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1:32

What is going on everybody? Welcome back to

1:34

Cannon Fodder. It is Wednesday, May 22nd, 2024,

1:37

and I'm your old pal, Joe O'Brien. And

1:41

I'm Troyer. The future's so bright I gotta

1:44

wear shades of the valley. What's going on

1:46

here? The graphic comes up, covers your face,

1:48

so I don't see you for a second.

1:50

Then it comes down and you got aviators

1:53

on. We're playing

1:55

some Delta Green, and so I got my aviators just sitting

1:57

here, and I was like, I think we're going to get

1:59

some more. wear shades for cannon potters today. That

2:01

way you don't know what I'm thinking. I might

2:03

be like, uh,

2:06

I raise you $25. Yeah, exactly. You got

2:08

to do like hands over the mouth. Just

2:13

looking down. Uh, yeah,

2:15

man. Roger Comstone is, is backing in

2:17

action behind the scenes. Has, hasn't aired

2:19

yet, but we've been playing. Uh, it's

2:21

been fantastic. Getting the trunk is off

2:23

and rolling. Uh, we

2:26

got a lot of stuff to get into today. We

2:28

got a lot of news to hit. We got me

2:30

a major episode of the glass cannon podcast to talk

2:32

about a little bit of we are stupid. And then

2:34

of course, your listener

2:36

mail. Uh, we'll get to

2:39

that. Obviously your listener

2:41

mail. But I mean, on top of everything

2:43

else that's going on, it's, it's show week,

2:46

buddy. It's show week again. Already,

2:50

uh, back to Canada. We go to Vancouver

2:52

this week in St. Paul, Vancouver and St.

2:55

Paul. Have you

2:57

been to Vancouver before? No, no, I

2:59

never been to Vancouver. Uh,

3:01

it's going to be a long trip, but, uh,

3:03

I'm looking forward to really looking forward to coming

3:06

back to St. Paul though, even though we've been

3:08

there, uh, because it's going to

3:10

be an exciting time to be in Minnesota

3:12

with the T-wolves and the conference

3:14

finals. They're playing Friday night. What do you

3:16

think? You got six, 700 bucks. You want

3:18

to sit in the nose? Oh God.

3:22

Wouldn't it be so cool to be

3:24

rich, like disgusting, that kind of rich

3:26

to be like, you know what, a

3:28

thousand bucks to have like a 300

3:30

level seat. Sure. Yeah. You

3:32

know what? Give me two. All right. I

3:35

like an open seat next to me for my snacks.

3:37

When am I going to be in Minnesota during a

3:39

T-wolf finals anytime soon?

3:41

A thousand bucks for 300

3:43

level seats. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Now that would

3:45

be fun. Uh, yeah,

3:47

it is an exciting time, not just because

3:50

of the basketball team, but because, uh, man,

3:52

I don't want to, uh, I don't want to take

3:54

anything away from Vancouver. We just haven't been there yet. But

3:57

man, that St. Paul crowd is great. I'm

4:00

so excited to get back to the Amsterdam. They

4:03

were so fired up there and it sold out

4:05

twice. It's just

4:08

awesome. The cool spot too because it's like a bar.

4:11

It's a bar that has a, not even a

4:14

back room, it's like the side room of the

4:16

bar. You are in it. They've

4:18

got a beautiful performance space in there. This will be

4:20

our third time there. And

4:22

yeah, got a special guest. It's going to be

4:24

fun. They sold it out.

4:26

Couple seats left in Vancouver. You know, we

4:29

would love to sell that out. It's like

4:31

20 seats left. Some

4:33

of those are VIP. It would be great to

4:36

get that sold out, increase the chance

4:38

of us returning. But it would be a fun week.

4:40

I can't believe that we're already back on the fucking

4:42

road. I feel like we just returned

4:44

from Austin seconds ago. I know. I know.

4:46

I feel the same way. I'm going to

4:48

check into my flight during this cannon fire.

4:51

This is, yeah, this is a quick turnaround. So

4:54

yeah, we are doing

4:56

two more live shows. And then next week we

4:58

have another live show, but it's not glass cannon

5:00

live. We mentioned it before. Pay

5:03

it, get your tickets while they last.

5:05

There's only, it's a very small room.

5:07

We are doing Kong. We're playing Kong

5:09

through evil genius games is everyday heroes.

5:11

We're playing a Kong. We're going to

5:13

build a Kong movie live at a

5:15

comedy club in New York city in

5:17

Times Square on Friday, May 31st at

5:19

8 30 PM. It's

5:23

at stand up New York skid myself

5:25

and Troy are doing it along

5:27

with uh, Khaleese Hawkins, Khaleese Hawkins

5:29

and Natalie Cuomo. Uh,

5:31

it's, we did it back in

5:34

March with, uh, with Rambo

5:36

and it was a freaking blast. And

5:38

I'm only more excited for common. We're

5:41

done session zeros. I know what skid

5:43

is breed to the table and it's

5:45

going to be amazing. Is it better

5:47

than Brian Dennehy? Oh my God. Better.

5:50

If you can imagine it better than

5:52

Brian. Dennehy, uh, Natalie Cuomo's character blew

5:55

my mind. I mean, she crushed it

5:57

with, uh, what was it?

5:59

Daisy Duke's gunnington. Daisy Dukes Gunnington. Her

6:01

name this time is Even Better, if

6:03

you can imagine that. Even

6:05

Better! So, yeah, it's gonna be Phan

6:07

Daisy Dukes Gunnington. That was so amazing.

6:10

We were like workshopping the name as

6:12

we were walking on stage. Yeah,

6:14

yeah. But now she's got... That was her

6:17

first ever actual play session, or role-playing game

6:19

session. And so this time she's coming in

6:21

like locked and loaded. She knows what's expected,

6:24

and she's already bringing great stuff to the

6:26

table. So anyway, that's May 31st. If

6:28

you're in or around the New York area, come

6:30

out. There's only gonna be, I don't know,

6:33

maybe 50 or 60 seats

6:35

that are right up close there and near

6:37

a small comedy club room. Really,

6:39

really fun. And it's already been selling. So

6:41

jump on that quick before it gets sold

6:43

out, and we'll hang. And

6:46

yeah, a little intimate hang in New York, building a

6:48

Kong movie. That should be... You know, it was so

6:50

funny. I was just at the supermarket the other day.

6:53

And you know when you're in line

6:55

at the supermarket, and they got all

6:57

those impulse purchase magazines. Right?

6:59

All stacked up. Penthouses. I

7:02

have to stop myself every time I'm buying a

7:05

penthouse. Every time

7:07

I have to stop myself from buying

7:09

tablets. Because I love tabloid headlines. Really?

7:12

You have to physically stop yourself

7:14

from buying a tablet? Dude, they're

7:16

amazing. The way that they work...

7:19

It is the precursor to what became clickbait.

7:21

That's what it is. It's worded in such

7:24

a way that you're just like, I have

7:26

to find out more. I don't

7:28

know what it is. You're like an 80s housewife. I didn't know

7:30

anyone was checked by them. It triggers something in me. Now

7:32

the difference is I don't actually buy it. But

7:36

just this week, while I'm standing in

7:38

line there, there's

7:40

all the gossipy ones of course. And

7:42

then there's... was it Life? Life magazine? Is that

7:45

what it... just Life, right? Life, yeah. Like

7:48

Life, person of the year. Like Time Life, yeah. So

7:50

it's just Life magazine, and it was

7:53

just Kong. And it

7:55

was an exploration of the history

7:57

and endurance of the character of

7:59

Kong. It was this whole thing about

8:01

like why it has endured so long what makes

8:03

the character so captivating and I almost

8:06

bought it But I was like I'm not gonna buy

8:08

a magazine like a moron Spotted

8:11

in Wyoming Nothing

8:16

about the genre I think I've watched like

8:18

two seconds of Godzilla when I was a

8:20

kid never understood what the hell was Going

8:22

on same thing with Kong like I get

8:24

it. I get it storied history, but like

8:26

I know nothing about it I'm

8:28

excited to dig into this because the adventure they've given

8:30

me is like It's like a

8:32

six-hour adventure that I've got to make a two-hour show

8:34

out of so What what

8:36

goes down it's gonna be really fun All

8:39

right So I had told you guys before

8:41

the last couple months Jared and I started

8:43

doing a new thing on the discord for

8:46

our Vorpal tier Subscribers the talk nerdy town

8:48

hall with Joe and Jared is a live

8:50

talk show Where we chat about nerdy topics

8:53

and bring you up to the stage all

8:55

using discord stages If you're a member of

8:57

the Vorpal subscriber tier, you can

8:59

come to that show live. We're gonna be doing it May 29th

9:02

So that's next week. We'll be doing it next week, May 29th at

9:04

7 30 p.m. Eastern 430 Pacific We're

9:08

going live doing another hour if not more

9:10

this time It the hour just flies by

9:12

so fast because we get to bring you

9:14

guys up to the stage Hear what

9:16

you have to say the questions you have to ask and

9:19

and then get your input on these really fun nerdy

9:22

topics and so last time our topic

9:24

was the

9:26

advantages and disadvantages of modern

9:29

role-playing modern setting role-playing versus

9:31

Fantastical role-playing so like what's

9:34

awesome about having like magic and dragons and

9:37

wizards and shit But what's awesome

9:39

about you know adult to green kind of setting

9:41

and I'm not talking about the kathleen horror aspect

9:43

I'm talking about like what's cool about playing in

9:45

you know, New York City in a role-playing game

9:48

And what are those advantages and disadvantages people brought great

9:50

ideas to the table? We had a really great conversation.

