From BBEG to BFF with Mike Perrone [RPG Horror Story]

0:00 Sometimes talking with friends feels like role playing. Sometimes it feels like comeback, join us at the round table and roll an isha too. This is Curmudgeons and Dragons. Hello adventurers, Welcome cir Curmudgeons and Dragons. My name is Jason Portizo. I'm once again joined in person by mister Jim Crocker. I think you mean Curmudgeons and Dragons Live. He's just gonna keep doing the same joke. It's the same joke. It's the same joke. It hasn't gotten old yet. He'll stop, He'll stop the jokes hasn't gotten old. Hi Jim, Hello across the table. Hello, Comedy Alive, over over Riverside, all the way from England. It is Josie Diaz. This is the first time that if I really annoy you, you can just slap me.

0:56 So I should probably careful. I would, but you're more than like you're more than arms distance away from him, So that's true. It's like a six foot ta I'm not like all for our stuff at you, but that's about it. Also joining us through Riverside, our guest today, Mike Perrone. Mike, how you doing man? I'm okay. How about you we're doing Jess, So we're doing a marathon of recording over here. So your episode four today, So every day, everything you guys are listening to you this month is all recorded in one day. But yeah, do thanks so much for listening. Thanks for thanks to being a part of the show. I think we found each other on the was it the New Jersey and the group? Yes? Correct, I found a lot a bunch of cool people in there is actually where I found that about the Keep in the first place, because Tony was posting a lot about the shop, and uh, I'm like, that's close by to me and I need a new shop. So and again, Jim and I are are live inside the Keep in Brick, New Jersey, the keepoppy dot com. Go support them because they are supporting us by giving us a cool space to record today, Jason, are you saying that you meet people off the internet. Maybe so, Mike a story for us today? I do. I do. Uh. Most of my D and D lately has been on the road the role twenty uh website, so I give a little back context. I got into dn D pretty late.

2:22 Uh, I think kind of back in like twenty I want to see twenty eighteen, like late fall twenty eighteen. So the only edition I know is fifth edition. But i've heard things about like fourth edition now, people like it was designed to bring in new players. Like that's that's not Yeah, that's not anything to be ashamed about. So you've been playing for a number of months equal to the number of years that I've been playing, is is what you're saying? Yeah? Yeah, I mean you still look young. So I don't know how far far away we are with that. He's trying, he's trying to get a second episode out. Let's have him back on the show. Hell yeah, all right, there we go. Please continue. I'm fascinated about your story now, um way to make yourself some disingenuous damn. I mean honestly, just even listening to I think I fairly just started listening to your podcast and you you all had some interesting things that get talked about so well. I I'm I'm thoroughly enjoying. You've got like a hardcore fan. Now I'm deep diving, which which I did some notes too. We're up to two, right, got it? So it's you, you, you and d Tree. It's about it. Yeah, Oh I know, keeps listening so hello, Dtree, it all starts somewhere.

3:38 Yeah, yeah, all right, so let's let's let's get to your story. What you got. Yeah. So, so the story that I kind of went with was one that like kind of stuck out. Uh. It was a Curse of Straw campaign. So I don't know if anybody else has gotten through like finding a game, so like the original way of how I did it during COVID. I was a banker at the time, so like nobody was really going on anybody's homes or anything like that. So I wanted to play it. So a friend suggested using these some of these discord things where they'd post new games or looking for players for dms. So I kind of did that, and then so I kind of got this one person who posted and was curse Astrad. I had no idea about the campaign except that it was more like Dracula style, so he vetted me. We got along really well, uh much like you amazing people. And what ended up happening is that he vetted me. He's like, I would love to have you play, and just if you have any questions, if you need any help character creating, you're more than welcome too. So normally I would play a human, a human. I never knew anything about Humavaria until later on.

4:53 Um so I went along with you played bad human. Yeah yeah, yeah, I didn't even know teams they're so broken. Yeah, I didn't even know what feats were. And then so like I started experimenting, and then with this campaign, I was like, let me, let me just expand and some just playing human. So I one went the Asmar and the next thing that I was thinking about was I get a lot of flak from it, even from friends or like strangers. Which is a triple build. So I go Paladent source or Warlock, which is kind of a taboo because he kind of like lose a lot. But shout outs to this YouTuber called gf Cross TV. I stumbled onto his channel going through like character building, and he has this triple build that I like to be a jack of all trade.

