Cringe: Why Sincerity Still Matters at the Gaming Table

Why does sincerity make us squirm? This episode of No Plot, Only Lore dives into the strange magic of cringe—how vulnerability, irony, and emotional safety shape our play. From dice rolls to deep feelings, we explore why pretending like you mean it might be the bravest move at the table.

Transcript:

[Music] You're listening to No Plot Only Lore, a podcast about games and the tables we

play them. Your DMs tonight and every night are Josh and Chris. You can find

us on all podcast platforms or check us out at noplotonlore.com. If you like what you hear today, please

rate and review the show and share it with everyone you've ever met.

Welcome back to No Plotton Only Lore. This week brought to you by the show I can never finish an entire episode of

The Office. Ooh, that's the one you can't do cuz mine is I can't do it.

I I got through a lot of it, but mine is um uh Oh, uh I think you should leave.

Okay. Yeah. No, I we've talked about that one a little bit. Yeah. And I have not even tried watching

clips. Okay. I can watch The Office in Clips. Yeah. Right. Like the

thing about like Jim coming in as a completely different

person and just like gaslighting Dwight, right, for a while. Hilarious.

Yeah, there are pranks that are funny. There are bits that I get.

Every episode there is something in it that makes me want to stand up and put

it on pause and walk around the room with my hands on my head going

See, I because I feel it in my bones. I've only had that experience with like

Michaelheavy episodes and like really only Michael is the one sitting there

like firmly burying his foot in his mouth and just having to like soak in

the awkwardness. But every other character season has a lot of

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can straight up just like skip the first season or two. I've heard that and there is a

different part of my brain that refuses. I require the context of season one in order to be able to move on.

Maybe I can just read the Wikipedia article. Yeah. Yeah. do that cuz it gets a lot more like cozy and wholesome because because

season 1 and two are really trying to recreate the British office which is

super Michael focused and super like awkward and and focused on his

awkwardness and social ineptitude. No thank you. Yeah. No thank you sir.

You may have it back. Yeah. Do not want that level of cringe. Yeah,

I I'm I'm with you. If if something is too cringy, if it's too I I can't do

secondhand embarrassment. Um like you said, I have to pause. I have to leave. I have to walk around.

I learned recently that this is not a universal phenomenon. Yeah. There's I mean, if you've ever

spent any amount of time watching like um vlog like not vloggers, what do they

call them now? IRL streamers. Um There's there's a good number of them

that just inhabit that like I have no um I have no boundaries and I can

inhabit the awkwardness of a space indefinitely to make other people react

where I won't. And I I my assumption was that that was some sort of genetic flaw.

But apparently apparently I'm the flawed one. Well,

like apparently the sensation of secondhand embarrassment,

right? Just like feeling empathetically embarrassed for another person, Yeah.

is only a subset of the population.

So that that kind of explains a lot just the lack of empathy part, but

Uhhuh. [Laughter] Yeah. No, it's uh yeah, I I I was

shocked. I was literally like anytime anytime one of those things comes up where it's like part of my lived

experience is not part of everybody's lived experience, just like I I made an assumption that

this is just how life works because this is how life works for me, right? Um it it's a little bit of like an

existential mind [ __ ] Yeah, it would be right. like the like the whole thing about like there are people who don't

have an internal monologue, right? Those people should be studied

and locked up. Um um or people who don't have a visual imagination.

I almost understand that one more. I kind of get that one, but like I

cannot fathom what that would be like, right? Yeah. No, it it seems impossible

to live without a mind's eye to to take advantage of, but I I I

sort of get the idea more than not having an internal monologue.

Like, yeah, you just not think. No, you think, you just don't think in

words. But how do you think without words?

thoughts are just talking on the inside. How not not for them apparently. I don't

know what I don't What if they got like a little mental flip book that's just kind of animating what might happen?

