonuses. In the end we chose to use them which allows me to create magic items that are personalized for the player rather then a generic stat bonus. For example, we have a cleric that is very fond of children. His goal is to open up a orphanage one day. I created an item that provides a bonus to healing for children. This was now something he really wanted and was willing to quest for.

So while some of my players are still hesitant, we all agreed to give it a chance and it seems to be working well so far at level three.

My dad was of the WWII generation, the type of fellow that went to work, read the paper, golfed, and fished. He ate a meat and potatoes dinner every night, and led a fairly uncomplicated but hard working life.

He was not too interested in in D&D etc, but on one occasion he did sit down with me for a board wargame. I can still recall that sunny summer day when we set up S.P.I.’s Napoleon at Waterloo and battled it out all afternoon. I am sure that the memory of the game was not that important to him, but I still remember the time when I shared my hobby with my dad all those 25+ years ago.

David S. Minnesota, USA

Also, I liked the direction that the Realms seem to be moving–having the authors talking before an event cannot help but be a good idea [War of the Spider Queen proves that] and allowing characters we already know to move us to the next iteration is an inspired idea…

Thanks.

The purpose of the episode was to highlight some digital tools that we may not have talked about before but wanted to have the chance to let people know about.

MasterPlan (as I was trying to convey) is a great episode. So much so that we’ve covered it (and quite throughly, I believe, http://TheTome.podbean.com/2010/10/23/tome-ep-154-masterplan/) having dedicated an entire episode to it and interviewing Andy Aiken, the man behind the (Master)Plan.

I couldn’t’ justify doing a show looking at digital tools and spend too much time looking at tools that the show has already discussed at length. There would be plenty of (justified) complaints then about just rehashing old content.

All that said, I knew that the MasterPlan fans out there are HUGE proponents of the program so I wanted to at least give it a nod. That’s what you heard and believed to be a “dismissive” “mac fanboy”.

You really didn’t think to get someone on your DIGITAL TOOLS episode that could review the one app that people actually, you know, USE?

I used to really enjoy listening this show. Back when the host was well informed.

A design column also suggested that a rule of thumb is for Advantage to require an action to get. That’s a really high cost and further contributes to the Lurker fallacy. The fallacy is as follows: the idea that dealing double damage on round 2 is the same as dealing normal damage every round. In the blog entry I tried to show why that isn’t the case. Further, I think it is nearly unworkable through simply boosting damage (dealing more than x2 damage in one round) in that the high opportunity costs largely mean you have to gain such a damage boost as to make the game too swingy.

Nice coverage in this episode. I really liked how you covered Next, and I totally dig Robert Adducci being on the show. I’m a big fan of his work and so thankful for his many contributions to our hobby.

I don’t want to TPK my party but I wouldn’t mind one or two dying Just kidding! (Kind of…)

Thanks for this guys, I enjoy hearing other DMs talk with as much enthusiasm about their games as I have for mine. Keep it up!

I certainly didn’t mean to be overly harsh on my comment for BTDMS 5. I’m a fan of D&D 3.5 (though haven’t played in a long time) but 4e just kind of rubbed me the wrong way. I think that some of my distaste for the system came out in my comment. My apologies. I did enjoy Randall’s discussion of his D&D Next experience very much though. Looking forward to other D&D Next episodes.

Also, though there are spoilers, I kind of wish I had listened to it before reading the book–or maybe during. Erin provides a lot of background detail on her thinking that really would have enhanced the book.

In any event, during our discussion, Erin said “Well it’s something I heard off and on while working at Wizards, and I know it’s something publishing in general regards as true. Namely, girls and women will read books about boys or men, but boys and men won’t read books about girls or women”.

I find it amazing that this attitude could still possible exist–I assume that some of it is based on actual sales figures or something–but I would love for you to have Erin address this when you read her next book, Brimstone Angels: Lesser Evils.

Keep up the great work.

I can’t help but wonder why some people reacted so negatively to that one comment though.

When talking about magical artifact and monster generation, you guys are talking (around the 8-minute mark) about simple, robust system, and one host mentions that for tactical elements “if you have something that is too simple, it will be difficult to use.” Not sure what that meant. Making things simple will make it hard to use?

Sometimes it’s not about hearing something brand new, sometimes it’s helpful to get a reminder about the things that you may have forgotten or let lapse along the way. 4e has changed a lot of my play style based on how it’s designed and some of this advice addresses that specifically.