9:52

So we'll have a new topic and a new hang

9:55

coming next week So keep an eye out for that.

9:57

And if you're in the board books here you get

9:59

to like speak, you're part of the call, right? Yeah, yeah.

10:01

You have to come up on stage. So you raise, the Discord

10:03

has this thing. So you raise your hand, I see a little

10:05

graphic of you raising your hand, and I'll

10:08

say, hey, let's bring up a shoddy 79 to the

10:10

stage. Boom, you come up onto the stage and we

10:12

could hear your voice, you know, and you talk to

10:14

us and hang for a bit. It's just like talk

10:16

radio, that's all it is. It's like talk radio, and

10:19

we've been having a really great time with it.

10:21

So that's May 29th, come by for that. Join

10:23

the Vorpal Tier if you're not there already, and

10:26

you can come and hang out. You'll get that

10:28

unlocked in your Discord. Last

10:31

thing, I'll kick it to you for a quick

10:33

Gen Con update. I don't know if you wanna,

10:35

we'll do periodic Gen Con updates, you know, as

10:37

we get closer to the event in

10:39

a couple months. But, you know, it was a big,

10:41

big release last Sunday as all the tickets went on

10:43

sale. What's been going on on

10:46

your end? I know you're paying closer attention to

10:48

that than I am right now. Yeah, everything went

10:50

on sale on Sunday as part of the Gen

10:52

Con events catalog, the gauntlets as well that are

10:54

gonna be happening in our booth, booth 174. Those

10:57

went on sale as well, and

10:59

13 out of 22 of them sold

11:02

out. Oh, baby. Yeah,

11:04

so there's only nine left.

11:06

I mean, it's crazy to me. There's a skid one

11:08

at Friday at 10.15 a.m. that

11:11

has one ticket left. That is insane

11:13

to me. Like, who is not grabbing that

11:15

final skid one? Final

11:17

skid slot. Yeah, you and mine,

11:20

yours and mine are all sold out. There's

11:24

a couple of Jareds that are sold out.

11:26

We gotta get some Matthew Love going in.

11:28

Here's the thing. If those Matthew ones are

11:30

slow to sell, I've got some fun ideas

11:32

on how I'm gonna make those a little

11:34

bit jazzed up, and you're

11:36

gonna wish you bottom before I announce it because everyone's

11:38

gonna rush to get it. Uh,

11:41

could be some guest player action. We'll see.

11:43

Matthew can't sell. We're gonna move him one

11:45

way or another. But then

11:47

we had four live shows go

11:49

on sale in addition to Glass Cannon

11:51

Live, which is sold out, and Call

11:53

of Cthulhu live at the Athenaeum, which

11:55

over 300 tickets have been sold. We

11:58

have like double the amount of tickets that we sold. sold

12:01

last year almost. There's

12:03

like 70 something tickets left to that. Again,

12:05

I haven't even announced the cast for this.

12:08

But Getting the Trunk Live went

12:10

on sale for Thursday, completely sold

12:13

out. Call of Cthulhu Live is

12:16

our largest show of the weekend happening at the

12:18

Con. It's a 700 seat theater. We've already sold

12:20

well over 200 tickets for that. Blades in the

12:22

Dark live on Saturday and the Starfinder 2-E playtest.

12:24

All of those things went on sale. I'll tell

12:26

you what, all of them are going to sell

12:28

out. They have it all in years

12:30

past. So don't wait. Grab those tickets

12:32

before we drop the cast because I'm

12:34

literally just waiting for one of our

12:36

people to confirm whether or not they

12:38

are going to Gen Con so that

12:40

I can put the final pieces into

12:42

the cast list. But they're crazy. The

12:44

cast for all these shows are nuts,

12:47

especially this one by Call of Cthulhu at

12:50

the Con. I've put like 19 people on

12:53

this show and it's going to

12:55

be a good time. But grab those gauntlets. I

12:57

think we're going to have a lot of fun

12:59

with these. I've been working on the Nashville retreat

13:01

schedule, prepping for the gauntlets for those. You said

13:03

last week that's going to be like pre-season for

13:05

the gauntlets. We're

13:08

really excited about this. We're talking about people

13:10

with terrain and minis and whatnot. So it's

13:12

going to be a good time. You're working

13:14

on all the conversion of the characters. Gen

13:17

Con will be here before we know it. I'm

13:20

really excited because even though our dance card

13:22

is full, I think it's going

13:24

to be a little bit more breathing room than

13:27

years past, which I'm looking forward to because it

13:29

is my favorite con and we never really get

13:31

to enjoy it because we're going to work and

13:33

work and work and work and work and

13:36

work. Yeah. Well, we'll keep up with those

13:38

periodic updates through the FOD as we

13:40

get closer to Gen Con. But yeah, for now, they're on

13:42

sale. Grab those tickets while you can because it sounds like

13:44

a lot of those things will be sold out soon. All

13:47

right, let's move on to our

13:50

shows, particularly GCP Campaign

13:53

2 and Cannon Fodder.

13:56

It's been a big couple of weeks, a

13:58

couple of weeks of episodes. big

14:00

FOD last week, hour and 20

14:02

minutes long-ish, heated, I

14:05

wouldn't say heated, but just interesting

14:08

debate, particularly around

14:10

the system, the balance,

14:13

the approach, the strategy, the

14:15

gameplay, the bottle caps,

14:18

etc. So much feedback,

14:20

so many amazing comments. I love to

14:23

pull comments out and highlight them here

14:25

on the next episode

14:27

of the FOD, but to be honest, I

14:29

just couldn't. There were so

14:32

many really great long comments

14:34

that I... It was hard to highlight

14:36

any particular one, and everybody on

14:38

every side of the issue. It was really, really interesting.

14:41

I guess I just want to ask you real quick,

14:43

I know you read all these comments. What was your

14:45

sort of takeaway after seeing what

14:47

everybody had to say about how bottle

14:49

caps are used or suggestions or whatever?

14:51

What was your takeaway? Well, I don't

14:53

read the comments anymore. I've moved on.

14:56

You don't read YouTube comments? No, I'll scan

14:58

through the YouTube comments once in a while,

15:01

and then a little bit on Discord very rarely on

15:03

the subreddit. Just not super

15:06

interested, but I'd love to see the engagement. I

15:09

think there's... Obviously, I see a lot of

15:11

numbers. That's what interests me. A lot of

15:14

people are going back and forth, a lot of excitement,

15:16

which is good. I think

15:18

there's probably a lot of people that are wondering, like, am

15:20

I going to make any adjustments or changes? I've

15:23

given it a lot of thought, and I'm

15:26

not changing anything. I

15:28

feel like DiCaprio in Wolf of Wall Street.

15:31

I'm not leaving! I'm not leaving!

15:34

I just... I mean, are you kidding me? I'll give

15:36

you a spoiler. In a couple weeks, not this week's

15:38

episode, but next week's episode, I give everybody a bottle

15:41

cap or something that goes down in this

15:43

week's episode that drops this week.

15:45

That's a total spoiler. It

15:48

was really earned. You earned

15:50

them. A hundred thousand percent.

