0:00

With a $5 meal deal with new Macvalue,

0:02

you pick a Macdouble or a Mac chicken,

0:04

then get a small fry, a small drink,

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and a four-piece McNuggets. That's a lot of

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0:23

It's me, Jasper William Cartwright,

0:25

and I'm joined today

0:27

by... Kendas the Magnificent, pronouns

0:29

they, she, and a

0:31

sprinkle of he, and I'm

0:33

here with... Jeremy Cobb, pronouns

0:35

he, him, but Jacob Sewell

0:37

calls me Bear -a -me -Bob. Oh

0:40

my god! This is the wrong

0:42

dungeon and the wrong dragon. Full

0:45

Prince vibe, woo! This

0:47

makes them even more black!

1:04

We're about to get into something real big

1:06

now. This is, uh, we've had a

1:08

few A couple of baronies at this

1:10

show. Yeah. It's a strong reference. I feel

1:13

like it's mostly a reference to the Jeremy

1:15

Bearamy from The Good Place. But I have

1:17

also said in the past, I think one

1:19

of my initial nicknames, actually from the very

1:21

beginning of the show, was Jair Bear. I

1:23

had that, I forget, I think I had

1:25

that nickname back in like middle school or

1:27

elementary school. And only like one person called

1:29

me it. I've called you Jair Bear for

1:31

a couple times. It's

1:33

only in the tenderness of moments that I've called you

1:35

Jair Bear. Yeah, my friend did used

1:37

to call me chocolate bear. Huh.

1:40

Interesting. a

1:42

slippery slope. Yeah. How

1:44

much melanin did they have, if

1:46

you would sort of say... They

1:48

were not a white person. Okay, okay. They were

1:51

not a black person, but they were not a

1:53

white person either. Sure. Warmer

1:55

but colder. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll

1:57

let it, I'll let slide. It was, it was

1:59

very consensual. Okay, good, good, good, good.

2:01

very consensual. Yeah. It's just like if one of your

2:03

white friends just came out with it one day,

2:05

I'd be like, oh, no. No,

2:07

no. No. No. As

2:09

someone for whom that has happened, I can

2:11

confirm it is a very awkward conversation

2:13

when someone looks at you in your face

2:16

and says that. Oh, no.

2:18

There were, I think also, I will say,

2:20

in retrospect, I don't think anyone realized

2:22

it at the time, or at least neither

2:24

of us realized it at the time.

2:26

I think there were unintentional romantic undertones. I

2:28

don't even think they intended it that

2:30

way, I think, but it was. I

2:32

mean, chocolate does feel like a - It's a

2:34

lore dump. I'm not kidding. Yeah,

2:36

you can't give any further context. I

2:38

can't give any further context. But

2:40

yeah. Chocolate does feel a very sensual

2:42

food to refer to someone else. I

2:45

don't think you can - know,

2:47

it was also another man. So

2:49

the bear also I feel like

2:51

carries Oh under currents as well.

2:54

Yeah, it really does. It really

2:56

does I I'm trying to think

2:58

if I've had any potentially No,

3:00

all of my nicknames are kind

3:02

of not great like Jasper just

3:04

doesn't shorten well like Jay is

3:06

the best one But all of

3:08

my wife's family call her Jay

3:11

as well. So it's just it's

3:13

very confusing, honestly But like It's

3:15

just mostly jasp and jasps, which

3:17

I'm just a bit like, it's

3:19

fine. I just think jasp. It

3:21

just sounds, it feels a little weird in the

3:23

mouth. It's just a lot of s's, you

3:25

know, jasps or jasp. Jaspy? Jaspy

3:28

waspy? Yeah, so I mean, it's just, I

3:30

don't know, that's great. It kind of is a

3:32

little close like wasp. You know I mean?

3:34

I'm just, yeah. I'm good. Well, I

3:36

mean, sometimes your, sometimes your nickname just doesn't match

3:38

who you are as well. I imagine you as

3:40

a J. That's so,

3:42

that's weird to me, not into it. That's

3:45

so funny. My mom, my mom calls me

3:47

J, like exclusively my mom. That's what it feels

3:49

like. It feels a mom nickname. I feel

3:51

like there's no limit to mom nicknames. Like my

3:53

mom calls me candy, but no one should

3:55

call me that. No

3:57

one. Absolutely correct.

4:02

I have to preemptively ask Daniel to

4:04

cut this because I forgot. Daniel, cut

4:06

what I'm about say. You're putting your

4:08

life in the hands of else. But

4:11

I looked it up because I also

4:13

had a nickname for him. You

4:27

saying, oh, there was

4:30

some mild sexual undertones to

4:32

this relationship. Maybe unintentionally.

4:34

It wasn't that mild. Oh, yeah,

4:36

exactly. Maybe unintentional. And then

4:38

you being like, oh, yeah, but

4:40

by the way, I called him. That's

4:46

so funny. Can

4:49

I ask a potentially fiery

4:51

question? OK. Whoa. Is this

4:53

person Asian? Yes. There

5:01

you go, folks. Yeah, it was one of those

5:03

things that you look back on and you're like, the

5:05

annual fees cut out some of the things that

5:07

I said. Yeah, yeah. Well, for everyone coming back to

5:09

us now, we are shook by the revelations that

5:11

we just had from Jeremy. But as always, you know,

5:13

get any of us drunk enough in a bar

5:15

at a convention, and I'm sure, you know, you'll get

5:17

to be part of the story. Get

5:20

on that Patreon. Start a Patreon.

5:22

Yay! Just for the truth. The uncut

5:24

bro. The truth. man.

5:27

Oh, absolutely not. Check out Jeremy's

5:29

true social account. No, okay, too far.

5:33

But friend me personally. And

5:35

maybe I will tell you this particular

5:37

bit of information. Well, very, very

5:39

excited. Well, I actually, oh man, I just

5:41

made an awful Trump joke. And I guess actually

5:43

that it's actually quite a good segue. I

5:46

don't feel good about it, but

5:48

it's kind of true. We

5:51

just thought we would touch very lightly

5:53

on some of these tariffs because there

5:55

has been a number of people within

5:58

the community that have talked about being

6:00

affected by them. And

6:02

we are kind of working on

6:04

getting someone on the show who can

6:06

kind of talk more specifically about

6:08

what it means and how it's actually

6:10

manifesting. Because I think if there's

6:12

one thing that's become abundantly clear, no

6:14

one really knows what they're doing

6:16

or what the hell's going on. It

6:18

all seems a bit like a

6:20

higgledy -biggledy mess. What a surprise. But

6:23

I do think that it is

6:25

fascinating for such a small

6:29

kind of, I would go as far

6:31

as to say like, uh, surgent

6:33

kind of industry to go

6:35

through this as a, uh, you

6:37

know, as a kind of,

6:40

you know, moment in, in time,

6:42

because for anyone who has

6:44

literally no context, the, uh, these

6:46

tariffs have been bought in,

6:48

which essentially means that then, uh,

6:50

companies now, uh, American

6:52

companies who are getting goods

6:55

made. Abroad now

6:57

have to pay a

6:59

pretty sizable in some

7:01

cases tariff and tax

7:03

on those items as

7:05

they are then imported. For

7:08

anybody who doesn't read the news somehow,

7:10

can we give a little bit slightly

7:12

more detail? Yeah, so Donald Trump on,

7:14

was it April 2nd? You mean Liberation

7:16

Day. Yeah, American President Donald Trump. You

7:18

mean Liberation Day, let's give it his

7:20

proper. Yes, excuse me, Liberation Day, the

7:23

third or fourth Liberation Day in a

7:25

row that he's had. Introduced

7:27

a series of tariffs,

7:30

allegedly reciprocal tariffs, actually not

7:32

in reality, to Many,

7:34

like most of the countries on

7:36

earth, not every country, but almost

7:39

every country on earth, including places

7:41

that don't have people on them.

7:44

We have like tariffs

7:46

against Antarctica, I think. I

7:48

may be wrong about that. What

7:51

the hell is getting

7:53

sent from Antarctica? That

7:55

you need to tariff research. Yeah

7:57

But these tariffs are like they

7:59

are I think in some cases

8:01

as high as over 40 %

8:03

Which basically means a tariff if

8:06

you're not familiar means that American

8:08

people have to pay significantly more

8:10

for products that come from those

8:12

places and the reason that this

8:14

affects TT RPGs and other smaller

8:16

publishers so much is because when

8:18

they try to publish physical goods

8:20

very frequently in fact often the

8:22

majority of the time, many of

8:24

those materials will come from outside

8:26

of the United States, which means

8:28

that all of their prices to

8:31

buy those things and sell those

8:33

things have just gone way, way

8:35

up. They're not having to pay

8:37

significantly more, potentially 20, 30, 40 %

8:39

more in some cases, which most

8:41

companies do not have massive profit

8:43

margins like that. So having to

8:45

pay 20 or 30 % more

8:47

on a bunch of different things

8:49

threatens the existence of some of

8:51

these companies. something

8:54

else though that like really is problematic

8:56

is that because of the way that

8:58

our country has kind of gone in

9:00

on capitalism like before now, it's also

9:02

difficult for a lot of those companies

9:04

to pivot because a lot of the

9:06

work and the labor right has been

9:08

outsourced to these other. like the

9:10

other nations. I have been

9:12

very long in the works trying

9:14

to make a little toy company. And

9:16

I wanted to make sure that

9:18

like we had sustainable business practices and

9:20

that we had, you know, like

9:23

a positive relationship with, you know, the factory

9:25

and all that stuff. So, you know, there was

9:27

a lot of work and research and stuff

9:29

that my partner and I had started to do.

9:31

And it became pretty clear after a

9:33

while that a lot of the people

9:35

that can do the same thing in

9:38

America either have faded away out of

9:40

existence because they didn't have the startup

9:42

capital to do as good of a

9:44

job on scale as people overseas or

9:46

their prices are exorbitant and are putting

9:48

you right in the same kind of

9:50

area as the tariff situation, right? So

9:52

even your options are very limited because

9:54

of the way that past like American

9:56

policy is gone. Yeah. And that actually

9:58

leads into one of these companies, which

10:00

has talked about it, our friends of

10:02

the show, HeroForge. HeroForge, as

10:04

I understand it, is unable to get their

10:06

miniatures made in the US. There was

10:09

one, and I believe they closed some years

10:11

ago. So HeroForge gets their miniatures made,

10:13

I believe, in the Netherlands. And

10:15

they unfortunately had to make a post saying,

10:17

like, they're doing their best. They're trying to

10:19

figure out. But all of their, it says,

10:21

well, to read their exact, to read their

10:23

exact post, it says, as all of our

10:25

3D physical products are manufactured. in several international

10:27

locations, including the EU and India, Hero Forge

10:29

is no exception to these steep import taxes.

