dNoPE: 1x06 - TTRPG Talk

We’re asking – and answering – a big question: What makes a TTRPG a TTRPG? We caught up with experienced Game Master, Jeremy Tuohy, to try and define just what the essence is of tabletop role playing games. As well as creating Heist at Nimressa, Jeremy has written adventures for Atlas Games’ Over the Edge and Magical Kitties systems. As ever, there’s the usual quick fire round of “Yes or Nope”, some challenging dice #ASMR and of course, “This Week’s Nope.” 

You can find Jeremy's work in the following places:
- The Heist at Nimressa (DM's Guild)
- Magical Kitties Save the Day! (Atlas Games)
- Over the Edge: Welcome to the Island (Atlas Games)

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Transcript

[Music]

Olivia Serio:

Hi and welcome to dNoPE, the podcast expansion for the dNo Universe. I’m your host, Olivia Serio, and today we’re going to be discussing some TTRPG basics. 

I’m joined in this episode by Jeremy Tuohy, a long-time friend and someone who I have played with for a number of years, both as party member and DM. He’s also written adventures for a couple different systems, including Dungeons and Dragons, Magical Kitties and Over the Edge. In this episode we’re talking about everything from our first forays into the world of tabletop role playing to our experiences with different systems, and the adventures we’ve had along the way. Ultimately it’s about what makes TTRPG so special, why we enjoy playing them and why you might too, if you don’t already. 

So we’re so happy to have you along, and thanks for joining us.

[Music]

Olivia Serio:

Hi Jeremy! Welcome to dNoPE.

Jeremy Tuohy:

Hello!

Olivia Serio:

I’m so glad to have you on the show. Especially as, like, one of the people who first introduced me to TTRPGs in the first place. I mean I had some familiarity but it wasn’t until, like, your housewarming party, years ago…

Jeremy Tuohy:

Did we play DnD at my house-warming party?

Olivia Serio:

No, we didn’t but we, like, started talking and then that led to game nights, and then because of game nights, I joined the DnD group and the rest is history.

Jeremy Tuohy:

A beautiful history.

Olivia Serio:

A wonderful history but, yeah. So welcome, so tell us a little about your DnD experience. So I know a lot about it. So you have written for, how many systems is it now?

Jeremy Tuohy:

Just three.

Olivia Serio:

“Just three.”

Jeremy Tuohy:

I’ve well, I’ve also, you know, only written just, published just three adventures. But I’ve written for DnD, self-published in the DM’s Guild. And then for Atlas Games I wrote an adventure for their Over The Edge setting, and then I wrote an adventure for their Magical Kitties: Save the Day game.

Olivia Serio:

Which I saw in the wild at MCM Comic Con in London, which was so cool.

Jeremy Tuohy:

I want to see one in the wild. Someone at GenCon was able to show me that they were at the Atlas Games booth and they got to see Magical Kitties. 

Olivia Serio:

I wasn’t even at Atlas Games booth, or whatever, it was just at, like, a board game shop store. 

Jeremy Tuohy:

That’s awesome. I have yet to see one of mine in the wild.

Olivia Serio:

But yeah, so and you, how long have you been playing TTRPGS? Which are just — ‘cause this is an introduction to TTRPGs episode — Table Top Role Play Games. How long have you been playing them? 

Jeremy Tuohy:

Well that’s an interesting question, ‘cause if you ask me how long I’ve been playing DnD. I would say 18 years, but if you asking how long I’ve played TTRPGs. I’m pretty sure I’ve been playing those before I knew that’s what I was doing since 6th grade. 

Olivia Serio:

So what was your first one then?

Jeremy Tuohy:

In elementary school, a friend of ours introduced us to a game and, I think he called it Scrubs. And I’ve looked it up before and I don’t think that’s the actual name of an actual system. He may have been talking about GURPS, which was like, pretty, I would you know, if I think about it, pretty big in the very early 2000s. And but, it was a d6 based system and it was, like, completely, you know whatever it actually was didn’t make it through the filter of a 12 year old child teaching it to his other friends in the playground. But like, we would get, you know, pieces of paper and we would write down the stuff that our character’s were good at. And we would just make up numbers that seemed to fit, and we’d roll it with the dice, and if we got the higher enough number, then we did it. I’m pretty sure there wasn’t a DM either. It was just kinda like a more structured way to like do make-believe play. And that was technically my first tabletop role-playing game. As chaotic and unformal as it was.

