Epic Escapades and Everyday Leadership: The D&D World of Tom Watkin

Get ready to roll the dice and enter an epic world of gameplay, as we speak with the brilliant Tom Watkin of D&D At Work. With over three decades of Dungeons and Dragons experience, starting from a simplified game with his brother, Tom has built an elaborate, captivating universe of his own. This episode takes you on a narrative journey into Tom's D&D world, which has grown from a ruined city to entire continents over six years. You'll get to learn about his love for the creative aspect of D&D and how this game provides a unique platform for stories and world-building.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg! We also dive into a treasure trove of tips for those who're just starting their D&D journey, exploring the importance of player autonomy and tailoring the game according to the group's preferences. Not forgetting the broader implications of D&D, we discuss how the game's strategic and decision-making elements can translate into the corporate world. It's fascinating to consider how D&D can shape leadership and negotiation skills in an entirely different context.

Our conversation with Tom also explores different leadership styles in the D&D setting, highlighting how coordinating a group, planning sessions, and ensuring everyone enjoys the game can mirror real-life leadership scenarios. We also throw light on how complex D&D rulesets can sometimes interfere with the role-playing experience, leading us to share about alternative rulesets. Tune in to our chat with Tom Watkin as we delve deep into the fascinating intersection of D&D and work-life, offering unique perspectives on leadership, teamwork, and culture exploration. You don't want to miss this!

Links:
Dungeons & Dragons At Work - https://dndatwork.com/
EZD6 by DM Scotty - https://www.ezd6.com/
Those Dark Places
Cthulhu Dark
Me, Myself, and Why : Searching for the Science of Self

Chapters

• 1:13 Exploring Beginner Dungeons and Dragons
• 14:07 Tips for Getting Started in D&D
• 28:21 Exploring Leadership Concepts Through D&D
• 36:05 Using Leadership Skills in Dungeons and Dragons
• 43:44 D&D Rules and Work-Life Balance
• 54:24 Leadership, Teamwork, and Culture Exploration

Transcript

Andrew: 1:14

Joining legends, loot and lore podcast today from from all the way down under in Australia, is Tom Watkin of D&D at Work. We're going to talk about all things beginner D&D, what got Tom started in playing Dungeons Dragons, and we're also going to talk about how to translate a lot of those principles and learnings that we gather in playing Dungeons Dragons into a, into a work environment. So we're going to have some fun talking about that. Tom, thank you for joining the podcast today.

Tom: 1:53

Thank you, Audrey.

Andrew: 1:56

We're very excited, so let's dive right in. So how long have you been playing Dungeons Dragons? What? Let's start with that. So where's your origin story for D&D?

Tom: 2:09

Okay, so, interestingly, when I was about eight so that's quite a long time ago now my dad had one of the first Dungeons Dragons books, one of the old red ones, the Beckamy ones.

Tom: 2:23

He was playing it on the oil rigs with his friends, brought it home and played it with my brother and I and we played a real simple, simplified version of it and I was hooked straight away, absolutely hooked. He then decided he didn't really like it, so I never really got to play with my dad again after that, but I was just, yeah, this sort of being able to use your imagination to explore fantastical worlds. At that time as well, I was getting into Lord of the Rings and everything just seemed to dovetail.

Tom: 2:57

Ah, yes, so that was how I started and then, luckily, a friend of mine at school was getting into Warhammer, so we were playing Dungeons, dragons, the Warhammer role playing game, all that sort of stuff.

Andrew: 3:10

Oh wow, it was great. Oh, my goodness, you went into the deep end of the ocean on all that. That's fantastic.

Tom: 3:17

It was the deep end thinking about it.

Andrew: 3:23

Do you remember or recall any of those early characters that you created, or anything about them all these years later?

Tom: 3:32

Funnily enough, I can't remember some of the ones I created. There was, the first character I ever played was like a pre-generated character that my dad made, and he was a fighter called Wolf.

Andrew: 3:45

Okay, cool.

Tom: 3:46

A few years ago I found the notes of my dad's adventure and looking at them now, they were pretty basic compared to what people create now, but as an intro it was perfect.

Andrew: 3:59

Well, you could start somewhere.

Tom: 4:02

Exactly. Another character I had great fun with this is when I was in secondary school was a cleric who was pretty fundamentalist in his view on orcs. I can't remember his name, but I can remember having a lot of fun with it, so that was a really good fun.

Andrew: 4:22

That's fantastic. It's interesting how some of that stuff just sticks with us through all these years later. That's fantastic. So what do you find most captivating about D&D? What's kept you engaged, all these years later, in playing the game?

Tom: 4:50

I think so. I run a lot of games. I do play in them as well, but I get a real kick out of creating adventures and creating worlds and then collaboratively building them with my players. And there's just. You can't really capture that feeling in anything else, where you're collaboratively creating a story and an adventure. And in fact, over the last six years, my friends and I have been collaboratively creating this huge world, which started off as a small campaign in a ruined city and now spans continents, and it's just an amazing creative experience, really Interesting, and I think, as well as that, it's the social aspect too.

