SPEAKER_05 0:00

Welcome to RPG Blokes. This is a little bonus episode for the RPG Blokes Plus members, because we have a new bloke.

Welcome to RPG Blokes

SPEAKER_05 0:21

So I thought for our subscribers, I would give you a little sneak peek of our new bloke. So welcome to the show, Little Mark.

SPEAKER_04 0:35

Do we need to explain to people why I'm Little Mark? Is it is it like a Robin Hood thing?

SPEAKER_05 0:38

Well, Robin Hood wasn't it was irony. But for you it's not, it's actual reality.

SPEAKER_04 0:42

And the reason I was called Little Mark is when we were growing up, believe it or not, there were six marks in our little friendship group. In fact, the only person I remember that actually had the name Mark stick was you.

SPEAKER_05 0:52

I was the oldest, I think. Yeah, yeah, you were. We managed to kill the other four.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Are you saying there can be only two? Because that doesn't have the same ring about it.

SPEAKER_05 1:00

We'll have to have a fight, you and me, Mark. Finish it one way or the other.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Mark, I love you with all of my heart, but my money's on little mark.

SPEAKER_05 1:08

Well, because he said he used to be an ex-marine. That's nothing, mate. That was a long time ago.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

I mean, I'm not gonna lie, that was a factor, yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:16

So um, yeah, so that's why I was called little mark, and it just stuck, didn't it? And and people seem to find it weird that I'm called that. I've never never it's never bothered me in the slightest.

SPEAKER_05 1:23

Yeah. It makes sense being little mark here on the podcast too, because there are two marks and to differentiate between us, yeah. And I'm the OG again.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Listen, as long as you don't go on an ego trip and start expecting me to

Meet Little Mark

SPEAKER_02 1:34

call you Big Mark, we're gonna be fine, alright? Daddy Mark. Daddy Mark.

SPEAKER_05 1:39

What we're gonna do is we've been we've been broadcasting now or doing our podcast for quite some time, and during the episodes, we've answered a lot of questions about ourselves. So our regular listeners, and I think particularly the ones that are signing up to RPG blokes, plus, are gonna be quite familiar with with us. And you know, you're you're brand new, so why why don't we ask you some of the questions that we have in turn answered over the year and a half, and we can fill in some of the gaps so people get to know you, they can get to like you, dislike you. They don't know where you live, well they know Stoke, but then yeah, you've narrowed it down for them already, didn't you, to a city, so yeah. I've got the questions here, and Barry can chip in with any questions that he might think are relevant. I'm I'm more of an insults and sarcasm kind of guy. Okay, you got that covered?

SPEAKER_04 2:23

I've not noticed that, so yeah.

Rolling Dice Beginnings

SPEAKER_05 2:26

So here we go. First question for you. How many years have you been rolling dice?

SPEAKER_04 2:32

Bizarrely, a deep and meaningful question to start with. So I I started role playing when I was 14. So that is what 36 years. Um I'm pretty sure could you could quite easily say save my life in the sense of turning me around because I was a I was a little shit. There you go. When I was when I was a kid, I was I was a I wasn't good. One day at school I I had two options. I had an option of turning, literally, it was like a sliding doors moment. I had a choice of going with a guy called Dominic, which was the school hard nut, and I had a choice to go with a guy called Stuart Buxton, who was the school geek, and it was left or right. I just turned right and I went with Stuart, and I met all you guys, and it was through Mark and and uh um your dad bless him and all that sort of stuff that helped me get all my education into place and then I ended up becoming uh joining the army, becoming a medic, and now I'm a paramedic. There you go, a bit deep and meaningful to start with. Yeah, I mean uh to put it put it bluntly, I couldn't read. The first time I ever started reading was when we were talking about my first ever character called Thor, and I had to learn the rules, and and I so I had to start to read.

SPEAKER_05 3:33

And it was really rubbish now for a character, by the way.

SPEAKER_04 3:36

It wasn't good, was it? Yeah, but it was my first ever one.

SPEAKER_05 3:40

What game did you begin with? What's what's the game that really got you hooked? Do you think?

SPEAKER_04 3:44

Warner fantasy roleplay, I've played it, I've played it since then, yeah. Don't get me wrong, other roleplay games are giggles like DD being you know, walking around like you're gods and stuff. But one of the fantasy roleplay always had my heart because you start off absolutely rubbish. And if you don't think around problems and try to do things, you die.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

But I'm with you. That's one of the things I love about woofrups. We played Woofrups a lot in lockdown uh online, and yeah, it was grim and perilous, and you like we were so close to death so many times, and we did lose people, but also the way that your character just develops a little bit every single solitary session.

