Brainstorming a Low-level Adventure

[@FlaerMH]

Just played Draw Steel! tonight for the first time. Players won't stop raving about how much these rules makes them feel like a team. They fought a human brawler and twelve human archers, and my god! Speaking as a Director*, it just worked. I just followed the rules and it was fun for everyone, including me.

[@mcolville]

This brings me great joy! I will convey your comment to the team!

[@notatrueroute]

The NPC who backs out of the call to adventure is an incredible tool to make players (especially new ones!) feel heroic and get invested in roleplaying right from the start. And the option to have them reappear later is icing on the cake. What a clever idea.

[@CubaLibre200X]

It's true that straight barter was very rare and sporadic in historical societies - never the default or basis of an ancient economy. But also currency was rare and only developed sporadically in certain circumstances (usually surrounding the payment of troops in levied armies). Most daily economic activity in historical societies worked on relatively elaborate, and rough, systems of debt. If I need a cow, you give me one, and now I owe you a roughly cow-sized favor in the future. The tab is the basic unit of the ancient economy. David Graeber is the authority to read on this.

[@desmondbrown5508]

Really appreciate you releasing this. I don't usually go to watch live streams for time reasons. But your process and how you tend to make notes has been extremely helpful to me as a new DM. Thanks, Matt.

[@jasonstamwitz6928]

Wow. This is the first video of yours that showed up in my feed for months. Good to see that at least this video showed up.

[@blizzard4224]

Hello from video on demand!!

[@davetronred11]

Video on demand people: the best people!

[@CbrSpsWzrd]

Hello, blizzard

[@ivantukaric701]

41:36 "Maybe they're all dead... maybe something worse..." Expelled?

[@andrepape]

Love the way you came up with the name for the Coursers. That was splendid

[@PanicSatanic]

I don't know if Matt mutes his mic when he takes a drink, or if he just drinks quietly. Either way, I'm incredibly grateful!

[@MrZeyami]

Been working my way through the packet slowly. Incredible stuff. Really hoping I get the chance to run something once I get through it.

[@henriquedelarosa5419]

36:38 the "OR SHE" alwaye makes me laugh so much 😂

[@allgreatfictions]

I'd listen to a full hour of scatting and crooning through half remembered lyrics.

[@WyldJezter]

I was thinking the same thing

[@YawdroGaming]

How can you not be excited to run a game after watching this!? I love watching other GMs prep.

[@gornser]

The kind of motivation I didn't know I needed for the new year

[@taurvanath]

Matt I just want you to know I'm a big fan of yours and I wish you well in all things you choose to do. PS. Would you be interested in making an Evolve style monster class for play characters?

[@carlosenriquemoragonzalez8244]

Duuude I've been watching all he's old videos for like the 4th time and I thought "oh this is one of those I never gave the time to watch"... until he mentioned Nosferatu xD

[@NeverUseAnApostrophe]

*his.

[@chancerusso]

I am going through a third run through and I saw this one and said the same. lol

[@mchisolm0]

It is helpful to see and be reminded that you can just get ideas down on the page and that the point is to have fun. I often let stress to organize choke out my fun. Thanks, Matt!

[@dustincarter9334]

This format and video style are EXACTLY what I'm looking for to listen at work. And twitch does not work for that...

[@noahblack914]

How does it not? What's the difference between a KZbin stream/VOD and a Twitch stream/VOD?

[@jeffreyrankine2533]

But does the road to brode go through the wode?

[@morgantaylor3634]

I can't wait to watch this, all the way through, at least twice.

[@jethro240]

Great to watch the process of adventure creation.

[@tysonjouglet4565]

I finally jumped into the Director seat. DS and these types of videos were the inspiration I needed. Thank you for all of your great content!

[@TimberW073]

Great thanks Matt! Was great to see the process i've been using as a new DM (learned a lot from your videos) is on the right track!

[@jeffreyfunk3514]

Johnny and Mary... Good song! I've had that song stuck in my head a few times before!!

[@Forke13]

I got it stuck there again now :D

[@Crazybird920]

have you tried mercenary work? it might suit you

[@philippethibert8825]

Thanks Matt! I'm stealing everything and putting it in my game(s). "Take the stuff you like, and put them in your game." I'm liking all those ideas!

[@heylenareal]

I missed this, but this looks like a banger of an adventure already 👌

[@adamjones9180]

Thanks Matt! These are the types of videos of yours that I love. Would you consider after the session doing a session recap/diary like you used to? Seeing how other people think is what really REALLY helps me.

[@rworrick8037]

Started this last night, just finished, absolutely excited for the next brainstorming session. Thanks for sharing!