Tom: 5:39

So I've made some really good friends playing D&D and other games like it and you're sitting around the table, you're socializing, you're sharing these stories. It's a really strong bonding experience.

Andrew: 5:55

I completely agree. I think there's just having those shared experiences. You keep those memories for many, many years to come and it really is a bonding experience for an adventuring party. Tell me a little bit more about this world that you're creating. Let's talk about that a little bit.

Tom: 6:23

Yeah, okay. So I had a gap from role playing games after university and then I moved to Australia. So I'm from Scotland originally, but I moved to Australia. I got this real itch. You know, I was like I really want to get back into it again. So I was playing for a group over the group and the dungeon master dropped out.

Tom: 6:43

So I created a ruined city and ran the group through this ruined city called Soulcive and then we had great fun with it and then when we got to the end of the campaign I was like I'd like to carry on. So what I started doing is creating. So we'd finished one campaign, which usually lasted about a year, which was quite unusual and then we'd set I'd set the next campaign 50 years or a generation on. So the characters, so all things that the characters have done back in that first campaign about five or six years ago, are influencing what's happening now, five or six generations on, which is I've never experienced anything like it and the shared law. So we had, for example, one group back in the day released a demon into the world which then created a big demon war and it still had ramifications on what's going on with the group now in the way that the world perceives to tieflings and all things demonic and it's, you know, created like an inquisition. So there's these, these things that I've taken from previous campaigns and it sort of builds the world that way. It's been great fun and the group that I play with so a lot of GMs and this or DMs.

Tom: 8:00

This might be a good advice for your listeners. If they're new to DMing. They get this feeling that they've got to create this whole world. I started with one ruined city. I didn't know what else was around the world and then, together with the group, we created more and more. There was pirate islands, we've got these northern wastes, we've got another continent that was a lost continent, we've had jungles, dinosaurs, you name it, and together we've created this huge interlocked world. But it's come through play rather than me sitting and designing every little bit. So I think for people who are starting out as dungeon masters, you don't have to go build this massive world. You can create one village and through play, players are pretty creative and if they can get involved with the collaboratively building it, you can create something truly amazing together, which is great and that's one of the joys of it for me.

Andrew: 9:00

That's good advice even for me, because I am in the midst of building a campaign for a party. So that's good advice for me to not overcomplicate it too much and just let the players collaboratively build that world, and that is very good advice. So tell me, how many campaigns have you played in this world that you've created?

Tom: 9:33

I think it'd be five or six, so we had the risk of boring you. We had this ruined city that they were exploring. Then we had a pirate island adventure where it became very piratical and that went in directions I hadn't expected. They were meant to be rescuing a prince and they ended up becoming pirate lords. I should have expected that. Really, we've had a mercenary company. That was a good one.

Tom: 10:03

So all the characters were a mercenary company and then laterally a thieves guild. They're like a gang within the city. So I've taken the original city, the original ruined city, and now I guess it's 150 or 200 years later. They're then a gang within this city as it's built up over time. So there's little Easter eggs for them from the original campaign Interesting. I'm trying to think there's another one in there too, but I can't remember what it is now that you've put me on the spot.

Andrew: 10:36

That's all right. So what are some of the most memorable moments you've had as the or that the players have had in these campaigns? What are some of the things that really jump out to you between all those different kind of campaigns within this environment that you've designed?

Tom: 11:01

There's a few things. There's been some great finales where everyone's sort of finished off, you know, beating the big bad and everyone's the high fiving Some others are. We've had some interesting and poignant character deaths as well, where one of my friends was playing a midwife, a halfling midwife, and she was like the, you know, keeping the party together, making sure they were being good, effectively, and they decided to take on a dragon and she got killed by this dragon.

Tom: 11:42

And it was quite a poignant moment. It wasn't sad as such, but it was definitely we all felt it, which was interesting.

Tom: 11:52

But the player he's pretty relaxed about character death. His characters die fairly regularly. But yeah, we definitely there's like that, almost a shared, just a slight, yeah slight, sadness I suppose. So that was a real if you were thinking like about like a movie. Yeah, it was a really sort of slow, poignant moment that after it we've had one moment that sticks out in all our minds was a tree which had lots of people hanging from it, and the people hanging from it were all characters that were related to people, that were, or NPCs that were related to the characters in some way or another, and of course, one of them had to rescue one, and it was this demon that they released on the world and that's had massive ramifications for the rest of the campaign, well, all the campaigns following on and that moment there's a few, a few of my

Tom: 12:46

players have said that that was one of their favorite moments where it just sort of blew their mind that there was a demon in there and then it's just sort of had this knock on effect. But really I think that the most poignant or the best moments are when the players have come together to defeat something and they sort of work together and, yeah, it's just been a great, a great bonding experience, I suppose, and everyone's been really happy. So I'm not an adversarial GM, I'm backing the players. I try and make it hard. So it's definitely they're having to overcome obstacles. But, yes, moments like that, where they they work together, they come up with a cunning plan and actually works.

