Latest / Sessions Canceled / A New GM's Struggles And Successes Running CAIN: Ep. 172

Transcript

A New GM's Struggles And Successes Running CAIN: Ep. 172 · Sessions Canceled

• 0:08
  Hey, everybody. So one of the players really
• 0:17
  thought they were just that guy and they went off on their own
• 0:19
  to fight the sin and then found the palace and then got stuck in
• 0:22
  the palace. And yeah, that was the fastest
• 0:25
  player death I've ever seen in Cain.
• 0:26
  So I, I guess sessions cancelled.
• 0:28
  It's really only been about 15 minutes.
• 0:32
  Yeah. I thought you were going to say
• 0:34
  one of the players thought they were that guy and decided to GM.
• 0:37
  I feel like that would have it has.
• 0:44
  Such a negative connotation, like they thought they were good
• 0:47
  enough to be AI mean it. Does, but it would have been
• 0:49
  funny. You're absolutely right, it does
• 0:53
  have a negative connotation. But like at the.
• 0:55
  Moment. Really hit him with the think
• 0:57
  fast chuckle nuts. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04
  Nice, nice. Welcome back everybody to the
• 1:10
  Sessions Castle Podcast. It's the Isaiah.
• 1:12
  I'm here with Josh, I am here, and I upheld my end of the
• 1:16
  bargain. The wrangled moon in and here
• 1:20
  she is. Hello that.
• 1:26
  Was really delayed. I I listen.
• 1:30
  She's like, hold on, I got to boot up.
• 1:31
  I got to boot up my brain to stop working for a moment.
• 1:34
  Spot just deer headlight system. Wait, where am I?
• 1:40
  It's. Like when you ask the elementary
• 1:42
  student and what's your name, little girl?
• 1:46
  I don't know. Kevin.
• 1:49
  Kevin. Kevin.
• 1:53
  I but ironically I feel like that's exactly how Ray would
• 1:56
  react if you asked. Kevin, Yeah.
• 2:06
  Brain. Brain deleted.
• 2:08
  Look, you've known him long enough to you can talk to him
• 2:11
  and like you'll just sit there 1st 30 seconds and go.
• 2:14
  Were you fucking listening to me?
• 2:15
  He goes, Oh yeah, no, I was like.
• 2:19
  No, he wasn't. Yeah, no, I was totally
• 2:21
  listening. Fucking liar.
• 2:24
  So I said no, you know. Like liar.
• 2:29
  Like a liar. But yeah, anyway, we are back at
• 2:33
  it again, back on Kane, because as I hinted out last episode, we
• 2:38
  have a relatively new GM running Kane as her second ever thing.
• 2:45
  And explores myself. As we said, ever.
• 2:50
  I thought it was first ever. No, I so I can like 27th can I
• 2:58
  think. The before times.
• 3:01
  The land before times I did try to DMA 5 E session.
• 3:10
  I got through like one session and then my second session I had
• 3:14
  a panic attack and I couldn't go on anymore.
• 3:18
  OK, Well, OK. In her defense, in her kind of
• 3:21
  interred entrant and her defense, we started at level 15.
• 3:24
  I don't. Know what I?
• 3:28
  Yeah, yeah, right. You're like, oh, wait, wait.
• 3:30
  Yeah, look. I don't know.
• 3:34
  Whose idea was that? I.
• 3:37
  It was my fault. Oh, brother.
• 3:39
  No, brother. What is that, brother?
• 3:44
  Yeah. No, I don't know.
• 3:45
  What it's? Thinking.
• 3:48
  That was a bad. That was a bad idea.
• 3:52
  Oh, that's really funny. Great call on my end.
• 3:54
  We also that's really funny. I'm guilty of this had several
• 3:58
  players just going full homebrew, so it really just
• 4:01
  added to the bullshit. In my defense, I was playing a
• 4:03
  blood hunter, I was playing a marsh, I was playing a Mercer
• 4:05
  blood hunter. I was the least of the
• 4:07
  problematic one my. Guy, you couldn't just play a
• 4:10
  fucking fighter and be done with it, God damn.
• 4:13
  I allowed homebrew. You should.
• 4:16
  She should so. Like I was like oh homebrew is
• 4:18
  so cool I like this. One everyone.
• 4:21
  Have fun. Yeah, No, I know what the train
• 4:23
  of thought is. I know what the train of thought
• 4:25
  is. Have you seen, I can't remember
• 4:27
  what his name is. He was on Critical Role.
• 4:29
  He's got the like the quiff tear and it's like, so you know,
• 4:33
  thanks Jim for running your first session with us.
• 4:36
  You know, we're really excited and the guys like get what?
• 4:37
  What? Yeah, whatever.
• 4:38
  Yeah, yeah, you're welcome. And he's like, so I'm playing
• 4:40
  one guy get 1 character. Like, so I'm playing a a
• 4:42
  completely home brew class and he just slowly rotates his head
• 4:45
  to look at the GM, but it's the sound of like stone grinding on
• 4:49
  stone. And he's like, did you did you
• 4:52
  say he could use homebrew? And he's like, yeah, man,
• 4:53
  whatsoever. And then his head rotates back
• 4:56
  to the player and he goes, please change your character.
• 4:57
  And he's like, what? No, I'm not going to change my
• 4:59
  character. He said I could do it.
• 5:02
  I'll send you the sword after we forget a score.
• 5:04
  It's so good. Oh my God.
• 5:07
  Valid. Yeah, that was that was a fun
• 5:11
  time. I you know, that's one of those
• 5:15
  characters where I had I had that character for the one shot.
• 5:19
  Didn't get to really use them. Use them for a one shot was
• 5:22
  like, I want to use this character in a full campaign and
• 5:24
  then I just didn't. Meanwhile, I'm like every life's
• 5:27
  last five characters that might have been named fucking Nikola.
• 5:29
  So like, I don't know what. The fuck?
• 5:31
  Just some variation of. Niko like, I just really like
• 5:35
  Niko's character. Like dead ass.
• 5:38
  I barely remember anything from that.
• 5:42
  Like one shot I was DM ING, I I I just blocked out of my mind.
• 5:46
  It was just such a bad experience for me at the time.
• 5:50
  So like I I just, I really don't remember anything.
• 5:56
  You're valid bud, but. It's fine.
• 5:59
  Now that you have succeeded at Dming A1 shot, I expect much of.
• 6:03
  What? What's successful I.
• 6:06
  Don't. Know I think it was I think it
• 6:08
  was successful and before we get into it, but please follow us on
• 6:12
  your podcast platform of choice. Thanks, appreciate you and
• 6:15
  maybe, you know, pass us a coffee so we can pay Brett and
• 6:19
  get him out of the bed eating dungeon for now.
• 6:22
  I'll leave him there. Besides that though, no, yeah, I
• 6:25
  think on the whole. Sorry, I just I love the the
• 6:30
  stumbling over that one you had there.
• 6:35
  Look, I'm trying. I was trying to hit him with
• 6:37
  that ad. Rick fucking lightning round ad
• 6:41
  Yeah I think has dark moon. Sorry.
• 6:45
  I don't give a fuck, just. Say that fair enough.
• 6:48
  Yeah, I think has to be honest you did pretty good for a first
• 6:53
  one shot, especially if it's Kane.
• 6:57
  Yeah, Kane, Yeah, Kane, because you have to say with all the
• 7:01
  Kane and given how sort of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey and a
• 7:13
  linear as Kane is, yeah, I mean, I think you handled the
• 7:18
  magnitude of stuff that that one shot throws at you.
• 7:21
  Yeah, the that system throws at you.
• 7:23
  System. Yeah, I mean, oh, go on please.
• 7:28
  I was going to say I had a lot of fun, like working on the
• 7:32
  session again. Like the one thing I will always
• 7:38
  say about the the rule book is that it everything is just so
• 7:42
  scattered. It's so hard to find.
• 7:44
  What you need, it's not the easiest book to reference.
• 7:49
  It it, it prioritized pretty art book a little bit over ease of
• 7:54
  readability, yeah. It really did and the honestly
• 7:59
  the best advice you know ultimately.
• 8:01
  That is a choice every game has to make, right?
• 8:03
  It's a paradigm of. It's like a sliding scale.
• 8:06
  It's true. It's true.
• 8:08
  A a certain someone who made a certain fabulous Ultima seemed
• 8:11
  to have figured it out pretty well.
• 8:12
  But it's fine. Not everyone can be Emma.
• 8:13
  It's fine. I mean, I would argue that
• 8:16
  Fabulous Ultima slides much more in the useful reference book
• 8:19
  direction. Yes, but it's it is.
• 8:22
  Like, it's not an it's not that. It's not to say it's an ugly
• 8:25
  book, but it didn't go for as much of an art piece as Kane is.
• 8:30
  So I, I think the thing that Fabulous did and and so I'm
• 8:33
  going to kind of disagree with you, is that it, it very
• 8:37
  specifically looked like an old video game like booklet that
• 8:43
  you'd find in a case. Sure, but Kane actively
• 8:48
  sacrificed legibility in certain sections.
• 8:52
  It'd be for the sake of cool page layout, you know?
• 8:56
  And that's kind of what it's kind of like the Mork Board
• 8:58
  books where there's elements of it that are, Morkborg takes it
• 9:03
  to an extreme, but there's elements of it that are so
• 9:06
  visually like cool looking that it's almost impossible to read.
• 9:13
  I have seen, yeah, I've seen a little bit of Morkborg.
• 9:15
  It does a. Little Kane, Kane Kane is not
• 9:17
  quite to that degree, but like it.
• 9:18
  It has elements of that which it's not really a complaint.
• 9:25
  It's just like a. It is what it is.
• 9:27
  And it does mean that as a reference, as a reference book,
• 9:31
  it becomes slightly harder to reference, yeah.
• 9:34
  Yeah, that's valid. And I think Fabula, I think what
• 9:38
  the, the, what you're picking up with on Fabula is that Fabula
• 9:41
  has an aesthetic for the book, like the book has an aesthetic
• 9:46
  and a vibe to it, but the critical information is clearly
• 9:50
  laid out in a very almost textbook kind of fashion.
• 9:55
  So it it feels visually appealing, but is also easy to
• 9:59
  reference. Fair enough.
• 10:01
  I'll have to give you that one. Give or take a couple of bits
• 10:04
  here and there that I won't nitpick too much on, but yeah.
• 10:12
  So cast I got to ask you, I think just to to to hit start
• 10:15
  with my one of my first hard hitting journalistic questions.
• 10:17
  I say is I? Pushed my fucking glasses.
• 10:19
  I'm like a nerd. I have one.
• 10:22
  So I I do, I do I have a question.
• 10:24
  I don't know. I know I didn't write it down,
• 10:26
  which doesn't help you as much here, but I think this might be
• 10:31
  a slightly different decent opener here.
• 10:33
  Well, I don't know. Wait, actually here before I say
• 10:35
  this, which one were you looking at first?
• 10:37
  I say it the first one. OK, hold on.
• 10:39
  Let me. Yeah.
• 10:42
  OK, so let me let me ask real quick, OK?
• 10:46
  This is the main thing I want to know for mostly for my own
• 10:50
  personal sake. What about Kane made you?
• 10:59
  Now I have to rephrase my question slightly because I
• 11:02
  thought you had never GM D anything before.
• 11:05
  Oh, OK. But second game I almost almost
• 11:11
  still kind of counts as having not jammed much before.
• 11:13
  Like one session of AD and D is like it counts but like not
• 11:18
  that. Sort of.
• 11:19
  Yeah, like sort of what about Kane made you be like, this is
• 11:25
  the thing that's going to make me want to run, And the reason I
• 11:28
  asked that because Kane is a good game.
• 11:34
  Don't get me wrong, I like the design of it a lot.
• 11:36
  It's a fucking weird game. It it, it is a very weird game.
• 11:40
  It's. Weird as fuck and like someone
• 11:43
  sliding into the jamming seat with a really weird system out
• 11:49
  the gate. Or at least almost quite almost
• 11:51
  out the gate. I feel like it's quite unusual.
• 11:55
  Now granted you have played as a player in other games, so like.
• 11:59
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 12:00
  So you had the foot in the door a little bit in that regard, but
• 12:02
  still being like this is a really.
• 12:06
  Like obscure one like out there one, right?
• 12:10
  What? Why for why?
• 12:14
  Like what made it click? Yeah, like I just like what made
• 12:17
  it click better. Well, 'cause so I'm, I'm a, I'm
• 12:22
  a player in Isaiah's Game Lancer campaign.
• 12:27
  And he had mentioned pain before in the past.
• 12:33
  And I read through the book and I found it intriguing because
• 12:38
  it's not like solely combat based.
• 12:42
  It's very much about the story behind like this, the birth of
• 12:47
  the sin. And when it comes to me and
• 12:49
  making like, for instance, D&D characters, yeah, it's like
• 12:55
  figuring out like, why this character?
• 12:57
  Like what happened to this character?
• 12:58
  What made them fall into this full of despair and what it's
• 13:05
  what the little things that made it just spin out of control.
• 13:10
  I guess I like finding the intricacies of character
• 13:14
  development in that way. So Kane kind of brought apart a
• 13:19
  lot of things I enjoy in making characters.
