What Have I Got Myself Into?

Welcome back to RPG Blokes! It’s Season 2, and we’re diving into what really happens after your first few games — when “trying D&D” turns into “I think I’ve got a new hobby.”

We talk about what comes next: the growing time commitment, the emotional rollercoaster of your first character, and the new worlds that open up beyond the table. From painting miniatures and buying dice sets you definitely don’t need, to joining clubs, conventions, and making new friends — it’s all part of the fun (and chaos).

Barry’s moving to Scotland and might have to start his own society, Jon’s finally upgraded his laptop from the Windows 98 era, and Stephen’s recovering from seven years of DM duty — so the gang’s all here, older, wiser, and slightly more bewildered.

If you’ve just started playing or are wondering what you’ve got yourself into, this is the perfect way to begin Season 2.

FAQs

1. What’s this episode about?
The realities of getting into tabletop RPGs — time, money, emotions, and how the hobby starts to take over your life.

2. Do I need to have listened to Season 1?
No, but it helps. This episode welcomes new listeners while building on themes from the first season.

3. Why “What Have I Got Myself Into?”
Because that’s what every new player thinks once they realise how deep this rabbit hole goes!

4. What topics do you cover?
Miniatures, painting, game accessories, social dynamics, burnout, and how to keep the hobby fun and sustainable.

5. Is it all D&D?
Not anymore. Season 2 branches into other systems and aspects of the role-playing hobby.

6. Do you talk about emotions and character attachment?
Yes — the highs, lows, and heartbreaks of loving your first character (and sometimes losing them).

7. How do you balance gaming with real life?
The Blokes share tips on avoiding burnout, managing time, and keeping it social but healthy.

8. Who should listen to this?
Anyone curious about tabletop RPGs or wondering how this hobby might fit into their life.

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People on this Episode

Episode Transcript

Mark:
Hi everyone, and welcome back to RPG Blokes. It’s Season 2, and we’re thrilled to have made it.

Mark:
If you’ve been with us from the beginning, you’ll know we started by helping people to take their first steps into role-playing. Perhaps your first game of Dungeons & Dragons. so in this series we’re going to branch out a bit and discuss the hobby more generally, we’ll let you know what you’ve got yourself into so you don’t blame us and in this episode we’ll address some of the immediate demands of the hobby we’ll also start to explore the ripple effects beyond the table so buckle up whether you’ve just started playing or you’re still deciding to give it a go you’re in the right place introducing the rpg blokes, Barry, who since we last spoke has decided to emigrate to faraway Scotland and may need to set up his own RPG society. DMs required, I assume the advert will say.

Barry:
Yeah, absolutely, 100%.

Mark:
Let’s see how long your stubbornness lasts up there without a gaming group, though, I think.

Barry:
Tinterweb.

Mark:
John has recently upgraded his laptop, finally. So now he can browse the new RPG bloke’s site in style. The only problem is that not much is compatible with Windows 98 these days.

Jon:
95 was better.

Mark:
Stephen, recently stopped DMing at our local society after being behind the screen for seven years, non-stop. Readjusting to the real world has been a bit of a challenge,

Mark:
though. From the other day, he was arrested down Lewisham in possession of a kilo of loaded dice.

Stephen:
I’ve not been behind the DM screen ever for seven years.

Barry:
Hold up. So are you playing, playing? I’m playing.

Stephen:
What’s going on?

Barry:
I just need to know, is it like when the police officer goes to prison? Have they had to put you in isolation for your own safety?

Stephen:
Well, they do give me weird looks and go, oh, I’m going to get you.

Jon:
Well, Matt Mercer did the same thing, and we’ve never seen you and him in the same room. I don’t know.

Stephen:
We suffer for our art.

Mark:
But you will be coming back to DMing on the RPG Blokes podcast when we’re going to be doing additional live plays. You’re going to be back behind the screen.

Stephen:
Yeah, but now I’m back. You’re going to be back.

Barry:
Just when you think you’re out, they pull you back in.