Olivia Serio:

That’s sometimes the, that’s sometimes the best kind, like the introduction, like fun and I mean that’s kinda like what it’s supposed to be at its in core in a lot of ways, is structured make-believe. 

Jeremy Tuohy:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that definitely made it so that when I encountered Dungeons and Dragons, I had a pretty good idea of, like, what it was. Like, I never like, sat like, had a moment where I was “What is this weird thing?” Like, this is this thing. How cool and look at all these books, with all of the silly monster drawings and things like that.  And er, sorry, I shouldn’t say silly monster drawings.

Olivia Serio:

I mean, some of them are pretty silly looking.

[Laughter]

Jeremy Tuohy:

Some of them are. In that particular edition, my great uncle did some illustrations in the Monster Manual, so those aren’t silly. 

Olivia Serio:

Those ones are specifically, like.

Jeremy Tuohy:

Specifically those, specifically the Unicorn, and I don’t remember any of the other ones he did.

Olivia Serio:

I mean the Unicorn is pretty cool. So what was your first DnD edition then? Was it 3.5?

Jeremy Tuohy:

Mm-hmmm, yeah. They’d already switched from, you know, third edition to 3.5 and I like, being a 14-year-old kid, I didn’t know, any of the hub Bub, or hullabaloo that came with that change. For me it was just “Oh, DnD.” And yeah, it was the edition that me and my friends first fell in love with. And I think this is very common story when you find DnD in High School or College. Like, you’re able to spend as long, long marathon sessions at each other’s houses and just play, and play, and play, and play. And that’s what we did. Over and over for years.

Olivia Serio:

Was, so it was your friends that introduced you to DnD?

Jeremy Tuohy:

Yeah.  There was an older student, in high school, who was our DM for the very first time. My first character was a Druid, and I remember, I remember in that very first session, the dice were very mean to one of our friends. And this poor guy, he missed on all of his attacks in combat. And then he got hit by a stray arrow from a Drow, and was immediately knocked-out, and his character was unconscious for the rest of the session.

Olivia Serio:

Oh no!

[Laughter]

Jeremy Tuohy:

And I don’t remember how long we were playing those adventures, ‘cause like, this was kind of the way it is in High School too. Where everyone is excited to start something new, play with a different bunch of characters and stuff like that. They, you know, we’ve all got ideas about what we’d want to run and the kinds of different adventures we want to play. So we would, kinda like, do a bunch of different starts to campaigns, in fits and starts throughout High School. I don’t think there was ever a campaign that we played for more than like a month and a half, or two months, before we move on to the next person’s like “Oh, I want to do this!” And then we all made…3.5 too, half the fun was making your characters. So any excuse to try out a new build that we had read about online or had put together in our brains, we took it.

Olivia Serio:

Yeah, that makes sense. I have a lot of, I mean, Completely different, but also not entirely different, that’s my favorite part of like, The Sims, for example. I make a bunch of characters, build their houses. I play with them in the Sim’s realm for maybe like 15 - 20 minutes and then, like “No, I want to build a new one now.”

Jeremy Tuohy:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Olivia Serio:

So, you started DnD around 14. What was, what was the thing that like, I mean apart from just like the make-believe side of things, what was, what was the thing you’re like “This is something I love doing, that I want to keep doing with my friends,” and things like that?

Jeremy Tuohy:

That’s a great question. 

It just fit me so well, I think, because I was just a nerd and I liked fantasy stuff. I like fantasy video games, like RuneScape and World of Warcraft, and stuff like that, and DnD just fit into that whole milieu. In that special way it does, with all the freedom it has, the creativity and the storytelling. And I think a big part of it was that I very quickly became a DM, and I was mostly DMing. And just being able to try on different ways of telling stories, and yeah. It was ‘cause, especially early on, it was more of a storytelling vector for me, as a DM. I don’t think that’s how I would describe DM nowadays but that was a big part of the appeal for me, early on.