• 13:24
  OK. If I can spin out that question
• 13:27
  slightly more than. So what you're saying is the the
• 13:34
  drama and the premise of designing the sins, which is
• 13:39
  kind of the main chunk of your prep in that game was appealing
• 13:46
  and because the because of the thing that you do the most work
• 13:51
  for prepping in that game was appealing, that made you want to
• 13:55
  sit in the GMC? Because the the prep part.
• 13:58
  Was intriguing. Yes.
• 14:01
  That's interesting, OK, because a lot of people, I think Isaiah,
• 14:07
  you probably would generally agree with this.
• 14:09
  A lot of people look at GM ING as like the prepping is a
• 14:15
  necessary evil, but rarely interesting.
• 14:22
  But you almost were intrigued by that background work with this
• 14:25
  game and it's which actually, now that I'm thinking about it
• 14:30
  in the moment, is kind of funny because I had a similar thought
• 14:34
  when I was running Apocalypse World the first time.
• 14:37
  I liked doing the fronting the fronts prep.
• 14:41
  So I yeah, OK, follow up question.
• 14:47
  I guess 2 follow up questions technically the first one being
• 14:51
  did you know it was by the same guy who designed Lancer?
• 14:55
  Yes. OK.
• 14:56
  Did that add to the appeal? Little.
• 15:01
  Really. OK, I just I thought it was cool
• 15:05
  because I know I know he's done multiple game.
• 15:08
  Yes, like his most his magnum opus Goblins with the fat ass
• 15:12
  Yeah, which we. Cannot one always brings it?
• 15:16
  Up. Yeah, We can't forget it.
• 15:17
  It's very important. Can't forget it.
• 15:18
  It's very important. I agree.
• 15:20
  It's very important. But yeah, I do.
• 15:23
  I do. I do know it was about the same
• 15:24
  that I didn't answer. OK, But that wasn't necessarily
• 15:27
  like a big selling point per SE. OK.
• 15:29
  And then have you watched Jiu Jitsu Kaizen or Chainsaw Man
• 15:35
  which are like. The two really.
• 15:37
  Big touchstones. OK, you have watched both.
• 15:40
  OK, so the the touchstones were also appealing.
• 15:44
  OK. All right, all right, So this is
• 15:46
  Yeah. All right, this is falling into
• 15:47
  place. I I mostly asked that from a a
• 15:52
  little bit of my own validating my own hypothesis, I guess,
• 15:59
  because because for me, I don't know IA lot of people.
• 16:05
  I feel like a lot of games try to tackle the problem of how do
• 16:10
  you how do you get someone to transition from player to GM?
• 16:14
  And I have often had the thought that the GM mini game quote UN
• 16:19
  quote, which is to say, primarily speaking, the prep
• 16:24
  needs to have an appeal about it in some way.
• 16:28
  Like I've always felt like that is important, not the not the
• 16:32
  sole thing, but I've always felt like that's important.
• 16:34
  And for me personally, if I'm reading a game, I don't know if
• 16:39
  you're on the same page or not on this Isaiah, but if I'm
• 16:41
  reading a game and I'm thinking about what kind of work I need
• 16:45
  to do the to prep a session, and that work sounds tedious, it's
• 16:52
  really hard for me to push through and want to play the
• 16:54
  game, even if I like the system. Yeah, I mean, I, I definitely
• 16:58
  agree with you there. And I, I think a big thing that
• 17:00
  I always am a proponent for when getting people into like playing
• 17:04
  games, reading games or running games is just kind of knowing
• 17:07
  their vibe. Like the homework thing is
• 17:09
  definitely like if you don't see it as much as the necessary
• 17:13
  evil, it is better. But I think the, at least for
• 17:16
  me, the thing that always makes you push through that at the end
• 17:18
  of the day is if if I think the vibes are going to be worth it
• 17:23
  when the actual when pen hits paper essentially.
• 17:27
  Yeah, IA good. A good example of what I'm I'm
• 17:30
  talking about too, a game we've just been recently talking about
• 17:34
  Draw Steel, which is a game I like a lot, but I'm hesitant to
• 17:39
  want to run because I can see what the prep is going to
• 17:42
  involve and I'm like, I don't know, boss I.
• 17:48
  Don't know boss like. A lot that that's kind of why
• 17:52
  like Ross Steel's cool. I like it, but.
• 17:56
  I mean, we know you hate it. It's OK.
• 17:58
  I this fucking guy, I swear to God.
• 18:01
  You could just say it. Yeah, you could just say it.
• 18:04
  No, I, I as much as I like it, I'm like, yeah, this.
• 18:07
  There's a lot. There's a lot of a lot.
• 18:09
  I think the prep side, yeah. And you know, part of that is
• 18:13
  also, you know, the experience of having run a decent chunk of
• 18:18
  games and knowing what different kinds of games ask for you prep
• 18:21
  wise. But anyway, regardless, getting
• 18:25
  back to what Cass said, yes, it's sort of confirming a
• 18:29
  thought I had. And that like, yeah, the, the
• 18:33
  elements of there's an element of, like you said, the vibes,
• 18:36
  but also the prep, the homework and and the homework being
• 18:39
  somewhat enjoyable. OK, Yeah.
• 18:44
  All right. All right.
• 18:47
  Continue from here. Isaiah.
• 18:48
  That was that was the main one. I that was the main one.
• 18:50
  I wanted to get out. There's probably other things
• 18:52
  will come to me, but that was the big one.
• 18:53
  It's funny. Yeah.
• 18:55
  All right. Well, so my opening question to
• 18:58
  you is generally speaking for the audience, what is your
• 19:03
  experience with role-playing outside of the strict player GM
• 19:07
  relationship? And do you think that whatever
• 19:12
  that prior experience you may have, because I know you have
• 19:15
  some of it, is what helped you run a more narrative driven,
• 19:19
  dare I say almost rules light system?
• 19:24
  Oh, don't use that phrase. You're going to.
• 19:26
  You're going to get me going. I look, that's why I said, dare
• 19:28
  I say, because I don't want to get your goat.
• 19:31
  I'm not trying to get your goat, but you know exactly what the
• 19:33
  fuck I'm talking about. Like I do, yeah, I know.
• 19:36
  My brain immediately went is Cato rules light system?
• 19:38
  No, not really, but it's more rules light than AD and D.
• 19:43
  Is it? Yes, because you'd like, you
• 19:46
  have, you have range bands, but you don't have specific integral
• 19:49
  ranges for each thing. You don't have specific attacks.
• 19:52
  You just have roles like there are less things, there's less
• 19:56
  complexity to Kane's system. We could go down this rabbit
• 20:01
  hole for a while, so we'll move on.
• 20:03
  But yeah. You got it.
• 20:09
  You got it. I knew I was gonna activate his
• 20:11
  almonds. I knew it.
• 20:12
  That's why I I literally put it in the question itself to cover
• 20:16
  my ass 'cause I knew this was gonna happen.
• 20:20
  Is there a way you can rephrase the question 'cause I feel like
• 20:22
  I'm not quite understanding what you're asking.
• 20:26
  So I know, I know that you got your start with role-playing in
• 20:30
  general outside of the tabletop space.
• 20:33
  Oh, OK, yes. Do you want to give us a little
• 20:36
  bit of information on where that start was for the audience?
• 20:40
  And do you think that that experience gave you tools that
• 20:47
  you found helpful for bringing into Kane in the way that Kane
• 20:51
  is very narrative driven, in the way that you have to sort of
• 20:54
  flow through the narrative in a really free form way?
• 20:58
  Gotcha. OK, so.
• 21:00
  Basically, if I could rephrase, how much was the rope play
• 21:03
  informative? I'm kidding.
• 21:04
  I'm kidding. Motherfucker can't.
• 21:06
  Can't. Not a single episode.
• 21:08
  I can't. I can't help it.
• 21:10
  I can't help it. Finish him, chat around with
• 21:12
  you, extrude his. Balls blast his cock off.
• 21:15
  Damn, it's a cock off. So for me, this is going like
• 21:22
  briar, like getting into a role play and stuff like that.
• 21:27
  I used to want to be like a fiction writer.
• 21:29
  I always wanted to be an author when I was younger and I always
• 21:33
  liked making stories and, and writing my writing characters
• 21:37
  and stuff like that. And then I got on to TV and
• 21:41
  talked about things and that's sort of that to like role play
• 21:46
  groups of all different kinds, making OCS if you will.
• 21:54
  And just, I've always had a lot of fun just building characters
• 21:58
  and making them, which is why DD was always so appealing to me in
• 22:04
  general, because it's another form of character building,
• 22:07
  right? And I think just years of
• 22:14
  role-playing and and character building kind of made it fairly
• 22:21
  easy to to step into AGM spot. I will say I'm not the best at
• 22:30
  like fast improv. I've gotten better over the
• 22:35
  years, but I first started playing like Dean.
• 22:40
  I was really, really, really bad at it.
• 22:43
  So it's it's interesting that you bring that up because Siffy
• 22:47
  and Snubby have both said that their experience in like pen and
• 22:54
  paper role play, like writing role play as made the improv
• 23:00
  muscle of the tabletop says less of a second nature thing and
• 23:03
  more love like a an active muscle that they have to pull.
• 23:07
  Kind of like when you're not super fluent in a second
• 23:09
  language, you have to think about it and then translate it.
• 23:11
  Yeah. Do you think that maybe on the
• 23:14
  inverse that starting with pen and paper role play made things
• 23:20
  potentially a little more complicated then?
• 23:24
  In a way, yes, especially if it's a character that I know a
• 23:31
  little more thoroughly. Like I like the the idea of
• 23:36
  being able to think on an answer of how this character reacts to
• 23:39
  a situation versus quickly thinking about it and just going
• 23:43
  with it. Because sometimes it might be
• 23:46
  like, oh, this character might have not reacted that way now
• 23:50
  that I think about it later on, right.
• 23:54
  But that also pushes in the fact that because I was the player of
• 23:59
  India day player for so long, I have grown that improv muscle a
• 24:04
  little bit more and found it find it a little easier to quit,
• 24:10
  like quit back and forth. So yeah.
• 24:18
  Honestly, I, I think it's, I think it's interesting you
• 24:19
  touched on something that I've thought about it quite a bit,
• 24:21
  which is the, like, would my character have said or done that
• 24:26
  if I had had more thought into like the action that was being
• 24:31
  taken? And I, I think the ultimate
• 24:34
  answer that I stumble on is that it doesn't necessarily matter
• 24:38
  what they would have done. It's not potentially what they
• 24:42
  did. Do you know what I mean?
• 24:43
  Like you always think about in your head how you would act in a
• 24:47
  certain situation, and then that situation arises, then you don't
• 24:50
  act the way you think you would. Yeah, that's just kind of how
• 24:55
  your brain works, right? You're like.
• 24:56
  No that that is a good way to put it though.
• 24:58
  It's a it's the debate you have with yourself in the shower and
• 25:01
  then you're like always the winner and then you in your head
• 25:03
  you're like and then everyone clapped and then the same thing.
• 25:05
  Happened to your life and you're like damn, or it's like, or it's
• 25:08
  like you have an argument with somebody and then like you're
• 25:11
  you're like in the shower later or something and you're like, I
• 25:13
  should have said something different.
• 25:14
  What the fuck is wrong with? You like I Damn, I could have
• 25:16
  got. Could have got his.
• 25:19
  Ass damn I really should have brought the fact that their
• 25:21
  parents were separated. Oh, that would have done so much
• 25:23
  damage. Yeah, I mean, I definitely I, I,
• 25:28
  I consider myself decently good at the like playing it on RIP
• 25:35
  and just rolling with it and getting something interesting.
• 25:38
  But for sure I will have moments where I I consider the character
• 25:46
  and I'm like, that might not have made sense, however common.
• 25:54
  I don't want to say fix to this, but like the way I think about
• 25:58
  it is that usually when I'm making a decision like that, I
• 26:03
  as a player in making a decision for the sake of the game being
• 26:07
  more interesting, even if the character might not do that.
• 26:11
  And then if it comes up in some capacity again, where I kind of
• 26:16
  need to justify it in character, I will figure out a way to back
• 26:20
  justify it. Because ultimately I think it's
• 26:23
  more important that the game be that like be more interesting
• 26:29
  for the crazy thing I did. It's kind of that it's, it's
• 26:32
  similar to that problem of somebody wants to play the loner
• 26:38
  rogue character and then doesn't come up with a reason why the
• 26:42
  loner rogue character is travelling around with the rest
• 26:45
  of the chucklefucks. And so it's just really awkward.
• 26:48
  Like you don't end up engaging with the party or the game or
• 26:52
  the GM very much because like, why are you here and you didn't
• 26:55
  come up with a good answer? When really what you should do
• 26:57
  is make the loner rogue character, let them be a grumpy
• 27:01
  loner bitch, and then have them engage with the party and just
• 27:07
  figure out some reason later why it makes sense and just roll
• 27:11
  with it. That makes sense because you
• 27:13
  just get something more interesting in that way.
• 27:15
  So basically what I'm saying is whatever your improv thing is,
• 27:20
  prioritize the benefits of the group.
• 27:24
  Tends to work better from I feel.
• 27:26
  I will never forget the time that we were playing Strad and
• 27:30
  we were in old bone grinder and I distinctly went, OK guys,
• 27:34
  let's not do anything stupid. And then Josh goes, I'm going to
• 27:39
  roll to attack. I I didn't.
