What’s your backstory?  Can you tell us a bit about yourself? 

Hello!  My name is Vahid.  I am the producer of a professional Dungeons & Dragons channel called Dice Legenz.  

When I’m not doing that, I come from the television industry; I’m a music composer in the TV world. I’ve done a whole bunch of music for fantasy stuff and for games and TV shows, and I’ve also done a whole bunch of voiceovers… and sound mixing!

That’s really cool!  I bet coming from a TV and music background, that’s really helped with the show.

Yes, it really does.  You’ve probably heard this before, but people will be lenient and forgiving if the images are a little bit low res or the editing is not all that good… but if that audio is bad, if you can’t hear what people are saying or it’s distorted… then people will just turn it off. 

When we do the Dice Legenz show, we have our five cast members, the DM and four players, and then we have a tech crew, and one of them is just doing sound.  They make sure that all the mics are on and strapped on correctly and that no one is clipping.  It’s a really important part of the show.  

How did you start with TTRPGs?  And do you have a single favorite moment or character that you’d like to tell us about? 

I started playing Dungeons & Dragons when I was seven years old, and my neighbor introduced me to it.  The Red Box Edition had only come out a year or two earlier, and it was all played with just drawing squares on a piece of paper.  We had no rules.  We had no idea what we were doing!  I started with the Red Box Edition that my mother bought for me, and I’ve played every single edition of D&D ever since.  

Most of the time when I was playing as a child and teenager, it was with my brother and sister, and we created these worlds and got into playing modules – we did a whole bunch of the original D&D modules.

As a teenager, we found other friends, and then that became our dominating hobby.  I’ve moved on since then with the same friend group playing D&D for decades. 

They’re your real life party members!

Oh, for sure!

And it’s interesting… we’d lost some on the way because they’re on other side quests.  I’m sure they’ll join in on the main quest again at some point, but we’ve got this core.  There’s three of us that have gone from spending holidays in a tent playing Dungeons & Dragons all day on summer break when we were teenagers.  The three of us are still the heart of the group decades later.

I think that really shows what a gift TTRPGs are… and why providing that option at a young age is important.  I think that’s a good bounce off for our next question too… 

Can you tell us a bit about your AP show?  How does it connect with all-ages crowds? 

Our show is called Dice Legenz, and right from the beginning, we knew we wanted our show to be an all-ages show. 

When we look at what core fantasy fiction is, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and so on, a lot of it is all-ages content.  Lord of the Rings is enjoyed by different ages all over the world, and they are very successfully able to attract audiences both young and old. 

I really wanted to make our show different from points in other AP shows that I had seen around the world, and one of the points was that I wanted it to be accessible to all ages.  

So, when we went out and did our casting calls and auditions for cast members, the first people we approached were people that I knew from the television industry that had worked on children’s television shows. 

Three of the five initial cast members had worked on children’s television, and, when you work in children’s TV you have ingrained in you a number of best practices to make sure that everyone in the audience is looked after and safe, while keeping it funny and exciting. 

That was our first step – we approached people that would understand the kind of aesthetic that we’re looking for.  

The next thing was to make it really clear that when talking to our cast members, that we were going to consider this a PG-13 show, or, in New Zealand, where we’re from, they call it M.  

People pretty much straight away understand, OK, we’re looking for something that has excitement, and it does have violence in it, but we’re not going to be describing that violence in gory detail.  There may be some romantic relationships, but we’re not going to be describing them in any kind of sexually explicit way.  

And, there may be some language, but they’re going to keep that stuff accessible to all ages.  One of the cool things about fantasy is that you can make up swear words. 

You can say, OK, guys, Gronk is the orc word for snot, and it’s actually really offensive.  You now have cultural context, and then you can go, “Oh Gronk!”

You and everyone knows that you’re saying a swear word, but it actually doesn’t translate as offensive in our world.  It’s just another neat trick. 

What advice do you have when it comes to GM’ing specifically for the all-ages crowd or players?  Or for GM’ing in general?

I think that setup, the first steps, are really important.  

If you do a session zero, or, even if you don’t and you’re just going straight into it, I think it’s really valuable for the GM to make it clear to all players what are the Lines and Veils that the story has around it. 