15:53

I gave it. If you want more caps, you're going

15:55

to have to be a hero. I'm not removing them

15:57

from the game. I'm just like... I'm

16:00

just not giving them away for free. I think

16:02

there's this like misconception just

16:04

because I don't like them and I

16:06

also truly believe they're not necessary that

16:09

I'm removing them from the game. I'm not. I'm

16:11

not going to give them out more frequently. I'm not removing from the

16:13

game. I just want people to

16:17

really earn them. I mean the way I look at it, dude,

16:19

like in the last four hours or so of the

16:22

GCP, people got to watch a

16:24

gaming group in real time like

16:27

struggle with bad luck, bad

16:29

tactics, harsh rulings for me

16:33

and this impossible decision at the end

16:35

that ends up creating this amazing story

16:37

that we told with like 85% of

16:40

the rules as written. And

16:45

tens of thousands of people have watched

16:47

it, commented on it, talked

16:49

about it, loved it, hated it, thought

16:51

about it, argued about it. I

16:54

love that. Dude, 10 years ago I used to

16:57

have to psych myself up to go

16:59

do stand up in front of

17:01

five other comics with jokes that

17:03

I wrote that day and

17:05

often had to pay $5 to do it. I'd

17:08

be bouncing around town with Randy putting

17:10

those Bud Light Garitas and 7-Eleven Cups

17:12

just going to comedy clubs. I'm like,

17:14

well, I can't afford to buy a

17:17

drink there. I would be like, dude,

17:19

I'd be taking change to those banks

17:21

that like change out for dollar bills

17:23

so I would have the

17:25

$5 to give to the mic and then like

17:27

I'd be at 7-Eleven giving them change for a

17:29

Bud Light Garita and now we get to do

17:32

this and we have so many people that

17:34

like it. You

17:36

know, I mentioned a couple times on a couple

17:38

shows. I know on Time for Chaos that I'm

17:40

like on a big reading kick this year. I'm

17:42

already 20 for 20. I've got 20 books for

17:44

the first 20 weeks of the year and I'm

17:47

reading stuff mostly about business but all kinds of

17:49

stuff. I'm reading about investing, Wall

17:51

Street startups, marketing, the chemistry

17:53

of the brain and how it like

17:56

leads people to make the decisions they

17:58

make, parenting. And

18:01

I think that because of these books, I'm

18:04

learning so much and implementing them immediately. And

18:06

because of that, our business, give everybody, people

18:08

like a behind the scenes, look, I think

18:11

it's doing better than it has the last

18:13

two years combined. I'm putting

18:15

these ideas into action. And

18:17

a couple months ago, I finished, have

18:19

you ever read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius? Mm-mm.

18:23

It's funny, because I'm reading it, and then I see that,

18:25

like, Seinfeld is reading it at the

18:27

same time, is like way into it. He's

18:29

like the father of stoicism, he's like the

18:31

most powerful man in the world. And his

18:33

whole jam is like, you

18:36

know, as you become more popular

18:38

or whatever, I

18:41

don't know what word he uses off the top

18:43

of my head, but like a lot more people

18:45

are going to comment

18:47

and talk about what you're doing. And

18:50

all of it has nothing to do

18:52

with you, whether they're clapping for you

18:54

or chiding you. It's just noise. And

18:56

he gets even more bleak. If

18:58

you get overwhelmed by that

19:01

or start to let it affect you, just

19:04

remember all those people are going to die.

19:06

And all of their opinions will be like

19:08

dust. No one is ever going to remember

19:10

them. And you are

19:13

also going to die. So why

19:15

waste a second worrying about what

19:17

other people think? You should take

19:19

your time to perfect your craft

19:21

and focus on trusting

19:23

your gut and becoming the best at what

19:26

you do. And for me,

19:28

that's like I can't

19:30

listen anymore to the noise. That to me

19:32

is like the death of art. The minute

19:34

you let the noise start to infect what

19:36

it is you're trying to create, you

19:40

know, that's a dangerous path to go down.

19:42

My job is to like trust myself to

19:44

create. And it's one thing to like listen

19:46

to your customers. I totally understand

19:48

and I get that. But I

19:50

listen with data, not like feedback.

19:53

And the data across all metrics for

19:55

2024 is just like a Line

19:58

Graph. Ah

20:01

but you know if you want more bottle

20:03

caps you can buy him and armored store

20:05

at the wanna get him on the show.

20:07

He gotta be a hero. You. Know I

20:09

I. I think

20:12

of like the either been and question. The question

20:14

is you don't give them. For

20:16

when they are deserved and earned, I don't want

20:18

it as an enormous week know a lot as

20:21

because you forget. A for sure

20:23

for sure my over like I'm fine

20:25

with them like not. That. That

20:27

they autonomy not flowing. You know, to

20:29

me like I don't need them to

20:31

be a part of the game. Ah,

20:33

and people really want them. I think

20:35

that they've gotta make bigger and bolder

20:37

choices like sale is what you want

20:39

about Roger Concerning for a Luther like.

20:41

They. Made big bold choices, they changed the

20:44

color of the room and and they

20:46

at that's that's what I'm looking for.

20:48

You don't have to be like you

20:50

are like really the unicorns releasing you're.

20:53

Insecure The Bunker. Oh. No,

20:55

no but I mean that was bad for

20:58

the party, was a fit for the show.

21:00

That motel room only are there is just

21:02

bad. We need both choices. That like I

21:04

say that my you can't talk, you talk

21:07

out of both sides. Your mouth settled. This

21:09

I do. You can't say floodlights. You need

21:11

to make boulder choices and say you need

21:13

to be safer. Tactically you play poorly. Oh

21:16

but then you have to play while eager.

21:18

Museum exclusive. I think you're on a barrier

21:20

for latest without me as a little bit

21:22

about hoop a dangerous choices with it. but

21:25

it's not. Like it's it's that to he

21:27

is very swinging like you can't There's a

21:29

fine line between a bold choice and the

21:31

dangerous toys. And I think that like. If

21:34

you play says. I. Think some

21:36

people point safe and if you play

21:39

safe either going a taps English Big

21:41

Phoenicia Ah I'm I enjoyed the joke

21:43

was like another dude I I I

21:45

stand by what I said I had

21:47

this. I don't I understand that the

21:49

game is built. So. That these

21:52

prevent people from dying or that I get

21:54

that I just don't care about that. I

21:56

don't like them. I don't idle idle like

21:58

the day as as Martina name the I

22:00

guess in a bit of my resume bill

22:02

Oddie to like of I saw that com

22:04

and come up on on the youtube things

22:07

like just remove their ability to save you

22:09

from dying so you get to like do

22:11

a reward stepped on a bad idea I

22:13

just. Don't. Really

22:15

like. A

22:18

like button hundreds but that doesn't make

22:20

any sense will face it's what told

22:22

him. I guess if what you don't

22:24

like is them bringing you back. When.

22:26

I just remove that. I. Be

22:29

I think that's when the best suggestions that

22:31

I got. Ah, you got it A ton

22:33

of times a ton would like. It is

22:35

a reasonable oh you are kind of sounding

22:37

like the route like The most popular comment

22:39

was bottle caps are part of the game

22:41

and you need to implement them because you

22:43

know hundreds they were had. I was the

22:45

that was there was not middle on a

22:47

new like the law and now the people.

22:50

A ton of people don't like that they

22:52

auto stabilize you and they were like we

22:54

just remove that does make em like bottle

22:56

caps in one ie. you know words like.

22:58

Advantage said a word I heard through the grapevine

23:00

through my sources is that it was a a

23:03

lot of the comments and other sites for exists

23:05

like. Detroit. Averaged about of pro

23:07

gamer not optional. They.

23:09

Are in my gun. Ah of course it

23:11

arrives in office but tom you know it's

23:14

it's sums gotta get. But the ago I

23:16

think go back to what we talked about

23:18

last week when I thought that I want

23:20

to rehash all the arguments. But I do

23:23

wanna make it clear that. You.

23:26

Want to make sure that the

23:28

choices you're making or resulting. In.

23:30

Results you want. So.

23:32

You know if it's that. I think a

23:35

good example of this comes from a great

23:37

com at the came from the episode last

23:39

week from Pink You can! Who said what

23:41

an excellent app? I mean really, this was

23:43

an impossible situation in the fact that any

23:45

of the managed to escape was super climactic.

23:47

It's that look on choice face of the

23:50

and says it all. So here's the question.

23:52

Thirty five episodes in. two p

23:54

c deaths is it time to take a

23:56

step back and think about is this the

23:58

nature of the story the crew wants to

24:00

tell. And that's where

24:02

my head is at. It's like, if you

24:04

don't want bottle caps, that's fine. But

24:07

you have to make sure you want a

24:09

game where a PC dies every 15 episodes.

24:11

That's the rate you're going at, right? Yeah.

24:15

Is that what you want? Do you want the main

24:17

characters dead every 15 episodes? I think there's a little

24:19

recency bias for that. You know what I mean? Like,

24:22

that is decurring. Sure, it's a small sample size. It's

24:24

a small sample size. And you guys are going to

24:26

level up. Yeah, and early levels for sure. There

24:30

were decisions I could have made in early Giants

24:32

Slayer where there would have been a higher body

24:34

count before episode 50 that I just didn't make.

24:38

And now I just feel more comfortable making them.

