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Let's Roll! A Conversation with Tartan Tabletop image

Let's Roll! A Conversation with Tartan Tabletop

S5 E8 · Chatsunami
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In this episode, Satsunami is joined by the Dungeon's and Dragon's extraordinaire Josh from the Tartan Tabletop podcast to discuss all things about the podcast. What was it like performing at the Edinburgh Fringe? What led his friends to begin the podcast? And would he ever consider playing D&D on a double decker bus? All this and more in this episode of Chatsunami!

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Transcript

Introduction and Guest Welcome

00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Chatsunami.
00:00:16
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Satsunami. My name's Satsunami and joining me today is none other than the DM extraordinaire himself, it is Josh from the Tartan Tabletop Podcast. Hello, hello, hello. Thank you, thank you. That was such a wonderful introduction, DM extraordinaire. I had to go through the list of compliments. Usually I base it on how much guests pay me on PayPal, you know. yeah Yeah, I'll transfer that later. So far ah for listeners just wondering, yes, he went for the premium package, which yeah comes with a couple of compliments, and you know, paper

Time Zone Challenges and Coffee Sponsorship

00:00:52
Speaker
throughout the episode. And for legal reasons, my Red Panda lawyer is waving me down. That is indeed a joke.
00:00:57
Speaker
ah Yeah, how are you doing today? I'm good. I am wonderful. This is the earliest I've been awake in a long time. And it was very, very worth it to chat to yourself. I'm currently halfway through my first coffee of the day. So if you hear me shaking and jittering into the microphone, that that's but that is that's just bonus ASMR content, isn't it? You'll just notice the numbers all triple once it gets out on Reddit that I'm doing that.
00:01:22
Speaker
Right after I do this, I'm posting it to Reddit, that's it. New ASMR, NSFW. Coffee time. last but ah See if we tag Costa in Starbucks, do you think they'll get back to us and or on banners from the shop? I think they'll get back to us only to pursue further litigation. Probably. Costa bucks, yeah. For legal reasons, let's just call them that. There you are. There you are. They'll never know. Of course, no.
00:01:50
Speaker
ah But Starbucks and or Costa, even Cafe Nero, if you're listening to this and you want to throw us a cheeky sponsorship, you know where we are. But my daydreams are aside, ah ah I know exactly what you mean though, because I've had guests on in the past, particularly from Australia and other parts of the world, and they have had to wake up really early to get recording with me because of the pesky time zones. All I can say is, thank God we're in the same time zone.

Tartan Tabletop Podcast Origins and Live Shows

00:02:16
Speaker
It makes a lovely change. 100%, you're sort of making me seem even lazier now that there's people getting up from a street. I'd like to point out, I recognise that it's way harder for them to get up than it is for me to get up at 15 minutes ago, 4.39. That's not it's not hard. I'm just lazy. I mean, to be fair, this is probably the earliest I've gotten up as well for an episode. So, you know, I have to admit. We're both in the same boat here. Fabulous. As I was saying before, you're of course the DM and I'm assuming the head honcho of the tartan tabletop podcast. So before we go on, would you like to tell the lovely listeners at home what that's all about? Yes, I like that you've called me the head honcho, but I feel like everyone else would would hate that. So I'm going to start off there being like that. This is an equal four-way partnership.
00:03:02
Speaker
I can hear them sharpening their pitchforks in the back. Right, yeah, there's torches being lit. So yeah, top to table top, we are a live play D and&D, I'll go with the word experience. We are both a podcast and a live show. The live show surprisingly happening way more frequently than the podcast does. So you can go in and listen back to some of that podcast stuff. but we do a live show now. It's pretty much every single month that we have one on, sort of from November all the way through now, I think till December um next year we'll have stuff booked. So yeah, it's pretty pretty busy. I know curiosity and again, I don't want this to be an interrogation to be like, how the heck did you get started on this? Because I was written through and saw that your earliest episodes that you uploaded was 2022 for very obvious

D&D Journey and Edinburgh Fringe Experience

00:03:50
Speaker
reasons. I can't imagine why you wouldn't be able to do live shows between 2022 and late 2021 but out of curiosity, how did you get into this whole thing? So, obviously with TT, there's as I said four of us, it's myself, Alex, Lauren and Niall. I'd only really started playing TT RPGs really in the middle of Covid that was Alex had introduced it to me. He'd been a DM for me and I had just got really obsessed with the game and rules and just everything, the kind of media around it. Obviously, it was Covid at the time, so I had no job and an abundance of free time to just obsess and sort of bond via that
00:04:27
Speaker
we were like, hey, we should do this, spot monetize our hobby and perform this for people and grow to hate it. No, I'm joking. but yeah We all from a performing background as well. So it just sort of fell together quite naturally, I think. So why did you decide that that was the particular format you wanted to go, that you wanted to do it live? I know during the 2020s and myself included, you can't see it, but I'm holding up my hands guiltily here, but loads of people started podcasts, they started streaming. they to do YouTube channels. Two out of three for me isn't bad. But you know they did so many things like that. And I'm just wondering why you went for the live performance part of it because listening to your stuff and checking out your clips from your live shows, I'm not going to pretend that I was at the back of the fringe theater like last year or the year before. What? That wasn't you? No, no. That was a different Red Panda surprise. Okay. If I had a penny for every time, etc but yeah, what inspired you guys to go for that format in particular? Honestly, honest answer. We're all really bad with technology to a laughable extent. So doing the podcast, that I'll hold my hands up. You can go back and listen to like the first
00:05:42
Speaker
couple of episodes we did. The quality of, I mean the story in the, you know, the banter is really funny. The quality of the recording is ass, it's awful. And it's because we're really bad with that kind of thing. But what we do know quite a lot about is is live performance. So we were like, this is just going to be way easier if we just do this on stage rather than the recorded version, which I think is a really roundabout way of of coming into that that scene. But here we are still going. I know at the end of the day, that's all you can do. How did it feel though, seeing being at the Edinburgh Fringe, and I know this is going to be the hugest plot twist of the episodes because I'm Scottish, you're Scottish. yeah I know the voices have given us away, unfortunately. How did it feel performing at the Edinburgh Fringe? Because it is a massive deal. yeah There's hundreds of tourists that flock to an Airbnb price to shoot on.
00:06:33
Speaker
I've read them. Trains are absolutely spilled out. You know, you're just trying to get to Sterling and you're waged in between two Americans. So oh how did that feel? It was quite frightening at first, is what I would say. I mean, we've done that sort of third year at the Fringe we've just done. We started doing the PBH 3 Fringe in 2022. You know, that was the first time not only that we were were doing this show, but for me, it was the first time that sort of anything I had quote unquote written was being put on in front of ah an audience, so it was quite frightening. And the show has changed considerably since then. That first year we were really leaning into dramatic stuff, very critical role inspired. And you know, it was good. I remember one of the shows people were crying in the audience over the fictional bugbear, which was