• 27:43
  Do that literally me so oh God, Nelson and and Dan and Matt
• 27:50
  weren't with us at this point, but I.
• 27:53
  Don't even remember. Yeah.
• 27:54
  It was, it was. No, I, I it was me and Twin and
• 27:59
  Sam at the same time went what? I'm sorry.
• 28:04
  It's what my character would do. We're like, no, no, you're not
• 28:07
  gonna use that against us, you fucking asshole.
• 28:12
  Well, but that was for the betterment of the game.
• 28:14
  No, it was because because without you attacking the the
• 28:19
  hags I would have never thought of the baguetting, which is
• 28:22
  probably our top 5D and D stories of all time.
• 28:26
  It's true. It's just funny how that
• 28:28
  manifested in that one specific. Yep.
• 28:34
  That's perfect. Oh my God, It's like bargaining.
• 28:38
  The bargaining dude, Sam, Sam's excitement when he was like, I
• 28:44
  don't care if this is how this works, rules is written.
• 28:47
  This is the funniest thing I've ever fucked.
• 28:53
  You're like, well, we got the GM's cosign.
• 28:55
  I guess we're good old bone grinder ruining campaigns from
• 29:00
  day one. Maybe it really.
• 29:02
  I don't think I've heard a single cast.
• 29:04
  You know what we're talking about.
• 29:05
  Or, Or are we just being idiots? Yeah.
• 29:09
  Do you have the context for this?
• 29:10
  I don't. OK, so in in the 2014 D&D module
• 29:16
  Curse of Stride. You've heard of that, right?
• 29:18
  Yes, I have. There is a part of the game
• 29:20
  called Old Bone Grinder and it's a big bone grinding mill with
• 29:24
  three hags in it and you've you come up against it you're like a
• 29:28
  level two or three like not anywhere near where you should
• 29:34
  be to potentially be fighting hags and the game is like don't
• 29:36
  give a fuck drop them in. Y'all can look all over like
• 29:41
  green text and fucking Reddit. Anywhere where people talk about
• 29:45
  stride you will see the most Rube Goldberg machine solutions
• 29:50
  to getting rid of the hags of old bone grinder or just getting
• 29:54
  the fuck out of dodge. It truly is an experience.
• 29:59
  Cause the intention is that you're supposed to come across
• 30:03
  the hags and then you as players figure out at some point or
• 30:07
  assume that they are hags. And so you're supposed to be
• 30:11
  like, all right, we leave. And the idea is that the module
• 30:15
  is trying to show you that, you know, Borovia is really
• 30:18
  dangerous and you can't just guns a blazing everything.
• 30:21
  The problem is that you're playing D&D, so 90% of the time
• 30:26
  you kick doors in and swing, sword and kill monsters.
• 30:29
  That's what you do in that. Game murder hobo, that's for
• 30:31
  real. Yeah, So what everybody assumes
• 30:34
  when they come across those hags, well, there must be some
• 30:37
  way for us to fight them because why else would they put them in
• 30:40
  front of us? And so nobody actually does the
• 30:43
  thing you're supposed to do, which is leave and come back
• 30:45
  later. Everyone just tries, just comes
• 30:48
  up with some cockamamie ass schemes to kill the hags at
• 30:53
  level 2 or whatever. So like XP to Level 3 for
• 30:56
  example, on YouTube has a story where they like kicked the hags
• 30:59
  out of the tower and then shot arrows down upon them from the
• 31:04
  windmill window and just like just like volleyed the shit out
• 31:09
  of them and killed them. Like there's just doofy ass
• 31:13
  stories because nobody actually does what Wizards wanted them to
• 31:16
  do. It's very funny there's.
• 31:19
  A fantastic conversation that we should have at some point with
• 31:24
  intent of design versus implementation of design and how
• 31:27
  it practically be is like introduced.
• 31:29
  I don't know if I'm smart enough to have that conversation, but I
• 31:31
  do want to have it with somebody at some point.
• 31:33
  Fair enough. But yeah, it just, it it it,
• 31:38
  Yeah. All I have to say, it just
• 31:40
  follows a similar round of lights.
• 31:42
  Let's just try something weird like my character's idea to
• 31:45
  stuff the hags into bags of holding and suffocate them to
• 31:49
  death and then dump their bodies out and Shiv them a couple times
• 31:52
  for. The shipping was excessive.
• 31:58
  Underkill is underrated. Sorry.
• 32:01
  It did. It did work.
• 32:02
  And you know what's crazy is that we never would have had
• 32:05
  that idea had we not killed those random brigands on the
• 32:08
  side of the road and got that bag of.
• 32:09
  Yeah, the Barbarians that we got the bag of holding from on a
• 32:12
  random, random loot table roll. Yeah, that's.
• 32:18
  Completely random. Versus Strad had a lot of
• 32:21
  fortuitous circumstances of events like like suitcasing the
• 32:26
  magic jewel we need, the character wedged the magic
• 32:31
  emerald between his butt cheeks and then walked out of the bar
• 32:34
  we were trying to steal it from and no one caught him somehow,
• 32:37
  despite being the dumbest thing we'd ever heard in our lives.
• 32:41
  Sometimes a dumb shit just works.
• 32:43
  Again, yeah, it worked. Yeah, it it really does.
• 32:48
  It shouldn't have. No, not at all.
• 32:52
  Anyway, so the next question as someone, Oh my God, don't as
• 33:03
  someone with experience primarily in D&D 5th edition and
• 33:07
  you know, some experiences as a as a player with other systems
• 33:11
  like Monster Hearts now Lancer and Kane.
• 33:17
  Would you say that with your expanded breadth of, of
• 33:22
  experience now Kane is easier to pick up as a system?
• 33:26
  And do you think that you personally would have had that
• 33:32
  easy time transitioning from 5th edition like with no other,
• 33:38
  sorry, transitioning from 5th edition with no other
• 33:41
  experience? Do you, do you personally think
• 33:43
  that you would have had a easier time with Kane based on the way
• 33:45
  it's written, the way that it, the information is presented to
• 33:47
  you, so on, so forth? Honestly, it was it.
• 33:55
  It was even with my knowledge from with with monster hearts
• 34:01
  and Lancer it is still a semi difficult system to grasp.
• 34:08
  It does seem pretty easy on like first go, but like the way the
• 34:16
  roles work is kind of weird and the way like combat, like with
• 34:24
  the sins for instance, is kind of bonky as well in a way.
• 34:30
  And I get I get it because the Keynes mostly focused on like
• 34:36
  the investigation part, which is what I was really more
• 34:40
  interested. Right.
• 34:44
  And yeah, because it's just the way the the book has its
• 34:49
  information spread out. It is just it's hard to know
• 34:52
  where to start. Like the longest time I didn't
• 34:55
  even know what you had to roll for, like for dice rolls,
• 34:58
  because it, it just, it was hard.
• 35:00
  It was just hard to find that one little section that tells
• 35:02
  you what you have to roll, right.
• 35:03
  It's it's like when you look at like the like making an exorcist
• 35:12
  part, it just says you roll 1D. Like what dice am I rolling?
• 35:16
  For fuck's sake? Like please tell me.
• 35:18
  One of Deez Nuts got them. Literally.
• 35:21
  Can't believe you've done this. Yeah, no trance like if if
• 35:28
  you're like going from from 5th edition straight to Kane, it
• 35:32
  would be a pretty like divisive jump, I would say.
• 35:41
  But like for me, is it like I've dabbled in so much already?
• 35:47
  I dabbled in like I wouldn't I wouldn't say like hellscapes was
• 35:51
  really if they jump, it's still fighty, right?
• 35:57
  But then jumping from that to Lancer was a bit of a a shock to
• 36:02
  the system. But I found Lancer a little
• 36:05
  easier to understand that. Doesn't surprise me.
• 36:09
  I just feel like the book was a a bit better laid out.
• 36:14
  I don't even I. I think what you're the friction
• 36:18
  you're feeling is ultimately comes down to Kane.
• 36:27
  We've got a bit of like a, we've got a bit of a 5050 split these
• 36:30
  days with RPG design. Games either pull in the 5E
• 36:39
  classical traditional style of like turns and initiative and
• 36:45
  attack roles and that kind of vibe with some variation there
• 36:48
  in or games tend to pull in the PBTA direction.
• 36:54
  And it seems like a lot of games these days are are leaned on one
• 36:58
  side or the other. And Kane is leaning quite a lot
• 37:01
  on that PBTA, What's the word PBTA culture and design, but
• 37:10
  doesn't necessarily do an amazing job of explaining how to
• 37:16
  do the Pbta thing. It's not quite the same cause
• 37:21
  Kane is is ultimately using its own system and design and math
• 37:26
  and stuff. But the style of game that Kane
• 37:30
  is is pulling heavily from Pbta. And and or, or maybe a little
• 37:35
  more accurate to say Kane is pulling heavily from Blades in
• 37:38
  the Dark. But Blades in the Dark is of a
• 37:41
  very distant Apocalypse World hack in and of itself.
• 37:45
  So if you jump through a couple of hoops, you get back to
• 37:48
  Apocalypse World. Anyway.
• 37:50
  It it's kind of a similar thing that me and Isaiah said about
• 37:53
  Monster Hearts, where Monster Hearts doesn't do a great job of
• 37:59
  explaining how Apocalypse, like how you're supposed to run an
• 38:03
  Apocalypse World style game. It just kind of assumes you
• 38:06
  understand. Yeah, because the difference
• 38:10
  being Monster Hearts came out not like came out in a short
• 38:14
  time period after Apocalypse World.
• 38:17
  So like it was kind of fresh in the in the ethos, like it was
• 38:21
  fresh in the design culture. So it wasn't, it wasn't that big
• 38:24
  of an assumption. With Monster Hearts.
• 38:26
  Kane has now moved quite far. Like it's been a while since
• 38:29
  Apocalypse World has first released.
• 38:30
  It's now moved quite far and it's also jumped kind of through
• 38:33
  the blades in the Dark hoop on top of that.
• 38:37
  So it's gotten distant, but there's still some of that ethos
• 38:41
  in there. So you not knowing exactly how
• 38:44
  to handle like when did the dice hit the table?
• 38:48
  How does the sin like get hurt or they how do they make
• 38:52
  progress? Like I'm not surprised that you
• 38:54
  have that friction because you started on the traditional 5.
• 38:58
  Like the amount of people that look at Apocalypse or older
• 39:02
  Blades of the Dark and see that there's no initiative roles and
• 39:07
  they just like give up. Like people will be like,
• 39:11
  there's no initiative. How do you know whose turn it
• 39:13
  is? And.
• 39:14
  The answer is all the time. And the answer is, well, you
• 39:17
  don't. There is no turn orders in the
• 39:18
  traditional sense. And people just like shut down.
• 39:21
  They're like, that doesn't make any sense.
• 39:22
  My brain. They just like, can't they just
• 39:25
  like do not because you're, they've gotten so used to the
• 39:28
  D&D initiative order attack on your turn thing.
• 39:32
  And I think some video games are also partially responsible for
• 39:35
  this, right? Because video games classically
• 39:39
  pull from the D&D, right? I mean, Final Fantasy is just AD
• 39:45
  and D fan project made by a bunch of Japanese dudes
• 39:48
  ultimately, right? Like they're all pulling from
• 39:51
  that old school D&D, which is pulling from war gaming, which
• 39:56
  is pulling from board games, which is pulling from actual old
• 39:59
  school war games of like war war.
• 40:04
  It's a rabbit hole. It's a rival.
• 40:08
  It's a rival, but the the point I'm getting at is you were very
• 40:12
  comfortable in that traditional style.
• 40:15
  You then shifted into a quite a different vibe that a lot of
• 40:19
  other games are doing, but you haven't played any of the Source
• 40:22
  games. So I'm not surprised that you
• 40:24
  had this like friction in the transition.
• 40:29
  It's like I did briefly play Monster Hearts for like one or
• 40:34
  two sessions. Is it 2 sessions, Isaiah?
• 40:36
  3. 33 sessions and like, I think with Monster Hearts it wasn't as
• 40:44
  difficult 'cause I obviously I wasn't behind the GM screen, I
• 40:47
  was a player. You're not behind the screen.
• 40:49
  I also think Monster Hearts feels more approachable.
• 40:53
  Yeah. From a it felt.
• 40:55
  A little easier to like understand in a way.
• 40:59
  Yeah, well, yeah, 'cause Monster Hearts is, is the, the premise
• 41:02
  is very approachable, right? Like it's very like, Oh yeah,
• 41:06
  OK, I get what what the vibe is here.
• 41:08
  Exactly. Kane is, as we established,
• 41:13
  Kane's kind of fucking weird. Kane's kind of fucking weird.
• 41:16
  It's a little weird, especially if you're not super familiar
• 41:20
  with the source material it's pulling from, then it's really
• 41:23
  weird. And I did my damn best.
• 41:27
  Because like the closest, the closest, like, 'cause let's be
• 41:32
  real, Kane is a weeb game, right?
• 41:34
  Like Kane's very Japanese in its vibe.
• 41:37
  It's not made by a Japanese man but or a Japanese person, but
• 41:40
  it's very Japanese in its vibe. The closest comparison I can
• 41:46
  think of for Kane is like maybe Men in Black, but that's not
• 41:49
  really that close, you know? Yeah, no, I, I see what you're
• 41:54
  saying though. Yeah, the like actually.
