MaxFunDrive 2021: D&D Home-Brew Rules with Griffin & Brennan Lee Mulligan

In celebration of MaxFunDrive Griffin is gonna be talking to friend of the show Brennan Lee Mulligan about the the home-brew rules he's working on for TAZ Ethersea! Come hang out, and become a member at maximumfun.org/join

[@dallontaylor5840]

it’s so funny seeing brennan go to open the show and then realize he’s the guest

[@StraveTube]

My man can't turn it off and we love him for it

[@TallBison]

and also Brennan being known for over-the-top intros for his guests, and Griffin full on forgetting to introduce Brennan. *Chef's Kiss*

[@brandonfaddis7443]

Brennan Lee Mulligan: Warmer than the couch

[@locxas16]

Griffin is always saying that about him

[@GreenPaintz]

*Jouch (jean couch)

[@Zand0r]

Is that the title of his stand up comedy special

[@rainevelde6017]

Hearing Brennan say that specing into the improv DM style was a big thing for him is super validating. I've never been great at the massive prep and always felt like a shitty DM cause of it. Goddamn Brennan you are a gem to DM's around the world.

[@varsoonhks3211]

Any good tabletop RPG requires some degree of improv. Responding to your players' interests and ideas is a massive part of the game and sticking steadfast to the rigidity of prepared material railroads and invalidates the decisions of the players more times than not.

[@ashleyhoughton8592]

I used to commute an hour and a half/hour 45 each way by train to work and use that 18 hours a week to prep my campaign. It was great, because it passed a very boring time, and allowed me to have a metric f**k-ton of stuff ready. But I don't work there any more, now my commute is a ten minute drive and I have a child. So now I do no prep... Well almost none. One hour before each session is my prep. I'm much better at that.

[@collinsmith163]

Super interesting to hear how their own unique DM styles compare, and how all that knowledge halts with the screaming of a cat

[@masonshucart7055]

I still remember going to see Dadlands live before I even knew who Brennan was. Now I've binged everything he's ever done and every episode of TAZ and even Naddpod. I still have those tickets to the Balboa theater up on my wall.

[@ryanstray5533]

Dadlands was my intro as well!

[@Ty6260]

His brain is so good. There's some real good beans in that brain.

[@alexdennis6461]

Have you read Strong Female Protagonist?

[@Ty6260]

@@alexdennis6461 It's excellent! Hoping Brennan and Molly finish it one day. It got me into Molly's other stuff and then her wife Noelle's (who directed an amazing cartoon recently). The beans don't stop coming!

[@Pep95]

Did you go for the dropout account as well? Would you say it's worth it?

[@kaorudragneel8498]

Seeing griffin brings me so much happy

[@HenhousetheRed]

People love babies.

[@elizabethdickinson8814]

That sweet baby brother face brings much happy

[@Therealbearden]

Brennan wanted to go HELLOOOOOOOOOO

[@KazyEXE]

Starts at 4:07

[@jroastpotatoes]

The real MVP in the comments

[@welephantsoup]

Bless you

[@ahrress9346]

That’s what heroes do

[@ashleyhoughton8592]

Thank god.

[@StraveTube]

EM VEE PEEEEEEE

[@StevenIrwin1985]

The energy Brennan Lee Mulligan brings to the table is just absolutely over the top and I love it so much.

[@endroop]

Brennan Lee Mulligan and Sweetest Baby Brother nerding out over DnD brings me so much joy.

[@kimhill3614]

I LOVE how unabashedly detailed this is, and I sincerely hope Griffin has as much fun with this as it seems.

[@Doinge]

griffin accidentally invented encounter tables via the wild magic table

[@chastermief839]

he also accidentally found the origin of hitpoints by putting them back on a ship's hull. there really is nothing new under the sun

[@BoojumFed]

I like the separation between the characters themselves and the ship-based actions. Very reminiscent of the crook-crew dynamic in _Blades in the Dark_ , allowing individual characters to do their own things while still letting them come and go from the overarching crew without breaking/ disbanding said crew...

[@katherine8382]

I really wanted to recommend Blades in the Dark to Griffin! It has a crew system that upgrades in a way that might be good inspiration for Griffin's ships.

[@BlindErephon]

Blades in the Dark is fantastic, one of my best loved RPGs out there right now.