Scottish Humor and Personal Storytelling

00:07:20
Speaker
great. That was really nice. But I think after a while we were like, we just want to make people laugh. And so, that's sort of how we were going now. In terms of how it felt after that, it feels great. Laughter is great. There's immediate feedback on your work, which I think from a selfish perspective is lovely to hear. A specially when you get people coming up to you saying, oh, I laughed at this and I laughed at that. And obviously, with as you were saying, if you're doing it live, then you get immediate feedback. Yeah. Which from what it sounds like, you do get more laughter than silence, which is absolutely fantastic to hear because, yeah, I have to admit if I ever did a live show and then someone's sitting there going, yeah, funny, I guess. Oh, that is the worst. I'm just thinking of the kind of pity laughter where it's like, oh, ha that was a funny joke. And I'm like, I haven't even told the joke yet. To be fair, to be fair, I'm quite bad for someone will tell a joke and I'll say, oh, that's funny. And I do genuinely mean it's funny. I'm just, I don't have laughs to give. I don't have laughs to give anymore. Not in this economy. No. Listen, whoever told you laughs are cheap was lying. Laughs are fucking expensive. This is a cost of laughing crisis here. The laugh economy is down. yeah The frowns are not upside down is what we're saying. Yep, they're not. Anyway, that was the very serious analytical part of this episode. Yep, it's gone. We'll throw it.
00:08:39
Speaker
But no, that's absolutely fantastic. You'll probably know this person because, let's face it, he's everywhere. But my friend and you know occasional guest, co-host, Martin McAlister... Yeah, yeah, yeah, Martin. Die. Oh, thank God. They're really awkward if I didn't, really. Yeah, I know. ah He was telling me about you guys saying, oh, I follow with this great live performing D and&D podcast, and I was like, oh, sure, if you know, I'll check them out. Honestly, it's one of the best things I've done in terms of D and&D because I was absolutely hollering at your episodes. Aww. Just want to point out, I'm not just saying that because you're on.
00:09:15
Speaker
but I was listening to a couple of your episodes, and the one that honestly I have to catch up with the next episodes, but the help my teacher's a zombie needs that you've got going on just now. Oh my god. Not only was I cackling with laughter, but that really triggered my fight or flight response for some of the things she said. ah Because you know that way when someone says, oh, it's really authentic and things. No, no, what you guys were saying was scarily authentic. Scarily real. ah For the Scottish school experience. Right, right. Especially when you are talking about the mum with the cup of tea saying, oh, who are you on the phone to? Oh, no one is like, okay, just ask. I was like, oh boy. Funnily enough, that's just my mum. That's an impression of my own mother.
00:10:01
Speaker
Half of the stuff you guys were saying, it felt like a time capsule in all the right ways. It was just absolutely brilliant. And that actually brings me on to my next question because I had to ask this. A lot of D and&D podcasts and tabletop podcasts, when they do their sessions, you know usually the critical roles and things, they'll follow a particular story from the books. or, you know, a pre-made session or whatever. But for you it seems as if it's very much Umbre. I mean, to be fair, a small Scottish town I don't think is on the D and&D handbook. But you'd be surprised if you have look at all those dwarven cities down below. Oh, there's Tarkana, page 70.
00:10:43
Speaker
ah But do you prefer that kind of setting? Oh, 100%. Yeah, I think from a storytelling perspective, it's always better to draw from stuff that you know, right? And you know, funnily enough, I've never fought Vecna in real life. I've never encountered a lich or anything like that or like a dragon. So like a lot of the sort of elements of the pre-written stuff, I think, you know, I'm not saying they're bad stories. They're great stories and

Live Performances vs. Podcasting

00:11:05
Speaker
people have a lot of fun playing them, but I just can't connect with them as easily as a DM. That's the thing, and I think Martin, if you're listening to this, because he was my very first AM pre-Covid, I always remember I came back from university because I used to live away from home and then every weekend I come back and I was chatting to him and and then he turned round and they went, do you want to play D and&D? And I'm not going to lie, I thought he was joking.
00:11:28
Speaker
ah Genuinely, at that time, D and&D wasn't really as popular. I want to say it was as far back as definitely before 2015 anyway. were wow yeah so but ago yeah There wasn't really that critical role aspect. It wasn't really in the mainstream, and that sounded like such a bloody hipster saying that. But you know, it wasn't that popular. So I thought, oh, you're just pulling my leg. I have a very funny role initiative. But no, he said no. a played it, had a lot of fun, why don't you guys come and play it? So we got together with a group of friends, absolutely loved it and although his was very much the fantasy setting, he made up his own places and granted half of them were named after whiskeys. It's cool though, that's ah that's a good way to do it. Oh no, it was absolutely fantastic but it's funny because as a Scotsman, you know, I'm lighting the country down, I don't really drink. So I was like, oh Taliska or Dura, those are really cool fantasy names. And then, you know, you're in the shop and you see like a whiskey named Drew or Taliska and you're like, yeah, goddamn minute. A good way I think of doing it, stuff that me and Alex have definitely employed for characters, his own brand names from Lidl of like spices. Well, I suppose it's either that or go and not see the middle aisle of Aldi. ah It's an adventure on his own. It is, you can get lost in there, which. Writing it down as we speak, one shot set in the middle aisle of Aldi. Just one more. thing
00:12:53
Speaker
a Colombo spin-off, doesn't it? I know. Just one more thing. I'm totally with you there when you were saying about how it's more or rather it's easier to put yourself on a setting that you can relate to. And I know that all of them are set in, you know, a sleepy Scottish town. I was listening to that. I thought it sounds weird to say, but as a fellow Scots person, you know, it's weird to listen to something and then resonate with it so much because I was like, oh, I recognise that reference and that reference. Oh, my God. You know, whether it was the house systems. Did you have those as well in school? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we had those as well. Yeah, for me, they're the kind of school houses, do you mean? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, we had those, ours were just coloured, so it was like red, yellow, blue. They tried to bring in it as the Greek alphabet, but no one bothered to remember what that was. So it went back to being that we didn't have it in secondary school, but we had it in primary school. And let me tell you, see as someone who went to primary school in the 90s and early 2000s, you know what else came out at the same time? Harry Potter. Oh yeah. So of course, people in the yellow house, they were the Hufflepuffs, the ones in the red, they were Gryffindor. There was such an overlap there at the time, but it's surprisingly secondary school that wasn't really much although I think the weirdest you know how you got the rewards and everything and one of them I remember was an extra playtime for about 50 minutes but it was so awkward because you would go outside with your other house mates as it were running about but all the other kids were still working that seems more like a punishment for them more than a reward to you exactly doesn't it yeah you're up in the window like look how much fun I'm having like what are you in there
00:14:37
Speaker
I don't know, I felt more like a fish. smoke that I was like, oh look, look at me. That, and I have to say it's terrible as it sounds, all of my friends were in the other houses. So it was like, I'm playing with these people that that were nice at the time, but you know, you're like, oh, okay, I guess I'll talk to you.
00:14:57
Speaker
but that's really sad but i'm not gonna lie to you that's really sad that's quite sad i'm sorry that happened to you it was the 90s it was a different time but anyway my trauma aside this is a new reason i got yawned for a free therapy session exactly What are DMs for? Exactly true. Roll for crying. But going back to your performances of course in Edinburgh and the fringe and everything, what that actually took me off guard because I was looking through your Instagram page for London Tabletop and I noticed the Mary's Kings close.
00:15:31
Speaker
Oh yeah, American is closed on the 5th of November. Yeah, in there. It's in there. 5th and it's sold out. So anyone listening? I'm sorry. Can't come. And I know this is a question of the episode. How did that come about? But I'm genuinely curious because I know you've got another one on the 14th of December. Correct. Yeah, in the Georgian house. I mean, how did you pull that other one?
00:15:55
Speaker
So it's not enough for us to just do the regular now, you know, we want to keep it as interesting as possible and We want to keep trying sort of new things as we thought was like a you know Cool way of doing these shows is maybe to do them in you know, these historical sites Maybe do a story that's sort of set out it in terms of how we sort of got those gigs, nepotism, sheer nepotism. Now, Alex knows a lot of people, that's what I make things close. A lot of our friends work there and the Georgian house we've performed there a couple of times already, so there's just already a so there's a relationship there all very wonderful people, all very happy to have us in the venue. There are still tickets for the George and House one, so if you want to come, anyone listening, please come along. It's going to be a D and&D pantomime type thing. I haven't written it yet, so we'll see what happens. I was going to say, as long as you don't target the audience, it'd be like you on stage roll this day. Well, not yet. Speaking of pantomimes, have you ever had that kind of fear when you're sitting in a pantomime and then they bring out the camera and they're like, oh, who are we going to target? And you're like, oh, no. I think it speaks to my own arrogance that I don't feel fear. I'm excited. I'm like, pick me. I want you to pick me. but
00:17:03
Speaker
but Because my partner and I went to, I think it was last year, we went to the Edinburgh one. I even remember, I think it was Peter Pan or something. I have never seen this before because usually I'm used to them going up to the stalls and being like, yeah oh, what's your name? Blah, blah, blah. But this time they brought out a fully functional camera and they were like, people, honestly, a camera with tall guy. So the fact I just shrunk and I'm like, my partner's going, what's wrong? And I'm like, no, no, no.
00:17:29
Speaker
no no it's okay it's like You just keep your head up, I'm just gonna slink down here but fortunately the lights were far too bright so that's a tip. There you are, hiding the shadows. Exactly, as Batman taught us. I heard they're not allowed to do the, did they ever used to do the thing when you went when you were younger where they'd like throw sweets into the audience so they'd hit them with a tennis racket. I think they're not allowed to do that anymore.
00:17:53
Speaker
um ah man I don't know if someone got

