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We Attack The Darkness · Large Nerdron Collider

0:07
Speaker 1: The Large Nerdron Collider podcast is a production of I
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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey everybody, Welcome to the Large Nerddron Collider.
0:23
Speaker 1: The podcast. It's all about the geeky things happening in
0:25
Speaker 1: the world around us and how very excited we are
0:27
Speaker 1: about them. I'm Ariel casting and with me as always
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Speaker 1: is bumping his mic. Jonathan Strickland. I'm still buffering and bumping. Hey, Hariel, Yes, Jonathan,
0:44
Speaker 1: I got a question for you. Okay, Ariel, here's your question.
0:53
Speaker 1: It's more of a scenario as I am want to do.
0:57
Speaker 1: You have landed the job to design, locate and build
1:02
Speaker 1: the next Hall of Doom for the Legion of Doom.
1:06
Speaker 1: Where do you put it? To sign? Where do I
1:11
Speaker 1: put the next Hall of Doom? Yes? Where would you
1:14
Speaker 1: locate the Hall of Doom where all the supervillains gather
1:18
Speaker 1: for their supervillainry underneath the LaBrea tar pits. Okay, so
1:25
Speaker 1: you're torturing the So what you're doing is you're you're
1:28
Speaker 1: you're defeating evil by taking on a contract and then
1:32
Speaker 1: locating their their villainous layer in a very inconvenient, sticky place.
1:37
Speaker 1: I mean, a lot of supervillains like kind of gross places.
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Speaker 1: So I assume it's right up their alley. I assume
1:46
Speaker 1: they have the evil tech to survive the tar and
1:49
Speaker 1: would pick a location like that. I pick a location,
1:52
Speaker 1: but they would desire that location because it would keep
1:55
Speaker 1: other people out while their evil tech would allow them
1:57
Speaker 1: to survive quite comfortably. There. That's fair. I see your answer,
2:02
Speaker 1: and I have I brooked no argument with it. And
2:04
Speaker 1: maybe they'll bring sabertooth tigers back. I'm assuming they are
2:07
Speaker 1: savor tooth tigers and the lubriad tarpids. I mean, you know,
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Speaker 1: it stands to reason. I've never actually been. What about you,
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Speaker 1: Jonathan Wow, I like your answer a lot. Mine is Orlando, Florida. No, yeah, Orlando,
2:25
Speaker 1: Florida's where I'm going to locate. It is that because
2:28
Speaker 1: you want to join and you spend so much time there. No,
2:31
Speaker 1: it's mostly because I think that I think that, uh,
2:34
Speaker 1: Florida in recent years has been a bit of a mess,
2:38
Speaker 1: and it just seems like that would be like putting
2:40
Speaker 1: it smack dab in the middle of the state would
2:41
Speaker 1: make the most sense. I think Florida is the right answer,
2:45
Speaker 1: and I could put it on, say one of the
2:47
Speaker 1: Florida Keys, and then we wouldn't ever have to worry
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Speaker 1: about the Legion of Doom ever again, because they would
2:52
Speaker 1: be so mellow. They would never they would never get
2:55
Speaker 1: around to doing evil because they would just all be
2:57
Speaker 1: burnt out sitting on the beach listening to Jimmy Buffett.
3:01
Speaker 1: In which case I just won. So maybe I do
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Speaker 1: put them on the keys instead. I mean, I don't
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Speaker 1: know if a key could support their evil, Like, what
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Speaker 1: if they just destroy it and sink to the bottom
3:13
Speaker 1: of the ocean. I guess, win, win. I've never been
3:16
Speaker 1: to the Florida Keys. I assume that they're just floating sandbars. No,
3:20
Speaker 1: they're islands. I mean, it's it's not like you it's
3:24
Speaker 1: not like walking in the Okifinoki. By the way, if
3:26
Speaker 1: you don't know, in the Okifinok, you get these areas
3:29
Speaker 1: that look like they're solid ground, but in fact it's
3:33
Speaker 1: like a bunch of stuff that's all kind of gloamed together,
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Speaker 1: and it's like walking on a waterbed until you walk
3:40
Speaker 1: on a thin patch and then you fall through, and
3:42
Speaker 1: then you get to learn how to remove leeches. It's
3:45
Speaker 1: fun stuff, great for the whole family. But the Florida
3:48
Speaker 1: Keys are solid islands. I've never fallen into the Oki Pinocchi.
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Speaker 1: I've visited it once, but they were like walking paths
3:56
Speaker 1: and trails. I might visit it again this month. Actually,
4:00
Speaker 1: Oh exciting. I love the Okifinoki. Yeah, no, buts I'm
4:03
Speaker 1: talking about going deep into the swamp as opposed to
4:05
Speaker 1: you're probably talking about like the Okifinoki park where you
4:09
Speaker 1: can go there. Yeah. I love that park. It's a
4:11
Speaker 1: great park. I have never actually gone deep into the swamp.
4:14
Speaker 1: I'm not a swamp person. I've just seen video of that,
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Speaker 1: and it's fascinating and terrifying, especially when you sit there
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Speaker 1: and think about some of the stuff that's in the Okifinoki.
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Speaker 1: I'm not not so much worried about the alligators, but
4:27
Speaker 1: the snapping turtles are vicious. And then they're all the
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Speaker 1: different kinds of snakes. Those are the ones that worry me.
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Speaker 1: It sounds almost like a D and D adventure, Jonathan,
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Speaker 1: and you do like those, Yeah, And that's a great
4:39
Speaker 1: way to segue. Thank you, Ariel, very good job. So
4:42
Speaker 1: if you did not know this episode that we are
4:45
Speaker 1: doing bringing to you right now, this is what we
4:48
Speaker 1: in the biz call a buffer episode, and the purpose
4:51
Speaker 1: of This is so that we have episodes to cover
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Speaker 1: when one of us is absent, and this one's going
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Speaker 1: out while I'm on the cacion. So we won't be
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Speaker 1: bringing any news because we can't predict what's going to
5:06
Speaker 1: happen in a couple of weeks. But we are going
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Speaker 1: to talk a bit about D and D and um
5:11
Speaker 1: I'm just curious. Well, first of all, not just D
5:13
Speaker 1: and D, but role playing games in general, Ariel, what
5:16
Speaker 1: was your first exposure to role playing games? Was it
5:20
Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons or was it something else? I think,
5:25
Speaker 1: like I knew about Dungeons and Dragons, but I think
5:28
Speaker 1: that my first actual exposure to role playing games outside
5:33
Speaker 1: of like theater. I was a theater kid, you know, um,
5:35
Speaker 1: which is kind of it's role playing. Um it is.
5:39
Speaker 1: I was in a Shakespeare troupe when I was a
5:41
Speaker 1: teenager and I was doing some Shakespeare play. I think
5:48
Speaker 1: maybe it was Hamlet, and I made friends with a
5:50
Speaker 1: guy who, uh, real cool dude who learned, and he
5:55
Speaker 1: was like, I think you'd enjoy this, and I said,
5:58
Speaker 1: I think you're right, And um, I had art. You know,
6:01
Speaker 1: I had been trying to get into the Georgia Renaissance Festival.
