 Welcome to Dungeons & Collaborations, a player's handbook to working with distributed teams. Whereas my clicker gets sent. I'm Roland Lee. You'll find me on the internet at Roland Lee. I'm from Washington, DC. I do a lot of rhyming. I'm a software developer at Etna. Most importantly, I'm a level nine wizard. So show of hands, who here knows what tabletop role-playing is? Cool. Now where are my real nerds at? Yeah, there we go. There we go. Regardless if you have played, or this is the first time you've ever heard it, we're going to have a session zero where we're going to set expectations and get on the same page. So what's tabletop role-playing? Is it like a board game? Sort of. You take turns and you make moves, but there's no winner. Is it like an RPG video game? Kind of. You tell stories with characters, but you're only limited by your imagination. Not with the story in the game, it makes you do. I can say it's collaborative storytelling governed by a set of rules. Where three to five players act as main characters in a story, and another specific player places the Game Master or Dungeon Master, DM or GM. They facilitate the story. They act as supporting characters. They're the terrain. They're the monsters. They also act as a referee and help adjudicate the rules. Where the end goal is not to win, but to create a compelling story using rules as a narrative device. Now that we're all on the same page of what an RPG is, I want to walk you through my journey. And that starts with getting the right game with the right people. Just like having the right culture at a right company, this can spell success or failure. But we're going to tackle the easy part first, the right game. At their core, gains reward behavior, scrabble rewards having a great vocabulary, risk rewards, military strategy, and RPGs are just the same. Some reward combat, some reward storytelling. My approach to a problem is different if I get rewarded for killing the monster versus overcoming my own character flaw. This led me to the game Dungeon World, created in 2012 by Sage Latoura, a senior test engineer at Google, and Adam Kobal, a professional GM. Or as Adam Kobal calls it, hipster, dungeons, and dragons. It has the same genre conventions, wizards, elves, but it's mechanically different. And that's because it's powered by the apocalypse, which actually means there's a fork of a different game. It's weird. RPGs have forks of forks of forks, just like programming. Giving it its distinct feature, the 2D6 mechanic. Which means I as a player will describe an action. I slash the baddie. The GM will then prompt me to make a roll of two six-sided dice. This'll be the same that you'd see in a game Monopoly, Caton, Craps. Then, if I roll a sum of 10 to 12, I succeed, and the GM narrates. You slash them to the ground. Seven to nine. I get what I want, but at a cost. You slash them, but then it gets you back with a dagger. Two to six. I fail completely, but the game gives me experience so my character can grow. Your attack completely whiffs. The baddie kicks you to the ground after your sword falls from your hand. So the game teaches me I can either succeed from my actions, or with the worst case scenario, I can warm from my failure. Now, be it the interview process, or finding people to play with in a niche role-playing game, getting the right people is hard. Here are all the different meetups I could be playing Dungeons & Dragons at in the DC metro area. There's no dungeon world meetups in DC. So how do I follow my passion when it's not available locally? I went to the internet and I found this website called Roll20. It's a place where RPG players can collaborate. It's kind of like Google Hangouts, plus a whiteboard, plus dice rolling. And I was able to find a group there where I could play Dungeon World at a time that works best for me. But just because I have a group doesn't mean it's the right group. And that's something I have to work for. And that starts off with having the right expectations. Be it starting a new job or a new project, knowing what I'm getting into really helps my happiness. And just like we did before, we have a session zero. This is a meeting where we talk about our personal goals and kind of figure out what we wanna be the tone of the game. Say, is the game gonna be like Lord the Rings or Game of Thrones? Both are fantasy, but they're very different. If I think we're going to Mordor to drop off the ring, then halfway through, my teammate slits my throat and says Jamie Lannister sends his regards. I'm not gonna have a great time. But just like professionally, I gotta be adaptable. I'm still playing a really niche game on the internet. Here's a great example of what can be done. Say the player goes, I wanna be a pirate. James goes, that's a dumb idea. I'm saying my game of the desert can't be a pirate. There's no pirates in the desert. But this brings us back to this old advice in RPGs. Never start with no, always ask why. So let's roll it back. Let's say the idea doesn't get shut off and we're then at a standstill. We could say, well, why do you wanna be a pirate? I want a sweet boat. Oh, what if your boat traveled on sand dunes instead of water? Here, we're not focusing on the tactics and getting entrenched in it. We're focusing on how do we create solutions for each other? I use this technique a lot when I'm trying to spec out future development with the products and other developers. So we're gonna actually get into some gameplay. I'm gonna kick that off by meeting the party. Here's our game master. He's played by John from Florida. We have Hawthorne, our cleric, who heals people. She's played by Locke