Questing Beast: A Conversation with Ben Milton

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RPG designer and KZbinr Ben Milton of Questing Beast has a sit down with Yours Truly.
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[@ricardo.mazeto]

I love this idea of playing one shots with other KZbinrs. That will be fun to watch.

[@Wraithing]

Wonderful to see you Trevor and so glad Ben had tidy nostrils - lol Seriously though, great interview/chat. So glad Kelsey got all you guys together. It's a great time to be a RPG gamer!!

[@DaveThaumavore]

Wait, Ben and I also have the exact same boob lights in our houses too? Okay, those are super common so that’s not that big of a deal. Great interview! 🤠

[@Mattluke23]

Watching you two vibe about the beauty of the hobby was pretty damn cool

[@petsdinner]

Ben is a legend! Very excited for Knave II!

[@eostyrwinn5018]

As someone who plays pretty much exclusively online I really feel that conversation about playing in person. I want to play in person again so badly, but I recently moved across the country and no one who I play with lives near me now. I'm also slow to make friends so I'm yet to be able to get an in person group out here (working on that) so being able to play online is both a blessing and a curse. Give me any chance to play in person and I'll take it but for now it's a choice between online or not playing (and also loosing some contact with old friends), so as much as I don't like playing online, it's an easy choice

[@paavohirn3728]

Yeah, it's great there's the online option! Enjoy your games and good luck making new rpg buddies in the area!

[@nvRfear1911]

Questing beast interview finally on the channel! 👍

[@wingusryu8289]

Cant wait for Dolmenwood. Those previews of the pdfs are beautiful

[@paavohirn3728]

Oh yes! The setting, system, maps, everything is awesome!

[@Mankcam]

I love the Dolemwood setting, its got such a great vibe, but dont really want to run it with OSE so hopefully I will be able to run it with Shadowdark or Knave 👍

[@PhilipDudley3]

I'd love to play with Ben. I don't live too far away from him, if you count 4hrs close. I've been scratching an itch with Genesys, Basic Roleplaying by Chaosium, and Rolemaster Unified. Soon to be Into the Odd, Electric Bastionland, and Mythic Bastionland. Getting some solo games in and hopefully drag my friends through these too.

[@agrayday7816]

Thanks Trevor & Ben! Great content. I really appreciate Bens newsletter, i find it an invaluable resource consistently!

[@ConlangKrishna]

Trevor, I feel you so much. Sitting around a table can just create magic. And of course, system matters, and getting to know a system and let it unfold also fascinates me. Thanks for speaking out!

[@SkittleBombs]

im excited for knave 2e and glad to see ben on video again

[@oldSchoolGM]

Just want to say thanks, I love your videos. You are my rpgBobRoss LOL. It is very comforting to hear you pontificate on rpg's

[@EpicEmpires-pb7zv]

I love asking players what they'd like to do next session. I also use a random Quest generator if they're not sure and make sure they're excited with whatever I roll up (if not I roll again). Then I start them at a point of danger a lot like Trevor does in season 1, episode 1 of Me Myself & Die...starting with the main character trying to rescue a friend being hanged. So they might be trying to escape the City Guard or escape a group of minions, or they might stumble on someone being robbed, they might be at the entrance of a dungeon, etc. etc. The key here is the players know that's how I'm going to run the session and they love doing it that way.

[@Mankcam]

Two of my favourite vloggers, this is really cool !!! 😎👍

[@jproy]

Fabulous interview! Really loved the insight around the folk tradition of D&D. Just a note around Foundry. I feel its a common misconception that it's main feature is automation. It is very customizable so you CAN automate, but the core systems are truly little more than map, token, combat tracker, and character sheets. In fact, a lot of the automation comes from the community modules. As a foundry user I can tell you i rarely use any automation. Anyway, keep up the great interviews!

[@Acmegamer]

Nice, two of my favorite KZbin rgp personalities talking about my favorite hobby. Can't go wrong. :) Gotta say, I love that your talking about how there was the whole West Marches feel waaaaay before it was coined. A lot of what I experienced as a teen back in the late 1970s and into the start of the 1980s before heading out to the military was exactly that in Southern California with multiple GMs/DMs and various players all running their same characters. Good stuff, great memories.

[@jasonGamesMaster]

We have had a long standing group, 15 years. Our Eberron is very much that idea with the NPCs becoming faction leaders, etc. My bard spy has become head of the Dark Lanterns, my buddy has caused a split in House Cannith and is now head of the old Cannith South that is now the offshoot house, we have failed to protect the Speaker of the Flame, assassinated the Queen of Aundair, and are currently enmeshed in a civil war in Karrnath. Its 40 years after the Last War and most folks wouldn't even recognize it anymore, lol EDIT: Also, so true about the face to face. I once experienced two players have an entire plan come together out of a look, a point (at each other), a nod, and one of them said "YES!" And then they wrecked my encounter SOOO hard, lol

[@sanjeevshah168]

Great discussion!