6:04
Speaker 1: When I was eighteen, I went to the Georgia Renaissance
6:06
Speaker 1: Festival and I went to my first lap, which was
6:08
Speaker 1: actually like a this is you, you opened a can
6:12
Speaker 1: of worms. It was actually like a little larp convention,
6:15
Speaker 1: and there were a few like one shot games that
6:17
Speaker 1: went on. So I got to play a few different
6:19
Speaker 1: characters and got sucked right in. And then that group
6:22
Speaker 1: brought me into like D and D in Seven Seas
6:25
Speaker 1: and things like that. Uh. You Well, first of all,
6:29
Speaker 1: it's fascinating to me that you jumped right into the
6:32
Speaker 1: deep end. You skipped the pencil and paper stage and
6:35
Speaker 1: went straight to full immersion in your in your role playing.
6:38
Speaker 1: You dive into the deep end, and then you wade
6:40
Speaker 1: back to like the shallow end, because if you dive
6:42
Speaker 1: into the shallow end, you're just going to break your neck. Yeah.
6:45
Speaker 1: I gently waded into the shallow end. Um. So my
6:49
Speaker 1: first exposure was to basic Dungeons and Dragons, because that's
6:54
Speaker 1: what it was called back in the day. Uh. Because
6:57
Speaker 1: you gotta remember, I was born in the seventies, so
7:00
Speaker 1: Basic D and D. I remember. I have a memory
7:03
Speaker 1: of my dad trying to get me interested in it.
7:07
Speaker 1: And I was more interested in throwing the dice at
7:09
Speaker 1: the time. That's the kind of age I was, so
7:12
Speaker 1: I wasn't quite mature enough to uh really care about
7:17
Speaker 1: the game. It wouldn't be until I was in middle
7:20
Speaker 1: school in high school and I started playing Advanced Dungeons
7:24
Speaker 1: and Dragons, which also used to be a thing. And
7:27
Speaker 1: then they came out with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Second Edition,
7:30
Speaker 1: which made a lot of the mechanics of D and
7:34
Speaker 1: D much more simple. So for those who aren't familiar obviously,
7:38
Speaker 1: you know, role playing games consists of both a premise
7:43
Speaker 1: and a set of rules to help guide how a
7:47
Speaker 1: story unfolds. And uh, you know, I fell into the
7:51
Speaker 1: same trap that a lot of people fall into early
7:54
Speaker 1: on and role playing games, and that the rules became
7:56
Speaker 1: the most important component for me as supposed to telling
8:01
Speaker 1: a story that would change over time. But it took
8:04
Speaker 1: a while to learn. You see. Yeah, I from the
8:07
Speaker 1: get go, I'm like, I don't I just I just
8:09
Speaker 1: want to role play. I just want to act. I
8:11
Speaker 1: don't want to I don't want the rules. Yeah. Well,
8:15
Speaker 1: see it's too it's too often that you find people
8:17
Speaker 1: who are into rule playing, is what what it tends
8:20
Speaker 1: to derogatory lee be called, but it's where you really
8:24
Speaker 1: focus on, like the stats of a character, right, You're
8:26
Speaker 1: trying to maximize your stats and minimize any weaknesses you
8:30
Speaker 1: have that you know, you have people who are fudging
8:34
Speaker 1: dice rolls in order to get that eighteen double zero
8:37
Speaker 1: strength for their warrior or maybe it's even a wizard,
8:41
Speaker 1: and they're like, no, I still want a eighteen double
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Speaker 1: zero and you say, well, that's not it doesn't apply
8:45
Speaker 1: to that class, doesn't matter. So so dn D was
8:48
Speaker 1: like my first like that was and um actually was
8:52
Speaker 1: a game master way more than I was a player,
8:56
Speaker 1: but that was my exposure to role playing games. And
8:59
Speaker 1: since then, UM, I've played tons. I played Paranoia, which
9:04
Speaker 1: is a comedy sci fi game in which you're pretty
9:08
Speaker 1: much guaranteed to get wiped out before the game's over.
9:12
Speaker 1: Um I've played uh Star Wars role playing game. I
9:16
Speaker 1: played a Marvel Superhero and a DC Superhero role playing game.
9:21
Speaker 1: I've played Teenage Mutant, Ninja, Turtles, Ghostbusters, Tune, uh tons
9:27
Speaker 1: of different games, although if you listen to those, you'll
9:29
Speaker 1: notice that they're all like centered around the late eighties,
9:34
Speaker 1: early to mid nineties. That was like the heyday of
9:37
Speaker 1: my game playing and since then I have not really
9:41
Speaker 1: played any role playing games. So I started with seven CS,
9:45
Speaker 1: which is like a It's like adeed. You have like
9:48
Speaker 1: d tens, I think, and you have little dots for
9:51
Speaker 1: each of your your skills and then your stats and
9:54
Speaker 1: you roll that many dice. So if I have like
9:56
Speaker 1: a three in charisma and then a two in seduct
10:00
Speaker 1: s or whatever. Because I played a courtier, um, it
10:03
Speaker 1: was like a high seas. It was like a Pirates
10:05
Speaker 1: of the Caribbean swashbuckling sort of political game. Then you
10:08
Speaker 1: would roll five D ten and you'd keep the statumount,
10:10
Speaker 1: So five D ten keep three, which was real easy
10:13
Speaker 1: for me. So when I jumped into D and D
10:16
Speaker 1: and I played a lot of them. I played ravens Loft,
10:18
Speaker 1: I played Midnight, I played a big guy small mouth.
10:22
Speaker 1: I played I think it was Brant Adventures, though that
10:25
Speaker 1: was short lived um and I don't super remember it. Also,
10:28
Speaker 1: I've also played other games. I've played Changeling, I've played
10:32
Speaker 1: Monster of the Week, I've played Amber Dice List role
10:35
Speaker 1: playing System, I've I've played a game called Heroes or
10:39
Speaker 1: something where figuring out your character build and then doing
10:43
Speaker 1: anything with it was like doing calculus. Oh yeah, No,
10:47
Speaker 1: there was a game I had where I never got
10:50
Speaker 1: beyond making a character because just making a character it
10:54
Speaker 1: was like a three hour long process and there literally
10:57
Speaker 1: wasn't I'm not making this up a role that you
11:00
Speaker 1: had to make during the character creating process where if
11:04
Speaker 1: you roll badly enough, your character died before you ever
11:07
Speaker 1: played your character, like literally while you're making your character.
11:10
Speaker 1: It turns out the part of your characters backstory is
11:12
Speaker 1: they failed to survive something, And you think, why was
11:16
Speaker 1: this even put into the game? What, what's the purpose
11:20
Speaker 1: of this apart from like some developer trolling me? Um.
11:25
Speaker 1: But the the explanation for seven seas makes me think
11:29
Speaker 1: of also Champions, which I think only uses six sided
11:32
Speaker 1: die as another superhero role playing game. And you also
11:35
Speaker 1: made me think of another one, GIRPS generic universal role
11:40
Speaker 1: playing system, which is an underlying set of rules, and
11:43
Speaker 1: the idea was you could use the same set of
11:45
Speaker 1: rules for all sorts of different settings, So you could
11:48
Speaker 1: have detective film noir setting, you could have Western, you
11:52
Speaker 1: could have high fantasy, you could have science fiction, but
11:55
Speaker 1: you would have the same generic set of rules that
11:59
Speaker 1: would underlie whatever campaign setting you chose. I mean D
12:04
Speaker 1: twenty has kind of done that as well. Um, and
12:07
Speaker 1: then I've I've played games, so I used to tabletop
12:10
Speaker 1: a lot, and then I took a long, long break
12:12
Speaker 1: from it, and now I'm just starting to tabletop again. UM.