[@jakobtonkin9712]

Man I'd really like to see more of this content. Trying to teach my new DM friends how to start is so difficult. Having a small series of this sorta stuff could be really helpful for new gms to see how it's done in real time

[@BlackOpMercyGaming]

If only there were more channels that had dedicated series and playlists of learning to GM

[@blizzard4224]

His world building streams for the chain of acheron are very helpful insights into the process

[@noahblack914]

​@@blizzard4224Not necessarily for new DMs getting started. Those are a ton of details you don't need to get started, as demonstrated by this very stream.

[@NerdicusGoblinski]

The world building stand for collabria is a fantastic tool for DMs new and old. Just reading the chat for names of stuff for your game!

[@anarchclown]

Wow. Robert Palmer's Johnny and Mary. Long time since I heard that one. It was part of my parents record collection in the eighties. Love that song. :)

[@TheMastaphobia]

Loved the video! And as always I will plead for a third novel! More Rat Catchers!

[@bigsarge2085]

Appreciate the look into your creative process. Currently trying to put together a group for Draw Steel.

[@kingfisher_5050]

very useful! I was writing my own adventure right alongside and you helped me ask myself the right questions as well as kept me moving.

[@Thebazilly19]

It's absolutely CRAZY to me that you do your adventure prep in the same order as your players will encounter it. I can't make plot hooks at all until I know what the central challenge is!

[@benjaminwenham7759]

On the topic of barter and the origin on economies and mediums of exchange; a really great book to read is Debt : The First 5000 Years, by David Graeber

[@thejinchuriki4855]

I always love to see how highly skilled storytellers. game masters and game designers. Design games and would love to see more of how you design games more

[@chriswilkins4389]

This has been fun, entertaining, and informative! I am a novice writer and this has been useful in a great many ways!

[@imissnewspapers]

How did I miss Live !! I was killing time at the airport ! Well at least now I can kill time on the flight.

[@matthewring8301]

Having a random guy back out adds drama and the party might convince him/her to tag along

[@joshuabruce3987]

This was very helpful, I'm starting a new campaign soon and am filled with ideas now. Thanks!

[@ts25679]

This gets a like for Matt serenading us with a song, right out the gate

[@zombiepete]

This is interesting, because you are approaching this from the opposite direction that I do when I write. I come up with the problem and the weirdness first, and then I work backwards for how I'm going to get the players in there.

[@houseofsledge6891]

Props for starting off singing "Mary & Johnny"! The Bryan Ferry version is my favorite but I really love all versions.

[@grampasoats4610]

These sands are cold, but Khajiit feels warmness from your presence.

[@pixledriven]

Dune 2 might not have been inspiring, but your Dune videos are awesome and I'd love to see more of those.

[@Avebelivable]

great to see your process. Just about to start my next campaign.

[@imissnewspapers]

Happy 2025 all !! Has Matt ever sipped on Arizona ice tea on stream before ?

[@jollyrouger2945]

i go the other route with names for fantasy and get really specific or simplistic, Vestige, Capital, Progress, Beacon

[@jollyrouger2945]

my favorite was Bibliotheca the city of knowledge... Thesauruses help a lot.

[@masterofjackals]

I’m definitely stealing the NPC who turns down the quest. Genius.

[@avengingblowfish9653]

Good to see that the Kickstarter money is not being wasted on haircuts… (love you Matt)

[@Apollo9898LP]

Had an idea I had to get out, about the portal to Equinox at the center of the forest being terraformed. And feel free anyone who wants to steal this btw (including Matt! Tho I'm sure Matt will come up with something cooler for his version) So when Matt said it should be a natural feature like a tree or a brooke, my mind immediately went to the idea that it's a pond. In most ways it looks like a totally normal pond, except that when you look into it the world being reflected in the water is Equinox! And to enter Dusk through the pool, you have to dive into the water and keep swimming down, further than should be possible, until gravity flips on you and you find yourself swimming upwards out of the water in an identical pool in Equinox.

[@Dinuial]

Re: gendered terms of rank. The feminine version of the rank is almost always considered inferior because it usually has an implied "consort" tacked on (in England at least female knights bachelor - persons knighted but not inducted into a specific order of knighthood - are called Dame Commanders of the British Empire and outrank male knights bachelor, but it's the only place I know of where this is the case). Take the the Crowned Head of State in a monarchy, when it's a man he's a King and his wife is Queen Consort but only ever gets called Queen. When it's a woman she's a Queen and her husband is Prince Consort, often shortened to "Prince" unless the position needs to be distinguished from that of the Heir Apparent. He's called a Prince and not King because he isn't the King, his wife is.