• 41:58
  Maybe supernatural? Maybe.
• 42:01
  Supernatural, the one that I was thinking of and I, I shout out
• 42:05
  to anybody who's watched this fucking Martin Mysteries.
• 42:10
  I Yeah. Yeah, yeah, OK, nice.
• 42:14
  I could. Nice.
• 42:17
  Feels good. Feels good when someone goes
• 42:20
  that one. I do.
• 42:22
  I do again, though still like, not quite like, still a little
• 42:27
  not like, yeah, it really is. It's it really is JJK.
• 42:31
  Like that's the thing, right? Yeah, it's hard to break that
• 42:34
  mold of like, yeah, what if it's what if everybody was Yuji from
• 42:38
  JJK like. Yeah, yeah.
• 42:40
  Oh. Man, I I found that when I was
• 42:45
  when I was reading through Kane, like obviously like it's
• 42:49
  inspirations were like JJK and Chainsaw Man.
• 42:52
  I found it was very meaning more towards like the JJK route
• 42:57
  versus Chainsaw man just because the premise and like I think sin
• 43:04
  and. I think the brutality and the
• 43:07
  and the weirdness of Chainsaw Man is where is really comes
• 43:11
  through. Yeah.
• 43:13
  Oh yeah, like the 'cause you know, like devils in in Chainsaw
• 43:17
  Man. The concept of how they work is
• 43:20
  kind of like, it's a cool idea, but it is also weird and not you
• 43:28
  got to like wrap your head around it a little bit.
• 43:30
  It takes a minute to be like, OK, I, I see what we're doing.
• 43:33
  Yes, I sort of understand. To A to a point point.
• 43:39
  You know, that's funny that you like we brought Chainsaw Man
• 43:41
  because I, I think it's really hilarious that I, as big a fan
• 43:47
  of Kobeni as I am, did not make a Kobeni style character as my
• 43:52
  it's my first game character. In fact, I would say Sunday is
• 43:57
  about as far from Kobeni as you could.
• 43:59
  Oh my God, ABS fucking lutely. As unlike Kobeni's maxed out
• 44:04
  self preservation instinct to a point where it's literally a
• 44:06
  fault, no Sunday has no preservation instinct.
• 44:15
  Unless he was he was a team. Was a fucking treat though.
• 44:17
  Oh, dude, I, we can't get into the heavier parts of what
• 44:21
  happened in that session for content reasons, but like, man,
• 44:26
  I, I think I said it, I, I did not expect that portion of her
• 44:32
  back story to come up at all. Like I, I was expecting maybe,
• 44:38
  you know, her girlfriend and her two bunnies from San Francisco
• 44:42
  and like, you know how she's like, I don't really care if my
• 44:44
  family's gone, but I do miss my friends.
• 44:46
  No, the, the truly the darkest tidbit of her back story came up
• 44:51
  and I, I was like, I, I didn't know that I was ready for this,
• 44:56
  but I am now. It was.
• 44:58
  Just it was just so funny because, like I had already
• 45:03
  planned use on using this specific character in in these
• 45:07
  themes even before you came to me and like gave me the full war
• 45:10
  of Sunday as well, which was it was just a fun like a
• 45:14
  coincidence kind. Yeah, fortuitous circumstance
• 45:17
  events, yeah. Exactly.
• 45:21
  Yeah, that was a I was wild. I I was so bummed.
• 45:26
  So Josh, I built that character with ardents like right, like
• 45:29
  I'm I'm here to to the bombs and I rolled I think like 76 and I
• 45:39
  did not. I think I only rolled like 2
• 45:41
  successes. Oh jeez.
• 45:44
  I was so fucking mad dude. Did you die?
• 45:49
  No, no, no. I did pretty good.
• 45:53
  Did anyone? So no.
• 45:54
  No. That kind of comes in I I like I
• 45:59
  was gonna bring it up a little bit later, but there was some
• 46:03
  rules whacking. I mean, I, I will switch the,
• 46:05
  the the the sort of series of events rounds, Yeah, but I'll,
• 46:10
  I'll let, I'll let Cass talk about it because the next
• 46:13
  question now next question is a. Oh boy.
• 46:17
  Which part of the actual investigation slash hunt section
• 46:21
  of the one shot was most difficult for you?
• 46:25
  Was it either the implementation of the tension and pressure
• 46:28
  clocks, which kind of also pertains to like pacing in
• 46:32
  general, or was it the weaving plot lines in the investigation
• 46:41
  or the actual combat with the SIM?
• 46:46
  Can before you I do I mean answer, but I do have a a follow
• 46:52
  up question based on something you just said there Isaiah, but
• 46:55
  go ahead. I don't think I had a lot of
• 47:00
  issue with the actual investigation parts itself.
• 47:06
  It was pretty easy to kind of weave in like the things you
• 47:09
  guys did to like hear and like catch on to.
• 47:13
  I think the the combat with the sin was probably the thing I
• 47:17
  struggled the most with because like the rules there is kind of
• 47:25
  topsy turvy in a way. Because put it plainly, they had
• 47:32
  all these and like the trauma question before they entered the
• 47:35
  palace, like they had them pretty much all set up ready to
• 47:38
  go, which were all true. And from what I remember and
• 47:47
  read, I can't react unless like the sin can't react when it's
• 47:53
  when it's a trauma question being pushed at them because
• 47:55
  like, it's part of the way you defeat it, right?
• 47:58
  Yeah. So the general flow is that you
• 48:04
  as the GM don't do anything proactively.
• 48:07
  You are only. Reacting you.
• 48:09
  Only respond to what players do exactly.
• 48:12
  But yes, that is the yeah, they can kind of shut the sin down to
• 48:16
  a certain. Degree if they have the trauma.
• 48:17
  Questions. Kind of what happened I I was
• 48:23
  legitimately I was only able to attack one time before it died,
• 48:29
  but it's it's only because one player fuck you to roll the one
• 48:36
  on the wrist roll. That sounds like to me you may
• 48:39
  have missed something. That sounds only one sounds
• 48:45
  really unlikely to me. Well, so.
• 48:48
  It's it's a situation. I I went back and did the math.
• 48:51
  So the sin has it was yes, correct.
• 48:57
  Oh, sorry, now it had 1111 or 1010, OK, and it's 10.
• 49:02
  It's it's 7. It's 7 plus cat plus pressure.
• 49:06
  You guys only had two, right? Right.
• 49:11
  OK. So that's 10.
• 49:13
  So it was a situation where I rolled 3 ticks on the clock in
• 49:18
  for the trauma question, right? So anything it could have done
• 49:23
  to me, it did roll Well. Yeah, sorry, I'm getting ahead
• 49:28
  of myself. When you do the trauma question,
• 49:31
  the SIN can affect you, right? It still gets a reaction.
• 49:35
  But whatever you roll on the trauma question is deducted from
• 49:38
  how many stress you take. So we got really lucky where it
• 49:43
  kept dropping the overall stress down to yeah.
• 49:47
  So it wasn't that it was necessarily doing nothing, it
• 49:49
  just was ineffective. Basically, yeah.
• 49:52
  Yeah, and and I experienced this too when I was running the game
• 49:56
  that you know, because low level sins don't have a lot of health
• 50:00
  and this is probably has to do with the one shot formulation of
• 50:05
  running Kane. And mindset of it, right?
• 50:07
  Yeah, like where you can't have a super long investigation just.
• 50:11
  For the sake of the one shot battle.
• 50:13
  So you're not going to be going that high in pressure.
• 50:17
  So it's health can't really ever get that high unless the players
• 50:20
  are like actively fucking something.
• 50:22
  Yeah. Mm hmm.
• 50:25
  So when you get when you hit him for 3/3 of the trauma questions,
• 50:27
  that did about seven of its health total.
• 50:31
  Yeah. And then I believe it was Ant
• 50:35
  who got the finishing hit for two successes.
• 50:37
  And that was kind of all she wrote.
• 50:39
  Yeah, and the only reason why I was able to attack is because
• 50:45
  bread had we just went to attack and rolled the one on his wrist.
• 50:51
  Guy I had I got to do the fun little like the what was called
• 50:57
  it's the it's the one they can do once per per.
• 51:00
  Yeah, they're little. Yeah, yeah, I did.
• 51:06
  I don't think I really did any damage.
• 51:07
  I don't think it did some not a lot though because going through
• 51:12
  all the questions it it drains the dice down to like I think
• 51:15
  4/6 so. Yeah, the the severe attack
• 51:20
  itself didn't do that much damage, but you did kind of
• 51:23
  wombo combo him because he had rolled A1 on the wrist die.
• 51:26
  So he's taking five stress off RIP.
• 51:30
  And then the trauma questions caught him.
• 51:32
  So that did push him over his maximum.
• 51:35
  And because it's the severe attack, it can kill him if it
• 51:37
  pushes him over. It doesn't matter how many
• 51:39
  injuries he has. So Brett was like forced to take
• 51:42
  a a Cinemark and then that son of a bitch got the same Cinemark
• 51:46
  I had for my character. I remember that.
• 51:55
  So if to to reword the answer, the difficult part was running
• 52:01
  the final fight itself. Yes, I I found that the most
• 52:06
  difficult part of it. OK, that's, I mean, well, I was
• 52:15
  going to say that's maybe interesting, but I guess that
• 52:17
  does kind of make sense. Like it's when all of the
• 52:20
  mechanics kind of collapse down into one small area in that
• 52:26
  game. It is also kind of interesting
• 52:28
  because Kane doesn't like in D&D there's a little bit of a
• 52:35
  mechanical ramp up to a certain degree because, you know, you go
• 52:40
  to the dungeon, you fight a couple of goblins, you go to the
• 52:43
  next room, you have to do a trap thingy, you go to the next room,
• 52:46
  you fight like an ogre or whatever.
• 52:48
  You know, there's like a ramp up in how much stuff is getting
• 52:52
  stacked on top. But with Kane, you can kind of
• 52:56
  jump straight to the boss fight. And when you do that, it's like,
• 53:01
  yeah, everything just slams on top of you at once.
• 53:03
  So that that makes sense. The thing I'm the the my
• 53:10
  extension question on this though is since Isaiah mentioned
• 53:13
  the talismans and the pressure clock.
• 53:17
  So as someone who hasn't run clocks in any way before, the
• 53:25
  concept of clocks is something that has permeated into a lot of
• 53:29
  games right now. Like like a lot a lot.
• 53:34
  Like it seems like every new game I read has some version of
• 53:37
  clocks in there, or at least something really close.
• 53:42
  And it it's because they are a good way to measure like, you
• 53:46
  know, impending pressure or damage or status or a timer.
• 53:49
  Like it, it is a good training. But.
• 53:52
  But as someone who hasn't run it before, did did it make sense to
• 53:57
  you with no other context? And and by by no other context,
• 54:05
  what I mean is like, because this, this, this prevalence of
• 54:07
  clocks really came from it kind of sort of started with
• 54:11
  Apocalypse World, but really it got popularized with Blades in
• 54:14
  the Dark. So you haven't played and it you
• 54:19
  haven't played or or interacted at all with the source game,
• 54:23
  with the that really got the concept.
• 54:24
  Rolling. I did not know.
• 54:26
  So yeah, like, did they? Did they make sense how you're
• 54:29
  supposed to use them? In general sense, yeah, I did
• 54:36
  fumble a little bit at the beginning because I didn't, I
• 54:38
  did not realize I needed to like have the pressure run out
• 54:44
  immediately and have one tick on it already.
• 54:50
  Other than that, yeah. It's a minor.
• 54:52
  Yeah, it's a minor thing. Other than that, it was just.
• 54:57
  They make sense as like a tracking method.
• 54:59
  Yeah, the tracking method, it's like just like going through the
• 55:02
  scenes. Like when I was doing it, some
• 55:08
  portion of the one shot the chuckle sucks were split.
• 55:14
  So I'd let the four of them do their thing and then like take
• 55:20
  attention because like I wanted to be have them all do their the
• 55:24
  thing that they're doing and then switch the scene even
• 55:28
  though they were technically in two different areas.
• 55:30
  No. I mean, that's how you're,
• 55:31
  that's how you're supposed to. That is, that is an intended way
• 55:34
  to use it, yes, as a way to track the tension of a
• 55:37
  situation, even if players are like all over the place, that
• 55:40
  is. So you know what's interesting?
• 55:42
  I would not have blamed you if you had said OK because you
• 55:47
  chuckles shits are branching off because we are in between
• 55:50
  scenes. You would have just ticked
• 55:51
  another thing up. I think that's a fairway to do
• 55:54
  that. I can see that being the case,
• 55:58
  but again, I was kind of here more for the narrative of the
• 56:03
  game versus like being a big HP monster at you at the end.
• 56:09
  Yeah, that's that's also getting into some of the mechanical
• 56:12
  noodliness, which on on a first couple of sessions or a one shot
• 56:15
  or whatever you're probably not going to get into anyway.
• 56:17
  So. Exactly like one shot ended up
• 56:20
  being 2 sessions anyway so well. Yeah, of course, always is.
• 56:24
  Yeah, always is. OK.
• 56:29
  And then did the the Talisman as or or no, what's it?
• 56:36
  Is it Talisman for the the sins health?
• 56:38
  Right? That's what it's called.
