Session Zero Heroes - A TTRPG Actual Play Podcast
Speaker A: Hello, everybody. Welcome to this special episode, uh, where we're going to be talking about the, uh, sort of differences and similarities of Avatar legends to, uh, sort of D 20 based other TTRPGs, specifically dungeons and dragons. Um, but, Justin, I know you talked about you have a lot of Pathfinder, uh, experience, which is fantastic as well. So we'll kind of get some of that in there as well. Uh, introductions probably be the best place to start. Uh, my name is Skyler. I'm the DM over at the Benderson Brews podcast, uh, which is an Avatar Legend podcast, which all of us are going to be kind of key figures within. Uh, Cameron, you want to.
Speaker B: Well, I'm Cameron. I play a character named Bill Dore from the Vendors and podcast. Uh, that's my specialty.
Speaker A: That's your specialty? Awesome. Justin?
Speaker C: Yeah, I'm Justin. I am the DMGM. Whatever floats your boat. Over at the Flying Bison podcast, uh, we've been playing Avatar legends for man, almost a year and a half now at this point. Um, so much fun. It's a very fun system, very beloved setting. So very happy to be here doing this with you guys.
Speaker A: Absolutely. Johnny. Yeah.
Speaker D: Hi, I'm Johnny. I am one of the players, uh, the Flying Bison podcast. I play a character named OSA and Chauban. And Chauban, I played. Yep.
Speaker A: Yes. Tear comes to my eye. Now, Johnny, this is the first time I've gotten to meet you. Uh, Karen is new to both of you guys. Justin, uh, I got to meet you when we recorded for, uh, the one shot of the Flying Bison podcast. But, Johnny, it's awesome to meet you.
Speaker D: Yeah, it's great to meet you.
Speaker A: Awesome.
Speaker C: Perfect.
Speaker D: Thanks for having me.
Speaker A: So, I guess maybe real quick start. Uh, like, where are you guys all coming from as far as tabletop role playing games? Like, I can say that I started d d in college. Um, that's kind of where I stemmed from, Cameron. Um, and I have played a couple games, uh, of the other powered by the Apocalypse games. So, like, monsters of the week and masks. Um, I think you ran most of those. I ran a monster of the week campaign, which was super fun. Um, but that's about the extent of, for me, at least, uh, for myself.
Speaker B: I been playing as well as Skyler d d since college. Uh, and unlike, um, some know, when they first start playing, they usually start as a player. Uh, but sometimes they're the unfortunate soul to start as the DM because no one else has to play.
Speaker C: That was me.
Speaker B: So I was the DM forever DM M throughout college and then coming here to back home mean Skyler playing games with him. I was still the DM. Skyler was a DM as well. So thankfully I was finally able to play, thanks to Skyler. So that was great. Uh, but on side of that, I played months of the week. I did masks. I did a little Pathfinder as well, but definitely probably not to a level of a long time. Only half a year worth of sessions. So I'm not the best. But I do know the system. I can compare it to DNd as well.
Speaker A: Awesome.
Speaker D: Perfect.
Speaker B: So I've dabbled in a lot of systems and I've also dabbled in creating my own systems as well because I think RPG systems are an awesome thing. And I think you should be constantly trying to push for new ideas and systems to fit the playstyles of your players.
Speaker A: True. Totally awesome. What about you guys?
Speaker C: Um, well, I also, weirdly enough, started in college. Um, I found out some friends were playing it and they're like, you should come play with us. The, uh, DM then was using like, an OSR. Um, so it wasn't quite dungeons and Dragons, it was some old school hack of Dungeons and Dragons. Uh, and then I, uh, bought the Pathfinder adventure card game, uh, because I loved playing in the OSR game. I was like, oh, what's this? Picked it up. Uh, and Danny, who's another one of our players, he's, uh, my brother in law as well. Uh, we played that and then we saw in the box that there was the Pathfinder beginner box. We bought that and we've been playing Pathfinder one e since then. Um, so, yeah, I've GM'd multi year campaigns in Pathfinder one E. Um, I played, uh, two E. I've played a little bit of Starfinder. I've played a little bit of dungeons and Dragons five E. I dM'd a family game during COVID online. That was fun. Um, uh, yeah, I listened to a lot of actual plays. Um, so I was familiar with powered by the apocalypse. Um, and then when Avatar came out, I was like, let's just jump in and let's play it. So this was my first foray into something not Pathfinder. Really?
Speaker A: Sure. Very cool. Yeah. Johnny, what have you gotten into?
Speaker D: Yeah, it seems like we've got an unintentional theme going tonight because I also started in college, uh, started with real.
Speaker A: Breeding ground for tabletop.
Speaker D: Yeah, I went to this hyper conservative Bible college where, uh, the satanic panic was still in full swing. And so we had this really underground game going, but we started with, uh, DNd 3.5 and then went to Pathfinder one E, and then, uh, went on like a bit of a dry spell for a while. And then five E came out and me and a bunch of friends started playing five E. And then we played the Star Wars RPG for a while and then constantly in, uh, five E campaigns for years and years. And then, uh, one of our other cast members, Steve, told me about Justin getting ready to start up the Flying Bison podcast and got me plugged in.
Speaker A: Yeah, that's awesome. Star Wars RPG is probably like at the top of my list as far as ones that I would love to try out at some point.
Speaker B: I've also played one as well.
Speaker C: Yeah, it's super fun. It's like a nice middle ground between crunch and rule light narrative focus.
Speaker A: Yeah, sure.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Okay.
Speaker B: I also forgot I played the Warhammer RPG system too. Totally forgot about that too.
Speaker C: So it left a lasting impression, it seems to.
Speaker B: I honestly couldn't tell you a thing that happened at campaign because the DM told me the system is very complicated. Just tell me what you want for a character. I told him he made it for me and then he basically just told me what to roll and I rolled and he took all of the system.
Speaker A: Out of it for me.
Speaker B: And he just literally, uh, asked, like, just tell me your actions and I'll just tell you what to roll. And so I didn't know what was going on in terms of the system, but I was having a lot of fun, just like learning Warhammer lore just as I went through the game.
Speaker A: Sure. Yeah. That's wild. So as I mentioned before, we're all here. Um, I know at the time of this recording there's a lot of craziness going on in the D D community. Know, OGL licensing and stuff, like some, some anger within the community and other things like that. Um, conveniently though, um, Avatar Legends has kind of gotten their shipping done and it's getting all distributed to everybody at this point in time, which is really exciting. I feel like they really. Hey, there it is. That's awesome. Um, they really did hit the nail. I don't know how they did it, but they really hit the nail on the head with the timing. And so it's kind of an exciting new time where a lot of people are out there looking for new tabletop role playing games to get involved with and to try out and see what it's like. And I think that the timing of Avatar Legends getting their stuff out and everything like that has really created this nice coalescence between the two, where people are starting to say, hey, what's going on over here? What are you guys doing? We're playing Avatar Legends. Come on over, join us, play with us, learn how the game works. And so that's kind of what we're here to do today, is a lot of people are coming in from that Dungeons and Dragons background, and they might be a little bit confused, because the powered by the apocalypse rules are quite a bit different than the roll 20 rules that they might be used to. So that's what today is for. That's what this episode is for, is just kind of discuss those differences, some of the similarities, and try to help people figure, uh, it out. I mean, I can't say that we'll necessarily explain everything about the rules and be able to help with every rule. I know you guys over the Flying Bison podcast, your discord Channel, uh, is phenomenal for that. If people have questions, I highly recommend heading over there. Um, I know I personally have gotten a lot of stuff answered from you guys, or at least seen answers that other people have asked for, um, clarification on. So it's definitely a great resource. But, um, for today, we'll do the best that we can. Uh, like I said, we'll make some comparisons, and hopefully that gets us there. We'll cross our fingers. Yeah, let's do it. All right. So, first, I kind of came up with, like, an outline of different topics or whatever the case, uh, to kind of do some comparisons and stuff. So, first of all, um, DNd players, things that you should know about Avatar legends. First of all, it's not so much of, like, a strategy heavy game, per se. It's not numbers, I guess, would be the best way to put it. It's not a huge amount of heavy numbers game. It's very based on the story and centered around the story and the narrative. Um, creating the story, kind of, ah, collaborative storytelling probably be the best way to put it.
