The Ironsworn Guyz Vs. Reddit!

[@JoshuaMeehan]

That list of asset pairs was born from the feedback of one-shots I guided during play testing! It was a source of friction that kept popping up. I would say when doing one shots, some assets will see more action than others. Like fugitive, so many opportunities...meanwhile bounty hunter only really pops up at the beginning and end.

[@errantadventurespod]

Thanks for helping make our lives easier! You're the best!

[@thebadspot]

Well, how about that?

[@shaneintheuk2026]

51:39 😂 The nested vow trap. Been there and been crushed by making weak hits too punishing 😂

[@thebadspot]

Oh yeah we all been there. Most of Ironsworn is sharing war stories of your failures…

[@dranorter]

Re: 24:49 "some people just want that information to be settled" -- a friend of mine (who's usually GM) recently made an impassioned speech about this; for him it's something like immersion-breaking when a GM admits the world is being made up on the go rather than pre-existing. He describes it as a GM's "sacred duty" to maintain the illusion of the world in this way. I've been playing collaborative story games with this guy for years, over a decade actually, but this collaborative stuff is still something he "doesn't want to encourage" in TTRPG play. Trevor Devall mentions this in one video -- he finds that using Mythic to shape the world as he plays is great, but admitting it to players takes the fun out of it for them because they want to believe he had it all planned in advance. On the other hand, when under various GM's, I've played with multiple people who are more interested in co-inventing the world -- and get shut down. For my own part, I GM in a style where I do some sketchy planning ahead while leaving room for players to invent huge things... but I haven't been great at actually getting the players to do so. Anyway, it's refreshing to see you two holding the torch of wanting more collaborative play, because sometimes it feels like I'm the weird one who's wrong about TTRPGs.

[@errantadventurespod]

It all comes down to a question of what we want out of a game, right? Do I want to read a book or watch a movie where I can dictate how ine character reacts to a world and it'd situations or do I want to build a sandbox and play in it with my friends?

[@thebadspot]

TEAR DOWN THE GM SCREEN! Also that thing about TD is so depressing. Honestly, who is playing games to impress their players with the depth of their prep? And who is impressed by that. I am certainly not.

[@rafaelcupiael]

@@thebadspot I think this is a complex topic... First of all, it would be great if we started better naming the different goals and "payoffs" of playing RPGs and matching them with appropriate techniques, tools, and modalities. Although I currently play almost exclusively games based on anti-canon and emergent settings, arising both from ASKING QUESTIONS and random tables, I can understand someone's need to play in the illusion of a "real" alternative world that "was there before" and follows its own internal logic. On the one hand, that's a strong post-traditional promise of RPGs; on the other, the popularity of relatively new play philosophies (like "blorb") shows how many people have the need to interact with a "carved-in-stone" alternative reality. When I run Trophy Gold, aside from players answering questions and elements obviously emerging from Devil's Bargains and tables, no one knows what comes from the written incursion, what comes from prep, and what I’m entirely improvising in the moment. However, if anyone asks, I always try to transparently explain how the fiction was generated. At the same time, I can understand someone declaring, "GM, don’t tell me what’s from prep, what’s from the module, and what you’re coming up with on the fly - I don’t want to know. I just want to be immersed in the illusion of being in this crazy alternative world." In the example of TD, there's an additional twist of pretending at the table that the world flows from prep, when it actually flows from procedures... Anyways, the way information is generated and how the world emerges in the moment (prep, module, tables, procedures, improvisation, floating elements) is a huge topic in to adress, especially in adventure elfgaming.

[@shaneintheuk2026]

“You will be equal, even if I have to force you.” 😂 27:16

[@thebadspot]

😀

[@dziooooo]

About making things too hard on yourself - I did that at first too, and my first character got eaten by wolves after getting lost in the snow on some unimportant journey. It was still a lot of fun, but then I thought - I'm telling a story here. Most people in these circumstances WOULD get eaten by wolves, but they are not the people you tell stories about! So when my next character fell into a failure spiral, I got her cursed by a swamp hag who fished her out of the bog filled with hungry drowners. I started with fresh condition tracks, because the hag patched me up, and I tangled the curse with a vow I already had going, and it was so much more satisfying than "oops, I'm dead I guess".

[@errantadventurespod]

That's a great way to handle that! I love the idea of these characters being the ones you would tell stories about!

[@thebadspot]

God I love Ironsworn TPK stories. This one is great and immaculately handled!

