The Best Worst Holiday Movie You’ve Yet To See
Hometown Holiday: an Improvised Hallmark Movie from My First Dungeon
‘Tis the season at My First Dungeon and we’re celebrating with a jolly game of Hometown Holiday, the TTRPG of televised holiday romance by Nick Tourville.
It’s like a Hallmark Christmas movie…only hornier.
Listen to the trailer and stay tuned for our holiday mini-season.
12/18 - Interview with designer Nick Tourville
12/25 - Hometown Holiday Actual Play
And be sure to grab a copy of Hometown Holiday to put in that special someone’s stocking.
Buy Hometown Holiday (Digital)
Buy Hometown Holiday (Physical)
How My First Dungeon Builds Great Characters
Shenuque’s Three Lessons From Our 2023 Seasons
I’m going to toot our horn. If you’ve listened to My First Dungeon, then you know we’ve told some pretty good stories. Credit goes equally to our string of great GMs as well as players who understood their characters through and through, and who were willing to take the treats our GMs offered. So I want to take a moment to talk about some of the best character moments of the year and highlight what we can learn from them.
Warning: Spoilers for MFD Presents: DIE & Orbital Blues Ahead
One of the most iconic moments of the year has to be from our DIE season when Drak finally used “the voice” power. This led to an incredible finish for our episode and was such a phenomenally brilliant moment for Drak’s character, consequently causing a devastating change in his relationship with his brother. Enoch, Drak’s character, is now forever entrenched in legendary fiction of our DIE universe because of that move. If you want to make similarly devastating choices for your character, we have 3 tips to try:
1. Language expresses who we are. We make jokes, we have quirks, but everything you say has power and truth. That’s why when you’re playing a character, you should understand how they say something when they’re joking around and happy versus how they may say it when they’re angry.
An example is in Episode 3 of our “Orbital Blues” season when Kumari attempts to pass a lighter to Eli in an act of attempted arson and says, “Burn it down, employee of the month.” In the previous two episodes Kumari had been using the “employee of the month” bit as a joke and a way to share their love for Eli. In this instance, it was a devastating moment in which Kumari invited Eli to join them on their path for revenge. (Also, it’s important to know this can backfire; see A Birthday for Gertrude in our Yazeba’s season where I make the worst promise of my life and Brian forces me to deliver.)
2. Your GM will forget. GMs have a lot of things to track, so odds are they’ll probably forget about something you said, did, or even one of your abilities. They may try to lead you down a trap and forget you have a clutch skill to get you out of danger. That’s why it’s on you to remember all of your character’s powers, abilities, allies, etc.
Anything that can help you succeed is your responsibility to hold on to.
Don’t assume the GM will prompt you to use that super cool thing you have in your back pocket. In fact, assume your GM has totally forgotten about it and drop it on them at the moment they least expect.
In our Orbital Blues season, Ward is on the precipice of death and Brian is giddy with joy as he approaches his first player kill. Elliot lets him fully narrate Ward’s death and then activates his gambit, ‘Unstoppable’, to avoid all incoming damage and survive. He waits until everyone thinks Ward has been killed and then springs this incredibly powerful trap. The silence at the table when everyone thought we had just lost Ward was deafening. I distinctly remember thinking to myself, “We’re all going to die.” That moment was probably one of my favorite moments of the entire year.
3. Keep secrets. Everyone has secrets. There are things that even your closest friends may not know about you. There are things some people know and others don’t. In your session zero, think about the things that the other characters in the universe may know about your character. More importantly, think about what they don’t know. Think about what’s important for your GM to know about your character and what isn’t. Odds are you probably don’t have to tell everyone all the nuances of your character immediately. You can give yourself space to discover some of those things in-game with everyone at the table.
Sometimes it’s important for the GM to know something about your character because it will impact the world. For instance, Carolyn Page played Eli in “Orbital Blues,” and a big part of Eli’s story was falling in love with Tony Parrazzo’s daughter. This established clear stakes for the character and was integral for the GM to know in developing the story.
However, our DIE season, had some great examples of things the GM and other players didn’t know, and didn’t need to know in order to make the game work. When my character, Jayamal, was described to everyone at the table, it seemed that he had a parasitic relationship with Brett, who was ‘using’ him for money and clout. It was later revealed that Brett and Jayamal were married and the things that seemed parasitic were actually quite loving. The GM still had context to their relationship and built the world around that, but was using false assumptions that the characters and the world would make on Jayamal and Brett. This is what made this reveal a true mic drop moment at the table.
Okay, my army of chaos gremlins, go create the most lovable characters that then drop the most harrowing moments in your games. Let us know how it goes by telling us about your games in our discord! Chaos is what keeps me alive!!!
-Shenuque
A Wild Hat Appears!
Announcing Many Sided Media Merch!
You’ve been asking for it so we delivered! We’ve got merch now!
Check out the first pieces of Many Sided Merch including:
dMany T-Shirt ($27, black or white)
TTRPG Hat ($27)
My First Dungeon Show Posters by Elliot Davis ($30)
If you’re looking to show your support for everything we make—or you just want a cool straight-to-the-point hat—head on over to manysidedmedia.store and fill your cart (as well as our hearts).