Andrew: 13:30

That's amazing. It's always fun to being being both, being on both sides of the coin. It's fascinating to see what, what things the party comes up with, what different ways to solve a problem, because it's, you know, as as the, as the DM, you probably imagine it's going to happen one way, and then they come up with something completely different way to approach it, which is which is equally impressive, but but you know, something you never really anticipated. So that's, that's got to be a lot of fun, I'm sure.

Tom: 14:07

It's funny you should say that. So over time I've changed the way I write my encounters, so I used to try and second guess what the players were going to do. But they're so creative I can't. I found I can't do it.

Tom: 14:21

So now I'll set up the encounter or set up what's what they're going to meet, or or the environment, and I don't even think about how it's going to be solved, because I can't. I can't beat my players or come up with anything better than my players. What they come up with is is way better than anything I could think of. So that's why I've started doing that, and it saves a lot of prep time and also you get an amazing result.

Andrew: 14:48

Absolutely, it's always. I've had this, I've had the same conversation with, with multiple people that that I've interviewed on the podcast about, about you know, do you do railroad the party down the way you want them to go, or do you, or are you giving this little bit of a bigger sandbox in which they can play and kind of adventure on their own? And it's always, always more rewarding, I think, for everybody just to give a little bit of that, that autonomy to the team to really kind of figure things out on their own, instead of trying to force them down a pathway that you've envisioned for them.

Tom: 15:31

Definitely, definitely yeah, and you get better results from that as well. And the other thing, I think, is you get better buy-in from the players. So if they feel like they're in control of where the story's going, then they really get into it. And rail roadings fine, for sure, you know there's a time and a place for that as well. But I found that the players buy in and their engagement with the story definitely increases when they feel like they're leading in 100,.

Andrew: 15:59

I agree 100, 100%. So let me ask you this question now. So the people that have come to your table, were they all experienced D&D players, or were some of them new to the game? What was that group like that you kind of run a game for?

Tom: 16:22

It's a really good question, actually, and it's something I found really interesting. So when I got back into it, the players I was playing with were very experienced. But when I took over the role of Dungeon Master, we had so we had one man in his late 50s, we had myself and a couple of others in our 40s, and then we had a father and his daughter, and his daughter was, I think when she first started playing, was 15. And then when she finished playing with us, she was 19. And her and her dad had never played before. They just wanted to experience what it was like, and then they ended up playing with us for four years, okay, cool.

Andrew: 17:04

So, it's been a real mixture.

Tom: 17:06

I've also. I've got a 12 year old son and a 10 year old daughter, so I've run them through some games and some of their friends. Oh my gosh, if you want insight into how 10 year old and 11 year old boys operate, play D&D with us, but they were real beginners, so I, I with them.

Tom: 17:32

I changed the rules I used. You can see, behind me there's a book called ICRPG which is a more streamlined version of similar sort of mechanics. So I played that with them, just so it was easier for them to pick up, and that was absolute chaos. But yeah, there's been a huge, huge range. And then recently I've been playing in a game that my friends, dming, and two of our friends had never played before, joined in and they really took to it. I think I think the way we play is very, we're very, collaborative and we let people, we try and encourage the players to come up with ideas themselves. We don't want, we don't have anyone trying to coach them through it and they were all a little bit mad, I suppose, but I think everyone who plays D&D is, so it all worked well.

Andrew: 18:20

Yes, absolutely so. So what advice? What advice would you give to somebody who's interested in playing D&D for the first time? What would you, what would you recommend they do to to get started? Should they? Should they read the books? Should they just dive into a game? What would be your, your advice for, for someone that said to you hey, you know, I hear you talking about D&D. I've always been kind of curious where do I, where do I begin?

Tom: 18:55

So my experience getting back into D&D was I found a group at our local gaming store and just jumped straight in and we were playing second edition Dungeons and Dragons, which I'd never played before. So I didn't really know the rules. In fact, even when I play now.

Tom: 19:12

I'm still a bit hazy on some of the rules of fifth edition, but my players keep me straight. But I think the advice would be to try and find a group. There are lots of groups popping up now. We're in a golden age of role playing games, it seems to me.

Andrew: 19:26

True.

Tom: 19:27

And you could find not necessarily a long term campaign, but you could go and play a one shot. Maybe play a different, a couple of different one shots with different groups, get a feel for how the game works, alternatively, funnily enough. So, when I first started playing Dungeons and Dragons, it was a bit of a dirty word. People were you know you're a geek for playing it and you know people didn't really want to know, whereas nowadays, you know, at work, for instance, I drop it into the conversation every now and then I was like Dungeons and Dragons, yeah right, wow. So there's a lot more people are a lot more interested in it.