from Australia. We have Kyvo, our thief. And he's played by Josh from Texas. He's from Dallas, but don't hold that against them. We have Wisteria, our druid. She's ShapeShifts. And she's played by Lucy from California. And we have yours truly, wizard extraordinaire, master of magic, lover of fireball. Uri, Ronely from DC. We're five people across four time zones and two continents. So the bare minimum thing we can do is respect each other's time zones. We play from five to 9 p.m. Eastern Sunday nights for me. That means Locke is playing from seven to 11 a.m. Monday morning. So she needs like an extra couple of minutes to get ready. Like, she deserves it. And we'll just get her back up to speed later on. But also, like, when nine o'clock rolls around, I need to get out and get ready for the next day. We're also three men and two women of different races and ethnicities in our 20s, 30s and 40s. So we need to think beyond just the bare bones of time zones and being overall empathetic. In my old group, we're all just 20-something dudes who had the same jokes and the same humor, which was fine. But when I started playing online with people I didn't know, I had to be more thoughtful in my expression. For example, if I said the dragon looks like a Charizard, I can't count on everyone in my group knowing what a Charizard looks like. So who here knows what pair program is? Yeah, okay, mob programming? Okay, we're paired with more than one person. We're gonna do something really weird. We're gonna mob GN this game together. I'm gonna shout out a question like, what color is the dragon? Yeah, it can be green, red, okay. We're gonna go with turquoise, I love turquoise. And we'll do something like this. Our party has just slayed a turquoise dragon and they're looking to celebrate a hard-earned victory. Where and how are they celebrating? Yes, they're at the Alamo draft house reds. So they're all there having a good time hearing this person talk about RPGs. Kyvo, he's eating the Royale cheese. Hawthorne's still kind of skimming the bingo sheet because she really thinks she could get a black ale if she tried hard enough. Uri's bragging to the person next to him how he singly took down the turquoise dragon. And Wisteria is just kind of solidly watching with her hands and her ears like this. And everyone's having a great time. It's Friday afternoon. People are munching, talking. Then all of a sudden, down the ramp, this dwarven man walks down and everyone turns and sees him because most people know who he is. And if he's around, things are probably not good. He approaches the party up in the robe and he says, Greatens, I'm Hannah Meyer. Head the town's guard. Our chaduk has been kidnapped and we need you to rescue him. Our intel says that he's stuck in a cabin in the woods. But stop by Ada, our shopkeeper, and she'll sort it out for your perilous journey. But hurry and make haste. Our party nods, they take this challenge. Player tip, use vivid language when describing a situation. The more details you hear, the more of a shared vision we can create in the theater of the mind. Just like in software development, SYNG is stack trace is much better than just hearing, oh, it's broken. And SYNG's detailed user story is better than hearing make it pop. So we're in a fast forward. The group makes a polite exit of the conference while everyone's still there. And they get dressed and they head off to the shop to see Ada. They approach the shop, it's fairly small. It's like 10 yards by 10 yards. Then there's a counter that wraps around the room and on the other side of the counter, there's wooden shelves that go all the way up to the ceiling. And all the shelves are just basic stuff. Clothes, dry goods, first aid kits. But there is a specific item on one of the walls. It has this oar to it. It's a weapon. What weapon is it? Double-bladed axe. Double-bladed axe, yes. As they approach the counter, it jumps off and loses her mic and says, hello, I'm Ada. Hannah Mara says you're gonna stop over. Is there anything you need is on the house? Or he walks up and goes, yeah, this hike's gonna be a doozy. I might need a new pair of boots because I'm gonna get my good shoes dirty. Yeah, you need good foot protection. Those walls are mighty dangerous as she slowly glances at her left hand. She turns around, grabs the boots from the shelf. And as she grabs the boots from the shelf, she can see that she's missing a finger. She hands them to Uri. And as she hands the boots to Uri, you can see a ton of scarring on her hand that could only come from battle. She hands it to Uri, glancing at her hand again and says, anything else you need, those walls are mighty dangerous. Remember to repeat key details. In remote work, sometimes the audio cuts out or even at the basic level, people just misunderstand what's being heard. And even if they did hear it correctly, hearing it over and over again reinforces importance over minor details. There he goes. Now I'm fine. And walks out. Ada says, okay. Hawthorne then approaches Ada and says, I can use my healing magic to reduce some of the scarring and so you would feel less pain. I don't know if it's powerful enough to bring back the fingertip. Well, that's mighty gracious of you. Thank you very much. You're welcome. But you seem to know a lot about these woods. Is there, are you an adventurer? I now and then. And here's a good tip for you in those woods. Anything can hide in the trees and anything can hide in the bush. You always better be on the lookout. Active listening. This is a technique commonly used in conflict resolution and in management where a listener listens to the speaker and how they say