[@metumortis6323]

Thanks this was very informative! My only confusion is I was under the belief that baron was a specifically masculine term not neutral. So calling a woman a baron seems strangely sexist to me the same way calling a woman a baroness is. I.e. a woman who works for the police is a police officer not a policeman/policewoman. Wouldn't the antisexist thing to do would be to create a new neutral term? I apologize if this is really ignorant question.

[@Dinuial]

@@metumortis6323 either that or borrow from a language where the words are already neutral (Baron is the masculine, Baroness the feminine but as with Queen that title is assumed to belong to the wife of a Baron not a woman holding a barony in her own right). For simplicity sake just using the rank system that already exists in the language the players speak saves a lot of work and de-sexing the primary term marks is as a job/position belonging to the character in question (see: Patricia Wreede, Dealing With Dragons). Even players that grew up in a society lacking aristocracy can pretty quickly find points of reference and the extant term borrows the history and implications of it's use (i.e. Marquis, has charge of a march which is or at the time of the title's creation was a border territory under dispute and requiring defense).

[@btfx]

34:00 - indeed _credit systems_ - implicit and explicit - quickly displace barter for most transactions where there's no shared form of money.

[@kryptonianguest1903]

Technically, credit without money is delayed barter.

[@jackos5d851]

This is like 70% similar to something i had planned to run recently but couldn't quite figure out how to make it work

[@therollingbones4080]

Good stream, vod, whatever. Watching you work always gets my creative juices moving.

[@NathanMcCready]

Ack trying to find the song that is playing in the background at around the 1:35:00 mark or the playlist that Matt is listening to.

[@NoahKunin]

Would love to continue to watch videos like these!

[@tuhotorvinen42]

Just today my gaming family agreed to switch over to DS from D&D when our 5.5y campaign ends.

[@gamegraves]

Super fun to see your process. We are similar in some ways different in others. And I think there are some techniques worth stealing; the greatest of compliments!

[@Seething_Ginger]

I really enjoyed this, Though, with a family last name of Carter, hearing "the missing carter" more than a few times caused my brain to hurt.

[@MostLikelyMortal]

I know what your ancestors did

[@AwesomeWookiee]

Sorry I'm late, is this a Delian 2mb?

[@rednaxelA11]

Watching Matt Colville prep to Modeselektor.. wait, is the universe tuned to my own preferences? Wtf

[@mcolville]

It's Moderat. Apparat, and Modeselektor!

[@rednaxelA11]

@mcolville the trifecta! I saw the guys as each iteration in sequence at the same show in Manchester in the early 2010s and was blown away. They have a perfect understanding of 'weight' and you really physically feel their music - and aparat just makes beautiful songs.

[@rednaxelA11]

@mcolville just to stay on topic. I'm a GM and I direct all players to your videos to learn the essence & how to have fun playing RPGs (rivertomypeople) several of whom have now earned their GM wings. Thanks for all you do cap'n

[@Pyre001]

Hey Matt, Video-on-demand people here again!

[@zorglug]

"I don't need to explain why baroness is a sexist term" To non-English-speaking members of the audience, you probably do. In French, what's considered sexist and extremely boomer is insisting on using "non-gendered" names for professions. We see it as meaning this is a male profession so unattainable for women that it's not even worth coming up with a female term for it. And the worst defenders of this thinking pretend it's demeaning to the profession itself to have a female equivalent of the name and that it robs it of any prestige. Refusing to use baroness sounds way more sexist to people from my culture. As you said yourself countless times: "nothing about common sense is common".

[@michaelanderson2166]

Real towns are named after people and literal landmarks. Same with other landmarks. Denali means “Big Mountain.”

[@kryptonianguest1903]

There's a hill in Britain called Hill Hill Hill Hill because new people kept taking over the area, not knowing that the current name is hill in the current population's language and calling it (current name) Hill.

[@JinbaHGS]

My campaign planning is very similar to this, only with a lot more "TBD LATER" notes in the beginning. Lol

[@SuneSensei]

Even today, people would be astonished to meet an American. At least outside of London. I can count on one hand, in the last 10 years, the amount of Americans I've met in person.

[@mcolville]

You're not missing anything. :D

[@SuneSensei]

@@mcolville I've got a lot of online American friends, some of you are good folks!

[@Doncergio]

I have loved every american I have ever met, I don’t get this self deprecating attitude. Is it a meme I’m missing?

[@tommykubitschek2736]

I find this stream extremely helpful and interesting!

[@jabeck03]

Informative video. Really enjoyed watch the process. Would VTT products include a Matt narration?