SPEAKER_05 4:19

It it's great for character development, so you still get that feeling of jeopardy and you're about to die. But because you you don't really die until you've lost all your fate points, you I think you feel more invested in the character, you know it's gonna have more longevity, you can't just throw it away as well because you know you have a you you get the umb of the character on a new one, you can't it's it takes a while to kill him off.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

I really love the way that they reconcile XP. The XP reconciliation is uh one of the best systems I've ever played because at the end of every session you get, and it might only be a small amount, but you do get to spend it. I think one of the problems with that is that it can lead to people spending XP on whatever it is that they're doing at that exact moment. But I think if you can avoid that, um you end up with like you just end up feeling a little bit better every week, and it it and it kind of feels more organic than just reaching this kind of milestone of X amount, and then everyone basically having the same relatively limited choices on how they buff their character.

SPEAKER_05 5:17

With the Warhammer as well, Mark,

A Dark Age Returns

SPEAKER_05 5:19

because it's relevant, and you're talking about that being the first game that drew you in, and we were playing the Enemy Within campaign uh 35 years ago, and we're playing that again now because they've rewritten it and republished it in the fourth edition Warhammer and we're playing the same campaign as we did when we first met. Uh right, so on to the next question. So, Warhammer got you hooked. Uh so the Dark Ages, did you have a period in life where and you stopped playing? And then if so, what brought you back? Because you spent a lot of time in Games Workshop, didn't you, as well? And you you like that side of the hobby. So we're focusing more on the role-playing side of things, that's more what we're about as a podcast. So we stick to that. So with the with the role playing, is there is there a period of time where you stopped playing?

SPEAKER_04 6:02

Yeah, there was, yeah. So I stopped when I was about 20, 28, and that's when the whole army stuff and training to be a paramedic and all that sort of stuff took over my took over took over my life, and I stopped for a good bloody hell. I'm 49 now. Ten years, ten, ten, eleven years I stopped. And then randomly, one of our players and other games, I think he texts me or something randomly saying, all right, mate, or something like that, and and here we are again. And then it's like, you know, the best thing about it, honestly, and this is God's honest truth, the best thing about it is that I played the first session and it was like a day hadn't gone by. It's just a safe space, isn't it? It's just it's just friends again, it was brilliant.

Theater of the Mind vs. Battle Maps

SPEAKER_05 6:37

Right. So, do you prefer theatre of the mind or do you prefer to have things battle map?

SPEAKER_04 6:42

Well, Mark, we we we have a story about that, don't we, Mark?

SPEAKER_05 6:44

Yeah, go.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

Is this a story where Mark Senior, that's what I'm gonna go with, Mark Senior. Oh, we like that. I am the oldest as well. Is this a story where Mark Senior doesn't come off very well? Should I get popcorn?

SPEAKER_04 6:58

He's he's trying to draw this map, what looks like with his left hand covering his right eye whilst drinking a drink upside down in a car on fire, right? The map is absolutely shocking. There's there's no straight lines on it or anything like that. And he's drawing it on this like kind of mice pad. And he goes, Oh, do you know what? I've got a photo here, and he brings up a photo of another DM that hand built hand built the pollocks, right? And it was it was it was three stories high, and he had a courtyard, and the courtyards were made of little card that he'd hand painted, you know, and everything was going on around it. Um and we all we had on our map was a square, a door, and an oblong that looked like a horse.

SPEAKER_05 7:33

So you're not really theatre of the mind, then are you? Let's be honest. Well, it's hard to live up to some bloke that's built a fucking castle out of matchsticks for his for his group.

SPEAKER_04 7:41

So since then, the theatre of the mind has taken a bit of bashing.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

I mean, it could have been worse, it could have been on the back of a fag packet.

Character Voices and Impressions

SPEAKER_05 7:47

Yeah, I think it was the digital equivalent of. Uh right, so and the next one is the voice. Uh do you do any silly voices for your characters?

unknown 7:56

No.

SPEAKER_05 7:56

I mean not silly, any voices, any dupe. Terry nearly said what you mean apart from the one that he does usually, then, but I held back.

