Welcome to Episode 133, where imagination is central to sparking connection through storytelling. Today, we're diving into a heartwarming tale of local game store that hosted A widely successful Dungeons and Dragons summer camp for kids. From its controversial beginnings in the 1970s to becoming a cornerstone of modern geek culture, indie has since become a cultural touchstone, fostering creativity, storytelling, and deep social
bonds. One story, 1 monster, and one role at a time, these kids built confidence, collaboration, and friendship to their shared imagination and adventure. Let's explore how these timeless game continues to shape young minds and inspire a sense of wonder as well as hearing about a local game store became the center of empowerment for a new generation. It's dungeons, drag, and summer dreams. How collaborative storytelling empowers young minds to develop meaningful friendships.
So today I have asked Bethany from my local game store in Games here in Springfield, IL to join me and talk about this D&D summer camp. Bethany, how are you? I'm great. How? Are you good? So real quick, tell me a little bit about yourself. How'd you get in AD and D? And then what is your job title? How do you fit in Titan games? Right. So as you introduced, I'm Bethany, I do the social media and invent managing at the Titan Game stores and I help all the other Titan Game stores with
that as well. And I'm also one of the DMS at our Springfield location. And I primarily do a lot of the kids DND, but I also do DND for grown-ups. I was brought into DND back in college. I actually started on 3.5 E not knowing that. Quickly made the switch over to 5 E. So I didn't even realize it forever and have been playing 5 E since then. And I've played for over 10 years at this point. And I've been Adm for probably, I think now we're hitting Year 5 or 6 of DME.
Wow, 5 or 6? That's that's incredible. A lot of years. 10 years of DND. 10 years. How many of those years were you as a Dungeon Master? Just the the five. Just the five. So you were five years just as a player? Yeah, those are the dates. What is your favorite class and race? So I'm a forever rogue. OK I pretty much always 1 trick a rogue particular arcane trickster. I always say I'm going to play something else. I never do and I always go for like gnomes and elves. OK, I can.
Yeah. All right, Because not everyone plays gnomes. Not everyone plays gnomes. Elves is a pretty standard pick. Very right, but I don't know, I've been into the gnomes lately. So I know recently there was a book published. I think there's two books now. It's like legends and lattes, right? Yes, she's an orc. Yes. Who's retired. Yes, because she discovered a gnomish beverage that we know is coffee. I decided to open a coffee shop, which I think is amazing. It was great.
I read it. I read it as well, and it's pretty fantastic. And I'm like, I didn't realize that there were gnomes in the D&D world. I mean, I shouldn't be surprised. In all fairness, I have been away from D&D for 30 years. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. I love TTRPGS, but D&D is just not. It's not kind of. It's not like genre, no. But I love storytelling and I love the idea that Titan hosted this summer camp for kids. So why don't you tell us a little bit about, like, how did
that idea come into me? Whose idea was it? Tell me about, like, the what made it before we get into the actual experience for the kids. Yeah. So myself and our owner Nick had always talked about wanting kids, D&D and such, but we just never really quite had the staff. And then it was actually when we were attending Gamma, I went to a DND for Kids session. So I was like, I'm bringing the store and they talked about
summer camp. And I was like, Nick, we've got to do it. Like it's time, I'm here, let's go. And I have been running and opening up my DND sessions that I run one shots every week to younger and younger audiences. And we started to grow that the younger audience was consistently coming to those.
And I was like, it's our time. We've got kids showing up for DND, like let's do it. So I mean, the biggest catalyst was that that Gamma was at, because we both sat there and talked about it. We're like, OK, we can do it. And now we have the staff and we had other people that be here and could just actually make it happen instead of just be this idea of like, oh, we'd love to run D&D for kids.
So what were some of the challenges that you found leading up to the actual execution this summer camp? Yeah, I think the hardest thing is running D&D for a kids table and preparing that is entirely different than how I prepare for a table of adults. Sure. And like some of the things I started to notice, just like within my sessions, is that the kids get so excited to do literally anything besides the quest you have in front of them.
So being prepared for that and then deciding when we did, because we did the player camp and our DM camp, how we wanted to split that up, what skills were going to be in that? So we didn't want them to just come play DND for three hours a day, right? And like what, what could we incorporate into that that's not like too advanced or too boring, but still a cool DND adjacent activities.
I think kind of figuring out the ebb and flow of how the plane has to work, while also figuring out like, what kind of activities can we incorporate into these camps that kids are actually going to have fun doing, right? So, So what kind of events did you actually have and how did that work? Like what did what did a schedule look like for one of your attendees? Yeah, so during player camp they all got split in. We had another DM join me and we had two campaigns running at the
same time. So each day they would come and we'd have like one other DND adjacent activity. So the first day we did a lot of character building and we worked on like building connections and building your back story. Like I did a lot of those like campfire things I actually used from Daggerheart. They have like the connection cards now using that and like getting them into it.