Speaker C: It's not a combat simulation. A lot of times when you play D and D, you're, like, trying to move from combat to combat, next encounter to the next encounter. And that is definitely not Avatar, uh, legends, but powered by the apocalypse, really, in general, is not really interesting. Yeah, combat flog.
Speaker A: Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. Monster of the week, similar. Well, all day powered by Apocalypse are similar. From my experience, Monster of the week was one that we did a decent amount of, and that was kind of the same thing, was it's more about coming up with what happens, really working with the players I know when I first actually got described D and D, the guy that was dming, he said, I'm here to write the chapter header, like the title of the chapter, and then you guys are here to kind of fill in the entire actual chapter itself, like the content of the book. And to be honest with you, I feel like Avatar Legends kind of does almost a better job of that. I mean, I'm not dissing DNd by any means, but definitely very much more story centered. So don't go into it thinking like, man, I'm going to roll dice. I mean, you will roll dice, but you're not going to be, like, building up your stats and trying to, I don't know, min Max maybe a little bit or something like that. It's more of just like, huh? I said story centered direction, I suppose. Yeah. Awesome. So, uh, let's see. Let's jump in with, uh, character creation in general, because that's one thing about DNd. You got this big old character sheet. You're moving numbers back and forth. Like I said, this isn't a huge numbers game, but that's a good example of what a numbers game might look like. You've got all your modifiers and your stats that then factor into your modifiers that go into all of your skills and your other attributes. That all isn't really here. So much like the rundown of a character sheet. I don't know. What do you guys see as the first thing that you choose when you're making a character sheet for avatar Legends? Would you go for your playbook, or do you go for your bending decision first?
Speaker C: I don't even go for the bending decision. Really?
Speaker D: Yeah. I think bending has been secondary for me, and I go for the playbook first.
Speaker C: Yeah, right.
Speaker A: Okay.
Speaker B: So I'm more of the Odball, but this is how I always character create. Ever since I've started playing, uh, d d, any system, I find the class or subclass in D d that I want to play, right? And then I create a character based around the class I have. So in the case of, like, uh, the Avatar, Legends of Benders and Bruce, I'm playing Bill Dore, who is a, uh, Guardian type character. And I wanted to make a character that was based around, really, when I play games, I usually in the protector, the tank, usually is how I play. So when I saw the Guardian, I was like, this is perfect for me. And then I designed a character around the class I saw in itself. And then I made a backstory through it. Now I'm not saying that's the way everyone should do it. That's just the way I personally like. I know other people like to make a character idea and then they find the class that is closest to that idea that they have in their head, which is just as fine. I certainly think it's a little better because you're coming in with a more fleshed out character. I just like that when you come in with a class, it gives you, like, a skeleton, and then you can add the meat to it. But if you do it the opposite way, it works just as fine. It's just as long as you're playing a character that has a good vision. That's the point, right?
Speaker A: If you play where you pick the bending first and then the Playbook after you're taking the meat and then adding the skeleton.
Speaker B: Yeah, you're just going to shove it inside.
Speaker C: I agree. In factually, there's actually, I was flipping through the core rulebook and there's a section on should you come up with a character first? Should you pick your Playbook first? Um, whenever I end up playing with new people or when we were creating characters and they were like, this is a character I want to play, I always find the super interesting thing. Well, they'll describe the character and I'll be like, there's honestly, like, three different playbooks that fit that. It all depends on what emotional arc you want that character to go on. So, uh, if you focus on this part of your backstory, I would say this Playbook, if you focus on this part instead, you can have that other part, but the focus is over here instead, you're going to be this other Playbook instead. And I feel like that is such a great way to bring in. I'm sure we're going to talk about this later, but the difference between a Playbook and a class, you're not picking the playbook for, like, oh, look at this cool feature I get to have. You're picking the Playbook because that's the story you want to tell. You want to see them through that arc.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker D: We will probably drill down on this more later, but I was just going to say I feel like classes In DND tell you what your character can do, and playbooks and Avatar Legends tell you who your character is.
Speaker A: Yes. That's good. Yeah. What you could be, what you could work towards to some extent. Exciting. Awesome. Yeah. And then bending can kind of follow after that. Well, there you go. That's true.
Speaker B: If you want to come with an idea of what vendor you want to be. Go for it. Totally. That's why you're playing this, right? You want to be a vendor. I get it. Except for me, I want to be a non vendor.
Speaker A: Well, and I like what you about, you know, kind of the concept. Like, you could take the idea of a character that you want to play, and it would work for multiple playbooks, too, which is really cool. Uh, I was just working the other day. I was trying to compare characters from the Avatar Legends show to what playbook they would be, and almost all of them had at least two, if not three, um, which was a little bit frustrating with what I was trying to work on. But I'm like, you know what? This is what it is. And I don't want someone to call me out in the comments and be like, yeah, but I think he's more of a razor type or something like that.
Speaker C: What's fun about it is that someone else can have a completely different perspective of a character, even a character from Avatar, the last Airbender, and be like, oh, this was a meaningful thing for that character, for me. And where you're like, oh, no, they're actually more like this. Um, I think that's what's fun about the meta narrative of playing a game and creating fiction together.
Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah. Completely agree. Completely agree. Um, one similarity that's going to come into play with your character when you're making them is you do technically have stats. Right? There's like, what? Trying to think off the top of my head, is it five stats?
Speaker C: Well, it's four unless you're counting your principal.
Speaker A: Right? That's true. So your four stats, um, kind of similar to the concept behind the DND stats, like, your charisma, is sort of a broad generalization of kind of a number of technical aspects that you could break down if you really wanted to. How well you can talk to people, how attractive you might be physically or just generally, how, uh, social you might be. And that kind of translates over a little bit into the Avatar Legends playbook or, uh, character sheets where you have creativity. Well, creativity that can kind of jump between. It's just the general concept of how you find solutions for whatever your given situation is, um, what sort of different takes you might be willing to go into, and so on and so forth. So, I mean, they do kind of, uh, as some similarity between the two games have stats with like, a broad general definition about them, I would say, yeah. Okay, cool.
Speaker B: At the end of the day, every RPG system is going to have a stat line because that's kind of what makes an RPG an RPG. There's only going to be like some loose, uh, side RPGs. A good example is dread, which is one I personally love. Uh, there's no stat system in dread.
Speaker C: But I still personally.
Speaker B: But in most RPG systems, you're going to find stats because you need some base level to base dice rolling off of, right. You can't just be pure random.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: You need to have something to make your character differentiate from other characters. But what I do like about the Avatar Legends system they have for, uh, dice system is they kind of simplified it, and that's what the apocalypse system, or DND, they had multiple, they took it, made four, and they very much just crunched it down to just one or two actions for each stat. And therefore, you can be more broader in what you want to do.
Speaker A: Everything's flavor to whatever it is that you're kind of the broad decision you're choosing.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker A: They really did that to really assist with the. I mean, aside from just the fact that it's a very big open story, the bending itself, they can't write moves for every single fire bending technique out there or water bending technique out there. So it's like you, the player, get to kind of come up with the cool ways that your character is using the bending or non bending weapon attacks or whatever the case. Uh, the technology, kind of inventions and things like that. Put your creativity into it. Don't be limited by I'm playing the rogue class, and it says that I'm allowed to use bows and other simple weapons, and I have to do an attack. That's me shooting an arrow at this guy, and it does double damage if he's standing next to another guy who's distracted by somebody else on my team. There is definitely, like I said, some similarities between one of them being stats with a little bit of differentiation, uh, between what those stats are. They, uh, still work in tandem with dice. Uh, rather than rolling a D 20 to determine all your stuff, uh, what gets added to it, and so on, you're rolling two D six. For those out there that haven't had a chance to read through the rules, that'll be a pretty straightforward thing. You'll see a lot, and you'll see from the beginning you roll two D six for everything, which is super nice. It kind of minimizes the amount of dice you have to have. I don't have to go buy a whole set. I could just go to the store and get a couple of dice, rip.
Speaker B: Out the old Yahtzee.
Speaker A: Yes. Exactly. Take some dice out of your Yahtzee game. Yeah, exactly. And, uh, I think that's super nice. It's a much simpler system than. Okay, well, I did this attack, so that means I have to roll a whole other dice. But before I do that, I have to roll the D 20 to determine if my attack succeeds. So on and so forth, which is simpler, nicer, cleaner.
