An Unnamed Soldier – Coping with Fictional Trauma in Character and Out with Jeffrey Baker (D&D5e)

Jeffrey: 0:00

The dad voice and the dad look, the glare you can give to your kid that only they know, like, Oh, I'm in trouble, especially in LARP situations. It's like, Hey, anything goes, man, this is as real as it gets just stay in character. Just take it in character and you'll be okay. And nobody thought about the bleed. He's constantly buying this white powder and he mixes it with his tea every morning. And he's like, that dude's on drugs. It's like, no, it's for my knees. No whining. Deal with it. You can whine when you're dead

Star: 1:03

Hello friends, welcome to Characters Without Stories, a TTRPG podcast about the roads not yet traveled. I'm Star. This episode I am joined by Jeffrey Baker, a dad, LARPer, and game designer. Jeffrey has been playing TTRPGs ever since his older brothers would allow him to join. His creative well consists of using his personal life, theater training, and LARP background to make fully realized characters. Jeffrey, I'll give you a chance to plug your projects at the end, but right now, do you want to tell listeners a little bit about yourself?

Jeffrey: 1:34

You kind of said it all. A lot of who I am is based in theater and acting and translating that into TTRPGs and LARPing. And when they would tell people when I would go LARPing, it was like, well, yeah, it's a three day improvisational theater camp. You go camping for the weekend and you just try to improvise this one character and stay in it as long as you can and true to that character. And that's a good training ground for GMs and, and just playing characters at a table as well. And just trying to stay in the moment as best you can. And then of course these days I, I'm getting new inspiration from my children, my two kids, watching them develop stories and watching their little brains function and, and try to interpret the world. And how they take that interpretation and then manifest it into reality and how they see things. Really cool.

Star: 2:31

Yeah, that's really sweet. So tell me, Jeffrey, who are you bringing to the table today?

Jeffrey: 2:36

I am bringing, at this time, an unnamed soldier. It's a concept that's been pinging around in my head for a very long time. It was a D& D character, even though these days I don't really play D& D anymore. I still love the concept and something I want to probably take into another system. And the reason why he's unnamed is because it's just, the character is there right now. And essentially it is getting away from the lovable sexpot bard and really trying to wrench it the other way. And this is a bard who leans more into oration and speeches and to that end I was like, he should be a soldier. Uh, older soldier, maybe has seen a few battles here and there, and is kind of a little weathered by it, and so a little gruff. And I think that comes down to is, I'm now 40, so the older I'm getting, I find myself wanting to play older characters that have a little bit more life experience. And what does that mean when you're running around in these very strange, adventurous Settings, and how does someone of that age and life experience react? So, the manifestation then of this bard character is, the characters get hurt and the party members, Hey, just rub some dirt in it, you'll be fine. Slap some, you're fine. Healing word. Uh, you know. Finding the fun ways of taking all the bardic spells and reflavoring them to be gruff and that dad like care. Standoffish dad, maybe.

Star: 4:13

Yeah, that kind of traditional stoic dad.

Jeffrey: 4:18

Yeah, that maybe is stoic because they've got a lot of trauma in their past. What good D& D character doesn't have trauma?

Star: 4:26

This is an older character and personally, I love, I've been trying to play more older characters because I feel they're not well represented. There's often a lot of characters that are teenagers that are, you know, just in their early twenties. And so I love to see that variety. How do you think this character's experiences have shaped him?

Jeffrey: 4:47

I think it's, it would come down to a lot of loss, right? Especially when you're talking about a soldier of a certain age, you're dealing with somebody that has fought alongside probably, you know, if he's been a soldier for that long, from a young age. And has been that idealistic kid is going out with his buddies or fighting for the kingdom or, or doing the right thing and slowly seeing the reality getting peeled away and maybe realizing, like, I'm depending on the story of the, the situation, maybe the kingdom I'm fighting for isn't the good guy that Mitchell and Webb skit, are we the baddies?

Star: 5:26

Yeah, insert meme here,

Jeffrey: 5:28

We could go that angle with it. But yeah, losing friends constantly despite having gifts, you know, if you're a bard you're gonna have special gifts, right? You have special abilities and powers and maybe just not having the right one at the right time and feeling that guilt You have survivor's guilt. So you have a lot of this stuff and that's a lot of heavy life experience To bring to the table, which I think a person their 20s doesn't have right?