Not if they don't have a visual imagination. No, they have both and they're just like

that. That that to me seems like the definition of lights on, nobody's home cuz they're they're just

and it's like how are how are you capable of introspection without either

of those things? That makes me wonder if that is part of what makes up like true

sentience and intelligence is and if you lack those things then you you are not

you're not like fully formed like you're not like like there's still a soft part on

the top of your head that I can squish with my thumbs, you know? That that is a significantly hotter take

than I was expecting this episode to.

Okay, so cringe. Um, it is a thing that happens and I I don't know when it

starts cuz like I know that as a kid I never really felt embarrassed for other

people. Right. Right. Like that there was never a time where I was like they probably shouldn't

have done that. Like like for me it always happened like when it came to like I guess like physical um

failures, you know, like you see someone like fall and hit themselves in the nuts like but like

Yeah. And it was never like an emotional response where it was like, "Oh my god, he must feel so

whatever." Well, and I feel like that's maybe just like part of the development of empathy.

Yeah. Right. Like as as you grow, you begin to better understand other people's embarrassment because you have a better

understanding of your own. Right. Right. Right. Uh maybe I think that's like

I wonder if it's you're incapable of empathizing in that way until it happens to you because you just don't have any

context to understand what they might be going through. I Yeah. I wonder if people who don't

experience cringe just haven't had sufficiently embarrassing experiences.

Right. Right. In which case, somebody who is not me should have to put them through some

sufficiently embarrassing situations so that we could develop that empathy. Yeah. But I can't do it because I'm going to

cringe the whole way through. Yeah, I you're right. It's it's a public

service that should be done by someone who's not capable of uh visually

imagining things or whatever whatever the hell we were just talking about. That's the last one. Yeah, that's the last person who gets to not

cringe. Yeah. But yeah, I I was thinking about

specifically performative cringe. Cuz like one of the things that

I think is kind of interesting is the idea of like cringe at the table, right? Like I think that almost every

table has had a moment where everybody just kind of looks weird at one of the

players and like raises an eyebrow because they said something okay in a way, right? Like not necessarily in

like a a bad way or they said something that was wrong. Just like that the thing that you just said is kind of

embarrassing, right? Like you just read poetry in the

perspective of your character, right? So cringe is sincerity.

I think cringe can come from sincerity. Okay. Like I I think one of the things that we

often see in cringe and I think that this also comes back to the office a little bit is that like

Michael Scott isn't trying really hard to pretend he's a

thing, right? Like he's he's very sincerely trying. He's very obviously giving it

his best and failing spectacularly. Yes. He's he's very he's very sincerely

getting it completely wrong. Yeah. And it's coming from a genuine place, right? Like a genuine place of

care and consideration. he's just caring and considering the wrong things. Mhm.

Um, and I think that like we kind of develop

the social rules for that through pretend play.

Okay. Which is kind of its own like genre of role playing games.

I I think one of the first role playinging game

um academic works that I read talked about how most people's first role playing game is cops and robbers.

Yeah. Or or House or something like that. Yeah. Where you're just like pretending to take on a role and like figuring out

what the role does and thinking like them and trying to do the things that they do. And when we're doing that

pretend play as kids, it's not a cringe thing. It's just trying

something on. Well, and and it's also in a I I think specifically in those

things from kids, there's a bigger part of it, too, that is not like it's it's

mimicking something you've seen happen elsewhere and trying it on trying it on

that way, right? Like it's not like you give the kids like, "Oh, hey, go play

house." What does that mean? I don't know. You figure that out, right? Like they've seen house be modeled to them

before. They've seen maybe cops and robbers be modeled to them before. So now they're going to go try on the

different rules. Well, I was going to say like these things are are becoming weirdly like less and

less common because the things that we're modeling to children have changed, right? Um Yeah. So, like,

yeah, now it's going to be like a 24-hour Mr. Beast challenge that you're Well, like about Okay. Uh, uh, like

being vulnerable for a second here, like my kid, you know, I I played video games growing

up. He's seen me play video games and interact with other people. But when he's sitting somewhere playing video

games by himself, he has a tendency to model the behaviors that he has seen

YouTubers do in the way that he like narrates his actions or

talks to friends or chat that might not be there, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. Um, my kid too also like he he doesn't necessarily talk to

chat, right? But like he definitely talks to himself a lot more. Yeah. Than I did when I was playing games as a

kid. Um, he's he's a lot more vocal about what it is that he's doing. And like

narrative engagement in it is part of his experience with playing video games.

