Intro
Is the Draw Steel podcast universe going to implode? This episode, I have The Dice Society on! I really have to give him credit for taking so many of the questions without any preparation or warning, and I think he pulled it off really well. We had a great time talking and I hope you do as well when listening.
I'm Jon de Nor and this is Goblin Points.
Interview
Jon: Welcome to Goblin Points, The Dice Society.
Caio: Hello Jon. Thanks for inviting me.
Jon: It's my great pleasure. Tell us a bit about yourself and how you ended up in the MCDM/Matt Colville community.
Caio: My real name is Caio. I'm from Brazil. I joined the MCDM community in the beginning of the pandemic. I played RPGs when I was a kid, but just very short bursts of time, and during the pandemic we were stuck at home and I wanted to find something to do and I had some friends who played RPGs. A friend of my girlfriend invited us to play with him then. I was like, 'Oh, this is really cool. I should go back to doing this.' So I invited some friends, we started playing and one of them recommended the Matt Colville YouTube channel.
Jon: Oh.
Caio: And I couldn't stop watching it. I couldn't. I loved the advice, I loved the personality, everything about the videos. I like his style very much; just him talking straight to the camera, the straight dope. And that's basically how it happened. Then the OGL happened with D&D and they announced they were doing something so that's when I joined the Discord and started watching Matt's Twitch streams. I was getting deeper and deeper into the community at that point.
Jon: As a podcaster myself and an early, recent entry too, I was wondering, almost as a professional thing, what made you want to start a podcast? What made you want to start a podcast?
Caio: I have this thing, right.
Jon: Okay.
Caio: I was talking to my dad the other day. I was eight years old and I asked him to make me a blog, because I wanted to write stories. About planets and stuff? I don't really remember what it was about. Just some random stuff. I think I was eight or 10 maybe. And as long as I remember I wanted to share the stuff I was learning about, the stuff I was passionate about. So, I made a couple of blogs before about technology, I wanted to talk about tech. I made a YouTube channel when I was in high school with a friend of mine; it didn't last long. None of these things lasted more than a coupla months. It was just something I wanted to get out. But I tried to write books. When I was 14, I wanted to write my Lord of the Rings.
Jon: Okay, yeah.
Caio: It got to 100 pages and it sucked.
Jon: Wow.
Caio: Yeah, I wrote a lot. It wasn't good, but I did, right. And once I got into college I started writing about programming. I still have that blog; it's my longest lasting effort of sharing stuff with the web. When I started playing RPGs it was like, 'I have to talk about this. I have to do something about this,' because I liked the hobby so much once I started playing. I was like, 'This is amazing. This is so fun. More people should know about this.' So, I made a little blog. Because I'm a programmer I know a bit about statistics, so I started writing a little bit about probability of dice and some bad D&D homebrew. But once Draw Steel started, the MCDM RPG, back in the day, they started making it, I was like, 'This is the thing. No one knows this. I have to share what I...'
Jon: Right.
Caio: Because I was watching Matt's streams anyway. I was just watching them because I liked it. I was like, 'I could do something. I could just share what I'm learning in a more compact format so other people learn about it.' And I had a couple of podcasts before, three or five episodes each, about political science, which I was studying back in the day during college. Again, it didn't last long. It was just something I had to get off my chest. I was so excited, I need to talk about this. But with Draw Steel, I was like, 'Is anyone doing a podcast about this?' And I learned about Goblin Points, right. And I was like, 'Someone already did that. It's gone. Okay, they're doing it.' But I couldn't get myself to not do it, so to speak.
Jon: Hey, the more the merrier.
Caio: Yeah, right? Because I saw your podcast and it's really good. I love Goblin Points. I listen to every single episode, right.
Jon: Oh, wow.
Caio: I just heard your Dojikaan interview yesterday. Oh, no, the day before yesterday. I really enjoy your style, I really enjoy your humour and the interviews are awesome. And I was like, 'Maybe I can do something a little different. Maybe I can focus more on development, maybe my experience, maybe...' I couldn't bring myself not to do it so I just did it. And I'm still doing it. I couldn't stop. So, here we are.
Jon: I remember when I started Goblin Points, I just remember hanging out on the Discord and seeing the same questions come up again and again, or the questions that I know the answers to, because I too watch the streams. I often have them on in the background while I work instead of a radio or something, I'll just have a stream going in the background. And I felt I just need to collect all this somewhere. My first thought was just a blog, but no one reads blogs anymore, I think.
Caio: No one reads blogs.
Jon: Or at least that's my impression.
Caio: No one does.
Jon: And then I thought I could do videos, but I've dabbled in videos on YouTube before and I know they can be a lot of work. So podcasts; it's the in between. So, I ended up doing audio. It was strange when you came on to the scene right after, it almost felt like, 'Wow, that was...' What's it called? Serendipitous? Where it feels like the thing where a thing is invented at the same time in completely different locations. So, it validated my case where I think this is about the right time for something like this to show up. And you validated my case, I felt.