[@AtrusGambit]

I am a rat, looking up at Ben from a maze.

[@TheBardSM]

As we all are

[@RollForCombat]

"someone put out the numbers". That was me! :)

[@MelRiffe]

So cool! Thanks for sharing the interview. But, dang, now I need to pick up Maze Rats and Into the Odd ❤

[@schwarzesonne6529]

Look into the rules before you play into the odd they are strange but some people enjoy that

[@G-Funk42]

That was a neat conversation between you and Ben. Thanks for letting the rest of us listen to it.

[@Kar-mx3qi]

It was a realy good conversation 👍🏻 I fear the Time, when every young Player, plays his Games only online. You both are great gys 🤘🏻

[@wbbartlett]

That was a great interview & chat. Cheers!

[@KammaKhazi]

The interviews are always top notch and really enjoyable content. I’m a big fan of both your channels, keep up the stellar work chaps.

[@mattofumi]

Play one shots with game designers and reviewers and then have a discussion vid where you talk about what you liked and didn’t like about the game system and the adventure. Be super interesting to see the thoughts from people making games.

[@paavohirn3728]

YES!!! Dolmenwood mentioned! 💕💕 The fillable hexmap (just like The Isle of Dread) just released today! Gavin and his team still surprise us with new awesomeness after all these years of developing Dolmenwood. It's crazy! Thanks to Ben as well for reviewing the Wormskin zines! I've got to say though, that the Dolmenwood system is amazing as well! Such cool refinements on ye olde systems.

[@NuttySquirrel_8]

Trevor, great interview. I really enjoy your channel.

[@troyschnierer2940]

I really loved the point about playing in a world and not playing as the protagonist of your characters story. While I mainly play in character centered games, I am always exploring sand box stuff. At the moment, Forbidden Lands solo. Though playing in a world, I like to co-create the world. I do like to ask what does it look like to my players or to bounce ideas around about what would be cool. There was many opinions that agreed with what I do at my table and some that I don't really use all that often. A great conversation. Sorry for the rambling nature of the post.

[@brads2041]

Awesome interview

[@ЄвгенКорякін]

Re: FATE. First and foremost, if something in the rules doesn't make sense in the specific fiction, screw the rules. Second, there are still ways to resolve the "one knife kills three bandits" thing: - The knife rotates in the air, like a chacram, and cuts all of their necks; - They're on a cliff, right? The knife dislodges a rock, causes a landslide (maybe into some catacombs below that totally were there before, honest), the bandits are buried; - The knife kills the leader, the others run away terrified ("actually, I just got here, screw these guys", "yeah, I'm supposed to retire tomorrow, I'm out"). They're still out of the scene, so the effect is the same. Third - yeah, the players and the GM definitely need to be on the same page regarding the whole "shared narrative rights" thing. Basically, I still want to run and like FAE, so maybe it's not that bad?..=\)

[@michaelmullenfiddler]

Great interview

[@RPG_Bliss]

Cool video

[@Sensorium19]

That fate story stings. Years ago I was into a very early version of FATE, but I too realized that was not for me.

[@Mantorp86]

My favourite KZbinrs together ❤️❤️❤️

[@ahtech1990]

When Trevor 1st put up the Discord he was talking about setting up a shared game world with patreons very much like how the game clubs of old were set up.

[@Ashbornking133]

Hell yeah!

[@michaelmullenfiddler]

As a folk musician, I "get it" perhaps better than alot of people, regarding Ben's point about the OSR being a folk tradition. Knitting is an acceptable analogy, but Irish kitchen sessions, and old time porch jams, THOSE are more like what Ben is talking about. Every local Irish session (throughout the world) has its local fave tunes, their own vocabulary of ornamentation on those tunes, and even their own etiquette within the session itself.

[@animatorFan74]

Awesome conversation.... some good stuff here. :) One avenue we haven't explored as Players/GMs is VR roleplaying.... so something like you're all sitting in your own homes with your VR headset on and you're rolling dice on your own table and talking to each other like you're actually in the room. This might be ideal for Players separated over large distances..... might be the next level of gaming after VTTs...? I saw in some of your other videos you did Roll20.... I find that pretty good, and yuou use Discord for video, etc. That can be fun.... maybe more fun than Founfry...?

