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Behind The Swords Ep 4 - Season 1 Wrap Party
135 Plays3 years ago
Hosted by @strrbuck, our cast and DM answer all your questions about Season One and all the juicy details leading up to Season 2!
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Transcript
Introduction & Humor
00:00:21
Speaker
You're listening to Behind the Swords. It's like a regular sword, but you flipped it over to look at the other side.
00:00:42
Speaker
Hey everybody and welcome back. Oh my God. I'm sorry, I've only listened to you do it for like 50 episodes. I feel honored and insulted at the same time. I feel heard and seen and welcome and hated all at once.
00:01:05
Speaker
Thanks everybody for listening to our podcast. Today is a special Hired Swords Behind the Swords episode. And as you've already heard, we have a guest with us, our guest who's barely a guest anymore. She's almost just one of the family and we're gonna stop treating her specially. She has to buy groceries and contribute to the refrigerator like the rest of us.
00:01:25
Speaker
I will not get a job. Yeah. I refuse. We're going to have to pay rent. No. The loft isn't going to pay for stuff. I'll live in the attic and eat your soup. You know what? Okay. That sounds good. I'm taking you off my insurance. I hear that Roxy Rad over there doesn't want much soup anymore anyway after.
00:01:42
Speaker
Her video, sorry, that's getting on pre-game conversations.
Q&A with Starbuck
00:01:46
Speaker
So we are doing a Behind the Swords episode where we're going to just answer some questions. And Starbuck is with us, as I was alluding to earlier. Say hi, Starbuck, if you'd like. It's your choice. It's her dolphin noises. Okay. She doesn't have to say that. But I guess I'm just going to hand it to you and let you ask us our questions. I don't know anything. I don't even have notes or anything. I just said hello to everyone. Your turn.
00:02:07
Speaker
Yeah, I've got questions and inquiring minds want to know. I personally have questions if we can get through other people's questions.
Campaign Reflections & Twists
00:02:17
Speaker
I have a question to start. Can we just all say insert dolphin noises whenever we want? Is that a thing? Insert dolphin noises. I need my own sound effect now too. It works. It's like Joxer has his own sound effect and now Buck has her own sound effect.
00:02:35
Speaker
king tired of having to edit in all these. We're doing it live. I love putting king after it just to make sure everybody allowed to say king on the radio. It's true. Do you guys have questions for each other? Or I know you guys did a behind the swords episode a couple episodes ago, but that was before
00:03:00
Speaker
That was that was pre finale. We did that. That was literally like. That's when y'all were children and now you're adults. Yeah, we recorded that right after Michael dropped the arrow coming from the wilds bomb on us. Which by the way, I had no idea he was going to do. We just roped you into another couple of guest spots. I think to be fair. He didn't have any idea he was going to do it. I don't think he had any idea either.
00:03:29
Speaker
Whatever, man. Everything's there. So, hey, Michael, did you have any idea you were going to do that? It's all been planned since the very beginning. Nice. Good answer. I was thinking, you know what? I think there's too much talking going on. Somebody needs to start something. So an arrow flies in. Who shoots arrows? There's only one answer for that question. No, it was either going to be Sariah or her. And I thought, man, we need Buck to be a part of these finale
Character Development Choices
00:03:56
Speaker
episodes. So let's do this.
00:03:59
Speaker
We had had conversations about what was going to happen to Solvren, I think, already before that. No. Okay. No. You messaged me right after that happened. You're like, Hey, so you want to die? You might need you. I have a couple ideas. I was like, Oh, I do. Yeah, I do. You definitely planned every bit of it.
00:04:28
Speaker
Well, I mean, there had to be consent, you know? Well, I felt like Salrin belonged more to her now than to me, even though I created an NPC. You know, I felt like it belonged to her. So if whatever is going to happen to her, if since it was going to be kind of narrative, not as much gameplay, although the gameplay kind of led to it, I figured I would like that to be her choice. And so I said, hey,
00:04:57
Speaker
I'd like for this to be the end of Solrin.
00:05:01
Speaker
Does it happen by her death or some other way? What do you think? And she actually took a night and slept on it and then came back and said, my girl's got to die. Those are her exact words. She's got to die. I think that she could have died in combat. Had she not been healed and had she not been turned into a direwolf and also had you not rolled just straight ones for like 10 minutes.
00:05:29
Speaker
Yes, don't buy dice. If you're a DM, don't buy dice from Starbuck. Don't buy dice for the person you're trying to murder. They will work against you and specifically. Yes, I'll say that the dice that I received from Starbuck have worked well in the campaign that I'm DMing, but she's not one that I'm trying to kill. There's also because I do love vampire boys. That's true. It is Curse of Strahd.
Character Inspiration & Advice
00:05:59
Speaker
they just each each die has a little a little bit of my soul so that I can live forever and return to life curse of the dead now just imagine them all like coming together
00:06:11
Speaker
Yeah, let's do these questions though. Let's not make people suspicious of what they've given me money for. Let's get into some questions. So there are a lot of questions unsurprisingly for Dale. Oh boy. Like a hefty percentage. So I think that maybe we'll ping pong through those.
00:06:37
Speaker
He's the good boy. I think we should just make the entire show about Dale and we should just sit back and listen. Let's just do a spin off of Dale. Alright, so let's let's start with the question that I apparently submitted for Dale, which is what is it like to be the goodest boy? What about that Gwen? Oh boy.
00:07:00
Speaker
You know, he was a little scrappy fellow when I first met him and he just, he found his way in life. I don't know how old he was when he became a taxidermy chipmunk. I'm so sorry.
00:07:15
Speaker
I do feel like we need to specify that more often that he's taxidermy because it's getting to the point now where I think people who jump in like the middle of season one is not gonna have any idea that that's a thing and it's just gonna be a chipmunk. Just to be clear, I'm just carrying around a dead chipmunk. I'm so sorry, but he does have spunk and attitude. I don't know how he became this good good boy. He was just something I decided to bring along with me one day.
00:07:40
Speaker
And here we are. He got crowned the gossip king very early. He's got a lot of nicknames. He's so good. Yeah. And some good drawings. I just think it's funny how good everyone says he is, and he's the most cynical and sarcastic and pain in the butt of the whole group. He's so needy. I love Dale. I have to bring him coffee all the time.
00:08:02
Speaker
And to think it's weird. It's never hot enough for him. I didn't think anything would come up of Dale. I thought I'd just have him and he would just be there. And then now he's like became one of the best characters. You should have known when you had people shake his hand when you first introduced yourself. That was going to happen.
00:08:26
Speaker
That is true. I'm just glad Kriegs didn't break his arm off. I was nervous. I was kind of hoping. I was kind of hoping it did come off. That was the first rule of the campaign. It was. That could have gone a completely different route. You and I both have mending. It would have been fine. Shouldn't have ever befriended me after that. It would have been terrible. I know that Dale's an object. No, I think it only works on inorganic material.
00:08:56
Speaker
Well, I mean, what is Dale made of anymore? Dale, like what percentage of, yeah, but what's underneath that is, I mean, what, what percentage of real does it have to be?
00:09:05
Speaker
Maybe we should move to the next question. I mean, a leather jacket is made from inorganic or whatever. I get those weird, weird Derek quotes. Those weird vibes about my good boy. So we've got a couple questions from a discarded dwarf over on Twitter. This one is for Michael, the DM.
Role of a DM
00:09:23
Speaker
What do you see is the number one top priority rule for yourself, not the players? Top priority rule? What do you live by? What's your ninja way?
00:09:36
Speaker
You mean like as a DM or like a human being? I think as a DM. Yeah, I was going to say. As a DM, I think the most important thing for me is that everybody's having fun. That's all I really care about. I find myself stressing about other things when it comes to DMing, like continuity of the story and
00:09:57
Speaker
not getting completely trashed while still not killing my players immediately, like the balance of that. I think the stuff all DMs stress about, but when it all comes down to it, if we finish and everybody's like, oh, that was so great, none of the thing else matters. It's just, are we having a good time? If we're not having fun, I don't want to do it anymore. So I really don't do anything in life if I'm not enjoying it and having fun. So that's kind of the thing is I'm a player too as a DM. And if so, if we're all having fun,
00:10:24
Speaker
then I think it was a good night and hopefully it's fun to listen to because of too.
00:10:30
Speaker
I think that that's one of the first things that really drew me to this podcast specifically, because I think I came in around episode eight, nine. And what really stands out is that you guys just have so much fun together. You just like talking to each other. If there's a silence, someone already has an interaction to fill it.
00:10:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's very evident if you were to join one of our recording sessions, as you know, in how much time we spend not recording episodes while we're, when we meet to record episodes, we seriously chat. If I had a dollar for every single time we said, okay, okay, seriously, we need to start. I'd be rich 10 minutes later. Okay. Yeah, we should probably start. Yeah. And I constantly saying, Oh, I'm the DM. I should probably take responsibility to make sure we start on time. And then,
00:11:23
Speaker
That is one of your jobs. You are a timekeeper. I know, I know. I'm bad at some of my jobs. Well, you can't be great at everything. All right, so next up, we will go to Mikey, a.k.a. Jackson. Is there anything or any one that specifically inspired your character or backstory?