Fringe Festival Audience Insights

00:17:55
Speaker
blinded or something and now they can't do it, but you know, I'm not going. I'm not going until they bring it back. ah Back in our day, we had real pantomimes. Boycott, the handle. See, to be honest, it's one of those things that I think surely not, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was. I don't know. It's just a thing that the older you get, don't get me wrong, you still get enjoyment out of it, but the older you get, you look at pantomimes and you think, wow, this is for kids.
00:18:19
Speaker
It's almost as if we aren't the target audience anymore. I know, surprisingly. Sometimes things just aren't for you. I know. And that's wrong and shouldn't be. Exactly. if That's the message. Anyway, thank you for listening. to I mean, it's always funny though, right enough at the end when they bring up the kids and so they get them to try and tell a joke. And I'm pretty sure in the last one that I was at, the kids just didn't want to say a joke. They just wanted to walk off with a prize.
00:18:48
Speaker
I've did Pantomime before. I've been on a Panto. It was an experience. I did like a touring one for schools. um You know those sort of ones. You know the ones that they turn up. I did one of those. One of the schools we went to, it was like a primary school. I remember that very vividly. The stage was the floor level. Like there wasn't a stage. It was just, we were on the floor with the kids and I was the villain. I was the sort of crotchety mayor of the town and I come out and I do my big villain monologue at the beginning. like Oh, I'm such an evil man, man. That sort of thing. And this kid up the back, really tall. This is like primary two or three. This kid's like my height. but And I'm like tall. I'm like 6'1". This kid's like really tall. Just starts gunning it down the middle. How we're walking towards me, but like no one's stopping him. Like no one is stopping this kid. I'm like, man, this, he's going to beat me up. I'm going to get beaten up by a child live on stage.
00:19:35
Speaker
and It just came and gave me a big hug and it was really nice. It was really nice. I think he thought I was evil and going to destroy the town because of a lack of friendship. So learn that lesson kids. I was going to say that is a completely different experience from the Galah school ones. Right. This was in like Luton. Well you know what shout out to Luton for that one.
00:19:57
Speaker
ah I have to say, I can't imagine many pantomimes where the kids are like, if he just needs a hug. Can't imagine many shows where the kids are like, I'm just going to get up and go on stage. Good to respect the hustle, I suppose.
00:20:08
Speaker
but but I take it you've never had that though for tartan tabletop, no heckling. I mean hopefully, hopefully to gods you haven't but no heckling or people yelling out or anything. We've been sort of okay because of the nature of the show, we don't hugely mind like people shouting out every now and then. That's not an invitation to anyone listening but it's not like I will typically engage with it if it's not horribly insulting. We've had people playing music before which was really weird I think it was like a sort of, or we were entering like a tense moment and they took it upon themselves to DJ that. Which don't do that, that was kind of odd. And it was also very confusing. We did a run in Australia as well. We did Adelaide Fringe. We had a show there and... but and heart There was a girl in the audience with Tourette's and she was really lovely and ended up, she but just became a part of the show. Texts and stuff, chi she couldn't help it. But yeah, that was interesting. But it was a lot of fun and they were a good sport as well. so Would you say there was any difference though obviously other than that but do you say there was any difference between the audience and that particular fringe as opposed to the Edinburgh one? Over in Adelaide, the audience I guess, yeah I think it was like a completely different atmosphere in general for the festival. The actual scale difference is it's crazy. Edinburgh is obviously the biggest one but it's like way bigger. But I think overall the sort of sense of humour and I think the sensibilities between Scottish people and Australians are fairly similar. agree. I think they were a little less rowdy than they are in Edinburgh. They were a little more contained, I'll say. Yeah, that makes sense. ah Because I have to say, and again, no offense to the fringe-goers of Edinburgh listening here, but I have been there during the fringe, not obviously performing, partly because they won't return my calls, but that's another story.
00:21:53
Speaker
Again, for legal reasons, that's a joke. But yeah, half of the time when you go to Edinburgh at the best of times, it's really busy. You know, you've got tourists all year round, you've got just people trying to weave in and outside tourists. But at the same time, when you go to the Fringe and oh my God, see when you get the train on to Edinburgh on Fringe Day. horrible. It is like sardines in a can. And I mean, especially if you're travelling from Glasgow to Edinburgh, it's 45 minutes of just hell, pretty much. Although I have to admit, it is quite fun listening out to the different accents because you're like, oh, there's a Canadian person, there's an American and this and that. And you can tell they're going to the fringe because they're all dressed up and whatnot. but of course You need a riot shield, don't you? Oh, 100%. Yeah, 100%. My dream is that tartan table top will get so big that I can take a helicopter. That's what I hope for. I don't think we're going to get there anytime soon, but I can always shoot for the the stars. I also remember that poster from school.
00:22:53
Speaker
ah True for the moon, if you miss, you'll land in the stars. Do what the bitter iron I was. That was hung up in our maths department and I have to say, I was terrible at maths. It didn't help. They are. They're landing somewhere in and then around the atmosphere. Just drifting lustlessly. That's right.