Star: 5:52

Yeah

Jeffrey: 5:53

They're idealistic They're gung ho, which is great for an adventuring party. Really Makes most sense when you're level one. It's harder to justify a level one bard who's 40. Well, and even a 40 year old soldier, that's a little old, I think, for most fantasy setting. Yeah, and that's where I would, you know, maybe peel it back to the 30s, especially if you're talking about medieval fantasy. If you're talking about in your 30s, you're ancient. With that technological time period, but I'd still bring that level of mentality to it. Even though the age is a little bit younger, still bring all that with it. And you can also, you know, say, Hey, well, you know, maybe they only fought in one campaign, got hurt, which could be good for the bard. You know, inspiration, they're a drill sergeant. And so kind of going that drill sergeant route. I'm screaming and yelling at you to get you ready for what we're about to face. You don't understand what looking down the mouth of a dragon really means. And if you can't handle me yelling at you while we're just standing around camp, you're not going to be able to handle a beholder or, you know, whatever. Even a Grick, like you don't understand what we're about to run into.

Star: 7:08

Well, yeah, and it goes back to what you're saying about not having the right skill at the right time. I think if that had been your experience training others, that I think would be something you'd want to instill.

Jeffrey: 7:21

Yeah, you need to make sure you've got the right thing at the right time, because you never know when you're going to need it. You need to be at your tip top, because you don't know what we're about to go into. Kind of that Boy Scout mentality, maybe, right? The, uh, always be prepared.

Star: 7:36

Yeah.

Jeffrey: 7:38

Which would go into, in a way, to do that, and I got this from an older player, who we played a one shot one time, and he played, you know, OD& D. And When we sat down to make characters, you know, this was 3.0 days, 3.5, something like that. And we'd all, one shot, we'd all make our characters and we'd go to the equipment section and kind of, oh, sure, rations, a bag or whatever. He was like, how much money do I have? And he spent it all on adventuring equipment. Just crazy stuff. But when they got into the dungeon and they were doing things, he had a tool for every problem they ran into. Oh, I've got a portable battering ram. Well, I've got a ladder. Oh, I've got a collapsible pole. Oh, I've got enough rope for that. And the GM is just like, I'm not prepared. I'm not prepared for someone this prepared. That is something that has stuck with me for that long. And I, and I think that goes to show wisdom, right? The ability to be tactical and think that far ahead, not just think in the moment. Like, okay, I need to make sure here's all the eventualities that we could come across. I need to be ready. And so that's just a big part, I think, bringing over into that character.

Star: 8:52

You're talking about a soldier. Most people would make that build as a fighter, perhaps a paladin. Bard is an unusual choice. Why did you make that choice?

Jeffrey: 9:02

Specifically to buck the trend. So I know it's not probably the most mechanically advantageous or the right thing to do, but I just saw how most bards are depicted and played and I was just like, there's other ways to do this that are just as fun, probably more interesting. And so like, hey, let's take a bard and put them in this situation. Because what I like to do is really take abilities. And reflavor them towards the character. And that was going to be a great challenge and a great lot of fun. Okay. Take all these bardic powers, but how do they look when it's just your run of the mill soldier? Doesn't have a lute, doesn't have a flute, doesn't have a lyre, you know, whatever. It's just pure personality. It's pure charisma that pushes you through. And also playing with the idea that charisma is not a stat that represents how good looking somebody is, right? There are people that are insanely charismatic, but are not traditionally good looking. And I'm going to put this out there, Jack Black is not your traditionally Hollywood guy. Yet he's been a leading man in a romantic comedy because he has the charisma. And I think that's something that's really not looked into. When you look at games like D& D, I think there's a lot of surface level play going on there, when you can take those mechanics and go much deeper and have a lot more fun with them.

Star: 10:29

Absolutely. Yeah, I love a bard that is non traditional, that doesn't use an instrument, for example. I was playing a bard who was a cheerleader, and so all of her bardic inspirations, all of her bardic abilities were based on leading a cheer squad.

Jeffrey: 10:45

That's amazing. Give us an S. Give us a T.

Star: 10:50

Yeah, all of her bardic inspiration was a cheer to the other player, like making up a cheer about them.

Jeffrey: 10:57

That's great. That's so good. And that's what's fun. Take things that are very traditional and go a different direction with them. See how far you can pull it before it breaks.

Star: 11:09

I often start with the flavor. And then figure out how to build the mechanics into it would you say that this is kind of where the character started for you or was there a different spark?

Jeffrey: 11:21

In this particular case it definitely was I don't like what's happening with the bard I'm gonna do something different but for the most part

yeah most of my characters are: 11:26

here's the personality, here's the flavor, here's the emotion I want to pull out with them, and the feeling to get with them. Okay, how do I find mechanics that support that going forward? And then build from there. So yeah, definitely character first.