Speaker C: I was just going to jump in. Now it seems like a good time to talk about moves because we're talking about stats and M, what you roll with, like D and D is what we call, like a skill based. Yes.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker C: Like you've got a list of skills. That's what you're adding your stats to, to get a, ah, number. Um, the way that most powered by the apocalypse works is what they call moves, and they are fictional triggers that will happen when they happen in the fiction. So they don't trigger unless it actually happens in the fiction. Once it does, it'll tell you to roll with one of your stats. And, uh, now is a good time to mention you don't need to roll high in this game.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker C: In D and D, you want to roll as high as possible. And in powered by the apocalypse. In avatar legends, uh, there are three sort of outcomes for your role. There's a miss, there's a, uh, weak hit, which is success with complications, and then a strong hit. And honestly, I would say seven out of ten times, you're going to hit that weak hit. You're going to do what you want to do, but there's going to be some complication to the narrative. And that's actually what I think makes these games fun, is that you're succeeding at what you want to do, but it snowballs all these complications until what you started out with as the original obstacle has evolved into something so much bigger and more natural than it would have if you had just forced a solution to the obstacle.
Speaker D: Absolutely.
Speaker A: And that's what grows the story, which is so cool. The story would have just been so like one lined, I'm attacking a monster. I roll, I succeed or don't succeed, it attacks me back. Right? This opens up all these possibilities of, well, you hit him, but he had a chance to hit you back in the moment, or maybe he dodged out of the way a little bit and it kind of broke up the ground and it just opens up so much creative directions that you can go, which is really cool. It's really cool. It's really nice for whoever's running the game as well. I don't have to come up with, oh, he rolled a one. What's some clever, funny, goofy, ridiculous thing that happened because he failed. Right. The game kind of leads you in a direction and says he failed. And this is sort of like semi what the consequences are going to look like, but you can obviously spin it based on the narrative, which is really cool.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker D: I think on the flip side too, from the player side, it makes things more interesting. Uh, you can't have a 15th level halfling, wild magic sorcerer with a lucky feet where failure is essentially impossible. It forces you into interesting stories.
Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B: M. I guess one other thing I would also is a piggyback off of, uh, Justin would be, uh, moves in, uh, the system, uh, are also loose, just like, uh, I'm talking about. Player moves are also loose versus like in D. D. When you level uP, you'll gain abilities, right. But those abilities are straight abilities. Like, I get them, I do this and it's set in stone. I'm going to do this. Sometimes you have to roll a D 20 to see if you succeed at it. But it's either succeed or fail. While in this system it uses the same fail. Weak hit or strong hit.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: But it uses the same system for player abilities, just like in the main overarching moves. And that is really cool because it makes every action you do on top of the normal base actions to also your player actions also have a degree of randomization of where will this go?
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: So when I choose to do this action from my own player book, I'm not guaranteed that I'm going to do the thing I want to do. It's still going to have that element of story. I'm going to have to make me and the DM are going to have to add a story element to my move, which adds another layer of flavor to each character as well.
Speaker C: My only, just caveat to what you said. I try to avoid, and this is for GMs and for players. I guess I try to avoid saying that it's a fail of six. It's a miss. That's intentional because I often will give the player what they wanted to do.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker C: But I will ramp up the complication. I will make it a much worse stunt complication that I would have if they rolled seven to nine.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker C: And that's more fun to me because I hate it. One of the most frustrating things about DND and Pathfinder for me is the, like, I want to pick the lock. I failed. I guess I'll just roll again.
Speaker A: You know what I mean?
Speaker C: I'll just keep rolling. What's the point? I'll just keep rolling until I get it. With this, by adding narrative complications, you change the story in a way that does not let them just do the same thing again. They have to find some new approach to the problem because things have changed.
Speaker A: They did it, and then things have changed since they did it, and it didn't work out as well as they might have wanted to. And now they're put into a whole new situation because they missed. Yeah. No, that's awesome. That's a good way of putting it.
Speaker B: Also, it goes off the old adage of improv, too, where you never say no, but rather you say yes, but yes, but yes. If the person gets that, uh, they miss.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: You don't say no, and you just failed right there. But rather it's like, you messed up. This is how you messed up, but you have to move on from it.
Speaker A: You blocked in.
Speaker C: I know. This is an avatar.
Speaker A: Legends.
Speaker C: Uh, this is Brindlewood Bay, but, uh, there are a few moves in Brindlewood Bay I absolutely adore, because, uh, it'll start the move and it'll say, like, uh, the player tells you what they're afraid they might lose if they miss. And then in the text it'll say on a miss, you tell them how it's so much worse than they expected. Love that.
Speaker A: No, that's brutal.
Speaker B: That's pretty good.
Speaker A: I'll have to check that one. I haven't even heard of that one. I'll have to check that one out.
Speaker D: It's a lot of fun.
Speaker C: It's very fun.
Speaker A: Oh, yeah. It's amazing how many, uh, RPG systems are out there. Yeah. And for such niche areas, it's amazing. Somebody was just telling me the other day that there's like an entire RPG system based around the concept that you are playing as someone who's deaf. And then there's another one for playing as someone who's blind. And I'm like, wow, that is like such a specific thing. And it's amazing that they created an entire system around that. I need to check that out, too. That's another one I got on my list. So awesome. Jumping back to character, uh, sheets, which, I mean, moves are part of your character sheet, which is also another nice thing. Also completely off. Well, not off topic, but on the side. Uh, one of the things I love about the playbooks themselves is that everything's on your playbook, like from the get go. And then you're choosing things along the way because there is nothing worse than like, okay, I am hitting level ten. I'm gaining, like, three new abilities, and somehow I have to fit my chunky handwriting on this tiny little spot on my character sheet that's already full with all the abilities I've gotten up till now. AvATar Legends, it's all right there on the page. You can basically, uh, sort of upgrade your moves from, like, learn to mastered and so on and so forth forth. You can, uh, take a couple of new abilities, but they're all listed on there. I guess the only exception to that would be taking a move from another character's playbook, which is possible. Which, I guess you reference it or print one out or something. I don't know. It's not that big of a deal. Yeah.
Speaker D: And that's fairly limited. So it's not like you're like, oh, no, 90% of my information is from other playbooks now. It's like two things, Max.
Speaker A: Two things exactly, at most. Um, another thing is you have those, um, traits, demeanors. In avatar Legends, there's demeanors. In, um, Dungeons and dragons, you're going to have things like your personality, your back. Well, the background, I guess, is in both places, but, uh, personality, ideals, bonds, and flaws, whereas in avatar legends, you kind of have these demeanors, these kind of, like, personality traits that are a little bit more defined because you don't have to write it out, which is nice the amount of times I've had to Google examples for ideals because I'm like, what exactly are they looking for when they ask for that? So, yeah, the demeanors is very straightforward. Oh, I'm a little bit of a cheeky guy, or I have a very stern personality, or whatever the case. Which, again, another thing that I like because it's well defined on the page.
Speaker C: There's also your history questions, too.
Speaker A: Yes. Um, which help define and build your background, which is great.
Speaker C: Yeah. And, uh, your connections with at least two other party members.
Speaker A: Right. Yes. Which is very useful.
Speaker B: Good for party creation.
Speaker A: Exactly. Which, again, builds the story. It all comes back to the story. And that's a good thing to take away from this entire episode, is it all is going to come back to the story making.
Speaker D: Exactly.
Speaker A: Um, another aspect, conditions. That's another thing that's similar between both systems. Um, I would almost argue that conditions is actually one of the most similar things because it affects, usually your stats and your ability to do your moves. Um, in Dungeons and dragons, you might take some sort of, ah, stunned or, uh, I'm trying to think of some of the other ones. Exhaustion restraint, and those are all going to affect your attacks along the way. Avatar legends, I mean, I would argue, is pretty similar. You're going to get a two on this, or you just won't be able to use this move or whatever the case.
Speaker D: Yeah, I would argue that, uh, the combat statuses are more similar to where conditions are, I think, a little bit more unique to PBTA and avatar legends because it's more consistent. There are things that can affect you consistently in D d as well, but the conditions are more like, until you do something specific and usually something negative to get rid of this condition, uh, you're stuck with it.
