Show Notes
In this episode of the RPGBOT.News, we talk to Josh Selesnick of Playing4Keeps. We discuss using DnD as a corporate team building event, the benefits of the strong bonds built at the gaming table, and how we can convince our bosses to let us play DnD at our day jobs.
Materials Referenced in this Episode
- Josh Selesnick
- RPGBOT.Podcast Episodes
Transcript
Randall 00:20
Welcome to the RPGBOT.News. I’m Randall James and with me is Tyler Kamstra
Tyler 00:25
Hi everybody.
Randall 00:26
And Ash Ely.
Ash 00:27
Hey guys.
Randall 00:28
And today we have special guest Josh Selesnick.
Josh Selesnick 00:30
Hey guys. It’s nice to meet you all. I guess you guys know, but I do… for viewers I do team building using Dungeons and Dragons and other tabletop RPGs. It’s like my, my super passion.
Randall 00:41
That is awesome. So Tyler, what’s happening?
Tyler 00:44
Today we’re going to talk to Josh about using D&D as a team building exercise, especially in a corporate environment. We had the creator of StartPlaying.Games on the podcast very recently, he talked a little bit about doing something similar. But Josh has really focused on doing this as a team building exercise rather than just being a DM more broadly. So I wanted to get some insight into how this can be done effectively, what the benefits are, what Josh’s experiences are like, and how I can convince my boss to let me do this at work.
Randall 01:23
Right. So I think I need to ask the question that we’re all wondering: what are the benefits of doing trust falls wearing a cape?
Josh Selesnick 01:29
Well, uh, if you’re speaking about D&D, they are… Well, there’s a lot! I think there’s a really deep emotional trust fall that can happen with it. And you get to feel empowered. I’ve noticed a lot and oh, I just think it’s better than any freaking trust fall that exists out there. Because because the bonding that gets to happen, the shared story that comes out of it is totally magic. It It freaks me out how meaningful these games are. And it just seems to happen. What I say it comes down to is feeling valued, seen and heard. And then feeling like your teammates are gonna bring out the best in you. And sharing sharing some memories together, sharing it like something it’s only I mean, you guys have played RPGs before you know how it feels to to have your, the friends who you’ve been in a story with, and you make eye contact. It’s like it’s that moment that that you guys had together that you know what it means. And it’s just between the two of you. I think that that’s kind of what’s special about
Randall 02:28
okay, I’m pretty convinced that folks can’t tell at home but I’m climbing on top of my desk to go and do my trustful. Well, okay, so before we start talking about, like leveraging D&D, or tabletop gaming for team building, let’s take a step back. What is your background with tabletop games? Well, glad you asked.
Josh Selesnick 02:47
So so when I I started playing tabletop games about five years ago, I’m kind of a noob. i My friend you guys know Dan Harmon Harmon quest, that whole thing? Yeah. Yeah. So he was doing his podcast, my friend Elizabeth was like, oh, I want to play game of D&D. This is going to be so fun. And we put it together. And it was a train wreck. We didn’t understand the rules were at each other’s throats. But I still felt like there was something there. It was so fun to be this other character and to watch my friend Luke become Vincent, who’s like a criminal Fighter total jerk my friend Luke the nicest guy roleplaying to a tee like this thief, and, and bully and I was like, What is this? How are you you’re like a different person. And so I did that. And then even though it was a game, I knew that I liked being other people. I like playing pretend. And at the same time I studied acting, I say this technique called the Meisner technique, which has a lot to do with like listening. So right at the same time that I was doing that. I was playing D&D For the first time. And miser has this really cool philosophy. He calls it truthful behavior under imaginary circumstances, which means you’re going to behave as though it’s real. But only the circumstances are imaginary. You’re really going to listen to your partner, the person you’re working with, and that’s what’s going to create compelling theater, people are going to want to watch they’re gonna be emotionally affected by that they’re not able to tear their faces away. And so I wanted to incorporate that in my D&D games. And when I say truthful behavior, I mean, like, you know, that feeling when you imagine like a creamy skirt steak sandwich with like, the crunchy bread and your mouth starts to water. You know? It’s like that feeling of like, it actually affects your
Randall 04:28
body. Yeah, I had a similar things that so when I was doing theater classes in high school, I was doing a scene with a partner. And in the scene, I had to shoot a full shot of vodka. Well, okay, yeah. So I throw it back, and I keep doing my lines. And I rehearsed it like that two or three times. And finally, the professor who taught theater, like stops for a second, you know, she’s like, Oh, no, this is, you know, somebody and she like looks in the crowd at some of the seniors like, somebody put some vodka in that class tomorrow. I want to see what this actually looks like it and the poor It was exactly that, like if you, you know, in order for it to feel real, you have to react to things which aren’t actually happening, the stimuli that isn’t actually there. But if you can do that, and you can give it to your scene partner, then your scene partner can feed that back to you.