Star: 11:45

Yeah, that's kind of a system agnostic approach, too. Like you said, this was for D& D and you don't play D& D anymore, so you could put this kind of character in a different system because it's not built around that bard class, necessarily.

Jeffrey: 12:00

Exactly. So that's what's nice. You know, I know several systems I could pull this character into and have just the same kind of fun with. The only sadness is not telling people what the class is. Until we get at the table and get into the first fight and do something, you know, somebody falls on the ground and like, I go, you know, and I pick them up by their shoulder and I shake them a little bit and be like, you don't fall on my watch, did I say you had the right to fall, you get back in there. Bardic inspiration, D6, like that kind of thing, trying to make it to where. Eventually, the bardic inspiration is more that they don't want to disappoint the character. They don't want to disappoint daddy soldier. I just don't want him to be disappointed in me. If he believes in me, I can do anything. That kind of thing. So, that's how I saw that playing out. Would it have played out that way? Probably not.

Star: 12:52

Well You never know. It depends, I suppose. You mentioned that this was not necessarily an optimal build for D& D in particular. How important is the optimal build to you, or having a character that exploits mechanics?

Jeffrey: 13:09

Not generally. The caveat to that is the group and the setting.

Star: 13:13

Yeah.

Jeffrey: 13:14

And maybe the module potentially. If it's a game system like Cypher System or Quest or, you know, kind of one of these lighter narrative things. Definitely not worried about any kind of system mastery. Because I know what we're going into. We're going in there to really focus on the narrative. But trad games like D& D, I think, push you to have to be a little bit more system optimal. They can be a little bit more punishing if not.

Star: 13:39

Mm hmm.

Jeffrey: 13:40

And then you can have groups of players where they're expecting everybody to come to the table with a very optimal build and we all want to synergize and we want to make sure that no matter what fight we get into, we're going to win. And we know we're going to, but there's no question. So you gotta have to feel things out. I mean, I don't mind doing that. If I were to play a Pathfinder 2 E game. I would probably focus on a really optimal thing because I think that's a part of the system that makes sense. I think that's what it wants you to do and is going to help you make or get the most enjoyment out of that system is if you do that, because it's on that crunchier side, so. Hey man, get in there and tweak and have fun and try to make something just dumb that's gonna make your GM go, what? What are you doing? Hold on. Wait. Stop. Let me see that little book.

Star: 14:36

Yeah.

Jeffrey: 14:37

I had a wizard character I played in a campaign that ran for 10 years, so I played one wizard character for 10 years. We went from 3. 5 to 4 E to Pathfinder during that time span. There was just things I was doing, even in 4E, that made the GM just have to stop. I'm like, hold on. Yeah, I can do 2d10 damage to myself, put that in as an area effect on these creatures, whatever damage I roll is now on them, and they take that much damage for every 5 feet of movement that they traverse. And now I cast a spell that pulls them towards me. 20 feet. And it was like, okay. Like, what am I gonna do with that? Like we did that to some, some gargoyles are on the other side of the room. I was like, oh yeah, I do 2D tests. I think I did like 12 points of damage to myself. And of course they're dumb gargoyles. So they get up and they fly towards us and the GM's like, okay, so they're fly 12, 24, 32, that one drops dead. Those are fun moments with those types of games because it was fun to optimize and see it play out the table, but I don't have to.

Star: 15:42

There's a player in my current game who is a College of Swords bard. And I was running a kraken against him, and he pushed the kraken, and I was like, there's no way you can push a kraken. There's just, it does not make any sense, and he's like, look at the rules.

Jeffrey: 16:00

Oh my gosh.

Star: 16:01

I was like, okay. You built your character specifically to do this, so I have to let it fly.

Jeffrey: 16:08

You bring up a good point. I almost had that knee jerk reaction that, well, as a GM, you can rule that that doesn't work that way. Because of blah, blah, blah. But then you had the right comment. You built that character to do this thing. And. Who am I to take away that moment? Especially if you build it so narrow to do that one thing, let them have it. You know, what does it matter?

Star: 16:31

It was hard. I would say I struggled with that. It was a struggle.

Jeffrey: 16:36

Yeah. If it's a big bad, it's like, grrrr

Star: 16:39

Yeah, and it was clutch. I have to say it was a clutch skill to have at that moment. But yeah, I am not the kind of person, I'm not the kind of player that exploits mechanics like that, so whenever somebody does it, I'm actually kind of impressed.