[@johnsnyder4653]

Great interview, as usual. Although was Ben even aware his camera was on? If so, why leave it like that? Odd.

[@MeMyselfandDieRPG]

As I’ve said elsewhere, it was a backup angle that I had to use as we had tech problems with his primary camera.

[@Mantorp86]

I have Into The Odd, Maze Rats, Knave..I backed Knave 2e and Dolmenwood…damn you KZbinrs, you are ruining me! 🙃

[@Adamthegeek70]

awesome interview, though I wish people would stop placing cameras where they point right up the nose... :D

[@ThePixelPear]

I have no idea why Ben had to do that, he has a better set up. Maybe he had technical difficulties, maybe he didn't have access to it. Who knows. Better as a pod cast style anyways

[@MeMyselfandDieRPG]

He had a better angle on a different camera, but we had technical problems and so we had to use the zoom camera angle.

[@Adamthegeek70]

@@MeMyselfandDieRPG its still funny though. :D

[@ferlocar]

I also bought Dolmenwood because of Ben. You two, along with Prof. DM, are such a source of inspiration. Best KZbinrs ever.

[@jacobc8019]

DM? Prof?

[@ferlocar]

@@jacobc8019 Professor Dungeon Master from Dungeoncraft.

[@schwarzesonne6529]

Trevor can you play a season of Draculas America I believe with your flair for story telling it would be a fun experience

[@bluecarpettiles]

First roleplay game was MERP which some guy was running in an after school club in the 90’s. I bought the red box and coming from MERP to the Redbox made D&D seem too simplistic.

[@Stephen-Fox]

The closest equivalent I can think of to your 'taking characters from one world to another with no explanation' is the IRC freeform circles I was on the margins of in my youth, where people would typically have a group of characters that they'd pick from when someone asked if you wanted to play a scene, and everyone who was up for doing that's characters would just... Interact in that scene no matter how little sense these characters occupying that same world would make. I know exactly what you mean about wanting the opportunity to play in person with folk thousands of miles away, though. My long term group is mostly US based (I think I'm the only person in it who isn't based in the States), I was in a campaign earlier this year which was me, someone from Eastern Europe (I think Poland?), and two Brazilians, while the one I've just gotten into is mostly US folk again, while I just... Don't know anyone who lives near me who's interested in roleplaying. I've done some in person sessions - a con game, a couple of smaller games games with someone who wasn't into TTRPGs but interested by them in my last place, but nothing regular.

[@mikeholt2112]

No discussion of the BroSR?

[@JuhaMakkonen]

VTT fails to convey, for example, the body language of a player who realizes after a long streak of misses and fumbles that he's been rolling a twenty-sided d10 all evening. It was like all five stages of grief on his face at one.

[@dpp277]

Nice

[@Lee_Adamson_OCF]

I really love Ben's channel and presentation style. But the one beef I have with him is that he isn't clear which of his reviews are paid and which are not, and this makes it difficult to know when and whether or not I can trust his objectivity. Still love his stuff though, not trying to cast aspersions. Just.... cautious, lol.

[@SkittleBombs]

you should do a quick sage's library of knave 1e lol

[@darkemperor95]

I agree that physical TTRPGS are always better but I have been doing both that and vtt's since I have friends from the US or other countries that wanna play and just cant find someone else to dm for them. For VTT tho I do keep the whole traditional "let them calculate it" so my players dont just press 1 button to attack or do something

[@BUY_YT_VIEWS_g0g113]

I love your videos when you post you make me so happy ❤

[@WileyGames]

WE played over the pandemic just using Microsoft Teams. No VTT. Rolls were done by players.

[@HeadHunterSix]

5e players are like 40K players... they think theirs is the only game there is, and that the current version is the only one that matters. And in both cases, neither is the best.

[@guardian_of_the_rune]

"If I wanted to GM, I'd GM." If I wanted responsibly, I'd pay attention. That's why that person is a player and on their phone 90% of the session.

[@Adamthegeek70]

I also like VTTs, if they are an virtual table not a video game. I like the digital maps and token vs minis. I don't see a difference between these things. Players can side communicate via chat. I see no issue virtual vs in person. It's the same thing, just different tools in my opinion. Honestly games like 5e / Pathfinder is kind of hard to remember everything. Each class, skill is like a separate thing. I like rules, but there is a limit to how long a turn should take. I think I still prefer GURPs, with the right amount of optional rules to make it fun. Most of the complex is between sessions and in character creation vs in game play....

[@paulallen8304]

Unfortunately the indie roleplaying space has sort of imploded. Lots of cool games to be sure but nothing like the 80s and 90s.

[@milo_fuckface]

Two of my favorite channels united!! Sweeeeeet