Josh Selesnick 05:14
Exactly, that is exactly what we go for. And it’s so cool. Watching people do that and feed off each other’s energy in the scene becomes more real, because everyone is is kind of empowering it. So I totally come at it with that theater background. I was doing a scene with my girlfriend the other day, because we play on Sundays, our writers and I go from place to end oh my god, let’s go Dev. But yeah, she is seen and she’s a warlock with a super creepy dark sea goddess, and I have her dark, so you got to show up and be like, I want to talk to you. And I could see visibly my girlfriend like Gope you know, like, like, the principal had just called her into the into the thing. And it’s because she’s taking it really realistically, you know? And really, and everyone else is like, oh my god, that was so tense. So yeah, so I wanted to, it’s taken a long time you guys asked how I started. It’s taken a long time to get to this level of, of where I feel really confident about my storytelling ability, my ability to influence like the story and bring my players to another world. Put Yeah, I mean, I started DMing with with out of the abyss, the
Randall 06:20
Forgotten Realms adventure. And yeah, that was kind of my first book that I just, I loved it. Alright, so Okay, all the blossoming DMS are sitting at home they’re wondering this did you manage to kill everyone?
Josh Selesnick 06:39
I looked back at during that campaign, I was like so judgmental. Anytime they did something wrong. I was like, Oh, you gotta be kidding. Really? You’re gonna try that the demons are gonna get you for sure. I was just like, the city of grackle. Stuck. Oh, go ahead.
Randall 06:54
The book gave three options for what might happen and you’ve chosen none of those. Obviously, this is ridiculous.
Josh Selesnick 07:01
Oh my God, that’s such a beginning DM thing of like, I can’t think of a different scenario than what I’ve been given. So you must be playing it wrong. Yeah. Yeah, it’s been. I’ve had to kind of unlearn that over time. And I’m sure tons of DMS can relate. But the fun is in the unknown. You know, the fun is in the
Ash 07:18
Yeah, I mean, I have a similar experience from you come from a theatre background only been doing D&D for five, about five years. At first. Firstly, sessions are always a disaster. And I lost minds of fans over and it was a TPK as well. So always fun, right? Always fun. Now, I did want to ask, so are your D&D sessions like, do you guys, because I’m just imagining, like, the typical corporate retreat things like do you guys, like do live action? roleplay? Or are you just sitting around a table? Or do you do it virtual?
Josh Selesnick 07:53
Well, great question. Yeah, I do virtual. I have been, you know, a pandemic business. And a lot of people are going hybrid right now. And I like the fact like, I played a game with some folks in Redwood City in Palo Alto. And I didn’t have to leave my home in Oakland, which I love. So I, yeah, I’ve kind of gone virtual and, and all my home games are virtual too. So we do that. I mean, I’ve got some fantasies about you know, C suite retreats, where we rent out an Airbnb and like, you know, like taco and play for a weekend or something. But at this time, yeah, we do we do virtual.
Randall 08:26
I think you mispronounce that. I heard fantasy. What you meant is that there’s there’s a tear that folks can get into we’re absolutely we can make that Tahoe we can happen, right. Yeah, exactly.
Josh Selesnick 08:36
We really, could I, you know, we do have I’ve got to get to we can totally mobilize Thanks for looking at. But yeah, so that’s yeah, that’s that’s kind of how we do it. That answer your question there.