24:40

Yeah, no, if death happens

24:42

too often, it becomes meaningless. I just don't want

24:44

to change what we're doing. I

24:49

think that it works. So status quo for

24:51

now, I think it, I mean, look,

24:53

I know what we've recorded. We're a little bit

24:55

ahead. And I mean, it's never been better. So

24:57

I mean, I certainly don't have a problem with

25:00

the game and the way that it's being played.

25:02

I just, yeah, these

25:05

small sample sizes, things can seem really

25:07

tough. And I just wanted to acknowledge

25:09

all those people that commented. There were

25:11

a lot of really great suggestions, arguments.

25:13

One of my favorite ones, I don't

25:15

remember who said it. I apologize. But

25:18

maybe it was a listener mail. It

25:21

was a really just kind of a fun suggestion,

25:24

which was, oh,

25:27

god, sorry. I lost my train of thought. I

25:29

can't remember what it was. If I think about

25:31

it, I'll get back to it. Anyway, let's talk

25:33

about the actual episode this week. This

25:35

week, it had me going back to

25:38

GCP, campaign one, episode

25:41

50, which you just mentioned. Yeah. What

25:44

does this episode have in common with episode

25:46

50 of

25:48

campaign one? Matthew's character died? Yes,

25:51

but it goes a deeper layer than that. There

25:55

are little things to jump on. Oh,

25:57

it's one big. thing.

26:03

Both episodes began

26:06

with another character on Death's

26:08

Door. That's

26:11

the person that's at risk.

26:14

And then suddenly in the episode it pivots to

26:16

Matthew. Who was it in Campaign One, Troy? It

26:19

was Baron. It was Baron. Baron

26:21

had fallen from a height that could have

26:24

killed him permanently. And you

26:27

knew that was the cliffy. Going

26:30

into the episode, I remember after we recorded

26:32

it you were like, everybody's going to think

26:34

he's going to die and then it formally

26:36

dies instead. Insanity. I

26:40

couldn't help but think of that as we went

26:42

into this episode with Brother Ramius having the death

26:44

roll. And the natural 20.

26:47

That was awesome. But then yeah,

26:49

so then the sadness happens. So

26:52

let's talk about it. I

26:55

hated giving you a bottle cap for that. But it was a

26:57

really good thing that you had kind of

26:59

put together. Begrudgingly

27:01

sending bottles. Yeah, I gave

27:03

you a bottle cap for that. You took the

27:05

time to do some work there. You earned a

27:07

cap. Yeah. Yeah.

27:10

All right. Talk to me about... I didn't want you

27:12

to have to use it to save yourself from death.

27:14

I'm glad you're not 20 there.

27:17

Yeah, me too. Me too. I didn't want to use it at

27:19

all. Hated it. I was just like, I'll keep it for the

27:21

next character. But then I said on

27:23

air that I was going to keep it. And the

27:25

main reason for that is because something has changed for

27:27

me. I honestly think that 10 episodes

27:29

ago, I think I would have...

27:32

Excuse me, just like let Ramius go. But just something

27:34

has happened recently where... You found him. I finally found

27:36

him. You know, it took a while and I finally

27:38

have connected with him and I get him a little

27:40

bit better than I did before. And

27:42

so I'm super into it now and I don't want him

27:44

to die. You know what you've done? You've

27:47

found a lighter side of him. You know what

27:49

I mean? And that's what you have to find.

27:51

I think that there is a tendency to like,

27:54

especially with a new campaign, the character is so precious, you

27:56

don't know a whole lot about him. You want to play

27:58

him straight because if you start

28:00

to veer off into silly, then they're silly. So

28:03

you found a way with Raimius to

28:05

discover this other side of him, this

28:08

drug side of him that has added

28:10

a lightness and a humor without sacrificing

28:12

any of what makes Raimius Raimius, without

28:14

sacrificing any of his past and his

28:16

trauma that he's experienced. And that's hard

28:18

to do. But I see now that

28:20

you've found him and now he's gonna

28:23

be a lot harder for you to

28:25

let go. And I didn't

28:27

wanna see him die either. Yeah, yeah, I

28:29

agree. And I would say the drugs

28:31

are one small aspect of it. That's not

28:34

the key thing. To me, it

28:36

was the transition that I never expected

28:38

that happened throughout second level here. And

28:41

the drugs help add to it in

28:43

a very interesting way. They flush it

28:45

out in an interesting way. But he

28:47

goes from being this tragic figure

28:49

that I had in my mind

28:52

of a cloistered priest,

28:55

that initial character concept.

28:58

He has sort of morphed into something that I'm connecting

29:00

with a lot more for whatever reason or another. And

29:02

it's kind of the, yes, the

29:05

drug addicted, which

29:08

by the way comes because of

29:10

his past trauma. Yeah, yeah. His

29:13

drug addicted kind of harried

29:16

frontier doctor. You

29:18

know, like that vibe to me

29:20

is so funny because of how

29:23

many medicine checks

29:25

treat wounds. How many

29:27

treat wounds he has failed and like hurt

29:29

people with and stuff. And how exhausted he

29:31

is by it. He's just like, and then

29:33

the players are all cracking up because they're

29:35

imagining their characters just like going through this

29:38

torturous like process to try to

29:40

heal. And that's like frontier

29:42

medicine, right? Like it's like, it's brutal, it's gross. It's

29:44

like, you gotta do what you gotta do. I never

29:46

thought about that when I first made the

29:49

character. And now like, as it moves in that direction, I'm

29:51

enjoying it a lot. So anyway,

29:54

I'm also glad that he

29:56

didn't die. Let's talk about the, who cares about

29:58

the lib. I

30:00

know. Talitha, you know, it's

30:03

a tough one. Let's jump to Talitha. We

30:05

don't have to get into tactics and stuff.

30:07

Let's jump to Talitha. I

30:09

know Talitha's death. It must have taken

30:11

you by surprise. I mean, it totally

30:13

took me by surprise. It

30:15

happened so suddenly and so quickly where

30:19

one hit takes her to

30:21

dying too, and then suddenly

30:23

unnatural one drops

30:25

her to, you know, all the way down. What's

30:28

going through your head as that happens? You

30:31

know, are you thinking of any deus ex machinus

30:33

or are you, you know, and

30:35

then I guess the next what leads to

30:37

the decision to take it out

30:39

of combat and make the end narrative. Like, how

30:42

did that all come together? Yeah. So when she's

30:44

in the river, I'm like that, what

30:46

she doesn't realize is that's the safest place

30:48

to be. Two things that I added to

30:50

this encounter. One, the ability to throw one

30:52

more of those things, which

30:55

didn't amount to anything. We

30:57

talked about that it did one very

30:59

early on in the combat, it crit

31:01

someone and shouldn't have crit again, didn't

31:04

have any effect on the end of the

31:06

combat in my estimation because there were other

31:08

decisions I would have made that would have

31:10

made everything equal. And

31:12

the other thing I added was the waterfall. But the

31:15

waterfall for me was a just

31:19

a danger. It's like, how

31:21

do you raise the stakes? And

31:24

then sort of how the waterfall would function in

31:26

terms of game mechanics, I was going to cross

31:28

that bridge when I came to it. I just

31:30

thought like how interesting. That's what I felt. That's

31:32

what I felt was happening. I was like, I

31:34

said it at one point. I was like, you

31:36

would have been better off going over the waterfall

31:38

because at least we don't know what

31:41

would happen there. You wouldn't have been like clear

31:43

from the. We know exactly what's going to happen.

31:45

You're going to die. There's

31:47

so many fun things you could have done with the

31:49

waterfall. To me, I was just like in the middle

31:51

of the episode when she started going down there, I'm

31:53

like, there's a waterfall. I'm going to

31:55

have there be a waterfall. This is great. Now

31:57

it adds stakes to the moment. started

32:00

going towards the waterfall. I

32:02

didn't start thinking about what it would be until she's

32:04

got like past the halfway point of the map. I'm

32:06

like, I really need to think what's going to happen.

32:08

Yeah, she started getting pulled back. I was like, ah,

32:10

she'll live forever. But you

32:12

know, the thing was very good

32:15

about like not attacking creatures that have the

32:17

dying condition, but I see it has this

32:19

life sensibility. I'm like, well, I

32:21

gotta use it. Once

32:25

I hit with it and brought her back down

32:27

to dying, it still really hadn't dawned

32:29

on me that she was a natural one

32:32

away from permadeath because so many of you

32:34

had experienced that throughout the episode. Lucky had

32:36

it happen. You obviously

32:38

had it happen. And I just figured like

32:41

fate is going to save them. And

32:43

when she went down, I'm looking at

32:46

its hit points, which like you guys

32:48

did so little damage to this thing.