10:32

So they're trying to figure out a plan

10:34

that minimizes impact on the customers. But it's

10:36

what's also really frustrating for this. And as

10:38

you pointed out, Candice, like, or well, if

10:40

you read the comments on this, because I'm

10:42

looking at their Twitter post, I'm sure they

10:44

posted it across platforms. A lot of the

10:46

posts on the comments on Twitter are like,

10:48

well, it's time for you to move your

10:50

manufacturing to the US. And

10:53

the the like,

10:55

okay. What I want

10:57

to say is, look, theoretically,

10:59

if Hero Forge had tons

11:01

and tons of cash and

11:04

resources to build a manufacturing

11:06

center in the United States,

11:08

okay, great, but... Who knows

11:10

what'll happen in four years?

11:12

Because, and this is what a lot of companies

11:15

are saying, in four years, what happens if

11:17

every single one of these tariffs get repealed and

11:19

they can start making stuff cheaper in other

11:21

countries again? Then just wasted

11:23

potentially millions of dollars. Here's

11:25

the biggest issue that I have

11:27

with the whole concept is that none

11:29

of this has been done with

11:31

the actual infrastructure in mind. None of

11:34

this. So it's all well and

11:36

good saying, yes, absolutely, we want to create. jobs

11:39

and we want to create opportunities and manufacturing and

11:41

whatever and bring it back to the US. That's absolutely

11:43

fine. And absolutely, it would make

11:45

a ton of sense then for Hero

11:47

4 to just go, yep, great, it

11:49

makes a ton of sense for us

11:51

to just pick up, you know, but

11:53

there is not the facilities. The reason

11:55

why we outsource stuff is because you

11:57

can go to any number, probably, I

11:59

would say north of a thousand, probably more,

12:01

very large companies with a long track

12:03

record of manufacturing and you can say

12:05

to them, in China or wherever or

12:07

India or someone like that. And you

12:09

can say to them, Hey, can you make

12:12

me X toy? You can give them

12:14

you can send them the dimensions and

12:16

everything and you can send it off

12:18

and they will you will receive a

12:20

good product. Right. That does not exist in

12:22

the US. Like those places, those companies

12:24

do not exist. So there isn't the

12:26

possibility to even approach doing this because

12:28

there isn't the infrastructure. It's not like

12:30

the way that if this was ever

12:32

a good idea, I don't know because I

12:34

don't know enough about international tax law

12:36

or anything. But the only way that

12:38

this makes any sense to me is

12:40

if you're like, hey, this tariffs are

12:42

coming in 10 years. America

12:44

has 10 years to get

12:47

like... a bunch of factories. And

12:49

you know I mean? Because then there would

12:51

have been opportunity for people to go,

12:53

okay, we're going to seize on that opportunity.

12:55

And I'm going to build a big

12:57

manufacturing plant in X or Y, you know,

12:59

state or whatever it may be. But

13:01

there's just none of that. So it's essentially

13:03

saying, is it going to cost you

13:05

a lot of money? And oh, by the

13:07

way, unless you are a bit, I

13:09

think no matter what company of what scale,

13:11

I don't know, even if you're, I

13:13

don't know, like Ford or something, right? Or

13:16

Hasbro or whatever. TTRPGs. Exactly.

13:19

Even if you're Hasbro, right?

13:21

And in terms, in TTRPG terms,

13:23

has more money than, you

13:25

know, probably the GDP

13:27

of most small countries, right?

13:30

Even the idea that you are

13:32

going to be able to

13:35

build a manufacturing plant in the

13:37

US and have that produce

13:39

all of the different items that

13:41

you already produce is comical. Like

13:44

I genuinely think That would be

13:46

a eye -watering amount of money. You're

13:48

talking like hundreds of millions. Do

13:51

you know I mean? To produce

13:53

the scale of the infrastructure that they're

13:55

probably utilising in other places. It

13:57

is frankly ridiculous. All that's going to

13:59

happen is it's just going to cost

14:02

Americans, American companies a lot of money

14:04

as they continue to outsource all of

14:06

their stuff from overseas. Because it's not

14:08

even just a money thing, it's also

14:10

a time thing. It's like,

14:12

sure, yeah, Hierophore should do that. But it

14:14

would take them years to set up that kind of infrastructure, even

14:16

if they had the money. So, I

14:18

don't know. I mean, I'm with you as

14:20

well, Candice. I think, you know, I feel

14:22

for you in that, I just think that

14:24

situation of trying to, like, start a company

14:26

up in this environment is so difficult. And

14:28

like you said, because of how far down

14:30

the road we've gone with capitalism, it means

14:32

it's so hard to be ethical, right? It's

14:34

so, so difficult to actually be ethical. And

14:36

what makes it worth is so, so easy.

14:38

to be unethical like it's it's like you

14:40

could go on to any number of sites

14:42

and have those toys made tomorrow and it

14:44

would cost you it probably wouldn't even cost

14:47

you that much to get like a decent

14:49

amount of inventory on your hands you know

14:51

what i mean well it would now yeah

14:53

because you'd have to pay the tariff on

14:55

it but you know i mean it's uh

14:57

yeah i do feel for you that's a

14:59

really that's a a

15:01

shitty sandwich for sure Yeah.

15:04

These price hikes would be, I would probably

15:06

feel different about them if they weren't

15:08

tariffs and were instead all of those companies

15:10

paying their workers. yeah, costs of living

15:12

and stuff. Yeah. If the

15:14

manufacturers actually paid people like better wages, then

15:16

it would be a completely different conversation. If

15:18

you turn around and go, okay, these are

15:20

going to be in place unless you. you

15:23

start down the road of building infrastructure or

15:25

whatever in America. And if you do, and

15:27

if you can show us that you're doing

15:29

that, you'll be like exempt or whatever. You

15:31

know what I mean? Like, there's so many

15:33

ways that this could work that encourages people.

15:35

what Europe has been doing. That's what Europe

15:37

and the UK have been doing with electric

15:40

cars. Some years ago, they made, they were

15:42

like, hey, in a certain amount of, I

15:44

forget how many years, but they're like in

15:46

certain years. 2030 is the

15:48

goal, basically. Okay, the goal

15:50

is to have, believe, no... It will

15:52

no longer produce any... -elect like all

15:54

electric cars so all cars that are

15:57

produced from 2030 will be all electric Yeah,

15:59

and they said this I believe

16:01

in either the early 2020s or even

16:03

in the 2010s. I think it

16:05

was like to give themselves a huge

16:07

amount of time. Yeah to to

16:09

build up to this. Yeah, and you

16:11

know, it's a steady process like

16:13

it's it's happening, but it's that's something

16:16

that takes time. It takes a

16:18

huge like that's a huge industry. That's

16:20

millions of people who work in

16:22

it worldwide who are employed in this.

16:24

That's why I mean that's honestly

16:26

one of the many criticisms you could

16:28

level towards this entire administration. is

16:30

all of these sweeping changes that they

16:32

have made including firing literally tens

16:34

of thousands of federal employees in under

16:36

a hundred days have been Done

16:38

without any any attention to infrastructure or

16:40

transitioning a transition of power they have

16:42

done For those of you who have

16:44

not been paying attention to that or

16:46

just don't know about it The Elon

16:49

Musk and doge the Department of Government

16:51

Efficiency have come in and fired literally

16:53

over 10 ,000 I think it's way

16:55

over 10 ,000 I think it's tens of

16:57

thousands of government employees in just a

16:59

few just like a couple of months

17:01

and In some cases they've had to

17:03

go back and be like hey guys.

17:05

So we realized after fire you that

17:07

that was actually wrong to do. And

17:10

we actually desperately need you guys. Could

17:12

you please come back to work? Honestly.

17:14

But a lot of times these are

17:16

like neces, like they were gutting the

17:18

national park system. No one, look, tons

17:20

of Americans will tell you that there's

17:22

issues with government spending in America. Very

17:25

few people will be like, we spend

17:27

too much money keeping this from sea

17:29

to shining sea, looking pristine and beautiful.

17:31

You know who's really squeezing the government?

17:34

It's Park Rangers. what

17:36

it is. Yellowstone. They're

17:39

just absolutely bleeding us dry.

17:42

What are you talking about? I

17:46

have been paying attention to

17:48

this to the news and I

17:50

have been reading and all

17:52

that and I have been I

17:54

have been keeping abreast of

17:56

the disaster that is my homeland,

17:59

but also The the idea

18:01

that someone has named a new

18:03

government department after an existing

18:05

cryptocurrency So that meme no less

18:07

a meme so that they

18:09

can so that he can still

18:11

be Doge in the government. Because

18:14

this whole time I was just like, I

18:16

was like, why, what is, what stinks

18:19

about this? Why? I mean, obviously all of

18:21

it stinks. I don't really have the

18:23

bandwidth to go deeper, right? Like, what is

18:25

it about this? And right now in

18:27

this conversation, I'm like, Oh, that's what's upsetting

18:29

me is that I see Doge everywhere.

18:31

And I definitely associate that with a really

18:33

stupid old ass meme. And

18:35

this man's cryptocurrency and somehow that's now a

18:37

part of our government because they decided

18:39

to name it that like we are

18:41

in a frat. That's genuinely

18:44

embarrassing. Yeah. Yeah. Truly.

18:46

an American that's genuinely embarrassed. I

18:48

remember, I mean, this

18:50

is where I genuinely do have

18:52

sympathy for at least half

18:54

of America that saw this coming.

18:57

Yes. Right. Is I remember

18:59

so deeply We've

19:01

just had many many many years of

19:03

a conservative government and you know

19:06

honestly the main thing that I missed

19:08

the main thing that upset me

19:10

more than anything was that every single

19:12

week we just had stories about

19:14

like scandals and affairs and stuff like

19:16

this in the news and I

19:18

remember just being like I

19:20

kind of just I just want to

19:22

go back to my politics being

19:24

boring and just doing even if I

19:26

don't agree with the policies and

19:28

the whatever just getting back to a

19:30

point where it's like at least

19:32

we're just doing they're just talking about

19:34

like actually serious normal stuff you

19:36

know what I mean but it's so

19:39

we are just in a world

19:41

where it's so deeply unserious the idea

19:43

that Elon Musk is sat in

19:45

the or stood in the white in

19:47

the in the oval office giving

19:49

an address as an unelected, completely unelected

19:51

official, saying that his company, Doge,

19:53

will make some mistakes and that we

19:55

should just be okay with that,

19:57

is beyond farcical. You know what I

19:59

mean? We're no longer, like you

20:01

couldn't even, you can't even meme that

20:03

stuff properly. You can't even do

20:05

an SNL skit of it because it's

20:07

already just so far beyond the

20:09

pale. You know I mean? It's just, ugh.