And then the next day they came back and we had given them all in miniature and we had a guest, our master painter came in and kind of gave them tips to paint their miniature. And then each day we went through the campaign consistently. And then the last day we just had both of us plan these big, you know, encounters for them to go through it. You know, I had them fight 2 Dragons in one battle and they were so excited 3 and they were like, wow, we didn't. I was like, yeah.
That is, it's really cool. I mean, I don't, I don't, I find myself speechless. I'm listening to you and I'm like, the the fact that you didn't just run a week long campaign, first of all is incredible. Kudos to you and your team. That's just amazing. So there was like character creation. Did they actually paint the minis? They did. They did. A lot of them did. Way better than I tend to do at Vinnies. Painting a miniature is
difficult. They they must, there must be little tiny hands they can like really get. In right, right. Well, that's cool. So it went what, 5 days? Five days? Yeah, Three hours each day. OK, three hours. OK. And we did do like extended drop off and pick up periods, but then we just had, you know, like coloring pages and that sort of stuff for them.
But because we did the half day, so we wanted to make sure parents had time to drop off and whatever their work hours were and pick up whenever their lunch period kind of. Was so there was a meal involved or included or? We did. We do like a small snack. OK, OK. So we had, you know, muffins and bananas, and that's cooling. How many attendees?
For our player camp we had 11 in total and for our DM camp it'll be. 6 so there's going to be there's a DM camp as well, yes OK, so. Structured entirely different. OK. So we'll have to talk about that too. That that's exciting. So you had 11 kids. What were the What was the age range? I think our youngest was 8 or 9 and our oldest was 16. 8 or 9 to 16. So that means that if you want to play DND with your 8 year old, you in fact can, you can't. So that's that's amazing.
How do you manage the story for the attention span and maybe the imagination and the comprehension of concepts 8 to 16 year old, They're all in the same campaign together or did you keep they are OK? No, yeah, we split them up. OK. We were more heavily weighted towards the younger kids. We didn't have as many of the older. So we just ended up splitting them and like tried to make sure each group had a mixture of the ages. I would say that how I handle I
won. I did a whole homebrew campaign. The other DM did do a sourcebook, which I'd be interested in how he really worked that. The reason I lean into homebrew is because I will try to think of like paths. So if here's encounter A, there's one option that I think will happen here is option B. And then they kind of just keep making little branches of how I'm going to get to the end. They often don't use the little branches prepared. Of course not.
So, you know, I mean, that's part of the, I mean is just, you know, making it up on the and I think it's just kind of being prepared that I actually did the least amount of prep and the loosest amount of outline for the kids and I do for anything else because it was like the first day I came in with this massive outline and it was like out the window within the 1st 10 minutes of play. So I was like, what? That is not unlike an adult's game.
That's that's often true, yeah. So talk to me about, so the first day you're prepped, you've got an outline and the kids derail now. So what did that look like as opposed to adults derailing? I think most of us have played as adults and we know we kind of know what that looks like. But you got a group of kids and they derail the story too. But so like what? What kind of details, what kind of things attracted them that led the party to go in a
direction you didn't anticipate? Oh. So the premise of the campaign I had prepared was loosely inspired by Throne of Glass series, where they were in these trials, and I said they had to get the ruins from the trials. So that's a little different than Throne of Glass. And I was going to have this big reveal of the king and everything and that was out the window. First of all, everyone was just like, oh, like Hunger Games. And I was like, OK, you are locked in The Hunger Games.
So that's how we're going to go about this. And then the first day, how I had it is like I was going to have that they need to get the four different elemental rooms, right? And the first day was like a festival to kick off the trials because they're there to compete to get these rooms for their town to re animate the wards or whatever. And they went to the the festival. They loved the snail racing, but then they just wanted to go shopping.
And I was like, no, we, we need to get to the next trial. And they were very locked into shopping the rest of the session. I was like, OK, at the end we had like 10 minutes and I was like, you guys need to just tell me whatever you want, right? Figure it out. And I just from then I kind of made it that they would just wake up in each trial that like, it wasn't an option to do anything else, but within the trial they could do whatever.