Mark:
So, yeah, we’re talking about what you’ve got yourself into, if you don’t already know. The things, the places where this could lead. You know, we know… Barry, for instance, quite light touch at the moment on the hobby. John is completely the opposite side of the spectrum to most of us, actually, not just Barry.

Jon:
Are we talking about the spectrums now? Mine’s 48K with rubber keys. The best. Absolutely.

Mark:
It’s a very old school spectrum you’re talking about there. Okay. You’ve started to play the hobby. You liked it. You might want more. So what does more look like? John, that’s give us your evolution. And the first day you began playing, if you can think back, all of those.

Jon:
Mists of time.

Mark:
Yeah. Back to the origins of D&D and the early 70s.

Jon:
It was first edition. I think I started in 1980, 81.

Mark:
I’m just trying to get some understanding of what’s happened to get you to where you are now.

Jon:
Who’s responsible?

Barry:
Where did it go wrong for you?

Jon:
We had, there was the school bookshop, and they got gaming books in, if you ask. Most of it was fighting fantasy as well. It was available.

Mark:
So you’re constantly looking for a fix at this point. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Jon:
But I was already into the fantasy genre, the mythologies.

Mark:
Did you read before you began playing the game? Or was that something followed on after?

Jon:
It was, I was already into, I think Greek mythology was the thing that was most prevalent. Arthurian mythos. So I think my first character, I had him as a paladin of Zeus. It didn’t matter, it didn’t exist in the realms.

Mark:
It was in Legends and Law Supplement. They had all of the Greek and Roman gods, didn’t they?

Jon:
The old one had the Cthulhu ones, but they got legal trouble for that, didn’t they?

Mark:
I think there was one that had Jesus.

Jon:
Oh, wow.

Mark:
Yeah. I don’t think you can get out of that anymore.

Stephen:
Third level carpenter.

Barry:
Yeah. An amateur magician.

Mark:
So within the first year of playing, you’d gone from just that one night a week, it leveled up quite quickly in the time that you were prepared to give it.

Jon:
Yeah.

Stephen:
When we played the fighting fantasy books, the Steve Jackson, Ian Livingston was what I, when we saw the D&D club advertised at our local school. And thought, wow, this is like fighting fantasy, but you can do anything you like. So we kind of got into it that way. So it was a step up.

Mark:
Twice a week without fail.

Stephen:
Yeah, it was Wednesdays and Fridays and gave up Cubs on Fridays. I thought that was much better because I’m not a Cubs anymore and I’m still playing this. So I’m guessing that was the right choice.

Jon:
It’d be weird if you wasn’t a Cubs.

Stephen:
You know, some people can be, I’m sure. Probably running it.

Jon:
Hopefully.

Stephen:
I’m just speculating here. I know nothing. But yeah, Wednesdays and Fridays, it was like three hours per session. so six hours a week then.

Mark:
And you’ve always been able to keep that that going that regularity play and yeah finding time in a busy life through through your entire life yeah it just shows just how powerful the hobby is and how much you love it.

Stephen:
Yeah we went to play around people’s houses and you know when old enough to have houses around yeah we kept it going once you stop it might be more difficult to start again but we’ve always kept it going yeah.

Mark:
So we’ve found but people coming into our community to say that they’re there at the community because they can’t really make it work around somebody’s house barrier come to you last because she came into it at a later age but this the community really has given you the opportunity to play it.

Barry:
Yeah they might not continue no no yeah and absolutely and before i forget because that’s how my brain works it might have already gone um so talking about our society so i’ve had i’ve been not very well this week i had a chest infection so i couldn’t make it there were two other players missing they still had enough to run a table you’re trying to organize a game in your private life that’s going to be probably the biggest challenge in fact there are memes and short videos of of role-playing games enthusiasts bemoaning scheduling issues as the number one problem and i get that like life’s complicated yeah it was the society that kind of got me started and and you’re right i am the newbie and i was saying before we started recording today that like you know i’m thinking about maybe doubling the amount that i play and i’m playing twice a week yeah you know so so so you know you can watch this i’ve always been alone three hours is plenty for me because I’ve been playing another system that isn’t D&D and you know I love D&D but I’m interested in other systems, I also feel like now I’m missing out a bit on D&D. So I kind of see my future as maybe having a D&D campaign and one other system that changes.