32:50

And I'm like, if they keep fighting

32:52

this, I'm going to take at

32:55

least two or three of

32:57

them out until finally someone decides

32:59

to be the lone survivor. So

33:03

I made that was like, this is a great

33:05

story moment. Like you've got a chance here. It

33:07

found it finally killed someone to eat. Does

33:09

it say that in the adventure? Like I don't mean does it

33:12

say does the party run away? I mean, does it say it's

33:14

there to eat? Yeah, yeah.

33:16

It's there because it's hungry and it sees

33:18

an opportunity to eat. It

33:20

does not pursue you if you go

33:22

on land. Like if you go

33:24

on land. Yeah, that's why when I said

33:26

this ever since like just run inland, you

33:28

know what I mean? Yeah, as we're on

33:30

inland. Yeah, you know, I've known as I

33:32

would have done. But I would skitter up

33:34

with it. Yeah, really. I mean, like, yeah,

33:36

I mean, to me, I was just like,

33:39

how do we hammer this home in a good story

33:42

moment? Because we're also an hour happened the episode. I

33:44

don't want this combat lasting lasting three ups. And I

33:46

just hit me. I was like, Oh, let's

33:49

do something we haven't quite done yet. Like

33:51

a full on abandoned, abandoned

33:53

the encounter abandoned the corpse of your

33:55

friend and all their magical gear, because

33:58

it's the only way to stay alive. And

34:01

it ended up creating a really,

34:03

really cool story moment, I think.

34:05

Yeah, I agree. I was tortured. I

34:08

was tortured by the decision. Of course, the knee-jerk

34:10

reaction is easy to be like, yeah, use

34:12

this opportunity to run away, you know? But

34:16

it was just, it

34:18

was a really tough decision to just like leave

34:20

her behind, you know. But

34:23

I've always been, you know, I was interested in

34:25

this back when you and

34:27

I played in our first campaign together

34:30

with Skid and our other GM. You

34:32

remember that really started in the jungle.

34:35

And he was asking us like what sort of setting

34:37

we would like to play in. And I was like,

34:39

I'd love to play a jungle adventure because I've never

34:41

played one before. And he sort

34:43

of latched onto that. And that was really the

34:46

setting where things really got started and really got

34:48

underway. It's

34:50

just so dangerous. And that's the

34:52

kind of thing that happens. It's like these

34:54

wild animals that are, they just eat you.

34:57

You know what I mean? Not to mention

34:59

disease and, you know, like you

35:02

said, rivers and waterfalls and treacherous

35:04

terrain. Like it's just a

35:06

very deadly area. And I'm not

35:08

that I'm glad Talitha died. It's that I'm glad that

35:10

like it's been represented well.

35:13

You know how Skid always complains that like

35:15

animals are not, like regular animals are not

35:17

represented well in Pathfinder. Their actual deadliness is

35:19

not well accounted for mechanically. It's like I

35:22

like it when a jungle setting is accounted

35:24

for mechanically. It should feel that deadly. A

35:26

party that goes into a jungle it's never

35:28

been in before, you know, an expedition. People

35:32

die. They die. You know, for

35:34

that to happen, it makes it feel that

35:36

much more real to me. I love that

35:38

about Side Quest Side Quest Season 3. Like you

35:40

get dropped on that jungle and you've got to make

35:42

your way in land. I never

35:44

realized how much I enjoy that setting. Yeah.

35:47

The unknown, unknown civilizations,

35:49

unknown creatures. You

35:51

know, no one has made a single knowledge check

35:54

since entering the jungle because the D.C.s are so

35:56

high because these are creatures So

35:58

far outside of anything you've read. What about

36:00

it? Really? It makes it feel

36:02

a lot more real. It's tough

36:04

to lose somebody. the thoroughly butter.

36:08

And of it felt it just felt like a

36:10

that's the way that the had to be and

36:12

you're lucky with only one person. Yeah.

36:15

I agree out authoritative news network commented

36:17

on the episode said excellent episode I

36:19

really like this comment. Start start with

36:21

zero to sixty and the foot never

36:23

came off the gas. It's going to

36:25

be very interesting to see where the

36:28

characters go from here. And

36:30

it's you. Think you know? You know the

36:32

next three ups isn't enough. But. Nuts.

36:36

On Sale! Like I know people are angry are

36:38

angry about how we play the game and I

36:40

mean I I the when I say like I

36:42

don't I don't know who you're talking about. Today.

36:45

While I get I know some people are

36:47

by the not briefs about other sites that

36:49

right about us out of yeah because I

36:52

just don't when I said okay or it's

36:54

not like I don't care at Bellevue it's

36:56

just like that's not and had nothing to

36:58

do with me When someone comments that is

37:00

an exercise for the commenter that. You

37:02

can. Absorb that. But like I know, people

37:04

are really. Angry about this. And

37:06

it's tricky because it's like. Say.

37:09

Euro filmmaker right? You're familiar with

37:12

the South is he? So make

37:14

movies Says Imran? Yes, Isis, your

37:17

James Cameron. You make an avatar.

37:19

Sex. And that the

37:21

trailer comes out on you tube.

37:23

and dare This actually might be

37:25

insightful. I think when I get

37:28

to the end of it up

37:30

for everyone in an actual plate,

37:32

your you avatar, six and you

37:34

travel out you'd you'd million comments

37:36

sub reddit discord for every talking

37:38

about avatar Amongst those commenters. You

37:40

know how many what the percentage of

37:42

them are? filmmakers? To. Present

37:45

maybe five percent. Or

37:47

in the performance entertainment. And six the people

37:49

there commenting on the oh I would say

37:52

it's way less than that. yeah I forgot

37:54

my yeah half have a quarter of a

37:56

percent maybe in actual play when someone watches

37:58

are sure any show. or anything we

38:00

do and then they run online to comment

38:03

on YouTube and subreddit like that. The percentage

38:05

of people that are amateur GMs, amateur players

38:07

is probably 98%. And

38:10

so when you watch this, there's that,

38:12

I think the anger comes from like,

38:15

that's wrong. I can

38:17

do better. I run

38:19

my game better. I do it differently

38:21

and so that's why I try to like, you

38:23

know. That's why you can't watch movies. That's why

38:26

you don't like movies. That's

38:28

why I don't like movies because I'm a film maker. Exactly.

38:31

I can do better. Yeah, I know I can do better. I

38:33

just couldn't get there anymore. It's like I would make a better

38:35

movie than David List. No.

38:38

But I think that the anger comes from that.

38:40

It's got to be infuriating. It's like, how did

38:42

they play the game wrong? But

38:45

like that, I don't want to say

38:47

like, I don't care because I'm so happy for

38:49

the engagement. I think it fosters a good

38:51

discourse but like, it has nothing to do with what

38:53

we do. We just got to do our thing. Yeah,

38:56

no, I agree. But we also

38:58

have that element of we share

39:01

a structural integrity with

39:03

these other people because we say we play

39:05

this game and we say we play this

39:07

named game that has a published set of

39:09

rules and we say we

39:11

care about those rules. We don't say we

39:13

don't care about them. And

39:15

so yes, there are times when we eschew them and

39:17

there are times when we make mistakes but ultimately, we

39:21

do have that shared structure that we

39:23

need to be aware of and we

39:25

make mistakes. And we correct those mistakes

39:27

when we can and we like to.