Unique Performance Venues and Ghostly Tales

00:23:10
Speaker
Down in curiosity, where would your dream venue be to perform? Oh, that's a good question. That's a really, really good question. The sold out living room of my high school bully. No.
00:23:23
Speaker
I think, I don't know, because every time we do a new venue, I'm like, this is surreal. When are people going to find out that I have a real sort of a, not an imposter syndrome with the shows, but like, uh, you know what I mean? We're going to get found out. We're just four friends that are just going up and playing a game. No, no, I've outed myself live on a podcast. I think my dream venue, the bigger, the better. I think I don't know, Madison Square Gardens. Let's go with that. Let's go with that one. I've been very uncreative. You know, I thought you were going to say Edinburgh Castle, but I'll take it. Oh, no, that's, hey, no, that one. That's a good one. Edinburgh Castle would be great. That'd be really good. I was going to say, well, with worst times to the worst, it's always Stirling Castle. Yeah, perfect. Yeah. Edinburgh Castle's little brother. Yeah. Brother on another hill. Yep.
00:24:07
Speaker
Pain in the backside to get up to, but I know why. Well, that's sort of the point. Yeah, exactly. I remember I saw a tweet from someone the other day saying, oh, I'm going to Edinburgh and oh, I'm really not looking forward to all the hills and the stairs and I was like,
00:24:22
Speaker
Well, the stairs, you know, you can get around, but nah, the hills are there to stay. It's a very hilly city, isn't it? It's extremely hilly city. It's a city built on top of a city. That's what I learned recently going on my first ever tour of Mary King's close. Well, would you believe the first time I went was last year as well. Wow. So yeah, you're a monk's good company here. but Fantastic.
00:24:44
Speaker
It's an interesting tour though. Oh it's great, my tour guide was fantastic. It's Alex that also does Taunton Tabletop was doing my tour. Yeah no, it's an absolutely fantastic tour and again for legal reasons this isn't sponsored by Mary's King's Clothes or anything but it's such a weird one because you have to book ahead of time.
00:25:03
Speaker
to actually get there because we had one of those moments where we had our tickets and everything, but then the couple behind us went up and they said, oh, can we get tickets for today? And they're like, nah, sorry. They were more polite than that, mind you. They're like, nah, sorry, they you have to book ahead. So it's just so popular. And of course, the further down you descend, it gets absolutely with Baltic, doesn't it? Oh yeah, it's just just cold, it's creepy too. Really scary. I mean for obvious reasons it's cold and creepy. Well, oh yeah. It's a city under a city as you said. I have to say the one weird room I noticed, did you get to see this? It was the room with the really dodgy paint on it. Was it the poison paint? Yeah, that was it. Yeah, I know that one. Yeah, that was really weird. Yeah, but they just swung the door open and then they're like, oh here's poison this paint. And it's like, why are you opening this door? Don't go, I just waft in it everywhere, right? For those that haven't been, there's a room full of dolls that's supposedly haunted. That was frightening. i I poked my head and I was like, I'm not going in there. I'm really, I have ah ah a real day-to-day worry that I'm accidentally going to get myself cursed in some way. Some way she performed, I'm going to maybe be go into one of these rooms and disturb the piece and then a ghost is going to curse me. So that's a fear that I have. You're going to be in your own live action version of Scooby Doo. Pretty much, yeah. I've been compared to a great day and often in my life. Yeah, I'm going to move on from that. No, that room is. I'm totally with you there. That room is absolutely ridiculous. And correct me if I'm wrong here, but was it not that they had, it was something to do with somebody left the doll for what they thought was the ghost of a child there, but then somebody stole that original dog Yeah, it was like a famous medium came and did, I don't know, like sort of going around the rooms to try and detect spirits and supposedly detected one in that room. And yeah, the doll was left, but they got stolen. And so people now come in and leave dolls and stuff for the ghost.
00:26:57
Speaker
yeah i found that quite weird when you're looking at all these different dolls from different time periods yeah it's creepy some are really old and then you see i don't know something from cartoon network or something from like last year i didn't know they were into contemporary media just the ghosts picking up going what the hell is this literally i don't know what this is Have you ever done the ghost tour? I haven't. Is that the one with the bus? Yeah, I mean, I haven't either, but I've seen the bus going around. It's like a big black bus. It's like a double-decker one and you walk by it after a minute was laughing because compared to if you go to a city like Glasgow where they've got the big red double-decker bus and and it's one for afternoon tea, which I think is one of the worst ideas ever. our Right. Imagine being the server on the
00:27:41
Speaker
Imagine having an afternoon tea in the middle of Glasgow and, you know, the potholes everywhere. Your whole 20 year tea going, this is a lovely experience, isn't it? If you look to your left, you'll see Mary Hill. If you look to your right, oh the barrel land. Cool, cool. So what I'm trying to ask is, you've never thought about doing a D and&D session on a bus? Not until right now. So every adventure is different, right? Every time we do a show, it's a completely different story and we try to sort of theme it around where we are performing. So if we did it on a bus, I guess I'd need to do like Transformers maybe. I thought you were going to say speed or something. oh Oh, I'm going to steal that. Go for it.
00:28:22
Speaker
but Now all we need to do is find a bus. It's crazy. You know, I'm sure there's plenty of them to hire out, but then again, I'm saying that as if I know that for a fact. Right, have you looked this up before? I wonder where you get the party buses, but I don't think that would really have the same vibe with it. Same vibe or capacity. Can you imagine you being the bus driver for that? It's like, oh, where do you want to go? Are you going to a party or something? Nah, we're good here.