Caio: Oh, awesome. I'm glad I helped in some way.
Jon: I've been reading a bit of thedicesociety.com. It started quite a way before, didn't it? In 2013? No, 2023, I mean.
Caio: 2023, yeah.
Jon: Yeah, but that started out as a 5E thing, right?
Caio: Yeah, I was writing about the stuff I liked at the time. I was playing 5E every week, twice a week at that point.
Jon: Wow, okay.
Caio: Yeah. For two or three years I was playing twice a week. I was DM'ing one session a week and my friend was DM'ing the other.
Jon: Okay, yeah.
Caio: And it was the same group of people, but two sessions a week. And I had so much stuff I was learning, so much stuff I wanted to talk about, that I just had to put it somewhere. As you said, no one reads blogs, so that's why I made a blog. No one's gonna read this, I can share it and no one's gonna do anything with it. Right when the OGL started and then One D&D was a little before, I wrote an article about One D&D, about the druid I think, and I was like, 'This community doesn't...' I don't know, something was off about the D&D community. If you go on D&D Reddit, people don't seem to like D&D. It seems like Stockholm syndrome. 'I have to play D&D, because there's no other system.'
Caio: Maybe the system's not perfect. Because I was playing it so much, the cracks started showing. Some stuff I didn't personally like. It wasn't working 100% for my group or for my style; not that the game is bad or anything. And yeah, that's when Draw Steel happened. When I heard the pitch, I was like, 'This is what I want.' And if I'm gonna do something about Draw Steel, I think I want people to actually read what I'm saying. Not just my D&D things I'm just sharing, putting up there and they exist. So, I was like, 'Yeah, I think I'm gonna do a podcast'. Because YouTube is really hard. Putting your face out there is really hard. And audio seemed like the best choice for me at the time. And I listen to a lot of podcasts, all the time. So, I'm used to the medium. So, I was like, 'Yeah, this is the moment. And it's in the beginning so I can talk about the development and once the game is out maybe I can do something like tips or other type of content. Maybe some other stuff.' I'm considering going more into the YouTube space.
Jon: Ditto.
Caio: Maybe showing my face a little bit, see what happens. So, that's why the podcast happened.
Jon: You mentioned when they started talking about Draw Steel, it sounded like the thing you wanted. Or rather, I should front my case, which is I think it is, and I agree with Colville here, that saying what the game is about and having a very strong opinion about what the game is about and the vibe of the whole game, I guess, I think that's really good strength and going off of some of the interactions that I've seen in the Discord, it feels a bit off putting to some people that when they come into the Discord and people are like, 'It sounds like this is not the game for you'. And they retort with, 'But I paid money for this'. And I know that both James and Matt and I think Geoff, the General Manager, have said multiple times, 'If you regret your purchase, we'll happily refund you'.
Caio: Yeah, they'll give your money back.
Jon: Yeah, and it looks like it is a different thing for a lot of people that this game knows what it's about and it's not afraid to say it, and it's not afraid to acknowledge that this might not be the game for you, to the extent that it even mentions that in the rules. 'Here are some other games if you like these kind of things instead.' Do you think that's a good thing or do you think that will be, as I've seen some say in the Discord at least, that it might turn big groups of people off from the game.
Caio: So, yeah, this is a tough question.
Jon: I'm putting you on the spot here.
Caio: No, it's awesome. Because I think this is the right path. I think we as a society, if I can say that, we as a society are not used to this kind of publicity. And this is based on nothing, voices in my head, no statistical accuracy. But I feel like most products, they want to advertise themselves as being perfect for everyone and useful everywhere. Except for luxury brands where the whole point is being exclusive. If you're buying a car and you ask, 'What car here's for me?' 'Any car works. If you want that it has that, if you want that it has that. That one's a little expensive, but you're gonna enjoy the extras.' Marketing is trying to make your product appeal to as most people as possible. So, we're not used to when someone comes and says, 'Maybe this product is not for you'. I think we're not used to this. Someone saying to us, 'I know you bought it. You can ask for your money back, because you're not gonna like it.' So, I think this is a strength, because the biggest competitor, I mean competitor, the biggest TTRPG advertises itself as being the one game for everything. 'You can play-
Jon: One stop shop.
Caio: One stop shop. You can play in the future, you can play in real earth, you can play low magic, you can play high magic, you can play...' Can you really? At some point you're gonna hack the system so much that it's not the same game. And if you don't like what you get, are you gonna blame the game? So, if Draw Steel comes out and, 'This is your one stop shop, this is the system for everyone. You can play whatever you like.' People try it and it doesn't really work for their use case, you're gonna get people talking trash about your system. And you don't want that if you're a new system, I think. I personally think, if you want your product to grow, you don't want a huge backlash from half the customers complaining that the game isn't serving their particular fantasy of TTRPG.