Ash 08:46
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Also, I mean, like, so you’re talking about the challenges of first time do Yeah, DMS. And it’s also hard for first time players, especially players, who were maybe kind of forced to do this by their boss, as a team building exercise. What sort of unique challenges does doing it for people who either have never done it before? Or are doing it for their job bring up like, how do you get them to buy in to the fantasy?
Randall 09:13
Actually, I want to pause for a second. What is it? So we’ve talked about your background, but like, let’s literally what are you doing?
Josh Selesnick 09:19
Oh, so you want to know like the process of like, yeah, yeah. Okay. I’ll tell you that for sure. So, the way that the game works is someone who first off someone who’s interested I usually meet folks through LinkedIn, but all sorts of other places, will come and reach out and they’ll book a discovery call. We’ll have a talk about what their team, what’s going on in their team, you know, what do you lik? And then once I get a sense of who they are, and their interest level in the game, I either schedule a one shot, if they’re not sure, or, you know, like a five session. Five session tends to be kind of the sweet spot I found to get the benefits of of the bonding, the shared story, and kind of getting into a rhythm. So I’ll then have a totally… My favorite part of the business is sitting down with the team lead and talking about what kind of a game they want to play. Especially if they’re really like fired up about it. It’s so fun to go back and forth. Like, I want to do this kind of a game, I want to do this. I want to do high fantasy but but I want to be like dystopian high fantasy and all this stuff. And I can kind of be like, alright, well, I think I’ve got material or pull in from my books and find the thing that that works for them. And then we’ll meet and we’ll do the session and kind of the way that I structure… actually hold on. So the build the game based on like, what their needs are, as a company, how big their team is, and then create X amount of modules for them for say, it’s a six, six person team, we’ll make one. If they have a 12 person team, we’ll do two different two different adventures, I’ll do it like groups of six. And we’ll set up times we’ll schedule the time for folks to come and meet online. And then I’ll prep. I have a writing team that I work with to integrate the team’s goals and kind of the the sort of story, the personalities, ahead of time to make sure that I’m I’m able to solve for what that team wants in the game. And I’ll prep the adventure, find the right one, the one that’s gonna hit their scope, the right timeline, and then we set up and we meet and everyone hops online. And I introduce myself, I give them the breakdown of this is the kind of games that I run, this is what you can expect. We’ll usually… what I love doing on the first session is asking why do we tell stories? To get to that question like as human beings, what, what purpose does it serve? And they… and I give it over them and they always come with these beautiful answers of like, you know, passing on down to the ages, understanding another person’s experience, getting to your global context in humanity, it’s like really beautiful stuff. And that comes in, that gets them in the zone. And then why they’re create their characters or give them their pre meds and let them get into the moment, or what I always do before we start actually playing the game is I’ll go through some questions. Some like character acting questions, to get them immersed. If you go back into your character’s life, what was the significant event from their childhood that really impacted them? And then to give them some context, I’ll say like, alright, what was a significant event that impacted you? You know, when were you acknowledged when you perform something, and it really went, well, when did you get bullied and you never quite forgot about it? Stuff like that, to get them to sort of use their own experience as a catalyst. And then people will share, they’ll get in the zone, and then we play. We do three hour games. And we do it once a week or once every other week, try to work with these team’s schedules, people are hecka busy in the companies that I work with, and we find times that work, and they play and they do an adventure. And every time that we’re in between an adventure, I’m always going back to the writing team, and working with the decisions they made to like, continue the you know, you just want it to be that rich, spontaneous feeling and incorporating their decisions in the story feels awesome.
Randall 12:47
I feel like if nothing else, I wish my GMs had a writing team backing them. That’d be pretty cool.
Ash 12:51
That would be awesome, yeah.
Randall 12:55
That is fantastic. When you talk about the folks who reach out that want to bring you in or bring your team in to work with their team. How often are the folks like intimately familiar with tabletop versus also strangers and just thinking this is a good team building exercise?
Josh Selesnick 13:08
Oh man so much more frequently, they’re strangers. The last guy that I worked with didn’t… had never played before. No one on his team had played before, but they worked at a gaming company. So, like a video game company. So they had an awesome capacity for picking this stuff up. And I think he must have known either from live plays or whatever. But we did have two team members who are hardcore D&D fans. Critical Role, Adventure Zone, whatever and they got in. Oh my god, this one guy Kyle, he was just like “I got you.” He had all this like fun energy and and yeah, he was just there for it and he made some awesome decisions in in character. We gave him Gronk the Grandtastic, which is like a Bard.