39:30

And so yeah, I mean, it's not

39:32

that I don't welcome all those comments but I

39:34

do agree that like really

39:36

fiercely negative comments that are

39:38

based from someone

39:40

who plays the game differently, it's

39:43

very important to not listen to

39:45

that because you don't

39:47

want to change the way you play the game

39:49

if you're having fun. If you're not

39:51

having any fun, you have to reanalyze and maybe

39:54

we have to play our game a little bit

39:56

differently. But, you know, lately,

39:58

the way that I... I felt I know

40:01

that I talked a lot in in kind

40:03

of fodder about these episodes these most recent

40:05

episodes in my frustration with the the

40:09

the Difficulty of the encounters

40:11

has seemed a little unfair

40:14

but the oh But

40:16

overall I'm having fun playing the game. You know what I

40:18

mean? And and Yeah,

40:21

exactly and and I'm also like realizing

40:23

where I am wrong in in certain

40:25

areas of things that something is quote-unquote

40:28

unfair It's like it can be very

40:30

easy as a player to assign something

40:32

as unfair when you're not exactly Paying

40:35

attention to what the roles are

40:37

right? So so you look

40:40

at Kate Kate's a really good example you

40:42

look at action Kate and you

40:44

see miss miss miss miss miss

40:46

miss miss and The

40:49

tricky part is you're thinking this encounter

40:51

must be too hard because there's no

40:54

statistical way that she could be rolling

40:57

Single digits low single digits every single roll

40:59

across the board blah blah blah. It's just

41:01

she keeps missing by what whatever But

41:04

it is tricky because she is

41:06

not doing that. She's rolling poorly

41:08

on the first attack and Well

41:12

on the second attack, but the map is

41:14

bringing it down till it's just a miss

41:16

So she's rolling a natural 14 a

41:19

natural 15 and that's a miss But

41:21

that's the second attack That's fine to miss

41:24

for me in the way that I

41:26

think about the game a natural 14 and natural

41:28

15 That should be a miss with

41:30

your second attack against a higher level creature, you

41:32

know But we're not seeing every

41:34

one of those roles behind her screen, right? Like

41:36

we're not seeing all those numbers and so it

41:38

can start to feel like this creatures is impossible

41:40

to hit It's like well, no her roles are

41:42

not they're just not hitting at the right time,

41:45

you know And and you know, we'll see

41:47

the way that all kind of Shakes out

41:49

I you know, obviously got to try to not be

41:51

too knee-jerky about things being too hard

41:53

But professor Eric said it well in

41:55

his analysis. He just felt that in

41:57

this particular AP There are

42:00

some They are stringing together a bit, like

42:02

a lot of single enemy

42:04

encounters, that when you

42:06

string them all together, it does start to

42:09

feel like you're way outmatched. And you should

42:11

be with one creature. Pepper

42:13

in some encounters that have lower level creatures

42:16

that are our level or lower, and there's

42:18

four of them. And we

42:20

will feel, even if it's challenging, we'll

42:22

feel more appropriate, appropriately

42:24

leveled, you know. Anyway.

42:30

Can we talk about the snail for one second before

42:32

we move on to We Are Stupid? I don't know

42:34

if there's anything you want to reveal here that's purely

42:36

technically. Yeah, is there, like, what were we looking at

42:38

in terms of... I played him like an idiot

42:41

coward, and he could have easily TPKed

42:43

you. I should make

42:45

the snail one of the gauntlet creatures and

42:47

play it to win. Because...

42:51

For real. Yeah, as written, I mean, it's

42:53

very, very high to head, decent AC. You

42:56

know, it's fun. It's like, in Tui, the

42:58

books have them... A lot of the monsters are

43:01

in the back. Like, they

43:03

don't put the stat block, even if it's a

43:05

one that was created for the intervention. I used

43:07

to do that in 1A2, but I'm finding it

43:09

a lot more common in Tui. I'm stalling

43:11

while I get to it. Alright,

43:13

so... Yeah,

43:15

I mean, right off the bat, it has

43:18

this thing called reflective shells. So when it's

43:20

submerged in water, it gets a plus four

43:22

circumstance bonus to stealth checks. And if the

43:24

water is moving, this bonus increases to eight.

43:26

Why is that important? It had a plus

43:28

12 to its initiative bonus

43:30

right out the gate on top

43:32

of its regular stealth, which

43:35

was already plus 12. So it had a

43:37

plus 24 to initiative. That makes

43:39

it... Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm

43:42

sorry, I can't imagine... I'm sorry, not plus 12,

43:44

plus eight. Plus eight, yeah, then our stack. Plus four

43:46

plus eight. But it's a total cumulative plus 20.

43:48

Plus, so that's massive. So initiative. Yeah, it's going to

43:50

like... You guys are rolling

43:52

your highest... Look, from the riverbank, it must

43:54

just look like a rock. Yeah, well, it's

43:56

shell reflects the water and then all of

43:58

a sudden it comes... out yeah. Very

44:01

cool. Yeah and then obviously a lot

44:03

of the AC. If AC is

44:05

21. Oh that's 72

44:08

hit points of which

44:10

I think you guys removed like 20. I mean like seven

44:15

rounds of combat. When Talitha went down I want to say

44:17

it had like 48 hit points left

44:20

across 10 rounds of combat and

44:22

now you've lost one of your one

44:25

of your people that can like stand and bang and

44:27

so that was another reason I'm just gonna eat

44:30

Talitha. What do you want to do here? You

44:32

know what I'm just gonna eat Talitha. This feast

44:34

will be done soon. Oh

44:36

you know what I'm sorry. It doesn't move

44:38

very far. It swims 20 feet. What's its

44:40

hit? Two hit. Plus 13. Plus 13. Laba

44:43

Mieva is 14. Yeah.

44:47

Laba Mieva plus 14. And I abandoned that

44:49

pretty quickly because like I didn't want those.

44:51

The Mieva thing's pretty cool like a success

44:53

you take bludgeoning damage and then the Mieva

44:56

stays there and the Mieva has like a

44:58

little lame stat block. Does it have one

45:00

hit point? Yeah one hit

45:02

point. Yeah. And the fire lucky couldn't hit

45:04

twice and Hubert just hits with his tail

45:06

and kills it. Cause all I had was

45:08

one hit point. AC 15, the Reminia, AC

45:10

15 one hit point and the same skills

45:12

and saving throws. Jesus. AC 15 and

45:15

Asta missed it. I mean we could not. Missed it

45:17

twice. Missed it twice. Couldn't get a break. And

45:20

you just see Matthew's face when she did that. Matthew

45:22

was just like you're attacking it

45:24

again. Best part is I was like oh

45:26

I thought you were attacking the only relevant

45:28

creature in the battle. It's so

45:30

funny to poke at Sydney. She's the best.

45:32

When you fail you don't take

45:35

any damage but the Mieva remains adjacent

45:37

to you and then critical failure it just

45:39

the Mieva dies on impact and misses. So

45:42

even with a failure which I think one of you failed

45:44

it like landed next to you so then on the next

45:47

round it can like strike and it's just an added

45:49

little piece of shit that makes you

45:53

diverted from the actual encounter. Yeah.