Jon: Right.
Caio: So, I think this is the way to go. If it's gonna turn off a lot of people... I think it is. I think it already turned off a lot of people. And I think it's gonna turn off more people. However, as they usually say, they don't have to appeal to everyone. They just need a steady userbase that is big enough for the system to pay for itself. You don't need infinite growth in everything.
Jon: Absolutely.
Caio: So, I think this approach is the wisest even if it turns some people off. That's my impression at least.
Jon: Yeah, I think it is better to turn them off now before they've invested too much in the system-
Caio: Exactly, yeah.
Jon: ... and when it's pretty easy to just say, 'You know what, you can just let us know and we'll give you your money back'. Instead of doing this two or three years down the road when they become bitter and-
Caio: Exactly.
Jon: ... really have a deep disdain for the system.
Caio: Yeah, because the person is invested, the person paid a lot of money, because these things are expensive. Me, coming from the global south, I know how expensive these things can get.
Jon: Yeah, I'm sure.
Caio: Paying in dollars in this economy? I'm serious. But even if you are American, it's expensive. You're buying two very big books.
Jon: Yeah.
Caio: So, if you're invested and then, 'They said this was for everyone, but this doesn't work. They're lying.' And once you get to that point, 'They were lying to me,' now it becomes personal. The person's going to complain on the web, the person's going to make mean comments. You don't want that. You don't want dissatisfied customers. So, I think their strategy, at least right now, I think it's the best strategy they could do right now.
Jon: Matt has already talked about, at least in streams, about what are we wanna do next. He talked about doing dungeon crawlers. James is off designing his own games on the side and I think Matt mentioned once that James is both free to do that if he wants to, but Matt hopes that MCDM would be the first place he would go when they wanna think seriously about production on such a product. And if MCDM is not right that's fine, but it sounds very much like Matt wants MCDM to have, instead of having the one TTRPG like Wizards of the Coast has, more like, 'Okay, we have five bespoke games'. It might be TTRPGs, it might be dungeon crawler board games like Derelict, but they are very specific experiences that are very distinct from each other instead of having this universal system that's supposed to carry everything.
Caio: Exactly. I'm not a business expert. Because I know D&D tried it before, they had the basic and the expert and the advanced.
Jon: Oh, yeah.
Caio: They had multiple systems. And TSR, I think, did sci-fi and other systems. And then, again I'm not an expert in business or in D&D history, but they stopped doing that. Is it because they wanted to create a big juggernaut? Is it because they think that one game can fit every table? I'm not sure, but from my personal experience it can't. I'd rather have five games that serve exactly the style of game I want to play at that night than having one big system that I have to hack into oblivion in order to play horror. Because how can you play a horror game if you have Augury, Speak with Dead and that kind of stuff. You have to bend so many spells. You get it.
Jon: At some point it almost feels like Wizards of the Coast learned the lesson that it's bad to have multiple system, it's easier to just port the one. But I remember talking to Ashley who's somewhat known on the Discord server. She's the one who's into fairies.
Caio: Yeah, I know, I know.
Jon: She mentioned that she didn't really like playing other D&D'esque systems, offshoots from D&D, because she also has stuff that she doesn't like in D&D, but playing a different system that's just an offshoot from D&D is just they made their own homebrew version, here are their rules, but they've fixed all the rules the wrong ways. So, she's just ended up with a new system with all the wrong fixes. So, she might as well just play D&D and fix that system in the right way for her game. I'm on very thin ice here so I shouldn't say anything for certain.
Caio: No one's listening, it's fine.
Jon: But I'm just thinking with Paizo, they have Pathfinder and they've got Starfinder. I've read Pathfinder two and I haven't read Starfinder, so I can't say, but it sounds very much like they are very much the same base system with some tweaks to either go fantasy or sci-fi. It's telling that they haven't expanded it more than that, to me it feels like, because that just means they've tried two and it sounds like that's enough for that size... They're one of the bigger ones and they limit themselves to two, and I think that's because if you even made a third one that's just, I don't know, set in the modern day I think people would just say, 'This is just Starfinder, but without space ships'. Or something.
Caio: Yeah. And if you take Free League, they have so many systems.
Jon: Oh, yeah.
Caio: Yeah, like Symbaroum. I'm playing a Symbaroum campaign right now once a month. It's the fifth edition conversion from Symbaroum, by the way.
Jon: Okay.
Caio: That's besides the point. But they have Symbaroum, One Ring, Coriolis, Dragonbane. So many systems. I can't even think of them all. Those are very different strategies and, honestly, I don't know why people don't make more specific games. I think that it's because it fractures the community.
Jon: Sure.
