S1E0.3 He Lost Himself
Ansel and Maui are the Worldbuilders, part of an ancient line stretching back beyond generations to the origins of creativity and creation itself. As long as humanity has told stories, we have created our worlds with histories, geographies, and physics all their own.
Over the course of three episodes, we will build a new world along with some of our favorite storytellers.
Tune in on Twitch for adventures in the new setting! https://www.twitch.tv/reflectgames
Transcript:
Unknown Speaker 0:03
Adventurers, storytellers, welcome to this week's edition of the world builders society with Ansel and Maui.
Ansel Burch 0:18
Today's episode was recorded live on twitch.tv/reflect, games on January 13, 2026 full video is available on youtube@youtube.com, slash at reflect studios.
Maui 0:34
So I've been working on session design a lot lately.
Ansel Burch 0:38
Ooh, well, then lead the way,
Maui 0:40
and I'm trying to find my Here we go. So I just did a dungeon crawl encounter. And really, like most like sessions are just like a series of dungeon crawls, if you lay it out, right, right? So I've been using,
Ansel Burch 0:53
depending on how broadly you define dungeon, right, yeah,
Maui 0:58
and I so I've been using the five room method a lot lately, because it's very easy, just kind of like so let's say we need entrance, puzzle slash role play, setback, climax
and reward, and those are all the things you need to have a full session.
Okay, so what's our entrance into the world? What's our strong start to borrow lazy DM terminology.
Ansel Burch 1:43
Well, I think we've established that the the entrance is elf screen up, but, yeah, but we've established, like the the characters don't know that they're doing, that the choice isn't happening on screen, right? So instead, I think the entrance is waking up in the in the forest, waking up in the forest, yeah. Is there a challenge immediately, or do we just give them some exposition?
Maui 2:24
I think that's where they get to, like, describe their characters. Maybe some quick, easy, like, skill checks for them to try and test their abilities. You know, you know, I think we ask some pointed questions, like, what like, what do you want to do, or what are you thinking right now? Or like, what are you feeling right now? And we can have their their emotional state affect the the area around them, and that's how they realize that they have some measure of control over the things around them magically.
Ansel Burch 3:02
Yeah, I'm here for that. So then what is the puzzle? Is it that we need to solve a puzzle to move from here into the into the Shadow Realm?
Maui 3:15
I did a thing A while ago, and this could actually help them start to piece together who they are. I just think it is one. And this one one shot I did for a friend who was like moving away, and I did a thing where they didn't remember who they were, and they were in a grove, and there are these trees that had this like fruit that kind of looked like pocket watches. And when you ate the fruit, I'd have them roll on a memory table, and it would give them a random memory. And the memory would be a happy memory, a sad memory, nostalgic memory, like I had like, a few different
Ansel Burch 4:02
like, like, prompt them to tell their RP story. Yeah, okay. I like that. I like the idea of giving the player a prompt for something about their own backstory, to discover something that they didn't, hadn't, pre thought about, but is still coming from within the player's
Maui 4:24
conception, right? Kind of sticking within this theme of like this is a character creation exercise.
Ansel Burch 4:31
Is it that just in order to solve the puzzle, you must do things that you must do. You must eat these fruits or whatever. And the side effect is that, as this is happening, you are being prompted with these memories that are flooding to your character over the course of attempting to, you know, move from point A to point B or overcome this. Challenge or escape the thing.
Maui 5:11
I think since this kind of puzzle slash RP, I think it starts with them, like finding their memories and stuff, but then maybe some sort of puzzle encounter where they find somebody who's been lost in this clockwork Grove for a long time and needs help piecing their memories back together. So we have some sort of puzzle around helping somebody piece who they are together, and then they realize, oh, we need to piece together. Who We Are
Ansel Burch 5:43
we happy with that? Or do we want to keep cooking
Maui 5:45
on that? I'm happy with it for now. Maybe we can circle back if we if, as we flour this out, we're like, oh, this needs to change a bit
Ansel Burch 5:56
well, or just to make it more, you know, like, ready for prime time.
Maui 6:00
Nothing that I can think about, unless somebody in the chat has any ideas of things that we can use to, like flower. This out a little
Ansel Burch 6:11
bit, but let's, let's move on while they think about
Maui 6:14
it, to the setback. So setback would be the the child, the prince of winter. Yeah. So I think once they get through the clockwork Grove, they get to Petra Coria, and find the child, the winter child.
Ansel Burch 6:33
So the child does something to them when they arrive, I presume,
Maui 6:38
Oh, yeah. What if everybody in Petra Coria has, like, been frozen, and they're and he and maybe the child curses them, and they start to feel cold, and if they don't figure, you know, like, like, the child's making them like him, and if they don't figure their shit out, then they will freeze too,
Ansel Burch 7:11
do the frozen people? So thinking back to what we wanted to do originally with this, if is it less that they're frozen solid and frozen stiff, but more that they are. They are become the aspect frozen, and so they still walk through their lives and live out their days, but they are. They are unable to continue wanting, or they're unable to change or grow because they have frozen, and they've, like, crystallized into the way that they are,
Maui 7:47
yeah, like, they could still move around, but they're crystalline beings. Like, movement is hard, like, it's like a, like, the Tin Man kind of thing, right? Like, a bunch of people are kind of walking around,
Ansel Burch 8:00
like, rictus, oh yeah, they move painfully.