And so like a lot of things is, you know, like I would present a puzzle to them as part of the trial, right? I didn't have a solution for the puzzle. I was just waiting until something sounded good enough. OK, sure. You know, so which they come up with a creative idea. It is because I always also, like, I kind of locked in on like a Riddle during the festival. And they weren't quite getting
there. Yeah. And so that's when my mom was like, I'm just going to like present like a mirror room with like a light beam and, you know, whenever they make something that makes enough sense. The mirror is going to back down, so you kind of let them lead the narrative. Yeah, I did take, I've been trying to incorporate more like the Daggerheart approach, where Daggerheart really allows players to have a bit more impact on the narrative and the DM or GM is to really take that
into account of the story. And I've noticed that using that particular with kids has been helpful because then they also like feel cool, like they made some decision and they're like, yeah, we're going to go do that. And it's like, yeah, you're going to go do that. Let me prepare that in my brain real fast. So give me a little bit of background. Dagger Heart. Dagger Heart. Dagger, dagger, heart. So for myself, I have no idea what that is, and I probably
have listeners who don't either. Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, Dagger Heart is the new tabletop RPG, OK, It's created by the creator's Critical Role. OK, so it's very D&D based, sure, but there's quite a few differences. It's definitely more like player driven narratives and there's like this meta source that like the DM uses instead of like this hope and fear. But a lot of it operates very
similar to DND. But they've really designed something that feels like the players have more say of what's going on then DND, where DND can sometimes feel that like DM versus player where you know, like it's not supposed to be that way. But no matter what you do and no matter how hard you try, like it's always going to have an element of that because I'm behind the screen and I'm making
the bad things happen, right? Whereas with Daggerhart, the players say things and things can be happened. Things can happen as a result of that. And the DM has this resource that they expend to make the bad things happen. So I don't use the resource like in Daggerheart, but I really use that influence of like, ask your players what kind of trees they see and incorporate those trees into the story. Kind of like they really let them have some control of the narrative and what's going on.
That is incredible and I'm surprised that that hasn't been developed sooner. Yeah, I mean. Yeah, not not to derail too much my experience, I have really been enjoying the D20 systems from particularly Star Trek adventures because it's more my type of genre. Even the World of Darkness, long time ago to date myself.
You the story the story was very player driven did have a storyteller but there would never be this US versus him or her well that I always felt D&D kind of conveyed and was just a little bit appealing so that was interesting and I was curious to see how kids interacted with that but I'm really encouraged by this model and I'm like maybe I want to get back into D and DI don't know you guys you tell me send me Adm if you guys think I
should get back into D&D yeah there we go yes so was there tell me what your favorite moment kids are playing my. Favorite would have been the that final encounter for player camp. As I said, I have this like one shot I've developed and I mean, I normally run it through play at like level 12, but I scale it down where they essentially have to take all these runes, put them into, you know, the places on the side or call it from holders, whatever.
And the entire time a dragon is attacking at the same time. If they defeat the dragon, they get a round of combat to continue doing stuff. But then a new dragon comes in because they're just like fake Dragons. I don't know, you lock the dragon in when you've done all of the runes and that's how it ends. And so we've destroyed one dragon. They're still getting the room together.
I've sent the second dragon. And I mean, the second dragon still had a lot of like, not a lot of help, but it was it was still there, right? But then I said it was like weak ish And the kids looked at the Ranger and this Ranger had been like pumping out damage. OK, And they're like, this is it If you get it, I think we're gonna take the dragon down and the kid goes. And this kid was so cute. He like would like take his dice and like blow on them every time
for like luck. And then he he rolled it. It was a Nat 20 and he just did that and I was like okay, I don't even care how much help you have killed this drag and it's totally. I love it. I love it. You're. So excited and that was just a cool moment that I thought that happened and. How about feedback from?
Have you gotten feedback from the attendees and what it would it would it seemed to be what aspects did they like the most and what aspects do they like the least based on the feedback you've received, I. Think they like playing D&D and they all like playing D with D with each other. All the kids have asked can we keep playing together? OK. And I mean, I've now offered two additional kids DND one shots and I sent it out to the parents and they're full within like an hour.
Wow. Like these kids are all so excited to keep playing this game together. Wow. Which I think is very cool. I can't imagine. Well let's be fair, there's a reason why there's a stereotype that you can never get 5 DND players adults because they can't get their schedules together. But even if they can get their schedule, I can't imagine 11 players together. How's managing that? Well during the games we did split so I took five and the other DM took six.
OK, the most I have at a table is 7, OK, which is is quite a bit. Even with the seven players, it is kind of a lot. There's a lot more compared to like adults where you can kind of ask the table questions. When we are going into something, I'll tell the kids like, OK, we're going to go talk to this person. Everyone take one minute and you're going to think of one question you have for this person. I like that. So it kind of pulling back.