Jeffrey: 16:53

When we end up in Pathfinder, one of the players was four classes in total. He started as a bard, but then he was like, became this leader thing. And then he warlord, and then a fighter, and then a cleric. So, he was nutty, but because of his leadership skill, he was able to have NPCs join us, so he had, effectively, a second character he was running, which was a cleric, that was two levels lower than the rest of the party, but we didn't have a healer. And that's how we shored up having a healer as a part of the group, instead of getting an actual person to play the character, he's like, well, I'll just have this NPC and that NPC became such a part of the group that when these assassins killed him, the party stopped everything in their tracks, where I think we're level 17 at this point or 18. And we were trying to deal with like end of the world stuff and we were on the go and these assassins for reasons killed him. We're like, well, we got to stop everything we do and to go kill all these assassins where you don't mess with our cleric.

Star: 17:58

Speaking of having the right skills, what kind of skills does this character have? What are they good at?

Jeffrey: 18:05

What I see them being good at is leadership and Despite the gruffness, getting a group of people that shouldn't be able to work together, working together, tactically, and then trying to spend that downtime, almost like a football coach. Alright, let's talk about that last fight. What did you do? What could you have done better? Do you remember when you went this way? You zigged when you should have zagged? Alright, we'll remember that for next time. So that's what I kind of see those, those skills being towards. History and tactics and those kinds of things like that. And hiding his feelings.

Star: 18:44

What was his upbringing like? He hides his feelings, why?

Jeffrey: 18:48

When it comes to backgrounds, I don't write much. So I haven't given much thought into, When he was ten, this happened, and It's more the immediate picture. Well, in his case, it's a little bit longer past, but in the grand scheme of things for game, it's an immediate past, so. And the things that shape him, like we talked about earlier, are going to be that time being a soldier and taking this kid who is like, I'm going to make a difference as a soldier and just getting broken and worn down and just worn away by all that. And so by the time we get to him, he's cynical and broken and maybe has a bit of a death wish. I survived. Why did I survive and these other people didn't? But. There's something within him that can't let him watch still other people suffer, right? When they're in an adventuring party, he will do everything he can to make sure everybody else is safe and doing what they need to do. That's how I look at backgrounds, is what gets them to this circumstance? And then leaving holes and gaps open for the GM to insert the world that they have developed. So that way the GM can go, Oh, I've got this evil lieutenant of the captain of the guard that maybe you two had, y'all were in the same squadron together. Maybe you saw him do something. They can insert that character into my backstory. So that's what I like to do.

Star: 20:13

Sounds like he hides his feelings because of loss, and almost like he's afraid of losing more?

Jeffrey: 20:20

Yes, absolutely. Probably circumstances would drag him into this adventuring group that might be beyond his control. Or He sees something within these kids like they're going to get themselves killed. If I don't step in, this is going to go poorly. And I was you once, and I know the road you all are heading down and maybe I can stop that from happening. And then what you could do for funsies. Is then go a layer deeper and to say that he misses the brotherhood and he misses that time in the military when it was the ideal, he misses those times when we were on the battlefield before a battle. And we didn't know any better, but we were talking each other up, getting each other hyped up and maybe that was why he's a bard. He was the storyteller of his battalion and his squadron. Getting everybody hyped up with these old battle stories. And maybe he misses that time when we were unbeatable, unkillable, we were doing the right thing. And maybe there's a part of him that wants that back. You could say he's on the surface level. He's saying, y'all are going to get yourselves killed. I got to jump in there and save you. But deep down, he's like, but I miss. This. And maybe secretly that's what he wants. He wants that again. So he's clawing, trying to bring a bit of that back. To me, it's the future, it's the looking forward that's more interesting to me in the adventure than what came before. It certainly informs that future. But I get more excited about that, right, like, ooh, when we're in the middle of the adventure, of the game at hand and at the table, what's going to happen? Are they going to draw this out of me? Those kinds of things, which I think is owed to the LARP background at a LARP. If you're doing a three day sleep away LARP, like I would do, you're have a lot of downtime. And a lot of us would just sit in the mess hall, which was the quote unquote tavern in character, just having conversations, just having like we're having right now, just normal conversations. But you're drawing each other's character histories out a bit, and their personalities. And you begin to find out things about your character that you didn't expect and plan for. But you're building such a real in the moment thing. It's fantastic when you can find out about your character just through small conversations.

Star: 22:45

I think that's one of my favorite parts of roleplaying, is those moments of discovery.

Jeffrey: 22:51

Yes. Oh yeah. When you weren't even expecting that part of your character. Oh, but when it jumps out and grabs you and you grab onto that moment, you're like, yep, this is where we're going with it. This is what we're doing because it becomes such a genuine interaction for you. That becomes a genuine feeling and reaction to everybody at the table, which is why a lot of these APs, these actual plays, people, I think, love to watch them, is seeing those genuine reactions, I say genuine, if you're putting, you're acting into it, feel very real.

