Giving Yourself Permission to Feel (with Marisha Ray)

This is the good stuff. To any DMs out there.. hear this one out.

The question that Extreme Otter posed. Most of my games the last decade, part of what happens between session 0 and a full table meet up is there is a written agreement made between the DM and players about the rules - consensus about phone/(when it's ok or not to) use of social media apps, etc. Helps create that mutual expectation of focus, etc., meeting needs of everyone, etc... so forth. Awareness of accomidations/comfort, etc. Great question, and really appreciate B&M's responses to reaffirm. In my games we also finish the session with 'what worked well for you, what really didn't, and we determined again, with consensus who one player for session max may have earned an extra inspiration based upon their contribution/action made in the game. Insentive even to be engaged. The questions also help the DM/players perhaps make some adjustments for the next session.

There was a lot of good stuff in this episode, thank you. I super loved the bear adventure and hope for more. I watch pretty much everything I can with either of you in it. So to my comment.. Thank you so much for discussing access and disability, etc. And also you might know one autistic person, yet not know how it will look on another person. People think I am not convincingly depressed sometimes, because I am talkative and social. But a lot of my symptoms are related to autism, while I do not have it. I did not even know that was a thing that happened. I love being around people, who will take the person's word on what happens with them. And also the consent stuff was very important. I see it in my own life, and in my friends, how being allowed to be yourself brings out the best in us. Watching both your main shows has helped me deal with my depression, because I see people respecting their friends and being true to the trust and kindness you should be able to expect from your friends. I have not always experienced that. I am hoping to find more games like yours. I know every GM is not going to be a professional actor. But I do wish for respectful and open minded ones every time.

I don't know if the discussion from later, where they talked about stained glass metaphor, is useful to me or my players, because not everyone have gone through acting career and while I might understand the idea but maybe they don't. They aren't self-conscious as these actors are.

they were talking about distractions and such while i was reading a fucking novel... people can definitely focus on two things at once

DM is imagination, PC is immersion.

He must loath playing with aabria

While I have a really hard time crying in front of other people, I had a similar conversation with a friend to what Marisha said about memories. I don't remember sitting around a table playing D&D, I remember fuckin' BEING THERE. At that point in my life, I was my character in that world. I remember feeling what they may have felt, even though at the time I wasn't really emotional. With DM'ing it's a bit different, and I see it less like another person's memory and more like an animated show featuring the world and characters of the campaign I was running. It almost makes looking back on past sessions or campaigns the best part about playing for me at this point. In the moment I may have doubts and think about all the little mistakes I made, but in the future I can look back and see the best parts with much more intimacy.

This game is so fucking good.

That point about lethal combat is so true. But players can also get destracted because you've been playing DnD for the last 3 hours, so make sure to schedual regular breaks (at appropriatly dramatic moments) so that players can stretch their legs, get some food and decompress/get excited ready for play to resume.

Lol, seeing Marisha having the audacity to open her mouth to anything RP-related ist just pure comedic gold, when the algorithm lands you on this video just after seeing her get full-on-tantrum at matt whenever she didn't bother investing the minimum of respect for her fellow players to read anything about keyleths abilities or paying attention to the RP of her co-players.

ROFLMFAO… never heard of it…

A little moment of self pity , I have aphantasia so I have no minds eye. Hearing these guys talk about their memories of dnd adventures and wishing I could visualise the epic adventures in books and from master DMS, well it really stings... Makes me so envious. I love the world's they create and so so wish I could experience them to there true potential . That said I'm still thankful to hear everyone's amazing stories :)

I REALLY want to see where pike dies. How was that not recorded somewhere?!?

Regarding stimming:

ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY.

There's a difference between checking out and stimming. One of my players in the current campaign I'm in stims CONSTANTLY when they're not the focus. They're fully immersed, they remember details, they're just on their phone playing some sort of tetris game.

All I do to check in is "Player, you good?" If they say yes and continue, then I know they're checked in. Hell, if they're not checked in, then I still have the table to play to. I don't see it as disrespect because I see them constantly improving and talking about the campaign and how fun it is.

Threw them one of my fidget toys, they were settled in. Same deal.

It's all about vibing with the room, and seeing how your audience is doing. If they're bored, amp it up. if they're exhausted, take a break.

I love what they said about memories of your characters being so real. When you talk with your party members years later, you don't say, "Remember when Zaltar the sorcerer and Tremdal the bard killed that dragon" You say, "Remember when YOU and I killed that dragon?" Because you remember it as yourselves in the moment.

I had no idea Brennan supported autistic DND players and accommodates to swimming and smdrawing as a way to help pay attention as an autistic person myself he really is a wo derful awesome person wow

Adding to the phone section. I have to have something constantly going. Even when I'm playing video games. So I'll scroll the internet while I'm waiting on my turn but I do still have the game at the forefront. The real challenge we had was when we played with our narcoleptic friend who probably could have benefited greatly from having a device to keep him engaged in something. Had to update him constantly but we made it work.