I used to do a lot of teaching very early childhood music and I just kind of pull back on all those things that I learned from the Nair of like, OK, let's all think and then we're gonna go, okay, you raised your hand. You wanna do something, you wanna do something, we're all gonna get a chance to do something, but we all have to go in order. Okay. So I think there's just like, it's almost like this element of like classroom management that has to happen. I could see that, sure.
And kind of encouraging and also frankly, I say the word no a lot like they can I do that? No, you can't. Or I'll ask if it's not the first time I've had to say it, What I'll ask the first time is like, how is that enabling the story? How is that helping our goal? Like they say, oh, I want to pickpocket my friend. Well, we're all friends and we're all working together with each other. So how would pickpocketing them right now really help us manage our group dynamic and get
towards our goal today? Interesting. So in the in my introduction, I had said one of the elements that I talked about was that these kids developed the ability for collaboration. And it sounds like you really work to drive that home, that sense of collaboration. I'm always a big fan of saying that DND is a game we're all playing together again. I really try to break that. Like I'm the DM and I'm against you, right? Like we're all trying to achieve one goal.
Like I've created something that I want you to get through and that the kids like we're all at this table together. So we're here. And I think Halloween that like connections, like at that beginning when we made them establish like what is your character connected to this character by? It does kind of help create that. Like, OK, we're a group. This is a group dynamic. We're all here to work together. Some of them still want to set things on fire.
It's what they're going to do. That is, I know a lot of adults who just want to set things on fire too. So how about the? How about the thing they like the least? I do you think the least receptive activity would be probably like I found this like pseudo escape room, but it was really just a bunch of puzzles that they had to figure out. We kind of let them do it all.
Some of them really liked it and even in my campaign, like when we were in like the water trial, which was a lot of puzzles. I feel like a lot of them kind of check out, but there's some that are like super into it. So it is a bit of a heart of a balance, but I think that that might be the least well received thing. So we needed something for them to do and like get up and move. It was like getting late in the week and I was like, they need to, they need to work some of
this energy out. I get that, and unfortunately that only appeals to a certain personality. There's like a very specific type who's really. So that's, that's interesting. I like that you did that and you did some sort of a getting up and moving activity incorporated into the story, which is just absolutely amazing. I'd like to see more of that in adult campaign instead of us like just telling you how we're going to solve a puzzle, put a puzzle. And yeah, that's that's
fantastic. So one of the things that I've observed through my experience is you get through particularly combat, you have an everyone roles initiative, talk about role initiative. You use that as a metaphor, role initiative and do this. But unfortunately, while DND is not turn based, everyone has to take a turn and everyone's got different attention spans. How was that experience and how successful do you think it was? The kids were able to stay
focused long enough. Yeah, combat is definitely the thing that I think is the hardest turn with kids because of that factor. And because we get so many kids at every table, I'm not running a table of three or four kids, right? I just try to keep it moving. And then when I start to see them lose focus, I will just often do the teacher thing. And I'm like, hey, what did she just do over here? What did she just do? And what can you do in response to that to help the battle?
So like trying to let them actively see that like when you're in D&D combat, you all have your own turn. But like, and that's why I do the dragon battle that I was talking about, because like they all have to work together. They have to find the runes, they have to put them in the like obelisks and they have to fight this dragon. They need to all work together and collaborate on their turns.
Like, OK, if I find this route, you're going to stand over there and I'm going to I'm going to throw the room to you and you're going to put it in and I'm going to keep fighting the dragon. You know, so it gives them a bit more to do, but it's a lot of just redirecting. I mean, it's just, I mean, even, you know, table of adults, you get into those 3 hour combats and like you're just, you're, you're gone, right, right. So I think it's just like keeping it moving and keeping
the narrative going. And something that I didn't do quite as much, but this was inspired by that gamma presentation is like when they describe something like if there's losing focus, like get them up and like show you how they do it Now. I only used it like they killed a creature. I said explain to me, show me like, how did you just kill this creature? Because I like to make it like a moment for them. They got the killing blood, right?
So like, sure, you get to have your big moment, right. But yeah, just adding in little things to help them. So fidget toys. I give out fidget toys like candy and my D&D. Fidget toys. That's good. That's good advice. Yeah, that's really great advice. So. Great. What about? Well, I guess I should ask this first. Were any of the kids playing a more social character rather than a physical one? Some. Do so you did have the Bard or
the charismatic whatever. So I'm thinking about how you're in a scene and you know, it's it's the you're in the bar, you're or you're in the you're in the Tavern or you're in The Cave and you're talking to the old man or the Prince or whoever sends you in your quest or wherever, right. And then that tends to be kind of difficult for the more physical characters to be paying attention.