Tyler 13:49
I love that!
Josh Selesnick 13:51
Got it wrong. He’s Brent Bravado, Brent Bravado was his premade. He is a goliath personal coach. So he’s a Bard. He’s like an ex-gladiator. He’s like “you go it, kid!” You know?
Randall 14:05
It’s like, yelling at the Wizard. It’s like, “get in there and punch him!” It’s like, “I don’t know that this is my strong suit.”
Josh Selesnick 14:14
We made sure to give him a negative intelligence and wisdom, but like, killer strength and charisma and constitution.
Tyler 14:22
Perfect.
Josh Selesnick 14:23
He was a weird Bard. But you know what he totally lived up to it, he would, he would inspire them. And because he didn’t mind being a goof, he already knew what role playing was. He could lead the charge. Because one of the initial problems that a lot of people have is, I don’t want to look dumb. You know, I don’t want to look dumb in front of people. And I try not to call too much attention to that when I’m actually running the game. But once, especially once I start acting silly, too, and people start to get a feel for it, like how they can sort of jump in and just be the character and it’s okay. Going into the unknown. Then, then yeah, then it becomes fun. I mean, you know, because we’re really looking to play this game not to win but, but to really have fun. I think that’s why people play.
Tyler 15:03
So when you’re playing and when you’re doing this as a, like corporate team building thing, like, a lot of companies do that to like, boost team morale, improve retention, you know, make employees happier and more productive and stuff. I’ve worked a corporate job, I’ve done the like, Hey, we’re gonna go bowling as a team or something like that. And like, those things are always fine. And it’s fun to just hang out with your coworkers and not have to talk about what you’re doing right that second. But like, how does this hold up compared to those things?
Josh Selesnick 15:40
Well, here’s, here’s how I think about it. I mean, I think it’s just, it’s mind blowingly better because you leave those things, and you don’t really get to know people conversations are superficial. The bonds are kind of like, okay, we played bowling together, they said a joke at one point. We talked kind of awkwardly, because we knew we had to. That sort of thing. And, and that can be okay, that can be okay, you know, if that’s what you want to invest in. But for teams, I mean, I think we live in kind of a new, a new world where people really do care about their team’s emotional fulfillment at work, the sense of contributing to a larger purpose, and feeling connected to their their team members. They actually see that that creates better products, better retention and stuff. So I guess it’s that, you know, if you walk back home from a bowling experience, or a pottery class or something, it’s just something that you did kind of with yourself. But in this it’s like, you create these shared memories between people that that have meaning and you’re building these skills, too, to play D&D, that involve listening, that involve being spontaneous, and that involve being creative, like taking a risk, or taking a leap and trying something just because you know that there’s no right way to play D&D. And that actually can be sort of anxiety producing for some folks who jump in, they’re like, Oh, my God, like, I don’t want to do this wrong. And, and I just tell them, like, Look, if you’re uncomfortable, and you’re thinking about doing it wrong, like, it’s okay that it makes you anxious. That’s kind of part of what makes this a trust fall. It’s what makes this a moving experience. And then it starts becoming about relationships, communication, what can my character do? What can your character do? Also, who is my character? Who are you, who is your character? Because people start to get excited when people are representing their characters authentically, when they’re bringing in that acting thing and being like, Oh, that is something that Gronk the Grandtastic really would do. And it comes out of them, too. It’s not just a template. We had this one awesome guy who played in our game named Jay. And he in his character creation, one of the writing workshops, he talked about how his dad, he played Paladin. Gronk’s a paladin. And his dad sat him down in the story that he made up, that his dad sat him down. And he wass another half-orc. And he’s like, told me this was the player saying this, my dad taught me how to be a man. And he said, “You are a man of action. You do what you can to protect the people in your life. And you’re willing to do anything to stand up for people and you’re going to care for your family.” And then he said, “and then when I was 15, my dad died in battle. And I kind of knew that was how he was going to go. I mean, I didn’t… I wasn’t happy, but he died doing what he knew his purpose was so that’s who I am. I follow in his footsteps.” And we all got chills when he said that cuz then he stopped being like just a regular old Paladin, he started being Gronk, a very specific dude who, you know, would lay down his life for you. Like, who would have that.