20:12

And unelected official, by the way, who

20:14

threw up multiple Seag Hiles. But

20:23

I didn't realize

20:25

that they meant like

20:28

Again, this is

20:30

in no way a

20:32

defense of the

20:34

Bush administration, but as

20:36

bad as Bush

20:39

was if during Bush's

20:41

inauguration Anyone frankly

20:43

that person would have

20:45

given a public

20:48

apology first of all

20:50

They would have

20:52

never It

20:55

would have been like, dude,

20:57

you are literally, you have

20:59

just said something I said

21:01

almost verbatim during Boris Johnson's

21:03

time. I literally said, I

21:05

sat there and when I

21:07

kind of miss David Cameron,

21:09

this dude, David Cameron, cost

21:11

me, no word of lie,

21:14

cost me 6 ,000 extra

21:16

pounds a year for three

21:18

years of my life. He

21:20

literally cost me 18 ,000 pounds.

21:23

I'm completely unnecessarily because he

21:25

decided the year before I

21:27

went to university to hike

21:29

university fees from $3 ,000

21:31

talking to Americans is probably

21:34

like boo -hoo I Realize

21:36

hey Daniel cut the bit

21:38

where I say the actual

21:40

numbers But in the UK

21:42

that's a very big big

21:44

deal what the point

21:46

I'm making is I remember

21:48

sitting there being like I can't

21:52

tell you how much I despised

21:54

David Cameron, but I was longing

21:56

just to have someone who was

21:58

vaguely serious in charge again. And

22:00

I feel like it's the same,

22:02

like hearing anyone say, okay,

22:04

I'm not defending George Bush, but like

22:06

that's a perfectly credible thing to say,

22:08

given the absolute lunacy that is taking

22:10

place right now. It's, well, what a

22:12

- I'm a pop culture fiend. I've

22:14

been, I've been doing some comfort rewatches.

22:16

I did a comfort rewatch of the

22:18

L word a couple of years ago.

22:20

I really honestly, Candace, for a second,

22:22

I thought you were going to say

22:24

it was like some old George Bush,

22:27

like press conference. No. I

22:30

mean, the shoe, the shoe conch

22:32

really. So

22:34

the L word is a show

22:36

that's primarily for American audiences. I'm

22:38

sure that lesbians the worldwide have

22:40

probably seen it, but I know

22:42

of the L word because my

22:44

mother. watched it religiously. Because it

22:46

was what we had at the

22:48

time. If you're a young queer

22:50

and you watch the L -word, just

22:53

go in knowing that it was a different time. But

22:56

I was re -watching it for

22:58

posterity. And there is an entire

23:00

episode devoted to this villainous monster

23:02

that's out to like really harm

23:04

America and nobody's safe under his

23:06

administration. And everybody's gotta fight. We've

23:09

gotta fight back. There needs to

23:11

be resistance because he's a maniac,

23:13

okay? And he's gonna let everything

23:15

just go to shit and everybody's

23:17

in danger. And George Bush must

23:19

be stopped. And I'm sitting there

23:21

watching it like... Yeah.

23:24

Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah.

23:29

It really is. Horrible.

23:31

Horrible. Like, yes, he did need to be

23:33

stopped, but my lord. Oh my god.

23:35

I'd rather fight that. Oh, yes. Two

23:37

thousands lesbians. You don't understand. Like, two thousands

23:39

queers. You don't understand how good

23:41

you actually kind of have it right now

23:43

somehow. Somehow. It's terrible, but somehow better than

23:45

this. And I think

23:47

as well, just to kind of go

23:50

back to... know to talk about like

23:52

the actual companies you just bought up

23:54

such an important point Candice and actually

23:56

your little injection manager. I mean, we

23:58

think like, you know that you'd rather

24:00

fight that because Because at least back

24:02

then you knew that they had a

24:04

rulebook too, right? They had a set

24:06

of rules which they had to adhere

24:08

to on some level, right? They had

24:10

even if they had special interests or

24:12

you know, they were being paid by

24:14

like, you know those lobbyists and all

24:16

that there was still like at least

24:18

some Mm -hmm checks and balances some

24:20

rules. Yeah, you know engagement, right?

24:22

And I think that for the for these

24:24

companies what feels so terrifying You know that

24:27

I feel like must just feel horrific right

24:29

now for all of them and I genuinely

24:31

you know Any condo like so many so

24:33

much condolences to any of our friends that

24:35

are in the community the community that are

24:37

suffering because of this Because they're just how

24:39

could you plan? How could you possibly plan

24:41

for it? How could you see it coming?

24:44

How could you know what it's going to

24:46

be? How can you know, like you said,

24:48

Jeremy, what it's going to be in five

24:50

years time or four years time? Sorry. You

24:52

know, there is just so many variables. How

24:55

do you know what Trump's going to do tomorrow? Do

24:57

you know what I mean? Yeah. Like he knows what

25:00

he's doing tomorrow. And there's just

25:02

no and there would be no

25:04

there would be absolutely no recompense

25:06

for it. There'd be no recourse

25:08

for it because they don't seem

25:10

to play by the same set

25:12

of rules. It just doesn't. Yeah.

25:14

We're not existing in the same

25:16

world. I will say

25:18

I do I do want to

25:20

add one other thing because as we're

25:22

talking about bush it occurs to

25:24

me that to some extent Americans while

25:27

we're saying. where I would say

25:29

our ability to say, hey, I really

25:31

prefer Bush or prefer Bush to

25:33

what we're getting now is on some

25:35

level a privileged position. I think

25:37

we need to acknowledge that as well

25:39

because for some people in some

25:42

parts of the world, they actually did

25:44

not it would not at all

25:46

prefer Bush, specifically if you're in the

25:48

Middle East with the countries that

25:50

the US invaded in the Middle East.

25:52

I think what we're experiencing on

25:54

some level, the idea of feeling like

25:57

the other side has no rules

25:59

and doesn't actually care about our rights.

26:01

or lives to an extent is

26:03

probably how people in Afghanistan and especially

26:05

Iraq felt during that war. Like

26:08

I think with the U .S. intervention

26:10

in that way and also people

26:12

throughout the global south have felt that

26:14

way like in South America, all

26:16

the various countries where the U .S.

26:18

is coming and toppled their existing like

26:20

democratically elected regimes so that we

26:22

can install governments that are

26:24

more favorable to our economic interests.

26:27

Like, I feel like what we're experiencing

26:29

now, unfortunately. Now, here's the interesting

26:31

thing. I do think if you're from

26:33

one of those countries, you may

26:35

already know this, but if you don't,

26:37

the overwhelming majority of Americans do

26:40

not realize the degree, like the scale

26:42

of how bad those acts

26:45

of the government and wars were

26:47

most people just don't like most Americans

26:49

don't even realize that America has

26:51

toppled multiple governments and just didn't talk

26:53

about it because it wasn't really

26:55

on the news. But I think from

26:57

their perspective, this is kind of

26:59

Chickens coming home to roost on some

27:01

level for America after treating the

27:04

Treating so much of the world the

27:06

way that we did now We

27:08

didn't do that to the same extent

27:10

in Europe although there certainly has

27:12

been some pretty contentious situations in Europe

27:14

as well But certainly throughout the

27:16

global south and in the Middle East

27:18

American intervention has been really ugly

27:20

and now it seems like the American

27:22

government is treating the American people

27:25

More the way that they were they

27:27

had been treating all those other

27:29

people for decades So I I'm not

27:31

saying America like I think from

27:33

some level from some level Unfortunately, this

27:35

is perhaps the price that Americans

27:37

are paying. I hope that we're able

27:39

to write the ship because unfortunately,

27:41

it's not just Americans It's the whole

27:43

world because of how powerful and

27:46

in ingrained America is into so many

27:48

other countries economic systems. This is

27:50

like I think all you need to

27:52

understand how bad this is is

27:54

that I believe China, Japan, and Korea

27:56

have all banded together. To

27:58

say that they're going to oppose this. That

28:01

is insane. Honestly, if you

28:03

manage to convince China and Korea,

28:06

yeah. Yeah, and Korea. Yeah,

28:08

it's just crazy. Japan

28:11

still hasn't apologized and both of those countries are

28:13

like, you know what, there are

28:15

differences aside. Yeah.

28:17

Yeah. That's how bad

28:19

it is, my lord. The enemy of

28:21

my enemy still sucks, but also

28:23

it's better than what's happening over there.

28:26

Yeah. It's just sad.

28:28

It's real sad. I think my, you know,

28:30

the main thing that I would take

28:32

away from this is, you know, anyone who

28:34

needs to, I'll see if I've got

28:36

any cousins, if anyone wants to kind of

28:38

marry someone and come over here and

28:40

live in the UK, it's, you know, it's

28:42

fine. It's not great. And I can't

28:44

promise we won't have a supreme idiot in,

28:47

you know, in a couple of years

28:49

time. But, you know, right now, things are

28:51

pretty chill. So, maybe

28:53

we'll get rejoin the EU. Maybe out

28:55

of desperation, we'll rejoin the EU.

28:57

That is currently the best thing that's

28:59

happened so far is I've seen

29:01

some very credible people talking about like,

29:03

you know, okay, Europe really needs

29:05

to band together now. Maybe we should

29:07

consider rejoining the EU and I'm

29:10

like, thank you, Senor Trump, for this

29:12

and this alone. So

29:14

here's what you got to do. Marry

29:16

a British person, move to the UK, Pray

29:19

that the UK rejoins the EU as soon

29:21

as they do move to an EU country.

29:23

Yep. Just stay there. And then stay there.

29:25

I'm ready. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But be careful

29:27

about which EU country, though, because a lot

29:29

of them are getting some, you know, there's

29:31

some populists showing up. That's true.

29:33

Yeah. Coming out of the woodwork.

29:35

Right now, New Zealand feels good. Like,

29:38

it just feels pretty, pretty out there,

29:40

you know what I mean? I

29:43

don't know that anyone's sort of dropping

29:45

a nuke on New Zealand. So...

29:48

Ah, that's my vote, is that we all

29:50

just, we all go there. Hop your way,

29:52

marry your way into New Zealand, just gradually.

