Homebrew Collaboration with Rob Van Auken Part 1

<p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Welcome back to How to be a Better DM. I'm one of your hosts today, Justin Lewis, and I'm here with Rob and Tanner Wayland. And I'll let Rob introduce himself in a second, but let me first tell you, the listener, about today's episode. So if you're new here, we are here to help you craft better stories for yourself and your players as you DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons. And today, we're actually gonna dive into the world of homebrew creations. Specifically, we're going to show you kind of the start to finish, hopefully start to finish. We might split this episode up into two episodes, but the start to finish process of creating something, but also the start to finish process of collaborating with someone else in creating something, because being a DM can be somewhat lonely and it's very taxing if it is lonely. So when you team up with other people like Rob, you can make it easier for everyone. But also, it's just fun to connect and be cool with people. So. Rob, if you want to introduce yourself and then we can hop into what we're doing today. Oh, you're</p><p>rob:</p><p>Hello</p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>muted.</p><p>rob:</p><p>there, hi, sorry</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>There</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>about</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>you</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>that.</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>are.</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>You're good.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>My name is Rob Van Auchen, and I write and publish a lot of stuff under DM Robrick. I'm just happy to be here with you guys. I've played with both of you in your one shots, and I'm a frequent listener, and I'm looking forward to this. Should be a lot of fun.</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Yeah, yeah. And listener, if you wanna catch one of Rob's published encounters, you can go to betterdungeonmaster.com slash Robrick and purchase it, it's an awesome encounter called the Lorecraft Collection, did I get that right?</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>That's</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>The Lorecraft,</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>correct.</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>yes, yeah. So go ahead and publish that, all the proceeds go right to Rob, cause he's an awesome DM. But today, like I said, we're going to work on home brewing and We haven't prepared anything specifically to show you, you know, the ups and downs, the ins and outs and the exciting and boring parts of homebrew creation. So I have shared a document with all three of us. First of all, did either of you have any specific ideas on anything you wanted to create together?</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>I'm game for just about anything, but I thought I would put that question right back to you folks. I don't know the scale and scope of what you guys were thinking, but we can go anywhere from, you know, a fun random table to a one-page encounter to a several-page, you know, one-shot kind of adventure in a box kind of thing, if that's what you guys are looking for.</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Sure. Tanner, any specific way you're leaning?</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>Ooh, man, I've been thinking about this as well, because I think, I mean, it'd be cool to do a one-shot, but that is, you know, it takes a good amount of planning.</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Yeah.</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>So. I think we'd come up</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>Nope.</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>with... Oh, go ahead.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>No, no pressure.</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>Yeah,</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>No</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>I</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>pressure.</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>know, right? I'm thinking that maybe we just figure out, like just how, huh, like how long</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>Yeah.</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>we want it to last, and then essentially just go work backwards from there, come up with a</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Sure.</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>cool premise, move</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Sure.</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>from, I don't know,</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>So,</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>that sound good? ["Spring Day"]</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>absolutely, to date, I don't wanna call it my area of expertise, because I'm still fledgling in the field here,</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>but I have created encounters that are circled around the three pillars, right? Exploration, combat, and social. And my goal with each of these encounters is to kind of put a little randomized table that could possibly lead crafty DMs down other avenues to kind of expand the encounter itself. So it's kind of like an encounter in a box with these sort of like little tendrils that allow DMs and players to kind of pick up things and maybe decide, oh, you know what? That was kind of an interesting little tidbit. Maybe I'll follow that idea and</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Excellent.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>let it grow. I don't wanna keep anybody, any DMs in a cage here.</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Yeah, I love that. Let's do an encounter then. What were</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>Yeah,</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>you saying, Tanner?</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>maybe an encounter. What if we just had like, we created like a kind of a little mini one shot with just one of each of those three pillars, you know,</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Got</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>some</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>it.</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>exploration, some combat and some social, and then go from there.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>love it</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Yeah.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>love it</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Yeah.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>love it</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Um, and listener, we probably won't get all to all of this today because creating a one shot can be rather long. So we're probably going to split this episode up. Uh, so, uh, yeah, stay tuned. But first, um, let me just write down, I'll be the, I'll be the notes keeper, I guess, unless one of you is better at it because I'm not super great at giving</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>I'm</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>notes.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>happy to</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Okay.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>help.</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>Nope.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>Happy to help however I can. Ha ha.</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>All right. So homebrew. I wish I could spell home brew creation. shot.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>While you're typing, I'll put this idea to you both here. What is the flavor that you would like to capture? Are we going epic fantasy? Are we going squash buckling pirates? Are we going sort of for frivolous? I had the opportunity, I believe Tanner, you were the dungeon master for, it's kind of like a Halloween, almost like a Halloween theme. We, when we played, we had entered that kind of sort of creepy haunted pumpkin patch.</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Mm-hmm.</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>Mm-hmm.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>and there was a pumpkin headed villain. So, you know, October is coming up. So something like that might be kind of cool, like a campy kind of holiday themed.