[@patriciabristow-johnson5951]

ok it's so funny to me hearing some context behind the story of Brennan trying a module for the first time and being like "never again". 'Cause like, I had heard him talk about that experience before; it was an all-dwarf story that was supposed to be a dungeon crawl orchestrated by an evil wizard, but the opening scene (before the wizard lures/traps everyone in the dungeon scenario) was a wedding where the bride didn't really wanna be there and was kinda forced into it. After the players did some insight checks on that and figured out the situation, they decided to kidnap the bride and book it, so as to rescue her from this unwanted-wedding scenario. That was completely off the rails for the module, turning it from a dungeon crawl story to a chase story, but it also makes total sense as a thing for the players/characters to decide to do. Brennan went with it, and even had the bride express gratitude for them getting her out of that situation. He's told that story a couple different times I think, but I'd never had the context that all this had happened when he was 12.

[@imthehomestarrunner]

i really love a crunchy mcelroy campaign! from a storytelling perspective, i think dice rolls give you super interesting material to yes and - in a way that creates stakes but also just!! gives plenty of opportunity for goofs. i loved monster of the week but there's just no rolling a 1 on hopping over a fence yk. i can't wait for this season!!

[@RDR911]

Man I hope Griffin holds to his guns on readiness. This is going to be freakin’ awesome if he makes this like a Sunless Sea D&D. I wanna see Cthulhu or somethin crazy!

[@calebvanderwal7099]

“You’re gunna be walking with the marmots…”

[@netomorgan7991]

“If your ship ever gets to major damage, you have disadvantage on the roll.” Depending the characters’ means to conduct repairs, I’d even consider having an equivalent to MOTW’s “unstable” effect: complete repair would require some kind of outside help or specific resource, and ignoring it could lead to additional damage and failures

[@nolanchill]

My top two DMs! Love to listen to these guys talk shop.

[@NunDePlume]

These two together explodes my brain

[@friendlyporkchop]

so i've havent started the new season of taz yet and the introduction of this video made me realize that the name of the new campaign is not, in fact, earth sea lol

[@erlandgraf]

Took me until exactly today to realize it’s not Earthersea

[@FortuitousWench]

Tiny Heist is legit my favorite McElroy property. Just watched it earlier this year and I’m still subscribed to dropout 😂 Brennan is a master!!!

[@hoardlydad]

That's exactly how CH got me, and I couldn't be happier. I love the Mc Elboys, and I subbed to Dropout immediately and haven't looked back since. I'll continue to support Dropout as long as I can. At this point, I've watched everything on there. I tore through every campaign and have decided Brennan is just the best person. Have a good one!

[@griffin1155]

rick diggings is justin’s magnum opus

[@20102010b]

Between that and game changer, it's worth it for me

[@jameseames9289]

It's wild how much of the media I consume is because of the McElroys, I learned about Brennan from the Dadlands, which lead to me listening to Dimension 20 and then to watching college humour, I only watched Hamilton because the boys are friends with Lin, most of the artists I follow are because they've made taz art...

[@armanibecerra9253]

It all circles back to McElroy

[@Monsata.]

Griffin *was* a 30 under 30 media luminary.

[@alexdennis6461]

90% of the media I consume is McElroy based. the other 10 is cartoons.

[@mundo1998]

The Ethersea music in the lead up goes so hard here!

[@jamesonreno370]

The answer to what’s the underwater analog of “sleeping with the fishes” is “sleeping with the seagulls.”

[@RazzBerryJelly]

I would really recommend Griffin look at the 3rd party D&D book Dark Matter. It has a set of rules for space ship combat and I feel like a lot of the concepts could be applied to the things that Griffin discusses in this video.

[@StudioNBS]

this was an insane gem to discover, the first McElroy content I’ve ever watched - felt more like being a fly on the wall, watching two friends homebrew, than an official show - I loved the vibe

[@wiki_learner]

I sure hope that this is sent out with a PDF in a month or so once the game starts because I soooo bad want to run something with these rules. A more Theater of the Mind way to run ship combat is something that is so good for my DM style.