Edinburgh Driving Challenges and Actor Talk

00:28:44
Speaker
Just plenty. Just park up somewhere, buddy.
00:28:47
Speaker
I mean, you could have people creepily breathing in the windows and be like, oh, are you playing D&D? It's sad, I don't think I'd want that. Just drive, drive. you Please, get out of here. But aye, no, go back to the other bus. Yes, yes. I haven't been on either. I've heard good things are about it, but again, I feel as if driving in Edinburgh at night, I mean, driving in Edinburgh any time of the day, that gives me nightmares. I don't drive, I've never learnt to drive so i've I've avoided that terror that you're describing. I've only driven twice in Edinburgh and I always remember my dad saying this to me, he said ever since his trams came in he absolutely hates driving in Edinburgh so of course you know me being
00:29:26
Speaker
The sun, as it were, being like, ah, dad, you're, you know, exaggerating and everything. I've been twice and I've never found religion so fast in my life while driving in it. Honestly, when you're on the tracks and you're like, should I be here? Should I not be here? And obviously, I need to be there to turn around, but I'm looking at my rear view mirror as if if a tram comes up behind, to then that's it. It's game over. I mean, I've not had any messages from the Edinburgh Council to say you drove like an idiot part and parcel, but you They're compiling them, they're compiling them into a file so they can easily send it as one. One big message. One big massive fine. It's like if I go to the Fringe next year, I'll put myself onto a show and they'll just be like, yeah there's no show, here's your tickets. They're like that movie trap. Did you see that? Yeah, I did. Yeah, I did. It was, do you know what? I actually, from an entertainment perspective, I enjoyed it. I was like, this is fun. It's an interesting film. I'm not going to say it's going to win an Oscar, but it was, you know, it was okay. I mean, the first half was all right, but then avoiding spoilers here, but after the concert and everything, you're like, yeah, kind of jumped the shark a little bit on that to an extent. If you can say that about a film, but the subject matter that it has. The whole tray of our focus is on the concert, but that is the best part of the film. you get to the next bit where it's like he's a shape shifter and everything. I mean, that's not a spoiler, but he's not a literal shape shifter. But yeah, I remember sitting in the cinema being like, oh, this is a great movie so far. I don't know why people are complaining about it. And then two seconds later, you're like, Oh yeah, yeah it's fell off a little bit M Night, it's fell off. Josh Hartnett though, he is on the rise, his star is once again rising, you heard the hear first. Well I mean that is true though, when you keep saying them in the same films you're like, oh yeah 100%. That's gonna be you and you guys one day writing off in the tabletop community where it's like, oh it's these guys again.

Podcast Editing and Content Creation Struggles

00:31:16
Speaker
Yeah, got hello these guys, tabletop really fell off with that last one. The first half was great, second half not so much. Yeah, ever since they took it onto that bus, you know, there's nothing to say. It was a life-changing experience. but The first half of the bus journey was good. And then the DM got really travelled second, the second half wasn't as good. But speaking of that, speaking of other than difficulties writing a double decabass, what kind of difficulties have he found with the podcast and recording live shows and recording the podcast itself? Because I can't imagine, you know, and this is coming from someone who also has his fair share of mishaps recording podcasts, but I can't imagine, you know, it goes flawlessly. Yeah, so the recording the podcast
00:31:59
Speaker
Really, the main enemy of that, which is the main enemy of D and&D as well, is just scheduling. There's just finding the time to do it. Recently, we've been doing like, oh, we'll take a full day off and try and do like two or three episodes in that one day, which is really tiring. It's sort of by the end of it, you're like, man, I don't know if that was, you know, the best output we could have done. We're really tired. So, you know, it's sort of balancing that, okay, maybe we'll do two sessions this day, maybe we'll do one this other day, because we all work. full time as well on top of doing all of this. So yeah, it's been really difficult. Other than that though, you know, technically speaking, we work in ah a studio now which is nice and so you know, most of that hasn't been a huge problem. We've had to learn to edit which has been a fun experience. But no, the live show is the only real sort of bad troubleshooting we ever had to do was like time. How do you cut a story down to it's often like an hour or an hour and a half slot that we get given and we don't really want to do any longer than that so it's like working out how to make a full story but have it be concise and I'm not going to tell you how because that's the secret sauce and you've got to work that out for yourself. Yeah I can totally sympathise on edit in front because other than this podcast of course which is honestly it's an absolute delight to record
00:33:13
Speaker
But see to edit it and put it together, take away all of my repetitive arms and likes and as and things like that. Oh my god, it is just as the absolute worst. But I remember, ironically enough, it was again with Martin McAllister, my friend Andrew, and another good friend who goes by the name Robotic Battle Soaster. He's a Twitch streamer. I just want to say he's a twitch doomer. I think I've heard of him actually. but You've probably seen him floating around. More lately, most lately. But all of them are absolutely lovely guys and we did an attempt for a tabletop podcast called Stop, Drop and Roll Initiative and my co-host would absolutely kick me in the backside if I didn't bring this up. But we started it, you know, just kind of casually and then because of trying to get the right time for us all to meet up and everything. That was a struggle and because I'm so consumed as with chat tsunami I was like, I can't really help as much with the editing. So my friend Andrew was like, oh, it's fine. It's fine. I'll edit it and everything. This isn't a call out to him, but only two and a half episodes have been edited so far. It's hard. It's tough.
00:34:20
Speaker
right and I mean, especially since there's four of us, and I'm assuming it's the same for yourselves, that because there's so many people that you have to juggle the audio tracks and everything, do you feel as if the more people you have on an episode or for a session, the the more difficult it is to edit it all together? Yeah, I think on top of it being difficult to edit, I think the more people you have as well, just the more likely you are to have things to edit out, right? Like mistakes are like people talking over each other or things like that. as Sorry, I'm just like having pure flashbacks here to edit and I don't do as much of the editing anymore, which is nice. Yeah, it's tough.
00:34:59
Speaker
I honestly think I've got Stockholm Syndrome at this point because I've had friends who have said, oh, I'll help you edit it. And then I think, well, on the one hand, that would make my life a whole lot easier. But on the other hand, I've gotten so used to editing it in a particular way because one of my friends I remember years ago when I started the podcast said, oh, it's OK. Just leave a couple of arms, legs, a couple of breathy noises just to make it sound natural and everything. Long story short, we're not friends anymore.
00:35:29
Speaker
I listened back to the early episodes and I cringe with myself. I'm like, how did I let myself have that pause there, have that breathy noise? No one wants to hear breathy noises on the podcast. No one wants to hear arms and legs. On the occasional one, sure, but it was the absolute worst. And ironically enough, and I think I actually said this to you when I was reaching out to you to come onto this episode, that Martin and I, our first episode together, was actually the very first episode of Chatsunami. And it was all about D and&D, it was all about our experiences together. And fortunately, we redid the episode two seasons later, but I feel as if the first season, and I'm assuming as well that this is the same with you guys through your earlier episodes, and it's like a learning curve that you get better and better. Yeah, 100%. Taking behind the curtain here for a bit, but for the first season, the majority of them were are done over Discord because I was streamed live at the time, which probably didn't help. And you know, I got the audio off of that, it was all mushed together, it wasn't the best quality and everything. thing So by season two, I ended up finding Zincaster. And again, that's not a shout out, but it is great when it works and everything, but it's just trying to find that balance, isn't it? yeah The joys of editing. Thinking back, because I did a very, very first
00:36:49
Speaker
episode and I think it took me like at least 12 hours and like it doesn't sound good but even just to make it coherent and work and put it all together and patchwork it was like it was tough. Foolishly we started researching how to make a podcast after we'd recorded the first one and there were some basic things that we hadn't been doing that kind of made life easier. Like that first episode, we're all in the same room during it but like not in a studio. We are in, there's no mixer or anything so it's like we are in my living room. And so everybody's mic is picking up everyone else's, you know what I mean, everyone else's voice. There's no mixer to cut any of that out, so it was like, yeah, it was a bit of a nightmare. The amount of times that I've done episodes in the same room as someone and once again completely sympathised, there was an episode I did with someone and for some reason, this was before I got the XLR mics.
00:37:37
Speaker
and we both had condenser mics and they were both USB ones. And for some reason, we managed to get it to work. The first time we did it, it was perfectly fine. You know, it wasn't the best quality, but it picked it up alright. But then the other two times we did it, it was really echoey and just really bad quality. and I was having a meltdown when I was editing it because I'm like, oh, the quality is the worst.
00:38:01
Speaker
terrible Have you ever had an episode like that where, are and obviously not because of the quality, but because of the audio or something's just not clicked that you've thought, I'm not sure whether I want to put