29:54

Yeah, marry your way into New Zealand and

29:56

you'll be fine. But yes,

29:58

like I said, we're gonna get some

30:00

people, some folks in to talk who

30:02

have been actually affected and who can

30:04

kind of walk us through a little

30:06

bit of like, you know, the actual

30:08

ramifications and also if there is anything

30:10

that, you know, they found that it's

30:12

helped, you know, in any way, I'm

30:14

sure, you know, there must be... people

30:16

who are, you know, trying to mitigate

30:18

some of these circumstances or help in

30:20

some way. So it would be good

30:22

to find out if that stuff is

30:24

going on as well. See if we

30:26

can add a bit of a bit

30:28

of light to the shade. But

30:30

yeah, a strange and difficult

30:33

and pretty dark situation. Speaking

30:35

of dark situations. Hey,

30:38

I was wondering if you brought

30:41

the segue back from like from

30:43

the early 2000s, early to mid

30:45

2000s, early to the 2000s. I

30:48

thought that what we would do is, since

30:50

that we have our City of the Black

30:52

Rose Kickstarter coming up and or out, depending

30:54

on when this episode comes out, do apologize,

30:57

if it's already out, we could

30:59

talk a little bit about running

31:01

horror games. We've just

31:03

been through a pretty horrific

31:05

game. Can and

31:07

I played together in a

31:09

pretty scary little situation

31:11

there. I was there too.

31:13

Where you? thing

31:16

is, I don't know that you

31:18

were Jeremy because this guy that I'm

31:20

looking at right now, big smile, you

31:23

know, affable looking dude, very

31:26

neighborhood, you know what I

31:28

mean? Very neighborhood. Very neighborhood. even.

31:30

Friendly, even, maybe. You know, that's a

31:32

little bit. But what

31:35

I'm saying is, I don't know,

31:37

I'm looking into your eyes and

31:39

I'm seeing a different human, you

31:41

know I mean? To the one

31:43

that, to the one that. made

31:45

spoilers the one that made me

31:47

do made Duncan You know attack

31:49

himself in a pretty brutal way.

31:51

Do you know what I mean?

31:53

Yeah, I'm like little to no

31:55

blood thirst from this version of

31:57

Jeremy. Yes, the other version of

31:59

Jeremy much. That's all he wanted.

32:01

So yeah And it was made

32:03

even as well Yeah We thought

32:05

that we would jump in and

32:07

talk a little bit about running

32:11

running horror games, running

32:13

what the difference is

32:16

between, I guess, running

32:18

a standard game where

32:20

perhaps the tone might be

32:23

more comedic or more

32:25

adventurous and more empowering. And

32:27

actually, I think one of the big

32:29

topics, which maybe might even be a good

32:31

place for us to start, is

32:33

how do you balance the kind of game?

32:36

Uh, maybe I'll throw this one over to

32:38

you first, Jeremy, and then we can get

32:40

it from a player's perspective from Ucandes. How

32:42

do you feel like you balance the game

32:45

element, which generally, you know, you play a

32:47

game to win the game, uh, is the

32:49

sort of, sort of, by and large, the

32:51

sort of way that games work. Obviously, role

32:53

-playing games are slightly different, but you know,

32:55

that's at least the sort of, uh, a

32:57

part of it, at least. How

32:59

do you then balance that with

33:01

the sort of horror genre,

33:03

which is ultimately... know it's not

33:05

it's not empowering right it's

33:07

it's it's running for your life

33:09

it's being terrified it's big

33:11

consequences people dying you know in

33:13

a lot of instances the

33:15

kind of horror element is taking

33:17

away you know someone's agency

33:19

or whatever it may be and

33:21

and and making them feel

33:23

powerless and hopeless in a situation

33:25

so how do you find

33:27

as a GM marrying the horror

33:29

genre of that versus the

33:31

game that usually especially if it's

33:34

D &D wants players

33:36

to feel empowered and like the

33:38

central hero. So

33:40

if you're playing a TTRPG that

33:42

is mechanized to this episode of

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guys, producer Jess here. Jeremy,

34:00

Liv and Jasper are all currently running

34:02

around at D &D in a castle,

34:04

DMing various games while organizing the City

34:06

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35:01

to take agency away from the PCs,

35:04

such as Call of

35:06

Cthulhu or Alien

35:08

RPG. Both of those, I

35:10

think, are very, or Walking Dead RPG. Both of

35:12

those have a lot of opportunities for players to

35:14

lose agency, so the horror is sort of built

35:16

into the system. Vampire of the Masquerade is another

35:18

one. then it's a lot

35:20

easier. But in a case where it's

35:23

a system that is not designed for

35:25

horror, such as Dungeons & Dragons or

35:27

Pathfinder, or like you said, any game

35:29

where empowerment is meant to be the

35:31

goal, you could say Thirsty

35:33

Sword Lesbians would be another example. The

35:35

number one thing you would definitely need

35:37

in a system like that would be

35:39

player buy -in. You need players who are

35:41

going to commit to being in that

35:43

horror space and be like, oh, okay,

35:46

that's part of the game. That's part

35:48

of the goal here. is for us

35:50

to be scared and for things to

35:52

feel hopeless or at times for characters

35:54

to feel powerless to overcome the threats

35:56

that are facing us down. So

35:58

that's part of it. It depends

36:00

really on the system. In the case

36:02

of something like D &D, one way

36:04

you can do it is by

36:06

introducing monsters that are incredibly powerful or

36:09

seem incredibly powerful. A lot of

36:11

this can be done via flavoring. So

36:13

like for example, when you guys

36:15

in City of the Black Rose, Harold

36:17

of Shadows, full name. Uh, when,

36:19

when the monkey is based, which is, uh,

36:21

you can run a version of, uh, right now,

36:23

if you go into the Kickstarter, which is

36:25

the city of black rice Kickstarter role play, press

36:27

Kickstarter right now. We're going to do the

36:30

whole thing. We must do the whole thing. You

36:32

know what I mean? Yeah. Might as well.

36:34

Might as well. Uh, the. the

36:36

like the monkey that you guys fought

36:38

was powerful for sure, but I definitely gave

36:40

descriptions of what he was doing that

36:42

were so bad that it made him feel

36:44

even worse. So it wasn't just like,

36:46

oh, he did a bunch of damage. It

36:48

was he did a bunch of damage

36:51

and then ripped into your flesh and sliced

36:53

your face open. It was like

36:55

it was. I don't know. I mean, he

36:57

did a bunch of damage. He did a

36:59

bunch of damage, but he

37:01

was not the tankiest fellow. He

37:03

seemed he was not as. Jasper

37:07

understands what you're saying, mechanically. Duncan is

37:09

like coming to your house right now.

37:11

I mean, quite frankly, offense from Hecate's

37:14

point of view. Okay, Hecate did some

37:16

like serious shit and like gave up

37:18

their life for this fucking monkey to

37:20

die. So for you to be like,

37:22

he really wasn't that big of a

37:24

deal. I'm like, yeah. Remember

37:27

when we said you weren't friendly

37:29

or neighborhood? That's right now. This

37:31

is Jeremy's way of saying to you, you know,

37:33

when you gave up your life. Yeah. That monkey

37:35

had three hit points left. Jokes

37:38

on you, friend. Jokes on

37:40

you. Gloss Tanner. But

37:46

that you can actually get a lot of

37:48

mileage out of how you describe things. Because

37:50

of course, the players really only window into

37:52

the world other than their own. Well, is

37:54

their own imaginations and their own imaginations are

37:56

being fueled by what you are describing and

37:58

what everybody else is describing. So as the

38:00

GM, if you're like, oh, you punch this

38:02

guy and you feel that it does do

38:05

damage, but you also feel your fist physically

38:07

sink into him and like you see your

38:09

your fist, your arm disappear up to the

38:11

forearm and you lose feeling in that. of

38:13

your arm even if there's nothing mechanical about

38:15

that that's alarming for a lot of people

38:17

and so they'll be like oh no we

38:19

got to get out of here even if

38:21

there is not necessarily a mechanical impact or

38:23

maybe it's like it's not as severe so

38:25

that is one way you can do it

38:28

is by flavoring things in such a way

38:30

i would encourage opponents in such a way

38:32

that they feel worse sorry to cut across

38:34

i was just i was gonna say i

38:36

would encourage uh and i'd love to just

38:38

hear what you think of this as well

38:40

kind of i would encourage the gms to

38:42

introduce a mechanical sort of

38:44

thing as well, right? It

38:47

may involve playing a little bit more

38:49

fast and loose with, you know, especially

38:51

like D &D rules where there isn't

38:53

as much kind of narrative freedom. But

38:55

like, I feel like for as a

38:57

player, when you describe my fist sinking

38:59

in and whatever, at like,

39:01

it then is alarming for me to

39:03

think like, oh, my hand is stuck

39:05

or whatever right now. Or, you know,

39:07

I'm in a very uncompromising position and

39:09

it gets me creatively thinking about

39:11

the situation that we're in and you know

39:13

it's like so I quite enjoy there being

39:15

then like a mechanical uh ramification as well

39:17

because it kind of it allows me to

39:19

think a little bit outside of the box

39:21

as a player uh where I think otherwise

39:23

you'll kind of put in quite a rigid

39:25

box by your character sheet whereas you giving

39:27

a description like that and and everything feels

39:29

makes me feel a little bit like oh

39:31

I can probably then be a little bit

39:33

more liberal in like the way that I

39:35

might describe the next thing or even the

39:37

impact that that would have on my character

39:39

whether that be good or bad. I

39:42

don't know how you feel about

39:44

that as a player in the game

39:46

having prompt. It's real 50

39:48

-50. Yeah, it's real 50 -50 for me.

39:50

I love the flavor text because... like to

39:52

Jeremy's point like I buy in right

39:55

like I buy in so differently when

39:57

there's flavor text because now I'm trying to

39:59

think creatively like I know with Alphage

40:01

if it was just down to mechanics I

40:03

probably wouldn't have tried blight but because

40:05

the flavor text was like plants plants

40:07

plants I was like guess yes you said

40:09

he's a motherfucking plant right like yeah,

40:11

so I've also been in a game So

40:14

I've I had never really faced down

40:16

like a beholder Before and I

40:18

was in a session of a show

40:20

called Godplain that my friends over at chaotic

40:22

wholesome did and it was awesome. It's

40:24

fantastic story But I didn't like we didn't

40:26

know that it was a beholder because

40:28

like that wasn't like that was the introduction

40:30

wasn't made right? It was instead described

40:32

So it was like you see an eye

40:34

glowing in the distance and then you

40:37

see several others and then it started to

40:39

attack us from the shadows So we

40:41

were like, oh, there's a bunch of creatures

40:43

out there right like there's a lot

40:45

of eyes so it must be with multiple

40:47

creatures. So people were very different about

40:49

how they tried to fight this thing. Whereas

40:51

if it's a beholder, if you know

40:53

that information you understand the game, the way

40:55

that you attack it is going to

40:57

be different in the moment, right? So the

40:59

mechanics would have really actually helped more

41:01

than hinder in that situation, knowing exactly what

41:03

it was. So it really comes down,

41:05

I think, to your purpose

41:08

and your intention. just

41:11

like you can use flavor text to

41:13

make something scary. You can also use

41:15

like the mechanics to make something more

41:17

mundane as well, right? I ran a

41:19

mothership game called Alone in the Deep.