[@dziooooo]

I am very lucky that my TTRPG group that's interested in Ironsworn is almost 100% game masters. So for us co-op is the natural way to play and everyone is very comfortable jumping between in-character player stance and out-of-character worldbuilder/narrator stance. I think this might be the biggest hurdle for new players.

[@errantadventurespod]

I would agree. My co-op Ironsworn partner is the other GM in our group, and we very naturally trade narrative control back and forth.

[@thebadspot]

I think this speaks to a wider point that there needs to be an erosion of the line between GM and player. We just want tables of rad people who like to tell stories who have immaculate vibes.

[@dziooooo]

@@thebadspot that sounds like a mission statement I can fully agree with.

[@thebadspot]

I’ll get T-shirts made

[@TroyBanks]

I have been inspired by you and others to restart my KZbin channel and rebrand it for solo gaming and food. I am calling it the The Chef's Gaming Table. I will solo game and make food. I thinking about playing Colostle or Apocalypse Frame. Thank you for all your great work and inspiration.

[@thebadspot]

That’s so cool! I thought I had the chef/solo gaming niche cornered, but turns out maybe not. Let us know when you’re up and running!

[@TroyBanks]

@thebadspot I didn't know you were a chef as well. I am in the figuring out stage right now. Hopefully shoot first episode mid January

[@thebadspot]

I used to be! I used to work in an upscale bakery and I was everything over the decade I worked there. Baker, pastry chef and for 3 years, chef. Ended up running the place, before I tapped out for a quiet life.

[@TroyBanks]

@thebadspot I work at an early education center. #Feedingthelittles. Low stress. No nights no weekends. And peesonal Chef on the side.

[@thebadspot]

@@TroyBanks Nice!

[@dranorter]

Oh man, I'm sure I've made one of those crazy homebrew posts, and have absolutely thought about writing others. The thing is, complexity doesn't matter so much if it's for yourself. And then you post it either because you're so fond of what you came up with, or because you're basically showing off how complex it got.

[@errantadventurespod]

And I think there's nothing wrong with that! Post away! But then again, I'm not the inflamatory one on the show... 😋

[@thebadspot]

If I ever posted the homebrew things I have done, people would be like "why the hell did you do that, what is wrong with you..."

[@thebadspot]

🔥

[@kainnes]

Really interesting chat. Thanks for making content like this 🔥 I could be listening you guys talking for 3 more hours straight 😂

[@errantadventurespod]

Good lord, can you imagine? Thanks for listening!

[@thebadspot]

That's too many hours, but thank you!

[@MarkLittle-rq2bq]

One thing I've found is that it's a good idea to envision what kind of scale and scope your character is readily able to deal with. It would be logical to assume that if you are playing a wizard of some sort, that deciphering some mystic runes wouldn't be challenging for them. You could opt for an automatic weak hit and take a reduction in momentum as your character ponders what they've found and continue from there without resorting to a roll. The same goes for conflict, if you're playing a superpowered juggernaut and you're accosted by a bunch of thugs, it would be reasonable to assume that the thugs would do nothing more than momentarily delay you as you wipe the floor with them (again, taking an automatic weak hit with a loss of momentum). It's up to you to decide how you want to pay for the automatic weak hit...you could become doubtful of you task (-1 spirit), you could need additional resources to perform the task (-1 supply), or anything else you can think of that would be reasonable to suffer in a narrative sense. Instances such as these probably wouldn't cause harm, but even a pack of thugs can get lucky. I use this as a means to expediate the journey, especially when rolling for everything would just bog things down, or risks generating a tangent that wouldn't make narrative sense (like returning to a place of refuge, only to be beaten and cast out for no explicable reason). Sure, rolling for everything infers a sense of uncertainty...but not EVERYTHING is uncertain.

[@errantadventurespod]

This is a great way to noodle with the system, and I think Ironsworn handles that sort of homebrew tweaking very well!

[@thebadspot]

That seems like a fun way to navigate the game!

[@MarkLittle-rq2bq]

Thanks guys, I guess the trigger for this kind of auto-hit ruling is that it must be something that your character wouldn't normally fail at and doesn't necessarily always apply. Rogues are known for their capacity to pick locks, so if they're alone with ample time to perform a task - no real reason to roll, just pay for the auto-hit and narrate what goes on from there. Now, if the same rogue is in an intense combat scenario where he's trying to pick the lock to the door that leads to the exit of the death trap the party finds themselves in? Oh yeah, that's gonna require a roll because there's so many ways things could go wrong.