Star: 23:20

Yeah, I mean it should. You talked a lot about how you play LARPs, and I'm not terribly familiar with, with LARPing. How is that different for you playing at a table? Do you take the same approach to characters that you play in a LARP versus characters you play at a table?

Jeffrey: 23:38

Yeah, it's the exact same process. I'll read the setting, and I'll kind of get familiar with what's going on in that world, and if the setting is written really well, a character's just gonna jump out at me in an instant. There was a LARP I played, and I was reading the setting, and it's this horror, gaslight, steampunky kind of game, and I'm looking at it, and I'm like, oh, well this country, it's essentially 1800s Wild West Americana, but they're really into technology, and they have a lot of dirigibles, and airships. I said Stop right there. You just said I get to be an airship cowboy or a cowboy airship pilot? Sold. I knew nothing else about the game, but I knew I'm going to dress up like a cowboy. I'm going to get myself a six shooter and I'm going to get me glasses that have the full black golden rim, but they have the sides that are blacked out. It was like, that's his pilot glasses. And the look of that character came in so quick. And I think that's probably would be the biggest difference between table and a LARP. You'd have to get a costume together for a LARP. So I'm also kind of thinking costume forward. What's this character going to look like? Cause what you wear is the outward representation of this character's inner thoughts and feelings and what they like, those kinds of things. So I start to probably piece that together is that costume idea and then go from there. But then what also helps with that is a costume. This is kind of how I am with acting as well. Stage plays. It's really not until I get the costume on that I'm in character, that I'm fully in it. The voice really solidifies, the walk solidifies because, in the case of this cowboy, I'm wearing boots that I don't wear on a normal basis. Because I found a historical emporium or something like that, men's historical emporium, that sells traditional Wild West vests and pants that need the suspenders. And when you get all that on it, it just restricts your body in a certain way. Causes you to have to strut when you've got a gun belt on with a Nerf gun at your hip. And then a saber on one side, you just start to walk and man, that's instantly going to change your demeanor. Everything about you. So that's what I miss at a table. It's much harder for me to stay in character at a table than it is at a LARP. Certainly. There was a tabletop for a long time, I brought one of my boffer weapons, which is the name of a LARP weapon. I brought it with me, it was a mace, just to kind of ground that character a little bit. I need something, just to kind of help me be in the moment. A bit more, that's probably a big difference between those two for me, but the approach is roughly the same.

Star: 26:18

I think one of the things that helps you maintain a character is having a voice, even if it's not an accent. Do you do character voices?

Jeffrey: 26:26

I do a lot more nowadays just because I GM more than anything. So I try to. Distinguish some way, and a lot of times I just try to do, I'm bad, I default a lot of times to English accent, but just change like, is it gruff? Is it more posh? Is it slinky? Those things I try to think about with the character most often. Are they dumb? Okay, they're gonna talk like this and not real fast. Are you? You know, we kind of default to that. It's just a good tropey, boom, I get to go to that. Oh, but now you've met the mayor of the town. Oh, hello, it's good to see you. Welcome, come, yes, we must have tea. So those are how I do voices, right? It's not necessarily an accent all the time, but it will be in delivery as much as possible to kind of convey, oh, this is the person and their station within society. For this character, if I had to go with it, it would just be real, real low, real deliberate. Okay, this is what we're going to do. Are you sure about that? All right, let's go. And that's that still, like he's seen some stuff. Okay, if that's what you think. But that dad thing, are you sure about that? Are you thinking that through? And it makes me, I hate it. Even when using it, because at least my dad used that kind of stuff on me. Oh yeah, okay. What am I doing wrong? And you may not be doing anything wrong, or anything that they would do different, they just want to see your thought process. They want you to understand your own thought process. And then when it gets into the battle, that's when, like, the really You get out of here right now! Come on, let's go! Go, go, go! And so I'd go for that kind of soldier, you know, loud battle cries. You're trying to hear me above the din of the fighting, but it's all directed short burst sentences, not as big, long winded things, probably even try to come up with tactical. Short phrases that I would share with the group. All right. When my character says two to the left, up and Adam, it means this, you know, like just those kinds of little things, because I, I think that is something we take for granted in games, like traditional games like that, that your characters would be yelling out to each other. And these kinds of things, using head motions in the middle of a fight, but we extrapolate that out into very long winded, Alright, well my character's gonna move over here, if your guy's gonna do that, then mine's gonna do this. So that way we can get into flanking position, cause I know that your character, you know, We're having these big, long, like, really involved tactical conversations, Which I think is an extrapolation of, we've fought a long time with each other, Especially when you're getting up to like level 5 and 6 and stuff like that. We've fought with each other long enough, we know. Through body language and eye movements and little tilts of the head. Oh, if I go do this, this and this and I know what you're capable of. So if I'm going to do this, we have that orchestrated dance. That's a lot of unspoken thing.