Olivia Serio:

How would you describe your DM style now? Like, how would you, like that evolution then. 

Jeremy Tuohy:

I don’t think of myself as a storyteller. I feel like that, like, that I don’t want that much agency in my games. I feel like it’s, maybe this is just a semantic difference, but like, I think of myself as a like, introducing and maintaining a scenario and letting the story be brought about by the actions of the characters and the choices of the players. And most of all, the whims of the dice, and I think the biggest part of that is having a detachment from where I want, like, detaching myself from wanting the story to go in any particular direction, right. As a storyteller, you’ve got a story to tell, you’re going to be biased towards, like, wanting certain things to happen in the game. Things that aren’t, and shouldn’t be, in your control. And like, in High School, I think I played a lot more, and I like, I think this is common. I just played a lot more like, y’know, you guys are going to play this little story and then you’re going to play that little story. And then yeah, this is going to happen, and stuff like that. 

Olivia Serio:

I mean, as someone who has experienced some of, some of the stories. I think some of my favorite moments too, were the introductions of those scenarios. The, and the little, the ways that you involve players in telling those stories. I mean speaking from personal experience, when we were doing our campaign in the, what was it? What was the name of our group? I mean, we were the BeeGees for a bit because we found that bunch of Bees.

[Laughter]

Jeremy Tuohy:

Oh, oh, erm.

Olivia Serio:

And it was Bernard Boone.

Jeremy Tuohy:

The name of the adventure party, you eventually became The Precursors. 

Olivia Serio:

Yeah, The Precursors. Yeah, because we were the precursors to something. We just weren’t entirely sure what it was.

Jeremy Tuohy: 

Yeah, you didn’t know what.

Olivia Serio:

Something always happened when showed up.

Jeremy Tuohy: 

Was it— Did you call yourselves that in the game? Or was that just what we called you outside the game, I can’t remember. 

Olivia Serio:

No, I think it, someone in the game was like “Oh no, you’ve already…” It was like somewhere where we’d already been before and they called us the precursor to something. And we were, we’d been searching for a group name for a while for a while, because we’d been calling ourselves the BeeGees and we were like “That’s it! We’re the Precursors.” Because we were so interested in the history and everything that came before and also—

Jeremy Tuohy:

Mhmmm

Olivia Serio:

—pushing forward this new kind of ideas of things but the Pirate campaign, which both fit in to and kind of…

Jeremy Tuohy:

Totally turned in to its own thing

Olivia Serio:

Totally turned in to its own thing. With the wizard school, the secret wizards school and the…

Jeremy Tuohy:

Yeah. The secret wizards school, that went nothing like I was. Like I set up the scenario to do but it was great.

Olivia Serio:

It was great. It created this whole backstory and lore to our big bad evil guy villain. 

Jeremy Tuohy:

Yeah. For any curious listeners, the very quick summary of what happened is: They were on an Island looking for a pirate treasure and there was a secret wizard school there. And the secret wizard school is basically Scooby Doo-ing the Island to keep people away. Making it real scary, so they could continue to be a secret wizard school. And you all, basically, infiltrated the school and like, convinced one of the faculty members or the students?

Olivia Serio:

It was both. It was a student and a faculty member, because we needed to use their telescope or something, in order to solve one of the clues. 

Jeremy Tuohy:

But you basically, like, brought one very, errr, what’s the word I’m looking for? “Reluctantly” isn’t strong enough… “under your thumb” to like betray the entire college over and over, and over. You’d come back and be like “Hey, we need you do something else unspeakable for us.” And you just kept convincing him.

Olivia Serio:

Through really good dice rolls. 

Jeremy Tuohy:

Yeah.

Olivia Serio:

Like, he could…

Jeremy Tuohy:

It was incredible. 

Olivia Serio:

He very clearly had no interest in doing it. We had him turn into a dragon at some point.

[Laughter]

Jeremy Tuohy:

Oh yeah! The final fight, you turned him…unbelievable.

Olivia Serio:

There was a whole bunch of necromancy going on too, and our whole party was split about like, “is this ok?” But then there was this really beautiful heartfelt moment. Where I had this kind of idea of my backstory but through the adventure you were asking me these questions, and then integrating them in to, kind of the riddles and the story. 