5:44 So this build was two level palad two levels and Paladent one level Warlock and then the rest in Divide Sorcerer. So it kind of allowed me to frontline if I needed to. I would get the crit from the one level Warlock and I'd be able to heal and use spells if I need to, you know, pull back a little bit and cast um. So, like, is this a thing where they started you out in the game at higher than first level so that you could do that out of the gate, or is this like what you're planning to do or is this starting story is correct? Yes? Yeah, okay, so I started I love this one, and then it kind of like trickled into like level three eventually, like the longer the campaign would go. That's was my idea because he who's questioning that about like how I wanted to go mapping it out? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, but at least like whether you whether you did not purpose or not, at least you're picking mostly charisma classes like you're you're not you're not stretching your stats that thin correct. Yeah. I've always been like one of those, like I play League Legends, so I've always been like the tanky bruiser, like an offensive tank kind of thing. Um. So like with this build, it kind of gave me that flare that I liked about it. Um. A lot of people that I met with one they said, when you first starting out, just go full one class one race and you're good. So did that and then I was like, let me try to experiment, see how this works. Um. So he allowed it, and uh we started the campaign. There was me and three other people and then him as a DM and it Session zero was fine. Uh. The

7:19 more the longer that these sessions dragged out, the more issues that came up. So there was two there was this one one guy with me who were like passive and we want out to do storyline. I wasn't too good at role plank, so I was kind of like feeding off of the group and trying to do my best. I'm still about it, um, but it's a it's a learned skilled first that just happens instantaneously. I barely spoke my first two campaigns. I was very reactive when it came into role play. It's like, no, like the rules of combat, I understand, but like I can just do and say whatever I want. What do I even say? And I just shut up? Yeah that's good, that's good.

8:01 I mean we I I'm I'm a social butterfly outside of D and D, but like when I'm in and playing, I try to still be. I think certain characters that I play, I'm a lot more charismatic about it, Like this drag more pale than that I created, and like he's a platinum dragon who makes snow cones for like the knock the villains that he knocks out. I like it. Yeah, this is it just became a wholesome story. Yeah. So with this, yeah, for the moment, for the moment. So with this, with this campaign, I was like, let me be a little bit more like more serious. Normally I try to be silly, Like, let me be serious. So I based it off of I don't know if you ever watched the CW show Supernatural, so I was going with I'm familiar with it. Yeah, yeah, I love that show.

8:52 I'm trying to meet gents and accles at some point brewery, Yeah, I want so. I go to New York Comic College, so I've been trying to hopefully see them. I got to see small Ville cast uh Tom Wellank Uh Yeah. Me and my brother had an article that came about like us that came out with them and stuff like that. So it was kind of like a good thing. Uh so uh back to drawing myself back in I created off of the archangel Michael uh, the one where and I spoil alert before anybody hears about supernatural stuff you might want to put. Yeah.

9:33 Yeah, So what I did was I created based on the Michael uh that Um, if Josie you can help me out on this one where Michael gets first interacted when they go back in time and Annie's trying to yes, that's so I based it off on that, like kind of like that and Castiel a little bit. So, Um, what I was trying to do was to be the laid back one but presents like a like a a more cool demeanor at like just very serious and get straight to the point. So we were as we're going through the campaign, there's instances where we find notes and this and that. So me and this other guy who the other players are cleric. The other two I can't remember. I think one was I think one was like a sword and the other one was like another palatin. So me and the cleric we were just kind of he was like a priest and he We're banking off of each other's like vibe. And then there was the other two that just couldn't make the group work, and slowly and slowly more and more problems came up. So we're getting into the death house. I don't know if you're familiar with the with the module. But slowly as we get, you know, into the initial beginning of the campaign. We get into death House and shout out to my friend Eldrech who's our DM and I've still been friends with him ever since we met. Um. He did such