[@ericbrandon1294]

I am desperately trying to reverse engineer his ship combat system i would love just a PDF

[@angst_]

If the PCs are races of underwater and seafaring people, it might be likely that their education and upbringing has taught them a lot about how to fix and pilot a ship. So they could all be on similar grounds when it comes to specializing. If they show an interest in a specific task maybe they can get an item at some point that gives them a +1 bonus to signify their growth. "Dad's lucky wrench: +1 to engine repair."

[@brandoncarbaugh7994]

This system reminds me a lot of Edge of the Empire. I think the show will benefit from it a lot. It's incredibly generous to a campaign to give the players a ship that can serve a thousand different functions. A ship is a mobile base; it's a shared living space; it's a powerful-but-brittle weapon in combat; it's your de facto "party HP" because you all die if it explodes; it's an arena when enemies board you; it's backdrop for scenes that take place in transit; it's a shared customization point for the party to kit out and repair and paint cool flames on over time; it's a homework project to repair during town visits; it's an abstracted cargo space PCs can ass-pull items from with reasonable limitations; it's a convient hang-out spot NPC's can stay behind in while the heroes are off doing hero stuff; and of course, it's just a big-ass vehicle that can do big-ass vehicle stuf, like knocking down the sealed doors of an ancient temple ruin. Ships are good. More systems should have ships.

[@Vi_grace]

Brennan's cat reminds me of my cat, with the yelling to sit down and whatnot 😭😭 very cute but also... rip

[@morrocoyconchuo]

God... My two favorite DMs... Together...

[@LunaBroadwayVT]

I adore both my D&D dads

[@wjhull]

I know nobody's ever gonna read this, but I'll go crazy if I don't say it: If you want to use ramming mechanics, borrow from history: If you're ramming, you deal more damage than you take (since when you're ramming, you ideally want to smash your bow, which is more structurally sound designed to smash through waves, into their broadside), but you can't shoot the ship's weapons (as most weapons are located on the broadside, with the exception of specific front-facing weapons like chase cannons). You might also further nerf ramming by making it so that ramming attacks only ever do hull damage, if necessary. That way ramming as an act of desperation wouldn't be guaranteed-fatal, and you could also introduce options that would let players spec out in ramming at the cost of their ranged capabilities--or even give them the capability to make full boarding vessels that lodge themselves an a ship's hull and just injects their target full of pirates, or monsters, or bees.

[@benh2339]

I was so worried this would be too crunchy to fit with the Adventure Zone vibe but having seen the system in action I can't get enough of it. It's not too cumbersome to slow down the pace of the show but its adds enough crunch to the actual dnd part of it that I'm excited to see them interact with the mechanics and ugpgrade their ship as the show goes on. It's got such a juicy progression feel to it that I feel like I have to implement something similar in my own game.

[@richardj853]

it took me five full minutes to realize they werent about to start talking about beer

[@TarpitTardigrade]

Oh god dude the d100 role is just soooooooo good, Clint really showed it off

[@josephfischer5107]

What he failed to control for was Clint’s rolling a 1

[@sundrythis]

god bless brennan lee mulligan 💖✊🏼

[@jon8304]

A possibility for the ramming mechanic: you could set up attack rolls in fixed zones that define the level of success, i.e. 20 the attacker is unscathed, 15-19 the attacker takes half damage, 10-14 the attacker takes equal damage,

[@Chrasmardan]

So excited for more!

[@SirJayDuran]

I don't know if this is going to get where it needs to go, or if it will matter. But I wanted to mention that since TAZ is a podcast, it's been really hard following a game that seems to be made to be specifically for a visual medium. I know that maps and stuff get posted on Twitter, but that doesn't do much for someone like me who listens to the show while working and doesn't have the opportunity to reference a map. I've always loved the McElroy content and that hasn't changed, I just thought it was worth putting my take out there. Thanks for all the hard work you all put into making all of the shows.