Mark:
You like D&D enough to always want to be connected to it. There’s so much fear.

Barry:
And it’s just, I mean, some people would make this as a criticism of it, but it’s just so accessible and easy and everyone can get into a groove and everyone kind of knows what their character’s supposed to be doing. And yeah, I can understand that that might make it sound like it’s watered down, but it isn’t because people do bring their own, how can I put it delicately idiosyncrasies to their characters.

Mark:
So you know.

Barry:
I’ve played with like 10 different people who are playing a barbarian and I haven’t played with two barbarians that behaved in the same way.

Mark:
This is a slippery slope you double it and then what happens next I think John um maybe we bring you in at that point so how often do you play I think we covered this at the beginning of season one but let’s see what let’s have an update on hours from John It might.

Jon:
Have changed a little bit. So Monday I’m reffing Shadowrun. Tuesday playing D&D second edition at the moment. But we do a rota on that. So I think next is Vampire… And then I’ll be reffing Werewolf. And then we’re probably, I think, going on to Earthdawn. But, yeah, Tuesday nights are booked as long as, again, scheduling. People are grown-ups and they’ve got families and it gets in the bloody way. But Wednesday, club night, obviously. I’m reffing fifth edition at the moment.

Barry:
And just, I’m going to say something nice, like to and about John. So just strap in.

Jon:
Keep it in your pants.

Barry:
Big boy. I promise nothing. Like, I don’t mute channels on our Discord. Like, there are people that I have a rapport with and that I care about at virtually every table in our society. Do you know what I mean? So I like to see what’s going on in their game. Your game is clearly, clearly entertaining, John. They are clearly lovely.

Jon:
That’s the players. They’re the ones that make it fun for me to run and make it worth doing. If they were just turning up and rolling dice and, oh, want to fight, it would be no good for anyone.

Barry:
And this is one of the things, isn’t it? There’s a symbiotic relationship between players and a DM. You know, if everyone is coming in in good faith to have a good time and tell a great story, 99.9% of the time, that’s what’s going to happen.

Mark:
Yeah. And if you haven’t discovered already, that’s your responsibility as a new player too, to bring something to the table.

Barry:
You know, don’t be pressurized. I know this would be hard to believe. I think from the first three or four sessions, I barely said a word. because I didn’t really know what I was doing it was like when we got that’s why when we got to combat I loved it because it was like oh this is just decisions the relationship between DMs and players and all pulling together to have a

Barry:
great time is when it works it’s a beautiful thing as you’re about to.

Stephen:
Yeah I was going to say obviously you’re saying you’re missing D&D but I think that’s a good thing because I think I’ve obviously been playing for a long time I like to keep it fresh so if I play D&D for like six years in a row it’s good to give it a break and try something different and then come back to it and play different genres as well keeps it fresh for me so if you’re playing fantasy try a bit sci-fi it definitely works and keeps the hobby fresh rather than playing the same thing over and over again yeah.

Mark:
And we’ve got this new edition to come back to.

Stephen:
Great again i.

Barry:
Mean and this is things that we’re talking about what is this dnd 24 so.

Jon:
None of us have played.

Barry:
It right um.

Jon:
Well it’s on the beyond isn’t it because yeah the fifth edition is now classed as legacy which just makes me snigger but.

Mark:
Yeah so you’ve got players that have got 2024 edition characters so maybe you have played it.

Jon:
We’ve got bits and bobs of it that are there because pick and choose, really.

Mark:
What are you suggesting, Barry?

Barry:
Well, if we do a D&D live play, I think it should be the latest edition.

Mark:
Absolutely.

