Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from House Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Truck Bryant. I'm just a I'm just
Speaker 1: a simple cleric mind in my way. Are you down
Speaker 1: the Primrose Path? I was gonna ask you what what
Speaker 1: you were? Got my staff, got my sword? Yep, that
Speaker 1: you would be well outfitted man, ready to battles some nerds?
Speaker 1: So have you have you played before? Okay, this is
Speaker 1: about dungeons and dragons, and I think that is a
Speaker 1: good move. Is two things one caveat if you're a
Speaker 1: big D and D person. We're not gonna get everything right.
Speaker 1: We'll get what we what we can write, obviously, but
Speaker 1: when it's not gonna be as comprehensive as you want,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go over the basic indition and too,
Speaker 1: I think we should both relate our own experience. So
Speaker 1: people just knew I played a little little bit because
Speaker 1: this is right in my wheelhouse. Dude, I was. I'm
Speaker 1: really surprised that you're community. Let you play the Baptist community.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I didn't hear it talked about much in church,
Speaker 1: but um, in school, there were some of my friends
Speaker 1: started to play, and I played. I started to a
Speaker 1: little bit, but it was always way too complicated and
Speaker 1: involved for me. Um I played a little Top Secret.
Speaker 1: That's another role playing game that was like the espionage
Speaker 1: James Bond, D and D. So I played a little
Speaker 1: bit of that, but I never got into it man
Speaker 1: like other people did. And I think it's because I
Speaker 1: was so active, and I was I would always rather
Speaker 1: be out riding my bikes, my bike and playing at
Speaker 1: the creek near my house and building forts and zip
Speaker 1: lines and setting things on fire and putting fireworks and
Speaker 1: bottle rockets and model planes and flying them off my roof.
Speaker 1: So I was doing stuff like that. I wasn't so
Speaker 1: much inside playing D and D or I was early.
Speaker 1: I was an early gamer, so I'd be like, screw
Speaker 1: dn D. Let's play adventure on Mataria and be a
Speaker 1: block with an arrow right exactly. That's the real cutting stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that that was that was my deal. Mine was. UM.
Speaker 1: I did all that stuff, like I had a four
Speaker 1: in the woods and I had I could make a
Speaker 1: pretty good machine gun sound, and um, I did all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. But I also played D n
Speaker 1: D fairly extensively. Several summers like that were just basically spent,
Speaker 1: you know, in a friends basement playing Dungeon D. I
Speaker 1: think it depends on who your friends, said is, unless
Speaker 1: you're the initiator, like you'll just fall in and do
Speaker 1: whatever your friends are doing. Um, and here's the deal.
Speaker 1: I think this affected it too. I grew up on
Speaker 1: a street in the woods with like six houses. I
Speaker 1: didn't grow up in one of those big, sprawling neighborhoods
Speaker 1: like all my other friends. So they would walk down
Speaker 1: the street and play D and D. In the basement,
Speaker 1: it was just me and my bro out. Like in
Speaker 1: the woods. I would walk across the street for one
Speaker 1: group and there was another one where I had arrived
Speaker 1: I by distance I was. I was secluded. I was
Speaker 1: sequestered out in the in the forest, and I got
Speaker 1: made fun of because of that until later on when
Speaker 1: all my friends were like, dude, you live on two
Speaker 1: acres in the woods. That's rad. Let's have a bonfire exactly,
Speaker 1: and we did so. So we both played D and D. Uh,
Speaker 1: And we both are not experts in any way, shape
Speaker 1: or form. Like from the time I last played D
Speaker 1: and D until we started researching for this episode. I
Speaker 1: forgot everything basically over those three months. So it was
Speaker 1: like a pretty cool trip down memory lane, like going
Speaker 1: back and researching that. Yeah, me too, some because I
Speaker 1: didn't I don't think I remembered how much I had
Speaker 1: played it, And it was a little bit more than
Speaker 1: I had remembered because a lot of stuff was like
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I remember that, Yeah, I remember that cover,
Speaker 1: I remember that box. But there was, like I tell
Speaker 1: you exactly, there was a ton of new stuff that
Speaker 1: I didn't know that I learned in researching this, Like, um,
Speaker 1: like Gary guyas gas oh Man, have a bunch of
Speaker 1: people just put the ropes on, put the hoods on
Speaker 1: their heads, like, um, Gary Guy GaX. Let's call him
Speaker 1: Gary g from now on. He He is the co creator,
Speaker 1: along with Dave Arnison, of Dungeons and Dragons UM. And
Speaker 1: he started out as a war gaming fanatic, so much
Speaker 1: so that he started gen Con at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: his hometown, UM, which is this huge gaming convention still um.
Speaker 1: But he started out as a war gaming convention. And
Speaker 1: that's basically where you rolled dice move little men. It's
Speaker 1: like risk. Risk is a war game. It's like that
Speaker 1: and Access and Allies are like quintessential war games. It's
Speaker 1: a great game. But Guy GaX and and his buddies
Speaker 1: were doing this before there was ever any risk, Like
Speaker 1: they were making their own boards, they were reenacting battles
Speaker 1: or doing alternate universe battles of them. Um. And then
Speaker 1: along came Dave Arnison, who I kind of had this
Speaker 1: idea for something a little less stilted, a little more
Speaker 1: free form UM, and he didn't quite have a conception
Speaker 1: of it yet, but Guy GaX did. He was working
Speaker 1: on something called chain Mail, and they got together and
Speaker 1: that ultimately became kind of the first dry run of
Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons. Uh, And they liked what they were
Speaker 1: doing and they kind of took it from there and
Speaker 1: then ultimately made Dungeons and Dragons in nineteen seventy four. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't find out a whole lot about UM. About Arnisson,
Speaker 1: it seems like Guy gas is always the I guess
Speaker 1: because he was the original, like the originator of the idea.
Speaker 1: He's always the one that's revered and like, you know, yes,
Speaker 1: he was also I get the impression UM a lot
Speaker 1: more of the self promoter than Arniston is UM. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean they were both very much intimately involved in
Speaker 1: the creation of this game, right um. Guy gags. Also,
Speaker 1: by the way, slidebar says that he is a descendant
Speaker 1: of Goliath. Is there a yeah? He well he he
Speaker 1: didn't let me rephrase that the interview I saw. He
Speaker 1: wasn't like, I'm a descendant of Goliath. Yeah, he wasn't
Speaker 1: like that. He was a cool guy, Yeah, he said.