That said, sometimes it is about hearing something brand new and we try to bring you a bit of both when we record advice episodes.

And ultimately, if someone doesn’t like an episode, another advice episode is just a month away and will have an entirely different guest, which always changes the dynamic of the advice (that’s precisely why we choose to have rotating guests).

Her blog should be linked in the About the Hosts page, the other things probably aren’t (although I suppose they could be).

Her Prismatic Art company has been mentioned a few times in the show, but in an effort NOT to overwhelm people with the hosts promoting their own things/agendas we probably mentioned it two or three time and then stopped doing so. Which is honestly, why it surprises me on some level when people comment about being put off by certain messages or finding them tiresome when I think we do a pretty good job of not making the show a place where we further our own agendas. I would challenge people to find half a dozen Tome Show episodes (out of over 200) where the issue of the depiction of women in game art came up. Honestly, I can only think of 2 or 3 times in over 5 years.

Glad you like the show!

Keep it up, I say.

Also, how do we submit questions for the next show?

I was going off of this: Brian > Frankly the random reference that makes to how women are Brian > represented in the game has become off putting.

I apologize if my quick summary somehow reduced the complexity of Brian’s general gist–I read him as saying that he is put off by Tracey’s comments.

Rodeo Drive > her ideas are somewhat half-baked, lacking support Rodeo Drive > and under-developed. I assume that you are joking here OR have no idea who you are talking about…As far as I can tell Tracey spends a massive amount of time on this topic [fully baked], is making claims generally supported in discussions of main stream sexism [supported], and has started a company to change this [fully developed].

More importantly, She regularly blogs about this stuff, posts on twitter and g+, supports / facilitates some fairly complicated discussions.

If a passing comment on a podcast comes off as flippant or something it may be helpful to Consider the Source.

Rodeo Drive > How can you have a complicated, important, Rodeo Drive > and interesting conversation (things I agree Rodeo Drive > with, by the way) by only mentioning Rodeo Drive > something in passing and failing to elaborate?

Excellent point. Maybe this comes down to how much elaboration is required–pointing at a picture of a female gnome with enormous breasts and laughing is enough elaboration for me, but your mileage may vary…

We also give lots of opinions, about lots of things, in passing and don’t always elaborate.

I think the general gist was that her ideas are somewhat half-baked, lacking support and under-developed.

How can you have a complicated, important, and interesting conversation (things I agree with, by the way) by only mentioning something in passing and failing to elaborate?

The idea that Tracy’s occasional focus on the obvious sexism in our hobby is making listeners so uncomfortable that they are going to stop listening is pretty much the EXACT point the Tracy is trying to make.

The conversation that Tracy is trying to have is complicated, important, and interesting–she brings a ton to this cast & I am really glad she is here.

As for the other 76 minutes, the book sounds really useful. I have to disagree with one of the reviewers; books like this have to repeat material from other editions. Good stuff is good stuff.

Sorry for the confusion there. I totally get what you’re saying…although that’s not what this show is. We have an advice episode the we record on this feed once a month…THAT show does the exact sort of thing you’re talking about.

The purpose of Behind the DM Screen is exactly what you described. It’s 3 veteran DMs talking about their campaigns and helping each other making them better…and you guys are invited to listen in (and even occasionally participate).

It was our failure to not briefly mention in the episode what the show is. Sometimes we forget that every episode is someone’s first episode. We just recorded episode 6 (just finished a few minutes ago, in fact) and we discussed this issue (and your comment here) and are going to try to be better at making it clear to new listeners what the show is and isn’t.

If, by the way, BtDMS isn’t a show you’re interested in, but other Tome Show productions are more to your liking I’ve recently set up a multitude of feeds on the page linked at the top of the site called “The Feeds” where you can subscribe to the reviews, advice, gamer to gamer, etc. etc. etc. individually. So perhaps you can find a way to combine those things so that you’ll get just the shows you like.

Hope that helps and thanks for checking the show out!

@Lyal: Sorry for the confusion about Jeff and TheTome…they’re both me. If I’m logged into the back end of the site it automatically lists me as “TheTome” rather than whatever I typed in on the comment. I’m not trying to make it look like a larger conversation than it is, or anything.