00:11:51
Speaker
It's okay to say me if you want. I feel like it's kind of funny because a little bit of my past, a little bit of my friend's past and it's really
00:12:03
Speaker
I can't say that there's any one thing, but it's definitely kind of a culmination of families that I've been around and just kind of grew up with. So there's no one space, but it's definitely the more I'm growing into the character, the more I realize that it does have a lot more me as a part of them, and then a lot of the friends that I grew up with.
00:12:33
Speaker
Sometimes it's hard to not put yourself in it, you know? Yeah, it's crazy. Oh, absolutely. But what is your trigger for like, it's time to do jocks or insert dolphin noise stuff now? What is my trigger? I think it's in that hat.
00:12:55
Speaker
At least in game it ends up being any time that I'm I get scared of losing something whether whether it be one of my companions or or seeing someone else start to lose or or get kind of offended by by Someone who feels better or it seems that they act like they're better than someone and so whenever jocks or sees that that's when he wants to step in and and kind of
00:13:23
Speaker
I don't know, make some kind of aid to to understand that problem and and I guess solve it or or find a resolution in some some way. Turn all the turn all the. I just don't. I definitely nobility is is a is a not a great thing for Jockster. So how does it make Jockster feel that Gwen is in fact better than everyone else in the world?
00:13:52
Speaker
Well, you know, that's not her opinion. So just because she is. We'll see. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, she doesn't think that everybody else does. So, you know, the crown was given to her. She didn't take it.
00:14:09
Speaker
Hmm, that's pretty heavy. Yeah, the problem. The problem child really is Dale. I'm worried about him taking like trying to take that crown from her. I can see this entire time. It's like a Ratatouille kind of thing, and he's the one pulling all the strings. So he's in my bag.
00:14:31
Speaker
He's pulling on your thigh hairs and then he's just like directing you everything you're doing. Oh, sorry, guys. I forgot to tell you I'm wearing a chef's hat. That's actually where Dale stays. It's for the whole time. He's the big bad. To be fair, he's the big bad.
00:14:51
Speaker
There it is, you heard it here first. Darn all these just a cute little puppet of Dale. Yep. Dale Naldi. You heard it here first. Dale Naldi. Oh no. All right, so next we've got a question for Blaze. Do you have any suggestions for new players making new characters? Oh, new players making new characters.
00:15:19
Speaker
Yeah, them new new baby players. Considering that I'm probably the newest here to Dungeons and Dragons, I can't say it for some reason correctly. I'm the newest to any tabletop role-playing game.
00:15:33
Speaker
For me, my biggest thing was feeling extremely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information that you need to know to jump in. It's not easy to just, like, make a character, and that's that. Like, I had to have sit-down sessions, basically, with Mikey, being like, okay, I want to make this. How do I do that?
00:15:57
Speaker
How do I forge this character for the campaign we started before we ever did the hired swords? My advice would probably be, if you can find someone that is willing to basically hold your hand through the process, do that. If you don't have a friend that is capable of doing that, I think
00:16:23
Speaker
D&D Beyond, everyone is going to go to it, but for me, honestly, Roll20's character-mancer in the process of how it introduces step-by-step, okay, this is your class, this is the abilities that you get at this point, and D&D Beyond does the same thing, but I started out in Roll20.
00:16:44
Speaker
going through and reading the player's guide side by side with like a character mancer or some kind of very simple build guide, which there are tons of them out there, YouTube and other other blogs and things you can find just to try to get the basis of what you should be capable of and what you want to build towards.
00:17:06
Speaker
And as crazy as it sounds, if you're going to get into magic first, get a warlock. They are the least complicated magic user, in my opinion, of any class. If you mess it up, just take a short rest. See, that's interesting because I would not necessarily agree with that, considering how to really capitalize on a warlock. You really do have to stack your rituals, but...
00:17:33
Speaker
Otherwise, yeah. I mean, you have with a warlock, you don't dump any stats that you really don't need for a lot of things. True. So what was the first character that you made? My warlock. Oh, I see. Yeah, I made a Path of the Tome warlock and have just about every cantrip you could ever imagine. So I don't have to worry too much about spell slots.
00:17:59
Speaker
I just have all the cantrips in the world and I make them work. And who doesn't love a good Eldritch Blast? You're not wrong. Eldritch Blast. All right, let's Eldritch Blast us into the next question. This one's for Derek. What is your fondest memory of D&D? I plead the fifth.
00:18:21
Speaker
That's very helpful, thank you for coming. Okay, fine, I'll find. My fondest memory from D&D. I honestly have not been playing as long as I feel like people think I have. I've played for a couple years, but it's really only been one campaign before this one. So this being really only my second campaign, I only have those two options. The other one I've talked to you guys about before is Hard Mode D&D. It's a bunch of old school guys. There is nothing fond of that one.
00:18:48
Speaker
Really, I mean, I enjoy it and everything, but you don't sit there and go, this was a really fun moment. It's tough all of the time. So I would say this campaign has some of the fondest moments for me. And to just come up with one on top of my head.
00:19:03
Speaker
For me, just any time that we can just sit around and talk in character in this campaign is my favorite parts because what I really wanted from this campaign was just good role-playing and I think that we've kind of hit it out of the park with that because everyone just does it so well and together and everything. It's, we can go, I mean we, I think Mike kind of pulls us in a little bit but we could probably just sit there and talk to each other in character for four straight hours and that would be the entire campaign.
00:19:31
Speaker
But we wouldn't accomplish anything. It would probably get kind of boring to listen to after a little while. Sometimes you have to kill things. But to me, you guys do that a lot. That's true. I mean, we do. It's always enjoyable. Killing things or role playing?
00:19:46
Speaker
Okay. I like when we can put them together. I think that we need more funny quips whenever we kill things, all of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, how they always had some sarcastic line every time they fought the bad guys. I think we need to start adding that. Someone needs to subclass into Bard for Vicious Mockery, so they're forced to use it. Oh my gosh, yeah, that'd be great. That's Dale. Dale is the Bard, yep. Yeah, for sure. We just need to give him a little tiny loot.
00:20:13
Speaker
So can you think of any specific scenario that you guys have talked your way into or out of that lands it as part of your top, maybe not top top, but top three moments?
00:20:28
Speaker
I don't think that we've had too many of those moments to me that stand out to where we talked ourselves in or out of anything. The first one that really kind of stands out to me that I enjoyed was when we were at the military base. I can't think of words and Gwen was upset and she went outside and I got to go outside and we had that moment just me and Gwen talking and everything. That was the first one that stood out to me and it might still be my favorite. And plus I was given inspiration. The only inspiration that was given throughout this entire game
00:20:56
Speaker
That was when you were named the group therapist. That was your initial session. Okay, the goblets too. That was a really good moment. I liked that. That was still pretty good. That was probably the first thing I thought of. That's up there on my list too, if I can think of. I was glad I could mute my microphone because I was laughing so hard when you guys were doing that. It was so funny.
00:21:23
Speaker
Genuinely, I remember not understanding that that was the joke, and so Gwen actual character was confused, as was I. That's why it was such believable. That made it beautiful. Yeah. Joxer was legitimately annoyed. It's like, these. Blaise, who started it? Was it you or me who started the Goblet thing? I can't remember. Was it me? For sure it was you. Okay.
00:21:49
Speaker
I think stuff like that, I think back, I think about it, and I'm like, how are these the people who unraveled what was happening in Wild Hill? How is it even possible? On one hand, all that happens, and on the other hand, they're like, there's something suspicious going on here. Like, what? How? But sure enough, you got to have both sides of that hired coin. That is like,
00:22:14
Speaker
The most consistent flavor between D&D campaigns, I feel, is that you have this group of sometimes literal clowns who have to kill God or save the world or do this super serious thing. And it's always a ridiculous stretch to get there. But you guys really walk that line of taking what you're doing seriously without
00:22:45
Speaker
sacrificing your souls and like the soul that you give your characters. And I really love that about what you guys do.
00:22:53
Speaker
And for me personally, like I want it to be a serious, fun campaign that's enjoyable to listen to, but my personality is so silly random that it's really hard for me to just keep that out. Like I was saying, you can't put your, you can't not put yourself in your character. And for me, I have to just throw in those stupid, silly moments when I can. Cause it's, I don't want to, uh, be too obvious with my
00:23:15
Speaker
appeasement, but I honestly think that some of the sovereign moments were some of the greatest recordings we've ever made. I disagree. The sniffing and licking and the backpack. You never got the backpack meme? Yeah. Blaze just likes it when people make it weird. Just lost. Yeah, going down. Those were some of the funniest moments. Oh, my God.
00:23:42
Speaker
Having a new voice and someone really good at D&D and has been around the block, I feel like it helped refresh our creativeness as a group. And I don't know, it inspired some of us. I feel like it has. It was really nice. Well, you Yoda now inspired us it has. Yeah.
00:24:04
Speaker
I think it did. And I think it gave us a nice boost toward the end of the first season. It was like a nice boost to kind of revitalize the connections everybody had because it even it even developed some new stuff within the original four with the Blaze and Daven and some of that stuff, you know, and Daven going down to Joxer's place because he was embarrassed or whatever. Like all that kind of happened because Solran was there.