Ash 18:30
Yeah, I think that maybe the difference between just regular trust building exercise and like a DND thing is you get really get to know a person more than like, if we’re just going bowling. I’ll have a like, like you said, have a few chats, maybe drink a beer or something. But with this, it’s like, you know, this is the guy who saved your life from the kobolds. Yeah.
Tyler 18:55
Yeah.
Josh Selesnick 18:55
Yeah, it’s a little bit deeper. And, yeah, it’s exciting. I think it’s meaningful. And physic people can’t help but put parts of themselves into their characters. I see that a lot. Definitely in my home game, I mean, like, I’ve had a super moving stuff. We had a character who went through, like, was transitioning from male to female, and told us truthfully about that. We were the first group that she told as this was going on. And it happened miraculously at a point in the campaign when her character died, made some bad decisions, got in over her head. It was Curse of Strahd. It was very dangerous. And he died and then she got resurrected as a, as a female. And kind of like going through that, that new self-expression, I still remember like describing for like, you’re standing there by the river. And you look at your reflection, you can see that that you’re a woman now. You’ve changed. And I could see like the player getting choked up about it, and I’m like, can you step in, you can feel the water your body, and this is your new body. This is who you are. And it’s just like those kinds of that meaningful stuff is what it’s all about for me.
Ash 20:10
Oh, yeah.
Tyler 20:12
Now, I think a lot of us have had those like super deep emotional moments in our home games. When you’re… when you’re running a game, like corporate game, team building thing. Presumably, these are people who don’t know each other quite as well, you might not have as long to run the game. Like you mentioned, about five sessions was a good sweet spot for a long-running thing. Do you find that you still have those deep emotional moments or are things generally a little lighter since you know, the duration and the audience?
Josh Selesnick 20:46
Yeah, they’re a little bit lighter. But I think that they still have, they still definitely have their moments of, of loving it and feeling it. You know, and one of my favorite exercise actually, is, what are you going to do when this is all over? What’s your epilogue story? And hearing them talk about the next stage for their character, and that happens at the fifth session when they’ve already built some investment. And I think that that, while it is a little bit later in their learning… there’s so many skills that you need to learn to be a great improviser and go that deep, like that had been a game we’d been playing for a year. So you know your character so well, it’s almost like putting on clothing. It’s you don’t have to even think about at that point. And you know, the rules so well, and what they mean that you don’t have to do that. So I do have to, to a degree, bring people on where they’re made to feel safe. But I’ve just learned to accept that if I step back, and give them room to to be wherever, be as good or as bad at the game as they are. And I don’t try and make them something they’re not. And my job is just to make it like a moving experience for them. And fun and exciting, then they’re going to they’re going to find those moments between each other. And so yeah, I definitely see them having those moments when they play.
Randall 22:03
Alright, so I go to my boss, I’m like, Hey, boss, I want to do this thing because I think it’s gonna be a great team building thing. And the thing my boss says to me is like, well, I love metrics. And I love numbers. And I love feedback. So if I’m considering something like this, is there a way that I can kind of see the past feedback that other groups have given to you and your team?