And it was just like this, I think the best moment in any campaign is when people are so emotionally moved that they are either shouting or crying, I think. There’s plenty of that at our table. I think a lot of unexpected ways that our backstories developed, and were told, through collaborative storytelling. And I think that’s one of the best parts, is you maybe have some ideas but other people can help you flesh them out. 

Jeremy Tuohy:

Absolutely

Olivia Serio:

I also know that you have some experience with systems other than DnD. Partially, because we played Monster of the Week together, which is a Powered by the Apocalypse setting. 

Jeremy Tuohy: 

Yeah.

Olivia Serio:

And then, you’ve had. I know you’ve played some Fate and…

Jeremy Tuohy:

Yeah. I’ve played a lot of Fate. I’ve played, I’ve tried on a whole lot of things. I think Fate, and Over the Edge, and Magical Kitties, obviously are the ones that are the latter two is because I had to write for them. Those are the ones I have the most experience with. We played Fate before the newest, like Fate Core, back when it was. I hardly even know what the formal publishing for it was like. ‘Cause that was like right back in the middle of College, and we found like a version of the then Fate SRD on a website, and like we used that. It was pretty similar but quite dissimilar in some ways. It must have been whatever, like, system was like, ‘cause I think Fate was underpinning several different, like IP systems. Like the Dresden Files RPG and things like that but there wasn’t, like, like just a Fate standalone system. I think that was what the website I was on was trying to do, was like reverse engineer like a generic Fate system.

Olivia Serio:

So for unfamiliar listeners, what is SRD?

Jeremy Tuohy:

Oh the System Resource Document. So all of the rules that you are allowed to just publish willy-nilly that let you play the game. 

Olivia Serio:

Yeah, so like the basic rules for DnD or…

Jeremy Tuohy:

Hm-mmm. Although, I guess technically you may be, you may not be allowed to publish the SRD willy-nilly by default, but for Fate and for DnD…

Olivia Serio:

Well and Pathfinder, I think too now.

Jeremy Tuohy:

Yeah, that would track. 

Olivia Serio:

Do you have any experience with Pathfinder?

Jeremy Tuohy:

I have experience with the old Pathfinder because it, a lot of my friends when I moved on to Fourth Edition, lots of my friends stayed with 3.5, and some of them went to Pathfinder. I was like the only one in my group that wanted to play Fourth Edition and was excited about it. Probably because I was, like, the only big DM in the group and one of the nicest things about Fourth was how much easier it was to prep and run stuff. At least for me at that point. 

Olivia Serio:

So, kind of, what do you think, and I mean I have some of my own opinions on this too, but what do you think is essential for a TTPRG? A standard rule set, mechanics that can help you decide things — oftentimes dice, sometimes things like cards too, I’ve seen coin flips— some sort of character generation… Is there anything that I’m missing? In terms of like essentials? And then like things differ

Jeremy Tuohy:

It’s kind of tough to boil it down to essentials because you can find some role-playing games, some small role-playing games that are, are real bare bones and, I think I would still categorize them as tabletop role-playing games. They may not be the kind of things that can last more than like an evening of an experience, but sometimes that’s what you are looking for, right? There’s a game called the King is Dead, which is not like that much, there’s a board game called the King is Dead that is, this is not that. 

[Laughter]

But it is like a small role-playing game where it’s all about exchanging playing cards, and whoever has a certain hand, or the best hand, or something like that, at the end, like quote-unquote “wins.” And they, sort of like, get to decide the end of the narrative but the drawing and exchanging, and the like spying on other people of certain cards, and stuff like that, is all, can only be done when you take certain actions in the game. So like, you want to take a moment alone with another player, and then you and the player have to describe what that moment alone was… 

Olivia Serio:

I think I’ve played this with you before. 

Jeremy Tuohy:

and what it means, and what was discussed. 

Yeah, I think you were in that group. 

Olivia Serio:

I think we played this at a game night before. 

Jeremy Tuohy:

And that let the two of you exchange cards and stuff like that. 

Yeah, we played it with Brendan, and Brendan and I became lovers.

Olivia Serio:

Yeah, I remember that, that was funny.