Yeah. Um, I don't think he's trying to be Preston plays,

but [Music] I hate that man so much. H how's

unspeakable in your house? Banned. Banned from my house. The the

the one that I need to get rid of right now is Kais. Uh Kais

Yeah, Kais has infiltrated the building. Uh Kais tends to do more Roblox based

stuff. Um, so yeah, he's I mean that might be something that I

need to look out for with my kid because he's one of the interesting things that Thor

is doing is getting really into like loreheavy

games. Oh, yeah. Right. Like he he started pretty early on like the Five Nights at Freddy's type

stuff. Yeah. And like Five Nights has a lot of lore in it. Yeah.

Um, and he's kind of transitioned that into uh currently Foresaken on Roblox, which

is like Okay. Dead by Daylight, but with worse character design.

Yeah. See, see my kids playing a bunch of stuff that's vaguely connected to Italian Brain Rot and Plants Versus

Zombies for some reason. There is going to come a time where you

and I are going to go through the chimpanzini bananin

and talk about how we can incorporate those into role playing games because I'm chasing that clout. Bro,

please don't make me do this. I My kids have to grow up with a father.

Like I they can't come find me, you know, toaster in the hot tub. Like

uh I legitimately I wonder if Chimpanzini Bananini is still the like

logo like the the profile picture for our team at work.

I didn't even look. I gross. Anyways, the Anyways, um and actually I think

that like segus as well where it's just like the well one one of the cringe things that I

do, right? One one of the things that I I engage in that other people find cringe is I

adore newer generations weird [ __ ]

Yeah. Right. So like I I am fully versed in the Italian brain rod. Yeah.

My kid [ __ ] hates it. good. He He thinks it's trash. It's absolute

garbage and I will taunt him with it because I think it's funny.

You know, I think that's I think honestly that is the tactic I need. Right now my kids know that they can

taunt me with 67 and it just gets under my skin. I think I need to turn it on

them. I did that too. He he started calling it unfunny number, right? Like he he likes

69, right? He he likes the the implication of 69. It's classic.

Yeah. Um nice. He's not as big a fan of the 67s and so I've started doing the 67s and anytime

I'm referring to it, I call it funniest number.

You know, I saw I saw a school photo this week of a kid who threw up a 67

like a gang sign. And I think that's what I need to start doing to really throw my kids off. It's just

Yeah. Yeah. Hanging the 67 in front of them.

Yeah. What the skiibbidity? Yeah. Ohio's the

world's worst like gang banger. just like what up?

That's also a thing that I do that is like deeply cringe is I I have a deep appreciation for slang in general.

Yeah. Um I use more Gen Alpha slang than my

kid does. Like because you want to or because you want to hurt him?

Both. Okay. Because that's that's just like dad culture.

It's a little bit dad culture to like hurt your kids by being a cheeky [ __ ] I get it. Yeah.

But like there's also I think just something kind of appealing

about the word Rizzler. Sure. Well, and the fact that you're the only person I've ever known ever who actually uses the word shooi.

[Laughter] Yeah. Yeah.

It's an identifier that I've taken on to myself. Um Yeah. It's gone from group identifier to

now just a singular identifier. Like this is just Christopher speaking. Yeah. Yeah. It's It's kind of funny cuz like

um I I don't know if I've talked about it on the podcast before, but I I have a

really deep appreciation for that word in particular because it has become the thing that it

describes. Right. Yeah. Right. Uh choo for like our audience popular

very heavily millennial. So for the millennials in our audience, chooigi means an older person who is

attempting to engage with youth culture in a way that is cringe or embarrassing.