Speaker 1: The guy GaX means giant and supposedly, like the family
Speaker 1: law is that we are descendants of Goliath. So I
Speaker 1: thought that was sort of interesting, more appropriate than descendant
Speaker 1: of a biblical giant than to make this fantastical fantasy
Speaker 1: game right exactly, you know. Um he And there's actually
Speaker 1: like a really neat Wired article on him that includes
Speaker 1: a pretty decent amount on artists and too, um called
Speaker 1: The Dungeon Master. It's about Gary Guy GaX, who died
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight. Say um. But the two
Speaker 1: of them get together, and this is when when things
Speaker 1: are really good, and they set up something called TSR,
Speaker 1: which is a company called Technical Studies Rules, which sounds
Speaker 1: like the most boring company you could ever think of,
Speaker 1: But this company is what produced the this what became
Speaker 1: the role playing game. Like you said, um, top secret
Speaker 1: was the James Bond D and D. Yeah, you didn't say,
Speaker 1: top secret was the James Bond role playing game and
Speaker 1: D was literally literally become synonymous with role playing games,
Speaker 1: and for good reason. Like in nineteen seventy four when
Speaker 1: Dungeons Dragons came out, there was nothing in the entire
Speaker 1: world that even remotely resembled it. Yeah, it was super unique,
Speaker 1: and that's one of the reasons why, you know, people
Speaker 1: always say it's like a nerd game, and you know,
Speaker 1: you sit in your basement by yourself, and they did
Speaker 1: have adventures. You're going by yourself. But they pointed out
Speaker 1: in this article it's a very social game because you
Speaker 1: would get together with your friends and sit around the
Speaker 1: table and you could play it straight and just sort
Speaker 1: of play, or you could start acting things out and
Speaker 1: doing funny voices and make it more like a dramatic
Speaker 1: like portrayal of this game. It was really kind of
Speaker 1: up to you. But it may have a nerdy h connotations,
Speaker 1: but they're just punch nerds together playing right well. And
Speaker 1: if you look at some of the recent ads for
Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons, um in some of the gamers magazines.
Speaker 1: They are still appealing to that, the fact that it's
Speaker 1: a social game. They're trying to get people who play
Speaker 1: World Warcraft like start playing D and D again. Um
Speaker 1: and and they're they're using taglines like, if you're gonna
Speaker 1: sit in your basement and pretend you're an elf for
Speaker 1: hours on and you might as well do it with
Speaker 1: a group of friends, that's a great so. Um. It
Speaker 1: has been social from the beginning. And what what guy
Speaker 1: GaX and Arniston came up with was essentially a book
Speaker 1: of rules that used dice to advance imaginary characters along. So.
Speaker 1: And then in seven they released the basic set. That's
Speaker 1: the red box. That's that's the one that makes us nostalgic, right.
Speaker 1: And then they also simultaneously released Advanced Dungeons and Dragons,
Speaker 1: which kind of had stricter rules, it was more eeping
Speaker 1: in scope. But they both came out in seventy seven,
Speaker 1: that's right. Uh. And then in seventy nine, the the
Speaker 1: d M Guide was introduced. And if you play Dungeons
Speaker 1: and Dragons in a group, you got to have a
Speaker 1: someone running the game, and that is the Dungeon Master.
Speaker 1: That is a person that sits behind a little cardboard
Speaker 1: screen and hides all of their stories, and they're the
Speaker 1: ones who create these basically kind of right the game.
Speaker 1: And like some people will spend hours in days and
Speaker 1: weeks creating these campaigns in these games for their friends
Speaker 1: to bring to life as characters. And it's it was
Speaker 1: definitely unique at the time. So you've got all these additions, right,
Speaker 1: there's I think ten now they're working on the tenth,
Speaker 1: depending on who you ask, right, And with every edition
Speaker 1: of Dungeons and Dragons, there was a m like there's
Speaker 1: a change. Sometimes they are really big changes. Like they
Speaker 1: released the second edition of Advance Dungeons and Dragons and
Speaker 1: like it did away with a lot of like the
Speaker 1: evil monsters because like d n D had gotten a
Speaker 1: bad rap wh we'll talk about later um. And there's
Speaker 1: like a kind of role that you had to figure
Speaker 1: out how many hit points you lost or how many
Speaker 1: hit points were UM inflicted. It was just different. And
Speaker 1: so with every addition, it's been different and different and
Speaker 1: different um and so you get adherence to different sets,
Speaker 1: different versions, uh, which has kind of led to this
Speaker 1: weird fracturing in the Dungeon's Dragons community. Apparently. And you
Speaker 1: know the grabster at Grabowski, one of the writers of
Speaker 1: many of the articles that we've talked about. He's a
Speaker 1: bit of a D and D expert, it turns out, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you can go check his stuff out. Agreed. Uh.
Speaker 1: He writes extensively on I O nine dot com about
Speaker 1: D and D c check out his stuff. He's basically saying, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: because a big fractured community of dn D players, everybody
Speaker 1: has their own edition that's their favorite, but everybody still
Speaker 1: wants to be able to play together. But it's just incompatible.
Speaker 1: So what he's saying is Wizards of the Coast, to
Speaker 1: people who made um Magic the Gathering and ultimately bought
Speaker 1: dn D, they have said, Okay, this fifth edition is
Speaker 1: going to bring everything together. We'll see about that. Well,
Speaker 1: that's what Grabanowski says. He says, Um, there's no possible
Speaker 1: way to literally unify the various editions under a single
Speaker 1: rule set. It would be like trying to build a
Speaker 1: car that uses parts from a two thousand ten Mustang,
Speaker 1: a nineteen fifty packard, and a tractor. So he's incredulous.
Speaker 1: But they have it in like open gaming testing right now.
Speaker 1: The fifth edition. I don't see what the big deal is.