[@nathanaelr.3989]

"The bad ones will be REALLY bad, I want the readiness system to have a lot of weight." I can't wait for Justin, Clint, and Travis to not take this mechanic seriously to start the game and then get WRECKED lol

[@sobertillnoon]

Stream starts 4:05

[@indigobryan]

14:27 Griffin opens up his shipsheet 16:18 CATSIGN 1:02:05 EXCALIBUR

[@BumbusBumbi]

4:06 for the lazy

[@PeterHansen]

For ship upgrade economy, maybe look at Blades in the Dark system of Coin. (Or Scum and Villainy that Friends at the Table played)

[@notabeanie9052]

I have been on-again off-again working on homebrew ski & snowboard mechanics for a d&d campaign I'm planning and listening to the talk about mechanics=genre got me very pumped to think about what cool genre things a skier needs to be able to do

[@elizabethdickinson8814]

These two men are my idea of what the ideal human being is

[@kappaross6124]

Brennan is a blessing

[@rubyblooddemonking]

For buying resources for your ship, condider a company allowance. Your ship company basically allowes you X amount of currency to buy readiness, could be ( food, ammo, extra crew) basically a company credit card for resources on a per mission basis. The missions you take have a resource allowance on them, like mission A is to resupply a ship already at sea like a wellerman, so you have a large 10 allowance, but half of that is for the ship you give it to, and mission B is a cargo mission, so you have 4 allowance and 2 allowance for the return trip. That sort of thing

[@Piratejackyar]

The Skilled feat gives proficiency in three tools or skills. If you simply allow each system to be considered a tool, then it takes care of itself. It gives the option for players to use their advancement options on the ship if they want.

[@PrimeSubToMeTTV]

I really enjoy game design so this isn't so much suggestions for Griffin as it is I enjoy thinking about systems and if I was personally running this system with friends (which like Brennan said changes the design standards). For ramming yeah an attachment that allows you to deal more damage to them than you seems good. Something like a spike on front of the ship that doesn't do very much dice damage but can puncture the hull and cause the hull to go up a tier of being damaged. Also ramming should probably require you to be in position and effect positioning since you have to get right up on em. Either it takes both ships out of position for the round or it puts both ships into a 'close combat' state where certain weapons are not usable (Ex. Any kind of explosive because shooting a missile at something you're touching is a bad idea) and maybe certain weapons are more effective while the ship that did the ramming stays in position. For critical hits another system that would require more work but would give the players more control over their tactics would be to give different weapons different critical effects. Examples A Harpoon that deals low dice damage but has an increased crit range of 19-20 and causes minor damage to the Hull on a crit. A Fireball Cannon that causes the targets sensors to overheat and be damaged on a crit. A Chain Shot that on a crit gets tangled up in the target ships propulsion systems and damages them. A Lightning Bolt that on a crit overloads the engines damaging them and then a very minor wording thing Reload sounds like an active thing but if it happens automatically calling it Recharge might make more sense and then to avoid confusion Charge would become Prime. This system looks incredibly cool and flexible to whatever the DM wants and I think this is the most excited I've been for a season of TAZ since Balance because of it and because Griffin says he wants there to be significant stakes to the point of total failure being a real possibility.

[@angst_]

You could consider a unique currency for ships like "scrap" for upgrades. If you want to keep it separate from player personal costs.

[@taylor7457]

I love brennan and also griffin

[@LifeWKai]

Brennan Lee Mulligan AND Griffin McElroy? Who's next, Brian David Gilbert?

[@masonshucart7055]

If you haven't seen the Dimension 20 live show with BDG I highly recommend it.

[@freyabee819]

@@masonshucart7055 the WHAT

[@alexanderaust4647]

Don't do that to me. Don't give me hope.

[@rebekah5052]

@@alexanderaust4647 Griffin also did a live show for Dimension 20 before Tiny Heist

[@cosmodious1755]

Super excited to watch this. I don't have a lot of money to spare but if Max Fun offered ad free feeds for their shows I'd sell a kidney and sign up.

[@dmwingon]

i'm losing my mind, brennan was a close friend of mine during my teen years, so seeing him here with griffin is like crossing the streams, what a small world i live in

[@ckillgore]