Speaker C: Yeah. For people that are coming from DND or Pathfinder, I liken it to health. It's not a perfect analogy, but it's the closest thing that powered by the apocalypse has to health. Uh, bar.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker D: Fatigue and conditions kind of combine to be similar to HP.
Speaker C: But please, if you're coming to play avatar Legends, don't look at your conditions as a health bar. It is a lens into how your character has been affected by the world and how they will then go and affect the world.
Speaker A: Yes, M. And it's very specific to whatever the narrative that's happening right now during your combat exchange or whatever the case. I'm not going to just go mark my conditions Willy nilly because, well, that's one less I got now. It's very specific to. I just got hit in such a way, or the ground beneath me just burst open and I fall. It's very specific to what's going on.
Speaker B: Also, the way you clear them, um, is different because in DND, it's just you're taking away stats or you're minusing an action or something. But in this system, um, uh, it's more of a hard move that it forces you to make the clearer condition, which is really interesting because it forces the player into a role play Element to clear a condition. Which, mind you, the condition itself is already forcing a role playing element, but to get rid of that role play element, you have to do a different role play element. So again, back creating more story.
Speaker A: Exactly.
Speaker C: Since we're talking about, I'll give an example. Um, one of the conditions is angry. If you mark angry, you take a, um, minus two to guide and comfort someone. That makes a lot of sense. It's harder to be kind to people when you're angry and to assess the situation. You have trouble focusing because you're just angry. But in order to clear angry, you have to break something important or lash out at a friend. The minute you do that in the story, the scene ends, you get an unclear angry again. And that, again, to Kan's point, is, it's a conversation, right? Like, it's you, the player, and the GM saying, does that meet the narrative requirement for, like, was that an important thing? Did you actually lash out at a friend, or did you just say an unkind word in that moment? Did that meet the requirements? And if it did, great, you're no longer angry.
Speaker A: And again, it builds the story.
Speaker B: It always might be a different, uh, condition that was created within that relationship.
Speaker A: Uh, exactly.
Speaker C: You might make them mark out a condition.
Speaker A: Uh, the transfer of conditions.
Speaker C: It's like Newton's, uh, law of thermodynamics. Conditions never go away. They just change form.
Speaker A: They just change.
Speaker D: Know one thing with conditions, I'll say think is, uh, I don't know if this is unique to our group or if other people do this, but one thing I've noticed that all of us will do that I would never do in DNd. I would never intentionally mark a negative stat playing a game of DND. Uh, when we're playing Avatar legends, there's times where I'm like, you know what? I think my character would be so mad about this. It doesn't make sense for me not to mark angry.
Speaker A: Right? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker C: They say that in the book, too. Uh, they say there might be moments, and I think they clarify and saying, obviously, your character can feel anger. Right? But when you mark angry, you're saying, this is sticking with me. What is happening right now is sticking with me as a character until I find a way to deal with what has happened.
Speaker A: Absolutely. And I think what it does is, um. I might have actually just lost my train of thought, to be honest with you.
Speaker C: Sorry.
Speaker A: There was something. No, that was good. That was good. Um, but no, I completely agree. It really does affect. I remember what it was. Okay. That's, uh, maybe a mindset that people coming from DNd should try to get out of, which is that it's not about me boosting my character and building them up and trying to power them up in such a way so they can just fight anything and kill it. Right. It's, again, collaborative storytelling. And as we all know, in good storytelling, bad things happen, and people make bad decisions which end up leading to consequences, which for us are not great, like, in our real. Or, uh, we don't want to make bad decisions that lead to bad consequences. Right. Um, but it happens. And we sit there, and when we watch Zuko on the screen, having this inner turmoil, you know, Uncle Iroh is kind of suggesting that I move towards a different path than what my dad is suggesting, but I keep on lashing out at him. We're like, oh, man, there's so much going on here, and it's painful and it's frustrating, but it's also beautiful in a way because we're watching that change within Zuko that's happening. And I know you've only watched the movie.
Speaker C: That has to be a joke. Please. I'm assuming that's a joke.
Speaker A: It is a joke. It's an ongoing joke, actually. I don't even know if we've established. Have we established. Okay, that's not good for you then. But I digress. These conflicts and that stem from the story naturally because we get angry in life, right? Yeah. And it affects things. We make bad decisions in our anger or whatever the case. It feels real. It feels more real than just if I was playing D and d. I just choose to make the best decision possible. Or I might do a little bit of something crazy and hope that the dice roll comes out in my favor. But at the end of the day, I don't know, I'll fix it later or something. Or maybe I'll just become a murderer hobo. I don't know.
Speaker C: No, I was just going to say M as we're talking about this, I feel like a huge difference that helps guide a lot of that is that death does not happen.
Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
Speaker C: Avatar legends, right? It does sometimes, but, well, to caveat, it happens when it's narratively important for it to happen. But if you watch Avatar, the Last Airbender, it's the same thing. People don't die. People literally get exploded. And they're just like. It's the anime thing of, like. And they're fine.
Speaker A: Exactly.
Speaker C: Um, and so I feel like a lot of DND and the murder hoboness and trying to power your character up comes from the fact that if you make a bad choice and fail, your character could die. Very real possibility that your character could die. But in Avatar Legends, you can make bad choices, quote unquote bad choices, and your character will not, probably won't die unless you and the GM, um, decide that that's what should.
Speaker D: Ah, yeah, yeah. And D. D is sort of like this race to be the most powerful version of your character.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker D: And that doesn't really exist in, like, I was just thinking about how growth and advancement, which is how you quote unquote level up your character, is such a different system where like, dNd, if you're playing XP and your character doesn't get XP at the same rate that somebody else's character does, and they, uh, advance far beyond you, it's terrible. You feel like you're so behind. And I've been in campaigns where somebody's like, two levels behind the rest of the party and it feels awful. But in Avatar Legends, I think it's so like the last three times we've done growth and advancement, I haven't gotten anything, uh, and a couple other people have, but I don't feel like I'm falling behind because my character hasn't gotten advancement when we're doing the growth and advancement stuff. And I think it's cool that it's kind of built into because Steve, uh, is close to finishing his growth and advancement. He's, like, running out of things. He can check off for advancements, but it's built into the rules. If you get to that point, basically your journey with that playbook is over and you can decide to retire your character, or you can switch playbooks and kind of start that journey over again.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker D: Which that would never feels like op.
Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I'm thinking back to some of the options. Um, like your moment of, um. What am I thinking of?
Speaker D: I'm blanking on the moment of balance.
Speaker A: Ah, yes. Moment of balance. Yes. Which is almost like just unlocking new story options for your character. Like something that you can achieve later on, in a sense. Um, rather than. It's not some, like I said, stat increase or whatever the case, it's something that you're going to input into the narrative later on or can at some point.
Speaker C: Yeah, something like that.
Speaker A: Something along those lines. Um, I guess we've kind of gone into, like, a topical direction with everything where we're kind of discussing each of the aspects of Avatar legends, how it compares to Dungeons and dragons. Um, so I'll jump into some of the other things that I have listed out here and try to keep it within its own separate category. Each thing within its category, I guess. Um, so we talked a lot about characters, uh, Playbooks versus classes, um, the advancements, which we talked about, which would be like, leveling up some of the stats and negative, um, things that could affect your characters in both systems. Uh, this one seems a little bit unnecessary to talk about to some extent, but I'm going to bring it up, which is the world of Avatar legends and how different that is from Dungeons and dragons. Uh, it's really hard to like. I mean, we're not going to sit here and give a full summary of everything that happens at Avatar Legends. Uh, it'd be a lot easier for Cameron to just give us a summary of the movie, um, because there was so little amount of Avatar in that that, uh, it really woUldn't be hard to summarize.
Speaker B: The world was pretty simple.
Speaker A: The world was very simple. Um, but there is a lot of difference. Know the world of Dungeons and dragons, which is this high magic or high fantasy? Very magic focused. I guess it's high fantasy if you choose it to be. I've seen some interesting campaigns where they've really kind of thrown magic to the wind, especially, like, if they want to do a steampunk thing, which is always.
Speaker D: Kind of cool, there's a whole magic movement.
Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Which is cool. It's cool in its own style. Um, whereas in Avatar Legends, it's very much like almost early, like Edo period Japan in a sense, with the bending aspect to it all, in a sense. Uh, I guess unless you're playing like Legend of Korra or whatever the case, in which case that's like the industrial.
