Homebrew Collaboration with Rob Van Auken Part 1

justin_lewis:

Welcome back to How to be a Better DM. I'm one of your hosts today, Justin Lewis, and I'm here with Rob and Tanner Wayland. And I'll let Rob introduce himself in a second, but let me first tell you, the listener, about today's episode. So if you're new here, we are here to help you craft better stories for yourself and your players as you DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons. And today, we're actually gonna dive into the world of homebrew creations. Specifically, we're going to show you kind of the start to finish, hopefully start to finish. We might split this episode up into two episodes, but the start to finish process of creating something, but also the start to finish process of collaborating with someone else in creating something, because being a DM can be somewhat lonely and it's very taxing if it is lonely. So when you team up with other people like Rob, you can make it easier for everyone. But also, it's just fun to connect and be cool with people. So. Rob, if you want to introduce yourself and then we can hop into what we're doing today. Oh, you're

rob:

Hello

justin_lewis:

muted.

rob:

there, hi, sorry

justin_lewis:

There

rob:

about

justin_lewis:

you

rob:

that.

justin_lewis:

are.

tanner_weyland:

You're good.

rob:

My name is Rob Van Auchen, and I write and publish a lot of stuff under DM Robrick. I'm just happy to be here with you guys. I've played with both of you in your one shots, and I'm a frequent listener, and I'm looking forward to this. Should be a lot of fun.

justin_lewis:

Yeah, yeah. And listener, if you wanna catch one of Rob's published encounters, you can go to betterdungeonmaster.com slash Robrick and purchase it, it's an awesome encounter called the Lorecraft Collection, did I get that right?

rob:

That's

justin_lewis:

The Lorecraft,

rob:

correct.

justin_lewis:

yes, yeah. So go ahead and publish that, all the proceeds go right to Rob, cause he's an awesome DM. But today, like I said, we're going to work on home brewing and We haven't prepared anything specifically to show you, you know, the ups and downs, the ins and outs and the exciting and boring parts of homebrew creation. So I have shared a document with all three of us. First of all, did either of you have any specific ideas on anything you wanted to create together?

rob:

I'm game for just about anything, but I thought I would put that question right back to you folks. I don't know the scale and scope of what you guys were thinking, but we can go anywhere from, you know, a fun random table to a one-page encounter to a several-page, you know, one-shot kind of adventure in a box kind of thing, if that's what you guys are looking for.

justin_lewis:

Sure. Tanner, any specific way you're leaning?

tanner_weyland:

Ooh, man, I've been thinking about this as well, because I think, I mean, it'd be cool to do a one-shot, but that is, you know, it takes a good amount of planning.

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

So. I think we'd come up

rob:

Nope.

tanner_weyland:

with... Oh, go ahead.

rob:

No, no pressure.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

rob:

No

tanner_weyland:

I

rob:

pressure.

tanner_weyland:

know, right? I'm thinking that maybe we just figure out, like just how, huh, like how long

rob:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

we want it to last, and then essentially just go work backwards from there, come up with a

justin_lewis:

Sure.

tanner_weyland:

cool premise, move

justin_lewis:

Sure.

tanner_weyland:

from, I don't know,

rob:

So,

tanner_weyland:

that sound good? ["Spring Day"]

rob:

absolutely, to date, I don't wanna call it my area of expertise, because I'm still fledgling in the field here,

justin_lewis:

I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.

rob:

but I have created encounters that are circled around the three pillars, right? Exploration, combat, and social. And my goal with each of these encounters is to kind of put a little randomized table that could possibly lead crafty DMs down other avenues to kind of expand the encounter itself. So it's kind of like an encounter in a box with these sort of like little tendrils that allow DMs and players to kind of pick up things and maybe decide, oh, you know what? That was kind of an interesting little tidbit. Maybe I'll follow that idea and

justin_lewis:

Excellent.

rob:

let it grow. I don't wanna keep anybody, any DMs in a cage here.

justin_lewis:

Yeah, I love that. Let's do an encounter then. What were

tanner_weyland:

Yeah,

justin_lewis:

you saying, Tanner?

tanner_weyland:

maybe an encounter. What if we just had like, we created like a kind of a little mini one shot with just one of each of those three pillars, you know,

justin_lewis:

Got

tanner_weyland:

some

justin_lewis:

it.

tanner_weyland:

exploration, some combat and some social, and then go from there.

rob:

love it

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

love it

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

love it

justin_lewis:

Um, and listener, we probably won't get all to all of this today because creating a one shot can be rather long. So we're probably going to split this episode up. Uh, so, uh, yeah, stay tuned. But first, um, let me just write down, I'll be the, I'll be the notes keeper, I guess, unless one of you is better at it because I'm not super great at giving

rob:

I'm

justin_lewis:

notes.

rob:

happy to

justin_lewis:

Okay.

rob:

help.

tanner_weyland:

Nope.

rob:

Happy to help however I can. Ha ha.

justin_lewis:

All right. So homebrew. I wish I could spell home brew creation. shot.

rob:

While you're typing, I'll put this idea to you both here. What is the flavor that you would like to capture? Are we going epic fantasy? Are we going squash buckling pirates? Are we going sort of for frivolous? I had the opportunity, I believe Tanner, you were the dungeon master for, it's kind of like a Halloween, almost like a Halloween theme. We, when we played, we had entered that kind of sort of creepy haunted pumpkin patch.

justin_lewis:

Mm-hmm.

tanner_weyland:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

and there was a pumpkin headed villain. So, you know, October is coming up. So something like that might be kind of cool, like a campy kind of holiday themed.

justin_lewis:

I like

rob:

We

justin_lewis:

that.

rob:

can go, I know Spelljammer just came out. We can go, you know, D&D in outer space,

tanner_weyland:

No.

rob:

home rune outer space.

justin_lewis:

No, yeah. I like those ideas. I think we should definitely either do Halloween-themed one, Christmas-themed one, because Christmas is also coming up, and or Thanksgiving or a mix of the three. One other thought I did have is because I specifically want this one-shot to be very useful for anyone to play, specifically the introductory DMs. So if we could create a one-shot that And, you know, like Tanner said, it touches on the adventure, the exploration, sorry, not adventure, so the exploration, the combat and the social, and kind of introduces the DM to doing that. I think that would be extremely helpful to our listener. Um, so yeah, that's what that, those are my thoughts.

rob:

and.

tanner_weyland:

As far as the actual theme, let's say. I mean, space does sound cool, but I'm gonna,

justin_lewis:

Hehehe

tanner_weyland:

I'm gonna say maybe later. That might be a later one. I haven't even thought

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

about space and I would wanna put more time into that. What do you guys think about an academy setting?

justin_lewis:

I like that. I think it's very

rob:

Okay,

justin_lewis:

reminiscent

rob:

I'm on board.

justin_lewis:

of Harry Potter, so that would be easy for a lot of people to relate to, in a sense.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, I also think that it provides a lot of opportunities for both social and exploration, and

justin_lewis:

for sure.

tanner_weyland:

then of course combat, whether you have it as part of a lesson that goes awry or they're exploring in the middle of the night or who knows what, right? I think it's a very approachable kind of setting.

justin_lewis:

Agreed. Cool.

rob:

Yeah, absolutely.

justin_lewis:

So theme,

rob:

I'm totally on board. Now,

justin_lewis:

or

rob:

I know.

justin_lewis:

I guess that's the setting.

rob:

Well, I know that you have a homebrew kind of world build that you've been working on, Justin. Is there a location or a place where this academy might be set?

justin_lewis:

Yeah, so there is one academy that is currently created. I'm still working on the world itself, but it's called the Brazen Academy. Um, I don't know if it would exactly fit this. So it is essentially an academy specifically created for teaching people how to smelt and mine this material called deep iron, which is, um, it's, it's harder than adamantine. In this world, everything that every magical item that is like plus three is made of this stuff. And this this academy belongs to this nation called the Kula Uwea Confederacy, and they guard it very highly. So once you get in, you can't get out. Like, there's no escape. Like, they'd kill you before they let you out because the secrets of smelting this type of iron is so closely guarded. I don't know if that would be a good location. But if you guys want we could also create a different Academy in the world that is a little bit less intense

rob:

Well, I'm just thinking if, and this is just me shooting the breeze here, an academy, and you want this to be useful for beginner DMs. So what if the academy was for a school of, I guess, it could be children, it could be anybody who's interested, but a school for would-be adventurers. And like each of the houses is led by your traditional. class types, right? So you've got like the barbarian

justin_lewis:

I like

rob:

house,

justin_lewis:

that.

rob:

you've got like the clerk house, you've got the wizard house, you know? And so the PCs could join a house with their desire and the purpose of this particular encounter would be to maybe pass the test, whatever the test may be. This way it's replayable, right? So PCs and players could play it over and over again as a different class. It's something that's kind of easy to jump into, that the purpose is kind of... I don't want to like railroad anybody or streamline,

justin_lewis:

Exactly.

rob:

but yeah, the tests would be things that we could make randomized tables for, or we could certainly

tanner_weyland:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

just insert something. And again, people could play this over and over again. This could be something really cool. A nice, almost like I teach for a living, so I'm always thinking of like, you know, how to bring kids and

justin_lewis:

Exactly.