Tom: 20:02

So I think, even if you just mentioned it to your friends as a beginner and said look, I'm interested in playing this. I bet you could find a couple, two or three of your friendship group who would be interested in giving it a go. And then it would be a case of maybe taking up the reins as a dungeon master and just giving it a crack with one of the starter sets, or something like that.

Andrew: 20:24

That's great advice. Yeah, I'm all for just kind of diving right in like that's, that's, that's kind of how I I started myself by my co-host, joe, said to me one day goes, hey, would you be interested in maybe playing Dungeons, dragons and and? And I had, I had known about the game for some time and I'm like I absolutely would love to play and Create, roll rolled my first character and just dove, dove right in. It's been, it's been a blast. So I, I, I think that's great advice. Just find, find a group, start your own group, just just ask, and I, you're, you're absolutely right.

Andrew: 21:05

It's become far more I don't say acceptable, but more mainstream. Maybe that's the word that I'm looking for. It it's the Table-top role-playing games have become far more mainstream. You see it so much more in pop culture, stranger things, big bang theory, you see, you see a lot of mentions, I mean Joe Manganiello, or critical role, like it's just become. It's become part of pop culture now. So so I think it's a lot more. It's far from the, the satanic panic of the 1980s when you know it's it's. We've grown past that these days. So that's, that's, that's pretty good. Yeah, I, I'm just like I said. I'm just I. I would wholeheartedly welcome anybody anybody to to sit down in the game if I Said this is this is I've. I've DM'd a little bit. This is this is this new campaign. That is gonna be one of my first attempts at DMing, so I'm a little nervous, but I Think it's gonna be fun.

Tom: 22:10

I think, I think you'll be fine, I think once you get into, I hope after the first session the first sessions always nerve-wracking. Yeah but then when you realize the players are there to have a good time and they want to engage with your world, it becomes easier. It's, but I know what you mean. It's that first session Nerves. You're thinking, oh, have I done enough prep? Have I created the world well enough? As?

Andrew: 22:31

a story engaging enough?

Tom: 22:33

and the answer is always yes. It's just getting over that first session.

Andrew: 22:39

Right, right, right. So so that that brings me to this question, which, Because you bring up a good point and we, we talk about the rules and there's so many books and and all that, so so, yeah, so the advice of diving right in like are there any other? Because because it can, it can the complexity of the game. There's Seven different dice, there's the players handbook, there's the dungeon masters guide, there's the game, the dungeon masters guide there's, you know, there's all the, all the, the books of, of Adventures and and Monsters and and races and and everything you know. Is there, what's, what's the? Is there a way to simplify that and streamline that for people like what would be the? What would be a way to kind of simplify all that down for For your, for your kind of newer players?

Tom: 23:38

So I would say so. I agree, there's so many books and so many rules I'm not across. Occasionally my players will bring things in from other books and I just trust them. I don't really question it until something becomes overpowered. Even then that rarely really happens. So I would stick to the players handbook and the dungeon masters guide. I think you don't need to go beyond that, particularly at the beginning For someone who is playing. If you're introducing someone to the concepts for the first time, I will often use a different, more streamlined system. So there's one called easy D6 by DM Scotty. I Ran some friends through that and it's just using D6's. I Actually my wife's not a role-player at all, but I ran her and some of our friends through a horror game based on alien Called those dark places again just uses D6. It's really simple.

Tom: 24:41

It's more about the role-playing the rolling of the dice just to get the whole concept through of how role-playing works. But if you, if they're diving into D&D, yeah, players handbook and and maybe or maybe they get the dungeon master to create some Pre-generated characters. I think I haven't looked at the starter set, but I think that's what the starter set has in it.

Andrew: 25:03

That might be a good place to yeah, I think you're right, that's, that's, yeah, a pre-generated character, because I've been, I've been talking with a friend of mine who wants to learn, learn D&D, and it's I've been fielding so many questions about what about this and what about that and what about this, and it's you know, like when you, when you roll the dice for the, for the different ability scores, and it's like, well, do I need to be stronger or more charismatic, like you know, and it's all depending on the race.

Andrew: 25:34

So so that's a good point, that the pre-built Maybe, because I, we, we interviewed one person and and they actually they run D&D campaigns At local breweries and they have a whole set of pre-built characters that they just hand out to Everybody so you don't have to go through that whole process. So that's that's a really good point, maybe. Maybe just finding, finding a pre-built character that you can play and and Get used to the mechanics of the game before you get into all the the character building as well, because that's that that that's probably one of the most confusing parts I think is is Is building a character to start out with yeah, because you don't know what you don't know at the beginning.

Tom: 26:18

So you're thinking I should.

Andrew: 26:19

I be an elf.

Tom: 26:20

And then what does that mean?