On the topic of economy and resource dice, maybe buying resource dice is something you could play around with. So like for upgrades, crewmen, and things like repair kits you would want to buy those separately. But for basic supplies, you could use resource dice. So you would pay money for "supplies", and then if you needed something specific that might fall into that category you would roll to see if you have it. The more money you spend stocking up, the higher the number could be on the dice. I don't know if multiple dice is something you would want, or if that gets to complicated. For instance, if you had two resource dice that were both d10s, and you rolled one successfully making it now be a d10 and a d8, you would want to roll the d10 first. If you were really well stocked though, that's potentially 10 items that the players could conjure up out of their "basic supplies". If we were using basic DND gold as a template, I think 20gp would translate to one d2 (also known as a coin). So if you spent 20 gp on "supplies" whether or not you had rope would be a coin toss. 40 would be 1d4. 100 would be 1d10. 200 would be 2d10. This certainly wouldn't cover everything you would want to buy for a journey, but if spending gold this way also increased your readiness, it now has two gameplay implications, so there's more reason to spend your gold. If the players are being charged for food, paying the crew, perhaps paying off their ship, buying Intel, and spending money in this manner on "supplies", they would have a lot to use their money on. I think food, crew, Intel, and supplies should all increase their readiness score. Perhaps even what state their ship is in. Maybe a big upgrade comes with a readiness bonus attached to it. They would also have plenty to save up for. Beyond just ship upgrades, you have your traditional DnD incentives as well. Armor, weapons, magic items, and potions would all be on the table. Having to balance all that would make the preparation stage of the game much more meaningful. I would worry that they might get to a point where they are permabroke, and can't successfully complete a mission due to low funds, but you did say you want failure to be on the table. Also, you could introduce a shady character who would loan them money, but who you really don't want to be in debt to. The only downside I could see to managing supplies in this way is that you players could roll a lot of 1s, and not be able to use any supplies even if they did stock up. Narratively though, you could just say that the supplies they did buy had already been used by the crew.

[@cybarch]

i'd probably do a sort of token system for ship supplies and upgrades that's separate from normal player wealth. tokens are usually earned by completing contracts. a week's supply of food costs one token, a crappy ship upgrade costs five tokens, a nice ship upgrade costs ten tokens, something like that

[@urktheturtle2988]

kickstarter to have the 12 year home game brennan runs turned into a graphic novel.

[@rubyblooddemonking]

If preperation is armor and improv is agility, it's still a light armor class, so remember, just add a touch of armor, the random lists. keep a list of random names behind your dm screen for random npc's, keep a list of five random encounters (goblins, broken wagon, traveling merchant, wolves, trap), keep a list of random small loot, and a list of 3 short encounters that can turn into hour long session quests (stolen treasure, kill monster, revenge) remember the easiest way to get players into a quest is to fuck them up just a little bit to make them blood thirsty. As an example, lets say the characters derail by talking to ramdom npc when you try to push an investigation quest on them, (improv npc name) says theyre sad cause there have been thieves in the streets, characters say that sucks, then leaves cause they arent interested, (make a perception check) PASS CHECK (you let them pass the check) someone is picking gold from you, characters go to stop him, he shoves a dagger in their neck and runs, and now theyre chasing the thief, they get to an alley and the thief is dead and gold is gone, town guard comes in to investigate and they find the party and a dead man, and apprehend, and then the party has to find the real thief or be executed, and BOOM the party now wants to run the investigation quest you had set up at the tavern.

[@2401blue]

Improv is a light armor class - unless, of course, you are one of those mythical Monk GMs who know *so much* about the rules and have *so much* knowledge about the world that they can run *anything* without prep or significant pauses to look things up. Probably not a realistic goal. :b

[@rubyblooddemonking]

@@2401blue gotta be level 20 gm first

[@johnshaw8307]

There is a whole genre of "rag-tag group of adventurers in a wild frontier ship chasing money just to survive." If you're looking for inspiration on how to make money and ship maintenance important, then revisit Firefly, OutlawStar, Cowboy Bebop, or even Guardians of the Galaxy.

[@bookoo995]

Just wanted to say that this video convinced me to donate to the maxfundrive. I'm glad that they posted this on KZbin because I see now what kind of content I'm missing out on! Glad I can help support the people who provide me so much entertainment. Also, Brendan and Griffin have exactly the chemistry that I never knew I needed in my life until now.

[@michelle8307]

Griffin "never not succeeded" *Remembers his dad's character died"

[@rubyblooddemonking]

Consider playing darkest dungeon for 20 hours to test how much supplies v.s. crew should cost per run. Darkest dungeon is a great economy simulator, where a lot of new players think its good to hire a team, grab as much treasure as you can, abandon the quest and keep the loot, then fire the team, is a good strategy. but in reality, making the team into a successfull party and actually passing quests grants waaay more wealth than this pop n drop loadout idea. Particularly when you consider the pre mission supplies. Like the narrator says, "supplies, paid for now in gold, and later, in blood"

[@NarcoticIsland]

Stream starts around 4:07

[@DonDowning]

Just found this, it's fantastic and just what I'm looking for. Is there a way to get that ship stat sheet and your combat rules?