How did you manage those scenes? So when we go somewhere, First off, some of my kids are probably my best role players at the table, OK? Like, they get into it, they're locked in. Yeah, And they're like, I have this girl who insists on being a mouse every time. She uses her mouse voice every time, always talks in character. Incredible for everyone. I think it's a lot of that, Like, think of what you might be doing. And I just go around like, what are you doing right now?
What are you doing right now? And then I kind of rotate around and say, OK, you 2 are going over to the bar, Let's figure that out. What are you 3 going to be doing? OK, why don't you guys think of what you're going to do? We're going to play this out. We'll come back to you. OK, so I feel like I give them a lot of space to kind of think about it and always ask them like, what are you doing? Because like it helps remind them that like at all points, your character is doing
something in game. And even if you're one that kind of wants to stay behind, like maybe the character isn't talking, but they're looking around and trying to find someone who's useful or they're trying to observe someone at the Tavern who might have weighted dice that they can try to swipe or whatever kind of appeals to them.
Kind of give them something to do without making them necessarily have to talk in character if they're just like not quite there, but I try like I don't do voices for my adults. I am not a voice DM, but I will for the kids to make them feel comfortable doing silly stuff at the table because like I have two voices probably. I have a high pitched fairy and like kind of a man voice, but like not really.
So that's what they get and. So it's funny, but my listeners are going to be really mad if I don't. Can you? Can you? Can you do them just? Okay, the fairy boy. Yeah. And then if it's like an old, old, old person or man, the kind of one together, Yeah. Are you getting there? Okay. Oh, my God, that's great. Thank you for sharing that. That is incredible. I love that. Oh my God, that's. That's too much.
That is too much. Yeah. That's so the key seems to be keeping them moving, keeping them engaged, thinking about what they're going to do in the next scene or when it's their turn or something like that. That's, that seems to be really important. What other if let's say anyone's watching or listening and they're thinking about playing DND with the kids or any any other piece of advice that you've gleaned from this
experience like this is a must. I would just say like go in with almost no expectations for what's going to happen. Like kind of just know that it's going to be whatever. And that's kind of what's fun with the kids is that they, they just bring so much like spark and spontaneity to the table. Whereas like, you know, adults like focus and they're like, we're going to go get the sword and they're going to go get the sword where the kids are like we're going to do this and also
do this. And I'm going to take this weird approach to get there. He's going to be like, all right, we're going for it. I'm. Going to get the sword, I'm going to dig the hole, but I'm going to go upstairs and that's how I'm going to do it. One kid didn't want like I ran a temple thing where they had to go in the temple and break the curse and it was in the ocean. The kids like, I don't want to go. And I was like, OK, well, we have to go, right?
And I looked at the other tables like, does anyone want to help them go? And the one kid just like, yeah, I'm going to grab them so they can go with us. And I was like, thank you. So you kind of just, OK, let them do things and you let them have their moments. Like every kid and adult wants to set things on fire. I have created opportunities where that is the appropriate response and I let them set things on fire. OK, so let's talk about the the kid who's like, I'm going to
grab him so he can come. Yeah. So those types of player interactions. Do you allow them or make them roll their dice for that to see if they? If it is helping the story, I kind of just let it happen. If it's against the story, I would make them roll OK. So again, that situation, like we just needed to convince this player to not sit on the beach. OK. And that was the way they were. And they were just having one of those days. You know, kids have those days. They do.
So I was just like, OK, Yep, you do that, right? Yeah. But like, if they were like, well, I want to try to do this. At first I ask how is that enabling like a group dynamic, right. And then if it's still something that's like, OK, but like the other players like, well, I don't really want to do that, then I make them roll. OK. But because kids like to roll, I would never do that in adult table. No, absolutely not.
You know, like adults have learned that, like, you are going to do what your character wants to do and that's how it's going to go. But with the kids, it's just they just want to roll. And if they roll, in a way, I just kind of try to make it narrative in a way that makes sense for both of the characters so the other kid doesn't feel like you're making them do something they don't want to do. Right. How do you handle consequences?
Because sometimes, because sometimes you roll that Nat one and you fail the test, right? And kids are more, not more. They're just emote differently. And they really don't want to roll the Nat one. There's a lot of kids. I have had so many kids. Quite literally, they'll roll their dice and then they just flip it like right in front of me. Like I got it. That's funny. Like I literally just watched you roll that. You do not.