00:24:30
Speaker
throwing a wrench in the normal relationships you know dynamic and i think i think i think you're right at blaze i think there's a lot of stuff that just wouldn't have come about if it wasn't for. I agree and be in there i agree it's like when the mighty morphin power rangers added in the green ranger and brought the whole new dynamic.
00:24:47
Speaker
Yeah, a whole new dynamic. You're right. Should we add the Power Rangers here? I'm just going to keep mentioning it. Can we get the Power Rangers into every answer? I mean, plus together. We're like the Megazord because we fit together. Of course. I think too, when you add
00:25:07
Speaker
I think what I wanted the most to like, bring to the table role playing wise was this person. Like one, I really wanted to make sure that Wild Hill felt like every person could be their own person like fully because Michael does such a good job
00:25:26
Speaker
of giving you that, but then to like reinforce that like every person you meet could actually be a real person. And then how does a person who knows nothing about you, like what do you show them versus all of these people that you have prior relationships to. And so you get to meet
00:25:46
Speaker
Someone for the first time after having been together for all this time having to kind of like settle yourselves and your characters and I think that some of the Some of those like split-second decisions you guys had to make about like who your characters were as people or are as people Had some of the the best
00:26:10
Speaker
like it bore the best fruits of like role playing. And I think that some of that will carry through your whole campaign. But I don't think it was me. Well, I think you added to the you you you helped that become more obvious and evident and just strengthened it, if nothing else. So Salrin was a catalyst, if you will. Yeah. Yeah, she hit her and she burned bright.
00:26:40
Speaker
All right, so someone wants to know what pickup line Gwen should use on the next sexy bard she sees. I'm sorry. I know this is child friendly. Please keep it so. Sorry. Would you like me to rephrase the question?
00:26:59
Speaker
No, my dog is dreaming and so the tail's slapping. So I keep looking over. Sorry. It's probably the worst. Um, I'd probably go up to the sexy hot bard and be like, hi, my name's Gwendolyn. I, I barely know you. Can I get to know you? Gwen's all jokes. I didn't know. Oh my gosh. She sits there. Let's see the eyebrows raising.
00:27:25
Speaker
Very, very good. Both eyebrows at the same time. Both and then blinks instead of winks. So Tina Fey over here. Just an awkward Gwen fashion. Amazing. So good. Whatever happened to that bard? He kind of just traveled away, didn't he? Because I know they met up and then the group got paid basically. Do we have a season two cameo planned?
00:27:55
Speaker
I don't know, but he probably didn't head to the untouched lands. I'll, I'll give you that. But I mean, like, how are you? Every good story has to have a threat of romance. So like, if we're not getting it from Devin and Krigs, then I'm going to need it. Back to I'm, I barely know you.
00:28:23
Speaker
Yeah, that's good right there. That's all you need. I'm going to use that in real life. Tell me if it works. So for one of my personal questions that I wanted to address as the detective on this show, are your characters open to romance? Is that just an open question for everyone? Yeah. Do you want me to direct it towards people specifically, or would you like to take it organically? Right. Role initiative.
00:28:54
Speaker
I don't have dice right now. That's an eight or plus three, I guess. So add your charisma modifier. Oh, no. Oh, that's only once. That'd be nine then. Oh, four. I rolled a nat 20. Of course you did. All right. It's that Starbucks dice. I can't. It got me. I mean, you got to roll to fall in love, right?
00:29:21
Speaker
Uh, did you, did you roll Michael the jam? I don't think he has a character. I didn't roll. I don't have a character. I'm going to have a lot of characters, hundreds of characters, and I need to know if any are available for romance. All right. I'll roll. All right. I rolled a five. That was the fakest role I've ever seen in my life. I think you just did.
00:29:44
Speaker
He's the honker. All right, all right. All right. Blaise, is Krikz available for romance? I mean, you have already stated that you would be, and I quote, honored to be Davens. Yeah, I did say that, didn't I? You did. Was it heat of the moment or did you mean it? That's a season two. That's a season two spoiler right there.
00:30:12
Speaker
No, it's not that. OK. Poor guy, he hasn't gone yet. It's still your turn. I think that Krigs is. Not against the idea. But still, and I don't want to put him in that category of just like, I'm too broken, no one can ever love me. Because that's definitely not him.
00:30:43
Speaker
But I don't I don't know. I don't think he would even know what he wanted at this point because he's basically just rediscovering everything right now. Like the scene of him and Gwen literally walking through the forest and him pointing out, OK, well, then what's this flower? I don't know any of this. This is not my life. This is all it's all brand new to me.
00:31:07
Speaker
And when you go from just like war and training for war for your whole life and everything, like in a lot of ways, he's still, for as old as he is, still kind of immature to those aspects of life. So yeah, he's probably gonna be potentially open for crushing. Nice, nice. Who is next? I think, I think Jax rolled an eight, right?
00:31:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, nine with my charisma modifier thing. So tell me, did you find love in the barrel? I think jocks are after leaving the monastery and and kind of tavern hopping and town hopping.
00:31:56
Speaker
He's got a huge focus on his kind of, I'll say almost an obsession on knowledge and that's his current love, but I don't think he's distracted or so distracted that he wouldn't want it.
00:32:15
Speaker
I'd say he's open. I don't know if he would pursue anything that would be serious at current, but we'll see what happens in season two. Do you not consider following a girl into the woods aimlessly serious?
00:32:38
Speaker
Because you say you're too busy and I hear you. However, your record does show that you have followed a girl into the woods. And, you know, just, you know, I don't believe it's the only time I followed a girl into the woods as Jackson. So I mean, what's that girl? I don't feel like it was ever like accurately or like in depth explained.
00:33:08
Speaker
I feel like that is actually a spoiler that will be revealed soon. What if I give you $2? What if the answer is that it's no girl at all? Oh, you're right. I shouldn't have assumed a gender.
00:33:29
Speaker
That's not exactly what I meant, but also that. OK, ominous, ominous. I like it. It's kind of like the cat from Hocus Pocus. It's not really a cat, you know. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'll say that currently Joxer is definitely enamored by that figure, but I don't think it's the love that you're asking about. OK.
00:33:57
Speaker
All right. I'll take it. I'll take it. Uh, who's who's next? I don't know. We had a five. All right. What a Devon. I had a nine. Oh, Devon's turn. Wow. Nice try. Basically the short answer is no. It's like the furthest thing from Devon's mind as it is right now. Um, he, he's out here for a very specific reason. It has nothing to do with trying to find romance or even consider it. Yeah. He's a demon boy.
00:34:26
Speaker
that could be one of the options. But yeah, no, he's, I think that even if somebody was to come on to him or to come around that he found attractive, I don't think that he would even consider the idea. I think that he would just be like, okay, that would be an option in another time and place, but no. I'm gonna have to move on, that's Greg's answer. Yeah, go ahead. No. Are you bitter now because Daven saying no?
00:34:54
Speaker
No, it's not personal. He's just emotionally unavailable. That's a legitimate answer. OK, fine. I can pine for the next 50 episodes. Devin's all about the money. You got to bring money to the table. So. I do need to ask this now because it did come out of my mouth and now I do need to have it. On record, is Devin a demon boy?
00:35:21
Speaker
What was up with that dream? What was up with that whole scene? Because one, it was epic. And two, it has never been discussed since. And I need to know. It's just a dream. Everybody has weird dreams. I once had a dream. I was a Mighty Morphin Power Ranger. You were shook. It might be a spoiler for the campaign or for season two, you know, like everyone's answer.
00:35:51
Speaker
These are terrible answers for an end of season one where we're supposed to discuss what happened in season one. So we've got a nice array going so far. So Michael the Jam, tell me, who in Wild Hill is the most eligible bachelor slash bachelorette slash widow?
00:36:12
Speaker
Well, the widow doesn't think she's a widow. First of all, she thinks her husband's still out there living. So she's not, she doesn't consider herself available. And honestly, just due to my own personal way I do this, this is like the first time I've ever thought of anybody's potential romantic interests in this campaign. So, cause it's the least entertaining thing in any entertainment for me is the romantic parts of it. So, um,
00:36:41
Speaker
Well, because you're a war guy and we're going to get to that. But I do want to I do want you to continue. I think that the Chiefs always was always open to adding new women to his to his list like he does artifacts to his trophy wall. Oh, and nobody liked that. No, that's and that's in a bad way. I think that I don't know. I think that there are some hunters who
00:37:10
Speaker
probably, I won't say any names, but who might would be open for some sort of relationship? The blacksmith. I don't know if anybody in our group or not, I don't know, but potential's there. And yeah, maybe some, I don't know, maybe Justice would be interested in something. I don't know for sure. I mean, it would have to, I'd have to fall in love with the idea for the character to fall in love with the person, kind of. Does that make sense?
00:37:40
Speaker
Yeah, that's really fair. I think as a player get to choose that agency. I think if I was playing as a player, yeah, I would have to decide, Oh, man, I'm kind of falling in love with the idea of these two together in a way that this person would fall in love with this other person. So I think that works. And so far, there just hasn't been space for that in our campaign, partially because of just the ongoing continued drama and stress of the whole anxiety of the entire just
00:38:07
Speaker
what Wild Hill is, but I think Wild Hill possibly as we move into season two could be settling into where that might be on people's minds now, you know, that sort of thing. So I don't know. We'll see. But I've in the D&D, I've played romance has never come into the never really come into the story. Except for Marissa and Edie.