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the cool things about D
Speaker 1: and D is that depending on who you play with, uh, like,
Speaker 1: find your people, you know, like they might want to
Speaker 1: play a certain edition. I know that some players like
Speaker 1: to play with the little figurines and some people think
Speaker 1: that's an abomination. You should only use your imagination. Some
Speaker 1: people go and make up their own campaigns. Some people
Speaker 1: stick to campaigns that are in the books. So, like,
Speaker 1: I think that's a cool thing about it is there's
Speaker 1: something out there for everybody. Unless you're just not into it. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: then there's nothing for you, nothing for me. Um, So
Speaker 1: let's talk about how to play. Like, we'll just give
Speaker 1: a brief primer and we since we're nostalgic for the
Speaker 1: Red Box, which is the basic set, basic rule book
Speaker 1: that came out first and seventy um that we're just
Speaker 1: gonna go with that. Don't yell at us, but it's
Speaker 1: a very basic, good intro to D n D for
Speaker 1: all the other people who are listening to this one
Speaker 1: who don't know what is going on. This is a
Speaker 1: single episode on D n D, and you could have
Speaker 1: an entire podcast that's about d n D that you
Speaker 1: did for five years. You know, I'll bet there are
Speaker 1: and right in let us know, we'll tweet, we'll tweet
Speaker 1: about it. Okay. So, like we said, it is a
Speaker 1: role playing game. So the basic concept is by the way,
Speaker 1: you can't win. There is know, like endpoint. It's all
Speaker 1: just about the fun of continuing with these characters you create, right,
Speaker 1: The only beginning and and really is the creation of
Speaker 1: a new character and the death of that character. And
Speaker 1: even still if like that character dies, it sucks depending
Speaker 1: on how far along your character was, but you can
Speaker 1: always create another one. So you bother me about it,
Speaker 1: I think is I was too late, like I would
Speaker 1: cheat it and just make up characters. Well that's why
Speaker 1: I was never invited back, you know. And so you
Speaker 1: were that guy? Huh No, I mean I don't remember
Speaker 1: if I was. I just remember not getting it and
Speaker 1: being like, well, my guy's good at all this stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go sit someone on fire, all right. So
Speaker 1: you create your character, and in the red box and
Speaker 1: the basic set, you have these different attributes and abilities
Speaker 1: that will come into play as you play the game,
Speaker 1: and they are strength of course, it's pretty easy. How
Speaker 1: much you can, how much damage you can inflict with
Speaker 1: a weapon, Wisdom, how intuitive you are, dexterity, which is
Speaker 1: good if you're nimb um. It could help you with
Speaker 1: a weapon or getting in that high window on the
Speaker 1: second floor, especially like a missile weapon like a bow
Speaker 1: and arrow or something. If you have a high tex
Speaker 1: you want to pair that with a bow and arrow.
Speaker 1: For intelligence, um, how smart they are, how how much
Speaker 1: they can learn things as a character, constitution which is
Speaker 1: your stamina, and how much stuff you can carry, how
Speaker 1: long you can fight. But if you have that bag
Speaker 1: of holding, you're all set. Uh. And then charisma, which
Speaker 1: is your likability. So uh, if you want to hook
Speaker 1: up and make friends or get out of a fight
Speaker 1: with some bad character, that's when that's going to come
Speaker 1: into play. And all these are determined by rolls of
Speaker 1: the diet. Yeah, Like everything we just talked about is
Speaker 1: represented by a number UM. And then in addition to
Speaker 1: the armored class of the character, which is a number
Speaker 1: that represents ay, how easy it is to inflict damage
Speaker 1: on that character. Uh. And then the number of hit points,
Speaker 1: which is I guess the representation of um basically how
Speaker 1: much life you have left to get your health right exactly.
Speaker 1: In a video game, that would be your health par exactly. Um.
Speaker 1: And you put all these together and you have a
Speaker 1: character that, so long as it can stay alive, can
Speaker 1: go out and go forth into the D and D
Speaker 1: universe and in adventure indefinitely basically. Uh all right. So
Speaker 1: there were seven playable characters in the Inn the basic set,
Speaker 1: and I think I remember being a cleric, but the
Speaker 1: first one is a fighter, and that's what you think
Speaker 1: they're They're stronger, and they're better at fighting, and they're
Speaker 1: probably not as smart or as uh charismatic as like
Speaker 1: another character might be. It depends. You can have high
Speaker 1: curuismen like in the D and D um the Basic
Speaker 1: sets players Manual, the first character they hook you up
Speaker 1: with has high curuisma and high strength. But strength is
Speaker 1: the prime requisite for being a fighter. Yeah, okay, so cleric.
Speaker 1: I think I was a cleric. Uh. That's sort of
Speaker 1: a fighter in a in a wizard, so that they
Speaker 1: have good fighting abilities. But they're all so very dexterous
Speaker 1: and wise, and you can cast spells, which is very important.
Speaker 1: Right with the difference between a cleric and a magic user,
Speaker 1: which is the next one, is that a cleric received
Speaker 1: spells through meditation, so they have to sit around and
Speaker 1: rest sometimes before they can get a new spell. Um.
Speaker 1: And they also can turn undead, which means literally turn
Speaker 1: the undead the other way. So if you have a
Speaker 1: zombie on your trail, you're it's good to have cleric
Speaker 1: to say, hey, zombies, turn around zombies. Where they called
Speaker 1: zombie zombies is one? Where is another? Undead skeletons. I
Speaker 1: didn't play enough. I don't know any of this stuff.
Speaker 1: I didn't either until I went back and read the
Speaker 1: entire players manual again the other day. So magic user
Speaker 1: can do cool things like their balls of lightning and um,
Speaker 1: learn other spells, learn new spells without meditation. No, it's
Speaker 1: learning from book learning, which means you have to have
Speaker 1: the prime requis is a high intelligent score. It's not
Speaker 1: a meditative thing, right, it's just from learning books. Uh.
Speaker 1: You have the door worf. Of course, what fantasy game
Speaker 1: would be complete without it? Four feet tall? Got that beard?
Speaker 1: Males and females have a beard. Yeah, and uh, and
Speaker 1: just like in like the Lord of the Rings, they're
Speaker 1: they're kind of ornery and super strong and have great constitution.
Speaker 1: And of course they're good fighters because they're a little short,
Speaker 1: mean boogers. Um, you've got the thief, which you would think. Um,
Speaker 1: and it took me a long time to figure this
Speaker 1: one out. To the thief, why would you want to
Speaker 1: have a thief around the person is going to steal
Speaker 1: the thief, Well, a thief typically doesn't steal from people
Speaker 1: they're adventuring with. Um, but they do know how to
Speaker 1: find secret doors, traps, picklocks, picklocks. Uh. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: they have a very high dexterity score. Yeah, but they're
Speaker 1: they're also going to turn their back on you in
Speaker 1: a battle because it depends they're not great fighters. Okay, right,
Speaker 1: you don't want them near the battle. You want them
Speaker 1: like kind of off to the side, get out of
Speaker 1: the way, and let's get the fighter in there. Maybe
Speaker 1: a dwarf or two as well. But yeah, the thief
Speaker 1: is just kind of meant to stand back and maybe
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, get them over there a second to
Speaker 1: them and just cheer along. Uh, you've got halflings. They
Speaker 1: are even smaller than the dwarfs. They're only three feet tall,
Speaker 1: about sixty pounds, and they're demi humans and um, they're
Speaker 1: dexterous and they have a great constitution. They're tough to
Speaker 1: hit because they're tiny, and so they're good fighters, the
Speaker 1: very spry. Yeah. Um. They're also like dwarves and elves,
Speaker 1: capable of sustaining magic attacks. Um, which leads us to elves.