OK, all right, so how? I tend to handle it is first of all, even with adults I don't do like the critical fails or the critical fumbles. OK. I take all skill checks to generally be how the skill is received. OK, unpack that for a little bit. So like if you're talking to someone and you want to talk to the shopkeeper and they're saying this is 20 gold and you say I want it to be 18 gold, first I ask how do how are you asking? And the second after I have that.
So I have their approach and I have my NPC's vibe. Once they roll, it's against what that NPC would react. So like, if you roll in at 20, they're probably going to react positively. Unless there's a possible task, like you can't convince the dragon to just not fight you, the Dragon's going to fight you. But if you try to do that and you roll a dice check of 19 or 20, the Dragon's not going to eat you. He'll fight you, but not.
He's going to fight you, but he's not going to eat you and he's not going to get mad that you tried to tell him whatever. So like on that one just means like, yeah, you went up to the shopkeeper and maybe you like stuttered through it and they just couldn't understand what you were saying. You just got nervous and you were just like, I think it should be 8 tinkled and the shock he'd be like what? What did he say? I can't hear you.
You got to speak up because then also kind of gives them an opportunity. To try to re roll so that. Which is another thing I don't do with adults, but I do with. Sure. No, I it's a totally different there's. A lot of roles that I say no with adults, but with kids, no, I let it happen. Sure, but you still are. You're you're allowing them to re roll. Yeah, but you're doing it in such a way that it's woven into the narrative.
So like if it were a movie or a television series and I'm watching it, I could see this kid mumble and then he's like, what? I can't hear you. I you could see that, you see that visually and that's, that's good. So I tried to do that unless it's something that they're going to fail, then I just say like you don't execute this. And something I constantly remind them that the Nat 20s are only cool because of the Nat
ones, correct? Like it is not cool to get a Nat 20 over and over again because then it's going to like lose its flavor. Exactly. But like because you rolled that two or that three or that Nat one, like the next time when you get the Nat 20, like that's when it's super cool. What if you make a big deal about they roll a Nat 11? Why does the 20 and the why does the one in the 20 have to be so special? I mean, I, I understand why, but still, right.
That's that's that. So that that's that is some really great. That sounds like a great experience. Yeah, seems like it was rewarding for you as well as the kids. So you mentioned there's DM camp? DM. Camp, OK. Now for those of you listening, so we just had Gen. Con and it just passed. But at the time of this recording, the DM camp has not has not yet occurred.
So everything that we're about to talk about has happened by the time you're listening, but has not yet happened by the time we talk about it. So we can only talk about what your expectations are and what your plans are. So tell us a little bit about this DM summer camp. And it is it. It's also kids as well, OK? Older range, which kind of makes sense.
Sure. And I'm actually like, I think I might be more excited for this camp because I just really love like teaching other people how to DM and like getting other people to be this person because I think it's really fun. Also, the more of us there are, the more of us that we get to play every once in a. While that is true, DMS never
get to play. Never get to play, but so how we're kind of loosely sitting up at this point is we're going to have like outlines of one shots and throughout the week, the kids are going to learn various skills to kind of flesh out that one shot. And the goal is at the end of the week, they'll run it for me and the other DM and the other campers. So these all be shorter, but we're going to work on things like they'll get a miniature, but it'll be a monster miniature instead this time.
And we want to do like map making. So we'll have them draw out a map and like go over like how you mark different things on the map and some ways to do that. And we're going to like touch on world building and how to like create and like flesh out that narrative as you're going there. And then doing things like how to set a dice check. Like when you do that, like how do you evaluate that on the fly or read a monster stat block or modify the monster stat block to
fit what you're gonna run? Because I think that those are like some of the major things that VMS have to do all of the time that don't often get like looked at is that you can run AI ran Dragons for level threes. I just modified the heck out of those stat blocks, right? So teaching them that they can't make whatever work for whatever table they want. It's kind of the goal of the camp. So there's no campaign. There's I don't think at this point we really plan to run anything.
We might run like all one shot for them just so they can like see us. But most of these kids came to player camp, right? So like they know. So that's kind of what we're going for is kind of really developing those skills to that they can go home and run a one shot or like start creating their own campaigns, working it out and prepare or like grab one of the books off the shelf and like be ready to like know what that book is saying and they could go run it for their friends.
How many attendees do you currently have? 6/6. So it's a smaller group which I think actually will work really well. And the youngest? I think the youngest is like 11 or 12. OK. I don't think 10 and under is. Right, OK, but still that's. Still still younger. That's that's a that's a heavy lift for anyone, let alone an 11 year old. Yeah. What are you? What do you hope? What are you hoping for? I know what you're hoping for, Marty, but, like, how are you
preparing for that? Because this is different. Teach. Yeah. So what are you doing to prepare for this? So I mean, we're still meeting to kind of figure it out. The other DM who's helping me has like kind of like crowd sourced like from other DMS that we all know. Like what is the one thing you think Adm needs to know? Which some have been pretty good.