Barry:
That’s what our listeners will hopefully be experiencing when they, you know.

Mark:
Yeah, that’s what they’re being into.

Stephen:
I like to play the new editions of stuff. It does keep it fresh to the future.

Barry:
Also, I like to make my own mind up about what the internet’s moaning about.

Stephen:
They’ll always moan about something.

Barry:
And I like to play a game and make my own mind up about it.

Stephen:
They were right about the fourth edition, though, to be fair.

Jon:
Damn new edition, stay off my yard.

Stephen:
That’s true.

Mark:
So, John, did we get to the end of your working week?

Jon:
I don’t think we did. Oh, fuck no.

Stephen:
It’s like a geeky Craig David, isn’t it? What’s going on?

Jon:
So, about the slowest Wednesday we had was the most recent, where I was three players down because of illness. Of course, I’ve got an eight-player group, which normally is quite clunky. And I’ve played systems that’s almost unmanageable, but it skips long. Everyone’s invested in what they’re doing. They’re not just zoning out and waiting for their turn. They’re all listening. It really works. So I still had five players. It still worked on. It was great. Thursday, when I remember, we’re doing Warhammer Mark’s new playable version of fourth edition. I’m going to keep saying that because it was pretty unmanageable, the original, wasn’t it?

Mark:
Yeah, we were left for no choice. Yeah.

Jon:
But Warhammer, love the world, love the system. Friday, I’ve fairly recently started reffing my other main love of Werewolf. with a batch of players from other groups, which leaves Saturday currently unfilled, but it’s normally padded out with something. If there’s a missed session on something else, we can pop it in Saturday.

Mark:
Do you usually get to see your girlfriend on Saturday?

Jon:
No, that’s Sunday. Don’t tell my wife about my girlfriend. I’ll see the missus Sunday along with the littles. That’s not a euphemism. That’s Archie Wilders. There are babies. and sunday evening playing in a more or less homebrewed version of dragon warriors it’s really good.

Mark:
I was speaking to the gm about that that game recently i didn’t know he’d been doing it for so long i think that’s been running for seven seven years now so stephen you’ve recently stopped dming yeah.

Stephen:
I’ve noticed there’s other people there now it’s great it’s us there’s other groups here do.

Barry:
You miss the power.

Stephen:
Well yeah i do i do miss it and i I fucking knew it.

Barry:
I knew it.

Stephen:
I won’t be out of DMing for massively long, I don’t think.

Mark:
Barry got you there. It’s a seven-year power trip. That’s what it was.

Stephen:
Oh, absolutely. Why else do we do this?

Mark:
Also, where this hobby might lead beyond the table, visiting local game stores if you haven’t done already.

Jon:
If you’re lucky enough to have one, make sure you frequent it and don’t think, oh, I’ll go there next week because they’re closing down like fucking.

Barry:
No, it’s one of those things, isn’t it? What you’re seeing now, the uptick in that end of it is the board game cafe and pub. That’s a good thing. To compete with the internet, there has to be another reason for people to go to a physical location. If you have a board game shop, spend your money there, if you can. And a lot of those people running the commercial side of games are doing it because of their love and enthusiasm for the games. They just want to be doing it full time. And I get that. There’s RPG Taverns seem to be doing really well at the moment. I think it’s at the Elephant and Castle, but I couldn’t swear to it. You know, it’s a pub specifically designed for people to turn up and play D&D.

Stephen:
You also should remember there’s conventions as well, isn’t there, to go to? There’s the escalation. Go to a convention, you can play games or just buy stuff from them, like Dragon Meat and other ones, I’m sure there’s, or Gen Cons.

Mark:
They’re great fun.

Stephen:
Games Day for Games Workshop used to be a big one.

Barry:
And just to reiterate something that I said, like, I think way earlier, like you can you can do as much or as little of this as you want if you know free if you need an excuse to meet up with four of your mates for three hours a week because you’re terrible like this can fulfill that function if you want to get lost in an entirely alien well it can also fulfill that function you don’t have to put 70 hours a week in like john you don’t have to but you can but you can no no but you but but i think the point i’m making is if that is you you can choose to it’s not it’s a healthy hobby by and large i mean maybe get out and have a walk every now and then, but.