Tom: 26:23

But then one of the joys- of playing with players who haven't played before is they don't come with those preconceived notions of what a dwarf should be like or you know what a magic user should do. They are actually like a, a blank canvas, and they, when they do create characters, when you do get to that stage and I agree, the pre-built characters are a good idea at the beginning, but when you do get to that character building stage, they're actually a lot more creative sometimes than Maybe the the older, more experienced players can be, because they're coming in with fresh ideas and a completely new perspective.

Andrew: 27:00

I love so many of the new races that they've been creating that that people can, can use for for characters, because there's some, there's some really fun things we had. We had one player in one of our campaigns was a was a turtle, and when they went, when they went into the shell, like their AC was like 23 or something, it was like it was ridiculous. So it was. It was so funny because it's like you never really think about that, but it's like they got this, this hard shell and and they're, they're safe from there. So there's, there's some really fun things that you can, you can do with those, with those characters for sure.

Andrew: 27:38

So what let's, let's dive into, let's, let's, let's, let's change paths now and let's talk about D&D at work. So we've, we've, we've had fun in our, with our friends and everything, and, and now we have to. Now we have to commute into work in the morning and and sit at our, sit at our desk and stare at our computer, if, if you are working in an office or you're working remotely and Talking with people over slack, but how? So? So talk to us about D&D at work. What, what is this, what is this project? And and and what should we know about how, how to take those D&D principles into into our workspace?

Tom: 28:19

Yes, thanks. Yes, so I've. I've been thinking so. I love leadership, my day job, I'm a general manager. I love leadership.

Tom: 28:28

I find the concepts of it really interesting and of course, I love D&D and the role-playing aspects Mm-hmm, and over time there's something being sort of niggling in my head, thinking there's actually some correlation here. You can use the two things together, and so D&D at work is really me exploring the concepts of leadership, teamwork and culture and how D&D can help those aspects in the workplace. It's very much early stages and I'm really just exploring the concepts, but there's a couple of things there. One. The first one is, as we've talked about, you can create a real bond between people going through adventures together. So playing Dungeons Dragons at lunchtime or something like that with your team can be really beneficial. So there's that element of it, but I think as well that there's.

Tom: 29:22

You can really get people to test out leadership principles, try out negotiation, learn those sort of softer leadership skills through role playing. I've had a couple of experiences where they haven't really it's not been role playing per se, but it's been pretty close. I did a negotiation unit in my MBA a while a long time ago and we basically spent three days role playing negotiations where we were pretending to be leaders of countries, leaders of companies, negotiating, and it was amazing. Being a massive fan of D&D, I loved it and I also learned negotiation skills at the same time. And then I did a leadership course for a job a few years ago and the same thing a big part of it was acting as a team and role playing, and they actually brought in actors for us to role play against or with and so I think you can teach people in the classroom about leadership principles, but it's very difficult to get them to experience it until they're actually in the workplace, and then it's almost too late.

Tom: 30:34

So if you had a junior leader going in and they start yelling and shouting, they're going to lose leadership capital and the faith of their team very, very quickly.

Tom: 30:44

But if you could put them in a high pressure scenario, in a Dungeons and Dragons type scenario, and really put the pressure on, put time pressure on, have moral conundrums in there, have the team trying to work together, but have them in a leadership role, you could really get them to try that, try their leadership style out. If they start yelling and shouting in that scenario, it doesn't matter, you can debrief at the end and explain how their behaviors affected the team. And then so something interesting you know you were asking me about my memories of D&D and there's been some amazing in my memory. I can still pull out some of these experiences I've had. There's a book called Me, myself and why, and the writer, whose name escapes me now, says that we remember role playing games, experiences as if they were real, so in our memory treats them as if they were real. So you can have these leadership experiences and it's almost as if it's as if you've lived it, so you've suddenly got this experience there that you can draw on when you go into the workplace.

Tom: 31:53

So I think there's a big opportunity there. Start putting future leaders and younger and older leaders as well through Dungeons and Dragons type experiences and it'll make them stronger and more well rounded by the time they get into their team and start leading.

Andrew: 32:11

That's really quite fascinating. I loved how you were talking about the shared experiences and remembering those stories. There was somebody else that I interviewed on the podcast and they were saying the same thing that when you are recalling these stories, it's never. Oh, do you remember when my character did such and such? It's like no, do you remember when we were battling that dragon and I pulled out my war hammer and, like I jumped on the dragon and hit him in the head? It's a very real experience. It's never about what the character did, and that's about what we did and what I did and you did, and together we were able to defeat something. So, yes, I completely agree. What was the name of that book?

Tom: 33:07

again, it's called Me Myself and Why, and I can't remember the name of the author, unfortunately. I heard about it. Matt Mercer was being interviewed. Oh, when was it Okay? So I was watching an interview with him and he mentioned it and I was like, right, I've got to check this out. So yeah, matt Mercer, put me onto it, not directly, of course.