SPEAKER_04 8:02

No, no, because I don't think I'll be able to keep it going. You know, and there's some some some moment when you've like got the the end of the campaign when you're taking on the big guy bad guy and you're trying to fraught the plans and all that sort of stuff, and suddenly you've got to go, what ho, man? Let's go.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

It is a commitment, isn't it? It is a commitment if you start off doing the accent, the character voice, whatever, and you're in an 18-month campaign. Yeah. I mean, I've said it every time. I've played barbarians, monks, wizards, grimalkins, and every one of them's been a cockney.

SPEAKER_05 8:37

But uh it's a shame though, Mark. I was gonna get you to to give us your best voice, but obviously you don't. Well, tell us give us a voice if you if your next character needed a voice. What about your dwarfs, Gioletto? Gioletto.

SPEAKER_04 8:46

Well you'd you'd I've I've got this in four, it'd be like this, you know what I mean? It'd it'd be bit gruff. He's Bray Winston, he's Bray Winston, I love it. There'd be some of that. The problem is when when he got to the charge, it'd be like George and then it'd go really squeaky.

Dice Superstitions

SPEAKER_05 9:04

So do you have any dice superstitions? Or any superstitions in general regarding the game, you know, and how you approach playing the characters or rolling dice.

SPEAKER_04 9:14

Yeah, yeah, well, well, let's let's set about that the better mark with you killing me off as well. Um that question's coming up, actually.

SPEAKER_05 9:20

I get to that one. Oh, I guess it's a good one. We'll give you plenty of time to vent on your untimely death.

SPEAKER_04 9:26

Yeah, so when I play when I play board games, as you know, I do a bit of games workshop stuff, like you said, I I line my dice up in a row. And you in the game of Blood Bowl that I play most, you only need two D6, but I have about 40 of them. And what you do is you roll the first ones on the left roll once and move them to the right, if that makes sense, and you slowly work through them, so then none of them have ever been bad, if that makes sense. So you can have one bad roll, but you've got 40 rolls before you get to the same set again. So I so I do that when I'm playing games, like on board games and stuff.

SPEAKER_05 9:55

So that's pretty fucking extreme. And we're we're doing an episode on dice superstitions, and that would have been well way off the scale, wouldn't it, Barry?

SPEAKER_02 10:01

I think that's great. My mind is blown, but uh there's a bit of me it's funny though, but the way you talked about it, is it sounded to me like it was more OCD than superstition.

SPEAKER_05 10:09

You don't uh dice bins and jails and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

Oh throwing dice across the room.

SPEAKER_04 10:14

So I remember I remember Steve specifically getting a load of dice, and and he rolled them in in the back room of Mark and C's old house, and he worked out which ones were the best and put them in his put them in his little dice.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

Yeah, yeah, well and and and and and just to be clear, I am quoting his brother here. Yeah, he's a fucking cheat.

SPEAKER_05 10:36

Is he? He's a cheat, we worked it out.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Yeah, we worked it out.

SPEAKER_05 10:40

He's not here to defend himself, he's he's working, he's doing his garbage.

The Pain of Character Death

SPEAKER_05 10:43

Well, that means he's fair game. How do you take character death? And have you ever lost a character that you've really loved in the past?

SPEAKER_04 10:48

Thor died, didn't he? So in the in the Ener Mover campaign, we played, we played what for seven years or something, and then I was out of the campaign, and you guys carried on playing it on some separate tables, and for a good couple of years I was kind of a fish out of water. It is only a a character on a piece of paper, but you get so entangled with it, you're so happy about when they achieve and when they don't achieve, and stuff like that. It's it's like it is like a little part of you, you know.

SPEAKER_05 11:10

Or it was an important character for you. I know you'd been playing him for four four or five years, and yeah, yeah, he died.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

And you got you got no, well, actually, little Mark probably doesn't much. I like I quite enjoy a good character's death. I think that you know but the times that it's the easiest to take is when it's at a point where you kind of feel like that their story might have been complete. It's like how we I was just saying to Mark before we started recording, we've got we had a character death two weeks ago in in the Dolmanwood game that I'm currently playing. But the the character's dream was to become a knight, he was a squire, and because of his bravery in the battle in the siege of Trigwart, he got knighted and then a week later died. Okay, it's quite cinematic, isn't it? Yeah, it's a lot easier to take than dying the week before you get knighted. It's like I can understand feeling two different ways about those two different character

The Evolution of Gaming

SPEAKER_02 12:03

deaths.