Josh Selesnick 22:20
Yeah, check out our website. We have some really wonderful stuff on testimonials that folks have done from some of the big companies we’ve worked with. And so there’s that. We’re also still a relatively new company in the sense that we’re, we’ve done we’ve done a couple of things, but it’s still flooding in. I will say, from personal experience that I’ve seen folks have, you know, a wonderful, wonderful time. And in terms of like the feedback we get, it’s like, Would you do this again? Like, absolutely. My only feedback is like, we didn’t play it enough. So that’s it, people love it. And it is bringing in that sense of retention, that sense of like, my team values me enough to do that we do this kind of stuff together. And I want to do another one with them in the future. So why would I leave this job? Because this is, these are my homies, these are my people that I’ve worked with. And I kind of love them. And it works especially well with teams that that are already close, and just want to deepen that bond that really want to get that hat moving. Oh, guess in terms of metrics. There’s a really great article that I can send you the link to later that Atlassian wrote about the benefits of team chemistry. And it does come down… It’s difficult to quantify. But if you know that someone… like why do you trust your wife or your girlfriend? Well, she would do anything for me. You know, you might not be able to quantify that. But you know, in your heart that this person, your mom, your dad would do anything for you. That is actually the level of trust that we’re looking to build in these games. That’s what a good team does for each other. They have each other’s backs really far. And to the point of like love and wishing… when we talk about bringing out the best in someone, that means putting your attention on what you care about, like what you what matters to you. And, and I care about that as much as you do. Like I care about your success. And you can talk that talk but you know, when you’re with a friend or family member, and you’re telling him about your dreams or whatever, and they are so invested in like, yes, I want you to have that. I want you to have it all, you totally can do it. We want to build that kind of feeling with teams where they can bring each other’s visions to life. And what’s cool about D&D is you’re literally bringing visions to life. It’s all imaginary. It’s all coming through there. So there’s a lot of art of belief, art of trust, that goes into the experience. But yeah, chemistry is a difficult thing to quantify. It ultimately is and it’s kind of a felt experience. But you know, when you’re in a place where you can be yourself, where you feel safe, where you feel heard. You know what I mean?
Randall 24:51
Yeah, no, absolutely. Well, and I do think… so I’ve worked for a few major companies and one of the things that always comes up in some form or another is an idea of trust. Whether the onus is on you as an individual to earn trust, whether the belief is as a company that we must give trust, there’s always an idea that I believe you have the right intentions in mind that you’re charging towards those right intentions. And as long as we’re all rowing in that direction, we’re going to achieve our objectives for the company, we’re gonna hit our goals as a group, and we’re going to deliver what we need to deliver for our customers. I say that to say that these kinds of exercising, doing these things together, having to make decisions that are going to affect the group in this fantasy setting, where the stakes are simultaneously extremely high, and literally non-existent.
Josh Selesnick 25:36
Yeah.
Randall 25:37
Being able to go through those exercises, and build the relationship to establish that trust when the server’s aren’t on fire, and the building isn’t falling down around you, and all you need to do is push this last PR. It’s a tremendous opportunity. I really think.
Josh Selesnick 25:53
Oh, wow, love that. What do you think, Tyler?
Tyler 25:56
Um… I’m trying to conspire how to convince my boss to let me do this at work. Like, I’m sold. Like, I like a lot of people I work with at my day job, but I don’t feel like I really know them personally. And yeah, like in a, in a post-pandemic world, a lot of working feels very impersonal. Like, we’re on zoom all the time. A lot of people don’t turn on their cameras. So I don’t know, even know what these people look like. As far as I know, these people are white text on a black cube with their name.
Josh Selesnick 26:32
Yeah. Oh god, that’s the thing.
Randall 26:36
That’s the race we need, though. Like somebody needs to write that up.
Tyler 26:43
I’m on it.
Randall 26:43
-5 to Charisma. There says a word walking around in a 3d volume.
Ash 26:49
Yeah.
Josh Selesnick 26:50
I mean, is it like, yeah, it’s like you can’t connect with folks. You know, if you can’t see them, you can’t see their reactions, you don’t know what they look like, you miss that bond.
Tyler 27:00
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Josh Selesnick 27:02
Yeah. I don’t know about you. But D&D is not about the board. It’s about the people. It’s about the person who’s across the table from you. You know, it’s a… I think about, you know, how my style of DMing and it’s all about how rich is your imagination? How deep are your connections with the person across the table from you? Because that’s where it’s just going to be fun. Yeah. Oh, man. Now, I want to know about all your characters and stuff and what not.
Tyler 27:32
Follow us on Twitter. I tweet our weekly games and they are full of shenanigans. Okay, so, so hypothetical. I am someone’s boss, listening to this wonderful podcast. And I have heard all of these things that we’ve said tonight, and I’m 100% sold on this, like, I need my teams of people at my doodad factory or whatever company I work for, I need them to do this thing. How do I find someone to run these games for me?