• 56:40
  Yeah, the action Talisman. Execution, yeah.
• 56:41
  OK, did that make sense as a like HP bar?
• 56:46
  Yeah. OK, OK yeah, I, I was curious
• 56:50
  'cause I the first, so. Well, the first time I
• 56:55
  encountered the countdown clock thing was in Apocalypse World.
• 56:58
  But in Apocalypse World it's mostly just used as like a
• 57:00
  background prep tool. It's not necessarily a during
• 57:04
  session mechanic. But then Blades in the Dark
• 57:07
  heavily uses clocks as like one of its main core mechanics.
• 57:13
  Honestly pretty similar to how Kane uses and I remember coming
• 57:22
  across it that first time in Blades and getting it but not
• 57:29
  fully. Understanding.
• 57:32
  Yeah, like I knew like I got what it was for, but I didn't
• 57:35
  know how to properly use them in a way that felt satisfied.
• 57:39
  Like it took a while for them to really like, click in a way that
• 57:42
  made sense. And I was just curious if
• 57:48
  another game, you know, way down the line that's pulling from a
• 57:51
  similar idea if, if the mechanic still translates over well.
• 57:57
  But it sounds like it does, which I guess I shouldn't be
• 57:59
  that surprised 'cause it is just one of those mechanics when
• 58:02
  you're like, Oh yeah, this is, this makes a ton of sense.
• 58:04
  This is great. It's fantastic.
• 58:07
  It's one of those mechanics pretty pretty simple to follow,
• 58:10
  so. It's one of those mechanics
• 58:13
  where like, and Isaiah has said this, like me and Isaiah both
• 58:16
  said this, we just even if a game doesn't have some kind of a
• 58:20
  clock mechanic, we just put it in other games anyway because it
• 58:26
  just makes sense it. Just works.
• 58:28
  Yeah, it's. Like hey man, if it works it
• 58:30
  works right? No, it does.
• 58:31
  That's the thing. All right, Honestly, something,
• 58:35
  something that that I still struggle with with clocks is
• 58:39
  like using clocks the way that we do in Fabula where they are
• 58:44
  sort of trackers for long, like skill check engagements.
• 58:48
  And I think in my defense, I think my struggle with that is
• 58:51
  that Lancer just does not have the tools to make those feel fun
• 58:58
  and engaging without it being like we're just rolling dice.
• 59:01
  Then I'm trying to like describe cool things, right?
• 59:03
  There's no like tension behind it.
• 59:07
  So I that's kind of why I want to run Fabula to see if I can
• 59:10
  like capture that magic and then.
• 59:13
  Wait, sorry, are you saying you're saying it's not?
• 59:18
  You feel like it doesn't work as well in Lancer because the tools
• 59:22
  at the player's disposal is not cooperating with it,
• 59:28
  mechanically speaking. Well, yeah, what I'm saying is
• 59:30
  that I don't think I'm particularly good about the
• 59:32
  Atham. I'm wondering if there it's
• 59:36
  because Lancer feels like it has a lack of tools or I'm just not
• 59:43
  getting something and I'm I It's kind of why I want to run Fabula
• 59:46
  is because Fabula does explicitly have those tools to
• 59:48
  make those engagements fun and so that there is a back and
• 59:52
  forth between the GM and the players both trying to achieve
• 59:56
  the goal on their shit. I mean, I would say if you
• 59:59
  really really wanted to test it proper, I would say run blades.
• 1:00:05
  That would be the real tester. But I think I get what you mean.
• 1:00:10
  Yeah, I mean, I don't know, I, I, I would have to think about
• 1:00:12
  it. I didn't read enough of Lancer
• 1:00:14
  to make a a firm statement one way or the other, you know.
• 1:00:21
  Yeah, well, so the the weirdness comes in right where you as the
• 1:00:26
  player are going to succeed most of the time because you know, if
• 1:00:33
  it was just the flat roll plus whatever your trigger was, you
• 1:00:37
  might have a slightly more difficult time, right, Because
• 1:00:39
  that it was only go up to +7 I think, which is still good.
• 1:00:42
  But like, you know, +7 when you all you have to beat is A10
• 1:00:47
  typically. And then like think, Oh yeah,
• 1:00:50
  you add the difficulties, but the difficulties only Max out at
• 1:00:53
  six. So if you've got a maxed out
• 1:00:56
  trigger and you've got, let's say you're, you know what the
• 1:01:00
  players are LL6, which means they've got plus 3 grit which
• 1:01:03
  they're adding to every roll. Well then they just have a + 10
• 1:01:06
  to everything, which takes some of the tension out or it takes a
• 1:01:10
  lot of the tension out I feel. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:16
  I don't, I don't know, yeah, I don't know.
• 1:01:24
  I don't know how, what I would do with it.
• 1:01:25
  That is, that is a weird thing. I'd have to, I, I do remember
• 1:01:28
  reading the, the bit about how roles generally work in Lancer
• 1:01:33
  and the whole idea of the set DC and stuff.
• 1:01:35
  And I was kind of like, huh, all right, it's not making a ton of
• 1:01:41
  sense to me on paper, but, you know, trying it out, I might be
• 1:01:44
  able to hash it out more. I would, I'd be interested to
• 1:01:49
  see what you did with Lancer because like I said, you might
• 1:01:51
  have a better grasp on it than I do.
• 1:01:54
  But right now, like there's times where I have people roll
• 1:01:57
  and I'm just like, what the fuck is the point?
• 1:02:00
  Yeah, no, I definitely read it. Definitely came across as a
• 1:02:04
  little confusing to me on that on a first read through for
• 1:02:08
  sure. Was it sometimes go on?
• 1:02:16
  Well, you know, sometimes mechanics will come across as
• 1:02:20
  like either confusing or you feel like they're just not going
• 1:02:24
  to work. And then in play they hash out
• 1:02:25
  fine. But it feels it sounds like
• 1:02:27
  you're not having that experience, that it's not
• 1:02:29
  necessarily hashing out fine. Not at all.
• 1:02:32
  Yeah, I was going to say is this is not one of my questions, but
• 1:02:36
  I I am curious has would you ever consider running a Lancer
• 1:02:47
  even your your baptism into Mecca and tokusatsu by a certain
• 1:02:53
  someone? I don't actually think watching
• 1:02:57
  the podcast but. Whose fault to that be if?
• 1:03:01
  Not me, actually, hilariously enough.
• 1:03:04
  Oh, I thought it was you. No, no, no, no, no.
• 1:03:07
  I watch our podcast. He does.
• 1:03:12
  We'll find out if he if he texts me next week, we'll find out.
• 1:03:16
  Maybe he'll watch because I'm here.
• 1:03:17
  I don't know. Oh true true.
• 1:03:19
  So both Siffy and Snubby watched the episodes that I specifically
• 1:03:23
  referenced them in. I was like, I see, I see where
• 1:03:25
  your loyalties lie. When you get Internet clap then
• 1:03:28
  you will watch. That's funny is I I don't know
• 1:03:39
  if I would because I feel like I'm I'm lost in some Creole
• 1:03:46
  sometimes and I don't want to sound like a fucking idiot.
• 1:03:56
  I think, well OK on that note I think genuinely your only option
• 1:04:01
  is to embrace your cringe self. I've realized that they're more
• 1:04:05
  often than not I sound like an idiot while running and I just,
• 1:04:07
  I just own that shit because there's no winning.
• 1:04:13
  Listen, I was the one. I was a smart.
• 1:04:15
  I was a smart one and be like, I don't know anything about Mecca
• 1:04:20
  or anything that's let me make a character who's a fucking
• 1:04:23
  engineer. That was a good idea.
• 1:04:25
  I that is quite funny trying to hear you ad Lib on the spot like
• 1:04:30
  tech speak and I'm like, shut up, she's struggling.
• 1:04:33
  She's struggling. Listen man, I'm doing my best.
• 1:04:40
  I love Echo's a fucking idiot, but I love her.
• 1:04:43
  Like it's fair. I love EE's hilarious.
• 1:04:48
  I've never seen a a character more food motivated in my life.
• 1:04:53
  Oh my God it's so bad dude. Gosh, the amount of times where
• 1:04:58
  a character's like, and why did you agree to that?
• 1:04:59
  They're like, I don't know, they give me food.
• 1:05:00
  They must be trustworthy. They gave me.
• 1:05:05
  Food. Clearly they they only have the
• 1:05:08
  best of intentions for me. Listen and.
• 1:05:14
  They fed me. They can't possibly be.
• 1:05:17
  They can't possibly have nefarious thoughts.
• 1:05:19
  No, never. Person with nefarious thoughts.
• 1:05:23
  I didn't think it'd be this easy.
• 1:05:29
  I'll literally go. Fair enough, Fair enough.
• 1:05:32
  I I had a feeling the answer was probably no, Chief, but I was
• 1:05:36
  curious. Yeah.
• 1:05:38
  Like if I, if I was just a little more familiar with like
• 1:05:45
  the the material itself, like what it's, it's kind of like
• 1:05:49
  pulling from Zen, maybe I would. I had a similar thought about
• 1:05:53
  Lancer where I was kind of like, I don't know that I'm deep
• 1:05:57
  enough in the Mecca sauce that I could run this game in a way
• 1:06:00
  that would feel satisfying enough.
• 1:06:02
  Exactly like I could do it. But yeah, I don't know, like I'd
• 1:06:05
  be pulling from, I'd be pulling a little like I'd have like 1
• 1:06:10
  main inspiration and I'd be like, all right, I'm just going
• 1:06:12
  to work with this. Everything is just and every
• 1:06:17
  character is char as the bull. I, I, you know, honestly I was
• 1:06:22
  thinking more my main inspiration would be Zone of the
• 1:06:24
  Unders. That's valid though.
• 1:06:27
  I I would dude, I'd be so down to write because it's so zone of
• 1:06:30
  the Enders is so hilariously over top like.
• 1:06:34
  Yeah. Shit is just happening and
• 1:06:36
  you're really just holding on for dear life.
• 1:06:39
  Like why did why did Jahootie just turn white?
• 1:06:41
  Why is he called naked Jahootie? Why did he get a bigger big
• 1:06:44
  cockpit? Why did he get the cool big
• 1:06:46
  wings? What's going on?
• 1:06:47
  Where'd the big mega death laser come?
• 1:06:49
  You're just like, you're just asking so many questions and at
• 1:06:53
  some point you just go like you know, like you know what?
• 1:06:55
  I'm along for the ride. I'm in.
• 1:07:00
  Fair enough. This is not related to the
• 1:07:04
  podcast. Did y'all finish Ereka 7 cast?
• 1:07:10
  Fuck why? Why did we stop?
• 1:07:13
  We haven't finished it yet. We're pretty far in though.
• 1:07:18
  I think we were like, I need something episodes in.
• 1:07:23
  Did Ereka go through her? Her metamorphosis, so to speak.
• 1:07:29
  I think she was starting it. Or she did.
• 1:07:34
  Did you see her get cocooned, so to speak?
• 1:07:37
  No. No.
• 1:07:38
  OK. All right.
• 1:07:39
  Interesting. OK, OK, OK.
• 1:07:40
  I'm not going to say anything else.
• 1:07:41
  Did you see her get to cuckoo? When it happens, you'll know
• 1:07:44
  exactly what I mean. You're going to be like, oh, I
• 1:07:46
  didn't think he was being that literal.
• 1:07:47
  I got to ask, I got to ask Cade when we're going to start the
• 1:07:49
  start that up again. That is, I'm I'm excited to hear
• 1:07:55
  that. Anyway, sorry I'm getting I'm
• 1:07:56
  getting distracted. I am getting.
• 1:07:59
  A little. Distracted.
• 1:08:00
  Off topic. To the to the investigation
• 1:08:05
  section, something that I brought up in in the episode and
• 1:08:09
  and sort of more broadly when it comes to pacing of a game and we
• 1:08:16
  actually had just had an episode about it.
• 1:08:18
  What were your general thoughts on on your time or not your
• 1:08:24
  time? What's the word I'm looking for?
• 1:08:27
  What were your general thought processes on our progression
• 1:08:32
  through the investigation and how did you feel about if you
• 1:08:37
  did this at all? Kind of going, OK, so they're
• 1:08:39
  not really getting it. I have to like drop them a piece
• 1:08:41
  of info here. I have to sort of nudge them in
• 1:08:45
  in a direction. Did you do that at all?
• 1:08:48
  And if so, like. I definitely did.
• 1:08:54
  I did. Yeah, no, I did.
• 1:08:57
  I definitely did. I feel like this is more of a
• 1:09:05
  character, like the action of like was Brad's character.
• 1:09:09
  I was like, you already kind of know where the palace is.
• 1:09:11
  Let's go. But and then Sunday was kind of
• 1:09:13
  like, no, we need trauma questions.
• 1:09:15
  Calm the fuck down. You know, So it was after that
• 1:09:21
  that I was like, all right, I need I need to kind of throw
• 1:09:23
  them something to get them back on track, You know, Green's not
• 1:09:32
  working. No, no, I thought train of
• 1:09:37
  thought. God.
• 1:09:38
  It's fine, you're just on the spot.
• 1:09:40
  Being listened to. All about it.
• 1:09:42
  Expose myself I have. A question.