[@yvesfree-assangescherdin6138]

Thank you! That was somehow inspiring

[@ChristopherZubin]

Sorry the lack of sexism doesn't sound plausible :p

[@garrettwagner5270]

31:08 A Distant Mirror is one of the best books I have read.

[@aqacefan]

Is that an actual XENON backglass in the background?

[@mcolville]

Sort of, it's a replica from eBay.

[@necronsplayer]

I think it is important to point out that the term "baroness" is not sexist in the way that "waitress" or "actress" are, because it does not merely mean "person doing a job, but a female one!" Rather, it means "female spouse of male person doing the job." A baroness is-by definition-NOT a baron. I'm not going to make a call as to whether one sexism is better than the other, merely that they are distinct in a meaningful way.

[@CraigPaschang]

Although the great majority of hereditary peerage titles may descend only in the male line, there is a significant number of titles in the female line that may also be inherited by a female heir, and may pass in the female line. England has around 100 baron titles that can pass through female primogeniture, and a woman holding any of those titles would be a baroness in her own right.

[@PhoenixScientist]

Also to note. The female version of the words have been used to say "equal in position, but female, so not as good" often in history. Similar definition, different use.

[@DaleyKreations]

I think it would only NOT be sexist if you did it like the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, where they denote a position regardless of gender (ie Kazul is King of Dragons while being fenale because"Queen of Dragons is an entirely different position my dear"). So if the spouse of a baron was a baroness even if he were a man. It might be a same sex couple or baron denotes the blood tie to the line meaning in theory you could have a woman baron and her husband would be baroness.

[@GendefectX]

nice video. interested to see more of this! :)

[@FlashRave]

these ads are killing me

[@aemorion]

can someone, anyone, tell me what the name of the song matt was singing at the start was? i recognize it just enough to remember i like it, but not enough to remember the artist or song name lmao.

[@Doncergio]

Johnny and Mary by Robert Palmer. Todd Terje did a dope cover.

[@ogt2d]

That’s easy. I can do that

[@michaelanderson2166]

The furry cows are my memories, and the Glengoyne Distillery.

[@MumboJ]

2:57 I'm watching this stream instead of packing for my trip to Scotland and i feel called out. (for the record, i agree with the sentiment wholeheartedly, born and raised in england but genetically like 51% scottish)

[@francisdoherty5580]

5:40 The Quiet Man with Wayne and Heburn

[@mcolville]

The Quiet Man is Wayne and Maureen O'Hara.

[@francisdoherty5580]

@mcolville yes sir you're right. My mother would have killed me for getting wrong. Much love

[@jacobjones8731]

Miss these!!!

[@Toltex]

The dog has a thorn stuck in it somewhere? One that changes its behaviour. Maybe the Knight has the same thing.

[@Toltex]

The 'stolen' shadows can interact with the players shadows? Grabbing and shaking them. The void mage can hear them begging for help etc.

[@noahblack914]

1:25:02 Pausing here, and just reading each section that got highlighted about being dragonsealed, was a journey. The first time someone saves, they get pulled 5 squares?! That's evil! I can't wait to kill it!

[@KeljornIronfist]

The fringe is great the country is BEAUTIFUL!!! For context you live in very northern England

[@jft4820]

I want to open a campaign with the players meeting in a musty smelling, empty tavern with a saggy floor. Let them be bored for just a moment and then BAM, the floor collapses beneath them, and they are face to face with an ankhegg who has been tunneling beneath the village! (and also an action oriented variant that you-know-who created). Thought it could be a fun, we'll see how it goes. If it sounds cool to you please steal it!

[@DocsLenses]

Hey I’m one of the best people! :) yay! VOD people lol.

[@TnTyson81]

I've just started running my own adventures rather than the monster length books so I massively appreciated this stream. Thanks Matt. P S it's my birthday 🥳

[@DungeonHunters]

did I catch a James Acaster reference with the “OR SHE” comment?!

[@sanojo2551]

I love the Black Company and also couldn't read the new book

[@rexfranciswords]

The Robert Palmer version, or someone else?

[@noahblack914]

1:22:11 "Vague and evocative" - Dael Kingsmill

[@facelessone86]

46:00 a certain late 70s spy reference!

[@vepristhorn8278]

How we Americans approach our heritage seems to be an American thing

[@jehifferdavidguirigaimaldo6124]

Captain legard?

[@the3rdgray]

Bruce Fumi reference? 🤔

[@justinsaunders4068]

Le Town = winner

[@Introverted_Pandemonium]

Greetings from Croatia :D

[@matthewduka7710]

I don't think people care if you find your heritage interesting its when Americans tell people they Are Irish because someone in 1820 migrated 6 generations ago. (I know its unimportant rant)