12:16
Speaker 1: My my friends that I gained through my husband. Um,
12:24
Speaker 1: we're all playing a game of Call of Cthulu where
12:26
Speaker 1: it started out the same way. Everybody started in the
12:30
Speaker 1: same setting and then went from there with new characters
12:32
Speaker 1: each time. So that was a lot of fun. Um.
12:35
Speaker 1: They put a lot of effort into their game, as
12:37
Speaker 1: if you listen to our post Halloween episode, you're aware
12:41
Speaker 1: of that because it's the same group of people I'm
12:43
Speaker 1: playing ever on with. UM. But yeah, I I really
12:48
Speaker 1: I prefer role playing with people who role actually role play.
12:52
Speaker 1: I don't mind rule playing, like there's something for that.
12:54
Speaker 1: I've been max character before and that, like that power
12:58
Speaker 1: draw is exciting. Um, but I don't think it should
13:02
Speaker 1: be all. There is no no, I think because at
13:05
Speaker 1: that point you could just have a sheet of stats
13:08
Speaker 1: and a random number generator and and it doesn't mean anything, right,
13:13
Speaker 1: You're like, you're not It's the story. I think that
13:16
Speaker 1: really matters more. And like I said, I got to
13:18
Speaker 1: learn that more. I've really embraced it when I really
13:23
Speaker 1: focused on being a game master rather than a player.
13:26
Speaker 1: And I love the I love the role of game
13:28
Speaker 1: master because I love setting up challenges for players and
13:32
Speaker 1: seeing them come up with solutions. One thing I would
13:36
Speaker 1: tell any aspiring game master out there is that never
13:42
Speaker 1: underestimate your players and never like bank that the players
13:46
Speaker 1: are going to do a specific set of actions, because
13:48
Speaker 1: I can almost guarantee you they will pick some other
13:52
Speaker 1: thing to do, some of the direction to go, and
13:54
Speaker 1: it will be something you didn't think about, and then
13:56
Speaker 1: you've got to adapt on the fly. So it's better
13:59
Speaker 1: to have an outline of what you want to have happen,
14:05
Speaker 1: but not to you know, have it feel like it's scripted,
14:08
Speaker 1: because they don't have a script and they will not
14:11
Speaker 1: follow it. And it doesn't matter how many clue by
14:13
Speaker 1: fours you give them, they're gonna miss whatever path you're
14:17
Speaker 1: trying to put them on. Yeah, I see, it sounds
14:23
Speaker 1: like you like d m NG, and it sounds like
14:24
Speaker 1: you kind of jumped into the deep end of d
14:26
Speaker 1: m NG. I will never d m A table top ever. Ever,
14:32
Speaker 1: because I've been on plenty of plot committees and I
14:34
Speaker 1: have learned that creating adventures for other people to run
14:40
Speaker 1: through is just not my cup of tea. I'm really
14:42
Speaker 1: good at coming up with ideas they're filling in blanks
14:45
Speaker 1: or adjusting on the fly, but like, just yeah, being
14:50
Speaker 1: a part of the plot committee and making sure that
14:52
Speaker 1: the world is interesting for other people is very stressful
14:55
Speaker 1: to me understandable and also as a person who you know,
14:59
Speaker 1: rules are not my first thought and something that I've
15:02
Speaker 1: I'm pretty I've gotten decent at them now, but I've strued.
15:05
Speaker 1: I struggled with in the past, Like I just I
15:06
Speaker 1: hated rules, Like you have to really know the rules
15:10
Speaker 1: to d M. You can break them once you know them.
15:12
Speaker 1: But yeah, well yeah, and if you like, if you
15:16
Speaker 1: are breaking them with intent and because that is what's
15:19
Speaker 1: going to make a better adventure, that's great. If you
15:23
Speaker 1: go forward where it looks like you don't know what
15:25
Speaker 1: you're doing, then it just becomes not fun for everybody.
15:28
Speaker 1: So there is like you do need to know them
15:31
Speaker 1: so that you know in times where you need to
15:35
Speaker 1: rely upon them because it will get you out of
15:38
Speaker 1: a jam. They're invaluable, right. There are gonna be times
15:42
Speaker 1: where you're like, well, I can't see for a reason
15:45
Speaker 1: why you can't do that, so go ahead and roll.
15:47
Speaker 1: And then the role comes out and you're like, all right,
15:49
Speaker 1: that role is not good enough to do what you
15:52
Speaker 1: wanted it to do, so now you have to do
15:53
Speaker 1: what I wanted you to do. Like like that sometimes helps. Uh,
15:58
Speaker 1: it's when they make those darn rules, those characters. Um, yeah,
16:04
Speaker 1: one of these. I love world creation, and I love
16:08
Speaker 1: creating the scenario that people have to play through. And
16:13
Speaker 1: the thing I learned was that just trying to make
16:15
Speaker 1: it flexible enough where it's okay if they don't go
16:18
Speaker 1: through every room. I mean, it might stink. If you
16:20
Speaker 1: spend a long time setting something up that was particularly
16:23
Speaker 1: interesting or funny or entertaining and they just didn't go there.
16:27
Speaker 1: That does kind of it stinks, but doesn't mean that
16:31
Speaker 1: you've lost it. You can always find a way to
16:34
Speaker 1: pick it up and poured it into some future adventure
16:38
Speaker 1: and still make use of it. It just won't be
16:40
Speaker 1: where you intended. I mean, I get this is where
16:44
Speaker 1: my mind is, like if and it's a lot harder
16:46
Speaker 1: to do in a LARP than it isn't a tabletop. Um,
16:49
Speaker 1: but if you like, let's say you've got two rooms,
16:52
Speaker 1: one on the right and one on the left, and
16:54
Speaker 1: they don't go into the right room where you've got
16:55
Speaker 1: all the lute and the monsters. You just put them
16:58
Speaker 1: in the left room. That's also true. That's also true.
17:02
Speaker 1: You can also you know, they don't know what's behind
17:04
Speaker 1: the other door. Yeah, that's a great point. Well, we
17:08
Speaker 1: have more to talk about with role playing games, but
17:11
Speaker 1: first we're gonna take a quick break. So Ariel, Ariel, Ariel, Ariel.
17:31
Speaker 1: So what if I picked what if? What if? What
17:34
Speaker 1: if I pitched to you? What if I pitched to
17:36
Speaker 1: you my idea for a D and D campaign, Because
17:39
Speaker 1: I've got one that I've been working on and I
17:41
Speaker 1: was going to invite you, but you don't know about
17:44
Speaker 1: it yet, and this is all true. Um, then I
17:47
Speaker 1: think that would be cool and I would like to
17:49
Speaker 1: hear it, and uh, yeah, that would be awesome. So
17:56
Speaker 1: all right, First of all, full disclosure. My idea is
17:59
Speaker 1: is heavily inspired by the most recent season of The
18:05
Speaker 1: Adventure Zone, which is called ether Sea, which is set
18:08
Speaker 1: under the ocean. It's underwater adventures, but it's using the
18:12
Speaker 1: basic D and D rules with a lot of interpretation.