Andrew: 33:29

Interesting. I will make sure that we look this up and I'll put it in the show notes. I'll put a link to the book in the show notes for everybody so everybody can check it out for sure.

Tom: 33:46

Yeah, good idea.

Andrew: 33:47

I think there are some tremendous benefits to role playing. I previously did an interview with the psychologist and an educator middle school educator and talking about the psychological benefits of playing tabletop role playing games like D&D, in group therapy situations and in educational environments. So why not the work environment? Like you said, it's a if you know, for me, if I were going to walk into a leadership seminar and they're like okay, we're going to pair up and we're going to role play this, like I'm like okay, like it's, you know, I don't know it doesn't like I just struggle with the reality of it.

Andrew: 34:38

But when you put an obstacle in front of a group and things like that, like the big bad, whatever, it is a dragon, you know, whatever. And now you've got to work together because you know, as player characters, you've got different strengths and different abilities than everybody else. So everybody really has to work together. And yeah, there's there's negotiation skills that you know. I sometimes, sometimes I wish I could just roll for persuasion and in the, in the corporate world, you know but definitely I could roll a d20 and it would be just that easy.

Tom: 35:24

But wait to d20. Absolutely.

Andrew: 35:28

Absolutely. How have you personally used, used what you have learned in D&D and and those, those kind of your leadership skills, how? How have they been developed, you know, through D&D, and how have you translated that into into the work environment?

Tom: 35:51

That's? Yeah, that's a great question. I wrote a blog post, I think it was called why Dungeon Masters Make Good Leaders, and I think so I've been. So now I do play in games as well as Dungeon Master, but a few years ago I was. I was Dungeon Mastering mainly, and I think when you're a Dungeon Master, you have to draw on leadership skills, whether you like it or not.

Tom: 36:15

So you've got to try and coordinate the group Although it doesn't always fall to the DM, but often it does. So you're coordinating the group, you're trying to make sure everyone's having a good time. You're making sure that everyone's included. So I take it upon myself to make sure everyone around the table is is getting a spotlight. You're. You're planning the session, so your planning skills have to be up to speed. And then the whole social negotiation yeah, you have to be the leader. So even at the beginning of a game, you know what it's like. Everyone gets in the room, everyone's happy to be there. Yeah, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat. You want to start the game. Right, right, right. So I found I have to be quite directive in my leadership style at the very beginning of every session and say right, cut everyone short. Say right, we're starting now.

Tom: 37:02

All right, okay, great, everyone sort of gets into it and then so. So there's a few things there. So, yes, the Dungeon Master, you have to be a leader. There's all sorts of different aspects. But then there's different leadership styles as you work through.

Tom: 37:16

So directive at the beginning, corralling everyone to actually start, and you've got collaborative. You want to make sure you're drawing people in, they're all getting involved, you're not just directing the story at them, they're helping direct it. Then sometimes you have to be democratic. You have to try and get you know the group to vote on what's going on, and also you have to be able to read the room if someone's getting upset. So there's emotional intelligence there as well. If you can see someone's getting upset about something, you have to try and diffuse the situation. So, as the DM you're that I think you're the leader of the group or you've got to behave like one. So through doing that that's, I noticed that things I was doing at work were mirroring what was going on at the table.

Tom: 38:02

So I think yeah, I think it's been a great way for me to hone my leadership skills and as I've become more aware of different leadership models and one in particular, decision making, the Uda loop for decision making, which is observe, orient, decide and act. I've sort of tried to put that when I, as a player, I try to include that and try and include that model when I'm making decisions. And then laterally, I put a post out a couple of weeks ago about a failed negotiation. So I put a negotiation out to the group and they failed spectacularly, which was great for the story and it was great fun. But then I could take away learnings from that about well, how would it have gone better through what I know about negotiation? So there's little things like that I pick up on all the time. So, to answer your question, I'm dipping into the Dungeons and Dragons games a lot with my leadership and honing my leadership.

Andrew: 39:08

That's great. So let me ask you about your most recent blog post, the leadership styles unveiled, translating D&D dynamics into the business world. So talking about leadership and the different types of leaders that there are. So how do you see these leaders in a D&D game, and are there ones that are more successful in a corporate environment, or does it depend on the situation? How do you translate those leadership, who those leaders are in D&D, into who they become in the corporate world?

Tom: 39:59

This is where I think D&D has real value. Is that when you're playing the game?

Tom: 40:04

so you've got maybe four or five different styles or types. You can switch between them. So a player say, if they're playing a lord or something, they can be directive and they can start sort of trying to order people about. Or if there's a high pressure situation, maybe one of the players takes the lead and starts being very directive We've got to do this to get out of that, what have you? And then other times maybe the team are planning what they're going to do next. Then it becomes collaborative, so the players can switch between different styles, depending as the situation dictates.