Speaker C: Period, uh, even the Aang era and the 100 years War is not quite the Edo period either. Kyoshi is probably the Edo period. Um, but Kyoshi and Roku are probably the areas we know the least about. We just know from the Kyoshi books and the fun lore that they added to Avatar Legends for the, um, I mean, to some, like, if you haven't watched the show and you're playing Avatar Legends, you should go watch the show.
Speaker D: Absolutely, yes.
Speaker C: I'll make the stand. You're not going to get what's going on if you haven't watched to some extent the show because you are trying to emulate the tone and the genre of the animes. So it's just not really going to work if you come in with absolutely no touch points.
Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, this is an area where I would say if we were checking points in one column or another, like Avatar Legends versus DND. I would honestly give the point to DNd here because I feel like Avatar Legends is a much smaller sandbox. You're like limited, especially, like, with what we're doing. We're producing shows in this world and so we're limited by Canon at a home table where no one's going to be listening to it. Nobody's going to care if you're like, let's just pretend that Kyoshi didn't do X, Y or Z. But for us, it's like no Canon happened and we can make up our own stuff, but we're limited to. We can't just decide that Aang didn't disappear. But with D D, even within forgotten realms, within their baseline world, there's so much more room to play and to kind of do whatever you can conceive of.
Speaker A: Right. The beauty of the homebrew world that has kind of stemmed from dungeons and dragons and the size of it, no less, which, ironically, is kind of a major topic with the whole OGL situation. But I digress. Yeah. Um, but, yeah, no, that is a really good point. Yeah, Dungeons and dragons definitely has a lot more openness within the possibilities, I suppose you could say. Um, not to say that Avatar legends doesn't have almost endless amount of stories that could be told within it.
Speaker D: Oh, yeah. I think there's like a certain level where it's like the difference between an original piece of fiction and a piece of fan fiction. Right, right. We're essentially producing fan fiction at our tables versus writing something new.
Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. No, I completely agree. So with that aside. Yeah, go watch the show. What are you doing? What are you doing sitting there not watching the show and saying, yeah, I kind of want to play Avatar Legend.
Speaker C: It's so good, too.
Speaker A: I feel like if you were going to try to do it without watching, you'd probably come into it with that. Very. Okay, so this is basically like magic mindset of. Okay, well, I played Dungeons and dragons, so, yeah, I mean, I've played some spells where I got to throw fire and stuff. So, yeah, I mean, I get it. And then it's going to be a little bit scary from that point forward. Yeah, I'd be kind of intrigued to hear somebody play just from the I've never seen it standpoint. I mean, like I said, your whole stick was, I've only ever seen the.
Speaker B: Movie, which plays into the fact that I chose a non bender.
Speaker A: Right. I know weapons.
Speaker B: I know weapons.
Speaker A: I play dnd you were scared of the idea of bending, and you're like, I'm not going to tread on anybody's foot or upset anybody because I have no idea what I'm talking, uh, mean.
Speaker D: I will say, too, kind of, uh, in defense of people coming without a lot of background in of one of our players. She had never seen legend of Korra and hadn't finished, uh, the last Airbender. I don't know if she still has finished the last airbender or not. Uh, but she got the hang of it eventually. There was a learning curve for her that wasn't there for the rest of us. But she caught up.
Speaker A: Yeah. And it would almost be kind of cool to see that growth and development. Like, how did they interpret.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker A: From a standpoint of somebody that's never seen the show. Oh, go ahead.
Speaker C: I was just going to say it has led to Monroe doing some of the wackiest stuff.
Speaker A: Exactly.
Speaker C: I've ever seen in my entire life. And I'm like, I'm here for it. I'm like, absolutely. Let's try it. Let's see what happens.
Speaker A: Exactly. No, I completely agree. We know that with water bending, you could do some ice stuff, and you can, uh, whip your water, and you might be able to do some blood bending if you figure that out along the way. That was an interesting take on the concept of water bending. That up until that point in the show, I hadn't thought about until I saw it, and then I was like, whoa, that's dark, but really cool. So, yeah, having somebody that's coming in with a clean slate, they've never seen people just moving the water around. And the kind of struggles that any of the characters go through while trying to master their water bending doesn't have that limitation of, okay, this is how it works. So they just go into it with, like, yeah, like Justin said, crazy, crazy cool ideas, which is really exciting, honestly. So don't be intimidated by us yelling at you to watch, uh, Avatar, the last airbender.
Speaker C: But you should watch Avatar.
Speaker A: Yeah, but you should watch Avatar, one.
Speaker D: Of the greatest shows ever made. If you haven't watched it, really, what are you doing?
Speaker A: Is it still on Netflix or have they moved it at some point or something along the way? I don't know.
Speaker D: Uh, at some point, it'll be on Paramount plus, instead of Netflix, it's on.
Speaker C: There as of a couple of weeks ago when I was watching the Chi Tong Library episodes.
Speaker A: Oh, right on. Perfect. Getting some inspiration. Justin.
Speaker C: I was practicing my.
Speaker A: Very cool, you know, uh, Michaela, one of our players who plays Mika, she, uh, was just asking me the other day because she saw, I did, like, a video showing off all the stuff that we got from our package. And she saw one book with the Tong adventures. She was like, whoa, do we get to go to the library? I'm like, well, firstly, this is completely unrelated to the library. It is really cool, though. But yes, we theoretically could go to the library. Yes, absolutely. Which, uh, then made me think about, like, oh, crap, where did we set things in? And then I realized that a whole bunch of stuff that I wrote. Well, not a whole lot, but, like, two episodes worth of stuff I wrote for season two. I had to retcon like a ton of it because I was like, whoa, hold on. The Fire Nation has not gotten that far at this point in the era, and I need them out to be like the hardcore villains at this point. So that's not going to work. That's always fun. Well, and maybe kind of the culture of what's going on, too is another reason why it's kind of beneficial to watch the show before you play the game. Because pretty much no matter where it's going to be set at, there's probably some background from the mean. Obviously, Kyoshi and their, their stories are both referenced pretty heavily in the show, so it's pretty beneficial.
Speaker B: Also, your group will make a bunch of references to the show as inside jokes. And if you have not watched it.
Speaker A: Oh, gosh, yes, a lot of it.
Speaker B: Uh, so, yeah, watch the show so you can just get inside jokes. That'll help.
Speaker A: That's true, too. Um, okay, so this is probably one of the biggest things that I've seen so far that's confused people that are trying to get into avatar legends. Uh, and that is the balance and how all that works, because it's a whole mechanic in and of itself that I can't think of anything that compares to it.
Speaker D: Justin will attest, I did not understand balance at all for our entire first season.
Speaker A: Well, Justin, that means you must have done a really good job of explaining it if you want to jump into it.
Speaker C: So I would tell players and GMs, read the balance section and then read it again. And then read it again and then read it again. Because the whole point of the game is balance. The whole point of the character is them. Uh, m mostly you're going to be playing like you see in the shows, preteens, teens, kids who are honestly finding their place in the world, trying to figure out who they are, trying to figure out where they fit in. And balance is this game's mechanic for figuring that out. And it's these two principles which almost are secondary stats that are constantly in tension with each other. Um, so I think of, uh, the hammer is just always the one that I remember. I don't know why, but it's the one I remember off the top of my head. The hammer is one hammer.
Speaker D: And you had to explain it to me constantly, probably.
Speaker C: So the hammer is one of the playbooks, and their two principles are force and care. And it exists on this spectrum of plus, uh, three to minus three. And if one goes up, the other goes down. So if you somehow move your force to plus one. That means your care is minus one. Um, so there's that. There's the stat part of it, but then there's also what they call the center. Um, and your center is. I explain it this way from, like, a narrative sense. It's like how you're conceiving of your place in the world at that moment. Do you conceive of yourself as being someone who cares more about force? Do you think of yourself as somebody who cares more about caring for people? So once you've had some time to meditate recenter yourself, wherever your stats are, go back to the center. And a lot of the game is these stats moving up and down. There's a lot of mechanics for, uh, saying mean things to your friends, and they say something back, and your principles shift, your balance shifts. Uh, and then there are ways to use your balance principles instead of what you would normally roll for a stat. So you can, uh, mark some fatigue. And instead of rolling with one of the four main stats, you can roll with a higher, potentially secondary stat from your balance principles.