In any case, Lyal, thanks for the well reasoned discussion. I’m always happy to hear constructive people discussing things in a reasonable way even if I don’t always agree. I’ve discussed at length the philosophy of editing (what to and not to cut). I’m happy with our current method. I’d rather have more information than just cut everything that I don’t think is the very best because in a review you never know what information is useful to who in the audience. What I think may not be a big deal could be a major factor for someone else. If it’s not there, no one can benefit from it, if it is there maybe someone can.

On a related note, Lyal, as a podcaster I wanted to let you know of an email group that’s been around for many years via yahoo groups. If you’d like to get an invite into it shoot me and email and I’ll hook you up (thetomeshow AT gmail.com).

Thanks for the comment!

Sometimes we talk about it in depth, sometimes we don’t. We talked about the issue again near the end of the episode, pointing out images in the book and describing them.

On the book club episodes, we’ve asked authors why they decided to portray female (and male) characters the way they did, both ones we liked and ones we didn’t.

I am going big, and I am not going home.

I never said one topic more than others needed a full explanation. I used it as an example. Maybe your “silly” remark was directed at someone else.

In addition, during reviews, lots of people say things in critique without going through the full explanation. To say I have to be just because of the topic is silly.

First, I find Jeff’s comments here strike a better balance of defending a co-host (understandable) and thanking the listeners for their feedback than The Tome’s. Maybe you’re the same person.

I can see where Rory and Brian are coming from about the comment, although I probably wouldn’t have singled out the one host. Then again, their comments read like they’ve listened to more episodes than I have.

As for the comment, if I felt that some pictures objectified women (I can’t recall the exact wording), I would have described one of them. Talking about pictures on a podcast can be a losing battle, but at least the listener would have had some frame of reference. (I could follow the later, unrelated picture descriptions.) This would’ve helped me, as a first-time listener, better determine if Tracy’s critique was valid. As it stands now, I have no idea.

I don’t want to single out one host, though, because I think the silence that followed the comment made me think that the other hosts didn’t know what to do with it. The other hosts could have followed up on the Underdark reference at the end or they could have asked for an example. Even better, they could have agreed (again, with an example) or disagreed. Disagreement could have led to some interesting clash. Agreement could have helped to support Tracy’s comment. I don’t care if she’s been “explicit” about the issue elsewhere; it needs to be clear on this episode.

As a final check, I think in the editing process, you need to listen for things that go nowhere and cut them out. A lot of stuff we say on our cast ends up in the bin because it didn’t add to the discussion. If we find something boring, we can only imagine how uninteresting our listeners will find it.

Anyway, I hope you don’t mind me chiming in and take my comments in the spirit that they’re intended.

Eric, this is a podcast about gaming. Everything is a molehill.

For example, there was a lengthy discussion of where and under what circumstances the PCs should encounter Orcus in one of the host’s games. But it was very much “How can *I* (the host) use Orcus in *my* campaign?” What are the listeners meant to take away from that? Why not present that discussion as “Here are some interesting things about Orcus, and here are some suggestions about how *you* (the listeners) can use Orcus in your games at home.” You could still settle on one specific suggestion for the host to use in his game, but that way you’ve also given the listeners lots of things to think about to use in their own games.

Basically I’m not sure what I’m meant to get out of listening to three GMs talk about the specifics of games that I’m not involved in.

Now, everyone has a completely different opinion about where what line (ethnicity, gender, violence, ect…) should be and we can debate that point endlessly, but I think it is a fair point to be raised in the review of a product like this.

I recently answered a poll from Wizards of the Coast about what level of violence and blood the D&D Next art should be aiming for. If WotC is interested enough to wonder if they are doing it right (or if they can do it better), how can it not be a valid point when reviewing one of their products?

-Chad

I feel the comments by Brain and Roy makes mountains of an anthill. The art discussion takes a small portion of the episode. All the reviewers share their opinion of it which they are entitled to. I appreciate hearing the multitude difference experiences and opinions on the products. I’m sad to read people who wish that we share less differing opinions.

I see and appreciate the irony of my feelings that we should allow discussions of opinions except those who wish to shut down opinions of others.

I thank you for your feedback, although I wish there were more specifics. If you have specific questions, then I’ll be happy to do my best to answer them. The “But The Simpsons already did this” piece of feedback is something I cannot control. The Internet is a big place and there is a great deal of overlap in terms of suggestions for DMs.