Star: 29:23

Yeah. Well, and I can see him kind of trying to mold the party into that kind of fighting unit.

Jeffrey: 29:29

Yeah. You're a caster. What are you doing up front? Get back. So I can see him being hated real quick. If you didn't talk with the rest of the group ahead of time, that, hey, this is the character I'm planning on running, I think that could be, that could be difficult.

Star: 29:43

Don't tell me how to play my character.

Jeffrey: 29:45

Right, yeah, yeah.

Star: 29:46

Yeah. But that could be a fun conflict.

Jeffrey: 29:50

It's true, that's true.

Star: 29:51

So you mentioned this dad voice, which I love, and he seems kind of the dad of the party. Is he an actual dad? Does he have a family?

Jeffrey: 30:00

I would say not. Several reasons for it. In play reasons, I would want that no connections means I can't be hurt kind of thing, or I haven't had time to build connections, and then, you know, as a young man, and then when I finally got out, or when life slowed down, I don't know how to build connections beyond this brotherhood of soldier. There's just a disconnect there. So maybe another avenue to explore with the character. Out of play reason for that is I've just have been in situations where the game runners or the GMs want to use those connections in devious ways that are just low hanging fruit and I'd just rather not. I think that's why a lot of people go with the orphaned kid. You don't have to deal with the potential abuse that some GMs can try to use if that makes sense.

Star: 30:50

It is definitely something that I would want the DM to clear with me before using, like, for example, if my, I'm playing a character right now who is a mom, and if the GM wanted to put my daughter in danger, we would have to have a conversation about it because that's not something where I want her to get killed to advance my story, for example.

Jeffrey: 31:15

Exactly. And that, what you mentioned, that conversation between you and the GM, unfortunately is something I learned about very late in my career as a LARPer and a tabletop role player. I grew up in a very, almost anything is permissible, you just need to accept it and try to roll with it. And be a good role player, especially in LARP situations. It's like, Hey, anything goes, man, this is as real as it gets. Just stay in character, just take it in character and you'll be okay. And nobody thought about the bleed and how to do aftercare and what bleed means. I don't know if you're familiar with that term.

Star: 31:53

The trauma that you are experiencing in the game, bleeding into your real life.

Jeffrey: 31:57

Yeah, especially LARP because, I mean, I literally have collapsed into tears on the ground, bawling because of a situation, and really just being in the moment that another player who wasn't quite aware of the scene that we were all kind of in the middle of, I think they were inside of a room and walked in and saw, and I just heard him go, Is he okay? Because he thought I was legitimately like, is that person hurt? Did something happen? Do we need to call a hold? And everybody's like, no, no, no, it's, it's, it's fine. But when you're drawing up those kinds of emotions and if you're getting that into it, that doesn't go away instantly. You don't just go, okay, I'm done. Everything's hunky dory. You had to pull it from somewhere, not until much later did I unfortunately learn about what to do after all of that and what to do before all of that and having conversations with people and saying, this is off limits and this is where we can go.

Star: 32:53

I have talked about before with some of my guests about the importance of consent and safety tools. And so I feel like that conversation, thankfully, is pretty prevalent now in TTRPG spaces. But aftercare isn't something that I hear talked about a lot. What kind of process do you use?

Jeffrey: 33:11

I don't have a process because I don't tend to run very emotionally heavy games anymore. I think due to a past LARPing experience, I'm kind of shying away from that kind of stuff because it sometimes is like, wow, this feels emotionally manipulative and I don't want to be a part of that anymore. I run a lot more very hopeful games. Things that focus on that and a lot of one shots and very short run games. But what I've seen for aftercare and suggestions of is really one's called stars and wishes. I don't know if you're familiar with that.

Star: 33:44

I am. I am very familiar with it. I use it now in my game and I love it.

Jeffrey: 33:50

So that's the one I've seen the most of. That's what I see for aftercare.

Star: 33:54

Go ahead and actually, if you want to explain Stars and Wishes to my listeners.