41:21

That's a module written by, I believe,

41:23

S. Murphy. And there

41:25

are like these little abalests in that game,

41:27

right? These little sea creatures, right? Yeah. But

41:30

like they're not the big giant ones that

41:32

you get in D &D sometimes. They're like little

41:34

baby guys, right? So they do

41:36

like... That's actually quite terrifying. The idea of little

41:38

baby abalones. They're not good. They're

41:40

awful. And so what's cool

41:42

about that module is that

41:44

there's an escalation built into

41:46

the story. So someone

41:48

will see one or two and be like,

41:50

oh, no, that sucks. But there's not

41:53

one or two. There's a ton. There's a

41:55

ton. And the longer it takes your

41:57

crew to figure out what's happening and to

41:59

get to their escape. route right and

42:01

and to do something about it uh the

42:03

worse the problem gets and because their

42:05

damage is so small it tricks them into

42:07

a false sense of security which like

42:09

swarms for example swarms are terrifying especially if

42:11

in the beginning they're interacting with you

42:13

one on one and then you have you

42:16

like transform them into an actual proper

42:18

swarm where you're getting like big damage right

42:20

as like a yeah um it's a

42:22

it's a nice way to kind of low

42:25

Players that are having a really good

42:27

time with RP and just like

42:29

fucking off. It's a really way to

42:31

kind of turn up the heat

42:33

on them without them realizing it Yeah,

42:35

I love that and I think

42:37

there's a something that marries really nicely

42:39

with what something that Jeremy was

42:41

saying about kind of expectations which is

42:43

like really Saying to your players.

42:45

Hey, these are the consequences like these

42:47

these are the stakes like I

42:50

would genuinely counsel anyone who's thinking that

42:52

they want to run something scary Really

42:55

be so explicit to

42:57

your players. Hey. Like,

43:00

you know, this area of the map is

43:02

where the bad, bad people are, right? And

43:05

they don't fuck about. They have guns and

43:07

they they'll just like, and they're like, you

43:09

know, the deadliest, whatever. You know what I

43:11

mean? So like, if you're setting up a

43:13

maverick's game, right, you go like, this is

43:15

the part of town where like the, you

43:17

know, crime lords are going to meet up

43:19

and these crime lords. You know they they

43:21

kill dragons for breakfast or what do you

43:23

know I mean like whatever this kind of

43:25

thing is right and you kind of you

43:27

give them the clearest mental picture of this

43:29

like do do not mess around with these

43:31

and then this is where you have to

43:33

be brave as a GM because what you

43:35

then do is if those players charge to

43:37

that part the town you fuck them up

43:39

yeah you kill like if you have to

43:41

you you think of a Deus Ex that

43:43

will stop you from having a TPK or

43:45

whatever that you can have in your back

43:47

pocket but you teach them a lesson You

43:49

know what i mean but you're running in

43:51

maveros there are means of resurrection that you

43:53

can look at you and you'll be able

43:55

to see in the book in the book.

44:00

But that's what i mean it's

44:02

like you then you need to

44:04

present them with real consequences for

44:06

the actions yeah and say hey

44:08

yeah you fucked around now it's

44:10

time to find out because there's

44:13

nothing better. The i

44:15

found when running a horror game

44:17

than that moment where the

44:19

players go oh my god he

44:21

wasn't kidding. Like, literally, I

44:23

literally have had it set up

44:25

at one point. It

44:27

was actually a D &D in the

44:29

castle thing that I just ran. And

44:32

I basically, I

44:34

was talking to the players and I

44:36

kept on basically saying how I had

44:39

a version of Strahd in the game.

44:41

And I was like, I want to

44:43

do like a bit of a horror

44:45

section within the game, but not necessarily

44:47

the whole tone of the thing. So

44:49

like change this sort of and do

44:51

almost like a session. in that tone

44:53

and the way that I did that

44:55

was really established like hey this isn't

44:57

like you know a wafie kind of

44:59

strad you know who just sort of

45:01

chills in brovia or whatever this is

45:03

like some you know battle hardened you

45:05

know count Dracula stuff right this is

45:07

like this dude is like Vlad the

45:09

Impaler strad Vlad the Impaler type you

45:11

know this the disappears into a strad

45:14

the impaler yeah. Yeah,

45:16

this is the disappears into smoke, reappears

45:18

having severed the heads of like 10

45:20

dudes, you know what I mean? Like

45:22

that kind of a guy. And

45:24

there was a real moment when the players

45:26

met him or one of them started talking back

45:29

and he was just like cool and just

45:31

like swiftly did like 60 points of damage and

45:33

was like, do you want to go again?

45:35

And they were like, no. I

45:40

don't like I'm good It was

45:42

it was a real fun moment of

45:44

then you could see that the

45:46

tone at the table shifted so dramatically

45:48

when the players were like Oh,

45:50

we're not in Kansas anymore. You know

45:52

what I mean? And I feel

45:54

like that's the that's the vibe that

45:56

you want to aim for is

45:58

give players that moment of of realising

46:00

the stakes of the game. And

46:02

maybe it is that you need to

46:04

give them external stakes as well.

46:06

Maybe it is that threatening the players.

46:08

You know, maybe they're all like,

46:10

I will die in glorious combat. Maybe

46:12

you got a bunch of war

46:14

boys, you know, in your party. And

46:16

so, you know... Witness me! Witness

46:18

me, exactly. Like, you know, they don't...

46:20

But maybe a real fun NPC

46:22

that they have. Maybe they wake up

46:24

one day and that NPC has

46:26

been gutted or something and you're like...

46:28

And it's like, well, you went

46:30

and mess with the wrong people. So

46:32

they decided to, you know, they

46:34

decided to send you a message, right? Like,

46:37

like that kind of a thing. It could

46:39

be a really big way of getting people into

46:41

the right tone. Sorry. Yeah. No,

46:43

no, not at all. I'm sorry to interrupt. I

46:45

super agree. I got excited hearing this.

46:47

From you because I've actually had to

46:49

use that in a game the very

46:51

first game that I ever GMed Was

46:53

like over a pandemic and I did

46:56

like a stranger thingsy sort of savage

46:58

world setting called Monster Hunters Club and

47:00

I was we were coming from like

47:02

a horror campaign But we had kind

47:04

of played Savage Pathfinder for a while

47:06

and it was very like shit

47:08

postie I was I had a horny Bard

47:10

who flirted with everyone right like everybody was

47:12

kind of your your general archetype right it

47:14

was it was very much we're playing fantasy

47:16

guys and it was silly it was silly

47:18

as heck and I think that like when

47:21

I got that group together again and I

47:23

was the GM for the first time. First

47:25

of all, all of them were used to

47:27

our fancy GM that like used to lay

47:29

out like really amazing sets and stuff, right?

47:31

Like he's he's that immersive GM that like

47:33

makes like a whole village free to play

47:35

in with your minis, right? And I'm here

47:37

with the mind and no maps like, hey

47:39

guys, we're gonna play a game, right? So

47:41

they were already like anyway, right? And we

47:43

were online because it was during the pandemic

47:45

and they hadn't really played online before. So

47:47

I was really fighting an uphill battle and

47:49

people were not taking me seriously. Like only

47:51

my DM and my my nesting partner who

47:54

were both in the game took me seriously.

47:56

Everybody else was like fart sounds. So

47:58

I was like, what can I do

48:00

to set the tone in this entire

48:02

campaign? Because this is scary. Stranger

48:05

things has children in it, but it is scary,

48:07

right? And

48:09

in Savage Worlds, kids, player

48:11

character kids shouldn't die, right? other

48:14

children can die. It's brutal

48:16

and it's usually part of lines and fails.

48:19

So I didn't want to have anything where they

48:21

were going to see that happen. But there

48:23

was an issue where a little kid came to

48:25

them and was like, hey, I'm pretty sure

48:27

that I have to go live with my aunt

48:29

because there's a scary monster in my house.

48:31

And they were like, sure, sure, kid. Yeah, OK.

48:33

Sure, there's a scary monster. And they had

48:35

the opportunity to go and visit her. She called

48:38

them on their walkie -talkies at 1150 and was

48:40

like, hey, can you come by? And they

48:42

were like, yeah, we're playing video games. and didn't

48:44

go over. So the next day, 100%,

48:47

yeah, there's police tape outside,

48:49

right? Like, wait a minute. So

48:51

they didn't see anything bad,

48:53

but they knew something bad happened

48:55

because of the negligence, right? Yeah.

48:58

So like, I would have gone

49:00

further and had that kid start a

49:02

villain arc. Like, that kid comes

49:04

back as a big bad. Or

49:07

they like see, they see his spirit

49:09

appear. And they're like, He's like,

49:11

guys, you know, why didn't you come play

49:13

with me yesterday? I really wanted to play with

49:15

you. I admit, I went hard on the

49:17

shock value. So I didn't think they wanted to,

49:19

I didn't think they'd want to go inside

49:21

the house. They went into the house, right? They

49:23

were like, we got to break in, we

49:25

got to see what happened. So I was like,

49:27

well, I can't just have bodies in here,

49:29

right? If there's police tape, clearly they've been carted

49:31

away. So instead I described what was there,

49:33

which was a lot of blood in very specific

49:36

places. And

49:38

I'm like, you see tiny, tiny feet. in

49:40

the blood that look like doll shoes.

49:43

Didn't that little girl say there was a

49:45

weird doll in her house and everyone's like, oh

49:48

no, we caused this. I'm like, so next

49:50

time someone asks you for help, you're going to

49:52

chase the lead, right? Yeah, that's why you

49:54

always leave a note. Good. Jean

49:56

Parmesan jumps in. Absolutely.

49:58

Yeah, I fully agree. I think

50:01

set the tone. Yeah.