And there was a whole. I think no-one expected how it ended up actually ending. It was a very— it felt very similar to —more freeform— but very similar to the Love Letters game. Where that is a little more structured version. 

Jeremy Tuohy:

Yeah.

Olivia Serio:

I think that other thing that I think is pretty core to a lot of TTRPGs I’ve seen, and played, and things like that. Is this, the level of role-playing is variable, based on the group of people you are with. Like even, DnD to a certain extent. You don’t, I mean, I personally don’t find it as fun. But like you don’t have to do a ton of role-playing to play the game. You can have a more combat heavy, like, style thing or you can.

Jeremy Tuohy:

I would argue that there is a lot of role-playing that happens that doesn’t look like what people think of when they think of role-playing. Like a lot of people think, like, this is a role-playing game and think of role-playing as the stuff that they do on Critical Role. Like, like improvised voice acting and I think that role-playing is a lot more about how you make choices on behalf of your character. Sometimes you’re making them more capriciously than otherwise, but even in combat, there’s a lot of role-playing that can happen. There’s a lot of role-play in your character creation, that’s a big part of the draw of DnD. That’s why I think classes are such a fundamental part of DnD, is because they put you in that role immediately. And so now you have an idea of like, “Okay, I’m the kind of person that sneaks up and goes stabby stab,” ‘cause I’m the Rogue. And so every time you do that, you’re playing your little Roguey role, and being a right bastard. 

Olivia Serio:

Hey!

[Laughter]

I feel like my Rogues weren’t always like that. 

Jeremy Tuohy:

No, very true. You don’t have to be a bastard to be a sneak. 

Olivia Serio:

No, but they were definitely sneaky. They were very sneaky characters. They liked being both quiet and loud in their own ways. 

Jeremy Tuohy:

Mhmmm 

Olivia Serio:

What, what are some reasons that you like other systems? So like what are the reasons that you enjoy Fate, or Monster of the Week, or Over the Edge?

Jeremy Tuohy:.

I think that a game’s structure, and its systems, and its rules, allow it to let you play different kinds of scenarios, and play scenarios differently. And that’s true, like, the same way different styles of video games let you do things differently. You can go into World of Warcraft and make characters. And you can say these characters are family, and you can go find a house and go play house inside World of Warcraft. But you can also play the Sims.

Olivia Serio:

Yeah

[Laughter]

Which is built for doing that. 

Jeremy Tuohy:

So. Yeah, right, exactly. So I think different role-playing systems do different things, with different degrees of fidelity and fun. Fate, we played because we wanted erm. Now the interesting thing about Fate, is that Fate was, is kinda trying to be a little bit more generalist but also, the thing that everything in Fate shares in common is how almost cinematic it is. The rules it plays by in the drama is a lot more about the currency of drama, like literal Fate points is the mechanic in the game. And you earn them by getting in to trouble and then you can use them for advantages later on to get out of the trouble. That trouble or some other trouble. That, very basic push and pull, means that you have games that are high stakes, high drama, like big bombastic, you know, TV shows and Action Movies, and things like that. Which can, like, happen in DnD but like, not in the, the structure is not set up to like create that over and over again on its own, like Fate is.

Olivia Serio:

Yeah, and I know. I remember that Over the Edge also was very character driven, it was a lot more freeform.

Jeremy Tuohy:

Yeah, Over the Edge too. Also a lot more, yeah, Over the, yeah a lot more freeform. I think explicitly in the rules they say each person should only expect to roll two or three times in an evening. So it is a lot more about the players and the DM being stuck in this weird world, figuring out together how this weird world would react to what the characters are doing. And only when it gets to, like, the most important of moments, whena lot is on the line, do you turn to the dice and roll. And what that does is turns every roll of the dice in to this hold your breath moment, which is lots of fun.

Olivia Serio:

Yeah, and it was also lots of fun because it meant the dice were there for things that you couldn’t figure out together, for the most part. It was like “Okay, we’ve made all of these choices, and now based on all of these choices. How are people going to react?” Well, we have no idea, so that’s that the dice are for. 

Jeremy Tuohy:

Yeah. And I think that’s a good core for all role-playing games. It’s like we turn to the dice, or we turn to the resolution mechanic, when we want to remove the control from ourselves about what happens. And different systems are going to make different decisions about when we have control and when the game has control of that.