Maui 8:03
They move painfully, the they and then I think, like emotionally, emotional movement would be just as difficult, right? Climax would be the boss battle. I think the kid becomes the want, and they have to fight the want. And I think that, like, they're like, you could just, like, deliver the beat down. Like that is one way, like, I like, multiple ways of, like, defeating the big bad. Like, you could deliver the beat down if, like, that's what you do. But for players that are maybe a bit more emotional. You know, I think that there should be, like, a way to, like, to affect the want emotionally and get through to the to the prince of winter.
Ansel Burch 8:54
Yeah, I think that's actually a really strong call out is like something, it's something that we should make a part of the presentation of that conflict is that this is, I think the physical attacks are, are only going to hurt him so much. But the the way that you defeat him is by seeing him and then finding ways to warm him or unfreeze him or thaw him. Everyone phrased that
Maui 9:29
there are things that are important to the prince of winter that are frozen and like, like the prince of Winter's Heart is outside of his body and frozen. And if you could, if you can get through to his heart and melt it and give it to him like that, like you giving him a piece of himself back.
Ansel Burch 9:53
I'm realizing I've done this exact thing previously, but I don't think that makes it bad. No.
Maui 10:00
Don't know it all. Like we said, steal from yourselves liberally,
Ansel Burch 10:04
exactly, exactly
Maui 10:07
explain the thing that you did. I
Ansel Burch 10:09
did a sort of love triangle between the prince of frost and the Snow Maiden. I think are the names I gave them, where the Snow Maiden fell in love with a mortal, and in order to protect him from the Prince of frost, she took his heart and hid it deep in a glacier. And so our heroes come upon this glacier that is just blood red across the whole of it, because this still beating heart has been pouring blood into the ice for generations. Yeah, it was, it was dark as hell, but, yeah, they quested down into it, and they got the guy's heart back, and they, you know, saved him. And then they got to fight the prince of frost.
Maui 10:58
So that tells me that, going back to part two, the person they find in the clockwork Grove is the person that the prince of winter was in love with that has the frozen heart.
Ansel Burch 11:15
Oh, we just want to steal the whole thing. Hell yeah.
Maui 11:17
Why not? Yeah. Just like have it connect back to that.
Ansel Burch 11:20
Oh yes, okay, I'm picking it up. All right, yeah.
Maui 11:24
So, like they, he, she, they was in love with the prince of winter, the prince of winter, because the prince of winter is goth weirdo, like said, Here's my heart. I give it to you like literally gave them his heart, and they got lost in the clockwork Grove and forgot themselves and within with the absence of of His love, something that he can no longer have. He lost himself and became the winter child.
Ansel Burch 12:13
Yep, okay, take his heart back to him. I
Maui 12:33
and maybe we can do clues by having all those people that are rictus icicle people none of them have like all of their hearts have been removed. And that's a, that's a that's a, right, a visual clue. You see, all of them have a hole where their heart should be, and that's a visual clue.
Ansel Burch 12:53
Do so do we think that without saying this part, without saying the backstory, I story that we, we give the players the heart at in the in the sunlit grow in the clockwork Grove, and then just sort of hope that they, that they utilize it when the time comes.
Maui 13:17
Yeah, I think, you know, we give them like clue, clue, I think if, if they can't figure it out, you have the the person that they're that was in love with the prince show up and say, like, he needs his heart back. Like, if, like, you know, pull in case of emergency. They can't figure out the thing. Have, you know, somebody step in and help them out. Anarchy. So earlier, we were saying that because he became so petulant, like and their emotions can reshape the world and themselves, that the wind, the prince of winter, becomes the winter child. He regret, he like literally, is a literal regression. I
Ansel Burch 14:05
But yeah, I would say that's a good way to phrase it. He lost his heart and his will, will to grow as part of that. Yeah. So what is our reward? Does? Does solving this turn petricoria, back to a
Maui 14:21
sunlit land reward, we say, petrochoria, they have completed their face bring a and they are free to either rejoin the community or travel the fey lands in search of More adventure, if they'd like. And maybe each of them get a special item from the King of seasons for saving his son.
Ansel Burch 14:51
I have an important question, yes, why doesn't the king of seasons save his son his own darn self? I. Huh, is
this King of seasons a literal tree, and therefore cannot, like do we want to go that far?
Maui 15:18
The king of seasons is not actually an elf. The King of seasons, is the God that created this realm, and he does not actually interfere with the realm, but seeing his son so out of sorts, he he is pushing things a little bit to help them happen, like if, I mean, if we're saying this is the favorite realm of galdoria, there's actually a Numidian accord the god signed to stay out of the affairs of the physical world when they Like, created the their new realms to, like, leave for So potentially, if that, if that's what we're setting this that that potential reason,
Ansel Burch 16:11
okay, I like that. Yeah.