Caio: I've heard someone describe fifth edition as like a lingua franca of the TTRPG community. You don't know what specific systems someone plays, but you can be almost sure they know fifth edition. So, if you tell them to roll a 20 sided die, add a modifier and beat a DC, it just works because the person already knows how it works. And maybe that's why. You want to keep one mechanic in their brain and then everyone can talk to each other about systems. The problem is, as Matt says, people aren't playing the same game. But the fact that the title was the same makes them think they're playing the same game. I think this kind of strategy fractures the community because, 'I'm a D&D player, you're a D&D player, but you're playing it wrong. You're playing it in a different way.' Going back to the MCDM community, getting off the thin ice; we're talking about other systems here.
Jon: Good idea.
Caio: I read The Elusive Shift after Matt started talking about it and it's so illuminating. Oh, my God. People were talking about the same stuff we talk about today, way back in the 70s. It's crazy, it's crazy. They were talking, 'Oh, no, this isn't a system, this is a framework. You shouldn't play like this, you should play like that.' And it creates so many divisions in the community, so many animosity between different players. If they just had two different games, would they be fighting each other about how to properly play the game if they were playing two actually different games with different titles? And at the same time, would the games spread as far? The author, Jon Peterson, talks a little bit about the... Maybe not in this book, maybe in another book, I forget, but about the Satanic Panic and how much it influenced D&Ds growth, because once you say people who do this are satanists, teens are gonna wanna do it. So, the game grew so much. It's like a Streisand effect. The game grew so much. And if there were more systems (more diverse and at the same time popular systems, because there were more systems but they were niche) would they have spread out as far? I don't know.
Jon: That's an interesting question. 85 Caio: Yeah, I don't know.
Jon: That's really interesting.
Caio: I look forward to the comments. I'm really excited to see what people think, if we're talking, if we're not.
Jon: Listener, get in the comments. Go to Spotify.
Caio: Yeah, get in the comments. Exactly.
Jon: Kind of switching tact. I haven't prepared you for any of these questions, so good on you for taking them.
Caio: I mean, if you make up every answer, you're ready for everything.
Jon: I've asked this about some of my previous guests and I'm really curious about your, I would assume you have some thoughts about this, which is the, let's call it the moderation of the, and I'm especially thinking of the Discord server, but to some degree also of the Reddit. I'm most familiar with the Discord server, so that's where I'm coming from with this. But I'm curious what you think about the, let's call it active moderation that they have. The active moderation policy, where the moderators are very active and very active in shutting down certain kinds of discussions to, I would say, some people's chagrin basically. They feel a bit indignant when the mods suddenly just fly in and say stop this or you're out, basically. Do you think that kind of moderation... Basically, is it a good or a bad for the community? Is it off putting to new members when they come in and might get shut down immediately by one of the moderators telling them you're doing this community wrong?
Caio: Well, that's a... So, after my five years of free speech debate in philosophy. No. No, because this is a little bit about free speech I think.
Jon: Sure.
Caio: About philosophy.
Jon: I know this is a tough question.
Caio: No, it is, but I have opinions. I am just tryna organise them.
Jon: Sure.
Caio: In my head. One of the things that everyone says once they come into contact with the MCDM community is how positive and how nice everyone is.
Jon: Yeah.
Caio: People notice that. People feel welcomed. People feel like they have a safe space to talk about the games they like. This is noticeable. The Twitch chat is really healthy compared to other creators.
Jon: Oh, yes.
Caio: The comments are really, really healthy. I don't know if healthy is the right word, but I think you get it. It does come with side effects. And are they worth it? I think they are, mostly, because you shut down dissent. If you come in, 'I don't like this game,' people are gonna shut you down; they're gonna kick you out. They're gonna give you your money back and they're gonna kick you out. And that's complicated. I think Matt and James, Lord_Durok, said this already: You have the whole internet to talk about what you want. You can go into the r/RPG, r/TTRPG, you have so many subreddits, so many blogs, so many forums, so many Discord communities. You can say whatever you want. You don't have to like the game, you can talk trash about the game, about anything MCDM related. They're not taking away your free speech, I think, by moderating so heavily. And the fact that their community is like, 'If you don't like the game, you don't have to,' if you don't like Draw Steel, for instance. I think we sometimes have this impulse like, 'I need to talk about this'. I do. I made the blog, I made the podcast. But sometimes people want to dissuade other people. You just have to see the D&D subreddit: People are talking trash about D&D all the time, trying to dissuade people from playing D&D, plugging Pathfinder, Shadowdark, any other system. And it's like, I get it, you don't like the system, but do you have to come to the moderated community and try to dissuade other people from playing the game they like? I think that crosses a line. It's not necessarily bad, but I think they're in their right to moderate this kind of stuff. I've gotten shut down by a mod once. I was basically giving design suggestions, I think. I think that's what it amounted to. And at the time I was like, 'Come on, it wasn't that bad. It wasn't a big idea. I just wanted to...' But I think it's a net positive. The community is really impressive. It's really impressive to me, given its size, how nice the conversations are. In practice I feel like it's worth it. I feel like it's a net positive, because I've seen other unmoderated communities and I know what happens. This is my unfiltered opinion based on my own personal experiences and no experience in philosophy or free speech or that kind of stuff. Or even community management.