Josh Selesnick 28:04
Well, not to misrepresent. I am I am Playing4Keeps. So you’re getting me. And what you would do is you go on our website and set up a discovery call with me. Tell me why this excites you what, what this does for you. And tell me a little bit about your team. And we can start collaborating immediately. I mean, I’m I’m all for that. But obviously, we should have a discovery call and I try to have a low investment, like an investment but like a lower impact introfor a one shot if you want to get a taste for my DMing or see if it is a good fit for your team. But we can discuss whatever your needs are just coming and then meet me there.
Randall 28:43
Awesome. And we will have a link to the website in the show notes to get you there. So you’ll be able to find Josh.
Josh Selesnick 28:48
Yeah. And stay checking up on the website because we will be adding videos of kind of my DMing style so that you can get a feel for like in the moment what it feels like to watch me and see like, oh, I would like to be a player at that table. As well as more content that’ll be coming in. We’ve we’ve got kind of a couple of like hardcore adventuring worlds that we that we work in and we’re gonna have a really beautiful kind of services page for anyone who is a D&D fan to really dig into which kind of world they want to explore the most. What what sort of… if course we can create anything that you want, but we kind of have our standbys that I have the most lore and kind of flexibility with.
Randall 29:24
Yeah, and I want to let’s do a little bit of meta, because I always think this is fun, like peering behind the scenes of podcasting. So if you’re listening to this podcast live as it comes out, Josh was talking about they’re actually working on the website right now, things are getting added to it. You know, as we said, there’s gonna be a link in the show notes. We didn’t actually say like, go, okay. But two years from now, if you’re listening to this podcast in 2024, like this is half the internet now.
Josh Selesnick 29:52
Oh, my God. Wow. I’m amazed. I never thought we’d get here, but you know what? I always knew.
Randall 30:00
There was a dream. It’s really cool. I loved…. Yeah, like all the integrations happening, like we finally have smellovision. And I think that’s fantastic. Although this particular dungeon I could have done without, but I thought it was a brilliant innovation and I applaud you for doing it.
Josh Selesnick 30:14
Hey, you know what, we were just trying out new products. And it really felt like it was special. I enjoyed the laser swords. I thought that was sweet. But I’ll never forget when you when you grabbed Tyler’s hand and off that virtual cliff or like, I’ll never let you go.
Randall 30:28
Absolutely. And I really wish I hadn’t been wearing the haptic suit for that one, because oh boy, my back hurts.
Josh Selesnick 30:34
It’s super uncomfortable. The… if there’s anything else… let’s see, well, just in terms of people looking to see if this is a good fit for your team, I did want to put out there that it really depends on the company culture in a lot of ways. I think that there’s definitely new companies right now that are showing up, that really care about the relationships with people in the company, wanting people to be invested in the company itself, being invested in its mission, and how people fit. Like, feel about each other and feel about being at work. Kind of that emotional synergy. That… those tend to be the places where I’ve seen this really flourish. So just saying if those are company values, that tends to be where, where we’ve seen this have a lot of success. So yeah, cool.
Randall 31:18
All right. Well, perfect. Josh, thank you so much for being with us today.
Josh Selesnick 31:21
Thanks, Randall, I have had so much fun being on here with you guys. I love talking with other like really an enthusiasts. And the place where you’re gonna get the most updates with what’s going on for me is on LinkedIn, you can find me Joshua Selesnick. On LinkedIn, that’s where we post we’re always putting out new content or clips from games or articles about the benefits of this kind of thing. And you can check us out on playing4keeps.net and see that there.
Randall 31:53
Perfect. And we will have links in the show notes. So folks, if you want to find that, please do reach out to Josh and yeah, get started. If you’ve enjoyed the show, please rate and review us on Apple podcast and rate us on Spotify or your favorite podcast app. It’s a quick free way to support the podcast and helps us to reach new listeners. You can find links in the show notes. You’ll find affiliate links for source books and other materials in the show notes as well as on RPGBOT.net. Following these links helps us to make this show happen every week. I really want somebody like who works for me to make me a “world’s greatest boss” handwritten thing was like the kerning where it’s like they started really optimistic and then things started getting smaller and smaller. But I think probably playing D&D would be better