Evolving Storytelling and Audience Engagement

00:38:12
Speaker
it out? Yeah, we have hidden episodes. We have whole story arcs. That's a deep cut right now. We have whole story arcs that just haven't went out. They're just sitting on a hard drive. Maybe one day they will they will be released,
00:38:24
Speaker
but through different reasons, through technical issues. There's a few of them. I think there's like three of them or like a few of them where we're like, you know what? Maybe we don't want to put that story out right now. Maybe this is like one for later on. So it might just be hidden forever. So that's part of the TT lore right there.
00:38:40
Speaker
I'm the absolute same though because there's a couple of epis episodes that I haven't released in the early days. I mean I remember recording a full episode of, you know the film Perfect Blue? Have you ever seen that? I have not. What is that? I mean it's a good film but God is it heavy. It's like, you know the film Black Swan? Yes, yes. It's like the anime version of that. Okay, okay. Although I think Perfect Blue came first and that's a whole other thing. yeah I'm just saying that in case there's weeps in the audience.
00:39:08
Speaker
But my friend Andrew and I, we did an episode on it and I remember his audio quality was quite bad at the time. And we did a whole episode and I remember listening back and my audio was okay, not to pat myself on the back, but mine's was okay, but his just sounded like he was at the bottom of a Pringle scan. So I was like, yeah, I can't put it out because I couldn't salvage his audio. So we had to rerecord it. And don't get me wrong, it was a brilliant episode. It's one of our best ones. have been a few and I have to say there was a guy who I remember interviewing in season one and he was a streamer and he was like oh by the way just to let you know after we recorded the episode I'm going away in the hiatus so you might want to hold off and release on that so I was like yeah yeah no problem and then long story short and never got released because I kept pushing it back and back and now I feel as if I've kind of gone over the rubicon of quality. Right yeah.
00:40:03
Speaker
It's so far back that it's just such a different style and everything. You've got to wait like five years from now and then release it as pay-per-view or like a Patreon. Well, I've always been tempted to but then I think, what's someone paying £1 a month could I think when they listen to it go? That's what I'm paying for.
00:40:22
Speaker
What do you need? You just need a thousand people paying 50 pence and then you just need like 500 pence. I think I also was bad at maths. As I said before, you're a monk's good company here. I mean that is the thing though, isn't it? With content creation, it's like on the one hand you kind of think, oh I don't know if you know it's good enough to go out, but then on the other hand you think, well it would make good bonus content. Yeah, 100%. I think as a creator, it's always good to be able to quote-unquote sort of kill your babies, you know what I mean? You know, there's nothing wrong with looking at something you've made and being like, actually, you know, I can do better or maybe actually this wasn't a great idea. I think that it's definitely a hard thing to do, you know, but there there's nothing wrong with that. It's just to take its practice is what I say. And would you say that your show and I suppose yourself as a content creator has grown over the years doing this? Oh, 1000% is completely different from what we we used to do. You know, it's still always evolving. Obviously before, as I'd said, we were quite dramatic and now we're leaning very into like really silly, funny, going for laughs. Even the podcast, the way it's structured is is a lot different now. So before we were doing, you can go back and watch our first season, or listen to, sorry, our first season, The Lonely Cosmos, which is sort of long overarching. I think there's like 12 or 13 episodes It's a comedy, but there is like dramatic elements to it and it's, you know, a little bit more of a, I don't want to say a fleshed out story, like we don't do that in the other ones, but it's, you know, there's peaks and valleys in it. Whereas we're sort of moving now towards doing shorter seasons, like three episode one shots that maybe are just a little bit more entertainment value, like fun, silly, something you can put on and just have a good time kind of thing. Because I have to say with shows like
00:42:06
Speaker
Critical Role and, you know, all the giants that just one day appeared out of nowhere. It is quite difficult to get into them because I've had people recommending them for obvious reasons to be like, oh, Critical Role and, oh, this show, that show, oh, they're absolutely fantastic. And you go to listen to them and you're like, how many episodes are there? yeah especially because it's not like Chatsunami where you can jump in at any moment and this isn't me patting myself in the back here but it's not like that or even with your show as you said although it's a longer season at least 12 or so episodes that's not a huge mountain. It is manageable. yeah Whereas for something like Critical Role, it's like hundreds and hundreds of episodes and you've got people diving into the deep rich reward and the characters and you're like, hell, I don't know if I want to commit that time to it. And I know that sounds so lazy as someone who binges Netflix shows. No, 100%. I think for for me, I want to make things that I would listen to or watch
00:43:08
Speaker
And that's not like a quality thing. That's like a, I'm lazy. I don't have a long attention span. So I think that, yeah, I can't commit to watching like a hundred or so episodes that are all four hours or so. And some people really like that. And that's, you know, that's great for me growing up watching things, coming home from school, like watching The Simpsons, watching Futurama. That's like, I'm just jumping into like a quick 20-minute episode. Do you know what I mean? I'm enjoying it and then I'm part of the ways with it. My partner and I have just started watching an absolutely terrible sea for catching up on popular shows that have already been gone. You know, like Breaking Bad and things like that. It's like, oh yeah, I've watched this cool show. What is it? Breaking Bad? It's like, oh, years ago. But one of the shows we've been watching recently is that only murders in the building. Oh.
00:43:50
Speaker
again it's podcasters podcasting in the building and as a podcaster you kind of look at it and go okay what are they saying about podcasters but I was shocked when I realized that the episodes were around roughly 30 minutes or just over. That is such a novelty. It's really old and weird as that sounds. The fact that whenever you go into Netflix and it's like oh we've got this brand new show here's an hour long beginning episode and you think all right maybe the pilot or the first episode that's only an hour but the other episodes are going to be shorter. No, they're all our long episodes. It's a 57 minute episode. I think as a writer, it's honestly, I think it's harder to write shorter. I feel like, indicatively, you're like, oh, you know, a longer episode that would take longer to write, but I think it's harder to condense down what you're trying to do in 30 minutes. because have you ever had to do that though for the shorter episodes just say all right this has to go that has to go or do you save it for another time it's sort of strange because obviously we're like although I saying I write things I obviously write this sort of the DMing elements of it, but it is obviously for the majority and the most part entirely improvised, but from the cast at least that it's entirely improvised by them. So yeah, a lot of stuff I write down does end up going out of the window entirely, which is just the nature of D and&D. Like if I write something down and I'm like, yeah, this is going to be a great plot point and they just don't engage with it at all, then that's immediate feedback to me that maybe this wasn't a great plot point, you know what I mean? Are you one