Speaker 1: It's another demi human character. And they're a cross between
Speaker 1: fighters and magic users. So they have high strength and
Speaker 1: high intelligence. And it's not you don't just say with
Speaker 1: any of these like, oh I want an elf. So
Speaker 1: you roll until you have something with high intelligence in
Speaker 1: high strength. You can you're not supposed to when you're
Speaker 1: supposed to roll, and come up with your ability scores
Speaker 1: first and then figure out what you have based on
Speaker 1: those scores. Yeah, And it is interesting. And one thing
Speaker 1: I do remember is that it is about the imagination.
Speaker 1: And even though these these characters exist as a series
Speaker 1: of numbers on a chart, is all it is. Um,
Speaker 1: you create them in your mind and that's the fun
Speaker 1: part about it. And like, I never started acting things
Speaker 1: out like I've seen other people do, which can go
Speaker 1: overboard pretty easy. Um. And I guess that was sort
Speaker 1: of the precursor to what ended up being LARP. Was
Speaker 1: just sitting around the kitchen table doing accents and things,
Speaker 1: and some people thought, hey, let's let's go outside and
Speaker 1: take these broomsticks and actually do this fight. You got
Speaker 1: you got some cardboard. I'm in the move from making
Speaker 1: some sorts. Yeah, I'm really an active guy. I think
Speaker 1: you know, sitting around this table is no good, right. Um.
Speaker 1: So you said that everything is represented numerically, and that's
Speaker 1: absolutely true. Um, except there's one thing that that kind
Speaker 1: of lends itself to acting, uh or at the very least,
Speaker 1: decision making of a character in this alignment. And there's
Speaker 1: three kinds of alignment and basic D and D there's lawful,
Speaker 1: which is what we would equate with good goods, where
Speaker 1: if you have a lawful character, they're they're probably the
Speaker 1: hero type. You're gonna put their own skin on the
Speaker 1: line in order to save the group. They're certainly not
Speaker 1: going to turn and run without the rest of the
Speaker 1: group doing the same. Um. Chaotic is the opposite of that.
Speaker 1: It's what we would equate with evil. Yeah, they just
Speaker 1: sort of look out for themselves forget the group. And
Speaker 1: you'd think that would be the worst one, but apparently
Speaker 1: the worst is neutral because you can't tell they're just
Speaker 1: gonna do whatever is best for them no matter what. Well,
Speaker 1: that's neutral is very it's animalistic um where it's basically
Speaker 1: just about the survival of of the the individual. And
Speaker 1: if you have a neutral person, they might fight with
Speaker 1: the group if they feel like the group's gonna win
Speaker 1: and just will protect them, or they may just turn
Speaker 1: and run with Hey, no hard feelings, they got nothing
Speaker 1: against you, But I'm just very instinctual. That's what neutral is.
Speaker 1: The alignments there are all manner of like shelter and
Speaker 1: weapons and foods and all these different things you can
Speaker 1: pick up along the way, uh, and even languages that
Speaker 1: if you approach a character and they don't speak your language,
Speaker 1: then you can't communicate and you have to take a
Speaker 1: different path on your adventure. But everyone can speak at
Speaker 1: least two uh universal And then alignment tongue. Alignment tongue
Speaker 1: allows you to speak to other characters in that same
Speaker 1: alignment without the other people knowing what's being said, and
Speaker 1: it's your private little conversation exactly. So, if if both
Speaker 1: of us were chaotic magic users, right Chuck, yes, and
Speaker 1: there was a somebody playing and there was a fighter
Speaker 1: who was lawful, we could say, hey, let's put a
Speaker 1: charm spell um on this guy and make them do
Speaker 1: our bidding. Um. And so the player is going to
Speaker 1: know what we're doing, but the character wouldn't. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: the person responsible for keeping all this separate you mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: the dungeon master, the head nerd Right, the dungeon master
Speaker 1: is in charge of saying things like you wouldn't know
Speaker 1: that when the fighter says, I want to kill um
Speaker 1: the two magic users who are about to use a
Speaker 1: charm on me, the dungeon master would say, your character
Speaker 1: doesn't know that because they just spoke in their alignment
Speaker 1: tongue and boy. Dungeon master is a specific kind of person.
Speaker 1: It takes a lot of work, and you can get
Speaker 1: as involved as you want to. But no matter which
Speaker 1: way you slice it, if you're the d M, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be putting in some time coming up with these things,
Speaker 1: even stories, even before the beginning, even before you sit down,
Speaker 1: and it's Uh. I'd be curious to find some correlation
Speaker 1: between people that were dungeon masters when they were like
Speaker 1: twelve in the late seventies and early eighties and what
Speaker 1: they ended up doing with their life. Yeah, it would
Speaker 1: be an interesting study because they I would say that
Speaker 1: a lot of them are probably running companies and running
Speaker 1: the show wherever they are, because it takes a great
Speaker 1: deal of initiative and patience and like stamina and creativity
Speaker 1: and all these things to be a great dungeon master,
Speaker 1: plus the sense of justice as well. You have to
Speaker 1: be fair. Oh yeah, I'm sure it doesn't always sit
Speaker 1: well with the group. Um and yeah, like you were saying,
Speaker 1: like they it does take creativity. It takes also a
Speaker 1: total and utter awareness of the game. Like while everybody
Speaker 1: just creating their players, the d M has to show
Speaker 1: up to that very first game having read the player's manual,
Speaker 1: having read the Dungeon Master's Guide, understanding all the rules,
Speaker 1: and then if you're using a game module, which you
Speaker 1: know TSR published tons of games um, which essentially are
Speaker 1: maps of an area that the dungeon master has access to, uh,
Speaker 1: and then running the whole game as a whole, like
Speaker 1: understanding what players can do, what players can't do. Um,
Speaker 1: you have to understand how much damage a monster can inflict.