Tom: 40:41

And alluding back to what you were saying, in the corporate world you can't or I don't believe that you can be just one type of leader. I think you have to be able to switch between different styles depending on the situation. For example, if I'm at work and there's a health and safety incident, I have to become very directive about getting things done, whereas if we're doing our strategic planning for the year, then it becomes more collaborative, a bit more democratic. You're getting people's ideas and I think you can actually replicate that at the table as well, and depending on what situations happening. So, yeah, I think Interesting.

Andrew: 41:21

Yeah, it's different. Yeah, no, go ahead.

Tom: 41:23

I mean it gives people a chance to play around with the different styles as well, Because you don't get a chance to really do that in the real world or in the workplace, you start switching styles.

Andrew: 41:34

No, you don't.

Tom: 41:35

People think you're a bit unhinged, whereas you can round the table, you can try these different styles and then you can see what works for you and begin to really shape what your overall style is and which bits you pick on and which bits you don't.

Andrew: 41:52

Right, that's a great point that using D&D in that way is a great testing ground for the skills of who you want to become as a leader. So it's a little bit it's both, I mean, because at some point it's a very high pressure situation if danger is imminent, or it could be a very low pressure situation when you're trying to negotiate passage on a ship somewhere. So it's and it is. I think D&D is a great place to do that. Let me ask you this question have you ever thought about because I've thought about this ever since I had that interview with talking about D&D and therapy and D&D and education about actually running D&D games as a leadership program for corporate teams, doing team building exercises or things like that as a business, as a way to translate what you've learned throughout your lifetime in both leadership and game playing and combine those to help others?

Tom: 43:15

I have thought about that a lot and I think that's I think there's a real opportunity there. I think people it'd be a lot cheaper than a lot of corporate training. You can really build in culture. You can really highlight the culture. You can highlight issues that the team may be having, but in a safe, imaginary, fantastical way.

Tom: 43:45

One thing I think that gets in the way of that potentially with Dungeons and Dragons is the complexity of the ruleset. So I've been exploring rulesets like Cthulhu Dark, which is a one-stat D6 system by Graham Walsley I think I've got his name right and that way the rules don't get in the way. That's all about the role playing and the decision making. The other thing I think would be really good and I've been giving this a bit of thought is, you know, special Forces and the military. They always have like a boot camp or a Hell Week where they really put their teams through the ringers. The Navy SEALs in particular are renowned for this and I thought and at the end of it the ones who get through have got this real shared sense of camaraderie. They've all got this really tight knit identity. Of course you can't do anything as extreme as that in the corporate world.

Tom: 44:40

What you could do is replicate something similar around the table, so you could have a role playing game with your new cohort coming through or a new team, and then you put the pressure on, you put obstacles in their way. You know dragons flying in left and right, whatever it is, or you know their ship sinking and they've got to get through it Right. And then you really put them through the ringer and there's maybe different challenges. They have to do not physical, because you can't put people through physical endurance tests, but you can put them through this sort of shared experience together and, like we were talking about before, you know I remember times around the table where we've overcome things.

Tom: 45:27

You know one of my characters and the team we were playing with, we saved a village from being overrun by goblins. I still remember that.

Tom: 45:34

I can remember my character running down the street and blowing a bugle, trying to get everyone, to warn everyone what was happening, and so you could get teams you can have corporate teams doing the same and they say I remember that time, you know, we all banded together and we defeated the dragon or we stopped the ogre horde, and that then becomes part of their team identity and their team culture. And then, as new people are coming into the business, they're being put through similar experiences. It's that shared identity begins to emerge. So I do think there's something in that, and so, to answer your question, yes, I have thought about that and I am. I think over time, as dnd at workcom keeps going, I'll be exploring those, those concepts, in more detail. I think the key will be finding a leader who sees value in it for their team and as, again, as you mentioned earlier in the podcast, we're in a we're in a golden age, dnd's mainstream. Now it would be a much easier thing to get across the line than it maybe used to be 10 years ago.

Andrew: 46:39

I completely agree. I will. I will keep a close eye on dnd at work to see what what transpires with that. I'm looking forward to seeing what you, what you've got up your sleeve.

Tom: 46:53

Yeah, yeah, it's going to be exciting.

Andrew: 46:55

So how do you, how often do you play dnd? How do you? How do you, how do you balance your love for dnd and work? What's your, what's your work, life balance as far as.

Tom: 47:07

As far as that's concerned, yeah, again, another really good question, because it's very easy to tilt things one way or the other. I'm a big proponent, absolutely yeah, it is, isn't it? So I'm a big proponent of balance. So I've got a few things I need to balance a family, cause I've got two kids and a wife. I love dnd. I want to keep that.

Tom: 47:31

That's a important to me, just from a from a mental health point of view, I suppose. And just enjoyment you play is is a very important aspect of life that people don't give enough credence to. And then, of course, work as well, and I've got some other hobbies and things I like to do, and you want to look after your friends and all of that. So I have one Sunday a month where I play in a friend of mine's campaign, and then every second Thursday I run my soul chire campaign, and then every now and then we sneak in extra games. But one thing we're doing next weekend, my friends and I, we're taking ourselves away to an Airbnb and we're going to play Dungeons and Dragons and other games for a whole weekend, which something we've never done before.