50:03

So with what we're it sounds like

50:05

what we're talking about with horror is established

50:07

tone with the players ahead of time,

50:09

flavor things in a scary way, include mechanical

50:11

things that also seem scary. So if

50:13

the fist disappears, you're grappled now or something

50:15

in that vein, establish scary things and

50:17

then follow through. So established. Oh, this monster

50:19

is scary, or this place is scary,

50:21

or this thing is dangerous if you drink

50:23

it. And then when they do it,

50:25

absolutely bring the hammer down. If they do

50:27

those things, I would add to this,

50:29

bring the scary to them as well. So

50:31

establish multiple things as scary. Once they

50:33

are scared, once they are established as scary,

50:35

you can just get a lot of

50:38

mileage out of that. So one, for example,

50:40

the monkey, part of why the monkey

50:42

felt so bad is for the audience, if

50:44

you're listening to it, you, the first

50:46

thing you hear is a horrible murder that

50:48

the monkey commits. And you're like, oh

50:50

no. And then when the monkey appears later,

50:52

the audience is like, oh no, but

50:54

I like these people. And for the

50:56

players, they're already in this like, what

50:58

happened? They're looking at this body that's

51:00

horribly mutilated and like, what is this?

51:02

Oh no, this is terrible. It is

51:05

this really dark. Scary scene and

51:07

then suddenly this weird scary monster this this

51:09

monkey thing pops up It's like, huh, what's

51:11

this? And it's kind of shocking and then

51:13

when it attacks. It's so savage in how

51:15

it attacks It's like, oh, no, and then

51:17

every time the monkey shows up after that

51:19

everybody's like, oh And that's that was what

51:22

allowed for example in episode two when you

51:24

guys were with Jules and Jules was like

51:26

Oh, yeah, he had his friend with him,

51:28

too And you guys like what do you

51:30

mean leave the friend who's been here with

51:32

you and you're like It

51:41

was especially terrible because Johnny

51:43

and I are looking at Jasper

51:45

like you don't understand And

51:47

I was like and Duncan was

51:49

like yeah, I could fight

51:51

it Nope. But

51:54

that's that's that's really like establishing

51:56

things as scary and having them it's

51:58

good to not have every single

52:01

villain who is scary immediately die. If

52:03

you can have villains, yes, you

52:05

establish as scary and then they can

52:07

recur. Yeah, that builds

52:09

suspense. You know, that the

52:11

more the more scary things are in play,

52:13

the more suspense you can build. And so

52:15

if you can give evidence, for example, that

52:17

the bad guy was here and you know

52:19

that they're somewhere in the area, now the

52:22

players are like, oh, no. There's a

52:24

sense of suspense ratcheting up. So would say the

52:26

last piece of advice, because I know we're getting closer,

52:28

or at least the next piece of advice I

52:30

can offer is to establish those scary things and then

52:32

put them in your player's way. And

52:34

ideally, try and find some that you

52:36

can reuse. But put

52:38

those scary things in your player's way

52:40

and create uncertainty, because that is what

52:42

suspense really is. You know something's coming.

52:44

You don't know exactly when, and you

52:46

don't know exactly how. But it's there.

52:49

And at any moment, it could pop

52:51

out. And that's when everybody's like on

52:53

the edge of their seats, like, oh,

52:55

no, no, when is this going to

52:57

go bad? Yeah. So yeah, that's

52:59

good for games that even aren't a horror on

53:01

a suspense. I am

53:03

I want to throw out to to.

53:05

little things which is I actually

53:07

don't I don't know when this comes

53:09

out whether these episodes have gone

53:11

out or not but I know that

53:13

at least it will definitely have

53:15

been announced by this point which is

53:17

I'm GMing a two -shot which is

53:19

a horror game for Critical Role And

53:23

that was, like, super fun building that out,

53:25

right? Because that was first of all. I

53:27

don't think you've congratulated you publicly. Huge congratulations.

53:30

That's amazing. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

53:32

It's very, very cool. I sat here the

53:34

day before it's getting announced, so I have

53:36

no idea how people have reacted. It's a

53:38

very weird, like, in -between space. Who's the cast?

53:41

Who's the cast for anyone who hasn't heard

53:43

about it yet? So, if anyone hasn't heard

53:45

about it, we have an amazing cast of

53:47

Abubakar Salim, of this parish, of

53:49

City of the Black Grows

53:51

fame. a little thing called House

53:53

of Dragon, but whatever. There is

53:55

no one's heard of that. Jacqueline

53:57

Emerson, who was in Hunger

54:00

Games, and is also like the

54:02

sort of along with her

54:04

writing partner, Matt Linton, the brains

54:06

behind the sort of world

54:08

of Thresher. There is Mark

54:10

and Mara Humes from High Rollers,

54:12

Jane Douglas from Octaventure, and then

54:14

Noshiya Dalla, who is an incredible

54:16

voice actor, he's done a bunch

54:18

of stuff with Critical Role and

54:20

has been in several Star Wars

54:22

things, which I spent most of

54:24

the time grilling him about because

54:26

he was in Bad Batch. Another

54:28

property that no one has heard

54:30

of. Yeah, literally. But

54:32

he's in Bad Batch. He was in Jedi

54:34

Survivor as like one of the main

54:37

characters. And if you've played Jedi Survivor and

54:39

you know who Bode is, then if

54:41

you've played it, you've played it. You know

54:43

I'm saying? Very

54:45

cool character. But anyway, the

54:47

reason I bring it up is because

54:49

I had a really interesting conundrum with

54:51

that, which is like the expectation, I

54:53

think, from an audience perspective is going

54:55

to be really interesting to see how

54:57

people respond to it because this is

54:59

very explicitly horror. This is like I

55:01

went, all in making this

55:03

creepy and scary and, you know, uncomfortable.

55:06

And it was, what was I found really,

55:08

really interesting in GMing it, and this

55:11

is like one of the cleanest pieces of

55:13

advice I think I can give, is

55:15

do not overlook the tiny details. And

55:17

what I mean by the tiny details

55:19

is like, it's very easy to be

55:21

like, okay, it's horror to go full

55:23

like sore with your descriptions and how

55:25

everything, you know, they get ripped apart

55:27

and blood goes everywhere and blah, you

55:29

know what I mean? And if you've

55:31

ever watched a movie like Saw or

55:33

any of the sequels they kind of

55:35

increasingly get like unimpactful right as you

55:37

move through the series because by the

55:39

time you get to like Saw -Ray

55:41

you're kind of in such big elaborate

55:44

kind of ridiculous sort of scenarios that

55:46

it's no longer like credible and you

55:48

can't really connect to it anymore and

55:50

one of the things that I found

55:52

the most that got people the most

55:54

was like I would describe like the

55:56

skin peeling from like the tip of

55:58

your like cuticles on your finger. Right

56:00

and like stuff like that and that

56:02

really like viscerally got people because it

56:04

was like oh I can I can

56:06

almost I can empathize with that right

56:08

yeah I could imagine that happening to

56:10

me and that makes you feel and

56:12

so if you're trying to elicit a

56:14

reaction don't Sort of don't overlook those

56:16

little the little descriptions the little fun

56:18

of things one of the big things

56:20

that we played around with and I

56:22

don't think this is a spoiler is

56:24

That they're diving down uh, they're exploring

56:27

this underwater station. So they have like

56:29

an oxygen meter. So they know the

56:31

whole time that there's a world where

56:33

they can run out of oxygen and

56:35

if they panic in any situation, they

56:37

start to burn through more oxygen. And

56:39

so just a very simple thing of

56:41

knowing that they had, and I gave

56:43

them a little count, like a little

56:45

dice on their desk that, you know,

56:47

so they were looking down at like

56:49

two hours of oxygen or whatever it

56:51

was left and being like, oh boy,

56:53

you know, that's not a long time

56:55

and if I, you know, And I

56:57

think all of us can kind of

56:59

probably, you know, imagine the idea of

57:01

being underwater and suddenly running out of

57:03

oxygen, right? So I think it's very

57:05

easy to think of all these elaborate

57:07

kind of descriptors and stuff that you

57:09

need and they are good and you

57:12

don't you do definitely need them. But

57:14

sometimes the things that can get the

57:16

most visceral reaction from your players. Is

57:18

really those like tiny little details

57:20

that just make you feel uncomfortable right

57:22

that like that can be just

57:24

as impactful I think and then the

57:26

other thing that I wanted to

57:28

just flag really quickly on that was

57:30

was something you were saying there

57:32

about their villains Jeremy and I again

57:34

I'm not going to go into

57:36

any spoilers here if you haven't seen

57:38

it yet or if it's not

57:40

even out yet What I would say

57:42

is the thing that I really

57:45

enjoyed was thinking about What does, what

57:47

do my villains actually want from

57:49

the party? And can I give them

57:51

a want or a need from

57:53

the party that isn't just killing them?

57:55

Right? Like, can I make it

57:57

that the party may be, you know, if

57:59

you're, if you're sort of imagining a horror scenario

58:01

is a lot of the time it's taking

58:03

agency away from players. Can you give a bit

58:05

more agency to your villains? Can you

58:07

like give them, you know, can you put

58:09

them in a situation where they need to

58:11

get a piece of information? from your players

58:13

or they need to get an item from

58:15

your players or do you know what I

58:17

mean like where you flip the script a

58:19

little bit and you basically allow it to

58:21

be that the villain is the one that's

58:24

maybe seeking them but it's not just to

58:26

kill them outright or to you know maybe

58:28

it's the villain has a personal vendetta against

58:30

one of the players and just wants to

58:32

see that player suffer but maybe they don't

58:34

have any you know beef with the rest

58:36

of the party right what does that do

58:38

to our dynamic and it makes it so

58:40

much easier to then achieve the goal that

58:42

jerry was talking about which is having villains

58:44

reoccur because then you can have the villain

58:46

pop up. Like, you know,

58:48

they could do damage they can do whatever

58:50

but then they can peace and be like

58:52

well I've got what I needed I don't

58:54

need to stick around until I get until

58:56

you kill me because of your action economy

58:58

Yeah, I have an example of this in

59:00

maverose actually in a home game in a

59:03

home game It was there was a whole

59:05

thing where the PCs had managed to steal

59:07

a big artifact that had a bunch of

59:09

people were after tons of factions were after

59:11

this and they'd stolen it and were hiding

59:13

away in sort of their home base having

59:15

a meeting and partway through I

59:17

forget how I established it, but one

59:19

of them could see invisibilities. One of

59:21

them or their allies could see invisibility

59:23

and noticed that there was a scrying

59:25

orb there. And they were like, oh

59:27

no. They were trying to figure out

59:29

what to do with this artifact. They

59:31

recognized it was incredibly powerful and they're

59:33

like, we have to get out of

59:35

here. So they split into two groups,

59:37

one of which was traveling, one of

59:39

which they had a helper, a bodyguard

59:42

who could teleport through shadows. And so

59:44

they took the artifact and started teleporting

59:46

through shadows location that they decided upon.