45:56

Anyways yeah that's very interesting. That's pretty much it for

45:58

him. I

46:01

skipped a pretty major thing and you

46:03

mentioned it. I'm sorry if I didn't get to it earlier This

46:06

is going backwards chronologically, but Hubert You've

46:09

been edge. Yeah, you've been edge became very

46:11

huge in this combat Where does

46:14

that decision come in when you were like? All right,

46:16

I gotta go say brother Amy's I love this character

46:18

so much. I have to say if that we were

46:20

thinking No as

46:22

written Hubert does nothing and it's meant to do

46:24

nothing which is perfect because that's how I like

46:26

my NPCs. Yeah But

46:29

you know, I just feel like at a certain point

46:32

the one of the points of having an NPC

46:34

is to kind of like in In

46:38

grad school. I had this crazy theater

46:41

Directors name is Andre Serb on

46:43

he's like this world famous theater

46:45

director and he Directed our thesis

46:47

and he would often direct the

46:49

thesis of the third-year graduate students

46:51

this guy's this like Romanian psychopath

46:53

and And He

46:55

was notorious for like Coming

46:59

on stage in the middle of

47:01

productions Dressed as a character

47:03

to like give notes to the actors on

47:05

stage while the show was going on I

47:07

mean, I know he pulled this shit with

47:09

like the MFA students I don't

47:12

know if he was doing it cuz he's

47:14

directed operas at the Met and shit and

47:16

he directed Liev Schreiber and Hamlet And I

47:18

think we have Schreiber was like get the

47:20

fuck off stage He was at one point

47:22

he was like in a like staircase built

47:24

into the stage like giving Liev Schreiber notes

47:27

During Hamlet on like off-Broadway But

47:30

he would do this and I remember watching

47:32

the the group the year before me do

47:34

an MFA thesis I can't remember the name

47:36

of the fucking play But I see this

47:38

like old lady walk on him like who

47:40

the hell's playing the old lady and then

47:42

the old lady turns He's had like a

47:44

shawl over and it's fucking Andre Serb on

47:46

like giving them directions during the performance Anyway,

47:49

the reason I bring this up is that

47:51

you it's so funny That's how I like

47:54

to use my NPCs when they're around during

47:56

initiatives Like I'm usually gonna stay back. But

47:58

if I feel like the director needs to

48:00

step in and do something. That's what my NPCs

48:02

do. So that's what Hubert Hedges is doing. He's

48:05

my homage to Andrei Serban there. It's like, all

48:07

right, let's at least give you

48:09

guys a fighting chance here. What, you got a

48:11

potion on your belt? And then also add a

48:13

little humor in. Yeah, do I put it in

48:15

the belly button? Yeah, that's great. All

48:18

right, let's go into We Are Stupid, courtesy

48:24

of Professor Eric. Luckily, very light We

48:26

Are Stupid this week. We

48:30

are stupid. Yeah, we may be bad at

48:32

the game, but we're not that

48:34

stupid. Yeah, we're not that stupid. We're that bad at the

48:36

game. We get such a bad rap. I think we know the

48:38

game pretty well. I'm always like, this is just so funny. It's

48:40

like, Troy needs to learn the rules better. I know the fucking

48:42

rules. I just play the way I want to play. I play the

48:44

way I want to play. We

48:48

Are Stupid has no real, no mistakes

48:50

this week, which is huge in an

48:52

episode with character death, so that's

48:54

really good. Professor Eric lays out,

48:56

good job across the board with all

48:58

the dying and wounded tracking. Good

49:01

job with all the action penalties for standing

49:03

up and grabbing stuff, etc. Feel like that's

49:05

the kind of thing that can often get

49:08

overlooked that standing after you've been prone after

49:10

you go dying, getting back up

49:12

grabbing your shit. These are actions they

49:14

it's very, very the

49:16

game wants to punish you, really

49:19

punish you for going down. So

49:22

yes, you have bottle caps that can save you

49:24

from permanently losing your character. But

49:26

if you go down and get that dying

49:29

condition, it is bad news. Your action economy

49:31

is trounced for a couple rounds and you

49:33

have the wounded condition, which makes you much

49:35

more likely to die if you're going to

49:38

go down again. So I'm

49:40

glad that we you know that we got that right. He,

49:43

Professor Eric was totally down with

49:45

the bow rope archer bit shooting

49:47

the rope out to Talitha. He

49:49

said it's definitely the kind of

49:51

place where if you try to

49:53

track actions too tightly, it would

49:55

get too cumbersome and just not be

49:57

fun. But using one whole term for

49:59

an action like that felt right to me. So in

50:02

terms of balance. So basically pull it out, tie it

50:04

on to the thing and shoot. You know, it's like

50:06

if you want to get into the nitty-gritty, you could

50:08

see like, well, it's going to take a total of

50:10

four actions. So you'll take two rounds to set it

50:12

up. Yeah. He was like, usually if somebody wants, if

50:14

a player wants to do something creative like that, you

50:16

don't have, would you make it take a whole round?

50:19

And then... That's kind of how I just naturally do

50:21

it. It's like, I'll do something ridiculous rather than dig

50:23

into like, well, you have to take it and this, that losing

50:26

your turn in that way is much

50:28

more of a that's a

50:30

big decision. Like, all right, you can do it, but

50:32

that's going to be your turn. You can't attack. You

50:34

can't do this. Yeah, exactly. All right. One more note

50:36

from professor Eric before we'll go into listener mail here.

50:38

This, I'm going to read this whole thing and then

50:40

I want to stick on one point a bit. So

50:45

speaking of ridiculous actions and

50:47

bold actions, he says in terms

50:50

of Asta

50:52

doing the unwilling mount, remember she wanted

50:54

to get on the snail at

50:57

a certain point with a crossbow bolt. She

50:59

has like four hit points, by the way.

51:03

He says, I'd probably allow it under the

51:05

rule of cool, but treat it as a

51:07

grapple check with maybe a minus four circumstance

51:10

penalty. So this is

51:12

the interesting part. He says, the developers

51:14

have commented many times that the presence

51:16

of a feat shouldn't

51:19

be taken to mean that you can't

51:21

attempt an action without the feat. Just

51:24

applying a suitable penalty can

51:27

often do the trick. So we

51:29

don't want to, you know, this is notes from

51:31

the developers is just because there's a feat for

51:34

something doesn't necessarily mean you cannot do it if

51:36

you don't have the feet. If

51:38

you're in a gray

51:40

area, probably let them

51:42

try it at a severe penalty minus four

51:44

is extremely severe in two way. That's a

51:47

very severe penalty. So try it at that

51:49

penalty. And then Professor Eric, of course finishes

51:51

it with, of course, quote, I'd

51:53

say it's probably a horrible, horrible idea

51:56

to attempt in this case. It

52:00

goes back to the trip. I'm obviously poo-pooing

52:03

it. They're just bad

52:05

ideas in the moment. If

52:07

Kay can't hit with a bow, she's not going to

52:09

trip this thing when the AC and the 4th

52:13

DC or the Reflex DC are the exact same.

52:15

Then she's got a 4 hit

52:18

points and everyone is dying too

52:20

or wounded and she wants to mount

52:22

this thing. If I

52:24

was a real ass, I'd be like, okay, great. Just

52:27

give me like a ride. You're dead. You're

52:29

dead. It was a bad idea. Okay,

52:35

it's on you and then shaboom. Pseudopod hit.

52:37

Now you're way down. Tame

52:40

it. Tame a wild mouth. Oh,

52:45

man. Yeah, I thought that it was

52:47

a ridiculous idea, but I also, I

52:50

do, despite the whole unicorn thing, which

52:52

was a hindsight sort of situation, I

52:54

do appreciate certain players' ability

52:56

to think outside the box much more than I

52:58

do. I think very much in the box. I'm

53:00

like, here are my actions. Here's what I'm able

53:02

to do. And I don't really try to push

53:04

it too much. And that leads to what Troy

53:06

would call safe play, which

53:09

he does not reward. Let's

53:11

do a little listener mail. Thank

53:31

you, good buddy, Nick. This one is

53:33

Joe from Down Under says, last weekend,

53:35

my girlfriend and I attended our first

53:37

ever Glass Cannon Live in Austin. And

53:40

it was amazing. I've never met a nicer

53:42

bunch of celebrities in my life. He called

53:44

you a celebrity, Troy. Everyone

53:47

was welcoming and willing to answer questions, sign

53:49

merch and take photos. I was able to

53:51

give Skid and Sydney my blessing for any

53:53

current or future characters with an Australian accent.

53:57

Special shout out to Skid. I loved talking to him

53:59

about it. D&D and I could have

54:01

talked for hours, but you guys had to get ready

54:03

for an amazing show Looking forward

54:05

to attending a future glass cannon live

54:07

hashtag nation for life doc Mysterio on

54:09

the discord No question there. Just want

54:11

to shout out some very nice email. Thank you very much Doc

54:15

Mysterio, I appreciate you Marcus Aurelius

54:17

would say it's very nice, but you're

54:19

gonna die you're gonna do We're

54:21

all gonna die. We're gonna die who cares? No,

54:25

that's really not I mean we really have been trying

54:27

to make the for years been trying to make the

54:29

lives your experience like something where people were Like that

54:32

was a great fucking time for the minute I walked

54:34

in and the minute I left her true party. So

54:36

I love I love hearing that. Yeah, it's great I

54:38

love when people walk away feeling like they

54:40

got to like just chat with us about whatever they wanted to

54:42

talk about. It's great Okay, let's

54:45

go into this one This will be the the meat

54:47

of the matter here Finn from Washington writes in and

54:49

says I've heard you mentioned many times that

54:51

players Aren't stopping and asking for perception checks

54:54

because they want to put the story first We

54:56

talked about this last week with brother Ramius moving

54:58

over the river and probably should have stopped and

55:01

done a ton of perception checks But didn't want

55:03

to I didn't want to burden or slow down

55:05

the story with something as crass

55:07

as a perception check now

55:10

the question is have you ever considered

55:12

revisiting exploration activities somewhat as raw and

55:16

there's the question goes on and on but Essentially

55:19

it boils down to this Exploration

55:24

activities were laid out in two e as

55:26

something very detailed. We've talked before about how

55:28

we don't really Approach

55:30

exploration activities raw where like every

55:32

time we are out of an

55:35

encounter and in exploration you say

55:38

What are each of your activities in right? We

55:40

just sort of like play Narratively

55:43

the question is should we not

55:45

be doing that should we be saying my

55:48

character has similar to Instincts

55:50

from burning wheel my character when

55:53

I don't say anything different is always

55:56

avoiding notice in exploration mode or

55:58

my character is always

56:00

searching in exploration mode so that you

56:02

always trigger automatic checks. How

56:04

do you feel about that as a GM for

56:06

two-e? How do you approach exploration mode? I wouldn't

56:08

do it the pretty real way. I just feel

56:10

like we do do it, we just don't make

56:12

a big deal out of it. You know what

56:14

I mean? Like when I describe a scene to

56:16

you, if your reaction is to barrel forward into

56:18

the scene, then you just, you're

56:20

not, there's nothing in my description

56:26

that has made you want to either stealth

56:28

or perceive or do something else. But I

56:30

always, like even when there's danger, I explain

56:32

the things to you. I just don't ask everyone what

56:35

they're doing. I give you an opportunity, I give you

56:37

the opportunity in this space to say, hold

56:39

on here, I'm going to do a perception and

56:41

this group just doesn't do it.