Mark:
I think if by now you’re not discovering the fact that this hobby is a great way of making friends, then we’re all good.

Jon:
The main reason I’ve got friends is this hobby, because I’m a miserable fucker the rest of the time.

Barry:
And that’s like a very real thing. I had some people over at mine for Halloween, and every single one of them was from our club.

Stephen:
Progression of what else you can do. Those are live action role players.

Mark:
Okay.

Stephen:
Because you lot are doing that tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah, if you get into it, you know, so avenues there, a bit of cosplay. And I know in your game, they did it, didn’t they? That’s all.

Barry:
Halloween, they just love Halloween. They look fucking awesome as well.

Mark:
Did you know they were going to do that there.

Jon:
Was rumors of it yeah.

Mark:
So the other things you brought up seeing what’s the benefit of going to like a convention what would you say that you’d get out of that if you was to spend spend a morning or a day you can.

Stephen:
Start for the games so you get to play different games with you know pretty high level dms and so there’s special convention games that get written some of the dms maybe write their own games so you’ll be playing bespoke games there’s also the stalls there of new products that are out.

Mark:
So quite a small industry in reality if you take D&D out of the equation D&D’s.

Stephen:
There has the open game license still people write stuff for D&D and sell things for D&D so you get different versions of D&D like discussing like the Bloodsword.

Mark:
You get KSCM there K-7 Free League you get some of the bigger you.

Stephen:
Get the big players don’t you that.

Mark:
Play the.

Stephen:
Independents so you get to see what they’re offering and their new stuff as well.

Mark:
I like going there and looking at all of the real smaller independent games as well and choosing one or two to go home with and give a bit of support to them but you get to talk to the developer straight.

Stephen:
Absolutely, yeah.

Barry:
Discount so that’s made me think i’ve never been to a convention you.

Mark:
Should go dragon mate it’s worth picking one up they’re not that expensive.

Barry:
I think i do that right now yeah.

Mark:
Pick pick up.

Barry:
I haven’t got a ticket yet but chat amongst yourselves folks.

Jon:
There’s another of it i haven’t actually been to a proper convention like that yet but one i did attend again it was at the excel was a thing called salute which was tabletop like model miniatures stuff like that so paint monkey dragged me along a lot of people there’s a couple of people that turn up as like in space marine costume it’s really impressive it’s board games and other stuff that i don’t normally encounter or go for because i’m a role player but it’s fun and these people have put their energy into painting the minis and it it’s nice to look at just walk around you see a diorama of aliens chasing up a hill uh and it’s like a freeze frame out of a film and you’ve got like the predator and there’s stuff there from all developers groups will turn up and have a table there they’ll do like an example game and they’re advertising where they are and i found like there’s two or three of these types of clubs within travel distance that i’d never heard of okay it’s well worth it just to touch base with others it.

Mark:
Sounds different to.

Jon:
Dragon meat actually i the way you’ve.

Mark:
Just described it worth a visit i’d like to go there’s there’s less of that um display of people’s work at dragome it’s more of a trade fair yeah.

Jon:
Yeah and games.

Stephen:
Isn’t on table.

Jon:
Definitely bits of that totally worth it yeah go and.

Mark:
Go and visit your local convention or trade fair barry you got your ticket yeah.

Jon:
No i’m gonna fill out 100 forms but yeah i’m on it all right.

Mark:
So going, again, beyond the table, investment, how much the hobby costs. I think how long is a piece of string? You can really spend very little. But if you’re after Christmas presents or birthday presents, you’ve probably got now another 5,000 options of what somebody can buy you. Far easier for your wife and kids, perhaps, to work out what you might want.