You can guess it's before the "Are ghost real ? Check your nat20"

I played a character while getting to know him I discovered that he was gay. It wasn't a decision, it was a realization. It was really neat, and very much felt like an introduction.

"I believe in the therapeutic power of D&D." I'm late to the party on these. I realized years after the fact that one of my favorite D&D characters was actually my estranged father 😅 After realizing this, I think I was able transfer some of my love and sympathy for the character to my dad. It was a very strange and cool experience.

In terms of getting distracted the table, setting aside genuine Bad actors or people were completely oblivious, I think it's just important to make sure people have breaks. What other things do people do on a regular basis where they sit in one spot for 4-8 hours? Even jobs give you breaks, school doesn't have a class longer than an hour and a half without a break.
Keep in mind that some people have attention disorders. And I would be cautious to just say it's a matter of respect and maturity, and lean more toward saying regular breaks and decompression times can alleviate most of that.

“Context is everything” - YUP! I have to constantly remind myself when watching CR C1 or C2 that Marisha Ray is playing a character which eats gravel in EVERY scene. She, herself, is not an actual disaster. She’s just that great as an actor & role player.

Responding to AC clutch's question, some of the best and memorable moments and most loving NPCS came from the PC's unhealthy attempt to pursue a non-essential NPC or story bit that was not intended to be, in any way, related to the current objective of the story.

One example is an NPC (Bob) who was just part of a caravan that was attacked by bandits just there to give the PC's information about a specific amulet that was stolen, wound up being a reoccurring character that played a pivotal role in the return of said amulet, and ultimately wound up perishing due to an accident involving an enchanted weapon. A strong connection was built and emotions were high when he died. He was never intended to have more than 1 or 2 lines of dialogue. But through the PC's persistence, thinking Bob new more than he led on, or was more important than intended, he become a topic of discussion years later.

I had a magically locked door in a game where the characters COULD NOT go through that door too early or all of the villain arc and investigation etc would be bypassed. My players knew the bad stuff and important things to save people's lives were in that room and decided 'we don't need to know why the bad guys are doing this, we just need to get through that door right now," so tried to brute force it. I said that a (LEVEL TWO) character had to hit something ridiculous like a 35 strength check to brute force it because, likewise I hate saying 'just no', and they raged, hit nat20, had a magical one-use item I had forgotten about and had magical help from a party member. I honoured the dice and their philosophical choice to say 'we don't need to know how this evil is happening, we need to stop it as soon as possible,' and it wildly changed the pace and focus of the campaign, but that character moment making such an insanely high, supposedly-impossible, check went down in history.

I think about that scene in Roger rabbit a lot!

My focus as a DM is more on storytelling and making my players feel than, strictly following the rules and doing dungeons crawls. And I think I start seeing the phenomenon Marisha described: last session we were helping out this Cool pirate woman reunite with her girlfriend. And for reasons too complicated to explain now, the party split up. Our bard went with the Captain to find her girlfriend the rest went with her second in command to sell of some items. When night fell, the town was overrun by a pack of yeth hounds. Most of the PCs and NPCs fail the first wisdom save and fall into panik (way more than I expected). The first NPC goes down and the fear goes from in game condition to real. The hound goes for the panicking girlfriend we just reunited with. She fails three consecutive saves to end the frightened condition (She was the strongest character in the fight, I intended for her to have a badass moment). The hound f**ing crits on its bite and this fragile Elf wizard lady goes down. Captain (Who luckily had some silvered bullets) does her best to get the beast away from her girlfriend, while the bard switches back and forth between healing word and vicious mockery (THE ONLY DAMAGING SPELL THIS GOOFBALL NOWS). We we're all screaming when the side effect of vicious mockery (inflicting disadvantage on the next attack) prevented the hound from landing another crit.
Long story short, we slowly start to feel real feelings for these people we collectively imagine

I am at the last part of my first GM experience, doing a one shot with a group over Roll20 and I have LOVED setting the landing page of the session with scenery that reminds the players where they left off and planned music for scene changes, combat scenarios, both ambient music and ambient environment sound. For me, it has done SO MUCH for retaining player attention. I recommend taking that extra little bit of time to add polish to the immersion. Works wonders.

It’s kind of ironic, I’ve heard people speculating about Marisha seeming more comfortable while acting about Beau after hearing about her struggles. I’m currently playing as a grumpy cowboy and experiencing similar feelings as Marisha was when she started as Beau and it’s kinda cool to hear

So glad Marisha persevered with Beau. That character had such growth and her journey was so good to follow!

"Players will look up from their phones if someone is rolling death saves, and thats a fact!"

I absolutely love your metaphors

This was great until you ended that mid conversation. Really took away form the entire experience.

"doing a Voice like this" She says in the future voice of her Familer. lol love it.

Marisha Ray is a freaking legend.

Mia Rua!

We love marisha ray!

Main difference for me between from player to Dm was how important and interesting I found RP.
It felt night and day and made me appreciate the other pillars of the game