• 1:09:50
  Because I'm stupid. What was the process for
• 1:09:56
  providing us information when you thought that we might be
• 1:09:59
  stuck somewhere? Did you have an easier time, a
• 1:10:01
  harder time or generally, what was your process in going about
• 1:10:05
  it? Where, when, when did you make
• 1:10:07
  those decisions on when to give us information and how much did
• 1:10:11
  you think or not? How much did you think?
• 1:10:15
  Do you think you gave us enough? Too little?
• 1:10:19
  Too much? I find it pretty easy.
• 1:10:24
  It's kind of like slipping things in when needed.
• 1:10:30
  Like I, I think I mentioned it after the session that there
• 1:10:32
  there were, I had a few other things like the other like like
• 1:10:36
  investigation type tidbits that you guys could have seen but
• 1:10:40
  didn't. So I, I liked being over
• 1:10:46
  prepared for that just in case, but you guys were pretty easy to
• 1:10:53
  follow, like the bread crumbs per SE that I was giving you and
• 1:11:01
  tying it to the others. Again, simple like, Oh, I, I
• 1:11:07
  didn't find it too hard and I found that I didn't give a lot,
• 1:11:13
  especially when you guys, you know, went to the the L and
• 1:11:16
  talked to Post's father and all that stuff.
• 1:11:19
  The first time, like I didn't give a lot at the time.
• 1:11:23
  Wasn't until you guys went back, guys got what you really needed,
• 1:11:27
  right? Yeah, that that third question
• 1:11:29
  was a son of a bitch. It sure was, and that's the
• 1:11:33
  fucking point. Fair enough.
• 1:11:39
  For for the the character, like the the hosting question, like
• 1:11:43
  as someone who see was someone's pretty secretive about her life,
• 1:11:47
  right. So you guys, you, you guys kind
• 1:11:52
  of had to push to get that one. Yes, we really did.
• 1:11:55
  That was the thing where I was like, OK, she's kind of
• 1:11:59
  secretive. All right, I can sort of, I can
• 1:12:01
  work with that. And then when it was like, oh,
• 1:12:04
  her husband is like, yeah, well, she didn't really talk about
• 1:12:06
  herself much. I was like, oh, fuck.
• 1:12:07
  OK. There's definitely something
• 1:12:09
  we're missing If if this guy who sort of gave us two of the
• 1:12:13
  trauma questions almost simultaneously didn't have the
• 1:12:16
  third one. I was like, OK, there.
• 1:12:18
  There's something that we're missing that she's trying to
• 1:12:20
  show us. Yep.
• 1:12:24
  Yeah, that was a. That was and that, yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:26
  And that that's kind of where I wanted it to go because like, I
• 1:12:30
  didn't want it to be like super simple because that's, that's,
• 1:12:33
  you know, the name of the game. You have to investigate things
• 1:12:35
  and not everyone's going to be forthcoming with their
• 1:12:37
  information, right? True.
• 1:12:41
  And I specifically made that character, the guy you one, you
• 1:12:45
  guys had to literally threaten someone very flighty and someone
• 1:12:51
  very, like, give the information that you're kind of asking for
• 1:12:57
  and then make you leave basically.
• 1:13:02
  Because, like, for instance, Fred's character literally had
• 1:13:06
  to break down the door and then they all had to threaten him to
• 1:13:09
  get the information they needed. So yeah.
• 1:13:16
  Do you think that character lived after that day?
• 1:13:19
  Do you think after he got outed, after all the shit that he did
• 1:13:26
  got out, do you think he was like, I'm checking out?
• 1:13:30
  I want to say didn't put unfortunate.
• 1:13:38
  Understandable, that means I have unfinished work.
• 1:13:41
  I have unfinished work. Sunday's going back.
• 1:13:43
  Yeah, I should go. Like she said, if you don't, if
• 1:13:45
  you don't check out, I'm checking your ass.
• 1:13:52
  But yeah, that's pretty much most of my questions.
• 1:13:57
  I did have one where it was, you know, the given the game's
• 1:14:01
  reliance on like, relias, fuck me, reliance on spontaneous
• 1:14:07
  generation of narrative points, you know, just being like, you
• 1:14:09
  know, plucking something out of your notes and plopping it where
• 1:14:11
  you need to plop. It was that difficult for you?
• 1:14:16
  The answer seems to be yes, just on a general standard given your
• 1:14:20
  answer to the first question. But as someone who's not
• 1:14:24
  prepared a lot of notes, did you find the way that Cain tells you
• 1:14:28
  to present your notes helpful 'cause I was super curious about
• 1:14:31
  this. It it are you saying did did she
• 1:14:38
  find the way that Kane recommends prepping the game to
• 1:14:41
  be useful to be a useful method of?
• 1:14:43
  Prepping yes I I don't know why I worded these so esoterically.
• 1:14:46
  Yes, that is a. That's OK.
• 1:14:50
  I was kind of clarifying 'cause I wasn't sure on the question.
• 1:14:52
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're good.
• 1:14:56
  I would say pain is pretty informative on how to like
• 1:15:01
  fracture the investigation. It was, it was really simple to
• 1:15:08
  'cause there's, there's, there's that little flow chart for the
• 1:15:10
  investigation or like the flow chart for like points of what's
• 1:15:18
  it called? Yeah, the the the primary and.
• 1:15:22
  The connection, yeah, to the to the main host.
• 1:15:27
  And I found that it's like pretty simple to build off of
• 1:15:32
  and basically like the investigation part is just
• 1:15:36
  adding in the little tidbits that kind of their narratively.
• 1:15:43
  I think with me, I'm somebody who likes knowing what I kind of
• 1:15:50
  need to do versus just going off on a whim and doing something
• 1:15:57
  wrong. So I'm I'm the type of person
• 1:16:01
  that like would need like strict.
• 1:16:04
  You want your prep to be a little bit paint by numbers.
• 1:16:07
  Kind of in a way you like you would, you can do it like this
• 1:16:15
  and go from there basically versus like, here's all your
• 1:16:20
  tools, have fun. Because then I'm like, where the
• 1:16:22
  fuck do I start? It's interesting that that
• 1:16:28
  that's how you feel because I, I feel like Kane is actually, I
• 1:16:32
  don't know if I'd go as far as stay.
• 1:16:33
  It's completely unique in the way that it tells you to present
• 1:16:35
  your information, but it is not the norm, I don't think.
• 1:16:40
  Especially not compared to things like D&D where it's kind
• 1:16:42
  of just like, how do I present this information and the game
• 1:16:45
  just kind of shrugs and goes however you want.
• 1:16:47
  I go, well, I don't know. I don't, I don't know what I
• 1:16:50
  want, where to go exactly. Well, yeah, the difference is
• 1:16:54
  Kane is very specific in that you have to structure it as you
• 1:17:01
  have to structure it that in such a fashion that the players
• 1:17:04
  are able to investigate the mystery about a very specific
• 1:17:08
  person. And in order for that to work
• 1:17:14
  without the game coming to a screeching halt halfway through
• 1:17:17
  an investigation, the game has to be pretty direct in terms of
• 1:17:23
  what information needs to be delivered, order of operations,
• 1:17:26
  what information you need to have as the GM to make sure that
• 1:17:29
  they can find like, it makes sense that it has to be a little
• 1:17:33
  stricter with how it. How it's structured?
• 1:17:38
  How it tells you to to structure your shit right, 'cause like, it
• 1:17:43
  can't necessarily tell you how to how to prep.
• 1:17:47
  It can't tell you how to like organize your notes or tell you
• 1:17:51
  what sentence structure to write in or anything like that.
• 1:17:53
  But it has to be pretty firm. And like this is what's going to
• 1:17:57
  get you results. So yeah, the idea of the idea of
• 1:18:03
  the flow chart and stuff makes a lot of sense for that game, but
• 1:18:12
  for a game like D&D, maybe not the Somash, you know?
• 1:18:17
  You know, one of the reasons why I asked this question and we
• 1:18:20
  talked about it a little bit in the Kane episode.
• 1:18:22
  I, I actually think the flow chart should be a little more
• 1:18:26
  prominent because unless you're running missions and quests in
• 1:18:31
  D&D super linearly, which most people aren't or are they try
• 1:18:36
  not to, right? Like there's, there's always
• 1:18:37
  this like, I want to make things kind of free form so the players
• 1:18:41
  feel like they can figure it out.
• 1:18:44
  I think Kane, I wouldn't say it's the gold standard, but I
• 1:18:48
  think it comes pretty close to something approximating it on
• 1:18:51
  how it presents you the information and how it expects
• 1:18:54
  you to present the information to players 'cause you really
• 1:18:58
  can't do a linear investigation because at that point it's not
• 1:19:01
  an investigation, right? Like.
• 1:19:02
  It's not really, on the face of it, yeah.
• 1:19:06
  That was kind of what I was thinking.
• 1:19:09
  So you're saying, you're saying though you don't think that the
• 1:19:11
  the the book pushes you towards that flow chart enough?
• 1:19:15
  No, no, I think it pushes you towards it and it should and
• 1:19:18
  other games should learn from Kane.
• 1:19:20
  And I was wondering, you know, reason why I should use it more.
• 1:19:24
  Yeah, is, you know, as someone who's done some D&D stuff, I
• 1:19:31
  guess the follow up question is, do you think that flow chart
• 1:19:33
  would have helped you? You know, despite the, you know,
• 1:19:36
  level 15 and all that crazy shit notwithstanding.
• 1:19:38
  Yeah, probably I, I want to say probably it would have because I
• 1:19:45
  feel like I sometimes get who lost in the things I'm creating
• 1:19:52
  and then I just exactly, I get too lost in like too many little
• 1:19:56
  details that don't need to be present right away.
• 1:20:00
  Having that flow chart was very helpful in the sense that like,
• 1:20:06
  right, there's this thing here, it's connected to to this
• 1:20:09
  character, or there's this thing here and they're all connected
• 1:20:11
  to the same character or whatever, right?
• 1:20:16
  Kyle should read the GM section of stars with that number I.
• 1:20:19
  Don't know? You think so?
• 1:20:22
  Yeah, it does. It basically does what you're
• 1:20:24
  saying. It's different context than Kane
• 1:20:26
  obviously, but particularly like the world building section, it's
• 1:20:29
  very clear on the step by step methodology.
• 1:20:34
  You know, I I I've I've thought about this kind of in passing.
• 1:20:39
  I almost wish someone would compile a universal GMs
• 1:20:44
  notebook. It just has all of the Super
• 1:20:47
  helpful rules that people think should be like ubiquitous across
• 1:20:51
  all games. So like.
• 1:20:53
  That must exist. Right, it must right.
• 1:20:55
  But like, I don't know that it does because you know, I would,
• 1:20:58
  I would say the mission layout from Kane obviously clocks the
• 1:21:02
  ideas of fronts when it comes to narrative preparation.
• 1:21:09
  If anything, a general breakdown to to fucking challenge
• 1:21:12
  training. You know, the ideas about niche
• 1:21:16
  protection and how to structure your players when it comes to
• 1:21:19
  creating their characters, all that jazz.
• 1:21:24
  I feel like somebody. Has to.
• 1:21:26
  I feel like somebody has made some kind of book akin to that.
• 1:21:30
  I'd. Be surprised if they didn't.
• 1:21:35
  I think it's just. It would require you to read so
• 1:21:37
  many games. So many books.
• 1:21:39
  Yeah, you have to be very, yeah, you'd have to be very well
• 1:21:42
  informed and pretty deep in the in the hobby and also yeah and
• 1:21:48
  you'd also have to be up to date on current design trend right to
• 1:21:52
  right. That's a big one.
• 1:21:53
  To have to have an opinion on are we moving in the right
• 1:21:57
  direction or the wrong direction?
• 1:21:59
  Or does this make sense in the way that people currently play
• 1:22:02
  games? Cause 'cause ultimately a book
• 1:22:04
  like that is only gonna work, is only gonna exist as a useful
• 1:22:08
  tool for a certain period of time.
• 1:22:10
  Because once style of play shifts into a different vibe,
• 1:22:14
  then you know, that will start to lose its relevance.
• 1:22:18
  You know, like a general GM advice book would have been very
• 1:22:22
  different in 1985 than it is now.
• 1:22:26
  You know what I mean? Yeah.
• 1:22:29
  So it's like, yeah, you'd have to be pretty in tune with
• 1:22:34
  current design trend and, and how people play in.
• 1:22:38
  Yeah, it's, it's, it's a bit of a tall order.
• 1:22:40
  What would it look like in 1985? It'd be like role plays for
• 1:22:44
  sissies. No girls allowed.
• 1:22:47
  Get as many players. As you want.
• 1:22:50
  Yeah. You know, I don't know exactly
• 1:22:52
  what it'd look like, but it would be different.
• 1:22:54
  I can tell you that it. Would definitely be some then.
• 1:22:57
  Although honestly I the more and more I hear about older older
• 1:23:04
  games and older design, the more and more I get the impression
• 1:23:07
  that it would be different, but perhaps not as different as a
• 1:23:11
  lot of people think. Like there would be more
• 1:23:14
  similarities than you would expect I feel.
• 1:23:18
  No, I mean, all jokes aside, you're right.
• 1:23:19
  I think, I think it's something that earlier editions of this
• 1:23:22
  mystical book would definitely tell GMs to put a lot of onus on
• 1:23:28
  their players. We had a certain classmate that
• 1:23:32
  we went to school with who played second edition or who was
• 1:23:34
  playing second edition while we were going to school with her.