Stephen:
So I generally like to get the new stuff that’s out. So I guess there is a short-term economic impact. But once you’ve got it, I’ve read for the last seven years. So I’ve purchased pretty much every game that people have played. So I guess it’s me that’s made the outlay, but it’s been worth it. As a DM, you get to read it and run it, you know, immediately.

Mark:
Do you have physical copies?

Stephen:
Both. Yeah, I like to get the PDF and run it from the PDF, but I like to have the physical copy on my shelf for the collection, as it were.

Mark:
Yeah, your bookshelves will never look the same again after a year playing this game.

Stephen:
No, you need big bookshelves, that’s for sure, if you get the collections.

Mark:
I helped John move ours just the other day.

Stephen:
Can I imagine what John’s bookshelf’s like?

Mark:
It was role-playing books wasn’t it and large lovely surprising amount.

Jon:
Of work uniform.

Mark:
I love the old chests as well and yeah looking at looking at all the stuff as it was being moved it was precious well used as well yeah resale.

Jon:
Value is good for shit but that’s right you’d have to prime for my fingers before i let them go so.

Mark:
You say that but true i mean mint condition stuff is getting harder and harder to come by i look on ebay for some of these old dnd modules because i like to to try and, Ipedream really just collect the lot, so many of them. But get in mint condition. People are selling them with rusted staples, spills, pencil marks on them. They’re going for good money now.

Stephen:
40, 50 years old then, sold those, aren’t they?

Mark:
Yeah.

Stephen:
Wow.

Mark:
Yeah, they are, yeah.

Jon:
Drive-Thru RPG is particularly good. They will do print on demand. So it’ll have very slightly larger margins, but they’re good clean copies. Saves you the hassle of photocopying the stuff. And we’re talking about the out-of-print stuff. So you’re not robbing anyone. My old edition, Shadowrun and Werewolf, and they’ve been absolute lifesavers with some of that stuff because you can spend like 50 plus quid for a book because it’s out of print or you can pick it up for a tenner on print on demand. And again, you’re not robbing the original writers.

Mark:
Barry, have you found the economic footprint on your life since you’ve begun, maybe from the last five years you’ve spent?

Barry:
I think as a player, it’s a really affordable hobby. Like, I really do. You need a set of dice, a fucking pencil, and maybe a player’s handbook. But the reality is you don’t even really need the player’s handbook. There will be a player’s handbook at the table. I think if you end up being obsessed with dice, it can get expensive. If you’re a completionist and you want every module that’s ever come out, it can get expensive. But if you want to rock up with your friends, throw some dice, have a bit of a laugh, and maybe have some heroic death, it’s not that expensive at all. Like, it really isn’t. I mean, I suppose the biggest outlay would be the player’s handbook, which is like, what, 30, 40 quid? But like I say, you don’t actually need that. You can get a set of dice for £2.99 on eBay. Like, it’s no drama. It’s one of the things that kind of appeals to me, I think. It’s that, yeah, I mean, it’s like a lot of things you can spend as much as you want or as little as you want. I mean, I’ll see some dice and I’m just like, that set of dice is £100. That’s just insane to me.

Jon:
Yeah, but they’re so pretty.

Barry:
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. That is conspicuous consumption, that is. They don’t function any better than a £2.99 set of dice. They don’t look at Stephen.

Stephen:
Well, you know, a further 2.99 set of dice because they’ll have defects. We’ll make them roll in a certain direction.

Barry:
I think, you know, if you end up, even if you end up playing in the commercial spaces, it’s still a relatively affordable hobby.

Mark:
You don’t feel that pressure to spend, unlike Games Workshop, where you’ve spoken about the upselling. It’s incredible. You don’t get that same feeling in the Dolphins.

Barry:
In these spaces, no. Where’s the cafe? It’s called. It’s this London Bridge Bad Moon Cafe. It’s like a board game cafe.

Mark:
Have you been there, have you?