Speaker 1: Let's give an example, like the dungeons Masters's Guide is intimidating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I don't know how these kids at twelve, we're
Speaker 1: sitting down and figuring this stuff out well, so they
Speaker 1: a lot of the appearance of omniscience, and any dungeon
Speaker 1: master kind of cultivates this this idea that they are
Speaker 1: all knowing. But like you said, they're hiding behind a
Speaker 1: cardboard screen, and behind that screen is like the dungeon
Speaker 1: Master's guy, the game module, which has everything clearly marked
Speaker 1: and all that. They have everything at their disposal, but
Speaker 1: there's still a revered person, typically the dungeon Master. They're omniscient.
Speaker 1: Because I don't know how many twelve year olds have
Speaker 1: the initiative to take this on. There was I think
Speaker 1: it's about right. It's probably about one out of every
Speaker 1: ten kids as the initiative to beat the dungeon Master,
Speaker 1: and the rest just wanted to be characters. So that
Speaker 1: was that was a big problem with the game, was
Speaker 1: like sometimes you couldn't find somebody to the DM because
Speaker 1: there was a lot of work. So let's give an
Speaker 1: example of of play, if you'll indulge me. Okay, So, okay,
Speaker 1: we got a group of characters around a campaign in
Speaker 1: a dungeon and by the way, you know the um
Speaker 1: the reason why it became Dungeons and Dragons, um why
Speaker 1: they chose dungeons was because they didn't want players being
Speaker 1: able to just kind of wander all over the place.
Speaker 1: They wanted to kind of keep them together in small,
Speaker 1: confined spaces and a dungeon or a cave system or
Speaker 1: something like that. It was a pretty good way to
Speaker 1: keep everybody. To get catacombs. Man, it's all about the catacombs.
Speaker 1: So you're your your group of characters are on a campaign,
Speaker 1: the dungeon, and the d M might say something like
Speaker 1: this is in the middle of the game. The d
Speaker 1: M is in charge of telling you what's going on
Speaker 1: where you are, describing your environment. So they he or
Speaker 1: she may say, you're in a long dark cord, or
Speaker 1: you see a faint light at one end. To your
Speaker 1: right is a ten ft by ten ft door. It
Speaker 1: is locked. Do you want to try to pick the
Speaker 1: lock or continue down the cord or towards the toward
Speaker 1: the light. And so the players decide to have the
Speaker 1: thief pick the lock, right, because that's what you do.
Speaker 1: Now here's what I don't get and I don't know
Speaker 1: if you know this is it? Do you get together
Speaker 1: as a group and decide and like take a vote
Speaker 1: or is it someone's turn? To like say no, it's
Speaker 1: my turn, and I make the thief go. It depends.
Speaker 1: So first of all, before on a campaign, you have
Speaker 1: a caller, and that's the person who speaks to the
Speaker 1: d M for the group. But the caller is also
Speaker 1: in charge of saying, hey, what do you guys want
Speaker 1: to do and then saying that to the d M. Okay,
Speaker 1: so they're the just the voice of the group, right.
Speaker 1: They don't make any decisions. The groups supposed to decide
Speaker 1: as a whole um, and the d ms are sitting
Speaker 1: there going little do they know exactly? Uh? And then
Speaker 1: there are turns as well, especially in combat. Now, if
Speaker 1: like you have three fighters and a thief and there's
Speaker 1: suddenly battling um um uh minotaur um, the thief is
Speaker 1: gonna be like I'm standing over here, and the d
Speaker 1: M will leave them out of the turns and then
Speaker 1: will be the thief in the minotaur, and or the
Speaker 1: one fighter in the minotaur and the next fighter in
Speaker 1: the minutear. But blah blah blah, I always just keep
Speaker 1: going on like that. Okay, that makes sense alright, So
Speaker 1: back to our little story. The door is locked. Do
Speaker 1: you want to pick the lock? We decide let's send
Speaker 1: our thief in to pick the lock. Okay, So so
Speaker 1: what happens in the d M, Well, they gotta roll
Speaker 1: the dice and that's how you figure out if things work.
Speaker 1: So if you're a thief, that means you're really good
Speaker 1: at picking locks. So let's say it's a twenty sided
Speaker 1: die and all you gotta do is roll like a
Speaker 1: four or higher to successfully pick it. So that just
Speaker 1: means your chances are really good that you'll be able
Speaker 1: to pick the lock. If you don't have a thief,
Speaker 1: you can send your fighter in to pick the lock,
Speaker 1: but you may have to roll like a sixty or higher.
Speaker 1: You would think so, but fighters can't pick locks at all,
Speaker 1: not at all, Okay, they just like bang on the door.
Speaker 1: So only certain characters can, like you can't even try
Speaker 1: if they if they don't have that I believe someone
Speaker 1: basic D and D like only thieves are definitely not fighters.
Speaker 1: So if you don't have a thief in your campaign,
Speaker 1: the d M wouldn't even say do you want to
Speaker 1: pick the lock? They may say do you want to
Speaker 1: try to bust the door down? But the d M
Speaker 1: might also know in the game module it's unbust downable.
Speaker 1: It can only be picked. So so um it is
Speaker 1: because you're rolling for everything and you were saying they
Speaker 1: rolled to find out the thief was successful, and that
Speaker 1: that would be based on that low number, like if
Speaker 1: you just need to roll a four. That's in relation
Speaker 1: to the dexterity score, because it takes high dexterity to
Speaker 1: pick a lock. To the higher dexterity score, the lower
Speaker 1: you have to roll, which gives you, on a twenty
Speaker 1: side of die, a lot more of a chance that
Speaker 1: you're going to be successful at picking the lock. It's
Speaker 1: all rolling of the dice and the rumbers. So in
Speaker 1: this case, the d M knows that on the other
Speaker 1: side of that door is the gelatinous cube, and that
Speaker 1: is bad news if you're playing D and D, which
Speaker 1: if you're an experienced dn D player, that ten ft
Speaker 1: by ten ft door probably would have given it away
Speaker 1: because that's the exact dimensions of a gelatinous cube, which
Speaker 1: is evolved to move through the doors of a dungeon.
Speaker 1: I would be dead so soon. So what happens the
Speaker 1: door opens, there's the gelatinous cube boom, and then you
Speaker 1: got to do battle. And when you're doing battle. You
Speaker 1: do it again by rolling dice and you get these hits.