• 1:23:37
  And a big thing that she said second edition reaches is that
• 1:23:42
  players have to be very specific in their action and that you
• 1:23:45
  should not infer their meaning. So, you know, if a player goes,
• 1:23:49
  OK, you know, I step into the room and you go, all right,
• 1:23:52
  well, you step on a pleasure plate.
• 1:23:53
  You know, if that player goes, would I not have known it was
• 1:23:56
  there? And then you have to tell them
• 1:23:57
  like, well, did you check for that?
• 1:23:58
  You should have checked for that, Yeah.
• 1:24:00
  Right, Yeah, older editions of D&D were big on that idea of
• 1:24:05
  player skill rather than character skill.
• 1:24:07
  And the and the character sheet was the character sheet was like
• 1:24:11
  an imperfect vehicle for you to utilize.
• 1:24:14
  But it was not the end all be all.
• 1:24:16
  And that's why the 10 foot pole existed, because the idea was
• 1:24:21
  you had to describe yourself tapping all of the surfaces with
• 1:24:24
  the 10 foot pole to check for potential traps and problems.
• 1:24:29
  You know, there was no investigation check on the room.
• 1:24:32
  OK, you're good. They didn't really do that.
• 1:24:34
  I mean, you could, but it was much, much less common.
• 1:24:38
  Yeah, I mean I. If I remember correctly, only
• 1:24:43
  the only the thief could search for traps in old school D&D, and
• 1:24:47
  their percentage chance of success was not even that good.
• 1:24:50
  No, no, it wasn't I so it's funny, it's edition, I think
• 1:24:55
  likes to think that it does this in a very old bone grinder kind
• 1:24:58
  of way where they're intended design because things like the
• 1:25:02
  10 foot pole and all those random ass fucking items that
• 1:25:04
  never do anything are there, but no one utilizes them.
• 1:25:09
  And I think it's because the game does not tell you as the GM
• 1:25:13
  as you're reading either the Player's Handbook or the DMS
• 1:25:15
  Guide to interact with the game in that way.
• 1:25:19
  No, the game doesn't. Yeah, the 10 foot pole and the
• 1:25:23
  the Lantern and the rope and stuff are still in the game
• 1:25:26
  because of a legacy of that older edition.
• 1:25:29
  But it it, yeah, it doesn't really tell you to run the game
• 1:25:35
  that way and it doesn't, even if you wanted to run 5 E that way,
• 1:25:42
  there's not a lot of guidance on the GM side of things of how you
• 1:25:45
  would really go about that. I don't think you could.
• 1:25:48
  I don't think you couldn't have 5.
• 1:25:49
  EI think the rules have been too genericized and there is too
• 1:25:54
  many options for too many things that are readily available and
• 1:25:59
  non mundane right? I think, I think you could do it
• 1:26:04
  if you crack down on your players a little bit and say,
• 1:26:10
  hey, listen, this is how we're going to do it.
• 1:26:12
  So certain abilities that you might usually expect to do XY
• 1:26:16
  and Z are not going to work that and like really kind of tighten
• 1:26:21
  down their capability. I think you could, but you would
• 1:26:24
  have to be very upfront about it because for sure right now the
• 1:26:28
  way 5 E works, everybody assumes that investigation check tells
• 1:26:32
  me everything that's in the room or a perception check tells me
• 1:26:35
  everything that's in the room. And you would have to kind of
• 1:26:39
  negate that to a certain degree. Well, so at what point does the
• 1:26:45
  cracking down sort of become sunk cost?
• 1:26:48
  Like, you know, there's that really like, in my personal
• 1:26:50
  opinion, Infamous, I think it's the Dungeon Dudes video where
• 1:26:53
  they were talking about like spells that they would nerf.
• 1:26:55
  And one of them is like knock. And it was like, oh, well, you
• 1:26:58
  know, you can just make a different knock spell for
• 1:27:00
  different kind of doors and you're like, that sounds fucking
• 1:27:02
  terrible. At that point, just take the
• 1:27:03
  spell out of the fucking game. Please.
• 1:27:07
  Well, yeah, I I think that might be you.
• 1:27:10
  Maybe you do in this hypothetical scenario, maybe you
• 1:27:13
  do take the knock spell out of the game, like that might be the
• 1:27:15
  kind of tightening up that we're talking about.
• 1:27:17
  I don't like I'm spitballing here off the Dome, you know, so
• 1:27:21
  don't. Put me out of weight.
• 1:27:22
  I'm not expecting, like fucking not expecting a college thesis
• 1:27:26
  on on the intricacies of of rule implementation.
• 1:27:29
  Right. But yeah, I, I think it could be
• 1:27:33
  done if you're willing to put in a lot of that upfront work as
• 1:27:36
  the GM and make and make very clear to the players what you're
• 1:27:41
  trying to do and also make it clear to the players why you
• 1:27:45
  think this might be a potentially fun idea, right?
• 1:27:50
  Because there's a lot of, there's a lot of people out
• 1:27:54
  there who want to run 5E in like a different style, right?
• 1:27:59
  They want to run the game. They want to run the kind of
• 1:28:04
  game where you have to track every single torch and every
• 1:28:06
  single arrow, or they want to run the game where like you have
• 1:28:09
  to be really tightly controlled with your rations.
• 1:28:12
  But they don't really explain why that could be potentially
• 1:28:14
  fun to their players. They just want to do it.
• 1:28:18
  And then if you don't explain what the appeal is, your players
• 1:28:22
  are probably just going to get annoyed if they don't, if they
• 1:28:25
  don't get it inherently, you know, because some players might
• 1:28:28
  understand what the appeal to that is, but some players might
• 1:28:30
  not. But if you explained it to them,
• 1:28:32
  then they might be on board. But a lot of GMs are like, I'm
• 1:28:35
  going to run like, or the thing where they're like, I'm going to
• 1:28:38
  run the hardcore game with the gritty realism rules.
• 1:28:41
  So it takes seven days to heal and then not explain why they
• 1:28:45
  want to do that and why they think that might be a fun way to
• 1:28:48
  run the game. They just do it.
• 1:28:49
  And then players just get annoyed because they don't
• 1:28:51
  understand what the G Ms. trying to do, you know, like.
• 1:28:56
  That or you know, the G Ms. intention is the gritty realism
• 1:28:58
  thing, but they don't, yeah. I mean ultimately they don't
• 1:29:01
  explain it so they start piece mealing things out mid play.
• 1:29:04
  That always kills. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:29:06
  Bits and bobs. Yeah, they.
• 1:29:07
  Don't we, I mean, one of those stories now where, you know, we
• 1:29:12
  had something approximating that in our in our first game when,
• 1:29:16
  when the rules were really fucking wacky.
• 1:29:17
  Woo Hoo. And you know, we were double
• 1:29:18
  levelled and and chip damage was a thing.
• 1:29:21
  Oh my God. And somebody was like good Barry
• 1:29:24
  and the visceral reaction we had to someone being like, yeah, but
• 1:29:28
  like good Barry fixes this problem.
• 1:29:31
  And this was, this was around that time when when XP, it
• 1:29:33
  wasn't XPD Level 3, when somebody was like good Barry's
• 1:29:36
  low key would like the most overpowered healing spell in the
• 1:29:38
  game. And then a bunch of GM started
• 1:29:40
  banning good Barry on mass because that's how the Internet
• 1:29:42
  works. Yeah.
• 1:29:44
  And somebody like who was not a power gamer was like, doesn't
• 1:29:48
  good Barry just solve this fucking problem?
• 1:29:50
  And he was like, no, no, good Barry's allowed.
• 1:29:52
  We were like, all right, man. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:29:56
  And that's kind of the problem, right?
• 1:29:58
  If you're trying to adjust 5 E in that way, there's a lot of
• 1:30:02
  Rd. bumps you're going to run into with stuff like that that
• 1:30:05
  you have to. That's why you want to be really
• 1:30:08
  familiar with the game to do that kind of adjustment, because
• 1:30:13
  otherwise you're going to get good buried real quick.
• 1:30:20
  Now that we've shifted way off top of the I I do have I do have
• 1:30:23
  kind of a a a final question for me.
• 1:30:28
  So all right, so Cass, you ran Kane.
• 1:30:29
  I mean, it sounds like on a very broad level you felt you felt
• 1:30:35
  like successful, successful session, successful one shot,
• 1:30:39
  yes. Yeah, I'd say so.
• 1:30:41
  Well, all right. Did that give you the desire to
• 1:30:45
  continue to run Kane or potentially maybe run a
• 1:30:50
  different style of Gabe? I don't know if I'd run Kane
• 1:30:54
  again. Potentially I might, but I think
• 1:31:01
  it's giving me more confidence to try and run something else.
• 1:31:06
  Something else? Yeah.
• 1:31:09
  What? What is it about Cain that's
• 1:31:11
  making you say maybe not Cain again specifically?
• 1:31:19
  I feel I, I understand, I, I know that like the, the, the
• 1:31:22
  combat isn't of the main focus of Cain.
• 1:31:27
  I just, I find it a little too wobbly in a sense to to try and
• 1:31:33
  run that shit again. But I'm I'm tempted, I'm tempted
• 1:31:39
  to try and find something else, something else to run that's not
• 1:31:42
  5 E. Do you think if that's not 5 E,
• 1:31:49
  do you think if you like watched a video or somebody showed you
• 1:31:56
  how to do the combat with the sand and cane and and clarified
• 1:32:02
  your confusion, do you think that would then push you over to
• 1:32:05
  make maybe want to run it again? I'd say because I, I feel like I
• 1:32:11
  got really when it came to that section of the game.
• 1:32:20
  So I I think if I have a better understanding of how the state
• 1:32:24
  encounter is supposed to go, I might have a better idea of if I
• 1:32:30
  would run it again. Well, so that that that's an
• 1:32:33
  interesting thought because it is, you know, someone who's also
• 1:32:36
  run the game and now who has played it.
• 1:32:37
  I think the thing that may have helped you and this this could
• 1:32:45
  have been a pacing thing. I think that's probably what it
• 1:32:46
  ended up being was a higher emphasis on the domains to cause
• 1:32:54
  debuffs. Like, you know, Ant had that one
• 1:32:57
  and that messed him up specifically.
• 1:32:59
  Like he was like, OK, now I don't know what to do 100%
• 1:33:02
  because I have that the like is your heart in this, which, you
• 1:33:05
  know, knowing aunt and his fucking crippling gambling
• 1:33:07
  addiction. He was like, yes, but of course
• 1:33:13
  I know the the the one that gives you like the internal rot
• 1:33:16
  that just like fucks up all your roles.
• 1:33:19
  That one can be pretty mean. I use that in my party.
• 1:33:22
  And the the the doors one that like creates a mini labyrinth is
• 1:33:28
  a really good way to a force tension up because, yeah, it
• 1:33:33
  automatically forces a scene change and you know, you can
• 1:33:38
  sort of start riffing on them and being like, the walls are
• 1:33:40
  closing in, a plot of ground drops out from below you, so on,
• 1:33:46
  so forth. Yeah, I think with another
• 1:33:50
  another problem with that was like I was just really on a
• 1:33:53
  really bad time crunch because I knew I was pretty sure we
• 1:33:58
  weren't going to be able to run the week after again because of
• 1:34:04
  scheduling issues. And then the week after that was
• 1:34:07
  when you're starting up Lancer again.
• 1:34:09
  I'm like, I got to finish this, but I feel like I unfortunately
• 1:34:13
  did kind of rush part. Like the first part of the
• 1:34:17
  encounter I kind of rushed a bit again, only because of time
• 1:34:22
  constraint, because by the time we got there, I think it was
• 1:34:25
  like it was already like midnight.
• 1:34:27
  And I was like, fuck, we still have to fight, can fight this
• 1:34:29
  thing. So we didn't, we didn't finish
• 1:34:32
  that session until like one in the morning for me.
• 1:34:35
  So. Yeah.
• 1:34:37
  I mean, we were hitting it pretty late for sure.
• 1:34:39
  And we started early. We started started like 7730 so.
• 1:34:44
  I hate to, I hate to hit you with the no, you're wrong,
• 1:34:48
  Isaiah, but I feel like based on what Cass is saying, you're,
• 1:34:54
  you're getting a little too specific on like, oh, if you use
• 1:34:56
  this mechanic or that mechanic. I what I'm hearing is she's
• 1:35:01
  saying the, the broad strokes of how it's supposed to flow from
• 1:35:08
  PC action to NPC to PC and back and forth between her and the
• 1:35:12
  between her as the GM and the players.
• 1:35:16
  I feel like she's having a little bit of confusion on how
• 1:35:21
  that's how that flow is, how the how the proverbial like the ball
• 1:35:28
  is supposed to get passed, passed back and forth.
• 1:35:31
  Yeah. And the reason I, I say that
• 1:35:36
  because I understand 'cause I remember the first time I ran
• 1:35:41
  Dungeon World and I had that same thought where on the GM
• 1:35:47
  side of the table, I'm never rolling dice.
• 1:35:51
  So when is the the camera quote UN quote on me and the NPCS?
• 1:35:59
  It wasn't immediately clear. Yeah, and.
• 1:36:03
  I I can agree with that. Yeah, and Kane has that.