18:16
Speaker 1: You've you've you've already got me because you know I
18:18
Speaker 1: have a little mermaid. Well exactly mine is not mine
18:22
Speaker 1: is not a mine is not under the ocean. I
18:24
Speaker 1: was thinking of one a world where once upon a
18:29
Speaker 1: time there was a lot more land mass. But because
18:32
Speaker 1: of this big cosmic event that happened thousands of years
18:36
Speaker 1: before the events of the the players, uh, the world
18:42
Speaker 1: was mostly drowned and so now it's just chains of islands,
18:45
Speaker 1: and so it becomes more of a pirates kind of thing,
18:48
Speaker 1: but there's a lot more seafaring, and all the different
18:52
Speaker 1: races have sort of adapted to this new reality, with
18:57
Speaker 1: different ones doing different things. Like the Gnomes have steamships
19:01
Speaker 1: that they use to get across the ocean. The elves
19:04
Speaker 1: have ships that leave no wake. They just skate across
19:07
Speaker 1: the water. Uh. You know, the dwarves have like big
19:11
Speaker 1: Viking ships whenever they leave, which is not often because
19:15
Speaker 1: they don't like going after Each of these ideas t
19:18
Speaker 1: M T M t M T M TM and um
19:20
Speaker 1: and so so my ideas that it would be the party,
19:24
Speaker 1: the adventuring party would be made up of people who
19:26
Speaker 1: grew up in this world. They weren't there in the
19:29
Speaker 1: pre days when everything was, you know, different, but they
19:33
Speaker 1: are one and the same with this world, like they
19:36
Speaker 1: know how it works, and that a lot of the
19:39
Speaker 1: adventures would involve seafaring. It may not be that all
19:42
Speaker 1: of them take place on the sea, because I think
19:44
Speaker 1: that that would get repetitive. But yeah, it would have
19:47
Speaker 1: the characters themselves. The classes would all have a twist.
19:52
Speaker 1: So instead of your you know, classic fighter, you would
19:56
Speaker 1: have like more like swashbuckler UM, which might be kind
19:59
Speaker 1: of a a rogue sort of character um, that kind
20:03
Speaker 1: of thing. So that's my pitch. Are you interested? I
20:07
Speaker 1: am interested. So fifth edition at least for Ebron, but
20:10
Speaker 1: I think it's in general rogues already have a swashbuckling subclass.
20:15
Speaker 1: I know this because you play one, because I play one.
20:18
Speaker 1: So it was between Swashbuckler, Inquisitive, and Mastermind, and I
20:21
Speaker 1: went with Inquisitive UM because I'm well, yeah, like I
20:27
Speaker 1: think because in the old second edition D and D
20:31
Speaker 1: they came out with the complete blank handbooks and it
20:35
Speaker 1: was for each of the main classes. I had the
20:36
Speaker 1: complete Fighter's Handbook, the Complete Thieves Handbook, that kind of thing,
20:42
Speaker 1: and in these they had tons and tons of subclasses
20:45
Speaker 1: that you could become instead of you know, your standard
20:49
Speaker 1: thief for your standard fighter. And I know that fifth
20:51
Speaker 1: Edition has done a lot of the same with that,
20:53
Speaker 1: with introducing it in various supplemental materials, So it would
20:57
Speaker 1: be kind of falling in that realm where Swashbuckler is
21:00
Speaker 1: this kind of almost a class that spans fighter and
21:04
Speaker 1: thief a little bit. I also look forward to having
21:07
Speaker 1: Bards and their instruments include things like squeeze boxes, like
21:12
Speaker 1: like the idea like like like the stuff you would
21:15
Speaker 1: see in a pirate movie or the kind of music
21:17
Speaker 1: that typically blaze during Bard movies. Okay, so I want
21:19
Speaker 1: to play your game and I want to be a
21:21
Speaker 1: Bard of baryon which anybody who listens to this show
21:23
Speaker 1: knows that's like my thing. It's not really a dual class,
21:28
Speaker 1: but could totally be a dual class. And I'm going
21:30
Speaker 1: to bring like an actual like jug and squeeze box
21:35
Speaker 1: to your games and learned to play them as we go. Um,
21:41
Speaker 1: and I also request that we play like we rent
21:43
Speaker 1: a pontoon boat and play on it. And I know
21:45
Speaker 1: you're gonna go aerial, what happens if we accidentally roll
21:47
Speaker 1: a dice off the ship, Like who doesn't have so
21:50
Speaker 1: many dice that It's like, it's not going to be
21:52
Speaker 1: a problem. I mean, I got a place where we
21:54
Speaker 1: can do that. I've even got a boat doc that
21:58
Speaker 1: we can do that. So I'm just saying, uh, yeah,
22:03
Speaker 1: So this was like that it was silly for me
22:06
Speaker 1: to bring this up for this episode, but it really
22:08
Speaker 1: is something that I'm working on. It's kind of that's
22:10
Speaker 1: sort of an indication of the kind of ideas I
22:12
Speaker 1: go for when I'm creating a game world, Like to me,
22:15
Speaker 1: that's one of the biggest responsibilities of a game master.
22:19
Speaker 1: And there are a lot of resources out there for
22:21
Speaker 1: lots of different games where they have established game worlds,
22:25
Speaker 1: whether they are based on the real world or it's
22:28
Speaker 1: some fantasy or science fiction world that has its own history,
22:31
Speaker 1: you know, like the Star Wars universe, or tons of
22:34
Speaker 1: Dungeons and dragons, Like there's the Forgotten Realms and there's
22:36
Speaker 1: the Gray Hawks setting and the dragon Lance setting, So
22:41
Speaker 1: there are a lot of different options to go with.
22:44
Speaker 1: I always loved creating my own, although I will borrow
22:47
Speaker 1: heavily from existing material because I am not Tolkien. I
22:52
Speaker 1: cannot go through every single step of creating every single
22:56
Speaker 1: element of a world and its mythology. You don't have
22:59
Speaker 1: to help people that they will think that you can,
23:03
Speaker 1: even when you're making it up on the fly. I mean,
23:07
Speaker 1: you are praying to your God of Roscoe, god of
23:12
Speaker 1: canned goods. So so it's it's interesting that you said
23:17
Speaker 1: Tolkien though, because like I, you know, I didn't I
23:20
Speaker 1: didn't start gaming until I was a teenager or anything
23:23
Speaker 1: beyond like computer games or maybe like text based adventures.
23:27
Speaker 1: But you know that that love of fantasy was already
23:32
Speaker 1: there because my mom raised me on things like a
23:34
Speaker 1: kidney King, Arthur's Court and Lord of the Rings and
23:37
Speaker 1: you know, sci fi and stuff like that. So, uh,
23:41
Speaker 1: you know, it is interesting that a lot of those
23:45
Speaker 1: things that wouldn't inspire a lot of the games nowadays
23:48
Speaker 1: or or whatnot. Well, let me ask you this, what
23:51
Speaker 1: are what are some of your I mean, we know
23:53
Speaker 1: you love to play barbarians, particularly in LARPs, because you
23:56
Speaker 1: like to swing big foe maxes and whack people on
23:59
Speaker 1: the and also because I don't have to remember a
24:02
Speaker 1: lot of political information all that. I like playing characters
24:08
Speaker 1: where it's just point me in the way of the
24:09
Speaker 1: fight and I'll go and swim things. I can make
24:12
Speaker 1: funny jokes and I can hit things, and I don't
24:14
Speaker 1: need to invest a lot of time actually learning world history.