00:38:30
Speaker
Except for, well, there's been people who, I guess so. That's true. They fell in love with each other. But, okay. So I have to, did they, did they die?
00:38:41
Speaker
There are there is more to come with information about them that I will not disclose at this conversation. Seriously, I love the tying things back in so much that there's not much we could really just tie a big bow on except for probably the chief is going to stay dead. That's about it. So killing me. You're killing me. Well, it's fun to tie stuff back in. I don't want to. I don't want to steal any deals.
00:39:05
Speaker
I don't want to seal any deals because some of these ideas come later and I'm like, wait, have I done or said anything that would keep me from doing that? And if I would feel super bad if something super cool could happen, but I had already done something in a podcast episode or whatever that said.
00:39:18
Speaker
Oh man, I probably can't do that now. It doesn't work anymore. So I gotta be careful as, as we move away from wild Hill and maybe they have some time on their own. Um, I will perhaps shoot you a DM with some matchmaking, uh, suggestions and, uh, you can peruse them and see if you fall in love with those ideas. And there may be some new NPCs we've never met coming up along the pathway here. And that could be some new opportunities. I don't know who's who knows. We'll see.
00:39:48
Speaker
Gwendolyn. Howdy. So I've never played a campaign where romance was involved and seeing how Gwendolyn acts now, I think there could be romance probably outside of the party because she doesn't
00:40:10
Speaker
Well, I can't really say that because Gwendolyn doesn't really know what love is. She's never really experienced it. She doesn't really know what it is. And even if I see her again singing right now.
00:40:25
Speaker
Uh, even, I don't know what, sorry, that's probably copyright. Yeah. Uh, I dunno, she's a weird duckling in a world of fantasy and adventure. So who knows? She's a maybe, she's a hot maybe. I love that. I love that for you. Uh, I also feel like Gwen kind of like falls in love with like, like smaller, smaller things. Like.
00:40:55
Speaker
Tomba. That's why she was so obsessed the entire time. Yeah. Secretly, I had a crush for Tomba. I don't got caught. Oh my God. No, I, that was another thing. I felt so bad sussing on Tomba. Even outside of recordings, I was very much like Tomba's mastermind. He knows everything. But there was always something off. Yeah.
00:41:21
Speaker
Like from the beginning. Oh, yeah. And here's the thing with Tomba. There's not a lot of stuff in this podcast, in this campaign that was like from from day one, I was like, this is how this is going to be.
00:41:34
Speaker
but Tomba not being evil has always been the case 100% of the time and it's because of who he's based off of that person could not be evil in any in any story and so therefore Tomba cannot be
00:41:51
Speaker
He's a little old Hispanic guy who used to run a restaurant in Carlsbad, New Mexico where three of us grew up and it was a little restaurant called Cortez. It's this little Hispanic guy, little short guy and he would always walk up to you because he would take you to your table and he hit the kids on the top of the head with the menu and say, follow me please and he'd walk away.
00:42:13
Speaker
And so that became, and then you'd follow him to your table and that became like, I was like, that's what Tomba is going to do. He's going to be like, OK, follow me, please. And he totally did that. And yeah, that little sweet little man will never be evil and therefore Tomba cannot be. That's that's so sweet. He wasn't ready. Yeah, but Tomba and in fact, I had to be careful because when you would talk about Tomba being sus, I wanted to be like, no, stop, Gwen. He is not.
00:42:42
Speaker
I was so sure. I was so sure he was very sus. Like what was going on with him was suspicious because he was being manipulated, you know, and charmed by this this artifact by the chief. So, yeah, there was a secret there. It just wasn't that Tombow was secretly evil. It was that Tombow was a was a bad mamajama at one time, but had been tricked into becoming this weak servant. And that's not who he should have been. So just like the Green Ranger before he became the White Ranger.
00:43:12
Speaker
Yes. That was my thinking thought. Exactly. So do you think that we're going to see a. Are we going to see kind of a resolution for Tomba on on like, quote unquote camera or. Yeah, I'd like to bring in anything that has.
00:43:33
Speaker
I really hated the show Lost and one of the reasons is the lack of resolution on anything. And so there are things that I will definitely want to tie up including like whatever happened with Francine and Delmar and like there are things that I want to get to.
00:43:54
Speaker
So this actually ties into one of the questions that was for you, Michael. Was it in the scope of your original plans that the chief would be the big bad of this arc? Did it surprise you that the season ended in an epic battle with him? And how, if at all, did the chief change over the course of your session prep and planning? Yeah, that's a lot. The chief was originally intended
00:44:22
Speaker
Really the whole idea of Wild Hill originally was a simple because I put it together not for a podcast originally. It was just another campaign in the world that my first campaign I ever put together was in but it was it's like a hundred years before or whatever my other campaign I've done already with some other friends. But anyway so this one
00:44:44
Speaker
The idea was this is just a region that the players can just go explore and do whatever they want and have fun. And that was the idea originally. Well, then it was like, hey, you want to do a podcast? And I was like, yeah, I really want to try this thing out. And I knew pretty quick after probably the second recording session, I was like, they're not going to be OK with just like traveling around.
00:45:04
Speaker
and doing odd jobs as hired swords. They're already looking for knots to untie, so I better create some knots. That's when the chief started to evolve.
00:45:17
Speaker
You know, I have there are other there are other things going on that will become pretty evident. I think pretty quick in season two that will be like, wow, the chief was only a piece of a larger puzzle, maybe. But the but the chief himself, yeah, he evolved and he was always a very high level fighter.
00:45:39
Speaker
and originally he was anti-magic completely. My original thought for him was, if you use magic, you're not welcome in Wild Hill. But just to add some dynamic for players and things like that, but then it quickly became, hey, there's some interesting stuff here with being able to have him use the magic opportunity in the area to do other things. So anyway, it all evolved in that way to be finally me saying, all right, number one,
00:46:08
Speaker
Number one, I didn't like the chief enough to want to keep him around. Uh, to be honest, I thought he was a pretty one note bad guy, like a pretty, you know, he's like, he's, he's one, he's a bad dude doing bad things. Pretty easy. Not real deep.
00:46:22
Speaker
Let's go ahead and let him kill him. I expected him to do a lot more damage before he died, to be honest, because he is a level 20 fighter, for goodness sakes. But he got wrecked. And that happens as a DM. And so we had to adjust, but it's fine. So yeah, I did not expect him to end in a big battle whenever we started. There's been a lot of like, piecing together
00:46:47
Speaker
how this area is going to react to what this group has done. That was a lot of my prep. It wasn't a lot of, hey, I have a whole plan of what the story's gonna be. It's how would they react to everything these guys just did here and then responding in that way on the next session, so.
00:47:05
Speaker
And how much do you feel like you had to deviate session from session as far as what you had kind of anticipated the players doing, uh, and then what they actually decided to hyper focus on? Yeah. Uh, at first it was designed to allow that. So I had like five jobs. I knew they were going to pick one. I didn't know which one it would be, but we, we did the elk one and then, or the elk one, I think was just given originally, but, uh,
00:47:33
Speaker
because you have to take this job to become a hired sword. It was the last one available, so that's what they got. Yeah, exactly. Something like that. I was like, oh, we'll do five jobs. There's five jobs that they could have taken. They took one of them and
00:47:49
Speaker
you know i did not know if they i didn't expect them to go try to save uh vip like that was just a random oh cool i was like trying to add depth to characters and npc's and to the region by saying somebody just died on one of these journeys or whatever or is missing and they're like we're gonna help them right now let's go and i'm like oh cool we're doing this so i had to like
00:48:10
Speaker
put that together for that next session because I hadn't thought of that. So there's several things like that that happened. The race to go find Sariah and, you know, I made... That was just me accidentally saying they went south and they were blessing. South, that's where Delmar went. Oh crap, here we go. This is a completely new thing. And then Krig's not accepting Helm's blessing.
00:48:34
Speaker
was completely unexpected by me. I had no, I had no, well, I thought that Krigs was questioning and struggling, but I had no idea he would be willing to give up his power to move forward and move on. I did not think he'd take it that far. And so, so yeah, so I was like, wow, well, I got to figure out what we're going to do with Krigs after this. Like, how are we going to do that? And then that's where like, Salrin coming in was like, aha, yes, Salrin can give him the, the,
00:49:04
Speaker
you know, information about what the wild has. And so anyway, it all everything kind of just came together for me, like I get to decide how this is all going to play out. And some of these things are happening in a way that allow me to piece those things together. I just got lucky when you told you told me juicy things that I have told not a soul. Yeah, I did. I did. I want that to be noted that I have not told a soul. I know. And you not telling a soul ensures that you can now know many more juicy things.
00:49:34
Speaker
Well, aren't you like one of the protectors of the wilds now? For sure I am. So, yeah, I mean, I think there's things you would be privy to. I agree wholeheartedly. Absolutely. This was a great talk. I think that, you know, really, everybody wins here. Yeah, just keep the secret so the players can have fun and be surprised and we're good. I'm so overjoyed.