Jon: It feels like we're very much come down on the same side of this. I'm a software developer by trade and by hobby, I guess, and I've seen open source communities with a lot of volunteers basically rot from the inside from bad moderation-
Caio: Yeah.
Jon: ... because I think there is a false believe that you should allow... I don't know if this translates to English, but I always say there is no requirement on you to allow free speech in your own living room.
Caio: Yeah.
Jon: Basically. If you invite people into your home and they start saying stuff you don't like-
Caio: Exactly.
Jon: ... there is no obligation and no one would lift an eyebrow when you throw them out again.
Caio: Yeah. In the internet, right-
Jon: And I think it's weird that we didn't transfer that onto the internet. I understand why, but I think it's weird that people still get so hung up when people say, 'You know what, this is our space and if you wanna come in here and ruin our vibe we don't want you here'. And people get upset about that as if that's-
Caio: Yeah, I know.
Jon: ... something new. That's something we've done for as long as we-
Caio: Forever.
Jon: Yeah.
Caio: Yeah. I know. And it's a spectrum, I think. I don't think you can give a perfect recipe like, 'On these occasions you should moderate, on those occasions you shouldn't'. At least in my country, anyone can propose a new law and if you get enough signatures, and blah, blah, the process, they have to think about it, someone has to think about it at some point. Should you shut down a person? That's a different question. That's about democracy and representativeness, right.
Jon: Right.
Caio: In a software developer, like Stack Overflow-
Jon: Yeah.
Caio: ... , moderation, it's fine. If you're gonna get a Github repo about something as important as, I don't know, Linux and you start talking... not talking trash, but just complaining about something and giving suggestions, should you moderate that? Because Linux is really important. It's like infrastructure for the world.
Jon: Yeah, basically.
Caio: So, you can't compare a TTRPG community with a few thousand people with other situations like very big, important projects, public infrastructure, all that stuff. So, I think sometimes we apply the same rules to very different situations-
Jon: Sure. That's true.
Caio: ... because they look similar. So, these are forums on the internet. 'Why is someone banning me from here?' Because it's not the same thing, I think. I'm sure everyone who's listening agrees. [laughter] I'm sure there will be no backlash.
Jon: Get in the comments.
Caio: Get in the comments, yeah.
Jon: I have been thinking about this for a little bit, because I know Matt really heavily moderates his own comment section on YouTube, which I get the impression is pretty rare. From how I've heard other YouTubers talk about their own comment section, the few times that they do, it's mostly as a... To me it sounds like it's a different thing than their YouTube channel, because they talk about it as if it's some kind of beast that's just attached to their thing that they have no control over.
Caio: Yeah. No, I know. I've heard people talk about this. 'Oh, don't ever read the comments.' I'm like, 'It's the people watching your video down there'.
Jon: Yeah. I see some big YouTubers they have dedicated people that go through their comments for them and I get that, because it can get really personal and really weird very quickly.
Caio: Yeah.
Jon: So, fair enough. But I've also heard fairly, million plus subscriber YouTubers say that no, they never look at their comments. Ever.
Caio: Yeah.
Jon: And they have no one-
Caio: Right.
Jon: They have no one looking through their comments.
Caio: Exactly.
Jon: And I'm like, 'Why would you allow this to go on in your own backyard?'
Caio: Yeah, I think I was asking on a Twitch stream about YouTube and stuff. I don't remember if it was me actually, but it was some similar situation. He was like, in the beginning you think you shouldn't ban anyone, you shouldn't moderate your chat heavily, because you're losing a customer.
Jon: Yeah.
Caio: You have three people watching your videos and you ban one of them. It feels really bad, but at the same time it got me thinking. That wasn't a customer. If the person was watching a video just to talk trash in the comments, what's that person doing to the channel, to the other people in the comments? Are they going to recommend the channel to their friends? No. Are they going to engage with the content? Probably not. So, I don't ban anyone. I don't think I have ever banned anyone from the comments on the YouTube channel, but I have deleted comments. Someone, I don't remember specifically, but it was like, 'Such a long video to say basically anything'. If you didn't like it, it's fine. But is that engaging? Are you engaging with the community? The content's not harmful; you just didn't like the format. So, I deleted the comment after Matt recommended this kind of active moderation.