[@DJH47]

I also ran something between guided and co-op. The hardest part was switching hats and managing play styles. Did get through a Formidable vow in one two-hour session.

[@thebadspot]

Nice! I think this will be a quite common reaction.

[@errantadventurespod]

Bravo! that's great!

[@scrapperlock9437]

I have not played Ironsworn or Starforged in a long time... but the one piece of advice you gave that I wish I had heard back when I was playing it is setting the difficulty of a thing (Journey, Vow, etc.) based on how excited you are to do it, how much you want to do it, etc. I usually chose it based on how hard I thought it would be in-character. Sometimes I wonder if Shawn shouldn't have named them differently... instead of troublesome, difficult, formidable... name them something like, "Very quick," "Quick," "Medium Length," "Long", and "Marathon" or something.

[@thebadspot]

I think its a good way to think about things and personally I don't set a difficulty for things that I am not excited to see happen. So many times I think it is worth doing a thing in game and then when I think about what the beats of that actually are, I just make it happen if those beats don't excite me.

[@dranorter]

Absolutely my main advice would be to play GMless with just 1 other person, maybe even share 1 player character and just figure out together what you want them to do.

[@dranorter]

(That is, if you're wanting to get back into Ironsworn)

[@e4224]

100% agree on setting ranks based on interest, not "difficulty". Well, you _could_ set something to Formidable and roll at 4 boxes to reflect its difficulty - but I doubt that is what most people want ;). And even if you don't publish APs, you are creating a "show" for yourself!

[@thebadspot]

@e4224 that’s very true!

[@salagoon]

I tried playing Ironsworn three times so far. I'm really excited about the idea of it. I make my char, I set the scene, I figure out what I want to do and then somehow I just can't force myself to play it. Would definitely love to play with someone who knows the game first.

[@thebadspot]

Myself and Steve can be hired for this purpose but it is one million dollars per session.

[@salagoon]

@@thebadspot Probably well worth every penny

[@dziooooo]

​@@thebadspot There's a massive lottery jackpot in my country today. If I won, I'd have an opportunity to do the funniest thing.

[@dziooooo]

I would like to report that some German person won the lottery, so "the most expensive TTRPG session" plan is not moving forward, unfortunately.

[@dranorter]

Playing with one other person is really good for 'forcing yourself' to play. Another person will react to your cool ideas and see things in them that you didn't. Personally I like just sharing one character, more like co-GMs than co-players.

[@billn5866]

After I watched and played a lot of solo RPGs, I tried adding a lot of the collaborative tools I learned and loved from solo play... and found out all my players just don't want to put forth that much effort. :(

[@thebadspot]

Ahh, that sucks. Fair play for trying though.

[@stochasticagency]

It seems as if some of what you are bringing up is related to "The Curse of Knowledge" (26:23).

[@thebadspot]

I knew I was cursed. Never knew it was by knowledge…

[@dziooooo]

The Curse of Knowledge - you are cursed, and you have no knowledge about how it happened or how to get rid of it.

[@stevenisonline]

Really insightful, thank you for the podcast! Your discussion made me feel more confident about trying this with new players and now I have some hope we can break out of the standard paradigm! (GM vs players)

[@errantadventurespod]

Yay, I'm glad! Thanks for listening!

[@thebadspot]

Thanks for listening!

[@e4224]

That combat is often very structured in RPGs might also be related to a "fairness" reason (aside from the roots in wargaming to start with). You don't want a PC to die on a "whim of the GM". It is a high stakes situation, and in traditional RPGs the stakes are most often "death" and usually not "an interesting turn in the story". In more narratively oriented RPGs that's usually different (or "death" as just another "interesting turn in the story"), so they can play it more loosely.

[@thebadspot]

Also very true.

[@dziooooo]

Yeah, I was going to say the same thing - people feel like choosing their own consequences is "cheating" unless they pick something very harsh. And if someone else is doing it, they can feel like decisions are arbitrary if they are not strictly codified in rules. The answer is - as usual in TTRPG conflict situations - trust and communication. If you play with people you trust, if you feel you can trust your own instincts, if you know everyone cares about the whole group enjoying the game - this is a non-issue.

[@Eynowd]

Ironsworn Scene Challenges: P234-235. :)

[@errantadventurespod]

@thebadspot ☝See, you were right.

[@Eynowd]

@@errantadventurespod I took Matt's comment as an invitation :)

[@thebadspot]

I always said Scene Challenges were in Ironsworn and no one can prove otherwise

[@errantadventurespod]

@@Eynowd i applaud you. I only wish I'd gotten here first!