59:48

The rest of the party

59:51

tried to cause a diversion

59:53

by driving to that location. And

59:55

so as they were driving, they

59:57

basically got attacked on the road

59:59

by a group of boogeymen, scary

1:00:02

people, boogey people that had been

1:00:04

hired by some shadowy, faceless individual.

1:00:06

And it was this really rough

1:00:08

fight. They got trapped in a

1:00:10

demi -plane, was Crazy, like people were

1:00:12

teleporting, people were getting smashed, beaten

1:00:14

up, things were blowing up. A

1:00:16

dude was driving around with a

1:00:18

car that could tear people apart.

1:00:20

It was crazy. And

1:00:22

one of their opponents kept trying to

1:00:24

read their minds over and over

1:00:26

and they kept making the save until

1:00:28

finally one of them failed the

1:00:30

save and she was like, where's it

1:00:32

going? And he was like,

1:00:35

and she heard like in his mind, it

1:00:37

was like, Cool. And immediately they leave.

1:00:39

Oh, my God. And they're like, what? Meanwhile,

1:00:41

the other PC, of course, has no way of

1:00:43

knowing this because they're across the city. So

1:00:46

they arrive there. And now, because everybody

1:00:48

is at the same table, essentially, I had

1:00:50

that player who was not in that

1:00:52

scene play the driver of the car. So

1:00:54

she was playing the driver. And then

1:00:56

she had to jump back to playing her

1:00:58

actual PC. Now it's just her and

1:01:00

her bodyguard arriving where they wanted to be.

1:01:02

And she's like, oh, my God. Like

1:01:04

everybody's sitting there like, ugh. because I don't

1:01:06

think they quite put together exactly what

1:01:08

was happening yet. And then when she arrives,

1:01:10

she sees like the assistant of the

1:01:12

person she'd come to see standing there. And

1:01:14

she's like, the assistant's like, oh, you're

1:01:16

here. I was told to speak to you

1:01:18

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she's looking at

1:01:20

the person and she sees like there's blood. Like,

1:01:23

I think she notices that there's like a weird

1:01:25

amount of blood on their face or like their

1:01:27

face is slightly askew or something. It doesn't look

1:01:29

right. And so they tell, she tells her bodyguard

1:01:31

to grab the person and drag him into shadows.

1:01:33

So he does, disappears. Moments later,

1:01:35

the bodyguard then emerges and is like,

1:01:37

it is bleeding. like really cut

1:01:39

up and hurt. And it's like, madam,

1:01:42

we have to get out of here. And

1:01:44

she's like, oh, okay, comes forward, grabs him,

1:01:46

immediately feels all of his skin shift to

1:01:48

the side. And she's like, oh, no, he

1:01:50

proceeds to basically de -glove the top half

1:01:52

of her body, take the artifact, jump into

1:01:54

the shadows and leave. If you don't know

1:01:56

what de -gloving is, don't Google it. At

1:01:59

least don't Google image it. Hey, hey,

1:02:01

hey, listen, listen, you'll listen to this podcast

1:02:03

because you've probably played an imaginative game

1:02:05

at some point in your life. Just take

1:02:07

the words D -Glove. and apply it to

1:02:09

a human. I think that's probably all

1:02:11

you need to think about, right? And

1:02:14

then add in top half of

1:02:16

the body. Basically, she had that 90s

1:02:18

style where you wear a sweatshirt

1:02:20

around your waist, except the sweatshirt was

1:02:22

her flesh. So she

1:02:24

was not okay. But the bad guys

1:02:26

got a hold of what they

1:02:28

wanted. It was never about death.

1:02:30

It was always about, can we get what

1:02:33

we want? And the good guys, can we

1:02:35

keep them from getting what they want? And

1:02:37

now it's like, the good guys are on

1:02:39

the offensive, trying to go and track down

1:02:41

the bad guy and we have this you

1:02:43

know so there's but at the same time

1:02:45

the person who the person who could do

1:02:47

that uh who who attacked the party member

1:02:50

is uh basically can just de -glove people

1:02:52

and wear their skin uh and and impersonate

1:02:54

them in a very short amount of time

1:02:56

and so there's always the fear of like

1:02:58

this person could show up whenever uh that

1:03:00

person actually may appear in the uh city

1:03:02

of the black rose book uh in fact

1:03:04

a lot of the characters actually that i'm

1:03:07

talking about could appear and probably will appear

1:03:09

in some form or other in the city

1:03:11

of the black rose Rose book. So remember

1:03:13

to go check that out. But yeah, I

1:03:15

completely agree, Jasper, not only with the small

1:03:17

bits of horror, anything involving fingers or teeth

1:03:19

or eyes. Any of

1:03:21

that people are like, like

1:03:23

instinctively. Yeah, it's really

1:03:26

ugly. And actually, this is

1:03:28

I'll just really quickly jump on the back of

1:03:30

that. This is also a really, really, really,

1:03:32

really good example of why safety tools are awesome.

1:03:34

Because also what you can do is you

1:03:36

can what you you can find out for your

1:03:38

players. Okay, hey, does anyone have something that

1:03:40

they find makes them uncomfortable, but they're fine and

1:03:42

happy with it being in the game? Like

1:03:45

I've said that before, like I'm totally down. Like

1:03:47

if you want to like play on something

1:03:49

that will increase my level of immersion in the

1:03:51

game, I'm happy for you to use that,

1:03:53

right? I'll have stuff that I don't want you

1:03:55

to use. There's absolutely some other stuff that

1:03:57

I'm like, yeah, sure, like I hate snakes, but

1:03:59

I don't hate snakes in a way that

1:04:02

it like triggers me and makes me feel Like

1:04:04

actually sort of actively uncomfortable. I

1:04:06

just it just feels very visceral for

1:04:09

me So having and there's literally

1:04:11

a moment you can see it

1:04:13

happen. I'd sure the video exists somewhere

1:04:15

It was the first ever AP

1:04:17

that we have recorded. Yeah, I

1:04:19

think it must be on the

1:04:21

picture on somewhere of It was the

1:04:23

first ever episode with of the

1:04:25

cup in the caterpillar with mootie Yeah,

1:04:29

it really was. It was in my

1:04:31

living room in Manchester that we recorded that

1:04:33

and I push on a log and

1:04:35

Jeremy describes how it's not a log and

1:04:37

it's a snake and I literally jumped

1:04:39

out of the chair. Yeah,

1:04:41

you ran offscreen. Out

1:04:43

of the chair and offscreen. I

1:04:45

was like, nope. But

1:04:48

I loved it, right? It was

1:04:50

almost like getting a jump

1:04:52

scare in a horror movie, right?

1:04:54

But it's only kind of, I think, possible

1:04:57

to do that with an imaginative exercise

1:04:59

if you're kind of picking something that you

1:05:01

know someone will have a reaction to.

1:05:03

Otherwise, I feel like it's quite hard to

1:05:05

do. But yeah, just a

1:05:07

really good reason as to why you should gather all that

1:05:09

information. sit down, have a conversation

1:05:11

with your players about what they want, what

1:05:13

they like, what they don't like, because you

1:05:15

might well find that there's stuff that the

1:05:17

players are like, hey, I'm totally fine with

1:05:19

you using this or with you, you know,

1:05:21

incorporating this into the game. You know, like,

1:05:23

I know for a fact, like most people

1:05:25

hate clowns, but they don't probably hate clowns

1:05:27

in a way where it's like, no, I

1:05:29

need this to stop. It's like, oh, this

1:05:31

is horrible. I want to kill that fucking

1:05:33

clown so badly, right? Which could be actually

1:05:35

kind of fun. So I think it's like

1:05:37

another potential useful way to use stuff like

1:05:39

safety tools. Yeah, I

1:05:42

fully agree. Do

1:05:44

you have anything to add? Yeah, I

1:05:46

was to say. No, I think 'all

1:05:48

have said everything that I was thinking.

1:05:50

I also like using safety tools in

1:05:52

that manner. It lets you

1:05:54

know where your clear boundaries are, but

1:05:56

it also lets you know which

1:05:58

hazy areas you can tap dance on.

1:06:00

And that's very pleasing and delightful

1:06:03

for me. And I am pro -clown

1:06:05

in horror games. I have

1:06:07

actually been asked multiple times to

1:06:09

run clown -based horror. I

1:06:12

actually did so. So you're not in

1:06:14

favor of clowns. You are a professional

1:06:16

clown -includer. I mean, honestly,

1:06:18

I did get paid to run that game

1:06:20

at GenCon. So yes, I am a professional

1:06:22

clown -includer. Quite richly. My client,

1:06:24

Pinnacle, Savage Worlds, booked me

1:06:26

to run Pinebox Middle for

1:06:29

GenCon TV last year at

1:06:31

GenCon. I

1:06:33

had a very explicit request

1:06:35

for Clowns. Yes. And it was

1:06:37

a great game. I saw it live. Yes. That's

1:06:39

true. Thank you. Yes. It was a

1:06:41

great time. I had a wonderful time. But

1:06:43

my players were super squicked and it was

1:06:45

great. Absolutely

1:06:48

amazing. I

1:06:50

can attest to the squickness. They were

1:06:52

squicked. They were squicked.

1:06:55

Well, I think that probably is

1:06:57

going to be about time for us

1:06:59

on this particular episode. But

1:07:01

all of this has been in

1:07:03

service of teaching you a little

1:07:05

bit about how to run some

1:07:07

scary games, some spoopy games at

1:07:10

home. And hey, why don't

1:07:12

you do it by incorporating some Sinida Black

1:07:14

Rose stuff via the Kickstarter going if

1:07:16

it's not alive yet. go and check out

1:07:18

the page where you can follow it.

1:07:20

You'll get a notification as soon as it

1:07:22

goes live and then you can get

1:07:24

in there and back it if it's live

1:07:26

right now. Then what are you doing?

1:07:28

Go back the Kickstarter if you can. We

1:07:31

would really appreciate the help. It's

1:07:33

the first time that we have done

1:07:35

this. It is the first source

1:07:38

book, hopefully. I am sure the first

1:07:40

of many source books as authored

1:07:42

by our incredible Jeremy Cobb. And very

1:07:44

excited for the world to get

1:07:46

to see his work written down. in

1:07:50

this in such beautiful form.