24:18
Speaker 1: I love world history, but oftentimes I just don't have time. Okay,
24:22
Speaker 1: continue on. But do you have any favorite characters or
24:27
Speaker 1: character types that you've encountered, whether you were playing them
24:30
Speaker 1: or someone else, was just stick out in your mind
24:32
Speaker 1: as being like this is this is something that I
24:36
Speaker 1: never would have experienced without role playing. Um. So in
24:44
Speaker 1: my first second first for tied, for First Lark, I
24:51
Speaker 1: had a an acting troop and there was an acting
24:55
Speaker 1: troop in the Lark and they did Comedia dell ar
24:58
Speaker 1: taste stuff um and that was my introduction to Comedia
25:02
Speaker 1: dell Arte. Uh. So I would not have experienced that
25:05
Speaker 1: without gaming. Um. But other than that, I don't know.
25:11
Speaker 1: I honestly don't know. I've I've my friends get really
25:15
Speaker 1: creative with their characters m hm. And so I feel
25:20
Speaker 1: like if I've seen at all, I mean like there's
25:24
Speaker 1: certain there's some that just stick with me that like
25:28
Speaker 1: it's not that the character was unique to the point
25:33
Speaker 1: of it being you know, super special, but I will
25:36
Speaker 1: never forget that. One of the reasons why I wanted
25:39
Speaker 1: to do this, this high seas version of D and
25:43
Speaker 1: D is that when I was a game master as
25:46
Speaker 1: a teenager, one of the players in my game created
25:51
Speaker 1: a gnome swashbuckler, So a swashbuckler who's three ft tall
25:58
Speaker 1: and yet has a long cape and a big musketeer
26:01
Speaker 1: style hat and considers himself suave. And this is before
26:04
Speaker 1: I had ever read the Terry Pratchett novels, where there
26:07
Speaker 1: is a character in the Terry Pratchett novels it's very
26:09
Speaker 1: similar to this, but it was one of my favorite
26:13
Speaker 1: characters because the the player was treating the character seriously,
26:19
Speaker 1: but obviously the character itself was a joke, but it
26:24
Speaker 1: was in that transition of the player treating it like
26:27
Speaker 1: it's very serious but everything that comes out is very
26:30
Speaker 1: funny that just it was one of those interactions that
26:33
Speaker 1: you think of with friends and you think, this is
26:36
Speaker 1: like a genuinely good time and I'm very much enjoying myself.
26:41
Speaker 1: That was the kind of experience that came out to me. Gotcha.
26:46
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I just I game with really
26:50
Speaker 1: good people because they all do the thing where they
26:52
Speaker 1: find their opposites and the character and so their characters
26:55
Speaker 1: are not one note, you know, they aren't just a fighter.
26:57
Speaker 1: Even even like when I played a Barbarian and I
26:59
Speaker 1: play AID with one of my friends, Caitlin, who she
27:03
Speaker 1: is just like my favorite person to team up with
27:04
Speaker 1: in a larp, um, and we inevitably do so often, um,
27:11
Speaker 1: because we'll both be kind of we'll both build kind
27:13
Speaker 1: of kick ass characters. And then like when I was
27:16
Speaker 1: a Barbarian, she was like a Viking, and then we
27:20
Speaker 1: teamed up and we started a bakery together. Um, and
27:25
Speaker 1: we're the battle suffer We're the battle bakers. We'd go
27:28
Speaker 1: around with our baked goods that we made before each
27:30
Speaker 1: game and deliver them door to door for in game money,
27:33
Speaker 1: and then like put her baskets down and fight monsters. Um.
27:36
Speaker 1: It was just yeah, Yes, it's hard to pick out
27:43
Speaker 1: of curiosity. Like so, I'm sure a lot of our
27:47
Speaker 1: listeners have had at least some experience with role playing games.
27:49
Speaker 1: But for those who don't, Uh, are there any in
27:53
Speaker 1: particular that you would recommend for people who are interested
27:56
Speaker 1: in role playing games but they don't know where to start?
28:00
Speaker 1: If you're playing, Yes, Um. The recommendation about to make
28:05
Speaker 1: is not as great if you are d M ng um,
28:08
Speaker 1: unless you just really like creative work writing and that
28:11
Speaker 1: would be Monster of the Week. The way that that
28:13
Speaker 1: game is as a player, um, if you want to
28:17
Speaker 1: ease into some rules is you role play everything and
28:20
Speaker 1: you just try to come up with solutions and then
28:22
Speaker 1: at a certain your point, your d M will say
28:25
Speaker 1: that's going to require a role and that's when that's
28:28
Speaker 1: when you bring in in the stats and things like that.
28:31
Speaker 1: So um, it's it's really great I think for dipping
28:35
Speaker 1: your toes in if you are not rules minded. Um.
28:38
Speaker 1: Like I said, seven CS is not another really good one,
28:40
Speaker 1: but you just have to be. There's lots of the
28:43
Speaker 1: options for lots of types of characters you can play,
28:45
Speaker 1: but it is it is more political, um, and it's
28:49
Speaker 1: kind of set in a mirror like Renaissance world to ours. Um,
28:54
Speaker 1: So like that has to be your your sort of JAM.
28:58
Speaker 1: I love Dungeons and Dragons if the edition has certainly
29:01
Speaker 1: made some things easier, but I don't think it's a
29:03
Speaker 1: great beginner game. No, I agree. I think I think
29:06
Speaker 1: it's almost unfortunate. The Dungeons and Dragons is associated so
29:11
Speaker 1: closely with role playing games that for some people they
29:14
Speaker 1: mean the same thing. They're synonymous. And it is unfortunate
29:17
Speaker 1: because as much as I love D and D and
29:19
Speaker 1: I love it a lot, it is a difficult system.
29:23
Speaker 1: It could be inscrutable to someone who's just joining, especially
29:26
Speaker 1: when you consider how many supplemental materials come out that
29:29
Speaker 1: expand upon the basic rules that are already pretty complicated. Um,
29:35
Speaker 1: I mean there are all these different dice that are involved,
29:37
Speaker 1: and they're all these different uh types of rules that
29:40
Speaker 1: can apply to any given situation. It's it's daunting, and
29:45
Speaker 1: um it is unfortunate that that became the standard bearer
29:48
Speaker 1: for role playing games, because there are other role playing
29:51
Speaker 1: games out there that are easier, that are more friendly
29:55
Speaker 1: to two newbies. And when it's easier to pending on
30:01
Speaker 1: how much burden it puts on the game master, it
30:03
Speaker 1: can just be a lot more fun. Some of these
30:05
Speaker 1: easy games require you to have a whip smart game
30:09
Speaker 1: master because they're essentially making calling all the shots, like
30:13
Speaker 1: all the weight has been taken off the players and
30:16
Speaker 1: then put on the game master. Tell a good story.
30:19
Speaker 1: So so what because you have that, you have a
30:22
Speaker 1: lot more d M experience than I have. I have
30:25
Speaker 1: what would be your recommended starter game for a player,
30:27
Speaker 1: and then also your recommended starter game for a dungeon
30:30
Speaker 1: master or someone wanting to run a game for their
30:33
Speaker 1: friends who want to play. Gosh Okay, well, I mean
30:37
Speaker 1: so here's Here's the unfortunate thing is because I haven't
30:39
Speaker 1: been playing in so long, I've been out of the
30:41
Speaker 1: quote unquote game so long, then my recommendations are all
30:45
Speaker 1: like a lot of them are out of print. You
30:47
Speaker 1: would have to really dig them up to find them. Um.