• 1:36:06
  Kane assumes that same kind of style.
• 1:36:09
  So I feel like it might be a case of someone just if someone
• 1:36:13
  showed you how the back and forth is supposed to go, the
• 1:36:19
  what did you say the wobbliness of it.
• 1:36:21
  Not wobbly. I think the wobbliness would
• 1:36:24
  would be, would would stiffen out, would be less wobbly if
• 1:36:33
  someone kind of showed you what the back and forth flow is
• 1:36:36
  'cause I, I don't remember, I don't remember if it was like a
• 1:36:41
  video or I read something or what.
• 1:36:43
  But oh, I think I read an example play of Dungeon Rd.
• 1:36:48
  I think that was it was somebody wrote up like a yes, I remember
• 1:36:52
  exact yes. There's, there was a document on
• 1:36:54
  the Dungeon World website that was like an example of how play
• 1:36:58
  is supposed to go down. And it, it described it in such
• 1:37:04
  a fashion where it went like beat for beat for beat.
• 1:37:08
  And I was like, oh, this is much more clear now.
• 1:37:11
  And really ultimately what it comes down to is you as the GM
• 1:37:16
  are moving the camera back and forth in a directorial fashion.
• 1:37:25
  And you just have to, you need to understand when there's an
• 1:37:31
  opening for you as the director quote, UN quote to like respond.
• 1:37:36
  And there is a degree like I think if someone explained it to
• 1:37:41
  you, if someone gave you like a, a good example, I think it would
• 1:37:44
  make more sense. But there is also a little bit
• 1:37:46
  of a learning curve muscle of just like feeling it because
• 1:37:50
  eventually it will just kind of feel correct, which is not
• 1:37:54
  obviously particularly helpful to describe it that way.
• 1:37:57
  But yeah, I get what you mean, Isaiah, when you're honing down
• 1:38:01
  on like, oh, if you use this mechanic or that mechanic in
• 1:38:04
  terms of making the fight feel a little more like tension.
• 1:38:09
  But I think it's more about how does it, how is it supposed to
• 1:38:12
  just work on a broad strokes is more what she's talking about.
• 1:38:16
  No, no, I mean, I totally get that.
• 1:38:17
  That makes sense. I I yes, I was sort of
• 1:38:21
  diagnosing A symptom and not the overall problem, but I think it
• 1:38:24
  is something that would help. Yeah.
• 1:38:26
  The general feels like one of the things she said was, you
• 1:38:30
  know that you know, it only got one hit off and that can be
• 1:38:34
  frustrating right when you want to make the big monster, It's
• 1:38:37
  the the the tail end of your big one shot and then it doesn't do
• 1:38:40
  a lot of damage and you're like, well, what the fuck is wrong
• 1:38:42
  with that? It it can be something like, you
• 1:38:45
  know, at the IT is presumed that the players are a lot less well
• 1:38:48
  off than they are at the time when they experienced that
• 1:38:52
  thing. It's kind of like what you were
• 1:38:55
  saying to me, Isaiah, when we were talking about I think
• 1:38:58
  Monster Hearts, where you were like the flow of a PBTA game can
• 1:39:04
  come across as a little esoteric on 1st read.
• 1:39:08
  Yes. You know, it's that same kind of
• 1:39:11
  thing. I mean, even just this week when
• 1:39:15
  we did the Monster Hearts one shot, we both felt that a little
• 1:39:18
  bit, right, like from the, like from the GM side, a little bit
• 1:39:23
  of like she's not quite sure what the flow chart should do
• 1:39:28
  here. And you know, you have to kind
• 1:39:30
  of let the, you have to kind of let those growing pains happen
• 1:39:34
  because once they lock in, they lock in good.
• 1:39:36
  But it takes a bit. No, you're 100% right on that.
• 1:39:39
  And there was definitely times where our where Serath would go,
• 1:39:44
  OK, and then this happens. And rather than asking a player,
• 1:39:49
  OK, how do you think your character responds?
• 1:39:51
  She goes and then you feel this way, right?
• 1:39:54
  And it's like, no, no, no, no, hold on.
• 1:39:57
  That is when you, when you try to include a character on how
• 1:40:05
  they're feeling, don't presume how they feel.
• 1:40:08
  You might have an idea in their head on how you might want to
• 1:40:11
  shift the scene based on their reaction.
• 1:40:14
  But don't try to instill that thought into the character's
• 1:40:18
  head. You can ask them, right?
• 1:40:20
  You can say like you know, I would you say that they are
• 1:40:25
  angry or or this or you can be like, correct me if I'm wrong,
• 1:40:28
  but I feel like in this situation they would they might
• 1:40:31
  be this way, you know what I mean?
• 1:40:33
  I think the problem she was running into is that right from
• 1:40:38
  the jump we were having a lot of like PvP style situations.
• 1:40:43
  And when you're dealing with moves in a PBTA game, the player
• 1:40:50
  versus player can be hard to adjudicate because normally if a
• 1:40:55
  player rolls against an NPC and then fails the role, you as the
• 1:41:00
  GM can use your hard move with the NPC as your your weapon to
• 1:41:08
  activate or like to do the hard move right, to use the hard move
• 1:41:11
  against the player. But when you're dealing with a
• 1:41:13
  player and a player and one of the players role and that
• 1:41:16
  requires some kind of a hard move consequence to happen, it
• 1:41:19
  can be a little harder to adjudicate because you're not
• 1:41:23
  dealing with an NPC that's completely under your control.
• 1:41:25
  So I think that was a lot of like a lot of the confusion she
• 1:41:29
  was running into where she was sort of like trying to take over
• 1:41:33
  as if it was an NPC in the scene, but it wasn't.
• 1:41:35
  Yes. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:41:37
  Which I don't blame her on because I have been in the exact
• 1:41:42
  I've been in that exact situation with Apocalypse World
• 1:41:45
  and it is tricky to figure out how to deal with it.
• 1:41:50
  That's actually something Apocalypse World 2.
• 1:41:52
  The 2 E went out of its way to try and help and solve because a
• 1:41:56
  lot of moves did not have any kind of specific PvP clause
• 1:42:02
  attached to them. Whereas in 2 E it gave you a lot
• 1:42:05
  of very specific this is how you do it in a PvP scenario type
• 1:42:09
  clause. So.
• 1:42:12
  Yeah, I mean, for sure, I'm definitely not critiquing the
• 1:42:14
  style, and I'm not just saying that because she listens to this
• 1:42:16
  podcast. It is something that does trip
• 1:42:19
  up a lot of people who start with the playing or or running
• 1:42:23
  Powered by the Apocalypse games. It can sort of feel like you you
• 1:42:28
  have this inclination where you want to push the pieces around
• 1:42:30
  like on a chess board, when in fact you really want to do the
• 1:42:34
  exact opposite. You put the pieces on the board
• 1:42:37
  and then you just watch how they move on their own, you know?
• 1:42:40
  Yeah, I mean, luckily Kane doesn't really have this problem
• 1:42:43
  because the PvP tension probably not going to be a thing that.
• 1:42:49
  Much. No, Yeah, I mean it, it talks
• 1:42:51
  about it a little bit, but. Yeah, it could happen, but much
• 1:42:54
  less like I would say yeah. Yeah.
• 1:42:57
  Whereas in Monster Hearts and Apocalypse World it's damn near
• 1:43:00
  guaranteed. Oh yeah, someone is swinging at
• 1:43:03
  someone at some point. Yeah.
• 1:43:06
  It's just wild. That happened twice for us.
• 1:43:08
  It did happen twice or or somebody is manipulating
• 1:43:12
  somebody else, right? Like that's the really, that's
• 1:43:14
  the more common one of somebody being like, you're going to do
• 1:43:17
  what I want, right? Yeah.
• 1:43:20
  That happens a lot. God, no, I kind of want to run
• 1:43:25
  back to monster hearts. I I got to get look, I I didn't
• 1:43:30
  get anywhere near as much note taking in like prep done this
• 1:43:33
  month as I wanted, mainly because I've been, you know,
• 1:43:35
  looking for a job. But yeah, I got to.
• 1:43:38
  I got to get cracking on that this week.
• 1:43:41
  Next week, but. Is there?
• 1:43:44
  I mean, you probably saw the podcast episode where I was
• 1:43:48
  like, I have to rethink my entire strategy.
• 1:43:55
  Yeah, that was my last main question.
• 1:43:57
  We strayed quite far from the question itself, but yes, that
• 1:44:00
  was my always that was that was my closing question it.
• 1:44:03
  Never happened. It always happens.
• 1:44:05
  Yeah. How do you feel about going back
• 1:44:07
  to it? That's kind of I honestly I
• 1:44:13
  expected almost exactly that answer, so.
• 1:44:16
  That's fair. Yeah.
• 1:44:19
  Overall, I I think I had AI had a really fun time.
• 1:44:22
  I definitely when I first like when we first started the the
• 1:44:25
  first session, I was extremely nervous.
• 1:44:30
  I fumble quite a bit. But as we progressed, I got it
• 1:44:34
  got a little easier and just came a little a little more
• 1:44:37
  naturally. I'll tell you what, on the
• 1:44:39
  nervousness thing, it's really funny because even if you've
• 1:44:42
  been running a game, even if you've been running the same
• 1:44:45
  game, like I've been running Fabulous Ultima now for like 20
• 1:44:49
  something sessions and I've run many, many other games.
• 1:44:53
  There will still be these brief every, every, every couple of
• 1:44:57
  weeks or so where a session rolls around.
• 1:44:59
  I'm like how the fuck do I do this again?
• 1:45:03
  How the fuck do I do? This show, like it just all
• 1:45:05
  leaves your brain like, you know, session start times at
• 1:45:09
  8:00 and it's 756 and you're like, what are dice?
• 1:45:13
  Bro, when the imposter syndrome hits Jesus.
• 1:45:18
  I don't even, it's not even like imposter syndrome for me.
• 1:45:20
  It's just like, it's like a, it's like I just assume that I
• 1:45:27
  have no idea what I'm doing. It's like, it's like I assume
• 1:45:29
  that I've forgotten everything I've read completely.
• 1:45:32
  Like I just assume I'm starting from blank even though I know
• 1:45:35
  I'm not. You know what I mean?
• 1:45:37
  No, yeah, I mean, I like I called an imposter syndrome, but
• 1:45:39
  it's like the wait, how do I do this?
• 1:45:40
  How do I start this off? How do I set a scene?
• 1:45:42
  How do I talk to characters who these NPCS?
• 1:45:43
  What am I doing right now? Like.
• 1:45:45
  It's that weird. It's like when you, it's like
• 1:45:46
  when you open up a, you know, like a program you haven't used
• 1:45:49
  in a little while and you're like, what's the hot key for
• 1:45:52
  this to hold? On how the fucking button?
• 1:45:54
  Yeah, and then you, and then you're.
• 1:45:55
  But The funny thing is, almost inevitably, without fail, your
• 1:45:58
  fingers just start hitting the correct hot keys automatically,
• 1:46:03
  like you don't actually really need to think about it.
• 1:46:05
  No, yeah. It's like, I just experience the
• 1:46:07
  day when you listen to a song you haven't heard in a while,
• 1:46:09
  you're like, what are the lyrics?
• 1:46:09
  And you start singing them. You're like, apparently I never
• 1:46:11
  forgot. Yeah, that literally happened to
• 1:46:14
  me last night. I was I was at karaoke and I was
• 1:46:16
  like, I was like, oh, I want to do kidnap the Sandy Claws.
• 1:46:19
  I was like, do I remember that song?
• 1:46:21
  And I started it up and I was like, Oh yeah, no, no, I know
• 1:46:23
  this whole lot. Nice.
• 1:46:25
  I really the the notorious story for me was a tribute by
• 1:46:29
  Tenacious T Mookie was like, you have to say it and like, I'll
• 1:46:33
  fuck yes, Sir. Oh, God, yeah.
• 1:46:37
  I mean, that's all I had too. That's that's kind of everything
• 1:46:42
  we did good. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:46:48
  I don't have anything else to say.
• 1:46:50
  For those of you listening, please, you know, give us a sub
• 1:46:53
  on that social media and I don't know when you want to, you want
• 1:46:57
  to give yourself a little shameless self plug.
• 1:47:03
  Me. Yeah, yeah, that would be.
• 1:47:08
  I mean, I, I, I don't really do anything online.
• 1:47:13
  I just exist. I.
• 1:47:16
  Damn damn artist with commissions open saying that she
• 1:47:18
  doesn't do art. I am OK.
• 1:47:20
  Listen, I crazy. Just give me a social media
• 1:47:25
  link, whichever 1 you want and I'll put it in the description.
• 1:47:29
  OK, Ice. OK, perfect.
• 1:47:34
  All right, if that's everything that's been us sessions
• 1:47:37
  cancelled, come back next week when I come up with another
• 1:47:40
  idea. You know, maybe I'll get maybe
• 1:47:41
  I'll get Seratin here. Maybe.
• 1:47:42
  That'll be the game we'll. Just run it back.
• 1:47:46
  Just going to I'll just farm other people out for my work.
• 1:47:50
  Yes, perfect. Like every quote UN quote.
• 1:47:53
  Fucking entrepreneur. Yep.
• 1:47:56
  Yep, Hell yeah. I'm hitting the button now.
• 1:48:00
  All right, peace, motherfuckers.