[@littleratfella6857]

Griffin did you not know what a RANDOM ENCOUNTER TABLE is?

[@teddymason6069]

I think using a naval combat system like this (not for submarines, just ships), mixed with some more grounded, "boring" rules will really be a hit in my next campaign. Big fan as always. Unapologetically stealing.

[@toxicpyromania4324]

i wish we had full access to this system

[@michelle8307]

Brennan's face when he heard about the d100 roll!!!

[@oliviaw-k8145]

“Nautical story telling”

[@junglesvend]

1:09:05 What on earth is the game system Brennan is talking about with the "Resource Die System" that has expeditions? I haven't heard of it before, but I'm very intrigued.

[@rubyblooddemonking]

Fishing boat, Skiff, battle ship, galleon, tanker. 4 seater, 10 seats, 30 seats, 60 seats, 100 seats, might be a good way to be.

[@kingkebo3960]

24:33 certain gambits could have a negative effect on your next position roll to demonstrate that they are more risky

[@trizzyplease69]

DANGGGG Griffin is smart as fuck! lol I wish i had that spread sheet!!

[@rubyblooddemonking]

Ramming could work with reinforced hull upgrade, or, used for boarding. Greeks did that shit on purpouse.

[@ThePinjaProductions]

This is an awesome and informative discussion to watch, love these goddamn nerds! Side note: does anyone know where to find the retro sci-fi “Killer Union” poster behind Brennan? I love it and can’t find it anywhere 😭

[@gintarazimu642]

4:06 - Griffin and Brennan come on screen

[@rubyblooddemonking]

Maybe a player takes shipwright training for increased repair chances

[@adamwhite2647]

Gimme dem rules.

[@catherineauwarter859]

My two dads hanging out

[@ammonmedina1337]

Anyone know how to get that spreadsheet?

[@teachingisdifficult]

This was great...however the BEST max fun drive video would have been dropping that sweet sweet new monster factory video

[@lemake72]

They tapped Keith Baker for Dadlands?! Geez!

[@caseyrau]

I wonder if Griffin has played Tharsis.

[@natewatkins4587]

A cool element for the system destroying weapons could be considering them like a dragon’s breath weapon. Represent reloading them on an insane ship through the dice rather than a set number of turns.

[@fireballninja01]

can’t believe i missed this by 14 minutes

[@voodoobeard]

Ramming should definitely put you out of position for the rest of the round

[@mlq1718]

Who is Griffin Mulligan

[@rubyblooddemonking]

Try Pirates101 online mmo also for character class ideas

[@rubyblooddemonking]

One way to make money SUPER effective, is to make losing HP actually hurt. Your hp now recovers at a rate of 1 d6 per week, and doctors are expensive and only avalible on land or very expensive to temporaroly hire for one voyage. Another way to make money expensive, pay your crew. Manning a ship takes anywhere from nine to 100 people depending on the size, and those people expect to be paid at the end of the voyage.

[@stumble_arcana]

Maybe ramming could work by Sacrificing an amount of hull (let’s say 10) to do a d10 of damage to the enemy You sacrifice 10 hull to do 1d10, 20 to do 2d10, 30 to do 3d10, and so on This makes it so that a larger ship (with a larger pool of hull points) is risking less when ramming, but is still sacrificing something- and making ramming a risky strategy for smaller ships to do big damage

[@jenolafson]

How come no one has mentioned that this sounds like Firefly underwater? Small crew taking jobs so their ship doesn't fall apart???

[@thenathanhamilton]

Can anybody point me towards the "resource die system" that Brennan talks about at 1:09? I can't seem to find it anywhere

[@jonathanblinn3560]

The virgin Um, Actually The chad Um, Absolutely

[@alexdennis6461]

Is Brennan the honorary 5th brother?

[@mirandafuller9325]

Just keep throwing up the peace signs, Brennan

[@dylanknight1237]

Starts at 4:05