it, then paraphrases it back to them. I find this especially useful in software development and RPGs because we're using, we're in such a high fidelity of information that it acts as a checksum between both parties. After Hawthorne finishes healing, Kyvo's looking at that double bladed axe up there. He just caught his attention because he loves shiny things. And it says, yeah, I got that in my last trip out in the woods. It's yours if you want. We really need our archduke back and you're gonna need all the help you can get. Kyvo, being gracious. It says, thank you. So we're gonna fast forward to the woods here and say that the party's done about a day of hiking or so and they're looking to make camp. And they've made camp and Uri's on watch. Everyone else is asleep. Uri, what do you do? Well, I just took down a turquoise dragon. I think I can handle a simple rescue mission. I'm gonna make my way to the cabin. I'm gonna go into the cabin. You see two goblins on patrol. These are obviously probably the goblins that kidnapped the archduke. What do you do? I cast Fireball. You rolled an 11. Success. They turn to ash. What do you do now? Like I said, this is gonna be super easy. I'm gonna get closer to the cabin and take out the rest and get the archduke back before breakfast. You get to the cabin. You see two goblins guarding the entrance. What do you do now? I cast Magic Missile. You rolled an eight. Partial success. You take one goblah now, but the other goblah knocks the one from your hand. What do you do? Plenty of them. 10, success. What do you do now? I open up the door and say, Uri's here to save you. Don't hug the spotlight. That might have been a real cool series of events for Uri, but there's three other players at the table who have completely checked out because they're not involved. Just like in programming where we try not to be cowboys or rock stars, in an RPG game, don't hug the spotlight. As you burst through the door, you see and smell a dark gas. What do you do? I cover my mouth and hold my breath. Ooh, you rolled a six. You pass out. Let's check back in with the rest of the party. Y'all wake up to a sound of explosion as if someone casted fireball a while back. What do y'all do? Well, the shopkeeper said that anything could hide in the trees in the bush. So someone should go look out. That sounds like an amazing idea. I'll turn into a bird and fly around to see if I've seen anything. You see two goblins hiding in a tree or in some bushes, actually, underneath a tree. And one goblin says, what's up with that wizard? Does he know things could hide in the trees in the bushes? I know, right? They're not done with that conversation. I mean, I get the thing we said worded at boss. I know, right? I go and tell the rest of the party. Kyvo, what do you do with this information? Well, I got this double-bladed axe. I don't wanna try it out. Okay, what do you do? I'm gonna take them both out with one swing. 12, he got them both. They fall to the ground. Hawthorne, what do you do? I cast Speak With The Dead. This lets me ask three questions, and they have to answer truthfully. Cool, you rolled a seven. This means it works, but you won't be able to use it for the rest of the session. What do you ask? Where's Uri? The boss has probably got him. Who's your boss? He's a mind flayer. And how do we defeat him? He's afraid of spiders, and then there's this magical double-bladed axe that somewhere in this forest, I could kill him in one swing. Oh, okay, that's really convenient, thank you. What do you all do with this information? Well, I'll turn to a spider, and I'm gonna sneak into the cabin to scare him. Okay, he's sneaking into the cabin. There's Uri, he's passed out. There's the Archduke, who's also passed out. And there's the mind flayer, I'm standing over him. What do you do now? As a spider, I jump on one of his tentacles, getting right in his face. Oh yeah, he doesn't not like that. He starts screaming around the room. Kyvo, what do you do during all this commotion? Well, I'm gonna sneak in all sly luck to the door while he's screaming, and take him out. Cool, yeah, done so. Hawthorne, what do you do? Well, I heal the Archduke and Uri back to health. Remember, play off each other's work. Just like programming, not everyone has all the skills, so it's important to delegate and collaborate. So the Archduke says, well, I was in the forest doing research, then the mind flayer got me. However, before then, I was able to find these stones of far speech. They'll let you communicate with anyone anywhere in the world, no matter the distance. I want you to take them as a gift for rescuing me. The group graciously takes the gift and says thank you and lets the Archduke on his way to escort the Archduke back to the city. Let's talk about end of session. At the end of our four-hour sessions, Dungeon World asked us to have a retro, where we asked three questions, and for every question we say yes to, we get a point of experience. First, did we loot a memorable treasure? Yeah, we got the stones of far speech from the Archduke. Did we overcome a notable enemy or monster? Yeah, we defeated the mind flayer. Did we learn something new and interesting about the world? We learned techniques to help us better collaborate. We learned how to set expectations and just starting having the right game with the right people. I want to say thank you to John, Josh, and especially Lucy who did all the artwork for this presentation, for teaching me so much how to be better at working together remotely. Here's my information. Twitter, email. Also, if you ever want to reach out to Lucy, here's her email as well. Thank you.