11:05 a great job at explaining the campaign. But the issue was these two players that one they're doing in character fighting and talking smack, and then doing it outside of character and yeah, yeah, and uh, and what it ends up happening is that he's he's trying to stop the like to pause and like kind of let them dispute and understand, like, hey, you know, let's get this on the control. We'll we're supposed to be like a good vibe. Let's keep this going. So they would stop, and then he would try to explain the scenario or situation or something that's like do your attack roles and this that, and those two couldn't even get to that point because then they just started talking over him. And then they just started talking over each other. And then it's just again like he said one but gets the other, and it just every time there was a point of relaxation, we were getting through something there was always a pivot to kind of like mediating these two, and we we practically got over I don't know how, but thank goodness we did. We got out of like the death house. We followed through that, and then we just get into Barrovia and again we haven't even started. We're just getting there. And then what ends up happening is it gets so bad that you know, uh, he had the RDM, my

12:37 buddy Eldrick he uh you know, he has kids and a wife at so like at times he had to manage his life, and I think between some things that were happening in the personal side and then managing two grown people like costing gelling at each other at some point for kids he didn't sign up for yeah, yeah, and it got so so much to the point where one day he just messaged us and he was like, listen, I'm sorry everyone, but we're going to cancel this campaign until we decide to do whatever. Yeah, and so like like like most yeah, silver lining though we've been best friends for I think almost three years now, and what we've kind of done with each other is there are like one shots and like all other so I eventually wanted to create a campaign, and so what I did was I asked him, Hey, do you mind co signing with me on it?

13:37 Like, I'll do all the work, You'll help when I can, and I want you to just be a player. I don't want you to worry about the mechanics or anything if if I if I seem to be off on something, you can just help me out. That went well, but complications of the real world happened and we all kind of like got to a story, kind of stopped it. I actually downloaded a lot of the soundtracks, implemented It's a Role twenty. I did a lot of macros and scripts and stuff like that, and I actually create an interactive map. So I took a map I want on YouTube, researched how to create tokens on the map, but do it on the map layer to where like instead of me having to always remind players where they are or what's the information, what I did was I set tokens for everybody to be able to click on the map and say, hey, we're here, what's the history of that? So if they forgot, they can click on it and notes would pop up. I put d n notes of things that I wanted, but they would have a general description this is the land of Bovia, and this is kind of like the brief history and stuff like that. That's so cool that you're able to like implement coding and stuff to make the website work better for you, because I am not quite good at coding, and that sounds like a fucking dream to be able to just be like, oh fuck, I forgot what we've been talking about. Let me just click real quick on your map. Anything just better put together than like a shared Google doc or something, which is always like they're the easy way to do it. But but yeah, and

15:11 all this like with within your first like a couple of campaigns and like you know, we're being being fairly new to the hobby and like finding new ways to innovate. Yeah. Deep when I deep dive by deep dive, it's it's an obsession. It's like Game of Thrones obsession. I am sess. I got all my friends. I think there was like nine to ten people that I got to Game of Thrones and that's what kind of like started this whole like whammy of like one of the one of my friends kind of they played D and D and I didn't know anything I didn't know that they played it. I didn't know what it was, and like, you know, they knew that. I love the Game of Throne so much, so like, oh my god, that's that's so cool that it's like, hey, here's a way for you to play Game of Throne. All the vectors in D and D are fascinating to me for you know, especially how you get them baby days. Yeah, hook them with their with their high fantasy, uh, with their high fantasy show. And it's like, hey, while you're into high fantasy, it's like you can play that. You can beat that by Yeah, I know, I'm just fascinated by Like when I was a kid and we were playing D and D, it was like, oh, wouldn't it be cool if they made a TV show that was kind of like D and D someday? And now it's going the other way. I love that that that it's you know, that that it's getting people into D and D instead of the other way around. Yeah, I mean did they really though that? Did they? With Kit Kit and night Rider that they really make it kind of is D and D? Right? They just got a special idol got a special writership. I don't know, I don't know that. But I'm all for generous reads. That's a that's a that's a

16:45 very generous read. If you can back it up with evidence, I will support your research paper. You listen, you go, you use your tools, and you write yourself a night Rider campaign. Yeah, I mean they'll sell it on drive through and uh, let's to drive through DM's guild. Funny that you say that I'm actually using chat g GPT. Uh. Sure, I'm actually using it to help me create. So I'm a big fan of the Arragon series. I don't know if anybody knows that the Inheritance series good books, awful movie, and always happened. I will argue that the sword looks pretty dope though, So I'm a big fan of some of the sort that's not enough to save that trash pilot, right of course, of course good books. So just we're gonna say the Avatar route to this, just ignore the movie and the original. There is no more embossing side.