30:50
Speaker 1: I think a game that's pretty easy to run is,
30:54
Speaker 1: as I recall is Ghostbusters because, uh, first of all,
30:59
Speaker 1: everyone's familiar with the setting. The rules are pretty simple,
31:01
Speaker 1: and it's meant to be funny, so you don't have
31:03
Speaker 1: to worry too much about being hard and fast with
31:06
Speaker 1: the rules. Uh. If I were telling people like, if
31:09
Speaker 1: you really want to play some fun Duchess and Dragons games,
31:13
Speaker 1: like some fun adventures, if you could find a copy
31:18
Speaker 1: of Castle gray Hawk, which those those adventures include some
31:24
Speaker 1: of the most fun adventures, and they're both serious and comedic.
31:27
Speaker 1: There's some very funny ones in there. Those would be
31:30
Speaker 1: the ones I would recommend, recommend to two people interested
31:33
Speaker 1: in that kind of stuff. If you want to think
31:37
Speaker 1: about world building, I suggest listening to podcasts that are
31:41
Speaker 1: dedicated to D and D and there or or role
31:44
Speaker 1: playing in general, and there are tons of them. I mean,
31:46
Speaker 1: I mentioned The Adventure Zone, which is a very loosey
31:50
Speaker 1: goosey kind of approach to role playing, but it's it
31:53
Speaker 1: focuses more on storytelling, particularly after you get past the
31:57
Speaker 1: first ten or so episodes of the first sees in UM.
32:01
Speaker 1: But there are other ones out there too that are
32:04
Speaker 1: a little more serious and a little more in depth
32:07
Speaker 1: that there's no shortage of them, but it will give
32:10
Speaker 1: you an appreciation for the process of world building if
32:13
Speaker 1: you if you should get an itch to do it yourself. Yeah,
32:16
Speaker 1: so I think that they came out with some new
32:19
Speaker 1: Grayhawks stuff a few years back, but I couldn't be certain. Also,
32:24
Speaker 1: it's like you don't want to build a world and
32:26
Speaker 1: you don't want to create a character, but you do
32:28
Speaker 1: want to kind of toy it role playing UM, as
32:30
Speaker 1: long as you don't get mad at your friends. Very easily,
32:33
Speaker 1: you could play bs G the board game if you
32:35
Speaker 1: like Battlestar Galactica the new series, and just role play
32:38
Speaker 1: those characters. It's really funny. If you do um you
32:43
Speaker 1: have to go in with until you until it turns
32:45
Speaker 1: out that that you were betraying everyone the whole time.
32:48
Speaker 1: I mean, best story. I was playing with some friends
32:50
Speaker 1: and one of them was Guys Baltar and Guys baal
32:52
Speaker 1: Turgets three. You get cards that share your loyalty. Guys
32:55
Speaker 1: Baltark it's three, so he has an extra chance of
32:59
Speaker 1: being the bad guy. And my friend was playing it
33:02
Speaker 1: like Guys Baltar. We'd have a check where we'd have
33:04
Speaker 1: to put in a certain number of whatever to beat it,
33:07
Speaker 1: and he'd be like, no, no, I got this guy's
33:09
Speaker 1: and he put in something that would hurt us. And
33:12
Speaker 1: we found out that he wasn't a bad guy. He
33:16
Speaker 1: wasn't a Cylon. He was just playing like the character.
33:19
Speaker 1: And half of my friends get really upset, and the
33:21
Speaker 1: other half of my friends absolutely love it. I'm in
33:23
Speaker 1: the love it camp because I'm like, yeah, you know,
33:26
Speaker 1: that's that's what the character would do, and the character
33:27
Speaker 1: wasn't a Cylon. Spoilers if you haven't watched bsg um
33:33
Speaker 1: Well and and you know it's that game is kind
33:36
Speaker 1: of similar to some of the identity based games like
33:39
Speaker 1: Werewolf and Mafia and that kind of thing. It has
33:41
Speaker 1: some elements of that, and that is a discussion that
33:44
Speaker 1: we'll have to hold off for another day. And I
33:47
Speaker 1: can tell you about why I hate the game Werewolf,
33:49
Speaker 1: but for now, we need to go to break and
33:52
Speaker 1: when we come back, we're going to take on a
33:54
Speaker 1: role ourselves. We're gonna take on the role of screenwriters
33:57
Speaker 1: pitching our brand new movie mash up idea after these messages.
34:19
Speaker 1: All right, so we're back, and our mashup this week
34:23
Speaker 1: is just inspired by a really good adventuring party, The Hobbits,
34:28
Speaker 1: et cetera from Lord of the rings Um and then
34:33
Speaker 1: just what the heck can we throw with it? Which
34:36
Speaker 1: is the Predator? So that's our so so uh so,
34:41
Speaker 1: you said, like the Hobbits in general. I chose The Hobbit,
34:45
Speaker 1: the actual, the original novel, which is still my favorite
34:49
Speaker 1: book of all time. I got a copy of it
34:50
Speaker 1: sitting out of frame of camera, which no one listening
34:53
Speaker 1: to this can see. But Ariel Ariel also can't see
34:56
Speaker 1: it because it's out of frame. So anyway, the Hobbits
34:59
Speaker 1: my favorite book, and it's you know, obviously it's a
35:03
Speaker 1: fantasy story about a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins who goes
35:07
Speaker 1: on an adventure with a bunch of dwarves in order
35:09
Speaker 1: for them to defeat a dragon that had taken over
35:12
Speaker 1: their ancestral home of the the Lonely Mountain. I almost
35:16
Speaker 1: said Lonely Island, but that's a different thing. It would
35:20
Speaker 1: be dwarf in a box, the Lonely Mountain. And uh.
35:25
Speaker 1: Then of course you have Lord of the Rings, which
35:27
Speaker 1: I'm sure everyone listening is familiar with because Peter Jackson
35:30
Speaker 1: made sure of it, And then we have Predator, Yes,
35:35
Speaker 1: and explain it's just about to Predator is and I'm
35:40
Speaker 1: going to explain it poorly because I have watched these movies.
35:43
Speaker 1: Predator is about these aliens that come to Earth and
35:47
Speaker 1: hunt for like basically like Biggest Challenges, big corey. Um,
35:52
Speaker 1: so people, Zeno morphs, whatever. Usually it's humans because we're
35:57
Speaker 1: the most dangerous game. Yes, yes, And they have heat vision,
36:03
Speaker 1: so they can see your body heat. And that's kind
36:07
Speaker 1: of at least how they look when they're looking through
36:09
Speaker 1: like their helmets. What they do they've got really we
36:14
Speaker 1: get alien point of view shots where it's always thermal vision. Yes, um,
36:19
Speaker 1: and so like that's that's really the first. The first
36:22
Speaker 1: Predator takes place in like the Jungles of South America
36:26
Speaker 1: near Guatemala, and then the second one takes place in
36:28
Speaker 1: like New York City. Um, and then I haven't watched
36:33
Speaker 1: all of them, but they quickly go off the rails. Yeah,
36:36
Speaker 1: like you mentioned, there is an alien versus Predator movie,
36:39
Speaker 1: and then there was the more recent The Predator, which
36:44
Speaker 1: less said about that the better in my opinion. But uh, yeah,
36:47
Speaker 1: so we're gonna mash these things up, and um, who
36:49
Speaker 1: do you want to go first? I'll go first? Um,
36:53
Speaker 1: And I went with the very first Predator, which dealt
36:57
Speaker 1: was in the Jungles of South America slash Guatemala, where
37:03
Speaker 1: Arnold Schwartzenegger played the main character of Major Alan dutch Schaefer.