Jon: I'll be honest, I haven't come across this problem or dilemma yet whether or not I should allow a comment. I think I read one that was kind of, but they gave it a second thought about it and thought, 'Ah no, it's not. It's just me. I need something to eat.' But I've been thinking about it, if it should ever come up, to be a bit prepared, where do I think I would draw the line. So that when I actually come to a situation where I have to debate, 'Should I delete something? Should I ban someone?' I want to at least have an opinion or at least have imagined where I would put the line to have something to measure against, to see, okay, I thought my line was here but actually when we get to the bridge and start crossing it, I realise my line might be somewhere else, but at least I thought about it before now. I'm just trying to get prepared. I assume you know who Pirate Software is. He's a Twitch streamer and somewhat of a YouTuber. It's mostly just-
Caio: Pirate Software? I'm not sure.
Jon: Yeah, he has a lot of small insights that he shares on YouTube from his Twitch streams-
Caio: Oh, cool.
Jon: ... and one of those are, 'If you've got people...' He talks about Twitch streams specifically, because that's his main thing. If you've got people in there that are bad viewers, it's better to kick them out and not have them become a barrier for others to come into the community.
Caio: Exactly. Yeah.
Jon: And I think that's really, really hard to grapple with when, as you said, when it's your first three and that one jerk shows up and it's like, 'Come on! I'm just trying to get something going here.' When you get that one, it starts rotting from the inside basically. And people who are coming into the community, I think they very quickly notice when something's off and the problem is on Discord you see the welcome message they get in the general chat or whatever, 'Welcome blah blah blah to the server,' but you never see them leave again, but they will just immediately leave and you'll never notice that they were there. And if it comes to a YouTube channel, they'll never leave a comment, they'll never watch another video, you'll never know that they bounced off, because of some-
Caio: Exactly.
Jon: ... bad stuff they saw. Those people never announce that they were potential members of your community that-
Caio: Exactly.
Jon: ... bounced off, because of some of the stuff they saw. So, I always think-
Caio: Yeah, you see your blocks but you don't see the people you miss if you don't.
Jon: Yeah, exactly. So, you got that one bad person and it feels bad kicking them out, but you don't see all the other ones that are turned off by that one person either. So, yeah.
Caio: Yeah.
Jon: This is interesting. We started off talking about MCDM and then we've looped back to it.
Caio: In a weird way we did arrive back, yeah.
Jon: It suddenly turned into a chat about communities.
Caio: Yes.
Jon: That's my fault. I think it was on my mind recently.
Caio: No, it's...
Jon: I get the impression that we might have thought about some of the same stuff because of-
Caio: Yeah, exactly.
Jon: I was doing some of the same things. You mentioned that you have been looking at doing more stuff on YouTube.
Caio: Yeah.
Jon: Have you had any specific thoughts? Or rather, do you have any thoughts around that that you're willing to share?
Caio: Mmm. Some exclusive content, yes.
Jon: I'm not trying to steal your ideas or anything.
Caio: No, it's fine.
Jon: I promise.
Caio: It's fine.
Jon: No, it's just that I've been thinking the same things myself, because I feel the reach of a audio-only podcast is limited.
Caio: Yes.
Jon: And I feel, at least for me, YouTube is the next... I'm not on TikTok; I'm too old.
Caio: Yes. Yes, I feel my bones. Every time I open that app I feel so old.
Jon: I remember when we switched millennia. So, I'm too old for TikTok so YouTube feels like, okay, that's where I can grow this to something bigger if I wanted to. I feel the barrier to actually doing videos... I want to do them somewhat regularly. I don't want to be bound to a weekly thing; that's not feasible at all to me.
Caio: That's a crime.
Jon: But once a month maybe, for example. Could I possibly do that? But I feel like the barrier is really high to actually produce something that I would be happy with. I'm asking for myself mostly here, I think. What are you thinking about doing more YouTube stuff or doing more video orientated, I guess.
Caio: So, yeah, I agree. And again, we're quoting Matt a lot. It's no surprise, right-
Jon: Go figure!
Caio: ... from watching so many Twitch streams.
Jon: Yeah.
Caio: He says you develop taste before you develop actual tropes.
Jon: Sure, yes.
Caio: I watch a lot of YouTube also. Again MCDM and that kind of stuff, but also some math YouTubers and some science YouTubers and linguistics and all that stuff I enjoy. You can see that content is so well done. How am I going to do something like this? I can't use a camera. I don't know the settings. I don't know anything. So, in order to prepare, quote unquote prepare myself, I saw your rebranding, I saw your new logo and new stuff. I really liked it-
Jon: Thank you.
Caio: ... and I was already thinking for the first anniversary of The Dice Society I'm gonna try to change the fonts and the looks and I basically finished the main stuff today.
Jon: Wow.
Caio: Because tomorrow is one year of The Dice Society; as we record this.
Jon: Wow. Congratulations.
Caio: Yeah, thank you. It's on January sixth, I think.