Greg, your feedback is more specific and I appreciate that. As for the suggestions being common-sense, that is a fair point - although something that is “common-sense” for you may not be common-sense for someone else. If just one DM listens to the podcast and thinks, “Yeah, I do fall into the trap of just managing the combat encounter instead of furthering the story” then I think the podcast is useful.

That said, if the show isn’t right for you, I understand and I encourage you to keep exploring your options, there are many great podcasts out there that offer different perspectives and I’m a big fan of growing the community of RPG podcasters even if you don’t want to listen to this one.

-Chad

This is, after all, ONE of the reasons that Tracy was brought onto the show. She has many perspectives and experiences that I don’t have. She’s a newer gamer, she’s a writer/designer, she’s an east coaster, she’s involved in teaching new people to play at cons…and yes, she’s a woman. All of these are perspectives that I don’t have that could better reflect the opinions of some audience members.

And, like her, you are also welcome to your opinions. If a “random reference” in an episode is enough to negate all the enjoyment you get out of the rest of what the Tome Show produces then such is the way of things. I encourage you to check out the variety of feeds, perhaps you might want to subscribe to the non-review feeds.

Frankly the random reference that makes to how women are represented in the game has become off putting.

Everyone gets their view, but this is the last time I am listening to your pod cast.

DwarvenForge & Dungeon tiles: I’ve been promoting a cheep alternative to this, Gaming Paper. I’ve been using it since I started my own campaign and honestly I find it’s been pretty awesome to have. Drawing out all the maps ahead of time has been a big time saver at the table.

Skill Challenges: I still like the idea of Skill Challenges and but I think it might work better for a very special situations that you don’t want to resolve with one skill roll, but don’t want one failure to result in defeat for the players. In my campaign, I should have used it when a player was pulling a break-in with the party. If I made it a moderately hard skill challenge, it would add tension to the ‘encounter’ but not make it impossible.

By the way, can we get a link to some of the pictures of Randall’s sets. They sound pretty cool.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/dun/lordschaos

done.

Can you please provide a link to the olhydra?

Cheers, Al

But the larger point is that it would be nice for the Monster Builder to include that sort of functionality. It is a monster builder, after all, and one of the easiest ways to build a custom monster is to take one that exists and add a template to it.

David, I’m aware of the lack of iTunes image showing up. That actually happened slightly before I started mucking with the feeds, so I can’t entirely explain it other than I think the host may have changed some things and I didn’t notice it. Let me know if the image still isn’t working in the next few episodes…I think I may have found a fix…but I’m not sure.

I wanted to leave a comment because I know that you have been making changes to the Feed–the last two Tome’s that I have down loaded via iTunes have not had the Book & Feather Tome Show icon attached to them–when I play them back I simply see the standard iTunes Podcast logo.

In any event, keep up the great work!

I often find myself working through my game prep and in the back of my head keeping a tally of what I’m going to struggle with, what I want to talk about, how Randall and Mike might help me out. So having discussed it here your ideas may just be in the back of my mind as we get ready to record the next episode.

Then again, we’ve already recorded episode 4 and episode 5 won’t be recorded for nearly a month…so who knows what I’ll be thinking about by then.

I would like to suggest that you take an episode to describe in detail how you prepare a key setpiece encounter or even a story arc-ending adventure. Things like selecting miniatures for NPCs, selecting personalities for NPCs, how you choose encounter areas and your set-up process for these areas (pre-gen maps vs drawing out, terrain, props, etc.). A step-by-step description of how you go about planning and prepping for an average game session would also make for a good podcast. Thanks again!

And thanks for the interview. This was a blast.

Cheers

Will be doing a re-edit and reupload soon.

For instance, here’s a minor issue I have. I’m trying to take a pre-gen module, and then wrap the storyline around the players more, making the events of the module fit into the players backgrounds. Have you guys ever tried doing this before and do you have any tips on fitting players original backgrounds into the pre-generated storylines.

I would ask for advice on a specific situation but I think one of my players already listens to your show. hehe.

Randall: With the Myst pages idea I keep thinking a physical prop would be cool. A little like how Gadmore Abby had the Deck of Many Things. The host of a different podcast (Know Direction / 3.5 Private Sanctuary) has built his game around the players manipulating fate, as an excuse to use Paizo’s Plot Twist cards. Similarly, the Myst pages could also grant fun bonuses of be an excuse to use Fortune Cards.