Right? Using the word is cringe and embarrassing. And the fact that I am using it means that it is an older

person using this older term to describe the thing that it described. I [ __ ]

love it. is so choice. Say say chey is now cheoogi.

Saying cheooy is cheooy by itself. And the fact that I am an old person saying cheooy just elevates it.

Delicious. Oh, I I love it so much I snorted.

Okay. Irony. Um,

irony is kind of like the anti- cringe, right? I think and I think like may maybe it's

like 20 minutes into this episode, but I I feel like the the thesis that I want to get to is that cringe isn't cringe.

Okay. Right. I I think that like Okay, say say what you're going to say

because I I have a thought about that phrasing. Yeah. I I I think that like the things

that we identify as being cringe tend to be sincerity and engaging directly and

empathetically with whatever the media is and

coming with authenticity to a thing that other people would not necessarily bring

authenticity to. Right. Right. Like sitting down and pretending

to be a wizard with your friends is a silly thing to do,

right? And if you approach that with deep sincerity

and earnestness and import, right, that can come across to other people as

being embarrassing and cringe. Okay. I don't think that's true. Okay.

Um, I was going to say like I think what's happened is that like cringe has gone

from being empathetic to being

um redefined as like like you said um

a a negative like stereotype of sincerity like

enjoying things has become cringe because the default setting now is

supposed to be detached irony. Because if people see you actually

enjoying something that is a weakness in your armor and a something that they can

wield against you, but if you don't actually care about anything, then you're safe.

Well, and that's why I think that irony does work to try and like kind of buffer us

from that. Like if if you're coming at it with the memes and the jokes and the in jokes, it makes your table feel safe.

Yeah. Right. It inurs you to the need for

connection, right? And engaging with the media directly and

wholeheartedly and the vulnerability that can come with that. Right. Right. Um, and I I think that

like part of the redefinition of cringe from being like the thing that I feel

when I watch somebody doing a thing that's embarrassing to, oh my god, that's so cringe is that it's it's

turned into like a policing thing. Right. Right. Right. Right. It's it's it's enforcing

conformity emotionally. Yeah. It's it's a form of like like

indirect bullying almost. I mean, not even so indirect. If you're

like hanging around middle schoolers, true, right? Like if if you're hanging around a flock of middle schoolers, you will

absolutely hear at least one of them over the course of like a half hour be like, "Oh my god, that's so cringe."

Right. Right. And all it is is someone like just actually liking something

or like doing something that is like normal in their household but like maybe not an

everyday occurrence elsewhere. or old people just existing

that there have okay there has been at least one occasion when I have been at a

mall and for the people who do not know I look like a Santa wizard that just

stepped out of a San Francisco nightclub y and I have walked past a group of people

and at least one of their kids has just been like cringe and it hurt

it hurt my soul I bet it did cuz that's a condemnation of just like your whole

aura. Like I didn't do anything. I was just walking. Yeah. Just existing and they're like,

"Oh, hey, your existence is sad and makes me embarrassed to think about." Yeah. Yeah. Um but like we're both from

improv backgrounds. Yeah. and which is a

I I would say improv is is both a source of and an inoculation against cringe.

Yeah. I I think it's a necessity. Yeah. Like you you need to engage with your

cringe in improv very early and very often.

Mhm. And you have to be okay with that.

Yeah. Right. Like you you cannot be cool and do improv at the same time. It is impossible.

There is no faster route to ego death than an improv class.

Okay. The absolute worst thing that has ever happened to me

personally Uhhuh. is not this, but I'm going to talk about this thing anyway. Okay,

I am hyperbolizing, but this [ __ ] sucked. Um, in an improv class, standing

up in front of a group of people that I had not yet met. Uhhuh. Saying a thing that I was sure was going

to sell. Yeah. Saying a thing that I knew was going to hit and I would get at least like a puff

of air out of the nose to dead [ __ ] silence. Yep.