Barry:
I’ve been in there and had a coffee. I haven’t actually played in there yet. but I was walking past it on my way to work one day. But there was a guy in there and I got chatting to him. He’d been there for an hour and a half and he bought one cup of coffee. And he was leafing through the games and him and his mate were playing it. Like I said, with RPG Taverns as well, you’re running a commercial space, it has to make money, otherwise it’s going to fail. But from what I can see, I don’t think they’re ripping the piss either. It’s never going to be £4 a session like it is for us in a commercial space. But it could be £10 a session. And you’re like, well, do you know what? That’s not an unreasonable amount of money. Let’s say you spend a tenner while you’re in there as well. £20 for a night out. I know that people have different financial situations and there are people out there who are like, actually, I don’t have £20 for a night out. I get that. But in terms of a night out with someone providing some form of entertainment, that is cheap.

Mark:
Good luck on them, I say. I like to keep my play quite low cost because I’ve got a lot of things in life that cost me money and this is one of the things that doesn’t.

Mark:
That’s a real advantage to me. I don’t particularly want to change that.

Barry:
We’re really lucky in that we have a society with 70 people turning. I am never struggling to find a table on a Wednesday night.

Mark:
Yeah, you turn up, you know you’ve got a game.

Barry:
Yeah.

Mark:
That seems to you.

Stephen:
Money, yes. He’s coming to it. Like Barry said, these companies do potentially struggle if nobody spent any money and his hobby wouldn’t exist. So there is money that needs to be spent. I know there’s a hobby you could potentially do for very little, but don’t be afraid to spend if you like what you’re looking at.

Mark:
So I think we’ve covered in most of the things here. There is being a geek, playing Dungeons and Dragons. That might be something you might want to keep quiet about. I don’t know.

Stephen:
Is that true still?

Barry:
I certainly don’t think it’s true anymore for the generations that came after us. Like, actually, I have a 20-year-old son, and when his friends find out that I play D&D, that’s a plus point, not a minus point. They’re like, oh, wow. And they have some sort of osmosis knowledge of it because it’s quite prevalent in pop culture at the moment.

Stephen:
And it’s positively given in

Stephen:
pop culture, whereas in the past it was negatively put into pop culture.

Barry:
Exactly.

Mark:
Yeah, we’re going to discuss that in the podcast, actually, just how that’s changed. That stigma’s gone completely.

Barry:
It’s not even it’s reversed I mean amongst my peers men my own they’re like, Wednesday night and I’m like it’s just you’re like can we not move past this gentlemen, but I love them all very dearly and they’re very dear friends and this is quite sweet because every now and then someone surprises you there’s a guy that I’ve been playing he’s in my snooker league he mentioned blood on the clock tower, and like it turns out that yeah he’s a bit of a geeky game player but because of the context in which we see each other it’s never come up I’ve been playing snooker with him for like two years never.

Mark:
Admit yeah we did have that stigma we didn’t care about it too much when we were young and nowadays when my kids they look at D&D as being very mainstream and, sometimes can have the opposite effect on it be incredible i think you know sometimes when we were younger doing something it was underground and a little bit frowned upon i miss those days i quite quite enjoyed them it’s the changing nature of the hobby but yeah.

Stephen:
Definitely changed probably been so badly scarred i just don’t admit it really i just don’t it’s my issue for it’s from the 80s it was definitely not cool but it is now yeah more mainstream isn’t it i mean the social media and everything you know i mean it.

Barry:
Is cool it’s one of those things every now and then i just take a step back and think this is fucking insane like people are making a living live playing a game a it’s a role-playing game but essentially a you know to the casual observer a freaking board game and like famous as a result of it like there’s a bit of like not one of us could have seen that coming yeah.

Mark:
You don’t get famous playing cludo or monopoly do you there’s something different.

Barry:
About our board game and there you.

Mark:
Go you know you can become a celebrity.

Barry:
Yeah i’m not tuning into the Cluedo World Championships though, do you know what I mean?

Stephen:
It’s traitors, isn’t it?

Barry:
I’m proud to say never seen an episode never will.

Mark:
It was good. It was excellent.