Maui 16:20
And so Ash is but an aspect of the of this God, the king of seasons, is just an aspect of the God
Ansel Burch 16:33
sent to communicate this need, oh, go home. That's a reward. You get
Maui 16:44
to go home or go forth. Love that.
And that's a that's a complete session.
Ansel Burch 17:03
Yeah, yeah. It really, really is, yeah.
Maui 17:07
I've really been loving using that as a framework for things. It makes it so easy then to just like, write out my session materials. When I break it down to those five things.
Ansel Burch 17:25
And it's, it's nice that there's, it kind of stands on the three stools of RP too, of our ttrpgs. Rather, you know, we've got the RP, we've got puzzle and we've got combat, you know, those are sort of important elements of of the experience of a TTRPG, yep. So I like that. They're, they're sort of built in there, in this frame. That's, that's a cool way to
Maui 17:52
do it, yeah, um, I was just actually thinking, like, you know, if we can put together, like, here are the people that inspire us and like, the methodologies that we have found that help us as DMS, we could, like, make like, a little resource page, you know, like, for me, personally, Mystic Arts. I don't know if you have seen his page. Dottie, he's like Icelandic, I believe does really good stuff, lazy. DM sly, flourish, yeah, Mike, Shea. Fucking awesome. Dungeon dudes. I love dungeon dudes. Stuff. When I got back into DND, I watched a lot of Dungeon dudes. So, yeah. So there we go. We did it.
Ansel Burch 18:46
We did it. I guess the last thing to decide is, what system do we want to run this in? And I have a suggestion, sure. I think this screams to be a fake game. Okay? Because, you know, as we're it's less about like I the DM have pre defined who your character is, and you're discovering that, and more you are manifesting the aspects as they call it in fate that define and then you can invest in changing those aspects or manifesting the effects of those aspects throughout the gameplay from that
Maui 19:30
point forward. Okay, I'm totally cool with that. I'm open
Ansel Burch 19:35
to other thoughts, but that's just that was like, it's right there.
Maui 19:39
Well, I was going gonna say like, you know, it feels like we lead pretty heavily into like, D and D, high fantasy stuff. But I love the idea of doing something outside of D and D, so I think fate sounds awesome.
Ansel Burch 19:57
Yeah. Yeah. Specifically, I think fate accelerated would do really nicely, just because it's, it's even fewer things for our players to have to worry about.
Maui 20:09
It probably pretty easy to give them their stats throughout the adventure.
Ansel Burch 20:14
Uh huh, uh huh, yeah, yeah. I think there's, I think there's something there. Okay, great. So in the fate system,
Maui 20:26
all right, I am going to grab an image of that it, put it in there. There we go. Boom. We did it. Joe.
Ansel Burch 20:42
So, proud of us.
Maui 20:47
Oh, no, not funky fade dice. Lol,
Ansel Burch 20:51
it's okay. You just use D sixes. Yeah, that said. I did buy fate dice, and I have yet to use them because I immediately started running games online.
Maui 21:08
So let's do like a quick little post mortem. What did you think of doing our system today?
Ansel Burch 21:15
Ansel, I think doing it live is is a really cool way to do this. I think we're, I'm very much in favor of doing this live again. If it's not always our way, it should at least be sometimes our way. Because, yeah, having the chat there is really nice.
Yeah, I I'm aside from that. It's just, it's always delightful to get to hang out and cook with you. So, right, yeah, I'm always down for that.
Maui 21:50
I had so much fun doing this with you, my friend, that was like, so much fun, cool.
Ansel Burch 21:58
I think that's how about you? How did you enjoy doing it?
Maui 22:01
You know what? I wish that my throat didn't hurt as much as it does, but I had such a fun time. And like you said, like I just have so much fun, like cooking with you, you know? And I feel like we just have a good, like, conversational rhythm. It was just really fun, just kind of hanging out with talking with you, and yes, ANDing ideas with you. So yeah, I just really enjoy that. And also I think this is a really fun and original kind of, like Fay realm, like, you know, we it's got some really fun, funky shit in there that makes it a bit unique. And that's always fun when you can make something familiar feel new. Yeah, I
Ansel Burch 22:59
tasty business in here that's, yeah, yeah. I think, I think well worth stealing for other applications. Yeah.
Maui 23:07
So the next step will be to run a one shot of this. Thank you for hanging out with us. We had, you know, so many people commenting today, which really meant a lot. This was so much fun, so much easier. Yeah, we need a good sign off.
Ansel Burch 23:24
Well, I mean, if, if we want there, there is a line that I'm particularly proud of, that I threw onto our onto our page. There is no end to the worlds we have not seen. The world builders society is a co production of indecisionist Productions and reflect games. Find the indecisionist on all of the social media platforms I can be bothered to be on, and check out some of my other amazing podcasts and TTRPG pickup con, a free monthly event going on at TTRPG pickupcon.com find Maui at reflect games, and check out the weekly live streams and incredible gaming content at reflect games on twitch.tv/reflect, games. Find out more about the world builders society at indecisionist.com/world builders. You B.