Speaker 1: You have the hit points that we referenced earlier. And
Speaker 1: let's say you gotta roll all right, these two four
Speaker 1: sided dice. Um, you gotta roll each one once and
Speaker 1: that those will be the the licks that the gins
Speaker 1: gelatinous cube puts on you. And if it totals seven
Speaker 1: or higher than you're dead. Yeah, exactly. And if you
Speaker 1: had depending on your hit points, if you have seven
Speaker 1: hit points, yeah, you'd be dead. So that I mean,
Speaker 1: that's generally the game. And you can get experience points,
Speaker 1: which are huge, which is this it's interesting to know
Speaker 1: experience points. That's what you do to like grow as
Speaker 1: a character, to get more hit points, to become more invincible,
Speaker 1: more to kill a monster and you'll get experience points,
Speaker 1: but you get way more experience points for getting treasure.
Speaker 1: And the authors of the Basic D and D rule
Speaker 1: books point out like this is we want you to
Speaker 1: use your head, right, how do you get around confrontation
Speaker 1: to go find the loot? Right, which, if you battle
Speaker 1: a monster you deserve something, sure, but the point isn't killing.
Speaker 1: The point is is using your head to get around
Speaker 1: problems as well. And that's why you get more for treasure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll look at there. I had a thing I think
Speaker 1: we made it up because I looked it up and
Speaker 1: I couldn't find it called a bag of plenty, not
Speaker 1: a bag of holding. The bag of holding was you
Speaker 1: could put like anything large in it and still be
Speaker 1: able to carry it. Like I found like all this food,
Speaker 1: and I normally wouldn't be able to carry it. But
Speaker 1: your bag of holding little all that and there? Right?
Speaker 1: Did you have to keey stir it? I don't know
Speaker 1: what that means? Like up the butt? Yeah, you're the
Speaker 1: first person who's ever said up the butt when somebody said,
Speaker 1: keyst what he's supposed to say. Did you just know
Speaker 1: a Keyston would say up the button? Yeah? All right,
Speaker 1: Um no, I wouldn't that key stir it. But I
Speaker 1: had something called a bag of plenty, and you guys
Speaker 1: made that up or I don't remember, man, because I
Speaker 1: didn't find it anywhere. The only thing I found was
Speaker 1: something called a bag of plenty plus one in Balder's Gate,
Speaker 1: which was a video game I had played once. But
Speaker 1: I think those Balder's Gate related to D and D somehow,
Speaker 1: like one of the variations so I didn't know that,
Speaker 1: but well, maybe what we played was with a bag
Speaker 1: of Plenty, which is it would double whatever you put
Speaker 1: in it. So if you have like twenty gold coins,
Speaker 1: you put in your bag of Plenty and you have,
Speaker 1: you know, double that amount. But I think we might
Speaker 1: have made that up because I can't verify that anywhere.
Speaker 1: I wonder how many, um how you just inadvertently admitted
Speaker 1: to playing Baller's Gate, and wonder how many people are
Speaker 1: just like, well, his credibilities out the window. I think
Speaker 1: people enjoyed that. No, I don't know, maybe if I
Speaker 1: vaguely remember it too. It was one of those games
Speaker 1: that I played on like PS two for three months
Speaker 1: until I completed it and then I was done with it.
Speaker 1: You know. So if if any of that even slightly
Speaker 1: piqued your interest, I would strongly recommend going and researching
Speaker 1: and maybe trying out. There's usually, uh, if you go
Speaker 1: on meetup dot com, you can find him probably just
Speaker 1: about any even semi major city of D and D group,
Speaker 1: And apparently Wednesdays are typically days at like comic book
Speaker 1: shops and gaming shops and stuff like that that have
Speaker 1: D and D groups where it's just kind of like, uh,
Speaker 1: anybody who wants to come can can come by and
Speaker 1: try their hand in it. I think they're very open community. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well it depends. Oh sure, Like if you tried to
Speaker 1: come in and like just PLoP down and like, hey,
Speaker 1: I want to join this game that you guys have
Speaker 1: been playing for seven years, and they wouldn't like me,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, oh, I got a bag of plenty,
Speaker 1: That's why they'd be like Balther's gate Um. I did
Speaker 1: try last night to play the online version because I thought,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm gonna give it a whirl. I
Speaker 1: downloaded this Mac beta version that was like eight gigs.
Speaker 1: It took a couple of hours to download, and then
Speaker 1: there was some errandloading and it wouldn't work. I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, well that sucks. Let me go get my
Speaker 1: PC laptop, because you know me, I'm rich. I have
Speaker 1: like eight different kinds of laptops. I know they're like
Speaker 1: falling out of your pocket. So I went to my
Speaker 1: PC laptop and tried to sign up and download the
Speaker 1: PC version, and it wouldn't recognize me. It wouldn't let
Speaker 1: me because I'd already signed up with that name, and
Speaker 1: so it was like midnight, and I said, screw this,
Speaker 1: but I think I might try and play the online
Speaker 1: version just to see what it's like. It's called D
Speaker 1: d O. Yeah, we're not getting into that. It's in
Speaker 1: a whole other thing. But um, there's a good article
Speaker 1: by John that's Strickland on Dungeons and Dragons online that
Speaker 1: you can find on how stuff works. So um, so
Speaker 1: I said, go check it out. And if not, if
Speaker 1: it didn't really pique your interest at the very least,
Speaker 1: I imagine you would be interested to know that for many,
Speaker 1: many years there were a lot of people with a
Speaker 1: lot of voices who considered Dungeons and Dragons to be
Speaker 1: thoroughly satanic. Yeah, and uh, it didn't help that what
Speaker 1: was the year that the guy seventy nine, James Egbert,
Speaker 1: James Dallas Egbert the third he went by Dallas. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this was a kid at Michigan State University and he
Speaker 1: went missing, and they the story out and the one
Speaker 1: that was later disproven, but the one that really got
Speaker 1: around in the news was that he disappeared into the
Speaker 1: tunnel system underneath the school playing D and D and
Speaker 1: died doing so. Yeah, he was a sixteen year old
Speaker 1: by the way computer prodigy in seventy nine, so there's
Speaker 1: like not such a thing as computer prodigies. Then he's
Speaker 1: like one of the first. He's at Michigan State and
Speaker 1: he actually did go in the steam tunnels and he
Speaker 1: went to go kill himself to take an overdose on barbituous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it didn't work, and he came to in the
Speaker 1: steam tunnels. Yeah. And it had nothing to do with
Speaker 1: dungeons and dragons, but it was announced so in the news,
Speaker 1: and that's sort of what people remembered at the time,
Speaker 1: and they used that as fuel, of course, to fuel
Speaker 1: the fire of this is an evil game, satanic. They
Speaker 1: made a movie with Tom Hanks, man, do you remember
Speaker 1: seeing that when it first came out as a TV movie? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and I guess you know, it's just sort of
Speaker 1: loosely told of slightly fictionalized version of James Egbert's uh
Speaker 1: you know, the sensationalized version of the real version. Tom
Speaker 1: Hanks plays the guy who gets so wrapped up in
Speaker 1: his character that he um, he just has a break
Speaker 1: with reality. He disappears because they find him again, but
Speaker 1: he still thinks that he's uh Pardue the Cleric, and
Speaker 1: I call him Pardue the cleric who lives with his
Speaker 1: parents now because they take him back home and he's
Speaker 1: just some crazy dude. Yeah. Um, I don't think any
Speaker 1: there was any better reaction to Dungeons and Dragons than
Speaker 1: Dark Dungeons by Chick Publications. So Chick Publications make religious
Speaker 1: tracks on everything about um. They're extremely fundamentalist christian um.