00:50:04
Speaker
I'm not sure how I feel about this. Why? I know some of your secrets, too. Starbuck and I are like the complete opposite. I was like, I don't want to know. I don't want to know. And she's like, tell me all the secrets. Yes. I used to read the last page of books after reading the first chapter. But also I had ADHD, so I always forgot what it was. But I wanted to know.
00:50:28
Speaker
So you read like episode synopsis on Netflix ahead of time before you watch the next episode to see what's going to help it. Yeah, I try not to. I don't like doing that at all. It's my disease. I can't help it. So it's interesting that you. It's interesting in talking through some of these things.
00:50:51
Speaker
And I wonder how intentional it is that so much of the underlying theme of season one was the ripples of war and the impact that war on a grand scheme just consistently affects everything. And was that intentional or is that, where does that come from?
00:51:20
Speaker
To be honest and a little revealing, some of that comes from my own fascination with war from a very young age. And being a history kind of nerd, knowing like this, this changes so much more than government, what happens in government, you know, it changes people on a individual level. And
00:51:50
Speaker
And really war for me and I don't want to get too deep because I didn't really plan this. Whoops. Sorry, freaking hit my microphone. I didn't really plan this to have any sort of underlying message necessarily. It just kind of came naturally from my own what I honestly kind of what I'm going through right now. Not to get too deep because we're a fun podcast, but living in the Midwest and kind of the
00:52:16
Speaker
national pride and that whole thing that I'm experiencing around here and seeing the kinds of people who would rather stand up for what they believe in than been down to help somebody in need. I kind of filled Wild Hill full of those people and made many of them the bad guys kind of unintentionally.
00:52:42
Speaker
It just kind of happened. And I think for me, those are kind of the people that I I'm trying not to make enemies in my real life because I don't like to do that. But I can definitely make them enemies in my Dungeons and Dragons game. Right. Just let that be a thing and throw them at my players for my players to slash and bash. Right. RPG therapy. Yeah, I guess. And so.
00:53:07
Speaker
Yeah, so some of it's just come from just hey, I also I just I like for games like this to be simple good versus evil and I don't I don't want to get too into the weeds of questioning whether what you're doing is the right thing or not.
00:53:25
Speaker
because I think that while sometimes that can be fun and interesting, I think sometimes it can also get to the point of not fun anymore because you don't want to walk away from D&D feeling too guilty for what you've done because it kind of felt icky.
00:53:38
Speaker
Oh yeah, throwing a great elk at us. Well, yeah, well, I was the guy that played Fable. I was a guy that played Fable and could not do the evil side. I just couldn't do the bad things to be the bad guy. Blaze knows. I have to say a story. I have to tell the story. Playing Fable, it was like Christmas and we got together as a family, as we did, as we were very young kids at the time. Fable is pretty old man anyway.
00:54:07
Speaker
We thought it'd be great to start the character as evil as possible. And the first time you actually get to make a decision whether or not you're going to be evil is whenever you are deciding whether you're going to help a little kid with the bully he's facing or punch the kid. So we continually punch the kid over and over again. And we're just like, what are we doing? It was so gross. We felt so dirty. What is wrong with us? And the kid's just like,
00:54:34
Speaker
We're just like getting another hit kid. We're just, we felt so bad. I mean, in your defense, that's not really like a progression to evil. That's just jumping straight off the cliff into evil right there. And we tried to, we wanted to get as evil as possible and like, see if we could get truly evil before we went on with the campaign and we kind of maxed out.
00:54:56
Speaker
To be fair, you are also a child in Fable. So it's child v. child. And I feel like that's like moderately evil rather than severely evil. We were the original TTRP gangsters. Stop trying to make that happen. I just started.
00:55:18
Speaker
But all in all, I think the show, or the story in Wild Hill and all these soldiers, it's like when you have something like that happen, a war like that, the guys who started it are either gone or they've got what they wanted out of it, but there's all these people left over who now have to deal with the consequences. So that's kind of where Wild Hill came from, the idea of these people showing up, like all I know how to do, because I've been training from the time of my youth,
00:55:47
Speaker
to punch and kick and swing the sword. Where do I go now? Like what do I do now? And so that's Wild Hill was a place for those people.
00:55:55
Speaker
I mean, from the moment that the quest from Francine was to go find Delmar and he was in the abandoned fort, I feel like from that point forward, I started to notice this very strong thematic undercurrent. I mean, I thought it was great. The way that you did it was,
00:56:20
Speaker
really subtle, but really visceral. And like even up until the point where at the final battle, the chief has died and everyone just keeps fighting because they're it's all they have. Like there were just so many moments like that where. It was just really cool.
00:56:47
Speaker
You don't see a lot of that in homebrew like you just don't. And to have that like overarching like this whole season one just seemed to be like the echoes of war. And that was really cool. Yeah, well, that's nice. And I didn't I didn't expect to come on here and just be told how cool everything is. But like, oh, sorry, am I doing a bad job? No, no, no, no, no, no. Keep going, please. I'm blushing while you're gushing. Sorry, dad joke.
00:57:16
Speaker
um but I I do I do now that you say it you know I think about uh you know what war takes from people and we in Hurley's is literally the visual example of that right this is he's someone who something was taken and I I also kind of just to be honest I also kind of made Hurley to have a guy in a wheelchair right after all these people started complaining about the wheelchair that came out in the
00:57:45
Speaker
in D&D because I was like, oh, shut up. I want to put a guy in a wheelchair in my show now, in my podcast now because, come on, why not? Like the guy is like missing legs. He doesn't have a lot of people around who could like give him his legs back. You can't just go to Walmart and buy legs in this world. It's not going to happen. So yeah, he's in a wheelchair. Wheelchairs can exist, you know. So that was one thing, but also I was like, man, this guy is the visual
00:58:10
Speaker
for whatever what delmar which he had visual too but even before that like there what delmar and even you know uh even what um
00:58:20
Speaker
Krigs has you know Krigs isn't visual, but it's the same war took stuff from him and It physically took things from Hurley and that's what it does whenever people Whenever people decide that their ideas or who they are what they're about is so much greater than someone else's that it causes that kind of conflict it does so much damage in so many ways and I wanted to
00:58:46
Speaker
I don't know that I wanted to. I think that's something that's just so deep inside of me that I'm so, I just hate so much that it just came out naturally in what I was putting together. And yeah, so I'm glad it was noticed even probably more clearly than I realized it actually. So probably why I have so much to say about it right now is because I hadn't really thought about it as much as now that you're saying it, so. Oh, I noticed it.
00:59:12
Speaker
probably halfway through season one, like I started to really see it. Upon listening to the finale, you know, post-production, which production on it was incredible. We should talk about that in just a sec.
00:59:30
Speaker
And when I'm listening back to it, when there is that moment after Sauron is killed and then runs off and Krigs is like, like gives us awesome speech and then everybody's just kind of like looking around and I'm just sitting here as a player and I'm like, these people have had war take absolutely everything from them.
00:59:55
Speaker
And they have now just seen the ultimate price that it takes from people and communities.
01:00:09
Speaker
Solomon was like, be free. That was all I was thinking about, was that these people are just so trapped in this cycle of war, and she just wants them to be able to let it go. And I was like, that really doesn't make sense in post-production, but that's fine. But yeah, production on that episode was ridiculous. Yeah, super solid, Blaze. Super solid. Thank you, Blaze.
01:00:37
Speaker
How did you manage to make everyone cool in that episode? I mean it's really easy when they just are cool.
01:00:45
Speaker
Are you just sitting there eating snacks? Meat and sunflower seeds. So do you want to talk a bit about how post-production has evolved throughout the show? Because there definitely has been a ramp up to it. It seems like starting with Dale. The first couple of episodes, you can definitely tell a huge difference as production ramps up.
01:01:17
Speaker
And I don't think it was, I think it was mostly attributed to how every podcast that is created, not everyone, but a lot of the indie little tiny podcasts that we are out there, there's so many of us. They start out, they don't have a high budget, they don't have anything more than an idea and a passion to create something. They have a story to tell and that's about it.
01:01:45
Speaker
We tried it. We recorded some episodes where we did it with what we had. Not always the best mics, not always the best equipment, not always, you know, a lot of stuff. Whenever we realize like, man, this is really fun. It is something that like we truly enjoy and
01:02:06
Speaker
The passion kind of just grew for it. We dedicated more time, effort, and frankly, money towards putting out a better product. And with that, it's easier to make a better product with whenever you start, you have better tools and materials to work with.
01:02:29
Speaker
So as time went on, it went to better microphones and went to better recordings and having to take less time editing. And honestly, some of that too is like taking less time editing because we.
01:02:44
Speaker
And this is a credit to everyone else. We flow really well whenever we're playing the game. That recording is super easy. And episode one versus episode 46 or 47 is night and day difference for actually editing it. So the more time I have,
01:03:09
Speaker
the more time I can do fun stuff like the finale honestly is the fastest episode I've ever recorded and honestly edited the finale part two I recorded in record time or edited in record time start to finish I had it done in like three hours
01:03:29
Speaker
Because everyone was so intense, everyone was so into it, there was like, there was nothing to clean up. It was just, okay, let me just slap on a little bit of some of that studio magic and make the episode as cool as I can. That's really it, is just taking the time and the effort and the passion towards it and making something that you are extremely proud of. And I've become that.