Jon: Interesting date, but go on.
Caio: Interesting day, yes. I did, I mean, I just posted something. I didn't know. Because I thought the font I was using wasn't very readable and the image I was using, those guys throw dice from Renaissance Italy, I thought that's too old school for a channel about Draw Steel. So, I've been doing some stuff with the help of my girlfriend. Once I'm done with this, I thought about doing a character build. Creating a character and recording it on my computer and stuff. I already did a video; once the first backer packet came out, I recorded the table, flipping through the rules and just talking some stuff. But that's not very engaging. So, I thought of doing a character build and maybe a tutorial talking about the changes from the first to the second backer packet. And then-
Jon: People have been asking for that on the Discord; like a changelog between the two versions.
Caio: Yeah. I thought about doing something like that, but December was so busy. I couldn't possibly have written anything. So, I'm thinking about starting a script soon and then, I don't know, just feeling the... Is that an expression? Feeling the water? Do people say that?
Jon: It sounds like an expression.
Caio: It sounds like an expression.
Jon: Yeah.
Caio: I mean, we're both not English native speakers, right.
Jon: Yeah.
Caio: So, yeah. Sounds like an expression.
Jon: It is one now.
Caio: Yeah, it is. Get in the comments. So, just to see how it's like. Just to see, 'What if I show my face? What if I do this? What if I do that?' Once the game is out, actually out, I thought about doing tutorials. How you play this game. What's it about? What are negotiations like? This sort of stuff. And then in the far future, maybe after I've run it a bunch, some tips for Draw Steel. At the moment it's not very solid. I just want to try it out, see if it works. If it doesn't, I'm just gonna stick to the podcast, because I enjoy making it. It doesn't get a lot of listens, especially now that the game isn't out yet. So, yeah, I don't know. We'll have to see. So, that's the bad answer. I don't know. I'm gonna try some stuff.
Jon: Yeah, but I've been watching, at least in the past year, more diligently watching what kind of stuff are people producing for D&D, because that's like a... I don't know if I want to call it a template, but at least that's a big community on YouTube already. What are the channels that have popped up and become popular in the D&D sphere? Should I call someone out? No, I shouldn't mention someone specific.
Caio: Oh.
Jon: Well, people get in the comments then.
Caio: Yes, feed the algorithm. Say someone's name. No, just kidding. But I can probably think of some creators that are big in the YouTube space.
Jon: But, I've been watching someone who's... It feels like they became big somewhat recently and they have a certain style that I don't personally enjoy that much and I was looking at their... Some of their videos are good and other videos are in a different style I don't like that much.
Caio: Okay.
Jon: To put it vaguely. But I've been watching that and I watched that that's what made their channel grow within the D&D sphere. So, I'm thinking should I do the same? But then again, I don't actually like watching this stuff and I-
Caio: Exactly.
Jon: I don't want to make stuff that I don't like watching.
Caio: No, I feel the same way. Matt, again... Who? Matt. Matt talks about doing some controversial topics like talking about stuff he doesn't like about D&D or covering some specific releases like books and stuff. He claims that would have made his channel bigger, but that would have attracted the wrong kind of attention. That's the term he uses. I think those are some wise words. Again, he has a very big and successful D&D channel. Not D&D, but TTRPG in general channel.
Jon: Yeah, yup.
Caio: So, I'm not gonna say it's easy for him to say, but he already had some success doing the stuff he likes. What about smaller channels that have more competition? I think I agree with you anyway. If you're doing stuff you don't like, you're attracting people who are gonna talk about the stuff you don't like. You're not going to be happy making the videos so you're more prone to getting some burn out, to not wanting to record more videos. In the end, is it worth it to? I don't know, I really don't. I feel like I'm coming to a conclusion, but I'm not 100% certain. Should you try to modify your style to something that appeals to more people? I think it's the discussion from the beginning, right. Having one system or having many specific systems.
Jon: I feel I'm walking on almost like a knife's edge, because half of my episodes are basically here are the stuff that I heard or read in the last month, and I feel there's a very fine edge between it being factual and just being, not drama but... Where's the difference between news and rumours and just saying stuff because... I don't know. Because I don't want the podcast to become a drama thing, where people come to my podcast to hear about the, in quotes, insider stuff, or stuff that I heard that are controversial or. I don't want that kind of audience, but when I talk about stuff that I read in the Discord channels, that I hear on the Twitch streams of James and Matt, stuff that I find on other forums on the web, it feels like I'm aggregating this; I'm pulling all these disparate parts together. So, am I just doing the same, but claiming to put a nicer paint on it? I mean.