Some are like, OK, are these still our kids that you know, and kind of figuring out like the steps when I prepare, like a one shot, Like what what am I doing when I prepare? And then what happens when I'm in game? Because like the preparation part is the easy part of DM in, in my opinion, it's the end game when things are not going the way things need to go. And how do you modify and switch things around to make the game still feel good without that?
So the preparation part is the fun part because you get to like craft your world and craft your one shot and craft the narrative. But I would say that the hard part is the when you're behind the screen and your players suddenly run off and do whatever and set fire to the pirate ship or whatever and you're just like, what now? There's the treasure going in the, the sea. How do I help? Right. Yeah. So let's say I'm you've had this thought. I've had this conversation for
countless years. I've had this observations made and I can even see I can see these kids asking the same question as well. Why should IDM? Why don't I just go home and write a story? That's a great question, right. So this is, I mean, this is something that I've recently kind of dealt with myself part.
I like the collaborative storytelling, sure of it, where like, I'm not necessarily writing a book, like I've created this world and these ideas of things that will happen, but the actual happenings are still up to players. And I think it's fun to have that input. Whereas like, yeah, I can go home and write a book and I can, you know, write out this whole story that I have in my head. And no player can disrupt that story. It's. True, that's very true. There's no derailing of my book.
Absolutely. I'm writing however I think like, I mean, just the social aspect and that's you get to do something different and the role-playing aspect just adds to it. Like, who doesn't want to pretend they're a little gnome rogue, I mean. No, I get that. I I definitely get that. So what about two-part question? One is, have you thought about this yourself? Yeah. And two, are you prepared to talk about it if one of your attendees to the DM camp asked this very question?
Maybe they don't articulate it in this way, but have you ever gotten yourself so fixated on building your world and you make it way more complicated? You know, the players aren't going to appreciate that this this character who appears for five seconds in this underwater temple is like really the person in charge of this thing And and they may or may not ever experience right. So you can you can get really bogged down in your narrative. You can't.
I've seen a lot of my friends, a lot of DMS, storytellers, this happens and they bunk screwed. I'm just gonna write a book and maybe or maybe they don't get published as a published writer. I have seen some of them publish their stuff, self publish of course, but so that So have you experienced that and how would you handle that if the kids asked the same thing?
So I would say that yes, there's been some experience and actually my experience has been worse when I'm using like the actual DND source material really, because I get so like locked in to what that book has said. Oh sure. And I mean, I can think of what I mean. This is an adult's, but I was running cursive Strad and they ran into this werewolf den and just like assassinated this woman werewolf who was praying and like she was like their more connection.
She was their Lord drop and they just, they just killed her. And that was one of the moments where I mean I just turned to them and I, I was like all of you out five minutes because I need we need to reevaluate what's going on here. So I do think that there's value in recognizing if you as Adm are running something and like you're just stuck like take 5 minutes with your group or like if it's closer to like end the session and give yourself time to refigure it out.
Like you don't you don't have to do whatever you were set out to do. But as far as like, well, I really have this really cool idea. Like if you have a really cool idea and you only want One Direction for it, then like, yes, you should write a book. But if you want this like, collaborative storytelling experience with your friends, then that's what D&D is. Yeah. So like, you are looking for this experience. You're not looking for the
story. And like, yeah, it's really cool that if I can write this really cool moment for my friends to have, like that's so cool. But like, and like, if I've made the world like they're already having a great time. They're playing in your world. They're probably having a great time. I know it's common for DMS to be like, but did you have fun? Did you did you like it? Like I asked my husband that every time he played Z&D with me. Was it fun?
Did you have a good time? The kids are much more forthcoming with that information. So that's that's great. But. Man, this was stupid. Sometimes they were. Yeah, but. Then you know when the at the end of the camp, when the kid goes like, thank you so much for running such a great adventure. He hugged me. I was like, hey. That's amazing. But I would say that's a different and you can do pull right. Like I like write my own home brew. I do a lot of one shots.
I have some campaigns in the works. I have one campaign that I finished and then at the same time, like I am trying to write my own little fantasy book because like I like to do that and I don't want anyone to disrupt that story. I have a very clear vision for that story. Well, and you're creative so that that makes. Sense you can use both outlets. So I want to talk about map, map maps, map making cartography. OK, so for the for the DM camp. Yeah.