17:41 Yeah, there is no There is no Avatar movie in bossing. Yeah, so that thing that doesn't exist. So what I did? I love the books so much, and uh, I just actually recently bought up the books series for a friend of mine who got me into Dude. I just got into Dude. I think this year or league last year. So I bought up the book series of Arragon. With that new movie this Is that was a good time to get into it. Fenty content there yeah. Yeah. Um so just days, just learning how to pronounce all the days everyone's names. It's still different fantasy whatever you believe it is. No, no, no, no, no. This is beyond normal fantasy names. Josie.

18:21 This isn't just add an apostrophe and two extra vowels to the end of everything. This is like unpronounceable cat walking across the keyboard names. Okay, but that's what people think Welsh is. That is what Welsh is. Oh my god, dude, is just Welsh? Yeah, okay, please continue. Yeah. So I'm trying to create a campaign like a home brew I've never done a home brew campaign before, sure, So like what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to use you know, AI to kind of guide me into certain things of building. So I'm trying to build a camp pain with Game of Thrones and Aragon. But I don't know the timeline yet, do I. I'm trying to figure out which timeline of Game of Thrones, am I do it? What timeline of aragon A M I do it? And so like you know, if fellow Game of Thrones fans out there know that nobody knows what's east or west of wester Rows. So I'm actually going to use that as like a pull and to where there's some magical barrier between the world of Annalasia and h and Game of Thrones. And I think I'm gonna go with Arif Stark sending out a letter to the adventurers to fantastic. That's what's so cool about gaming, like homebrew is how you do how you mash those things together. Like I, um, I'm a big fan of those

19:51 China Mayville novels that are setting this giant city called baz Lag, and I wanted a massive fantasy city. I want that game, but like, I'm not going to do that game. So I just took all the kind of stuff that he did, sure, and you know, you just drop that into a homebrew game and you say, hey, when you make your character, tell me about the weird neighborhood that you're from in the fantasy city, and you just mash it all together. And it doesn't need to necessarily make sense exactly. Yeah, I'm glad it super fun. I'm glad it isn't manifesting as a D and D campaign and not a fan fic. You it does exist, Sorry, Josie. That's the best kind of fan fic because it's collaborative. You're building with every together. Yeah. So, I guess the thing that I'm not one hundred percent clear on is this best buddy, this former this DM of years that became your best buddy. Did you have you guys met in person? Were you local or was that just down the line relationship that turned into this important relationship for it just it was just it's still an online thing. But I I talked to him, Uh, I think a few times, like uh by video, and I think we started exchanging like he would show me like things that he's working on his house with uh. He would send me like a pick of like yo, how do you I just got a new haircut? Look at this dude, And we

21:22 kind of just did like we did like the best buddy thing, like uh, yeah, you should tell me about his friendship correct like a bromance and it's still going on strong. Uh dB eg the BFF. Yeah that's the person. Yeah. Well, I what I love to do is I love talking and meeting people. And uh, there are some friends outside of the d D that you know I've met through like legal edges or other games. Uh. My friend Brian, I've known him since oh god, since I think two thousand and nine, two ten. I never met a person. It was like a friend of a friend that they met. They were kind of like internet gamers together and that we just became like best buds. He's like my duo partner and league legends ad. He lives in Florida, and I told him, I think I'm trying to plan either this year or next year to go out and see him. And you know, with my buddy that's a DM, I'm like, you know, I really want to.