rob:

young people into the

tanner_weyland:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

game.

justin_lewis:

No,

rob:

It sounds

justin_lewis:

that's

rob:

like

justin_lewis:

exactly...

rob:

this might be a good way to do that.

justin_lewis:

Yeah, I love that

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

justin_lewis:

idea.

rob:

All right,

justin_lewis:

I love that idea,

rob:

I like

justin_lewis:

especially

rob:

this.

justin_lewis:

because also, it's kind of meta. It's like, here's the test becoming an adventurer, and if this is played by new players, then it kind of actually is like, now you're an adventurer kind of thing. It's pretty funny. So...

rob:

Yeah. All right, so then I guess, well, go ahead, please.

justin_lewis:

No, I was just gonna say, so the theme then would be like school test type idea, not necessarily Halloween or Christmas, but I guess you could flavor it that specific way depending on when you play it.

rob:

It is back to school. So it

justin_lewis:

That,

rob:

does kind of

justin_lewis:

yeah,

rob:

fit

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

justin_lewis:

that, that makes

rob:

the

justin_lewis:

sense.

rob:

back to school and summers

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

out back to school.

justin_lewis:

Well.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, you know, I think there's a couple ways we could do this. Either one allows a lot of randomization or tables, depending on what, you know, DM wants. We could do a, we could do a test. Like you were saying, we could do a club fair, you know, where it's like, Oh, each club kind of tries to throw you through the ringer to like,

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

see if you got

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

tanner_weyland:

the stuff.

justin_lewis:

Like you're getting in a club or like rush week, like in, uh,

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

justin_lewis:

what's it called? Uh, sororities and fraternities and crap.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, or even in a lot of like, you know, a lot of manga, a lot of anime, they have like these fair things, you know, events, like school fairs where each class has like their own, they like turn their classroom into their own kind of like thing that's usually themed or whatever, you know,

justin_lewis:

I like that.

tanner_weyland:

like a haunted house or like food related or something, you know. Either way, I think any of them kind of allow good randomization, you know.

justin_lewis:

Cool. So

rob:

Yeah,

justin_lewis:

I think...

rob:

that would be an interesting way to begin the school fair arrives in the town and the would be heroes. I guess that you know I don't want to again i'm not trying to streamline anybody railroads and they can create their own back door as to why they would show up here, you know that maybe they're you know the poor kid in town and they want to. show up and then make a better life for themselves to provide for their family or maybe they're just simply you know interested in the schools and they you know everybody's doing it and they want to they want to join get into particular. particular school.

justin_lewis:

for sure.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah, and then they go to the school fair just thinking they'll have fun or whatever, and then they pass some tests and then they get accepted and that would be a cool ending for it.

justin_lewis:

Yeah.

rob:

They get their first

justin_lewis:

I think,

rob:

assignment.

tanner_weyland:

Yeah.

justin_lewis:

I think we're set on the school setting. So maybe it might be more beneficial for us to flesh out the setting, like specifically kind of make some, some, you know, get the lay of the land and then we can create the plot around it. You know, like the school does this or doesn't do this and it would make a little bit more sense for why people would go there or things like that.

rob:

Works for me. So we have the location as the sort of school setting, right? And we're worried about things like synopsis and title for this stuff later.

justin_lewis:

Sure. Does

rob:

So

justin_lewis:

anyone have a name

rob:

I

justin_lewis:

for the academy?

rob:

just working title House of Heroes.

justin_lewis:

Also here's.

rob:

Home for the, House of Heroes, something sort of blase like that, just to.

justin_lewis:

What about Rob Ricks Academy for the adventurally gifted or something like that?

rob:

That works.

tanner_weyland:

I don't hate Rob Rick that's for sure

rob:

How to be better adventurers.

justin_lewis:

Yeah. Rob ricks. It keeps changing

tanner_weyland:

Rubrics.

justin_lewis:

to

rob:

So

justin_lewis:

rubric.

tanner_weyland:

Keep switching to rubrics.

rob:

my one rule, and I was going to kind of do this reveal later, but my one rule is after I've kind of plotted my beats and I've plotted out what I think I want to say, my one rule is make it weird. Right? So there's got to be something about it that is unique or different, right? Having a magic sword is really cool, but having a magic sword that is made from the bone of a dead giant. that talks to you is even more interesting. You know,

tanner_weyland:

Mm-hmm.

rob:

a school is interesting. A school for heroes is very interesting, but a school for heroes that if you flunk out, there's a real ramification or, you know, there's some kind of real motivation to not flunk out, right, or not cheat on the test. You know, a school for heroes is cool, but a school for heroes that sends you on an adventure and where you might perish, you know, now there's this impetus to...