Jeffrey: 33:59

Yeah, so if I can remember it off the top of my head, I think Stars is You highlight one person in the game for that session that you would like to highlight something that they did that was enjoyable or it was meaningful to the session and then wishes are things like, but here's what I wish would happen in future sessions. Or maybe something you wish maybe didn't happen, like, hey, can we not do that in the future? This could be kind of, I could see this being bothersome or, you know, hey, I really wish that my character would have this experience. Could we have a scene that goes this direction? So that's my understanding of Stars and Wishes and what I remember off the top of my head. You can correct me if I'm, if I missed anything.

Star: 34:39

Nope, absolutely correct. And I will have to say, as a DM, the wishes part is a godsend. Having your players just up front be like, We're gonna cross the desert? I want to cross it on a sand ship. I want a sand ship. Okay, now I'm gonna build you a sand ship.

Jeffrey: 34:58

One of the premier LARPs in the nation, it's called Dystopia Rising. It's a post apocalyptic zombie LARP, and one of their things is you can, ahead of the, of the game, message the game runners and say, hey, for me and my group, we want a quest that does this. And you can request it, and if they have the time and the resources, they're like, yeah, yeah, we'll do it for you, and it'll be at this time, which was kind of unheard of for me in a LARP, but awesome. And it is, like you said, it's those wishes things. It's like, look, especially in a LARP setting, I'm paying for an experience. I'm spending a whole weekend away from my friends and family to come out here and have some fun. There should be not an expectation, but an avenue to allow me to have a, some focused fun. That makes sense. Something that I know I can look forward to. Okay. This is going to happen. Cool, instead of just hoping for something cool to happen. Like you're saying, I want a sand ship. All right, sand ship it is. But the other aftercare really is, I think, takes wishes a little bit deeper and is really when things are, were emotionally heavy and giving people the space, because you never want to force anybody to To, all right, it's aftercare time, you have to tell us why you cried, you have to tell us what was hard about this moment, you open up the floor, does anybody want to talk about, it's almost like a group therapy session right, we open the floor, who wants to talk about this, who, who wants to bring this up, do we need to talk about this, is everyone, how do you feel, and that's I think is a tough one because you have to make sure it's a very safe space for people to feel open, To talking about that stuff, you gotta get to being an adult real fast.

Star: 36:36

This character may not be an actual dad, but is dad adjacent. How much of yourself do you see in them?

Jeffrey: 36:46

I would put quite a bit, though I am a father of two. What I would use from that is just the dad voice and the dad look, the glare you can give to your kid that only they know, like, well, I'm in trouble, I'm doing something I'm not supposed to be doing and yeah, that, that authoritative voice to bring into it. And then also the, I'm going to be doing things that you're not going to understand yet why I'm doing. I think that's the difficult thing. I've got a, almost four and a seven year old. I know you don't want to go to sleep now and it's tough. And we're struggling, almost want to say fighting, but you know, it's not a physical altercation, but it's definitely an emotional fight that's happening. Stop getting out of bed. And you can't explain to this kid why I'm doing the things that I'm doing and why it's for your benefit. And I would bring that in. But in this situation, it's far more problematic because these are adults that you're going to be palling around with and you're going to start treating them like children and not explaining yourself, but I think that builds great tension for a tabletop game. So you'd keep that element, even though it's really poor and not the right way to handle the situation, which I think would then tie into the fact that he's really bad at relationships. He's bad at building connections. And so maybe that's your character arc with him is learning how to build connections.

Star: 38:14

You've built in a pretty large flaw. Then the character arc is about learning to overcome that or learning to see others in a different way.

Jeffrey: 38:22

As even capable.

Star: 38:23

Yeah.

Jeffrey: 38:24

Hey, they might be capable without you, or they may have an idea of how to do things. It's not your idea and works as well, if not better out of the way old man, the future is now.

Star: 38:36

You said that he is not good looking. What does he look like?

Jeffrey: 38:41

I would see, we're talking very pockmarked face, definitely a bent nose from being broken too many times. That would affect how he talks because it's going to be kind of a little, you know, stuffed up. Probably busted out a few teeth. I could see graying, steely gray beard. So like mine, people can't see, but I've got pretty black hair, but I'm starting to get these long silver hairs here and there, so I would see that. And then I can see a scar down through his jaw where the hair doesn't grow anymore. And he's trying desperately to grow his beard to cover it up, but it's just not working. And then he's that dad type where he looks a little skinny. That's a little wiry, but it's all just compacted sinew of muscle. That's what I see, just gnarled hands, massive forearms from maybe having to build siege weaponry, you know, those kinds of things. His uniform doesn't quite fit the way it used to, kind of hanging a little loose. I imagine he probably has a lot of aches and pains. Oh yeah. It'd be fun, you know, 'cause aspirin, it's a root, has been around forever, so you could have fun with the fact that he's constantly buying this white powder and he mixes it with his tea every morning and everybody's like, that dude's on drugs. It's just, it's like, no, it's for my knees. That's the only way I can keep my knees from cracking. Oh, that would be great. That's a great little moment. Just to sneak that in there, one of our party members is getting loaded on some illicit drug. He's getting from the apothecary. I'm gonna work it out with the GM like, nah man, it's just, it's just an aspirin root. I

Star: 40:20

usually start the interview with a name, and this character does not have one. What's your process for creating a name for a character?