SPEAKER_05 12:04

And also the game has changed. I try and sell this to Mark because he's come back into it quite recently, and Barry you'd know this anyway. That the game isn't quite so intense in all respects. Yeah, you've got to you you know, when people do silly things, you often, first of all, you'd you'd want to reward them with something back. You don't say, Well, that's stupid, you died, that's fine, you're you're you're an idiot. As long as they're not messing about and trolling the adventure, you you try and encourage players to complicate their characters' lives, not to make their lives simple and be perfect, and and I think the the game and the narrative side of the game really benefits from that. And that's a big change to how we used to play when we were younger, and the modern systems play into that as well. So Barry kind of embraces that side of it. Um and if Barry's not at a table, quite often a lot of shit that wouldn't wouldn't even be done or explored because Barry's the one that kind of puts himself up for it and takes the takes the risk.

SPEAKER_02 12:57

There are other players that don't like playing with that level of risk. I do think it depends on the system and I think it depends on the campaign, but yeah, it's not real, folks. Like you can, I mean, the ultimate role play is dying in heroic circumstances or stupid circumstances or even mundane circumstances. And especially if you're doing things, you know, like the tomb of annihilation. Like, I don't want that to be boring. I don't want that to I don't want to feel safe. I want a couple of people in the party to be a bit gung-ho, a bit come on, we can do this, and and and putting people in danger and stuff like that. Randomly, I watched God, I haven't watched it for donkeys, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark yesterday. It's like that'd be a really boring story if health and safety were involved.

Tomb of Annihilation

SPEAKER_05 13:43

Yeah, so talking about Tomb of Annihilation, Mark, it's a it's a fifth edition uh DD campaign, and it was it's mod is modelled on the old first edition DD adventure Tomb of Horrors. Oh, yeah, so it's got that meat grinder look and feel to it. It's not as dangerous as Tomb of Horrors, but it's great fun if you approach it in a slightly more slapstick way. Dear Mark, so character death, uh did I saw how how do you do you accept death? You know, of course, we're talking about this recent character you've got in my game who died, lost a fake point death by another name. You haven't fucking shut up about it. It's like it happened five months ago, mate, and every session you sit down and you go, right, this is this DM's got it in for me.

SPEAKER_04 14:25

Allow me to enlighten your listeners into what happened. I was quite proud of myself. I managed to work out where the chaos cult was, I managed to work out who the leader was, I managed to track him to his lair, I managed to catch him in the act, so we had all the evidence we need. And I foolishly thought that to cast spells, you need to use your hands and voice. No, no, no. So as I pinned him to the floor and held his hands down thinking I've got this bloke, you saw a glint of light in in Mark's eyes, right? As he went, fucking got ya, right? And he cast I think it was called Extreme of Corruption. So the guy vomited in my mouth. So so then after that, I had to make uh uh something called an endurance test. But the thing is, I had six re-rolls at it, I had six, no, five goes at it, sorry. So I had five goes in. Your fortune points to roll under 51 and I fouled every one of them. And we worked out I had a 98.7% chance of passing this role, right? So because my character had sorted it all out, done everything you had to, and captured the bad guy, the blokes behind me that were chilling out in the sauna, they nothing happened to them, right? But me, I died.

SPEAKER_05 15:32

And of the d disease from the bonnet, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

And you're clearly not bitter about it. No,

Worst Players and DMs

SPEAKER_02 15:37

I'm over it. I'm over it.

SPEAKER_05 15:38

I I love hearing the story though, it's great. That's not like the old days where you where Thor's dead and you're sitting on the table next to the rest of us watching your mates play the same game. Okay, uh, we're getting to toward the end here. Um forget to know your session, Mark. So who's the who's the uh the worst player you've ever played with? And why?

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Oh no, I mean that's harsh. Don't name 'em. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 16:01

I don't think they'll ever they'll ever meet him. The um the worst person I ever played against was a guy called was a guy called Mark Smith. So Mark Smith had a character called Scarlow, right? Which was this half orc in a D D game in where you went to to see the Dark Elves, and fuck me, was that annoying. Sorry, I didn't realise that. Oh you are gonna laugh. You were a nightmare. You wound everyone up and you because you he he had these gauntlets of ogre power, which made it which made him really hard, but without them, he was absolutely shite, right? Yeah, but he would go around just lording over all of us.

SPEAKER_02 16:39

Oh so and and listen, actually, actually, you've touched on something there. Mark does like to play a character and take the moral high ground over the rest of the world.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Oh my god!

SPEAKER_02 16:50

Oh yeah, some you've you've touched a nerve there.