Y it is soul crushing. Yep.

There's there's there's nothing that hits like nothing.

It I am cringing thinking about it right now. It hurts and I do not like it. But that

was the first day. Yeah. Right. And like you you have to keep

doing it, right? Like even though you just embarrassed yourself and even though you're watching other people embarrass themselves,

the only thing to do is just keep getting up and doing it. Well, and I think I think that's part of

the whole thing, too, is that like you got to experience that silence and then 20 minutes later you got to be that

silence for somebody. Yeah. And you feel bad both times.

Yeah. Yeah. But nobody wants to watch a joke fail. Oh my

god. Well, and and what you watch too is like a joke you can tell means a lot to

somebody because it's one that they have thought of before and we're like, oh man, this would kill. And then you see

them watch the circumstances start to like coales like, "Oh my god, oh my god,

I get to deliver this line that I have practiced and then they throw it out there and it just dies. It just

or worse. Oh my god. When they get off the stage and they're like, you know, that killed the last time I did it. And

you're just like, "Oh, [ __ ] He's done it before." Well, and hey, those those people too

where you're like, "Oh, oh, you want you need this more than I do." Like,

yeah, I brought no material. Yeah.

I I packed my shoes and hope that was it. Yeah. and and they're there practicing

bits for their real life and you're like, "No, man." Yeah. No, I got I got nothing for that.

But like I I think that like that practice and like doing it in a safe

place where like you know everybody is going to do it. Yeah. Helps,

right? And and you you know the honesty makes you better. I mean, there's no reason to sit there and feel like you

sit there and you you bomb and then someone else bombs and you go back and forth bombing in front of each other and

you get funnier and you realize that like yeah, it stung inside but you you

powered through it like you didn't die, you know? Um that that experience when the first time

you bomb so bad it is funny. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's that's a good one, too. Yeah. You come out there and you're like, "Man, that couldn't have gone

worse. I like and you're just thinking through like every single little quip

that I came up with just Yeah. Like it's like I farted out out and a fart would have been funnier.

That just killed in all the wrong ways. Yeah.

I cannot replicate that because it requires me to very genuinely and honestly fail several times while trying

my [ __ ] hardest. Um unusable in any other circumstance. Yeah.

But I I think um

is it Hzinga? Sure. ing um talks about like the the

magic circle. Mhm. Of games, which is just like the kind of

the same idea as like the the shared imagined space, but like

it's kind of like the opposite of it, right? It's like the the idea that like the game itself is a bubble,

right? And like the rules of the outside don't necessarily

correlate to the rules on the inside, right? The rules on the inside stand alone. They are their own.

Um I I think that understanding that the

social rules are different and that everybody is expected to engage and that everybody is occasionally going to do a

thing that is cringe or bad or like funny in the wrong way. um can be very encouraging in games.

I want to know how to get there because I I I think a lot of the tools that we have for like emotional safety in games

are kind of pointed in weird directions. Right. Right. Um

yeah, it's Oh god, how do I even explain this? Like there's

there's a certain amount of of a deal that you make with whether it's your improv troop or with the table that you

join that like we're going to partake in this shared delusion together and

no one is going to detach themselves from it. You know, like I said, in that like safe ironic

way where it's like, oh haha, I didn't take it seriously. And the first

evidence you have of someone doing that as a group, you have to attack it.

Like, yeah. Like when So, and and I've experienced this before, but being in an improv group

where someone comes in and you can clearly see they have bits and they want

to get a laugh from the room and they're not actually committed to improving their skill. Mhm.

They're just falling back on their old stereotypes and like well and and oh stupidly to bring up your example, but

like when Michael is partaking in his improv group and keeps bringing an

imaginary gun into every scene like

like that le that level of of you know inability to engage in good faith with

the exercise needs to be attacked. both by the orchestrator, so whether it's

your director or your DM, and also by the people at the table who are like, hey, like this is what we're doing

together, and you're not participating in that, and it's not okay that you are

like judging us from an outside perspective. Like, if you're here,

you're in the mud with us. You're not the cool kid at the table cuz we're all dorks for playing D and D.