Olivia Serio:

Yeah, and there’s something I think that I really like about games where you do. I don’t like making decisions, so I think that I personally like having games were the dice have to make a lot of decisions for me.

Jeremy Tuohy:

There you go. 

Olivia Serio:

What, what is one system that you have played, that you are like “I can respect that this is a system for some people but Oh Boy, is it not my system.” Do you have any systems like that?

Jeremy Tuohy:

That’s a good question. And I think I, hmmmm. I mean there have been plenty that just feel kinda flat, or I was disappointed about. I was really excited to try 13th Age and that one, that one might have just been an onboarding problem. The manual for that was very confusing, and we all really struggled to, like. And there was no one who had played it before to like teach us, so like, our group really struggled, to like.

Olivia Serio:

To figure it out?

Jeremy Tuohy:

Yeah, how to crack that nut. Like, I’m not sure if we were ever actually ever playing 13th Age but whatever we did play, we bounced off of it. I don’t think I’ve ever tried a system out and been like, “Man, that was terrible.” Some were trickier than others, lots of older games. Like from the later nineties and stuff, when they were really experimenting with all the different things that role-playing games could be, that aren’t DnD. They were very specifically rejecting what DnD was at the time, and those simulationist kind of games, like DnD and RuneQuest and, even GURPS to an extent. They were trying out all these different things but it was all brand news, and there was still a lot to learn. I think it clashes against some of my, like, design and game master sensibilities now. 

The example I think of right now, there’s a game called Dread, and the resolution mechanic in Dread is you pull dice from a Jenga tower whenever you take an action. And eventually, that tower is going to come down, when someone does something risky. And so like, I mean, it’s, I recommend everyone should play it. But like designing a scenario for Dread is likely widely different to designing a scenario for typical RPG stuff. But they had written the beginner’s scenario just like a typical RPG thing, and I was like. It doesn’t quite work like this and it was really hard to like, and I was already in the middle of running it, when I realised it. 

So it was really hard to figure out. But I would love to go back and do it again, with maybe an adventure designed more recently or something. 

Olivia Serio:

Or hindsight

Jeremy Tuohy: 

Yeah, or just with hindsight, and prep it better, just myself. 

Olivia Serio:

Thank you for just freeform talking with me about TTRPGs. I do have a couple of other things before we wrap up the podcast. One of those things is dice related and it’s, with all your years of experience, can you tell the difference between two different dice rolls?

Jeremy Tuohy:

Ok. Let’s do it. 

Olivia Serio:

I think I’m going to do a d12 and d10. So…

Jeremy Tuohy:

Oh, you’re telling me which ones they are, and I just have to tell the difference between the two. OK. Well, I’m quite relieved because it sounds a lot easier, but now I’m then concerned because maybe it’s so hard that you had to tell me, just to give me a chance. 

Olivia Serio:

OK, so here is dice number 1. I have mixed up which ones they are, so maybe its the first one, maybe its the second one. This is a very Princess Bride-esque scenario, putting the poison in the cup. 

Jeremy Tuohy:

OK. I’m going to listen. I’ve turned you up, here we go.

Olivia Serio:

OK, this is dice number one. 

[Rolling Dice sound] 

Jeremy Tuohy:

Uh-huh.

Olivia Serio:

Dice number one again.

[Rolling Dice sound] 

Dice number two.

Jeremy Tuohy:

OK. 

[Rolling Dice sound] 

Olivia Serio:

So dice number one 

[Rolling Dice sound] 

Dice number two

[Rolling Dice sound] 

Jeremy Tuohy:

Dice number one is the d10

Olivia Serio:

Yeah!!

Jeremy Tuohy:

Yeah!!! 

Olivia Serio:

 You’re the first person to get it right! Dice number was the d10 and dice number two is the d12.

Jeremy Tuohy:

Alright! That’s amazing! Should I tell my strategy? I don’t want spoil it for other people.

Olivia Serio:

No, go ahead and tell your strategy.

Jeremy Tuohy:

Well, I know that a d12 is more round than a d10, and I listened for which rolled longer.