Jeffrey: 40:30

Yeah, so I do historical research. So for this, I would just go to Google, you know, inspirational soldiers and looking for people that kind of fit that personality or have a similar history or similar vibe to what's going on. So I'd start to look for real people first and pull names from that. And then I would start going, well, what does the name actually mean? What's the meaning of the name? Well, I'll pull up baby name websites. You know, what if we want a name that means gruff? Let's look at that and then start going really out there. Well, what's it in Armenian? All the countries, Lithuania, you know what I'm saying? Like we really start going out there. I start looking at different places and trying to find something that really works for that character. And that's generally how I get a name. So that's what I'm saying. It's, it ends up being the last thing for the character because I want to know who they are. Cause a lot of times I have run into situations, I'm like, you know what? Every Chad is this way. Every Jeff is this way. It's not true, but you do find some similarities like, man, there's something about people named Chris that all have kind of similar personalities. There's power in a name. So I try to think about that. All right. Well, what's the power behind this character's name? And this is what I know about them. So the name would almost have to be a part of what got them to be this way.

Star: 41:51

That's gonna be based on the world.

Jeffrey: 41:53

Oh, exactly. So then I may go, okay, well this is the name. What consonants or vowels can I switch out to? Alter it a little bit? If I need to make it really fit a unique situation, how many apostrophes can I throw in here?. . To really make it fancy.

Star: 42:08

Yeah. Nameless soldier. How do you deal with being sick? Are you stoic or super whiny?

Jeffrey: 42:16

You don't have time to tell people that you're sick. You understand? That's a you problem. You're not going to make it everybody else's problem. Take whatever you need to take, and then get the job done. You understand? There's people depending on you. I don't have time for this. No whining. Deal with it. You can whine when you're dead.

Star: 42:37

That's a great line. That really says a lot about the character.

Jeffrey: 42:43

Uh, the dismissiveness.

Star: 42:45

Right. Oh, you got stabbed? Don't whine about it. Are you dead? Get up.

Jeffrey: 42:54

Yeah, are you dead yet? No, come on, we've all been stabbed, especially as an adventuring party. We've all been stabbed. We all know what it's like. Deal with it. I'll get you back up. That's my job. I'll get you patched up.

Star: 43:10

Jeffrey, thank you so much for coming on the show and for sharing your Drill Sergeant with us. I will post the links in the description for all of your projects and your social media and whatever you want to share. But is there anything you want to tell my listeners about?

Jeffrey: 43:24

Oh yeah, uh, so what we've got going on right now is, uh, our playtest for The Crypt has opened, uh, you can find that, uh, currently it's a free playtest, you can find that on our itch page, um, whensuddenlygames.Io, go there and you can grab those rules and start playtesting that game, uh, and we're also currently working on a, uh, Cypher system setting, uh, called the Rending of Palagast, uh, if you follow me on any of the socials, You know, any of the wind suddenly games, you know, at Twitter or, um, blue sky, mastodon, uh, TikTok, all that stuff. Uh, you can check out our development there as we talk about that and, uh, kind of posting stuff to YouTube and, uh, also doing live streams. Of, um, me working on Palagas on Twitch. So twitch. tv backslash when suddenly games and we can watch that stuff. I don't have a full schedule for that necessarily, but that's periodically working on that. Uh, so really that's it. Uh, and of course you can always keep up with us at when suddenly dot games, which is just our website.

Star: 44:30

You can find me on Tik TOK at star mama C or on threads, blue sky, Instagram, or Facebook as characters without stories. and characterswithoutstories. com. You can also listen on YouTube at Characters Without Stories or follow the link in the description. Please share the podcast with a friend. Word of mouth is the best way to find new listeners and your recommendations help me immensely. And if you can drop a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thank you to all of my listeners spreading the word. I'm so grateful. I'm currently accepting submissions, particularly for non D& D characters, so if you'd like to share your character, you can go to the submission form at characterswithoutstories.com. Click submit in the top navigation menu. Thanks for listening, and may all your characters find their stories.