Speaker D: If it's not higher, I don't understand why you would choose to do could.
Speaker C: I could see there might be some story reasons where the GA might be. Like, I think this is probably a moment where actually I'm going to have you, like, mark fatigue and roll with that. Yeah, that would be rare. Nothing comes to the top of my head of a situation that would actually happen in, but it could happen. Um, and then, um, my favorite thing is when you lose your balance, uh, if you ever go past the end of the track plus three, it's representative of this big emotional turmoil. Something in that moment has just pushed you over the edge of your concept of yourself, uh, and you lose a piece of yourself in that moment. Uh, it's very fun. I don't know about you, Skyler, I love it when people get taken out by conditions or people get taken out by, uh, their balance shifting, because it means that I get to add the craziest complication and story element, and they just have to deal with it.
Speaker A: They do. Yeah, absolutely. Well, to be fair, uh, I got really quiet there because, uh, I, too, have always had questions about balance. So I was like, I m need this explanation. Justin's about to give as much as anybody else might. It is definitely like, uh, a very, um, narratively, I feel like it makes sense. It clicks in my head, and I feel like for most people, you can get it from a narrative perspective, but it's just how it works in coercion with other game mechanics. And when do I roll for balance related stuff, and how does that affect the role and things along those lines? So I think that's what a lot of people get hung up by.
Speaker C: Um, there aren't actually that many triggers interesting enough for a game that centers around your balance and your harmony. There aren't that many triggers for when you shift your balance and your principles. Um, usually the move will be very explicit about that. The only one that's kind of amorphous, I think, is, um, calling someone out. Um, that's the one that GMs really have to listen for, because there are sometimes that a character might say something or an NPC, honestly might even say something to a character that is calling them out. I was just editing, and we had a moment like this where, um, Steve was talking to Johnny's character, and day never said the balance principles, but when the conversation was over, it was very clear that Ren. Steve's character was trying to get Johnny's character, OSa, to do something, and it was in direct conflict with one of his principles. And I said, you have to call him out to live up to his principle. That's, I think, the only one for me that has been hard to like.
Speaker A: Okay.
Speaker C: You really have to pay attention to the philosophy and the meaning behind what's being said.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker D: And I think, too, you said, Justin, and I think this is one of the other tricky things, is that a lot of the times when it would be appropriate to say, like, okay, you need to do this balance move. It's in a moment where everyone's super into their character and they're super in the moment, and it feels like you're interrupting something important. To stop and have people do the mechanical.
Speaker C: Uh, is, I guess, a GM. We're moving to GM tips now for those sort of comfort and assessment. Comfort or guidance. Oh, my God. Guidance. Comfort and, uh, call someone out. Um, I let the conversation happen, and then a lot of those conversational moves will have some, like, if they reject your advice, do this. If they accept your advice, do this. We'll just look back at the fiction and how they respond it and play around with, like, it sounded like you were rejecting that. So let's go ahead. Just follow the mechanics of that. Um, it has been the most elegant way because sometimes those conversations get dirty. My heart is being tugged on right now. I don't want to stop.
Speaker A: Absolutely. And that's one of those things where you almost just want to step back. And that's another thing that I feel like, uh, Avatar Legends really does better than Dungeons and dragons. Like Dungeons and dragons, the DM is like, constantly, constantly, constantly doing things and inserting things into the story and so on and so forth in Avatar Legends. Yeah. I have never had as many opportunities to just sit back and be like, all right, I'm going to let them do this because they're having a moment. I'm going to just sit back and let them converse, and we'll roll or whatever needs to be done afterwards, I guess. But for the moment, this is the development, this is the story that's happening right here.
Speaker C: And I think, too, if you're coming into it as a GM, you're going to miss some of those triggers. There are going to be tons of times, especially because we record our sessions. I go back and listen, I'm like, man, I should have had them do this at that moment. That would have been a great time to hit this, but it works out fine, right? You hit the moves. When you hit the moves, it will complicate the story. I guarantee it. Your, uh, players will not roll ten plus on everything. Uh, and so just don't be like, you don't have to be hyper vigilant, um, waiting to step and be like, oh, actually that's the. Yeah, roll, roll.
Speaker A: You need to roll for. No, absolutely. Absolutely.
Speaker D: One thing I think, too, just to that point, that Avatar legends seems to give a little bit more space for than D. D for GM. Um, to just kind of step in and just add a thing and just be like, hey, this happens and nobody's rolling for, like, you're not here. Like, why don't you give me a perception check and hope that they fail it so that you can do something? It's just like, no, you guys didn't notice this thing happening.
Speaker A: Yeah, you have a lot more, like, it's more control almost to some extent, but also that freedom to.
Speaker D: Yeah, I think freedom is the better word for sure, to just tell the story versus, ah.
Speaker C: Uh, the inverse of that, too, is like, all the times in DNd, you're like, roll a perception chEck. I hope they don't fail so they can see this thing. That's incredibly vital to where this story is now in Avatar Legends. I just tell you, if I'm like, they would see this. I'm just going to tell you what you see, because I don't really care to make you roll for it. And that is the broader philosophy of, like, you don't need to make everyone roll. You should not be making everyone roll. For everything they do in Avatar Legends, if it's something their character could do on any given day at any moment, don't make them roll. Only roll when things get complicated.
Speaker A: Yes, I know a lot of people kind of sort of along those same lines a lot of people have been discussing, like, how do you guys handle money in Avatar Legends? And the answer typically, I mean, for us it was a little bit different because money was like literally the Central plotline. Like, we have to achieve this much money in order to save the tea shop in the situation that we were in for anything else. It's very open. Would your characters have enough money for this? Yeah, probably. Is it just some food, maybe some rations or whatever? Yeah, why not? Sure. Yeah, you probably have enough, uh, would you have enough money to buy, I don't know, like a house or a brand new shiny sword or something? Or like, uh, in the Pirate episode of Avatar Legends, when Aang has that full body suit of armor on and stuff like that, would you have the money for that? Um, no, but that's when you get to use the story and be like, okay, if you really want it, that, you know, maybe I'll insert some way that you could get it, or some character decides to steal it and then that becomes a story. Oh, you're being chased down the streets of whatever this seedy Earth Kingdom Village or whatever town that you're going through is, and you're being chased by pirates now. And now you have to do things to try to get out of that situation. Or who knows?
Speaker C: Money is only important if it needs to be important.
Speaker A: Yes, exactly. That's a good way to put it.
Speaker B: On top of it. Another thing with money is, uh, because in Avatar legends, you typically play as a kid, a teenager.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: Uh, money isn't usually the main source of currency that you have when you're a kid, right? Because you don't have a source of currency, sometimes you might have a job or whatever, right? And I know, for example, in ours, uh, we made a betting, um, money. Because we didn't have money, we instead bet chores and the loser had to do the other person's chores.
Speaker C: That's fantastic.
Speaker B: Because of the system doesn't have a hard money system. It forces the players to have to role play and create new forms of currency, like, say, chores. Like they're.
Speaker C: That's fun. Yeah, I like that.
Speaker A: Kind of a goofy little fun thing. Yeah, absolutely. A lot of openness for that, which is great. The next, um, thing that often confuses people that I put on this list is combat and how combat, or rather exchanges, works in Avatar legends versus Dungeons and dragons, which I think is a whole. I'm sure all of us have plenty to say on that. Kicking off just the way that combat route works. And ironically, don't feel bad if you do get it wrong, because we got it wrong in our entire first episode. We were totally running that wrong. And I'm like, uh, there's no way for me to retcon this, but I think we brought it up in the second episode that like, oh, hey, uh, so I totally ran this wrong last time. Here's how we do it correctly from here on. Which again comes back to those two D six that you're rolling. But the cool thing is that you're making a lot of decisions beforehand and then you're rolling to see how many of those decisions, in a sense, that you get to sort of follow through with, in a sense. Um, which is pretty cool. Which is pretty cool.
Speaker D: Yeah.
Speaker C: Are we diving into go for it?
Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker C: Um, well, first off, again, I haven't played a ton of fifth edition. Um, but yeah, I'm sure people that are listening to this are like, oh yeah, I got my standard action and my move and my. What is it?