37:07
Speaker 1: All right, this is called the Bredator. Anna guns Alves
37:12
Speaker 1: survived a lot of things. She was a guerrilla military person,
37:17
Speaker 1: but after surviving the Predator attack and Major Alan dutch Schaefer,
37:21
Speaker 1: she decided not to test her luck any further and
37:23
Speaker 1: made her way home to Guatemala to live a quiet
37:26
Speaker 1: rest of her life. However, shortly after settling down Vulcan
37:29
Speaker 1: de fuego erupted the volcano that is active in Guatemala
37:35
Speaker 1: uh and while she made it through the eruption, something
37:37
Speaker 1: was off. She would often feel like there was something
37:40
Speaker 1: or someone invisible following her around. Cold breezes would blow
37:43
Speaker 1: by in still rooms, quiet footsteps and empty hallways, and
37:47
Speaker 1: pantries ransacked. She tried to shrug it off as maybe
37:50
Speaker 1: a mouse or a rat, but she felt as if
37:52
Speaker 1: she was being stopped. Then reports started coming in from
37:56
Speaker 1: all over the neighborhood. People's fish tanks, henhouses, pet rabbits,
37:59
Speaker 1: and other live stock were being slaughtered by an invisible force.
38:03
Speaker 1: Anna was sure that the predator had changed its mind
38:05
Speaker 1: and was after her to finish its kill and was
38:08
Speaker 1: just toying with her. Also forgot to mention predators can
38:11
Speaker 1: go invisible, and so she prepared for the worst. Then
38:15
Speaker 1: one day, while she was cooking a late breakfast, it happened.
38:18
Speaker 1: She heard a clatter in her kitchen. Cut to heat
38:21
Speaker 1: vision of Annah and the stove. She turned around spatula
38:24
Speaker 1: in hand, cut to heat vision. Looking from Anna to
38:27
Speaker 1: the stove, she heard a hiss. Did it say? Eleven?
38:31
Speaker 1: Se cut to heat vision, running towards Anna and the stove,
38:35
Speaker 1: she was tackled to the ground by an invisible force.
38:37
Speaker 1: She struggled with it and heard a small metal clatter
38:40
Speaker 1: on the floor, and that's when the creature appeared in
38:42
Speaker 1: front of her face, small furry footage, chomping wildly a
38:46
Speaker 1: small laden hand. She couldn't tell if it was a
38:48
Speaker 1: kitchen knife or some fantastical weapon. This was not like
38:51
Speaker 1: any predator she had seen before. But then the creature
38:54
Speaker 1: lunched past Anna and started devouring her food on the stove. Sausages, potatoes, bread.
38:59
Speaker 1: It's houred every inch of the kitchen, eating all the
39:02
Speaker 1: food before it realized it could be seen. Anna grabbed
39:06
Speaker 1: a kitchen knife of her own and cornered it against
39:08
Speaker 1: some cabinets. The creature looked around, confused and started gaining
39:11
Speaker 1: its composure. She asked, what kind of predator are you?
39:14
Speaker 1: As it inched towards where the metal clattering occurred and
39:17
Speaker 1: it spoke, I said, I'm paregrine took not a predator. Well,
39:21
Speaker 1: I guess I am hobbit. Maybe maybe I am a predator.
39:26
Speaker 1: I do eat game. I fell into or came out
39:29
Speaker 1: of volcano. It seems really confused, But then it was
39:32
Speaker 1: not confused on one item, it said, I need food.
39:36
Speaker 1: It ran to the small metal object, which was a
39:39
Speaker 1: ring that had made the clattering noise, and slipped it
39:41
Speaker 1: on and it was gone. Anna heard screams as other
39:45
Speaker 1: people's houses were being ransacked by an invisible force. But
39:48
Speaker 1: after the life she had led, she realized that this
39:50
Speaker 1: problem wasn't so bad, and she went back to her retirement,
39:54
Speaker 1: but not before putting locks on all of her pantries.
39:57
Speaker 1: The Hobbit Predator creature became a feared legend in the neighborhood.
40:01
Speaker 1: The locals call it the Predator for its penchant for
40:03
Speaker 1: breakfast foods. The end now is it? Now? Is it
40:08
Speaker 1: rating breakfast foods? It does so twice a day, twice
40:12
Speaker 1: a day, second breakfast technically, like in my mind, Cannon.
40:17
Speaker 1: It just eats constantly, like everybody's starving. I mean, when
40:23
Speaker 1: you look at the story, yeah, when you look at
40:25
Speaker 1: the story of the Hobbit, you and they lay out
40:28
Speaker 1: how many meals the Hobbits have, that's pretty close. They
40:32
Speaker 1: are pretty much constantly eating. All right, here's mine. Mine
40:36
Speaker 1: is titled the Predator or there and back again. Bilbo
40:42
Speaker 1: Baggins has a problem. This tall old dude who shoots
40:46
Speaker 1: fireworks out of a stick invited a ton of folks
40:49
Speaker 1: to his house without asking permission. First, there's Peely and
40:53
Speaker 1: Keeley and Oin Andlin and Dutch and Poncho and Blaine
40:59
Speaker 1: and Billy. It's your typical mixture of dwarves and c
41:02
Speaker 1: i A backed military rescue team members, the usual. In
41:06
Speaker 1: other words, turns out the visitors want Bilbo to come
41:09
Speaker 1: along with him on a mission. That mission to infiltrate
41:12
Speaker 1: the Lonely Mountain and to rescue a government official. Apparently
41:16
Speaker 1: the official was captured by a dragon. Bilbo is not
41:20
Speaker 1: super keen ongoing, but then Sergeant Blaine Cooper uses some
41:24
Speaker 1: really hurtful language to shame him into participating, and we
41:29
Speaker 1: come to realize that the dwarves are pretty greedy so
41:32
Speaker 1: and so's with a chip on their shoulder for getting
41:34
Speaker 1: kicked out of their ancestral homeland, and the military team
41:37
Speaker 1: has made up of a lot of misogynistic homophobes. But anyway,
41:40
Speaker 1: Bilbo is convinced to go, and partly out of a
41:43
Speaker 1: sense of adventure and partly because Blaine scares him a lot.
41:46
Speaker 1: So Dutch, the leader of the group, does this thing
41:50
Speaker 1: where he reaches out his hand for Bilbo to take
41:52
Speaker 1: and then Dutch flexes like super big, like like super
41:57
Speaker 1: super big like. He wants to do some sort of
41:59
Speaker 1: arm wrestling thing in the air with Bilbo, but Bilbos
42:02
Speaker 1: this tiny little thing, so he ends up getting thrown
42:04
Speaker 1: across the room and then everybody laughs apart from Bilbo,
42:07
Speaker 1: and then they're off. They begin their journey, and once
42:11
Speaker 1: they leave the safety of civilization, things take a turn.