It’s important to explain to players, regardless of age, that, maybe, although we have violence, we’re not going to have body horror, for example.  We may have violence, but we’re not going to go into gory detail.  Just go over what the limits are, and I think that’s helpful.  In my experience, I’ve never had a problem with a player not getting on board with that. 

The second thing is that the Game Master, just like the facilitator for any collaborative space, sets the tone by their own behavior.  How the GM begins and explains the level of violence in combat is very likely to be mirrored by the players.  

I also think it is possible to create excitement and captivate the imagination without having to rely on violence. 

To go back to my experience in TV, one of the things that we learned in doing children’s television is that, in the world of comedy, jokes around contentious issues, divisive issues, class, race, violence, sex… they are actually easy.  They’re cheap.  Real talent for comedy is to be able to be funny without having to use those things. Similarly, I think with action, movies like Star Wars and Indiana Jones still hold up as being exciting without having to rely on those other tools.  

For a GM, there are other ways that one can make things exciting without having to rely on those other things… for example, the pace of one’s voice: 

[speaks faster and with urgency] If you speed up the pace of your voice and raise the timbre, it suddenly becomes a lot more exciting!

[returns to previous pacing] You can also have music in the background, or when describing a scene, don’t just use visual cues.  Use other sensory cues. 

What does it sound like?

What does it smell like? 

Suddenly, the scene triggers a lot more imagination without having to rely on those other tools.  

Yes, instead of relying on violence and gore and shock factor, it’s like you’re putting more into the narrative and creating a colorful and more immersive vibe.

Yeah, like, when you’re describing a monster, explain what it smells like.  What odor does it give off?  Give them a couple things to go off of.  

This really helps.  The rule of thumb that I generally use is to try to involve at least two senses when describing a scene or a monster.  What does it look like?  And then, what does it feel like?  Sound like?  Smell like? 

That’s a great way to pull in your players, especially young ones.  It’s easier to get engrossed in the story. 

For our last question, this one is a bit more open: Do you have any final shout outs, pieces of advice, or a statement that you’d like to share? 

First, TTRPGs are an amazing way for families and friends to come together and create a shared narrative.  I still do TTRPGs with my sibling and children and friends.

Even though one of my children is an adult now and one is a teenager, we still get together and play these games regularly.  It’s like a common thread that this has always been something that we do as a family, even since they were children.

Second, in terms of shout outs, I would really love for people to check out our most recent actual play story.  

It’s a YouTube series called The Bards of Aratai, and it’s all about this frightening new potion that’s been discovered that’s capable of wiping out the world’s most populated city.  

It’s up to three vigilante bards to track down its source and try to save the city before it’s too late!

Unfortunately, the person behind the potion is far more deadly and conniving than any of them thought imaginable!

And the cast members on this are all singers – they’re all musical.  So, we do improvised songs.  In one episode, I think maybe the third or fourth, one of the characters just suddenly says, “I feel a song coming on!  I think it’s in the key of A minor!”  To which, that’s my cue to pick up the guitar and play. 

Because our cast has the ability to do that, we decided to go on an all bards extravaganza… also because bards can do pretty much anything.  Not as good as everyone else, but they’re like everyone’s second best friend and really really fun!

Yeah!!  They have the jack of all trades vibe, and if you have the whole party doing it, you’re covered!

We actually encourage the audience to help create the characters.  They knew who the cast members were going to be and they chose a particular cast member to be a valor bard who just likes smashing things with a hammer, this one here was picked to be a lore bard who’s all about spells, and this one here is a glamour bard who is so ridiculously glamorous that she has to wear sunglasses lest she literally break the people’s hearts with her beauty!

It’s just way too much fun!

It is.  I’ve listened to the first couple episodes, and it was a good time!  Definitely recommend that people check it out [link is at the bottom of the page here]!

Well, thank you Vahid for signing in and sharing your XP with us!  It’s been great talking with you!

And thank you so much, Steph, for allowing me to be part of what’s on TTRPGkids!  I really appreciate being able to connect and share some words!

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You can find the Dice Legenz work here!  

And check out their latest show, Bards of Aratai, on YouTube!

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