01:04:00
Speaker
Yeah, I think it really, especially with, I feel like your music choices have been spot on. The rain, incredible.
01:04:14
Speaker
I do plan on doing more of that for season two. Like, I don't want to be so into editing that I'm sound effects on every like, oh, I swing my weapon. No, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going full edited like some people actually do. But I do think moments like when
01:04:38
Speaker
you had a line specifically and it was, she is awesome. And that hit me in such a way that I was like, this moment needs something. And to add the crescendo of the music and to add the thunderclap whenever she goes into the distance and has that moment, like everything needed to fit. And then as Michael
01:05:03
Speaker
told the story in a very cinematic way where flying over the mountain and you see this and you see that, I needed that to hit. I needed that to guide your emotions and guide the listener in a way that you actually can imagine yourself seeing these things and flying. It's a completely audio format. So I need to invoke these emotions. And I luckily found a track that was perfect for that.
01:05:33
Speaker
And then whenever he goes to the very end and describing the darkness that's taking over the wilds and creeping into Wild Hill and beyond, that's actually two separate tracks that I found. One of essentially the sounds of things crawling in the dark and another of just a really dark sounding
01:05:57
Speaker
synth track that just fit and i didn't want to put an outro on it i wanted that to be the last thing you heard i wanted the darkness to creep into the the show and it really set a set of tone that's the last thing you got is the creeping darkness as season two is forthcoming and that was the right choice too i think that totally affect that effect worked really well yeah so it's it's just time and
01:06:27
Speaker
passion, the more you can put into it and the more time you have. And this is not a job. It's just something we do for fun because we love doing it. And being able to put all of that in there really allows for some good stuff. I absolutely think that it adds a lot to the incredible dramatic base that you guys put forth.
01:06:57
Speaker
Like every time you pitch this, the show as a comedy podcast, I'm like, no, you're doing you, you're doing you guys dirty because you're not. And I think that is the best thing about you guys is that this is not a comedy podcast.
01:07:17
Speaker
We're kind of in this weird position though, because if you don't consider yourself a comedy podcast and everyone compares you to like the big stuff like Critical Role, which you know, there's a caliber difference in my opinion, not saying that we're not great, I love what we do and everything, but you know, they're professional voice actors. So there's like, I don't know, it's hard to pretend to be, it's hard to be serious and be taken serious.
01:07:43
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know what I'm trying to say. It just feels different to me for some reason. I feel like comedy is easier to get into. Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead, Ash.
01:07:51
Speaker
I was about to say I agree with that. I had a friend who listened to our first episode and they hadn't made it far because obviously the first episode's establishing what we're doing and he messaged me and he's like, I didn't laugh. And I was like, well, I'm sorry, we're not one of your hoity-toity D&D podcasts that you listen to, but I mean, we're getting into it. This is our first go at it. And I do agree that.
01:08:16
Speaker
We're not really a comedy podcast like I love being funny. I love all the jokes we do, but there's a difference. It's more serious is the wrong word.
01:08:26
Speaker
Yeah, I look at it more like, well, here's what I think. I've created, and this is how I've done it from the beginning with D&D, not even just the podcast. I create a serious world. Like, the world is serious. I'm not making, my job's not comedy. Like, I can do funny things, I guess. It can be funny, but like, when it comes to the world for D&D, I would rather it be more realistic, not as realistic as a fantasy world can be. But,
01:08:53
Speaker
funny the funny is going to happen naturally because of who you guys are and so like when i look at it like um watching the avengers or something like crazy stuff's happening none of those movies are comedies or even guardians of the galaxy like i wouldn't call them a comedy they're an action sci-fi adventure movie but there's a ton of funny stuff in it because the comedy and i think you guys do this perfectly
01:09:17
Speaker
The comedy breaks up that drama in a way that makes the drama more intense and the comedy more funny and doctor who did it did it back in the day when they first rebooted it and you know there's some firefly i think did it very well there's several shows and
01:09:34
Speaker
People that do that and then there are shows Some that people think are really great podcast wise that I'm like, I can't handle all this goofy. It's too goofy for my taste Personally and we don't I don't I'm okay with being funny But I wouldn't call us goofy or probably I wouldn't call us a comedy podcast either I would call us an adventure I know there's no category for adventure Dungeons and Dragons podcast on iTunes or whatever but or Apple podcasts, excuse me, but I think that
01:10:04
Speaker
I think that I would categorize this that way more because the world is serious, the adventure is serious, the game D&D can be pretty serious, but there's the goblin thing. Stuff like that's just going to happen and it's funny and we enjoy it. That's us having fun in this serious world that exists, just like we do in real life.
01:10:25
Speaker
Well, I think that's a very human reaction to serious circumstances is to look for that light. And I think that it's so funny that Derek is the one to be like, no, I want to be a comedy podcast because it's safe and comfy. But like, well, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to be a comedy podcast because I, like I said in the beginning, it's like, I want this to be a serious story with comedy that we add as our characters.
01:10:52
Speaker
essentially the same thing that Michael was saying. Um, but I don't like the idea of being considered a drama podcast because I feel like people think that you're taking it too seriously when you're saying something to that extent and we're, we take it seriously, but I don't want to like people looking at us and be like, Oh, these people think they're like, you know, the greatest thing in the world. They're the best podcast because look how serious they are about it and everything. There's like weird in between that we are. And there's no category for that. I think that, I don't know. I don't agree.
01:11:23
Speaker
Just I don't agree. I take this podcast very seriously. So up your game, guys. Oh, sorry. Says the lady whose character has a taxidermied best friend.
01:11:36
Speaker
Well, that's what I'm saying, is that this character in this very serious world, when presented with a situation where everybody is like, I mean, I guess we're all a little crazy because we all do hear other people in our heads and she's like, no, I completely can't relate and I'm really sorry about that. Yeah, yeah.
01:12:00
Speaker
And we're like, but you've been talking to a taxidermy chipmunk. And like, yes. For two months. Like, the laugh that happened in every single household as that moment was playing was so, so real. But like, also, yes, you need to take it very, very seriously. Do you notice, do you...
01:12:24
Speaker
Do you kind of kind of similarly to I think how the podcast has this undercurrent of like the themes of war. Do you notice how Gwen is everything wild? Gwen is every facet of what is wild. Yeah. Whether it be my mind or nature. But like seriously, like you have this like this like ever present love, but also this
01:12:53
Speaker
just like unrequited fierceness. And I think that her being so awkward, because like I've talked about this and some of the other behind the swords, Gwendolyn is just me and fantasy land. Because I do talk to my non taxidermy dog constantly how I talked to Dale in this series. And I think her awkwardness has shown to me myself, like in my life that it's okay to be awkward.
01:13:22
Speaker
It's okay to be weird. And this is how you show your fierceness. I don't know. I'm not good with words tonight. I can't think of a synonym for serious. I can't think of another word for fierceness. Um, but the gawky teenager is just, I don't know. It's I want to show Gwen as someone who's someone to be looked up to.
01:13:48
Speaker
Whether she'd be crazy in her mind, scatterbrained, her love for nature and animals. I don't know. I can wholeheartedly say that there is very much you in Gwen, like Ash within Gwen.
01:14:08
Speaker
Every day, I want to get too real, so stop me, because we're not a serious podcast. Developing Gwen was kind of hard, because I wouldn't say I suffer from depression, but I do suffer from a lot of anxieties, and I do get depressed quite a lot. And having Gwen has shown me to step out a little bit and get out of that comfort zone and show people what a person like me truly is.
01:14:37
Speaker
And I think that's why this character has developed the way that she has is because I'm getting out of that box. I'm getting out of that mindset of I'm weird. No one wants to talk to me because I talked to a chipmunk or I talked to my dog. I don't know. There's something about her each time a player that I noticed something about myself. I like that. I want to know and I want to know now.
01:15:04
Speaker
how everyone's characters have influenced you as a person like that. Is that something that's happened with all of us in some way? I know, Starbuck, you're asking the questions, but. I mean, that's a great question, so I'll let it slide. Oh, thank God. Thank goodness. Whoever wants to start can go. I'm cool. We have two boys off camera eating snacks, so. Yeah, that's true. I mean, we're an hour and a half in almost. It's snack time for some folks. It's cool. Jeez. How about you, Joxer?
01:15:35
Speaker
I think I think it's fair to say that any character that you play I've been in theater a lot has has influence on how you you live your life and I think it's really interesting to You know for a play it's a very singular concept and you're reading a script you you might develop a connection but it's
01:15:58
Speaker
It's very linear because you have your part and you can adapt it a bit, but it's all one thing. For D&D and Joxer and myself, you kind of feel yourself amalgamated just kind of mixing together in this.
01:16:16
Speaker
weird weird concept where you either gain a confidence or you or you you realize something about yourself in the character that you want to change about yourself in in your day to day life and I think
01:16:35
Speaker
I can't think of anything super apparent, a certain moment where that's happened with Joxer and myself, but I can definitely say that there are moments that I can see where I can see some of my shortcomings come out in Joxer or something that I want to improve from Joxer and try to push into my life.