Olivia Serio:

Oh, oh-ho, interesting. The last person I had—

Jeremy Tuohy:

I may have just been right be coincidence, but that was my strategy.

Olivia Serio:

—The last person had a much easier time, he unfortunately got it wrong, but he’s less familiar with DnD though. I couldn’t give you something so easy. It was a d20 versus a d4.

Jeremy Tuohy:

That would have been easy-peasy.

Olivia Serio:

I couldn’t, I couldn’t. You’ve been playing too long. I had to give you something a little harder. 

OK. The last thing that we have going is a round of “Yes or Nope” questions. 

Jeremy Tuohy:

Alright.

Olivia Serio:

So I have a handful of questions and you just have to answer “Yes or Nope.”

Jeremy Tuohy:

I love that.

Olivia Serio:

Can dice be cursed?

Jeremy Tuohy:

Nope

Olivia Serio:

Can dice be uncursed?

Jeremy Tuohy:

I guess nope was like, if they can’t be cursed, they can’t then be uncursed.

Olivia Serio:

Snacking at the table?

Jeremy Tuohy:

That’s not a question.

Olivia Serio:

Can you, should you, like snacking at the table, yes or no?

Jeremy Tuohy:

Yes!

Olivia Serio: 

Session Zero?

Jeremy Tuohy:

Yes. Although, you can go without, depending on the group.

Olivia Serio:

Can you have too many dice?

Jeremy Tuohy:

Nope

Olivia Serio:

Would you ever be an adventurer?

Jeremy Tuohy:

Nope.

Olivia Serio:

Like, you dropped in an Adventuring World. 

Jeremy Tuohy:

Not unless I dropped in as a high level of Wizard.

Olivia Serio: 

[Laughter]

Fair enough. 

Have you ever played a TTRPG?

Jeremy Tuohy:

Nope.

Olivia Serio:

[Laughter]

Jeremy Tuohy:

It’s all been a lie. 

Olivia Serio:

Would you let other people use your dice?

Jeremy Tuohy:

Yep.

Olivia Serio:

The next couple of questions, I need you to pick one of the characters you have played, which I know has been many. So.

Jeremy Tuohy:

OK, so I need to pick one before I hear the question?

Olivia Serio:

Yes. It’s a set of three questions. Just decide on one of your characters.

Jeremy Tuohy:

OK, I will pick the Marxist Wildfire Druid I’m playing in my Wild West Campaign right now. 

Olivia Serio:

Perfect. Would you party with your character?

Jeremy Tuohy:

Oh hell yeah. 

[Laugher]

Olivia Serio:

Would you trust your character to guard your drink?

Jeremy Tuohy:

Hmmmm, yeah.

Olivia Serio:

Would you trust your character to guard your treasure?

Jeremy Tuohy:

Also yes, yeah. 

Olivia Serio:

Those are my three character questions, and the last question is, would you ever consider using digital dice, digital characters or digital tile sets?

Jeremy Tuohy:

Yes, absolutely. 

Olivia Serio:

Well, I think this week’s nope is think that any one system, if you’ve had one experience, you’ve had them all. 

Jeremy Tuohy:

Oh yeah. Hard nope to that. 

Olivia Serio:

Writing off TTRPGs just because one system or one experience.

Jeremy Tuohy:

Or not exploring anything other than DnD, because you think DnD can do it just as well. Or like. 

Olivia Serio:

Yeah, this week’s nope is limiting your own experiences. Just get out there and explore.  

Just like the characters.

Jeremy Tuohy:

Nice!

Olivia Serio:

Well thank you again so much for joining me today Jeremy. I’ve had a lot of fun, lot of, it’s always fun talking to TTRPGs with you. And games, and stuff, and everything generally but it’s very fun to do it in a very dedicated space.

Jeremy Tuohy:

Yes, it’s been a lovely time, thank you!

[Music]

Olivia Serio 

Thank you so much for listening to dNope, the podcast expansion for the dNo Universe. If you want to learn more about who we are and what we’re doing. Go follow our social media at @dNoDice. That’s D N O D I C E on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. For the latest updates and to join in on the community we’re building, you can also join our Discord. By going to Discord.gg/dNoDice or following the link in our episode description. Thanks again for listening and we hope to see you around soon.