Speaker D: Uh, reaction Action bonus. Action reaction Action bonus.
Speaker C: Yeah, I'm used to standard action move action. And now Pathfinder, uh, two E has just the three action economy, which is incredible. Better if you're wanting to move to D 20 system, move to Pathfinder two week as three action economy. So good. Love it. Um, but I think Avatar Legends is a decent foray for D and D people to come into powered by the apocalypse with because the combat is a bit more formulaic, um, than other powered by the Apocalypse games. In most other powered by the Apocalypse games, it's just what they call like Spotlight. You just shine it on who you think should be in the spotlight at that moment and they get to do something. But Avatar Legends, I actually like it. I know a lot of people when it first came out, we're not a huge fan of it. Uh, it feels like a martial arts battle to me because it's so much of a mental game too. So there's the three stances. You can choose between defending and maneuvering as like a general stance, advancing and attacking or evading and observing. And that's like the position you take in that to quote unquote, like 6 seconds. Right. Um. Where was I going with that?
Speaker A: It's like martial arts.
Speaker C: Yeah, it's like martial arts. Um, you, as the players are all getting to decide together what approaches you want to take, but the GM doesn't tell you what the enemies are doing. So it's this trying to figure out are they going to go first? Are they going to be able to do this thing before I get to do this? It's fun to me. So there is some strategy involved in combat, trying to figure out like, okay, I got to last this exchange so I can do this cool move next exchange. Um, so there is some strategy involved, but it's also still very narrative focused. And in general, you're just kind of like, here's what I do. What makes the most.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker D: The hardest thing for me switching over to avatar Legends from DND was not like some PBTA games have a harm system where you can figure out how hurt your character is, and in combat you'll mark statuses and conditions and fatigue and you might get taken out of the scene and things like that. But by and large, there's no harm system in Avatar Legends. And that was so hard for me to wrap my head around at first and kind of figure out how do I know when I'm too hurt to keep fighting and all that. I just couldn't get my head around it. But the flip side, the thing I really love about Avatar Legends combat is the fact that when you choose your stance, when you go to make your decisions about moves and everything is you roll up front to find out how many things you're going to be able to do. Whereas in D and D, you decide what your action is. You try to take that action, you roll, you might roll a miss or roll like, you roll. God forbid you roll a nat one and then you've done this thing, you're so set up in your mind for this cool moment, and then it fails and it falls flat versus here, you know, at the top, at the outset, like, okay, I'm going to get to do these three things. And even if you roll a miss and you don't technically have the opportunity to do something, you can shift, uh, your balance and do something anyway.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker D: And then within combat, it's not like you're rolling to hit or miss. The stuff that if you get to move, the stuff you do happens, and that's it.
Speaker A: It's a part of everything that's going on. I feel like there's a lot more of like, uh, a CamAraderie aspect that comes into play with Avatar Legends because I can directly affect things that other people are doing or I can act before them to set them up for success in DND. I mean, to some extent, you kind of have that, like, I can do this to the Monster, I can do this Spell, which is going to allow for, but this one's a lot more, in a sense, straightforward towards. I can really help somebody else to succeed in their action, which is going to put all of us in a better place or somebody's hurt or somebody's in a bad situation over there. I need to go help them with some way, shape, or form. I guess they can evade a maneuver and then that's going to clear fatigue or whatever. I don't know. But you know what I mean? You can go over and you can assist them because it's all narrative, which is really nice.
Speaker D: Yes. I don't know if you guys have found this, but it seems to me like, in our game, we do combat in character a lot better than I ever experienced in DND. I feel like in DND, character kind of goes by the wayside during combat, and everyone's just trying to kill the monster to do the thing to hit and what your character would do, uh, unless we don't need to get into my character would do that, people.
Speaker C: But, uh.
Speaker D: Your character development doesn't matter as much in combat and DND for a lot of people in Avatar Legends, I feel like it's a lot easier to make decisions based on who your character is and what's going to advance the story for your character when that combat is finished.
Speaker A: Yeah, no, I completely agree. I completely agree.
Speaker B: Also, your actions you do in combat in the Avatar, uh, system is also open ended in a sense, where it says you do this. Like, for example, you pin your opponent, but it's like Dot, dot, dot. How do you pin your opponent? You're a waterbender, you use an ice attack. Earthbender, you grab them with the rocks or something.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: But then on top of that, because of the element of, like, uh, he said with camaraderie, say, uh, you do grab someone with like an Earth attack. Well, then that sets up your ally who's following you with the next.
Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B: And then they see they're pinned now with an Earth attack. So what do they do? I don't know. They go for a different attack on someone else, or they go for a different part of that person to knock them out or something. But it opens up the element of storytelling because it adds all the actions of like a dot, dot, dot. All the evaded maneuvers is like, you evade, but like where or how, right? It's not just like, I evade. And then you just stay like that. Like in D. D. He's like, I hide in the shadows, and it's like, man, you could just say, that was your turn.
Speaker A: Right?
Speaker B: It's just, I hide. But in this, he's like, you say I evade and observe, right? And then your GM goes, okay, how are you evading? Or where are you going? Or what are you observing? It just leads into more questions, which creates more story elements of what your character is really doing. You can't just say a basic action and just stop it there, right? It forces you to have to make choices.
Speaker A: I cast this spell. It affects this specific amount of area.
Speaker C: There's my damage.
Speaker A: There you go.
Speaker C: Yeah, you take it, too. And I know playing this, I play Pathfinder two E in a campaign, and I play a Spellcaster. So I try and do a little razzle dazzle when it comes to my training. Here's what it's doing. I'm not just like. And I cast this spell. It's like, what does that look like? Every spellcaster is different and the same with this. Every bender is different. I know. Oftentimes my question is, the GM, um, there's so much. One of our players is like, I won't call them out, but they're, like, notorious for, like, I strike. And I'm like, all right, how do you strike? Paint that picture for me. Tell me what it looks like when you strike. Because you striking is very different from OSA, our, uh, defunct Airbender, now martial artist.
Speaker A: Yes.
Speaker B: It all comes down to the players as well and the GM and how they work together and stuff. Because this isn't a bash on DNd. Because, uh, for example, with me, I only play fighters and barbarians, right? Which is probably the most basic character.
Speaker A: You could get at.
Speaker B: But I find myself usually the most descriptive character on each of my turns in combat because I want to force a narrative, right? Because if I was trying to create a story for what my character is doing in the moment, I would just be a character that just hits each turn and that would get boring very quickly. But the difference is between D and D, where I have to force myself to get creative to make it interesting. This system just automatically. I was a little annoyed because we took our whole first season, and my character is a combat character, and the very last episode is when we had our first combat, and I was like, this is what I've been waiting for all. And I ate it, uh, up. It was some of the best combat I've ever experienced. It was flying. It was through the walls. There were so many memorable moments, so many memorable moves and actions, and me as a player, I was always trying to predict what is Skyler going to have these wacky characters going to do to try to stop me and how am I going to counter them?
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: But that's the combat player. There might be other players who are more the social players.
Speaker A: I know.
Speaker B: For example, our player Dave, he was the only one not involved in combat, but rather was in the background cheering on people and getting people to cheer people on and creating social elements of the combat. And it's like, that's how he chose to play it, and that's fine because it keeps it open, and that's what I loved about it. It's open and it lets you play more in the space, I guess, is a great way to put it.
Speaker A: That's a good example, too. Yeah.
Speaker C: I was just going to say to that, uh, another tip for players and GMs. If you are doing multiple combat exchanges per session, like in a three or four hour session, if you've got two exchanges, you're doing way too many exchanges. If those exchanges are lasting more than maybe four exchanges, it's too much. I try and keep it to two or three exchanges at the most, and maybe an exchange every three, four episodes.
Speaker D: Probably on average, because we have less often this season.
Speaker C: Less often this season, yeah. And I've been wanting to get more into it, but, um, uh, watch an episode of Avatar, the Last Airbender. The actual fight by fight scenes. You get maybe every couple of episodes.
Speaker B: The finale is the big one.
Speaker A: Yes. Finales are always the big one, but.
Speaker B: Other than that, combat usually like a.