</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>I like</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>We</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>that.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>can go, I know Spelljammer just came out. We can go, you know, D&amp;D in outer space,</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>No.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>home rune outer space.</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>No, yeah. I like those ideas. I think we should definitely either do Halloween-themed one, Christmas-themed one, because Christmas is also coming up, and or Thanksgiving or a mix of the three. One other thought I did have is because I specifically want this one-shot to be very useful for anyone to play, specifically the introductory DMs. So if we could create a one-shot that And, you know, like Tanner said, it touches on the adventure, the exploration, sorry, not adventure, so the exploration, the combat and the social, and kind of introduces the DM to doing that. I think that would be extremely helpful to our listener. Um, so yeah, that's what that, those are my thoughts.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>and.</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>As far as the actual theme, let's say. I mean, space does sound cool, but I'm gonna,</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Hehehe</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>I'm gonna say maybe later. That might be a later one. I haven't even thought</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Yeah.</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>about space and I would wanna put more time into that. What do you guys think about an academy setting?</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>I like that. I think it's very</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>Okay,</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>reminiscent</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>I'm on board.</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>of Harry Potter, so that would be easy for a lot of people to relate to, in a sense.</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>Yeah, I also think that it provides a lot of opportunities for both social and exploration, and</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>for sure.</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>then of course combat, whether you have it as part of a lesson that goes awry or they're exploring in the middle of the night or who knows what, right? I think it's a very approachable kind of setting.</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Agreed. Cool.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>Yeah, absolutely.</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>So theme,</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>I'm totally on board. Now,</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>or</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>I know.</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>I guess that's the setting.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>Well, I know that you have a homebrew kind of world build that you've been working on, Justin. Is there a location or a place where this academy might be set?</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Yeah, so there is one academy that is currently created. I'm still working on the world itself, but it's called the Brazen Academy. Um, I don't know if it would exactly fit this. So it is essentially an academy specifically created for teaching people how to smelt and mine this material called deep iron, which is, um, it's, it's harder than adamantine. In this world, everything that every magical item that is like plus three is made of this stuff. And this this academy belongs to this nation called the Kula Uwea Confederacy, and they guard it very highly. So once you get in, you can't get out. Like, there's no escape. Like, they'd kill you before they let you out because the secrets of smelting this type of iron is so closely guarded. I don't know if that would be a good location. But if you guys want we could also create a different Academy in the world that is a little bit less intense</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>Well, I'm just thinking if, and this is just me shooting the breeze here, an academy, and you want this to be useful for beginner DMs. So what if the academy was for a school of, I guess, it could be children, it could be anybody who's interested, but a school for would-be adventurers. And like each of the houses is led by your traditional. class types, right? So you've got like the barbarian</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>I like</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>house,</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>that.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>you've got like the clerk house, you've got the wizard house, you know? And so the PCs could join a house with their desire and the purpose of this particular encounter would be to maybe pass the test, whatever the test may be. This way it's replayable, right? So PCs and players could play it over and over again as a different class. It's something that's kind of easy to jump into, that the purpose is kind of... I don't want to like railroad anybody or streamline,</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Exactly.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>but yeah, the tests would be things that we could make randomized tables for, or we could certainly</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>Mm-hmm.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>just insert something. And again, people could play this over and over again. This could be something really cool. A nice, almost like I teach for a living, so I'm always thinking of like, you know, how to bring kids and</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Exactly.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>young people into the</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>Mm-hmm.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>game.</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>No,</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>It sounds</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>that's</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>like</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>exactly...</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>this might be a good way to do that.</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Yeah, I love that</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>Yeah.</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>idea.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>All right,</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>I love that idea,</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>I like</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>especially</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>this.</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>because also, it's kind of meta. It's like, here's the test becoming an adventurer, and if this is played by new players, then it kind of actually is like, now you're an adventurer kind of thing. It's pretty funny. So...</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>Yeah. All right, so then I guess, well, go ahead, please.</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>No, I was just gonna say, so the theme then would be like school test type idea, not necessarily Halloween or Christmas, but I guess you could flavor it that specific way depending on when you play it.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>It is back to school. So it</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>That,</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>does kind of</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>yeah,</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>fit</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>Yeah.</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>that, that makes</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>the</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>sense.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>back to school and summers</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Yeah.</p><p><br /></p><p>rob:</p><p>out back to school.</p><p><br /></p><p>justin_lewis:</p><p>Well.</p><p><br /></p><p>tanner_weyland:</p><p>Yeah, you know, I think there's a couple ways we could do this. Either one allows a lot of randomization or tables, depending on what, you know, DM wants