01:17:05
Speaker
It can be overwhelming as watching yourself kind of grow into a character and then seeing that same thing that you might do in your own work life or your own personal life. So I can say that Joxer is at least an easy spot or an easy place that I can see some of my own shortcomings that I can work on.
01:17:36
Speaker
I think that that's a really great thing about characters that we kind of allow to be more of ourselves. Because I feel like as a player that's made
01:17:54
Speaker
unknown numbers of characters. Uh, every time you're like, what is this person? Like what is, what makes them this, what makes them ticks tick? Like what's going on here? Uh, when you have those characters that are very much like you, and then you get that second choice, that like second chance to make those choices, it's always interesting to see like how you process that differently as you've done that as someone else that is also you.
01:18:24
Speaker
And I feel like we saw that with Jacksoner a lot. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And coming back to a question that was asked, Blaze, for new players getting into D&D, I think it's super important for whenever you are starting a group to work with all the players, and especially the DM, because it's a very important spot. It needs to be a safe zone for everybody.
01:18:51
Speaker
so that you can actually have that growth for the character themselves and you as a person to really immerse yourself. And speaking about some of the things that you're not comfortable with with the DM or just working with the DM to really create the character because for Blaze,
01:19:16
Speaker
We had developed a mixture of a character because we had another friend that wanted to join in, but he unfortunately didn't get the chance to join us. But even so, the mixture of the character really came together with just Blaze because he understood what he wanted out of it. And then as the DM,
01:19:42
Speaker
you just work together to kind of create a comfortable zone and then throw out that rule of cool to make something available and awesome to adapt to that character. Yeah, I like that a lot. I think that's some great advice. I think that more new players should come into their first game with an understanding of
01:20:12
Speaker
like the goal of what they're trying to bring to the table. Are we gonna need some, go ahead. Oh, that's something that I heard someone ask a question previously in a different conversation about, what if I'm bad at D&D and I just don't think that's a thing. As long as you want to focus and you want to be a part of it,
01:20:39
Speaker
then you can't be bad at it. You can have a lack of knowledge or misunderstandings here and there, but as long as you want to improve and play, then I don't see that that would be a thing. You don't want to be selfish. You want everybody to have fun.
01:21:00
Speaker
I think that comes down to people feeling like they have to really communicate and participate in order to be part of a good D and D group. And you don't, you know, it's, everyone plays differently, just like there's different people all over the world.
01:21:12
Speaker
Yeah, I think the only way to be a bad D&D player is to be in it just for your own entertainment, your own fun, and not care about the rest of the group. And I've only had a couple other people play with me that were that way that literally did not want to cooperate with anything the group was doing. I'm like, why did you come play this? Go play Solitaire or something for a video game if you want to do it all your way. Go play a video game RPG.
01:21:39
Speaker
Yeah, it sounds like a certain monster the week character I had to. No, that's not true because all of the group went together against you. Yeah, that's fair. No, but I can turn it into one if you'd like.
01:22:00
Speaker
I think for the answer for me, for what is a part of the character that I created, and this also ties in a little bit for advice I would give a new player. If you listen to the early episodes, you can hear a lot of, I think Krigs is gonna do this.
01:22:22
Speaker
And I tried really hard by the end of it to translate Krigs is gonna do this into I'm gonna do this This is what I'm gonna do. I'm the character and I really put myself in Krig's shoes so much so that Whenever Michael gave me the prompt in private
01:22:44
Speaker
As we are going through the wilds to where the swamp hag basically was, he told me, you're losing your mind or like you're having mood swings. So I rolled with it. Like I literally let myself try, tried to build up my actual emotions all over the place and tried to make myself feel like I was going crazy. And I think it translated pretty okay.
01:23:12
Speaker
And I had to yell at Davin and that felt bad. Yeah, nobody liked that. You should apologize now. Davin, is this why you don't like me? Is this why you don't like me, Davin? Davin doesn't like you because he's in love with somebody else. Oh, okay. He already told you he's emotionally unavailable and I'm gonna need you to respect his boundaries. Okay, you're right. I'm sorry. I just... Those feelings that I said I had to make myself feel, it's just...
01:23:41
Speaker
Yeah, I understand that. He's also made his feelings clear. So like, let's, let's be good beans. Boundaries respected. Nice. Well, I think that comprehensively covers. Yeah. Season one. Is there anything you guys want to ask each other? Ask me the keeper of knowledge. I mean. Drop some knowledge on us. Starbuck.
01:24:19
Speaker
What was it like for you as a guest coming into this table having listened for 30 plus episodes and having expectations as to what it would be like to sit at the table and then like pop in? If someone else were to like sit in your shoes, like what would their expectations be to have to deal with us as a group?
01:24:33
Speaker
uh, cosplay is not consent.
01:24:46
Speaker
I mean, for me personally, it was like, it was like if four of my favorite superhero action figures came to life and just like started playing with me. And like everyone
01:25:10
Speaker
Everyone simultaneously did exactly what I could have expected them to and so much more than I could have ever imagined. I was so nervous to meet Gwen, because for those of you at home, I've been fangirling over Gwen since day one. Aww.
01:25:37
Speaker
I immediately loved her, just from head to toe. And like everybody else, I kind of like grew to love. But like, I just loved her, that's all. So like that moment for me, and it's funny that you brought it up earlier, like the like sniffing.
01:26:02
Speaker
I never, I never would have imagined that that was how that would go. But, um, it was just so cool. It was just so great. Um, it's kind of funny because the character with you guys, go ahead. It just kind of feels like everything from the very beginning led up to you turning into a direwolf. Like from the sniffing at the very beginning is just like a random human all the way to you becoming this direwolf spirit at the end. It just seems like it was a natural progression that we didn't intend.
01:26:33
Speaker
I mean, she ate bark.
Gwen's Direwolf Transformation
01:26:35
Speaker
I mean, it's pretty. That's true, yeah. That was actually a bleed over from me. Because the first time Gwen turned into a direwolf, I was, I remember it, I was sitting in my work room on the floor doing an arrangement. And she's like, I'm going to turn into a direwolf. And I just like threw my hands up, like fell back on the floor and was just like lost it.
01:27:02
Speaker
and Sauron seeing her in the forest as a direwolf and just like taking that whole encounter as one. It's like it had the same energy as I'm gonna take this video call with my boss in my pajamas. And I just, and so like the moment that Daven asked her if she wanted to turn into a direwolf, like if she wanted to be a direwolf,
01:27:30
Speaker
No question. That was, you had asked, you had asked a little kid if they wanted to go to Disney with John Cena. Like, that's awesome. I had that idea the second you came on and like that whole thing started and everything. I was like, Oh, I'm going to turn her into a direwolf at the end of this. That's going to be her send off.
01:27:56
Speaker
I left that recording and I just could not stop grinning. Like it was just the best thing. And it was so stupid. Like it meant nothing. It did nothing. It was always going to happen to the point of where if we got in some sort of battle and I had to use my fourth level spell slot, I was going to use it. I was going to save it just for that. Oh my God, pout eyes.
01:28:23
Speaker
That makes me so happy. But also knowing that I had already let her go going into the final battle. And then you turned her into a direwolf. And I was like, this is great for our plans. But I knew that she was going to become a direwolf. To be to become the guard, a guardian of the wilds like that was my plan.
01:28:49
Speaker
when we were talking, I don't know if I ever said anything to you about Direwolf or not, Starbuck. I don't know if it was just a student. I just was like, he's either gonna turn her into it and she's never gonna really come out of it or she's gonna turn into it whenever she, you know, whenever she dies. The wilds are gonna answer Krig's prayer and hers at the same time, basically.
01:29:12
Speaker
And so when he turned you into that, I was like, well, there you go. When the direwolf dies, Solrin dies in the story. Your description of her direwolf when he first polymorphs her, I don't know if you remember, were we on camera at that point? Because I'm pretty sure I was just sitting here weeping.
01:29:34
Speaker
Oh, no, we didn't. We did that one blind and I was just sitting here weeping several times in that session because that was also don't let my darkness be your darkness sitting here weeping. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. It's just crazy how, number one, how much respect you showed for what we had already done.
01:29:58
Speaker
That was a huge thing for me. And I try not to be, like I said, I do put together a serious world, but I try not to be too serious that I'm like, I can't have a good time and allow somebody to shake things up a little bit. But it's a little nerve wracking when Blaze is like, hey, could we get a guest on? I'm like, I don't know, man, we got a good thing going here. Like, let's see, you know, we'll figure it out. And then we started talking and I was like, she totally respects what we're doing here. I didn't, by the time we were recording it, I wasn't worried about it anymore at
Guest Integration & Engagement
01:30:28
Speaker
all.
01:30:28
Speaker
Well, you gave me so much agency. Um, like even from the get go, like when we sat down to have our original conversation about it, um, and you were like, this is what I want to do. Like you're going to present this, like we'll figure out a way to kind of like tie you in. And I was, and you're like, she hears voices and yada, yada, yada. And then I was like, her, her name is just Salrin, like an
01:30:54
Speaker
and they're calling for Safran. Like, yeah. And you're just like, yeah, sure, that sounds good. Yeah, no, it was, well, a lot of that stuff just kind of happened perfectly. It was like a natural progression of like, Hey, we, and I already said this, I think on a previous behind the swords that, that Solrin was just a random fantasy name generator. I hate coming up with names normally. There are some names that I, I'm like, I want to really think
01:31:22
Speaker
think about something.