Andrew: 48:26

Oh, very nice.

Tom: 48:27

So it's making sure that it's part of my existence. But you're right, you need to keep balance. And I found I was running. So I used to run the Thursday game and the Sunday game and actually I found, as a DM, I was burning out because I was having to be create creatively, come up with scenarios for all these games.

Tom: 48:47

I was really busy at work, the kids were and you know I was doing stuff with them and with my wife and I was like, hang on, I haven't got the bandwidth for this. So then I passed the Sunday game to have a good friend of mine, and then I got balanced back. So it's easy to take on too much and I think you just have this important that you just recognize it in that in yourself. If you find you're not enjoying it anymore or you're feeling stretched, then you know, let someone else take over the reins for a bit.

Andrew: 49:17

You're absolutely right. It's knowing what your limitations are and, again, making sure everything is done in balance, absolutely. Yeah, I'm goodness. I think I'm playing in three campaigns at the moment, but one is only one, like one Sunday a month, so it's nothing crazy. Another campaign we try to play every Monday. That's only for about two hours, so it's not a huge time consuming thing. And then I play another one on Wednesday nights and that's. We've got different people in different time zones, so we start at like 10 o'clock at night and go to like one or two in the morning and that's that's like. That's like my.

Andrew: 50:08

I don't want to say it's not that I enjoy that one the most, but it's, it's the character that I created. Like I always try to create for every campaign just something that I've never I haven't done before. I try not to, I try not to get caught in a rut, so I always try to come up with something different. This is like a tiefling warlock who who may or may not be good or bad? So it's, I'm exploring morally gray areas with with this tiefling about and trying to figure out what's going to happen. So it's fun. Each campaign has its own benefits. I love the groups that I play with on Monday. I've played with them for years, so it's just a lot of fun. What advice would you give? Let's circle back to, as we kind of wrap this up. What advice would you give to that person again thinking about getting into D&D, like what's, or even just the new player? What's something that you've learned that over the years that you wish you had known all the way back then?

Tom: 51:24

So I think something that I've learned over time is the rules don't really matter. So people get hung up on the rules, right, and they're oh, if you fall, it's this much damage. If you, whatever it is, oh, you fall in the water. This is the rule. For that, actually, it doesn't matter.

Tom: 51:45

So my group and I, we don't look rules up anymore at the table. If we can't remember what it is, we just make it up so, and then maybe we look it up later or maybe we don't. It's more about the story, the adventure that everyone's having and the fun. So if you're starting out and you're like I'm not really sure how this works, I mean, 5e is pretty, pretty straightforward. At least the basics of 5E are pretty straightforward. So you can pretty much wing it if you need to, and it doesn't matter, and the people around the table are having a good time, you're telling a great story, you're having these amazing adventures together. That's the important bit. The rules really take second space and if you remember, in the Dungeon Master's Guide I think it's the Dungeon Master's Guide it always says that the rules are a guideline. So it doesn't matter whether you get them right or not. They're a guideline. So keep that in mind and just get on with it roll some dice and have fun.

Andrew: 52:53

I completely agree. I think I've heard people refer to it as the rule of cool. The rule of cool, like it's whatever, is going to make the game enjoyable and move along for everybody at the table. That's the way to go. It's you don't want and that would be kind of my advice for the people thinking about starting playing D&D you know, try out different DMs. You know different DMs have different styles. So it's always, you know, find one that works with your personality and find a group that works for you and but yeah, just have fun. It's that's what it's all about. It just enjoy the camaraderie of the adventuring party. You know, doing things together, finding solutions for problems, and you'll have a great time. Exactly.

Tom: 53:56

It's all about fun, isn't it? I think you've encapsulated that really well, absolutely.

Andrew: 54:03

I completely agree. It really is about having fun. And if you're not having fun, there's always another table out there that you can join, so don't let that spoil your experience with D&D.

Tom: 54:20

Exactly right, exactly right.

Andrew: 54:21

Excellent, tom. Thank you so much for being with us today. I really appreciate you being a guest on the show. Really looking forward to I'll make sure I mention it, so it's dndatworkcom.

Tom: 54:38

Is your site correct? That's right. So dndatworkcom, so dndatworkcom, and that's where I'm exploring all these concepts of leadership, teamwork and culture, and from the world's greatest game.

Andrew: 54:55

Awesome and, like I said I will, I'll put all those in the show notes, so everybody's got access to all that and we'll look forward to seeing what comes next for me, this has been a great experience.

Tom: 55:06

Thank you very much. I've really enjoyed it.

Andrew: 55:10

Thank you. I thank you so much, thus said.