SPEAKER_05 16:54

Oh god, you know what? I'm gonna edit that question out. And and the next question was who was the worst DM you've ever had? But I'm not gonna fucking go there.

RPG Table Snacks

SPEAKER_05 17:04

Okay, right, we're just on the the uh the slice and dice round of the interview. What is the undisputed king of RPG table snacks?

SPEAKER_04 17:14

Oh, the best table snack I ever have, millionaire shortbreads are like little squares. Yeah, there's chocolate, caramel, biscuit, yeah, yeah, with a buttery biscuit base. I know, yeah. Because because there were so many players, you only have like two or three each. They were you they were guarded, do you know what I mean? It's like crisps are crisps, but these these millionaire shortbreads were like you had them at key moments.

SPEAKER_05 17:34

You're not there at the beginning of the game to help you through some of the harder times in the game.

SPEAKER_04 17:38

When something bad goes on, it was your comfort, and then at the end of the session as a reward, you had the last one. My character and I are comfort eating, thank you very much.

Real-Life Magic Spells

SPEAKER_05 17:48

And uh, okay, if you were granted one ability in real life, one low-level DD spell or petty magic spell from Warhammer, uh which one would you take and why?

SPEAKER_04 18:00

Oh it's gotta be that it's gotta be that listen one, isn't it? The one where you can the one where you could hear conversations from 20 feet away and stuff like that. You know, that'd be that'd be interesting. You know, like when you when you meet someone and they go, he's an all right bloke, and you think I'm fair enough. Then they walk off and you're talking to each other, and then really it's like, what a knob. You're not paranoid much, are you? Mark Senior, what would you choose?

SPEAKER_05 18:21

Yeah, I I like the um press the digitation spelling DD because that does a hell of a lot of different stuff, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_02 18:27

And see, I you guys are just so much m nicer than me. My first thought was Eldridge Blast. Sure, why not?

SPEAKER_05 18:35

I mean it yeah, it's what would you use it for though? Seriously, I wouldn't.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

We're shooting people in the face. Same thing I use it for in there.

SPEAKER_05 18:43

Okay, uh the the second to last question. Uh this is for you to this is the

Convincing New Players

SPEAKER_05 18:48

sell. Okay, I'm gonna give you a minute to convince 50 old blokes like us who've never played before to join in. What would you say? What's just how'd you sell the hobby to them? That's what we're all about, really.

SPEAKER_04 18:59

Yeah, I'd say that the game, the game is um secondary, it's getting your mates together. You know, we have we have sessions that last two or three hours long, and the first half an hour, maybe in the last half hour, is just is just five blokes just just shooting the shit and giggling around, and it's it's like I said, it's your safe space. We can you it it's bringing all your close friends together and then and then just just always kind of be in there. It's like what I remember when I was 15. And then and then you have like a game to play, which is good, and you all work together and fall out a little bit, and that's where you can do it. You can play this game, fall out a little bit, but still be mates, and it can move on and stuff like that. And it's just it's just a perfect way in our in our chaotic life to get you all together in one place, so you still keep the friendships going because everything gets in the way, doesn't it? From work to home life to kids to to holidays and all that sort of stuff. But once you get this commitment going and you're always there, I I honestly uh swear to god, my week is timed on the Thursdays. I work I work out what I've got to do, how many shifts I've got to do till the next Thursday, and what I've got to do until that Thursday comes on, you know, and it it just it brings all my closest friends in the world, the people I love the dearest, together in one place where we just joke around for three hours.

SPEAKER_05 20:08

So, Barry, anything else you want to add or say?

SPEAKER_02 20:11

Because I've got one last thing wrap it up. It's it's it's really nice to have someone else on board who's happy to be taking the piss out of you.

SPEAKER_05 20:19

Yeah, he's got a lot of ammunition as well. Yeah, it's

Ready to Slice and Dice!

SPEAKER_05 20:22

going up a level now, isn't it? How am I gonna be a serious host now if you keep on undermining me like this? Guys, you've got I don't know. Right, so the last thing, are you ready to slice and dice?

SPEAKER_04 20:33

Slice and bloody hell. Yeah, I am, yeah. Good. That's it.

SPEAKER_05 20:37

Right, good. That's our catchphrase. Okay, thanks, thanks, Mark. And uh, and that's this is like a quick introduction, and we see you on the podcast on the live play Leashmasters coming up. We've got a session zero to do first for that. That's gonna be going live soon, too.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Yep, too later, yeah. Excellent. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Always a pleasure, never a chore.