56:46

There's something coming up in a couple of episodes. I wish

56:48

I could talk about this exact moment where it's like I

56:50

lay something out and someone is like, all right, I'm going

56:52

to just I'm like, well,

56:54

this is what happens. It's like, how was

56:57

there not a perception check? Like the way

56:59

I described that? Yeah, I think we do

57:01

cross over to giving a secret perception check.

57:03

Like when are you like, you know what,

57:05

they didn't ask for it, but this is

57:07

really important. So I'll give it to them.

57:09

And I'll do it secretly. And

57:11

maybe not mention it if they fail. But

57:14

do mention it if they don't fail. You

57:16

know, the secret checks in two-e

57:18

make it complicated. It puts

57:20

a lot of onus on the GM to decide

57:23

when and when not to put the party in

57:25

danger. Yeah, it depends on the situation. Like if

57:27

it's a hazard that has a minimum proficiency attached

57:29

to it, I'm not going to give

57:31

it to you have to be actively searching for that

57:33

if it's a hazard that doesn't, I'll secret check. I'll

57:36

do the secret checks as written because that's what you're supposed

57:39

to do. Now, if it's like,

57:41

you're walking past an area, and

57:44

there is something in the brush

57:46

that I think is an important story element, and everyone's

57:48

just barreling through and not doing a perception check, I

57:50

may have been like, you know, I'm gonna give you

57:53

a perception check. And if one of you hits, I'll

57:55

be like, if you're walking through, you notice there's some

57:57

tracks here leading to a blah, blah, blah, but if

57:59

I but up. If I throw it out there and

58:01

everybody misses the DC for the perception check, I'll be like, oh,

58:04

interesting. Just move on because now

58:06

there was treasure there that you missed, but

58:08

you all rolled that perception check, so let's

58:11

just keep you all on guard without giving

58:13

up that you just missed treasure or

58:16

a clue or something like that. You

58:19

were the one that really instilled very

58:21

early on years ago. It's like, I love just asking people

58:23

to roll a perception check once in a while, keep them

58:26

on their toes. You can

58:28

do that now in the game where it's like if you

58:30

think they're going to miss something that you want them to

58:32

find, have them roll the check, and if they all miss

58:34

it, make it seem dangerous. Yeah. There's

58:37

big – I used to love bluffing as a

58:39

GM. Bluffing as a GM, I think it's a

58:41

very important aspect to GMing well because you need

58:43

to call for

58:45

checks that are meaningless occasionally just

58:47

so that when you do fall, call for a check, they

58:49

don't know something's up for sure. Then

58:52

I love doing it with maps. That is my favorite.

58:54

My personal favorite is like, let's take a look at

58:56

the map. Then there's no encounter

58:58

and no real need to be on a

59:00

map. That way, you also nullify

59:02

that whenever you put up a map,

59:04

an encounter is imminent. Right. It's

59:07

kind of like things. It's definitely extra work,

59:09

but I mean, bluffing is work. You have to

59:11

work at bluffing. It doesn't come for free. Knowing

59:15

when to pick those moments is important

59:17

to the overall enjoyment of the party.

59:19

Yeah. The map one is key. You

59:22

don't have to do it all the time. If you just do it

59:24

once in a while, it just sows that seed of doubt and that's

59:26

all you need. Yeah. The

59:28

other thing that I'll do is

59:32

role initiative when there's no combat. I

59:34

like doing that too sometimes. Look,

59:36

every second is important here. Everybody

59:38

role for initiative. It's really just about

59:41

who's opening a door, who's looking through, who's

59:43

doing whatever. They might think that

59:45

there's an immediate combat, but they open

59:47

it, they look in, there's nothing there. All right, you

59:49

guys are out of initiative. It's just like, what the fuck was

59:52

that? You never know when I say role for

59:54

initiative that there's definitely creatures to fight you know.

59:57

I once did it in one of our games. If you remember, I

59:59

had a for initiative on what was an

1:00:01

NPC encounter. It was meant to be an

1:00:04

NPC friendly encounter, not super friendly, like they

1:00:06

didn't know who you were or whatever. But

1:00:09

I started it off with initiative because I wanted

1:00:11

to see if players naturally just attacked people without

1:00:13

asking them who they were first, because I gave

1:00:15

the initiative role. And that's,

1:00:18

you know, it's another good way to block your

1:00:20

players is put them in initiative when they meet

1:00:22

somebody new that is not meant to be an

1:00:24

enemy and see if they delay if they roll

1:00:26

high, or if they just start killing

1:00:28

people just because you said role initiative and then punish

1:00:31

them for that, you know, like you got to

1:00:33

really act how your character would act in the

1:00:35

moment. It can be good pre encounter to to

1:00:37

get people moving about the space. So

1:00:40

that when the enemy finally attacks, they

1:00:43

it's become it's more natural in the

1:00:45

way that they've explored the actual tactical

1:00:47

map, rather than the encounter starting and

1:00:49

they're all at the door and the

1:00:51

enemies are here. It's kind of fun

1:00:53

to be like, something seems off about

1:00:55

this room. Let's roll for initiative. What do you do? I'm

1:00:57

gonna move 15 feet this way. I want to go 15

1:00:59

feet this way. I want to go there. Now everybody spread

1:01:01

out. And all of a sudden the enemy goes at the

1:01:04

top of the next round or something that can be that

1:01:06

can be fun. Yeah. And you can also set it up

1:01:08

like a bluff where there is no enemy, right? Roll

1:01:10

for initiative. Where do you move? Where do you

1:01:12

move? What are you looking at? What are you

1:01:15

doing? And then you get people spending buffs. Yeah,

1:01:17

people being like, I'm going to cast blast. I

1:01:19

feel like something's happening. And it's like once a

1:01:21

day buffs that you now lost, you know, it's,

1:01:25

it's important to do so that when you do

1:01:27

call for it, and it does matter, they

1:01:30

don't automatically know what's coming. That's all. It's

1:01:33

not that it's just like, oh, it's so fun

1:01:35

to mess with your players. That's not it. It's

1:01:37

so that certain tells that so they don't have

1:01:39

tells on you. When you whenever you

1:01:41

say this, it means this is going to happen.

1:01:43

Yeah, so thank you, Finn,

1:01:45

for writing with that. I would say generally

1:01:47

speaking, we approach exploration activities, not mechanically and

1:01:50

not raw, we just sort of discuss

1:01:53

it narratively. And then as it needs

1:01:55

to be translated into mechanics, we'll do

1:01:57

it, you know, from time to time.

1:02:00

But for the most part, we don't go around the horn asking

1:02:02

everybody, you know what? I'd like to

1:02:04

hear everybody comment on this, whoever's interested in

1:02:06

weighing in. What do you do at your

1:02:08

home tables where you run or play PFT?

1:02:10

Like, do you announce what your exploration, your

1:02:13

capital letter exploration activity is every time you're

1:02:15

between encounters? Or do you just kind of

1:02:17

like flow with the narrative and sort

1:02:20

of, you know, bring that up every once in

1:02:22

a while only when it's relevant to die rolls? I don't know. I'm

1:02:25

curious to see what people think about that. Yeah,

1:02:28

call in. Let us know. Well,

1:02:30

that's going to do it for today, buddy. That's going

1:02:32

to wrap that about rap. Oh,

1:02:34

snap. Wraps it up, huh?

1:02:36

That about wraps are all up. Yeah,

1:02:38

there it is. The comments flow. Let

1:02:41

the comments flow. Keep them coming, guys. We love

1:02:43

the engagement, despite Troy's new like idea that he

1:02:46

doesn't listen to any of you and you're because

1:02:48

you're all going to die. Quite

1:02:51

to the contrary. I'm interested in what you have

1:02:53

to say. It just doesn't have anything to do

1:02:55

with it. Yeah,

1:02:58

and he wore sunglasses for the whole thing. He wants

1:03:00

to cut off any connections. Have to

1:03:03

let... On

1:03:08

those wise words, I'm out of here. All right, take it easy,

1:03:11

everybody. You can push the lights. It's

1:03:21

time to make your membership

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official. Become an official member

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1:03:53

Welcome to a journey into the heart of

1:03:55

the Texas Renaissance Festival, the nation's

1:03:57

largest and rowdiest celebration of the

1:03:59

year. medieval fantasy. But

1:04:01

what lurks beneath the facade of tights and turkey

1:04:03

legs? Well, we dove deep

1:04:06

into the empire to uncover a history

1:04:08

marred by mystery and misconduct, murders, assaults,

1:04:10

and other crimes that tarnish its legacy.

1:04:12

This isn't just a fairy tale, it's

1:04:15

a cautionary tale of power, fantasy, and

1:04:17

the consequences that follow when they all

1:04:19

collide. Search for Crime Waves

1:04:22

Renaissance Texas on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

1:04:24

or wherever you're listening now.