Are you using graph paper? Are you using gridded paper? Is it free form? Because there are a lot of opinions. There are a lot of opinions about maps and how they should be redrawing. My God, there's. Which is ridiculous, right? Get me to point A&B. Let me know where I'm at. I don't need all that. So what is? Yeah, there you go. What's the map making event going to look like? So I use I like a big like desk pad of just like 1 by 1 inch grid paper.
And so that's what I'm going to be bringing because I want them to be able to use this. And that's the standard. I I mean, I'm an advocate for hex maps. Sure, I think they're great. I think they make movement a lot more sense because you're not thinking, well, if I move diagonal, technically I'm moving more than 5 feet because math, but right, no, thank you. So we'll just kind of base it and like what I want is just they're going to make like an
encounter room. So it's not going to be a whole like like what I envisioned like in a dungeon or anything like that. Like I want them to look at the one shots that we give them the outlines and say, OK, this this is the part that's going to need the map, right? And kind of draw out your map and draw like what what obstacles are going to be in the room? And is this part going to be higher? Is this part going to be lower? Like kind of that.
So very simple, very simple map. OK, Nothing like a big world, anything like. That right are there, is there homework ahead of time there? Is not. No. So they're coming in cold. Coming in cold and you're gonna I'm. Sure, they'll have ideas. Well, they will. They always have ideas. Which is why they've signed up for the for the event. So what? So you have map making, you're going to give them a larger miniature. They're going to paint that with
the paint master as well. You're going to talk. So there was a lot of, what I heard was a lot of concepts, yeah, a lot of world building, things of that nature. So what? So are you going to run? You have 6 attendees, so will there be 6-1 shots they're each going to run? And will the players be the other DM attendees for each of their one shots? So the pressure is really on for both the first DM who's at it cold and the last who's seen the previous 5, right?
That is always the worst. Like as as a podcaster when I'm interviewing like game designers, like I had a, there was a game designer and I, I was his first meeting of the con. And I'm like, man, there's a lot of pressure here because I'm setting the tone and everyone else is just going to be like blow me out of the water or whatever. But I can feel that. How do you foresee managing those emotions that might come up?
What I, I think is hopefully I think we will try to split them into two smaller groups, so groups of four with one and one of us and that me and the other DM will be there to kind of prompt and help. I'm the same way when I help adults. I'm really encouraging a lot of my friends to be DMS and what I say is like, OK, well you were on a one shot. Like this is the group we play with every week. I'm going to be right here.
If you get stuck, I'm going to jump in and help you until you tell me if you're ready to go again. OK, nice. And so I'm anticipating using that method, but I think like, I think being nervous is OK. Like it's, it's scary. I mean, I'm damn for six years or whatever, I still get nervous, especially when it's something I've written. Like if it's a sourcebook, I can blame the sourcebook if it's bad. But if if I'm running it and it's bad, like that's on me.
Like I created that encounter. I get that. I totally understand that. Nervous and I think just letting them know that and like. I totally understand that. That makes perfect sense. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's awesome. So are there any anything else that you're really excited about? Looking forward to this DM camp. No, I as far as DM camp, I mean, we've kind of covered a lot of. It I think you did, yeah. So you're gonna be a Gen.
Con? I am going to be a Gen. Con. OK, so here's my recommendation to those of you. Unfortunately, you're listening to this after the fact, but hopefully you've seen Bethany. She'll be a Gen. Con and she can tell you all about what happened during this camp or you can, you know, reach out. So tell people where they can find you both on your socials and Titan games. Yeah, so my Titan Games e-mail is justbethanybethany@titangames.com. You're welcome to find me on
social, though. The best 1 is going to be Instagram and that is just at Bethany the Bard. Because Bethany is the Bard. I am the Bard. Even though she's a gnome. Rogue. Yeah, in real life, I'm a Bard. In real life, she's a Bard. The. Indie I'm a rogue. Yes. Also want to say for those of you who are watching this on Spotify or YouTube, we are in fact at Titan Games. We're in one of the two rooms that was used in the summer camp. This is the tree room. So Bethany, thank you so much
for giving us the space. There's another room just to my right here, which is the, what do we call it, the Tavern Tavern room. I will say that putting up this wallpaper is a challenge. It was most fun I've ever. Had, yeah, no, but you and I put up the Tavern wallpaper and that was a real challenge. But thank you again for the space and talking about this experience. I think this is great. Guys, please make sure to like
and subscribe. And we're trying to reach 100 subscribers by October when our YouTube channel will be a year old. You should be flying back or driving back from Gen. Con as you're listening to this, so make sure to spread the word, add, make sure to be kind to each other and play more games.