D&D Group Dynamics and Player Expectations

00:45:17
Speaker
of those DMs though that writes like extensive notes or do you just write kind of bullet points and say, oh this happens, that happens and then let the players do their own thing? I write extensive notes but not like at the way that I feel other people do it. My notes almost look, the closest thing I compare it to is I don't know like computer coding. My notes are very much like brackets, if this happens, this happens, if this happens, they do this. If this happened, they'll be like for every eventuality, I tried to be like perhaps this happens. You can't cover everything, but I'm very pernickety about trying to second guess my players. It actually reminds me of again going back to the first campaign I ever played with Martin McAllister and I always remember vividly that at the very beginning he said he used to take really really detailed notes and everything and then and of course things wouldn't work out the way he expected which you know that is really part and parcel for the TV. But I remember there was one where he was telling me this actually on an episode and I couldn't believe it when he was telling me but I played a known bard called Plumbro and I was like oh right we're gonna go into this tavern and everything and long story short i ended up getting into a arm wrestle with a well i say arm wrestle it was a mage hand arm wrestle with a other bard and we needed information so i bet behind my teammates backs that if we won then we would get the information but if we lost then we would have to give up my team members pet alligator trust me it made sense in context
00:46:49
Speaker
ah Before that, we'd been getting chased by a dragon, so there was a dragon you know floating outside. of course And I was like, oh you know what? Boilers, but I lost the arm wrestle. And he was like, right, where's this pet alligator? And I said, oh, he's outside. So as soon as he went outside, I bolted the door shut. And then I had to cover my crimes the next morning in the game, but I was talking to him about that particular moment and they said, yeah, I didn't have any extensive notes on that. So I was like, well, what did you write? And they said, well, all I wrote was the team getting into an arm wrestle with another bard.
00:47:23
Speaker
Yeah, it's just amazing how, you know, if you like your players, I don't want to say off the lead as it were to go, oh yeah, do anything, but to at least express ones themselves throughout their characters, it's amazing what you can get out of it. oh A thousand percent, I think you need to trust your players, but I think as a DM you need to trust yourself as well. I think the extensive note taking can often come from, if I don't have these notes, no one's going to have fun and they're all going to hate me as a DM. You don't have to do that, I think.
00:47:49
Speaker
The only thing required to be a good to Dungeon Master is just to agree to be the Dungeon Master. No one wants to do it really other than us that love, you know, us that have gotten for punishment sort of thing. But yeah, i don't stress is what I would say to anyone listening that wants the DM. Just go for it, you know. What can go wrong? Everything.
00:48:08
Speaker
but now we can See in terms of people who want to get into D and&D because I can imagine if someone's at the fringe or one of your other amazing shows and they want to get into D and&D they're kind of not sure about it. yeah Have there been any for yourself in particular because obviously I'm not saying you had any bad experiences with the tartan tabletop, all of these stations were absolutely fantastic when they're listening back to them but have you yourself had any bad experiences with D&D. Yes, I have. I'm not going to obviously name names or anything like that, but I have the aim for people sort of outside of my friend group before and just like kind of randomly kind of people try to get into like work colleagues, things like that. I've never had like a horribly bad experience, home crying that was awful sort of thing. But I think certain people have different expectations of the game. It's worthwhile chatting about that first. I've had experiences where the players just don't want to become an adventuring party because that sort of thing is like you meet in a tavern, why should we team up? And it's sort of like, well, because we're all here playing the game. Not my job to, not really to make you want to go on the adventure, right? You know what I mean? The only other time I've played a campaign out with my friend Group, and this is something that I've always thought that if you're not playing with friends or people you're familiar with, it can be so much harder to actually get into D&D. Especially, this is a flashback. but again pre-covid one of my friends was roped into going to and I use this phrase soullessly a starter session in a comic shop, long story short it wasn't a starter session it was just a you know they hired out the tables and they say oh that'll be three pound which took me a surprise I was like oh god okay so when we went there long story short we didn't even get our own table we just got thrown into somebody else's campaign halfway through through. The DM and the other characters were really hostile, or not hostile, but just very dismissive. You know, if like my friend and I suggested to do something, they would dismiss it because we weren't members of the party, both literally inside of the thing. It was absolutely terrible because it was so bad that it was one of the first solo Chatsu Shorts episodes that I did. fair enough. It was so bad. It was, you know, when you get a player who wants to be the class clown, but they're not funny. I know exactly what you mean. We went into a dungeon and the dungeon master was complaining that people don't draw their own maps and things while they're talking. And I'm like, okay, that's a bit weird. his time for that, right? But then the other guy who was a danger, he went into a room where he had to reach out for a ruby and he kept setting off a trap and he kept getting killed over and over again. And it just wasn't funny. You're that way about the first time. You're like, Oh, but as we were saying, you know, the forced laughter, eventually you're just like, Oh Jesus, how did I get a refund? Right? Yeah. There's nothing that strikes fear into my heart more than the phrase is what my character would do. Oh,
00:51:10
Speaker
Yeah, there was certainly a lot of them at that table. But that's the thing though, other than that, they again, very traumatic experience. But I feel as if that is a big deal breaker for a lot of people wanting to get into D and&D, because as you said, it's very subject subjective, isn't it? And if you get a moment like that, then you're just gonna hate the game, aren't you? Yeah 100% I think you know if you're out there listening and you want to start playing D and&D I think that don't be put off obviously you know we've said oh yeah and know you should play with friends if you don't have friends that can play it there there's a lot of good tables out there but yeah there's definitely some real bad ones and it's okay to leave a table if you're there and you're like I feel uncomfortable and this sucks because I suppose it goes back to the common phrase of no D&D is better than bad D&D, isn't it? Well, yeah, yeah, I would say so bad D&D is funnily enough bad. It's as you said though, it's like you get people who even amongst your friend groups, you get people who are wanting to play D&D and get something different from it. For example, I'm not massively into the combat, like I'll do it and everything, but I prefer and more the roleplay element of, you know, just having a good time
00:52:20
Speaker
having to get serious when they need to and such, whereas I've played with other players who although they do want to roleplay, they still prefer the combat mechanics. They want to be the big badass yeah and everything and it is just such a subjective game to get right. So yeah, as you said, it's like as long as you're really getting what you want out of the experience.