22:23 I really want to make the effort on like seeing him because I feel like get out at an actual table together someday. Recommend meeting people for the first time who you have only known online for for a while. It's I'm having a good time of it today, so yeah, it's actually happening. Well yeah, yeah, correct, you listening to this, Well I've heard it by now, but Mike wasn't there because these episodes don't exist yet. But you know, so you've been listening to a few episodes. Jim has been podcasting with us for about a year and a half now, and this is the first time he and I are in the same room. Yeah, only there too. One day we'll get all three of us. Yeah, yeah, I mean, what an exciting time. I mean, what a what a what an exciting time to be alive. Now there's nothing like the president.

23:08 I mean that barrier, that barrier is not not even a barrier, Like the distance is Like I think years from now we are gonna there's gonna be a lot of people talking about how D and D I mean all that kind of stuff online gaming, but D and D in particular, like help them survive the pandemic. Yeah, absolutely, because Yeah, if it wasn't for online gaming, I mean role playing specifically RP tabletop RPGs, I don't know how I'd have gotten through it. Sure, So, so that started as a as a horror story between two guys I couldn't get along in a game, but you ended up with the best friend out of it. Yeah, this is like I don't even know how to label this episode because the star has a horror story ended up as probably the most awesome one we've had yet. Yeah, that's still a wholesome story. That's gonna be my challenge for later. But uh, Mike, thank you so much for coming on the show and for being a listener too. Thank you. You want to anything you want to plug, anything you want to push, anything you want to put out there, I'm gonna give you the floor and you can, um if you got any any any endeavors that you're doing yourself. Um So, what I'm kind of doing, Uh, I will pivot to one thing real quick after after this. But what I'm doing is I'm trying to create a podcast myself. Um So, I don't have everything fully flushed out yet, but I am. It's it's called the Fellowship of the Dice, So it's kind of what it's kind of what you're doing. But for me, like the way that I don't in my head, I still try and stort it out like I want to be. I want to create a podcast that's intuitive, uh learning games. I mean, there's a few other people that

24:40 have done it already, but I want to be intuitive. I want to have like a free space like this where you just have fun talk about anything dad related to your stories, what brought you here, how it's how it's changed your life. Which I'm actually going to pivot now to an episode that you all did and brought up a great, great thing about I forget if it was you, Jason or Josie. There was an episode. I think I have it in my notes. I just have a lot of notes stuff to try to look through. There was an episode that kind of stuck with me today where I was listening and it was about mental health, uh kind of therapy stuff. There was the pizza thing. It's like yeah, sorry, yeah, no, it's great, No, but on the couch or something. Yeah. So you mentioned like this is not plug for a better health or anything like that, and I thought that was hysterical. So so as a person who is also using therapy and used this as I've kind of used D and D as one of my therapeutic methods too on getting you know, childhood trauma and stuff like that to kind of like get it out in a healthier way. And it's I think that's a big thing for anybody else who's struggling out there and stuff like that. It's this is kind of a creative kind of character of getting that out as well. It's a good out with the with the caveat, and I do think it's important. We do

26:12 want to say this that it is not a replacement for the replacement I want to dam and other player characters, your therapists. But but it can be a great It can be a great way to help you get through. It is a therapeutic outlet. Yeah, it does not replace therapy and one because you know, we want to you know, let the actual experts, you know, guide us through the things that we need to guide through. And too, we don't want to drag along our friends through our journeys of self discovery. Yeah, against their wills with right, and they're just like, I know all of your trauma, which is true for my friends anyway.

26:59 But uh but yeah, it's it is a fairly healthy therapeutic outlet on top of things that you should be also doing. Um so you know, keep going with therapy, keep taking your meds, but play D and D two. Yeah yeah, yeah, but that's awesome, man. I thank thank you so much for U for calling your specific episodes. I know you actually listen now, So Mike thank you so much. Um we'll have links to to the discorded server in the show notes, but thanks for your story man. Yeah, thank you so much. Josie also thanks for thanks as always time and thank you Adventures. Thank you for listening to con Mudgeons and Jagons.

27:41 Please share this with your favorite adventures, leave a review on Apple, and follow us on social media. All links can be found at con Mudgeons and Dragons dot com. Practice Safe Adventuring, my Friends,