Stephen:
I only watched the Celebrity one recently and that’s the first one I’ve watched. It was great, yeah. It is like a live action role player, I suppose. It is a game they’re playing, so it is.

Mark:
Yeah, so that’s a little bit of crossover into a hobby of the Blood on the Clock Tower you mentioned.

Barry:
The castle that’s filmed at is right near where I’m, to use your word, emigrating to.

Stephen:
So we’ll see you in the next season.

Barry:
Maybe. Maybe, maybe I’ll be sabotaging, I mean, working in the background.

Mark:
John, you’re down the rabbit hole. You don’t really, really care what anybody else thinks, do you?

Jon:
No, really.

Mark:
In your day-to-day job. Does that come up very often, what your hobby is? Nobody knows?

Jon:
Normally, someone knows of it. Quite a lot play console games and the role-play versions of the Dice and Paper. Some of them have got kids that play it. We’ve got some that play Warhammer, Star Wars. I won’t be getting a club going at work yet.

Mark:
So we’re getting to the end of this episode. We just wanted to forewarn you, if you hadn’t already discovered these things, just where this is leading, we think all of these things are positive but you know we’re not going to be accountable to anything that happens if if you don’t feel the same we are not responsible for.

Barry:
People’s judgment of you is that what you’re saying is that.

Mark:
Where we’re going work it out yourselves guys and so i suppose what we could finish the podcast with.

Barry:
Watch out for spending hundreds of pounds on unnecessary sets of dice.

Stephen:
Yeah.

Mark:
That is a good warning, yeah.

Stephen:
Not just sets of dice. People buy figures that are worth fortune. I won’t mention names, but someone bought hundreds of pounds worth of figures and never told his wife.

Barry:
My advice there would be don’t have a wife.

Stephen:
No, you won’t after that if you do tell them. Keep everything a secret.

Mark:
How much is this, Ben?

Stephen:
About 300 or 400, I think, on just one figure.

Jon:
Or if you’re going to the trade war card gate rabbit hole, you won’t be able to afford a wife anyway. So it’s all good.

Mark:
What would be your warning, John? To the 12-year-old you. No, I’m just joking. Just a warning now from all the experience.

Stephen:
Don’t eat yellow snow.

Jon:
Always. Fuck everyone else’s opinion. If you’re enjoying it, do it. That’s it. It’s not so much a warning as some people have an opinion.

Jon:
Again, going back in time, like you said earlier, there were certain preconceived notions we had the whole satanic panic bullshit, some of that is still out there so keep an eye out for these people who have only ever read one fucking book and think they know what’s best for you, read hundreds of books and know better enjoy yourself, it’s a game and despite how seriously I take it because I’m clearly mental, you’ve got to enjoy it okay.

Mark:
That’s the end of the episode, thanks guys, Words of wisdom.

Stephen:
Well, I don’t know, haven’t I? You can’t, man.

Mark:
But that’s the end of your fucking part of this.

Stephen:
But let’s slice and dice. So we do still do that anymore. So let’s.

Mark:
No, no, no.

Stephen:
Do we do that anymore?

Mark:
You’ve always complained. It has been noted that I was feeding you words of wisdom. Right. So now.

Barry:
Well, no, but hold on. It’s unfair for then you to end his segment of words of wisdom and then dig him out for having not come up with any words of wisdom.

Stephen:
I can Google say it quickly.

Mark:
Hey.

Stephen:
Hey.

Mark:
Four months you’ve had since the end of the last episode.

Jon:
The start of the second season four months but four seconds of actual warning that’s not four months you’ve had to do that thing you had no idea you were supposed to be doing.

Mark:
This is over if you can’t I mean.

Jon:
We’re going to have to.

Mark:
Find something else Barry start thinking.

Jon:
Find something else yeah I can’t think I ain’t got words of wisdom never get involved in a podcast, brilliant okay.

Mark:
Cheers guys we’re done for the day see you all next week so let’s.

Jon:
Slice and Dice.