Speaker 1: And they have tracks on everything from how the new
Speaker 1: Jesuit Pope is in league with the devil to how
Speaker 1: if you are a Mason you are become possessed by
Speaker 1: a heathen god. Um. And they're basically like these easy
Speaker 1: to read comic books you're not familiar I might have
Speaker 1: if I saw one, I might recognize it. So and
Speaker 1: then they publish them and they sell them so you
Speaker 1: can go hand them out and proselytize the people on
Speaker 1: the streets like an ice breaker basically. But Chick Publications
Speaker 1: came up with the not the creme de la creme
Speaker 1: of anti D and D material propaganda. Yes, it's called
Speaker 1: Dark Dungeons and it's a comic strip about a girl
Speaker 1: who becomes who starts playing D and D and then
Speaker 1: as were routed into a real life witchcraft COVID by
Speaker 1: the Dungeon Master, because Dungeons and Dragons is just this
Speaker 1: front for Satanists to like find the best of the
Speaker 1: best to come do the real thing. And one girl
Speaker 1: who becomes so wrapped up in her character. Once her
Speaker 1: character dized, she goes and hangs herself in her room.
Speaker 1: That sounds familiar. I might have been forced to read
Speaker 1: that at some point. Check it out. And as a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, I wrote a blog post on these
Speaker 1: and some other ones about how it's called back when
Speaker 1: people thought Dungeons and Dragons was satanic k's on our
Speaker 1: site stuff you should Know dot com and this it was.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting, like there was this period that coincided
Speaker 1: with that whole satanic ritual abuse scare. Yeah, with the
Speaker 1: heavy metal music. Yeah, that got Judics, priests on Landed
Speaker 1: the West, Memphis three in prison. Um, it was a
Speaker 1: real thing. And yes, and Dungeons and Dragons was, if
Speaker 1: not the originator of this huge part of it. It
Speaker 1: was in the center of it for a long time.
Speaker 1: But it came out because thanks in part to the
Speaker 1: um Doge's and Dragons cartoon. Yeah, I had a cartoon.
Speaker 1: They had a movie which wasn't very good. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: surprised I haven't redone that movie. Yeah, so I bet
Speaker 1: they will at some point. I wrote a Time magazine
Speaker 1: article that was saying, like, why is Dungeons and Dragons
Speaker 1: not like a huge franchise. I didn't really get to
Speaker 1: the bottom of They kind of settled on, well, it's
Speaker 1: made a billion dollars for its owners. Um, it's in
Speaker 1: I think a dozen languages. Um. I think twenty million
Speaker 1: people have played it, so it does have a huge following.
Speaker 1: But they were saying like, it's not the Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings and why not? And I think possibly because
Speaker 1: it's just totally open ended, and it's that's what I think.
Speaker 1: It's the individual Lord of the Rings. You go read
Speaker 1: and there's a story and it happens, and yeah, you're
Speaker 1: kind of imagining it, but you're just imagining what Tolkien
Speaker 1: has explained to you. And guy gangs by the way,
Speaker 1: I thought Tolkien sucked. Yeah he was in a conan sure,
Speaker 1: So um, not O'Brien the barbarian. So Um. With Tolkien,
Speaker 1: you're told with D and D like you man, you're
Speaker 1: totally using your imagination. And even more than that, something
Speaker 1: as strange as a group imagination, a group of people
Speaker 1: using their imaginations together and kind of the interlocks like
Speaker 1: that's high level stuff. Well, it is high level. And
Speaker 1: that's exactly why a movie failed and probably wouldn't not succeed,
Speaker 1: is because for a D and D movie to work,
Speaker 1: you have to satisfy the D and D fans and
Speaker 1: no matter who for a movie, you have to create
Speaker 1: some hero character and that's not going to satisfy all
Speaker 1: D indeed people, no matter who you create and what
Speaker 1: story you create, they're gonna be D and D fans
Speaker 1: that I think. Now, my what, my guy was way
Speaker 1: better than this jump right exactly, And you call that
Speaker 1: a white dragon. White Dragon would never do that because
Speaker 1: it lived in my imagination as this, So I agree.
Speaker 1: I don't think it will ever happen. It's a great success.
Speaker 1: Although the cartoon was pretty well received. I think it is.
Speaker 1: So it's a classic. Yeah, but that's that's different. It's
Speaker 1: it was nominated for Greatest Cartoon Shows of All Time
Speaker 1: nineteen know by listeners. I I put a list up
Speaker 1: and said if anybody have any other nominees, and on
Speaker 1: our website people nominated More and Dungeons and Dragons was one,
Speaker 1: so it's up there. I think Scooby Doo one. Oh,
Speaker 1: of course duck Tails was a hard contender. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: never watched that. I was surprised. Uh, let's see, you
Speaker 1: got anything else. No, I mean there are dozens of
Speaker 1: offshoots in different games and different modules, and like we
Speaker 1: only covered a very small part of it. Uh, the
Speaker 1: universe is vast. The D and D universe is vast.