D&D's Mainstream Rise and Pop Culture Influence

00:52:41
Speaker
I honestly can't imagine just you know sitting for a whole campaign and then just being like,
00:52:46
Speaker
that was alright. Right, there's a lot of time sync for something you're not really, really into. And I mean, especially nowadays that D&D is that topic that is just so, again, not to sound like a hipster from before, but the fact it's so mainstream now as opposed to what it used to be. Do you remember that growing up that D and&D was that kind of ostracised hobby? I don't. So my only experience with D and&D as a kid was I bought a D and&D sort of starter set from a charity shop somewhere. I don't remember what edition it was. It was maybe 3.5 or it was maybe even A D&D. I don't know. But I had no idea what it was or how to play it. So I just sort of made up the rules and how the game worked, which is almost almost how Gary Gygax probably intended. but We just made it up, but other than that, my experience of it was very limited. I didn't know anyone that played it. It wasn't where I grew up, it wasn't like something that was often spoken about. And yeah, it's just I had no exposure to that media. It's not like kids were hunting or the kids playing D&D or something. Again, punishment was the that the D&D kids had to go outside and play for primary risk for playtime. But it did seem as if whenever it came up, it was very much in the same circles of like Star Trek. For some reason pocket calculators, which I think is more than an American thing because it was the only time I ever saw it. yeah but yeah I never saw it in real life. So yeah, those kinds of geeky stereotypes. And now it's absolutely fantastic that it's getting more popular, especially with the movie 1000%. I was going to ask, have you seen the film? I've seen it a couple of times. I really enjoyed it. I thought it was really fun. Martin McAllister and I reviewed it and I have to say I was shocked at how good it was. Yeah, 100%. I genuinely thought, oh it's going to be like the old one or from what I've seen of the old one that took itself. It almost kind of reminds me of what you were saying that the first one it took itself way too seriously and you know there was high stakes and everything. Whereas as this one although there were high stakes, there was a lot more comedy and there. And although there was a serious story, at least there was that humour and levity. I think that's the sort of juxtaposition between what people that don't play D and&D think it is compared to what it actually is. You know, I think if you were to ask a sort of random person that's never played, you know, to describe it, it would be very serious and it's like, good versus is evil and like, knights and sorcerers, which there are elements of. but
00:55:10
Speaker
There's also the very human element of, I'm going to call this goblin, Noblin the Goblin and you know all of them are going to take him as a pet and it just becomes very silly because it is just you and your friends having a good time. And at the end of the day, that's all you really want, isn't it? You just want to have a good

Future Plans for Tartan Tabletop

00:55:28
Speaker
time. one table adventurers goblins ah But as a final question though, and this is something that we mentioned before, but what's coming up for Tartan Tabletop in the future? What have you got planned? What is the juicy ghost for your show? Because as you said, you've got the one coming up in November. You've also got the one coming up in December. But what's next?
00:55:48
Speaker
Yes, we have lots and lots and lots coming up. So we have November-December this year, still some tickets left for December at the Georgian House, so grab them while you can. I think there's like 15 left at this point, maybe even less depending on when this releases. Into the new year, we are chock a block stuff will be getting announced, tickets will be going live. We're doing a lot of projects with a company called Rollwet who are Glasgow based who basically run sessions for people to come in and play D and&D. It's a project that we call Live Play and Play Live where with your ticket price, we do a live show, you come and watch the live show, get plenty of yucks.
00:56:22
Speaker
and then afterwards you can sit with your friends at a table and play D and&D for yourself with some professional DMs there to guide your way. We will be doing the Edinburgh Fringe again most likely and we're going to be doing a lot of gigs between Glasgow, Edinburgh, possibly down in Manchester, all over the UK, all over, all to be announced when I decide to make the ticket link. And honestly, that sounds absolutely fantastic. Josh, thank you so much once again for coming on Chatsunami and talking about all things D and&D. Thank you. Thank you for having me. yeah Before we wrap up, but where can these lovely listeners at home find your content? Make sure you can find our content on any platform you listen to podcasts, so YouTube, Apple Music, Spotify, any others that I haven't mentioned. We're on all of them. We are tart and tabletop on all of them. We're also on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook at so you can find us there. And we're also on TikTok because we're down with the kids. So if you want to see my face doing a TikTok dance trend, we're at attartantabletop, you can find it there. Well, all I can say is you're a braver person than me, so thank you. Thank you for your sacrifice. Now we can definitely go check out Tartan Table Talk, because as I said, and I'm not just saying that, it was an absolute laugh listening to these episodes. So as I said, go check out. But if you would like to check out more episodes from ourselves at Chatsunami, then you can check us out on our website, Chatsunami dot.com, as well as all good podcast apps. I also want to thank our Pandalorian Patrons, Robotic Battle Toaster, Sonya and Ghosty. Thank you so, so much for supporting the show. And if you would like early access, exclusive episodes, some apparently saucy coffee ASMR, but for the low price of £100 a month, now I'm looking.
00:58:13
Speaker
Then you can indeed catch us on the Patreon, patreon dot.com forward slash chat tsunami. Until next time, thank you all so so much for listening, stay safe, stay awesome and most importantly, stay hydrated. Welcome to Chat Tsunami, a variety podcast that discusses topics from gaming and films to anime and journal interests.
00:58:33
Speaker
Previously on Chatsunami, we've analysed what makes a good horror game, conducted a retrospective on Pierce Brosnan's runs James Bond, and listened to us take deep dives into both the Sonic and Halo franchises. Also, if you're an anime fan, then don't forget to check us out on our sub-series, Chatsunani, where we dive into the world of anime. So far, we've reviewed things like Death Note, Princess Mononoke, and the hit Bayblade series. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then you can check us out on Spotify, iTunes, and all good podcast apps. As always, stay safe, Stay awesome and most importantly, stay hydrated.