Mike: I really get the impression Rolan is smart enough to have read the Evil Overlord list. I’d have him set-up an ambush for the PCs and put them on the defensive. It seems like a solid penultimate adventure emphasising the end being nigh, but also keeping things changing.

And, for whatever reason (perhaps already knowing Shelly?), this was the best interview Tracy has conducted. I hope she’s bottled it for future shows!

Personally, there are things that can be done, things that can’t be done, and things that could be done but would require a use of resources that isn’t likely to happen. I’ve been doing this long enough (and discuss the topic of podcasting enough) to be aware of much of that.

That said, I still welcome all feedback, even hyperbolic feedback. While specific comments may or may not be something we can/will resolve it does give some general impressions about how to move the show in a positive way. Even the comments that are the most hurtful have positively impacted the show over the years…that’s not to say that they might not some day drive the show into cancellation, but I’m a stubborn guy, so it doesn’t seem likely any time soon.

I can see a write in your question section fitting in nicely as well as a section on DM Tricks [how to track initiative, how to ‘change the board’, how to keep players focused, how to order pizza, etc].

Also, I think you have room for a fourth DM & I really think including Chris Heard would be a very good idea–his story telling is first rate & he does a great job of documenting his prep work.

For me it isn’t just about editing, it’s also about equipment. I have a very long commute and listen to many podcasts across a number of genres. I’ve picked up that using the right equipment goes a long in producing a quality podcast. Using good microphones that work well with your particular voice is the first step. Using the right software and sound processor makes the world of difference. Of course these items cost money and may not be within the budget of what The Tome wants to invest into the show.

All the background noise can be filtered out with the right mics and processors, so all you hear on the feed is clean voices. I’ve heard some podcasts that use skype and it sounds horrible and other podcasts where the person sounds like they are sitting in a sound studio. Of course this was done by experienced radio guys with high end gear but it demonstrates there are ways to use skype, or facetime, without it sounding like the person is talking through a paper tube.

I’m not trying to be overly critical. I was hoping the comments were taken in the spirit given. If I didn’t care about the show, I would just ignore it and move on. However, I get the impression the folks behind the show care and are really trying to put out a solid product. They can’t do that unless folks give them feedback.

However, reporting in a timely fashion should not equate to poor production values. It’s RAW. I get that. However, a couple of quick edits can make a world of difference. Cutting out the huge pause and the Skype crash would have made this episode that much better, and would not have taken more than a minute or two. It’s not like you’re editing the whole thing.

Remember, you want to keep your audience engaged in the topic, not in the mistakes. People will accept RAW only up to a point.

Anyway, please accept this as constructive criticism. As I said above, I appreciate your thoughts on 5e and look forward to future coverage.

This was not an episode that could be planned or scripted because we didn’t know that the announcement was going to be made. In an effort to get our thoughts, discussion, and ideas out there we grabbed some of the Tome family and did an off the cuff episode on the announcement.

That said, I take all the feedback to heart, don’t doubt it and am and will be aware of it going forward. We do plan to continue to cover news of the new edition in the future of the show but since it’s not likely to be such big surprise it will likely all be well planned, scripted, and outlined as usual.

On a side note, we were multi-tasking during the episode, we were finding references. When dealing with breaking news like this it’s important (to me at least) to be as accurate as possible and in an effort to not mis-state or mis-represent anything we were often looking at the websites and articles we were referencing. Sorry if that was distracting. Again, this is not usually the normal behavior of us or our guests, but for a RAW episode dealing with such a big topic we opted to allow it in an effort to maintain accuracy of reporting in a timely manner.

One word made me expect everything your post complained about: Raw. We knew this show would be posted unedited. Just goes to show how far editing can go to tightened up a podcast.

Please do a little more show prep. You all are not that good at riffing, the pauses and silence tell your audience you have no plan on what to talk about next. You need a much tighter and packed show outline. Instead of looking for ways to fill in the time, you should have an almost minute by minute outline so that you are more worried about fitting it all in rather than worrying about how you can pad the time. Your audience will be able to tell the difference. When you are pushed for time, you will have a sense of urgency and energy that will carry in your voice.

I like your insight into the games and believe you have something to offer. I just believe you could take your podcast game up a level with a little more craftsmanship.

Please stop.