1:07:52

So yeah, go check that

1:07:54

out. But since I'm sort of

1:07:56

gushing and talking about you, Jeremy, why don't

1:07:58

you go ahead and start us off with

1:08:00

anything that you would like to plug? Yeah,

1:08:03

so I'm not sure when this is coming

1:08:05

out. But if you if it comes out in

1:08:07

time, I believe on, is it May the

1:08:09

4th, May the 5th? I can never remember what

1:08:12

day I'm doing I be with you? Are

1:08:14

you on Sunday? Uh,

1:08:16

let me I'm gonna look I'm

1:08:18

a look on the calendar may

1:08:20

yes may the fourth. Yes may

1:08:22

the fourth be with you I'm

1:08:24

participating I was in it last

1:08:26

year. I ran a thirsty sword

1:08:28

lesbians game this year. I'm running

1:08:30

a I'm running a an alien

1:08:32

RPG Star Wars themed. That's right.

1:08:34

It's a it's a BIPOC Star

1:08:36

Wars event tail -tail hearts I

1:08:38

believe tail -tail hearts the production studio

1:08:40

etc. They're putting together another put

1:08:43

this they did this last year

1:08:45

it was so much fun this

1:08:47

year. They're doing it again. And

1:08:49

I'm closing out the event with

1:08:51

an alien RPG Star Wars themed

1:08:53

game. So if you want to

1:08:55

see horror, a game,

1:08:57

if you want to see me run a

1:08:59

game that is designed for horror and

1:09:01

designed for panic, but using Star Wars monsters

1:09:03

and Star Wars characters and ideas, come

1:09:05

check that out. And if it's already happened,

1:09:07

go watch the VOD. I'm sure the

1:09:09

VOD has been posted to YouTube at this

1:09:11

point. So go check that out because

1:09:13

I'm it's gonna be a really cool game

1:09:15

I have a shout out to I'm

1:09:18

gonna shout out the cast really quickly Wait,

1:09:20

I have I want to say that

1:09:22

I want to say people's names. So we

1:09:24

have kendo kendo Smith I guess well,

1:09:26

he's I don't know if he's a friend

1:09:28

of the show. Yeah, but he's a

1:09:30

friend of me and a friend of Candice

1:09:32

Solid person. They're awesome. And

1:09:34

we also have Oh,

1:09:36

what is their name? Heather

1:09:38

Silva Um. I

1:09:41

believe who is also playing the

1:09:43

game. We have Sebastian UA. And

1:09:45

we have Lola, whose last name I have

1:09:47

to look up really quickly. Lola,

1:09:49

I don't have it. They don't

1:09:52

have it listed. All right, Lola.

1:09:55

You'll know who they are

1:09:58

by the end of

1:10:00

the stream. But yeah, it's

1:10:02

going to be awesome. Me and four other people

1:10:04

are playing Alien RPG. It's

1:10:06

going to be sick. And also, if you're in the

1:10:08

Cincinnati area, it's going to

1:10:10

be more late May, early June. I'm

1:10:12

actually going to be doing

1:10:14

a live theatrical production called

1:10:16

Yes and D &D. It

1:10:19

is a live improvised D &D

1:10:21

game featuring, like

1:10:23

it's sort of acted out,

1:10:25

featuring audience suggestions. It'll

1:10:27

be really, really fun. I'm going to be

1:10:29

the Dungeon Master for that. Hell yeah, that's

1:10:31

so cool. It's part of the

1:10:33

Cincinnati Fringe Festival. Yeah, the Cincinnati

1:10:35

Fringe. Very,

1:10:38

very exciting. Damn. So much awesome

1:10:40

stuff. Go check Jeremy's stuff out. Check

1:10:43

out the book that he's... We

1:10:49

should mention the book at least once,

1:10:51

yeah. We should at least once, otherwise we'll

1:10:53

get in trouble. Caddis,

1:10:55

the magnificent, please. Yes. What do you

1:10:57

have going on? Yes, I will be

1:10:59

doing, on the 17th, which I think

1:11:01

this might not be out yet, but

1:11:04

you can watch the VOD. I will

1:11:06

be doing a charity stream for the

1:11:08

ACLU on Guild Superior's channel, running some...

1:11:10

17th of April? Yes, 17th of April,

1:11:12

running some mothership. then you

1:11:14

can catch me also at BIPOC Star

1:11:16

Wars Day. I am opening the event. I

1:11:19

am super duper excited for it. I'm going to

1:11:21

be running some Savage Worlds because, you know, I

1:11:23

can't get enough. You guys know I'm a big dork

1:11:25

for that. My cast includes

1:11:27

Brito, who I believe is a

1:11:29

friend of the show, as well

1:11:31

as Critical Bard, Omega Jones, Jay

1:11:34

Justice, who was a fantastic

1:11:36

cosplayer and up -and -coming TTRPG

1:11:38

'er, and Jeremy Cobb from

1:11:40

Three Black Halflings. What? Sounds

1:11:43

friendly and neighborhood. Come

1:11:46

on play. Yes. Check us out.

1:11:48

It's going to be Thursday, May

1:11:50

the doing backwards math

1:11:52

the second. Maybe doing

1:11:54

backwards math. Is it the first? I

1:11:57

don't know. Whatever. Whatever. It's

1:11:59

on the Thursday. Is it on the Thursday? Thursday.

1:12:01

Then it's on the first, May

1:12:03

1st. There you go. So May

1:12:05

1st, you can catch me at

1:12:08

2 .30 Eastern time over on

1:12:10

Telltale Hearts, who, as Jeremy said,

1:12:12

is producing. DC

1:12:14

LaSaire. producing my specific one, so

1:12:16

I'm very yeah! DC is fantastic, and I'm

1:12:18

very lucky. I should say who's producing mine.

1:12:20

Yeah. Ambe. I don't think I know Ambe.

1:12:22

Oh, Ambe is great. I've played with Ambe. Oh

1:12:25

cool. Yeah, so yeah, if you are

1:12:27

interested, please check that out You can

1:12:29

also hear me on bloomin blight, which

1:12:31

is a girl by moonlight podcast as

1:12:33

well as check out You know it

1:12:35

check out wayward autumnal y 'all I

1:12:37

did a collab with and the gnome

1:12:39

and blackwater D &D if you'd like scratch

1:12:41

Then you've heard em from blackwater D

1:12:43

&D on the show Wayward autumnal has

1:12:45

been getting some some circuits of a

1:12:47

word show nominations and such and it's

1:12:49

been really nice We're playing under the

1:12:51

autumn strangely, which is a GM list

1:12:53

game by Graham Gents over at Mythworks,

1:12:55

and I'm really proud of it. So

1:12:57

please check it out. Heck yeah! What

1:13:00

about you Jasper? Tell us

1:13:02

about it bro. Yeah,

1:13:04

well I guess go and

1:13:06

check out Thresher which will

1:13:08

be coming out on the

1:13:11

24th of April part one

1:13:13

and the 1st of May

1:13:15

part two. I already told

1:13:17

you about the epic cast. I will

1:13:19

say This is a particularly big

1:13:21

moment for me, not just because

1:13:23

I'm GMing a Thursday slot of

1:13:25

Critical Role, which I'm still... kind

1:13:27

of haven't really wrapped my head

1:13:29

around or fully come to terms

1:13:31

with yet, not thinking about that. But

1:13:34

also, not only have I GM'd

1:13:36

it, it is actually my production company

1:13:39

along with the amazing Paragon Pictures.

1:13:41

So 12 -Siders Studios, which is my

1:13:43

production company and another company based out

1:13:45

of Manchester, England called Paragon Pictures,

1:13:47

have actually done full production on it

1:13:49

as well. So everything

1:13:51

that you're seeing on

1:13:53

screen, that was all shot.

1:13:55

up in our studio

1:13:57

in and around Manchester and

1:13:59

it is just it's

1:14:01

been a herculean effort to

1:14:03

make it. Everyone has

1:14:05

worked so so hard to do it and to

1:14:08

make it as epic as possible and it you

1:14:10

know hopefully it will come across but it feels

1:14:12

like you know something a little unique for the

1:14:14

actual play scene so I'm really excited to see

1:14:16

how people respond to it and everything and I'll

1:14:18

do a I'll probably do a proper episode sort

1:14:20

of talking a bit more in depth about it

1:14:22

because it feels like a really cool moment and

1:14:24

a very big moment for me personally, and

1:14:27

you know, my company getting to

1:14:29

work with Critical Role and not only

1:14:31

that, being the first company that

1:14:33

Critical Role has ever outsourced production to,

1:14:35

which is, you know, feels like

1:14:37

a pretty epic moment and win for

1:14:39

us. So, yeah, very

1:14:41

exciting. So awesome. We are

1:14:43

so proud you. Hope people like it. Thank

1:14:46

you. the

1:14:49

most obscene amount of hours of

1:14:51

work over the last few months.

1:14:53

But we're getting there. The edit

1:14:55

is pretty much locked in. So

1:14:57

we're refining now, which is an

1:15:00

exciting place to be. So yeah,

1:15:02

go and check out Thresher over

1:15:04

on Critical Role, Beacon, YouTube, Twitch.

1:15:06

I think it's all going to

1:15:08

be all over that place, all

1:15:10

those places. So yeah, go check

1:15:12

that out. My other show, Rotating

1:15:14

Heroes podcast, we've just launched into

1:15:16

our campaign two. We're

1:15:18

off into space

1:15:20

doing an epic

1:15:22

kind of steam

1:15:24

punky, space punky

1:15:26

type adventure, very

1:15:29

treasure planet inspired

1:15:31

and we're having an

1:15:33

absolute blast. Yes,

1:15:36

I've got John Mackie, Erin Keefe, and

1:15:39

George Brombera in Arc One. And if

1:15:41

you haven't heard, Erin and

1:15:43

John improvised together, you need to because

1:15:45

it's a treat. They are

1:15:47

just the most amazing duo together.

1:15:49

So yeah, go and check that

1:15:51

out. Otherwise, I will just keep

1:15:53

continuing to plug the Kickstarter. This

1:15:56

is such a huge moment for us at

1:15:58

3BH. And it would mean

1:16:00

the world to us if you

1:16:02

would be a part of helping

1:16:04

make this thing that putting so

1:16:07

much time and effort into a

1:16:09

success. And I hope

1:16:11

that you enjoy it. We've seen

1:16:13

the cover already, it

1:16:15

looks sick. It's so, so cool. And

1:16:18

the contents is to be even

1:16:20

more incredible. So if you

1:16:22

can, please go and check that out. That would

1:16:24

mean a lot. That was a lot

1:16:26

of words. That was a big episode.

1:16:28

Thank you so much for everyone who listened. Thank

1:16:30

you to my wonderful co

1:16:33

-hosts. of this episode and

1:16:35

we will be back very

1:16:37

soon. So I guess

1:16:39

that's it for us this week.

1:16:41

So long, Shiavo. So

1:16:43

long, Shiavo. So

1:16:46

long, Shiavo. Pervert

1:16:49

pervert. That

1:17:28

was a hit podcast.