Speaker C: Minute, a minute, a move. Someone does a couple of things, and that's it. Um, so what you do for that in this system is you just use the basic moves. Um, the character, the player says, the guards don't see me, and so I bend, uh, up the earth and trap them in the earth. Well, in DNd be likE, all right, roll for initiative. And in this, you're just like, all right, that sounds like, uh, rely on your skills and training. Basic move to me. Let's do that. If it works, no exchanges.
Speaker A: Yes. That's a great way to do it. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker D: And I think, too, that even just goes to what good storytelling is and what makes a compelling story. And this is a storytelling game. Even things like you think about Game of Thrones, which is, we think about it as being this hyperviolent thing, but if you actually tally it up, there's a lot less combat than conversation. In Game of Thrones, uh, people aren't being violent nearly as often as you think about it. It's just that that violence is a lot more visceral when it happens, so it becomes, like, prevalent in your mind. But the story hinges on the story moments, not on the violence. And I think it's the same sort of thing here. It's good storytelling.
Speaker A: Ah, yeah. And maybe that speaks to the quality of the fight scenes is if there's fewer of them, they're more intense when it does actually reach that point. Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that's really cool. Um, I don't know if you saw this, but somebody in our discord, that's what the exact advice that they gave us was, like, hey, going forward, make sure you keep exchanges to the minimum or combat exchanges to the minimum and keep them quick. Definitely go at it. When it comes to the season finale, have something epic or whatever that happens, for sure. Yeah, I do have to. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead, Johnny. Sorry.
Speaker D: I was just going to say, I think a piece of player advice I would give is in service of keeping the combat exchanges, like, snappy and m moving things along. I think if you're coming from a game like D D, you learn to be a little bit trepidacious and cautious, and especially because you don't know what moves the GM is planning in the be, you can kind of hold back and you're like, okay, let me reserve this thing until I know the lay of the land. But just take the big swings. Like you watch Avatar, the last AirbenDer, and you see Toph, she's always going in hard right off the rip, and just don't be afraid to just go in, do the big thing, and maybe it ends in one exchange because you did the big thing versus, uh, being dragged out because you're waiting and worrying.
Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. It goes back to what Justin was saying about you. Don't die unless you've decided that you're not going to. So, like, go for it. Yeah, do it. Let's see what happens. Use that really cool thing that you've been kind of contemplating and scheming up or whatever the case, which definitely can happen within the narrative.
Speaker C: Um.
Speaker A: Awesome. Well, to be fair, uh, I've exhausted my list as far as things, but if there's anything anyone does want to bring up as far before we just go into kind of, like, closing statements and things along those lines, if there's anything anybody wants to bring up about the differences between Avatar legends, d d something you feel like players or GMs should know, go for it.
Speaker C: The only thing that's on top of my mind, uh, is not a mechanical conversation at all, but it is, uh, being Asian American. Uh, the show Avatar, the last Airbender, has always been very special to me because it was one of the earliest representations I ever saw. Even though it was anime, it was American anime, still, of this high fantasy world that respected culture, Asian culture. Um, and so I think there is a conversation around playing this game and non Asian players coming and playing Asian characters, um, that you have to at least have with your table, I think. Um, and you have to be really careful that you're not playing into stereotypes as well. Um, and that you're also respecting the. The cultures that this world is based off of, um, because, yeah, it means a lot to a lot of people. So that is not a mechanical conversation at all. But it is very important, I think, to moving into this setting.
Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. It is a, uh, beautiful and incredible story that's been created. It's got so many amazing elements from cultures, uh, in the world that we Live in, in reality. And absolutely, it's so important to be respectful of that, be respectful of the creators intent and the direction that they were trying to go. I worry about the Netflix series because of the fact that the creators left. I worry that they might have stepped on some toes in some way, shape, or form. But we'll see, we'll see. I'm not trying to. Totally different direction there, I guess.
Speaker C: But, yeah, the casting is on point.
Speaker A: Yeah, it's phenomenal. I have seen, uh, so many updates and I'm like, man, all right, why was the movie so hard to get?
Speaker B: Good, uh, shows come down to writing.
Speaker A: That's true.
Speaker D: Yeah. And sometimes it's hard as creatives, it's hard to let go of your baby. We don't know all the behind the scenes. It's possible that they just felt a little too attached to their original ideas. And maybe the ideas at Netflix aren't bad, they're just different.
Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. I'm excited.
Speaker A: I'm excited. Yeah. Crossing our fingers.
Speaker D: Yeah. Um. Oh, go ahead.
Speaker B: I was going to say, to wrap up my thoughts on all of this, uh, there is two different ideologies, I guess, for D and D versus this, ah, Avatar system. And rather, I would also say powered by the apocalypse system, because I've played three different ones now of the powered by apocalypse system. And I will say D and D is for people who like that combat. They like those crunchy numbers, they like stats, they like the numbers to the game. And same with Pathfinder. Pathfinder is also the same kind of system. You like your numbers, you like your combat, play those, right?
Speaker A: Mhm.
Speaker B: But if you like telling a story and um, uh, the combat is the second element of it and you want the story to be it, play it powered by Apocalypse system. Especially if you love the Avatar world, right? Then play this one for sure if you love that. I personally like the monster of the week system the best because I just love a good old monster of the week story. I love the supernatural and all those. Right, Scooby Doo, you know the classics, right? But that's me. But it doesn't mean I don't like this system because I also love this. This is a lot of fun and it's in a great world and I love the show as well. It um. But again, you need to look at yourself as a player and say, like, do I prefer combat or do I prefer this? And if you're a player who's like me, I like both. So that's why I can dance between D and D and this and I can dance between them, that's fine. But I know some people you want to fill your table with people who like the same interest as well, because if you have one player who's hardcore, just like I love combat and stuff, then they might not be the best person to bring to sit at a table with a bunch of people who love role play, right?
Speaker A: They. Mhm. Might be a little bit frustrated for sure. Awesome. Well, with that being said, um, I just saw a notification that said we only have like five minutes left in this one, so I guess I'll cut things here. Um, but thank you guys so much, so much for taking the time out of your days.
Speaker C: Absolutely.
Speaker A: To sit down with us and talk. And I know everybody who's going to listen to this is going to really appreciate all this clarification on some of the rules and the differences, and they'll be able to get into avatar Legends just like we have. I know I've gained a lot from this. Um, and I really need to go and go over my book maybe twice at least, to just really solidify. But thank you guys so much. Uh, please give, uh, a plug for Flying Python, please.
Speaker C: Yeah. Uh, you can come find us on pretty much any podcaster you listen to. Flying Bison podcast. We've got our website, Flyingbysonpodcast.com. Um, we just announced our first Patreon, uh, exclusive show, which is super fun. Um, it's just going to be us kind of trying out a bunch of new games, all powered by the Apocalypse as well. So if you're like, oh, if you're interested in more games in the system, Johnny's actually going to be jamming our first game in the sword, the crown, and the unspeakable power, which is like a witcher, Game of Thrones type.
Speaker A: Very cool.
Speaker C: So we're super pumped to jump into that. And, uh, yeah, we have a discord. We love hanging out there and talking to people. And thanks, uh, so much for, uh, listening to this. Thanks for having us on, Sky.
Speaker A: Yeah, thanks for having us. Absolutely. Seriously. And seriously, like I said before at the beginning of the episode, if you have questions on the rules and things like that, or you're confused by something, again, I highly recommend. I'm not saying that we can't help you over at the Benders and brews, but seriously, uh, the team over at the Flying Bison podcast does a phenomenal job at clarifying rules. As you could have heard from Justin and Johnny, they have a really solid grasp. I've learned things. I know, Cameron, you've learned. So.
Speaker B: And they've been playing way longer, so that means they probably have encountered more. I mean, experience is the best thing to go to.
Speaker C: And to some learned, it was maybe like six months, we're probably going to kicked out. But at six months in, I was like, oh, I was doing that status wrong for the last six months. I get it now. Okay, readjusting.
Speaker A: All right, awesome. Well, again, thank you guys so much. Really appreciate it. Uh, for those of you listening, thank you so much for listening, check out the Flying Bison podcast. When you're done over there, head over and check out the Benders and his podcast. We have a good time, too. Um, find a way to play Avatar legends because it's super fun if you get the chance. And of course, watch the show because we told you to do that. Awesome. Well, thank you guys all so much. Have an awesome day. Have an awesome night. See, uh, ya. See you. Bye.