Speaker 1: It is Go forth and check it out, you say, we, Uh,
Speaker 1: take up those glasses and check it out. And if
Speaker 1: you if you want to learn more about Dungeons and Dragons,
Speaker 1: type those words into the search part how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot Com and it will bring up some cool stuff. Oh.
Speaker 1: By the way, it has sort of been known as
Speaker 1: like a guy's thing, but there's a rabid female community
Speaker 1: with D and D and I saw I watched the
Speaker 1: documentary last night on Dungeons and Dragons. It was pretty good. Um,
Speaker 1: the Dungeons and Dragons experience. I think you know, there's
Speaker 1: a there's like a pretty serious other documentary that's being
Speaker 1: got kickstarted. Really that's in it's in production right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this one was okay, it wasn't great, but it did
Speaker 1: interview a female, a woman, and she was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I think a lot of girls they see
Speaker 1: it as a guy thing and the guy nerds, so
Speaker 1: they're reluctant to get into it. But the girls that
Speaker 1: I know that I have gotten into it have have
Speaker 1: found that it. You know, it's really not like a
Speaker 1: guy sing after all. They have just as much fun
Speaker 1: and um, it looks I don't know, it's a fun community.
Speaker 1: It is funny. They showed them playing the at one point,
Speaker 1: and they definitely get like the dungeon Master is just
Speaker 1: sort of going on and on and the players will
Speaker 1: say things in character like I'm not sure what to
Speaker 1: do after such a long story and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and uh, they're taking like barbed shots in characters. Pretty funny.
Speaker 1: That's cool. Yeah, that's the way to do it, I guess.
Speaker 1: So actually, however, you and your group of friends want
Speaker 1: to do it and have fun doing it, that's the
Speaker 1: way to do it. Yeah, unless it veeers towards satanism
Speaker 1: and like real, but it doesn't. That was all made up.
Speaker 1: I know. Uh, if you want to learn more, didn't
Speaker 1: I already say this thing? Yeah I don't know, Okay,
Speaker 1: so I said search part, which means it's time for
Speaker 1: message break. And now it's a listener mail, right, Josh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this D and D listener mail for
Speaker 1: D and D podcast. That's a really clumsy title. How
Speaker 1: amazing it is. This is pretty cool. Actually, hey guys,
Speaker 1: a big fan of the podcast. In the TV show,
Speaker 1: I worked for the Ford Motor Company at the Kentucky
Speaker 1: Truck plant in Louisville, and I'm an assembly line worker
Speaker 1: and you can imagine my job gets pretty monotonous. I
Speaker 1: put on passenger side doors on trucks night, on specific trucks.
Speaker 1: He does. He can't just throw any door under a
Speaker 1: new truck. No, it's all very specific. But if you
Speaker 1: own afford super duty and you open your passenger raw
Speaker 1: or you can thank this dude for it. That's true.
Speaker 1: You can thank Jeremy Elmore. Um So, anyway, he's been
Speaker 1: listening for a little while and he's listened to all
Speaker 1: but five of the shows, and uh, he's getting on
Speaker 1: his wife's nerves. We hear this a lot when one
Speaker 1: spouse is sort of annoyed that doesn't listen about the
Speaker 1: other one getting smart. And I think everyone just needs
Speaker 1: to start, you know, taking care of business in the household.
Speaker 1: What what is that mean? Get the other spouse on board,
Speaker 1: get them listening. That way you can circumvent this defense
Speaker 1: mechanism of feeling threatened. So that's what his wife does.
Speaker 1: She's like, yeah, yeah, I know what you learned from
Speaker 1: Chuck and Josh. Look just listen. So he goes on
Speaker 1: to say, the great thing about the show is you
Speaker 1: two are very relatable to me, a couple of years
Speaker 1: younger than Josh. So I love hearing about your childhood
Speaker 1: stories from g I Joe, adolescent chocolating and Dungeon and Dragons,
Speaker 1: going to panic shows, watching Seinfeld, and now marriage. I
Speaker 1: feel like I've grown up with you guys. So I
Speaker 1: want to send you something. My father is where it
Speaker 1: gets good is Larry Elmore. He's a freelance artist who
Speaker 1: used to paint for TSR and D and D. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So like the blog post that you used, that was
Speaker 1: his father's artwork. Yeah, the blog post. I wrote a
Speaker 1: blog post on it right on DNDB and S can Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that was like, just by chance, this dude's father.
Speaker 1: His name is Larry Elmore. Like I said, he um,
Speaker 1: Dragon con and D and D have been mentioned on
Speaker 1: your podcast before and it made me want to send
Speaker 1: you something. So he has a twenty years art of
Speaker 1: Art book I can't wait to get. I can't either.
Speaker 1: It came out a decade ago, but it's still really
Speaker 1: cool and I want you both to have one. He's
Speaker 1: a new one coming out in August as well, so
Speaker 1: consider this a plug. I guess um. He has already
Speaker 1: personalized them for me for you guys, and I need
Speaker 1: to know how to get them to you. Is very cool,
Speaker 1: he asked me. This is even cooler because he asked
Speaker 1: who they were for. He explained it to Pops and
Speaker 1: now he is listening to the show in his studio
Speaker 1: while he's that illustrating. So by the time this comes out,
Speaker 1: hopefully Larry Elmore is listening to the podcast about D
Speaker 1: and D. What's Up Larry Elmore? So all that he
Speaker 1: was like one of the first or maybe the first
Speaker 1: artist early on when they did this. He's definitely an
Speaker 1: early one because the illustration that I used from the
Speaker 1: Night three edition of the Basic set Um, so he
Speaker 1: would have Yeah, that's pretty early. Well. I went to
Speaker 1: his website and looked at his art and like all
Speaker 1: those iconic images that I remember we're him. That's really
Speaker 1: I can't wait to get It's very cool. So thank
Speaker 1: you Jeremy Elmore in Louisville and Thanky Larry and uh
Speaker 1: that was it. Yeah, thanks to you both. Um, if
Speaker 1: you want to send us something, especially if your dad
Speaker 1: is um an indvertent idol of Chucks in mind agreed, Um,
Speaker 1: we want to hear from you, So you can tweet
Speaker 1: to us at s y s K podcast. You can
Speaker 1: join us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 1: You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
Speaker 1: Discovery dot com. And then why not just go see
Speaker 1: if we're sitting in our home on the web, on
Speaker 1: the couch, maybe watch a little TV. That home is
Speaker 1: called Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, is it how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. This episode of Stuff You Should Know
Speaker 1: is brought to you by Jack Threads dot com.