Caio: I don't think so? I don't think so. Again, I've said 'I don't know' like a hundred times in this episode already and I'm gonna use it the same... We've quoted Matt a hundred times and I'm gonna use the same metaphor again: It's a spectrum, I think. Purely factual stuff like university text book stuff and then YouTube drama channels are on the opposite sides of the spectrum and I feel like aggregating the stuff people are talking about... If you're prefacing it with, 'This is stuff that doesn't have to happen. This is stuff they're talking about. This is stuff from the streams.' I don't see how that can get too much into the drama aspect of it. Maybe that's because I know of some YouTube channels who actually do TTRPG drama. 'Oh no, you won't believe!' Some shocked faces on YouTube. 'D&D is gone for real now!' Seventh time this week, but now it's real. I think that's very different. I think how you approach it is not only quantitively different, but also qualitatively different.
Jon: Okay, yeah.
Caio: It's not just a lesser version of drama. It's not drama. I don't think it is. We could turn this kind of stuff into drama.
Jon: Sure.
Caio: I think you could read all that stuff that you aggregate, that you gather, and turn into, 'You won't believe what MCDM is doing to Draw Steel this week'. I think you could do that. You don't. You're almost at the edge of the drama bubble.
Jon: It feels like that sometimes and I'm afraid that I'm too close to the issue to see when I... I don't know if I'm close to the edge at all, objectively speaking. But it feels like I have to make sure that I always walk on the right side of the thing for my self dignity, basically.
Caio: I mean, yeah. And it's not necessarily bad, right. If you like the drama stuff, people enjoy that kind of stuff. If you like talking about the drama just talk about the drama. You seem to not enjoy that kind of stuff and you're afraid... I'm not a psychologist, but from what you're talking about it seems like you don't enjoy that kind of stuff, but you feel a bit too close for comfort.
Jon: Yeah.
Caio: And if you don't enjoy that kind of stuff, I don't think you run the risk. If you by accident talk about something in a more dramatic way and then you listen back to it and you're like, 'I didn't like the way I talked about this'. Next time you just try to avoid that kind of stuff. I think you're good.
Jon: We're getting close to the end and I always ask my guests to bring a recommendation they want people to check out or be aware of. It might be anything. Might be a book, might be music, a movie, board game, I don't know. So, Caio, The Dice Society, what have you brought?
Caio: So, I brought something I already mentioned in this episode and it's The Elusive Shift by Jon Peterson. You can get it on Kindle, it's on your Amazon app. I really enjoyed the book. Just to put it simply, cut to the chase: I really enjoyed the book. I think if you like TTRPGs, if you like this hobby, not just playing with your friends but you enjoy the hobby, and if you're listening to a podcast about an unreleased game, two YouTubers, two podcasters about an unreleased game, I think you do. I think, you listener, you enjoy learning about TTRPGs. This is a really good book. It talks about the history, the first five or six years of the hobby, specifically about D&D. But it's not just about D&D; it's about the culture of the game and I found it really interesting, really insightful. It really just deconstructed some of my biases. If you're at all in any online community about TTRPGs you've heard about the OSR; old school games, older editions of D&D. And people talk about these as if they are easy to pin point, easy to encapsulate. There is an old school style. And what the book tells you, just summarising a whole book into a few sentences, it tells you there isn't an original style of playing, there isn't even an original game, a first game. There were stuff we would recognise as RPGs before D&D. Some proto RPGs, some maybe actual RPGs. If you played them, you would call them RPGs. It really deconstructs these things we read online and really makes you think. Let's say Critical Role is playing the game in a way that no one ever played before and it corrupts the roots of the hobby. No, people played like that ever since day one. People played tactically since before day one. And heroic fantasy and all that kind of stuff is there from day one. So, you don't have to feel bad if you like playing one way or another. You don't have to think, 'Oh, but this isn't the original or this isn't the oldest or whatever style'. So, this is my recommendation. I think people will get a lot of juice out of this book.
Jon: It's definitely on my reading list. It's probably the next book up after I'm done-
Caio: Awesome.
Jon: ... with the one I'm reading now.
Caio: Okay.
Jon: This has bumped it up.
Caio: Cool.
Jon: So, thank you, The Dice Society, for coming on.
Caio: Thank you so much, Jon.
Jon: It was a real pleasure.
Caio: Same for me. Thank you for having me here. I really enjoy your interviews. Thank you so much for inviting me.
Outro
We really had a great time talking, and I don't think it unlikely The Dice Society will be back on Goblin Points, some time in the future. We could even try to stay on topic. You'll find links to The Dice Society on YouTube and Bluesky in the episode description.
If you want to be featured on Goblin Points, or know of someone else who should be, leave a comment on YouTube or Spotify, or send me an e-mail on [email protected].
Links to the MCDM Discord server, the subreddits for MCDM and Draw Steel, the YouTube channels of Matt and MCDM, the complete link section, and this script is in the show notes. It's also on goblinpoints.com.
Next episode is on the 5th. That'll be the roundup episode for January. See you next time. Snakkes.