Well, and like we're we're all engaged in a level of dorkery that

is the idea that we are going to be cool, right? Right. Like you you

you're pretending to be a halfling. Yeah.

That's [ __ ] cringe. Yeah.

That that is just on its baseline. You are you are pretending to do or be a

thing that you are not. And that is not a thing that you can do in most social

situations. Right. Right. Right. Like if you bring that to a party, it is not a party trick. People

are going to find you annoying. Well, and and I've seen this like start and

get pushed out in a very like a very quick and a very like like I

don't want to say gentle, but a very like um useful and and constructive way.

So, um back in the early days of actual play stuff and live play stuff when uh acquisitions Inc. was first getting off

off the ground, uh, one of the, you know, uh, uh, Mike Khulik

came in with a bit of ironic detachment and wasn't super taking the game seriously. Like he his first instinct

was to name his character Jim Dark Magic, right? Like,

and and you could see right away Scott was like, "Oh, like, yeah, just name him [ __ ] Chat awesome laser and I'll be

Mayard shorty pants." Like he there. And so it came from the table too where it's

like, hey man, we all agreed to do this thing together. If you're not going to take it at least somewhat seriously then

like why are we here? And then you know Jerry jumped in and they turned that

into like okay let's like we understand that there's a level of joke here. we're gonna play the game seriously, right?

And yeah, it became, oh, well, now he's of the New Hampshire dark magics and like, you know, there's an arrogance to

this character because, you know, he's full of himself, which is why he kind of

doesn't take the things around him as seriously as other people do. And and then you saw Perkins sort of like worked

to directly engage Mike, who he saw was already pulling back from the table as the game started, and was like, "No, no,

no. Let's let's bring you back in. Let's get you, you know, in the headsp space of Jim Dark Magic, who I'm going to take

seriously in my, you know, in my campaign. And then you're going to take

what whatever that first little seed of a goofball character is and and grow

something out of it, right? And so he he got him to, you know, think about personifying the arrogance and the

weirdness of a guy who is detached from the setting while still being attached

to the game. We have sung his praises before, but like one of the things that I think

Chris Perkins has in a way that I've never seen

another DM utilize before is just some absolutely incredible improv instincts,

right? Like Yeah. And and maybe I this could just be the

trick is that like you have to be in a yes and place, right? But the yes has to be sincere,

right? Right. The and can be whatever the [ __ ] you want. Yes. Right. It can be a joke. It can be like

stupid. It can be whatever. The yes has to be sincere. Right. And and that's definitely

something that like when he says yes to something, he says yes to everything, right? So like you

made this dumb off-headed joke about your character, but yes, that is his name. That's a real person, right? And

then the and is what does that actually mean? Yeah. But

and it can be a joke again, right? Like you can take that thing and like New

Hampshire dark magics is still a joke, right? But then you've written the first

line of that character's backstory. Yeah. Yeah. and everybody else taking it

graveyard serious means that one you didn't get the

chuckle you're looking for right and two that's locked into that shared

imagine space now you have written that as rule for your character now

yeah and it it also says hey you're allowed to make jokes but we're also

going to like take everything that you say seriously viously, right? Like I

mean, you know, and then and to a lesser extent, um Scott did the same thing when

talking about his character was like, "Yeah, I name him Benwin Bronzebottom cuz I wanted like the dwarfish compound

name and also a butt." Like, but butts are funny, you know, like

butts are funny. Yeah. But yeah, like I think if there's one thing that we can take away from this episode, it is that

butts are hilarious. Hey, thanks for making it all the way through this episode of No Plot Only

Lore. If you're looking for more, you can always find us at noplotonlore.com and on all the very best podcast

platforms. If you like what you heard today, please share, rate, and review the show to feed my never- ending need

for attention and validation.