01:31:38
Speaker
People don't put these like deep thoughts behind the naming of their towns and sometimes even their children. So, you know, I don't really think about it too much. But anyway, but the fact that you caught El Solrin in Sofrin, she hears voices, they're calling for Sofrin, but she doesn't know a Sofrin, so she's hearing Solrin. I was like, dang girl, run with that. That's amazing. Like, let's do it. And by that time you had already
01:32:04
Speaker
And I don't want to say like, you know, I don't want to be like the, um, you know, gatekeeper to this. That's not really my goal, but not what I'm trying to say, but like you had already shown so much respect in just our previous conversation about, about it.
01:32:18
Speaker
for what was already happening and wanting to fit into what's progressing. And I think being somebody who's invested in it from listening already, you're like, I want to contribute to what's going on, not screw it all up. And so, you know, short of being the first person to bring any sort of romantic conversation into the mix, you didn't bring anything that
01:32:39
Speaker
didn't just fully progress forward except I will say Gwen did say that she was crushing on BMO the bard before that so I guess you weren't the very first person so anyway so I won't I won't uh blame you for that I guess thank you I appreciate that um I do think that
01:33:01
Speaker
I do think that you have every right to have that hesitancy, because at the end of the day, I want to make it clear, Solrin was an NPC. I may have voiced her. She was a non-player character, so I feel like
01:33:22
Speaker
And I don't know if this is the case, but if I was still a listener hearing this, I might have had the thought that is like, well, her death wasn't really like a consequence of her own actions. So like, is that really fair? But like, sovereign is an NPC. So yes, 100% that's fair. Um, and you, again, you gave me so much agency over
01:33:49
Speaker
really what I could do and say, which you gave me free rein. And I feel like that allowed me who has like really hung out in your world quite a bit, just this excellent opportunity to play with my favorite superheroes. So like, it was just very cool. I think that
01:34:17
Speaker
I think that if someone wanted to guest with you guys, they should absolutely be prepared to just like fully lose themselves in the moment. Because from the minute you guys hit record, you are just so beautifully on. And it really is just absolutely contagious.
01:34:44
Speaker
Well, it sure felt like you fit right in. It was such an easy thing to... Yeah, Jox was giving the heart fingers, I agree. It's like I said, you're part of the family. I don't think we've seen the end of Direwolf Solrins. I know we haven't, so who knows what that means. I probably don't even fully know.
01:35:06
Speaker
Yeah, it's an exciting thing to bring somebody in that can be just so easily fit into the group. And even with the nerves meeting Gwen and those two characters just immediately like, did we just become best friends? That sort of situation, it was like, boy, that was so fun to listen to. And I've got to say, just being a fan of the show,
01:35:28
Speaker
myself, how much fun it is to create a world and let people just play in it and just listen to you guys play in it. Even while we're recording, just sitting here muting my microphone and going, man, I could let these guys go on probably for the rest of this recording, but I probably should do something to progress the story forward. It's just, and I don't know, maybe this is as a wrap up or I don't know, but I just, I'm just a super fan of Joxer, Davin, Gwen and Krigs myself and Solrin now too. So, um,
01:35:57
Speaker
I look forward to listening to this podcast even more than any of the other ones I listen to. And that's not just because I like the sound of my own voice. Well, this has been really fun. I really appreciate you guys letting me be a part of your collective baby.
Fan Interaction & Humor
01:36:20
Speaker
Three dads, one half-elf and a baby. It was
01:36:27
Speaker
Wonderful. And also letting me come here and ask you all of the questions that I've just been absolutely dying to like have a voice conversation with you about. And thanks everybody for sending in questions. People like chairhair22 who wanted to know what Gwen's least favorite animal the wild shape into was. I'm sorry we didn't get to that.
01:36:51
Speaker
Uh, I'm sure she'll answer it on Twitter. Uh, discarded dwarf also wanted to know if you had to compare your character to a food, what they would be. Uh, God, so good. Um, yeah, totally. Um, catch up in blueberries. Um, don't knock it to you guys.
01:37:14
Speaker
I will not. I will never. That's disgusting. I guess a rat. Just sitting here thinking about everything I could turn into. You don't want to turn into a rat. You turned into an octopus that previous. That was hilarious. I loved it so much. I'll go with sushi. Sushi is jockser.
01:37:40
Speaker
Sushi's a little pretentious for Joxer. He doesn't want to be. It's such a simple food, but it is kind of pretentious. And that's that's that's. That made it pretentious. Honestly, it's a very simple, delicious food. Yeah, I think I think that it absolutely has that like son of super rich people who like.
01:38:02
Speaker
can't like legitimately feels like they are above everyone else's station and yet they have decided to remove themselves from that position in order to quote unquote see what the normies do and I really I really love that I'm glad that's that's exactly what I wanted out of him
01:38:26
Speaker
Craigslist cheesecake, but without cherries or anything on top. No, just a plain cheesecake. Yeah, that's that sounds right. I have to I have one for two of the NPCs. The Chiefs just a big, nasty T-bone steak rare.
01:38:42
Speaker
And I believe that Widow Tolliver is one of those nasty green pistachio puddings that you get at Thanksgiving or whatever that nobody really eats, but Grandma always makes it. That's what Widow Tolliver is. Oh my God, I get sick off that every year.
01:39:00
Speaker
Isn't that called a shiny bruiser or something? Yeah, I think it is. I think it is. It's got pineapple in it and pistachios and it's green and I'm allergic to everything in it. I need to know what Gwen is. It's pineapple, pistachio and Cool Whip and I just go ham on it. Well, that's Widow Tolliver.
01:39:18
Speaker
I'm trying to think, I feel like Gwen would be some sort of matcha or green tea. That's what she would be. What are we talking about? Toma is a stacked New Mexico enchiladas with green chilies and a fried egg on top. That's exactly correct. Yes. What's Sauron? Pala mi, please. Sauron is one of those
01:39:44
Speaker
like raw granola bars that is just like all of the stuff like thrown onto a sheet and then they somehow stick it together. But it is painful to eat. Like bar interesting. Just yeah, the real world. Yeah. Yeah. Every every bite just hurts and makes a ton of noise to make bark. Just chocolate like that to be a thing. Yeah, you can eat bark.
01:40:12
Speaker
Well, you can eat anything. You can eat anything if you're really determined, honestly. It's true. Joxer is a Ferrero, Ferrero, Ferrero Rocher. Gwen is a fun dip, but like pop rocks. Devin is. Oh, man, Devin is.
01:40:37
Speaker
Shock tarts, the really sour, like not Warheads, but the chewy shock tarts. And Salrin is Takis. Takis. Why is everyone else candy? You're spicy. Why is everyone else candy?
01:40:53
Speaker
OK, if you want to be a candy, you can be a. Are you just going to add it? No, that's a candy that all the old people eat. Peppermint, you can be one of those, like, Jawbreaker, hot, where there's original candies. Where there's original. That's it. That's the legs. Yeah, Krigs is a word. There's three. There you go, buddy. Give him a little kids. He's got that smooth top. Oh, yeah. The only candy, 130 year old can eat.
01:41:23
Speaker
Just a hard candy, just a smooth, hard candy. He just gums it. He's gonna last me all year. Yeah, I can keep a bag for six months.
01:41:37
Speaker
I don't much care for, uh, Werthers, but I mean, what else other choices I got?
Humorous Conclusion
01:41:42
Speaker
Have we ended the episode? No, I don't know. You've put me in the driver seat and I am just like sitting here doing the thing that I do on all discord calls where I'm like, how do I leave? We should just hard stop the podcast after she says that. And we're done. Uh,
01:42:06
Speaker
Thank you for being here and hosting this madhouse, and thank you for everyone else for... I mean, this was kind of my random idea at the beginning, and we had conversations. I made you fill out hilarious forums on Google, basically saying, like, what do you want in a D&D campaign, and are you interested in this, and what are the days you are available?
01:42:32
Speaker
I still have those forms and I still have your answers. And yeah, we all answered everything a year later. And here we are one season in the book and we're going on to season two. Uh, so thank you guys for like sincerely putting your effort, heart, time, passion and everything into this. Uh, it's a dumb idea that I had, but we've made something beautiful out of it.
01:42:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think everybody thinks everybody and thank you listener for hanging in there for two hours of us being absolute madmen and women. Yeah, I also thank everybody here and everybody listening. It's it's just surreal to know that this is already over a year and closing out a season. Yeah. Starting a new one. Thank you so much, guys. Bye.
01:43:22
Speaker
Bye!
01:43:36
Speaker
Thank you for listening to this non-episodic installment of Behind the Swords. If you liked Season 1, tell a friend about us, and if you really enjoyed our first season, tell the world. Season 2 is upcoming, November 3rd, Episode 1 will drop, and in the meantime, have a great day, be safe, drink some water, and check out our store at the higher.store.
01:43:59
Speaker
D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d... Have a nice day.