42:14
Speaker 1: There's this one point right where like the whole group
42:17
Speaker 1: except for the old guy with a fireworks stick, get
42:20
Speaker 1: caught by these giant trolls. But then the old guy
42:23
Speaker 1: tricks the trolls into sticking around until daybreak, and that's
42:27
Speaker 1: when the trolls turned to stone, so it's all okay.
42:30
Speaker 1: They keep on going until they reach the Misty Mountains,
42:32
Speaker 1: and as they make their way through a treacherous pass,
42:35
Speaker 1: they find a place to sleep in a cave and
42:37
Speaker 1: they hold up. But the cave ends up connecting to
42:39
Speaker 1: a network of other caves that are all inhabited by goblins,
42:43
Speaker 1: which is a real bummer, and that leads us on
42:45
Speaker 1: this big adventure in which you know, the dwarves and
42:47
Speaker 1: the military guys and the old dude and Bilbo all
42:50
Speaker 1: gets separated, and Bilbo ends up going down the wrong
42:53
Speaker 1: path as goblins are chasing him, and he finds himself
42:56
Speaker 1: in a subterranean lake. There he hears this weird chattering
43:01
Speaker 1: clicking noise and there's something moving around, but Bilbo can't
43:05
Speaker 1: really see anything. There's just a sort of shimmering figure
43:10
Speaker 1: that that is going on. It's like like something was there,
43:13
Speaker 1: but it's blending in with the background. Well, Bilbo quietly
43:16
Speaker 1: slips into the water, which is good because it turns
43:19
Speaker 1: out this thing it has this cool POV shot we
43:23
Speaker 1: get and we're going into thermal vision. But then, you know,
43:26
Speaker 1: because Bilbo has gone into cold water, he's not really
43:28
Speaker 1: showing up so well, so whatever this thing is, it
43:31
Speaker 1: doesn't really see Bilbo. But eventually the thing shimmers into
43:36
Speaker 1: appearance and we see it's a predator, only he's kind
43:39
Speaker 1: of short for a predator, but he's got that wild
43:42
Speaker 1: helmet and you know, like the gauntlet and the cool
43:44
Speaker 1: armor and stuff. And Bilbo aghast stays very still. He
43:49
Speaker 1: knows it's in here, don't we. My precious says this voice,
43:53
Speaker 1: and Bilbo remains silent, listening. We want to play with it?
43:57
Speaker 1: Don't We don't? Does it like? Riddles? Asks the predator.
44:03
Speaker 1: Riddles what are you want about? Asks Bilbo. Ah, so
44:07
Speaker 1: it understands us riddles riddles. We asks it and if
44:10
Speaker 1: it doesn't answer, we eats it. But if it asks
44:14
Speaker 1: us and we do not answer, we lets it go,
44:18
Speaker 1: says the predator. Fine, here's my riddle. What does sergeant
44:23
Speaker 1: Blaine not have time for? Asks Billbo? Whoa, says the predator.
44:28
Speaker 1: We thinks it is cheated. Nope, says Billbo. This is
44:32
Speaker 1: a famous quote on IMDb and everything. What does Sergeant
44:36
Speaker 1: Blaine not have time for? Well, crap, says the predator.
44:42
Speaker 1: I don't get out much. Um chet chat wrong, says Bilbo.
44:49
Speaker 1: He ain't got time to bleed. I win, And the
44:52
Speaker 1: predator lets out a howl and then says, well, come
44:55
Speaker 1: on out, you one. Well, Bilbo knows better than that,
45:02
Speaker 1: and this whole time he's been quietly sneaking up on
45:05
Speaker 1: the predator. So they jumps out of the water and
45:07
Speaker 1: plunges his dagger sting into the predators side, and there's
45:10
Speaker 1: this big fight and Bilbo gets bashed around a lot,
45:13
Speaker 1: and he nearly gets taken out with his like shoulder
45:15
Speaker 1: mounted predator cannon, but he eventually wins, and after winning,
45:19
Speaker 1: he curiously removes the Predator mask, only to reveal the
45:22
Speaker 1: underneath wasn't a Predator alien at all. I know, I
45:25
Speaker 1: was like totally surprised. To no, guys, it was Andy Circus.
45:29
Speaker 1: So Bilbo takes the Predator armor and he puts it on,
45:33
Speaker 1: and this lets him go all invisible. Well we all
45:36
Speaker 1: know how this story ends, right, Most of the team
45:38
Speaker 1: ends up dying, but some of them make it to
45:40
Speaker 1: the mountain and then Bilbo sneaks in because you know,
45:42
Speaker 1: he's wearing the Predator armor, and he uses an arm
45:45
Speaker 1: rounded laser to blast the dragon into ash, killing him instantly,
45:49
Speaker 1: and then everyone heads to the chopper. Wait, no, I
45:51
Speaker 1: mean they head to the Eagles the end. No, I
46:00
Speaker 1: really like the mashup. I'm still stuck on Andy Circus
46:03
Speaker 1: being under the Predator. I mean, that's I gotta I
46:07
Speaker 1: gotta subvert your expectations. But once again you show that
46:11
Speaker 1: sometimes our wildest ideas are actually a match made in heaven.
46:16
Speaker 1: Who would have thought that there are so many similarities
46:18
Speaker 1: between the Predator and the Hobbit Hobbit Yeah, yeah, you
46:23
Speaker 1: know it's I mean, really there, they're a hair's breadth apart,
46:27
Speaker 1: like two sides of the same coin when you get
46:30
Speaker 1: down to it, a couple of a couple of counties. Yeah,
46:34
Speaker 1: all right, Well that wraps up this buffer episode of
46:37
Speaker 1: Large Nerd Drunk Lighter. Hope you enjoyed it. If you
46:39
Speaker 1: have suggestions for things we should mash up in the future,
46:42
Speaker 1: or maybe you've got your own mix up of the
46:46
Speaker 1: Hobbit or and the Predator, or maybe you've got stuff
46:49
Speaker 1: to say about role playing games, like if there's a
46:51
Speaker 1: favorite you have that you think is great and more
46:53
Speaker 1: people need to play, let us know. We would love
46:55
Speaker 1: to hear it, and the best way to do that
46:57
Speaker 1: is to send us an email. The email address for
46:59
Speaker 1: the show was l n C at I Heart Media
47:02
Speaker 1: dot com. Ye. You can also reach out to us
47:05
Speaker 1: on social media on Twitter where Ellen c Underscore podcast,
47:08
Speaker 1: and on Instagram. We're Large Nor Drawn Lighter. We really
47:11
Speaker 1: do love hearing from you, um, and we'd also love
47:14
Speaker 1: your friends to hear from you as well. If you
47:16
Speaker 1: like the show, please share it with them or really
47:19
Speaker 1: anybody you know who's a geek or geek adjacent you
47:22
Speaker 1: know like the show, Leave review and we love you. Yes,
47:29
Speaker 1: and until next time, I'm Jonathan make a Saving Throw
47:32
Speaker 1: Strickland and I am Ariel Natural one casting. Oh, I
47:39
Speaker 1: was gonna call you a natural twiny. M m m
48:02
Speaker 1: hm hm. The Large Nur John Collider is production of
48:08
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and was created by Ariel Kasten. Jonathan
48:12
Speaker 1: Strickland is the executive producer. This show is produced, edited,
48:15
Speaker 1: and published by Torri Harrison. For more podcasts on my
48:18
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
48:21
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows