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The Joy of GMing - with Special Guest Kylie Olsen!
50 Plays1 year ago
Welcome to the sister-series to Anywhere But Now— our Doctor Who Actual Play Podcast! Our special guest today is Kylie Olsen, GM of Survive This Crit!
Enjoy a terrific chat about planning horror games, setting the table for a season-long campaign, and a discussion of the highs and lows of so-bad-it's-good horror flicks!
We’ll cover some making-of and behind the scenes tidbits of our mods as well, so do stick around, with host Casey Jones!
Learn more at our Discord! Be sure to subscribe and leave a comment, and follow us on BluSky and Twitter for more updates. Don’t forget to send your questions & fan art to [email protected]!
Music by Tabletop Audio
Theme by RJ Pirchinello
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Transcript
The Magic of Adventure Stories
00:00:34
Speaker
Whether you're at a game table, in your comfiest chair reading a book, or listening at home, there's nothing like a great adventure story. But they don't happen by accident.
What is 'The Joy of GMing'?
00:00:45
Speaker
Welcome to the joy of GMing, a special interview series on the craft of great gaming. There's just something magic about sitting down to a good table with great friends, isn't there?
00:00:57
Speaker
If you're a lifelong gamer or a newbie rolling up your first character sheet, if you're a DM or GM or just can't get enough tabletop talk in your day, this is the show for
Guests and Game Crafting Discussions
00:01:07
Speaker
you. Each episode will bring you amazing guest speakers to talk about writing games and running them, building fantastic worlds and compelling story arcs and oh so useful tricks of the trade.
00:01:19
Speaker
Hear some amazing stories, get inspired for your next game, and join us for an hour and a half or so of lively conversation.
Connection to 'Anywhere But Now'
00:01:27
Speaker
This sister series to Anywhere But Now, our Doctor Who actual play podcast, will be released between mods or episodes with our ongoing serialized show.
00:01:36
Speaker
We cover some making of and behind the scenes tidbits of our latest mod as well, so do stick around.
Casey Jones' Diverse Experience
00:01:42
Speaker
I'm Casey Jones. Over the last dozen years, I've written and produced screenplays, children's animation for TV and film, graphic novels, stage plays, murder mysteries, and audio adventures. I've also been writing and running tabletop games for over 10 years.
00:01:58
Speaker
Join me as we dive deep into tabletop with experts in the field.
Introducing Kylie Olsen
00:02:03
Speaker
Experts like our special guest today, Kylie Olsen. Kylie would describe herself at her core as a storyteller. She's an entertainment professional who started her career as an actor and has since transitioned into the production side of the industry. She was introduced to the world of D&D and RPGs during her senior year of college when she starred in a production of She Kills Monsters at Loyola Marymount University.
Exploring 'Survive This Crit'
00:02:28
Speaker
Kylie is also the producer and host of a horror movie and RPG podcast called Survive This Crit. Kylie, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me. That was just wonderful. The theme music really, you were right. It really got me going. That's what I love. That's what I love about music, both using it during a game, but also during the interview. It gives it a nice little pep in our step as we get things rolling. Absolutely.
00:02:59
Speaker
Now, you and Nick DiPinto, your partner in crime, sure seem to be having a lot of fun over on Survive This Crit. What can you tell our listeners about it?
00:03:08
Speaker
Yeah, so Survive This Crit is a horror movie RPG podcast where every series we pick a new film and we decide in the end if we could survive this horror movie. So we take time to analyze the film and we take time to interview a guest in the entertainment industry or somebody in an equally adjacent field.
00:03:33
Speaker
Like for Halloween we had a security expert on and it was really cool hearing her perspective of like what she would do to make sure Michael couldn't break in things like And then we craft an RPG to see if either Nick or myself can survive in this horror movie So it's been going pretty good
Personal Adventures and Storytelling
00:03:53
Speaker
so far. We have a new episode that came out today that was Blair Witch project themed so I
00:03:59
Speaker
Oh man, yeah, I would not survive in the Blair Witch woods. I barely made it through Boy Scouts in one piece and... Earning the the Wilderness Survival Merit Badge was a nightmare.
00:04:13
Speaker
Oh man, I can't even imagine. I did some of those outdoor camps as a kid, and as soon as I saw a rattlesnake out in the wild, I was pretty much done. But I camped frequently with my husband. But he's a marine and an eagle scout, so I feel like I don't have to do the work. I just get to enjoy nature from a distance at that point. You are well defended from the rigors of nature. Exactly.
RPG Crafting with Personalization
00:04:42
Speaker
Yeah, I caught your episode, Silence of the Lambs, where you put Nick through his paces. I am surprised he made it to the end, honestly. I'm surprised too. Apologies for spoilers, but yeah, he successfully made it through to the end. I was surprised. If I were running a Monster of the Week style encounter with Jane Gumm, hesitating would not be in his repertoire.
00:05:09
Speaker
Yeah, crafting that was really fun because I wanted to honor the original story enough, but I also wanted to make it personal because I've worked with Nick for quite a few months now, so I know what kind of things makes him a better player. So I like including personalized aspects that challenge the player, but that aren't always automatically going to just kill the player right off the bat.
00:05:35
Speaker
Unfortunately, as you learned in Silence of the Lambs, he had the opportunity to do a lot better initially, but there were some, you know, technical mishaps that happened. And, you know, we just got to keep moving on after those and just got to keep things rolling.
00:05:51
Speaker
Yeah, I think personalizing the story sometimes to the people I'm working with really, really helps make it more fun for me as a GM. Oh, I couldn't agree more. We do a fair amount of that customizing the mods for our team on Anywhere But Now, specifically because a good chunk of these, especially for the first season, the mods have been
00:06:15
Speaker
played for years with other other tables that I've run and I've made sure that when we set them up for instance in the old west that all the players are going to have something to do that is going to pull them out of their shells and start digging around literally or figuratively and looking into things. Yeah because I mean in the gaming world literally or figuratively sometimes both is almost always going to apply
00:06:41
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Oh my yes.
Horror Gaming Essentials
00:06:43
Speaker
So I understand you use Monster of the Week and D&D back and forth as your storytelling tools when you're running a horror game. What draws you to the horror genre so much?
00:06:55
Speaker
I think as I described it to a mentor of mine recently, because he's not really into horror, I think there is something in it for everyone. Like it's very trophy, which I think is something that keeps the horror fans loyal. They know like what's coming. But I think
00:07:12
Speaker
Like whether you're a musician or a creative on the like writing or directing side or an actor, I think there's always something to appreciate in the horror industry. Even if you don't like gore, like the Silence of the Lambs, people that are a lot older than me, they'll call it the scariest movie of all time. And it doesn't have a lot of gore in it. And it's an Oscar winning film.
00:07:35
Speaker
So it's interesting how many, that there really is something there for everybody. Even though it is a very niche genre, people are just kind of scared to step their toe into it. Personally, I like gore. I love like, oh my gosh, I love it. And I love learning how people made that gore happen.
00:07:55
Speaker
I've always been a big fan of watching behind the scenes videos or doing my own research. So when Nick came to me and he's like, I want to do a horror movie podcast. I was like, okay, perfect. Now I can use all this time that I would have been looking up interesting things after watching a movie and actually use it towards something and share it with other people instead of just my husband when we're watching it together. I'm like, oh, did you know there's a fun fact about this? And he would say, please stop. I'm trying to enjoy the movie.
Behind-the-Scenes Fascination
00:08:23
Speaker
I have a similar gene in my makeup of wanting to talk through something with like little details of like, did you know that they were having a spat with so-and-so over so-and-so and blah, blah? And that's why they shot these back to back and you never see them on the frame together. And I got very lucky. I got very lucky that my spouse, AE, provided we've seen it before and we're not like, you know, in rapt attention, quietly munching popcorn when the reveal comes. But like, if it's something we've seen a couple of times,
00:08:53
Speaker
Like say, for instance, a season of Doctor Who. I can ramble about details or tidbits of like, oh, there's an Easter egg here. That's actually a reference to something, blah, blah. And like, this is how they met. They dated for so and so many months. They don't mind. They, in fact, welcome it from time to time, which, thank goodness, miracles can happen.
00:09:13
Speaker
I think finally I'm getting better about not talking about it during the film. When I used to work in the casting industry, it's something that my dad is notorious
Learning from the Industry
00:09:21
Speaker
for, too. So I would share little tidbits of things that I was learning and casting. And we would watch something together like Bridgerton. And I don't know why I chose to watch that first season with my parents, but
00:09:34
Speaker
It was middle of 2020, I was home. There was something to do. Yeah, I know. Well, and then my dad though, we'd be watching it and he'd be like, oh, she got paid probably an extra blah, blah, blah, because she showed blah, blah, blah. And I was like, dad, just because I share that information, I really appreciate that you retained it, but you're not wrong. And her contract probably does say she can do that, but it's one of those things that I guess I get it genetically from my dad because he talks through movies like crazy too.
00:10:04
Speaker
I feel you. But yeah, I'd love to circle back to what you were talking about, the expectations of horror and the fact that it's more of a niche genre. And I think you're absolutely right. I think the genre lends itself to exaggerated moments, you know, of not just, oh, oh, that's close to, oh, dear God, you know. Yeah.
00:10:27
Speaker
and the heightened punch of the comedy that comes immediately after or you know the slow drawn out tension as it slowly slithers closer you know these are wonderful things to play with with an audience of you know whether it's you're you're running a game for just one person or three or
00:10:48
Speaker
or a larger audience. I adored the book of Silence of the Lambs and it got me to the whole series that Thomas Harris wrote. Those are still to this day some of my favorite thrillers. Yeah I mean it's beautifully written and I think
00:11:05
Speaker
Like what you're talking about, the idea of you can play with the tension more, whether you're doing it on tabletop or if you're writing a horror screenplay, there is something beautiful about creating simple stories with really exaggerated moments. And I think that is a good way to sum up the horror genre. And I think that's what makes it so appealing.
00:11:27
Speaker
Because you can really sit and eat some popcorn through 80% of the movie and know you're gonna be fine. And if you, you know, have to go to the bathroom, you're probably not gonna miss much unless you're creeping up to one of those moments. A cat scare at most. Unless you're creeping up to that moment and you're like, Oh God, there's something huge happening here.
00:11:45
Speaker
But I think there's something beautiful about the simple stories that are made. Like Blair Witch Project, it's teens getting lost in the woods, Silence of the Lambs, it's investigating a mystery at its core. And there's just a lot more, I would say Silence of the Lambs out of a lot of horror films is more intricately complex. I would call it today, like in today's genres, it'd probably be closer to true crime.
00:12:13
Speaker
especially since... God, I hope not. It is actually, it's based on like a lot of, um, James Gumm's characteristics are based on real serial killers, so...
00:12:24
Speaker
Oh, no, absolutely. That's absolutely true. They were cherry-picked from a number of serial killers, and Thomas Harris got the idea for Hannibal after speaking with a man in captivity. Yeah, a real doctor. Yeah, it was in Mexico. He was like the doctor of the prison, and he was there because he murdered somebody, murdered possibly a couple of somebodies.
00:12:48
Speaker
There are so many wonderful sub-genres like psychological thrillers and psychological horror and things like that and especially with the multi-layered storytelling and I know we're flagrantly off
Replay Value in Horror
00:13:03
Speaker
topic now. One of the things I love about a good horror film or a good game or a horror series is the rewatchability.
00:13:11
Speaker
You know, the clues that are come out early on that have a lot more context and impact the second time around because they're not just flags on the sides of the road. They're huge, burning, fiery posts saying don't go this way.
Planning RPG Sequels
00:13:29
Speaker
It's fantastic. Exactly. And I think on the RPG side, I think now that we've done some that have sequels,
00:13:37
Speaker
like a couple of them they haven't defeated the killer there's um we have a new series coming out in a couple months and i was the dm for that one they didn't defeat killer and i told him all right killer is going to be coming back oh no yeah so it's that's a little micro spoiler but you won't know which one it is until you listen to it so
00:14:00
Speaker
little secrets over here but it gives you the opportunity to not only rewatch but to kind of prep for the future especially if you're doing a tabletop version where maybe you're not playing the same RPG again with the same people but you're writing something like almost a sequel and you're allowing little easter eggs from the past to be placed so that way
00:14:22
Speaker
the players have an idea of what could be happening. Or you could be trying to throw them off, you know? Absolutely. Let's just let's talk about horror conventions. If it's been on screen, if it's been something they've seen the killer do or the monster do, then it's considered fair game. And speaking of horror, we just finished recording Gallery of Fear, a three parter with the weeping angels making a surprise appearance at the end of part two.
00:14:52
Speaker
And I adore these monsters. I absolutely... Are you familiar with them? Oh, I am very familiar. They are horrifying and beautiful. Yeah, no, they're fantastic. I wanted to pit myself the challenge of focusing on the lesser-known aspects of, like, if there's an angel in your mind, it's gonna come out.
00:15:14
Speaker
And an image of an angel becomes an angel just as much as anything to do with the actual stone statues getting closer every time the lights strobe. But we did those two. Because we got it. Those are where the jump chairs are.
00:15:28
Speaker
Exactly, exactly, you get it. We're on a space station, a gallery, an art gallery in space, and have softened them up with an initial surprise attack from a group of monsters in disguise that has absolutely nothing to do with the main attraction. And the beautiful thing is that the characters and the players were both catching their breaths, and we're like, okay, we're about to catch the performance, and that's the capper for the show.
00:15:56
Speaker
And then we're done and okay, great. And halfway through the performance, the dancer who was working with her partner, the lights strobe off and on and she's become a weeping angel. And has already clasped onto her dance partner who screams and vanishes as her first meal. Turns to the audience and that's when we cut to like, okay, come back next week for part three.
00:16:23
Speaker
They were white as sheets. They were, they were, they were, it was beautiful. That is, oh, I love a good moving angel. I just, they remind me a lot of, you just don't know enough about them. So I've been rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer lately and there's this one creature in there that makes no noise. It just smiles and it floats.
00:16:45
Speaker
The Gentleman. The Gentleman, yes. Oh my gosh. It's like on the same level of terrifying for me. They also utilize some jump scares in that as well, but they're designed very similarly in that they have this ability to capture audiences in a different way outside of gore. Like their silence is what is scary.
00:17:08
Speaker
Well, they tap into something the same way the Weeping Angels do that Moffat loves so much is that he makes him part of a story. You know, they've not just here, they've been around a while and the gentlemen are
Crafting Suspense in RPGs
00:17:23
Speaker
introduced during Dance Macabre of all things with a storybook illustrations poorly drawn by Giles on an overhead projector and it just paints it with all of this
00:17:35
Speaker
texture and emotion and like these guys are serious business only the princess can scream can save them and we've already seen them silently swish and sway through town with some heavy like nasferatu inspiration all corpse-like and
00:17:51
Speaker
all smiling. Wonderful stuff. They're not all that different from the silence. The large, tall, unforgettable gray men, also from Moffat's run. I have plans for them in season two, because they're just like the angels. They're
00:18:14
Speaker
You do this yourself. You play with remorseless killers who have no reason to hold back, who have no reason to do anything but just sink their teeth in. How do you, as a GM,
00:18:31
Speaker
How do you make the game last longer than five minutes when you have something like that going after one of your PCs? Oh, gosh. Well, for me, so the first time we did a RPG, our very first series, it's a mild spoiler, but it's worth listening to the end. My co-hosts did die, and it was one of the ones I was DMing. And he, it was D&D against Freddy Krueger, and he died really fast.
00:19:00
Speaker
And I think I realized that these killers, just like in the structure of a horror movie, if they really wanted their victim dead right away, they would just kill him. So I think there is more fun where these killers, especially when I'm DMing or playing the horror movie character, they want to play with their victims a little bit.
00:19:21
Speaker
They want to play with their food. Yeah, they're the predators. They're going to play with their food before they finally chomp down on their prey. And it's similar to even like the weeping angels, you know? She could have come out at any time when she was backstage in the dressing room, like as an example of your RPG. But no, she waited until she had an audience. So I think a lot of these killers, I like to think of them in the mindset of they're probably egomaniacs to a certain degree. I would agree with that.
00:19:49
Speaker
And they want that attention. So it's more fun to like dive deeper into their psyche a little bit and allow them to play with their food before they really fully pursue. Absolutely. I was absolutely transfixed by the actor who played Pennywise, especially in chapter one.
00:20:11
Speaker
Again, talking about playing with your food made him leap to mind or spawing to mind out of a horrific jack-in-the-box. But yeah, that's another horror monster that very much feeds on that negative attention.
00:20:27
Speaker
And it makes sense to because I mean if they really wanted to take down somebody right away and that's what I learned as a GM doing these hard movie characters. I was too easily able to kill my victim the first time and I was like well hmm I got it I got to take a little bit more time, you know even build up his confidence a little bit so I can try to tear it back down. So that was like the way we do monster the week in some ways is
00:20:54
Speaker
Like we are playing on, you know, because the keeper is supposed, that's the GM term, the keeper is supposed to be on the same side as the hunter. But when you're doing it in this structure, the keeper almost kind of has a secondary motive of toying with like building up the confidence of only to eventually attack because the keepers are playing the monsters as well. And ultimately they're still going to try to kill him.
00:21:20
Speaker
Yeah, I've said this before, but like, I'm not trying to kill my players or their characters, and I do usually engineer at least some motivation for the bad guys to either toy with their food or have a reason that makes sense for them not to immediately go for the kill. Like, we can't kill you, we still need you to perform X or to go fetch the MacGuffin in the caves of Y.
00:21:47
Speaker
And that's important because like you say, you know, we want the story to actually last longer than five minutes. Yeah. And I think when I add really personalized aspects, like I wrote an RPG, I wrote a D&D RPG. This one was not horror related all that much, but it was a gift for my sister for her birthday. And I kind of wrote it around her life and had her family play with her and I, I damned it. And in the end,
00:22:15
Speaker
About half of them, not half of them. A few of them died because I had a lot of influence to help them. But I was able to twist the rules a little bit just to make it a good memory and allow them to live. They would be like, I don't want to hit points. I was like, OK, cool.
Balancing Game Rules and Story
00:22:31
Speaker
The monster, you know, had to go. Your NPC friend, Kara, is coming back and she drags you all out of the cave. So things like that just because that was it.
00:22:41
Speaker
That was her first D&D match she'd ever played as well, or one of her first, like the first full one shot. And in cases like those, in honor to keep the story memorable and not just kill off everybody, occasionally I will bend the rules a little bit, be like, you may be dying, they may be pursuing you, but we're gonna do a full 180 here to see, to allow you to make it out and because I wanna write a sequel for it, so.
00:23:08
Speaker
Well, there you go. When in doubt, they're yanked off by a sequel hook. Yeah, exactly. So that way it's not just ending nowhere, but it's giving them a chance to play in maybe a more advanced setting next time. Yeah, no, absolutely. Because every time you use a given monster, it teaches you more about how to use that monster, you know?
00:23:34
Speaker
That's a good point. I haven't used a lot of the same monsters yet, but hopefully when we start doing sequels, we'll be reusing monsters for campaigns and it'd be great to get more familiar with them because we just move on from them so quickly. Yeah, absolutely. So tell us about your experience with the RPG musical, She Kills Monsters. What was that like?
00:23:58
Speaker
Well, it is a stage play. It's not technically a musical. So I, my senior year of college, I came to D&D and game, game playing in general pretty late. I like three years ago was introduced, but my senior year of college, I had the opportunity to audition for Kwee Gwen's She Kills Monsters. It's a beautiful play about stepping into someone else's shoes and really
00:24:23
Speaker
getting to understand them through something that they loved. So I was thankful enough to be cast in the lead role and it has everything from comedy to joy to just beautiful heart-wrenching heartbreak to a lot of stage combat. All of those were like right up my alley. So I got to be on stage for a long time swinging a sword, but then COVID happened and they shut our production down.
00:24:50
Speaker
probably about three weeks before we went up but the director Kevin Wentmore he's incredible he fought for our show to be performed so we restructured it and we did it over zoom a few months later and we were as far as I know like the first virtual production to attempt
00:25:10
Speaker
such a stage combat heavy play. So we re-choreographed all of our fights to still look good on screen so people can enjoy them. And in the end, it turned out to be a beautiful show that we got to give a proper ending, because we all thought we just weren't going to get to do it. So it was a beautiful experience, and it opened up this whole new world for me that I never expected. That's wonderful.
00:25:35
Speaker
Yeah, no, I've seen other theatrical production companies like Starkid Productions. When COVID struck, they moved fairly elegantly to the YouTube arena where they would perform collectively, separately. And it was really quite nice. I would love to
Virtual Stage Play Insights
00:25:56
Speaker
see the stage combat that happened remotely.
00:26:00
Speaker
between your characters. Is that available that our viewers, our listeners can find? There's a couple clips, I think, on my Instagram. Unfortunately, the only place that has a full copy of the show, I haven't even seen it, is at my school.
00:26:17
Speaker
Loyola Marymount University, so. Gotcha. But my Instagram, I have a couple clips of people doing different things and our bugbear running around, stuff like that, that we made just marvelous. It was so much fun. So we and we had dragons like we I still had to fight a dragon in the end. So that was. Oh, yeah. And we had an amazing production designer who made these incredible puppets each. We fought Tiamat, so it was five dragon heads and
00:26:46
Speaker
Yeah. Oh my gosh. And he originally, I would find him in person and that stage combat choreography was amazing, but doing it virtually, it still looked very, very cool in the end. I can't imagine it could have, it could have been less than that. I mean, I'll have to send you a picture of this show, like what the setup looked like. I think I've got a couple. Please do. That would be wonderful. And rest assured listeners, the details, the link to Kylie's Instagram,
00:27:15
Speaker
will be included in the doobly-doo. Absolutely. Yeah, no, I'm trying to think. Horror is such a wonderful genre to explore, even with theater.
00:27:31
Speaker
The Woman in Black, I saw on the West End when I was in high school, our spring trip was to the UK, believe it or not, and we spent about 10 or 11 days in Scotland and England, and seeing The Woman in Black
00:27:46
Speaker
in a full-size theater, no less, not like some intimate little black box, but like a full-sized place. And it made my blood run cold. I screamed like a child that day. It was, I still have fond memories of being utterly horrified.
00:28:05
Speaker
Well, and it's beautiful. You got to do it with so many other people, too, because everyone was collectively feeling what you were feeling all at once. And, you know, the actor on stage is giving that energy to you guys, giving you that horror that all of you get to collectively feel together. That's why I think Peter is such a natural. Oh, she wasn't always on stage. She was in the audience at one point. That was part of what made it so horrifying. Oh, Lord. Yeah, I understand why you would scream then.
00:28:31
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. What can you tell our listeners about your career in entertainment? Yeah. How has it informed your GMing? How has it helped shape the survive this crit? Yeah, absolutely. So, like you said in the intro, I started as an actor and I got my degree in theater. And toward the end of my college career, I started realizing that
00:28:55
Speaker
I wanted to do more than be told what to do. Maybe it's just that really stubborn streak in me. And I started mulling around with the idea of just getting involved in any other capacity. So my first route was casting. I had the opportunity to do a casting internship and I liked that. I was like, okay, cool. I get to be involved in the story.
00:29:17
Speaker
I don't, not quite where I want to be, but I can get involved. And from there, I worked in the background casting industry a little bit too, which as an assistant was long hours and a lot of work for anybody who's interested in that industry. It definitely pays off. It's cool to see the people that you hire on screen.
00:29:38
Speaker
and maybe get your name in the credits. That is a very cool experience to have. But I think by the end of there, I just wasn't feeling creatively fulfilled because a lot of it was scheduling. A lot of it was making sure people got paid on time and hiring people for different roles. And so I took a step back and I was like, well, I want to do something more creative. So I started producing a small YouTube channel. I
00:30:05
Speaker
Met somebody through dog walking of all things and it happens where it happens happens and he wanted to start a YouTube channel on herpetology of all things something I knew nothing about and
00:30:18
Speaker
Wow. You know what? If I want to be something like a producer where I get to actually have more creative control and create a whole vision for a story, but also charge organizationally, this is a good place to start. So I worked with him for about a year and then I actually moved back to California. So I had to say goodbye to that. But during that time, my brother-in-law came to me
00:30:42
Speaker
And he's like, I want to do a horror movie podcast. And you and I really like horror movies. Like whenever we're together, that's pretty much all we talk about. Horror movies or gaming stuff like that. And I was like, OK, you found your girl. I'm going to execute it. You know, me with very little experience except this YouTube channel. So I was like, well, I'm going to I'll figure out how to do it. So.
00:31:06
Speaker
That's what we've been doing together. It's definitely not perfect. And it's a work in progress. But I think that's the beauty about doing creative things is you have to get it out there. You have to let it go at some point. Because if you spend all this time perfecting it, it's never going to be perfect enough for you. So the sooner you can just let it go and let it be, the better off you'll be. Absolutely. Perfect is definitely the enemy of good, let alone finished.
00:31:33
Speaker
Perfect is the enemy of creativity. Cause eventually they'll just, the perfectness will suck out all the creativity you were trying to achieve. Yeah. I definitely believe there's a spectrum between first pass. Oh, that's good enough. Let's move on to the next thing. To the far end of the spectrum of like, well, it's not perfect yet. I haven't, it's, it's still tweaking to the, a nice sweet spot in the middle of like, yes, this is how I want it to look. This is how I want it to sound. And we can move on, you know,
00:32:02
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And letting go of anything, whatever the project is, is always going to be frustrating because you have that mix of like, oh, I'm so happy it's done and I can move on to something else. But then you're like, well, I still could have done this or that better. That's why I'm a pretty type A perfectionist. So that's why one personal rule for myself is I like I'll do the first round of edits, have a couple other people look at it. And then I'm like,
00:32:30
Speaker
edit one more time and I'm done. I'm not going to look at it anymore. Give it to the universe. Yeah, no, that can be really tricky, like psychologically to be able to do. I have found, because I too have streaks of the Taipei personality and the workaholic who wants it to be not just right, but perfect.
00:32:52
Speaker
But I have also learned to adopt the mistake it till you make it approach. Embracing the mess and realizing that when something does not turn out exactly the way one hopes, it can be a learning experience. We can learn why. Well, why didn't it go exactly the way we hoped it would? What did we learn from that? Did we make a mistake? Was there some X factor we couldn't possibly have anticipated? What are the things we can actually control in this? You know?
00:33:21
Speaker
I think that is a really beautiful way to look at it is to take the time to actually learn from those mistakes and move on and be better from there for sure. And I think the whole thing is a process of letting go. Whether you're in the editing side or the talking to each other side, like if either of us were thinking way too hard right now, the other one would know.
00:33:43
Speaker
I'm like, I gotta calculate my answer to be exactly correct. That way it sounds good to the viewers and listeners. No, just let it go. Even though the anxiety voices sometimes will scream at you, you just gotta let it go, let it happen, let it be.
Improvisation in GMing
00:33:59
Speaker
absolutely absolutely that's a good thing that improv can teach us not just the yes and but also knowing when to let a beat drop and move on to the next beat to end a scene yeah because
00:34:15
Speaker
Sometimes we can let things run on too long, like sentences. I've been going over rewrites of my first middle grade book recently and finding like maybe one out of every 10 sentences is just a little too long. I can just lop off the last two or three words and absolutely nothing is lost. Point wise.
00:34:40
Speaker
you know, and it's a little frustrating, but it also gets easier.
00:34:47
Speaker
You know? Yeah, when those improv skills are so important, if you're a GM or a DM, they're really important because, you know, you're the keeper of the story. You have to be able to know when that beat will drop naturally. And it helps if you have people who are willing to join that flow with you and, you know, improv, but not take too, too long and chemistry.
00:35:11
Speaker
Yeah, the chemistry is really important when you're gaming with somebody. Yeah. You really are. It's like putting on an improv show together. Mm-hmm. Especially Monster of the Week. I feel like D&D has a little bit more structure, but Monster of the Week has, like, you're just communicating with each other the whole time to structure this story. Beautiful. And a lot of it is based on each other's reaction, so you really are just improv-ing, yes-anding the whole time. I feel like that's what good tabletop can be.
00:35:40
Speaker
You know, nothing against the crunchiness of the roles. I know there are gamers out there that come to the table for the crunchiness, but the role play, like some of my favorite moments from a game are when there have been no roles for like five minutes and the characters are just on a roll. To immediately contradict the whole thing about knowing when a scene should end.
00:36:05
Speaker
You know, but that's what makes the stories fun. They're a little messy. Like you said earlier, you give as long as you have a balance between the like tight improv and the messiness in between, that's going to make it more fun to listen to. Absolutely. And knowing when to edit the bits. Yes. That is something I'm learning because we have so many random bits that come up and I'm having to learn. Maybe not. Everyone's going to find it as funny as I just found it. Yeah.
00:36:35
Speaker
I've I have found that I'm doing our own editing for anywhere but now and for the joy of GMing and I've found that trimming down the laughter can really shave some time off especially if one of our players gets a case of the giggles which has been known to happen.
00:36:55
Speaker
Oh, I'm sure. You seem like a very fun DM, so it makes sense. Thank you. We try. Like, it's a game for Pete's sake. It's supposed to be fun. If we're not having fun, we're doing it wrong, you know? Exactly. And it's, you know, these people, we're playing in some degree to escape reality. We're not trying to be so structured to the point that we can't have fun in the midst of it. Absolutely. And now, a word from today's sponsor.
00:37:36
Speaker
I do enjoy the chance to have a game like Monster of the Week or Doctor Who where, just like Survive This Crit, you take monsters and killers that you are familiar with and that your partner is familiar with
00:37:52
Speaker
and then just twisting things, that little bit. That is one of the main draws for me, running Doctor Who, to get a chance to play with something that is already familiar to the player, if not the listener. You know?
00:38:08
Speaker
Absolutely. It gives you a chance to dive deep into a world that you can actually kind of picture yourself in, especially since Doctor Who is a media form that people can watch. They can actually imagine themselves like fighting off the weeping angels or just making sure they don't blink. Or get in the way.
00:38:29
Speaker
Or get in the way. Exactly. Breaking the line of sight. And even with these horror movies, a lot of times people will say silly things like, oh, well, I wouldn't go that way if I were in this movie. Well, let's test that theory. Let's play. Let's find out if you will. If you act sassy, you know, Freddy Krueger may really come after you.
00:38:49
Speaker
Absolutely. One of my favorite horror films of probably the last 20 years is Cabot in the Woods because it lances, it doesn't just harpoon, it lances through each of these beats of what a horror movie demands and that particular one at the gas station of refusing the warning and proceeding anyway. Like that has to be in the game!
00:39:14
Speaker
It has to be in the game. They have to get a warning of some kind that they can ignore or refuse so that when the time comes, you know, you can't say they weren't warned ahead of time. Exactly. Oh my gosh. Yes. You get to play with those tropes and throw them into the game. Like the most recent one we recorded, I had a special guest for show up at Nick's door, someone he's in love with.
00:39:42
Speaker
and he you know because in the horror movie you know when the couples get together someone's going to die so it was a test to see what he was going to do in that scenario and it was a very interesting result it's fun to throw those tropes right at the players and see how they're going to react to them especially when they're watching it on screen they'd be like well
00:40:07
Speaker
I wouldn't go to the bodega past midnight. The ghostface killer may be there, you know, things like that. You get to play with and twist and contort to make your own story out of very simple tropes that are fun to play with. Absolutely. Do you have any tips on running a horror scenario for our listeners?
00:40:30
Speaker
I would say the thing for me that I've been learning, similar to what I said earlier, is give time to get into the mind of the killer. Play with your prey a little bit. Give them the opportunity to explore before you fully pounce on them because it gives the story more texture.
00:40:50
Speaker
And I would say it's always good to have a mission outside of killing the killer. For the most part, there's always some other story going on outside of running away from the killer or killing the killer. So that is another good thing to keep in mind.
00:41:07
Speaker
to just have fun with it. I mean, the more that you can let go of, oh, well, you didn't roll this quite perfectly, like you're the GM. If you think the story should go in this direction instead, just play with it. And I think there's beauty in just letting go and playing with those rules instead of being so strictly confined to them. And I'm sure half of your audience who really likes the rules is probably really mad at me right now.
00:41:35
Speaker
Oh, how dare she? She can't do that. That's not what it says on page 44. I am a big believer that low roles can bring high adventure, especially in a tense moment. I love when comedy can impact horror.
00:41:56
Speaker
and cleanse the palate. You know, it's like the bite of cheddar after the bite of apple pie. You know, there's the nice contrast in flavors. And one of my favorite months to run is the wages of joy. You've got a theme park planet with mascots that turn out to be all under mind control, and they, like zombies, can turn unsuspecting guests into more mascots.
00:42:29
Speaker
On the subject of low rolls bringing high adventure, they run into this survivor, this tourist, a Thompson-Johnson, who has managed with a handful of his extended relatives, managed to survive for a couple of extra weeks. And it's like, come on, I'll show you the way. And then he rolled snake eyes trying to jump over the counter of the snack shop to reach the hidden doorway behind it. And with double ones,
00:42:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it starts off pretty rough.
00:42:59
Speaker
It's not just that things went bad, it's that things went disastrously. It's that they could not have gone worse. Yeah. So, Thompson-Johnson does not clear the landing and twists his ankle so badly, he rears back and shouts and gets the attention of every single mascot within earshot. So, we just cut to, around the park, heads turn to the candy shop.
00:43:29
Speaker
and then you know all the stakes are up you gotta do something right away oh man it's just delightful that this guy who is supposed to be hyper competent because he's had to survive here rolls double ones like
00:43:47
Speaker
and just test the attention of the whole damn park. It's just beautiful. Oh yeah. We had a similar situation in our most recent one. This is a little sneak peek into our Halloween series that'll be coming up. One of my babysitters wanted to do a sleeper pinch on a
00:44:06
Speaker
with the child because she's trying to get her to safety. The child wasn't listening because she failed those roles. Naturally. And then she failed so badly on the roles of putting her in the sleeper pinch that the little girl just ran straight toward the killer. Congratulations, you have made things worse.
00:44:24
Speaker
It was such an epic fail. They were like, well, all right. And it was one of those that she didn't even have a move for. So we're like, all right, we're going to make up a custom name for this night bedtime. Oh, that's wonderful.
00:44:40
Speaker
Yeah, you have to be at least a little willing to hurt them, I feel, the characters. They know what they're getting into. They should know what they're getting into. If they're playing a horror game, you know, they're like, no, you should know better.
00:44:57
Speaker
It's one of those, like, especially a horror game where the odds of dying are pretty high. I feel like a lot of tabletop RPGs revolve around death in some way. Whether it's you're playing, like the risk is always there. And I think that makes it fun for people who want to get that adrenaline rush.
00:45:16
Speaker
They're like, I gotta go back to my boring desk job. No, you don't. You're gonna play and almost die, but then you're gonna survive. And it creates these shared memories between players. That's something that isn't talked about enough. It's like you really bond with these players by creating these shared memories with them.
00:45:32
Speaker
Absolutely, even if those moments are imaginary, surviving the green goo monsters that are slowly rolling closer with these horrible sound effects brings people together as like, holy crap, if we survive that, what else can we survive? Exactly. That catharsis afterwards of like, whew, we made it, we're alive, is infectious. We did something. It's a wonderful shot in the arm.
00:46:00
Speaker
It's a wonderful just burst of energy. When I was in She Kills Monsters, our director, Kevin, had us play a one shot as a cast. And myself and the little girl that plays my sister, not little girl, she's an adult. The girl that played my sister, she just played a much younger girl. We defeated Tiamat together. And now it's something that like bonded us because, you know, we're not actually related, but it definitely created a bond that we could carry into our show.
00:46:30
Speaker
Sure, you slew a dragon together. That's huge.
00:46:33
Speaker
Yeah, like you slay a dragon together, you're going to be bonded. And the whole cast was more bonded after that, too, because they all got to be a part of it. And they all got to be in this room where we all defeated a dragon. It's crazy how much these imaginary experiences bind you. I wonder if that's why kids do so many imaginary games as they're growing up. I hope so. Because those games don't have rules, but they're binding themselves to each other by playing them. Yeah.
00:47:00
Speaker
Absolutely. Having a firm set of rules set up, even if those rules evolve and change or get a second edition can be really useful because as you've said, knowing when to bend them a little bit is also incredibly handy because as storytellers, as GMs and DMs, you know, we're not just responsible for
00:47:26
Speaker
making sure that the narrative we're collectively telling makes sense, but there's the rule of cool, the rule of funny, the rule of awesome to consider. You know, when someone wants to try something that by all stretches of the imagination should not be possible within the realm of the rules, but damn it, she's got story points to burn. So we're gonna make this happen because it's awesome. That's why.
00:47:52
Speaker
Exactly. And the more you can let the players get in on that, and if they have a unique idea, I almost never say no. Because I've DM'd for other non-horror themed stuff, too. And if a player has a crazy idea that they just want to run with, absolutely try it. Because you're going to texture the story in such a more beautiful way than I could have. We're collaborating as storytellers, and being able to watch a D&D campaign group that I'm in,
00:48:21
Speaker
one of my, I believe I DM'd the first session and we rotate and this guy had, he played one character and then he brought the character into the one that he DM'd and then he used it to become the villain and become the religious cult of Eggboy. This is a shout out to Skyler, the religious cult of Eggboy and which later on one of my characters was a worshipper of his cult.
00:48:47
Speaker
And even though he had been supposedly dead, it's beautiful how something as silly as, I'm going to be a character called Eggboy and try to take over the world, is going to turn into multiple one shots or multiple stories that they're all going to be interweaved and connected with each other. Absolutely.
00:49:04
Speaker
When characters connect with something like an NPC, that is a good opportunity to bring back that NPC. Circling back to the wages of joy and calamity are Dollop of Chaos. The voice actor that plays her, Dora, is her name.
00:49:24
Speaker
has such a well of random creativity to draw from that it is always an exercise in not just yes and but sure why not and explore where that goes and starting in that mod her character Calamity got a job on site at the theme park after interviewing with a helper bot
00:49:50
Speaker
And as a result of this action in our third mod, a couple of mods later, they ran into the helper bots again a couple of iterations down the production line.
Player-NPC Dynamics
00:50:01
Speaker
They had gotten bulkier, they had unionized, and they reached out to Calamity for help because they remembered her in their base programming. And it's cause and effect in action, and it's made of talking parts, and it's beautiful. I love it.
00:50:18
Speaker
Yeah, it's that collaborative effort. Like you couldn't sit down and write something that ingenious by yourself. It'd be by being around other people and feeding off of each other's creativity. Well, something as cool as that happened. And I will be listening to those when, are they already out? Cause I want to listen to those as soon as we're done. Cool. Yep. That's probably what I'm going to be doing.
00:50:39
Speaker
Wages of Joy is a perfect place to jump on, even if folks haven't caught the first two, well, four, really, because they're both two-parters. But yeah, Wages of Joy is a great place to jump on, because you've got your Time Lord, you've got your companions, everybody's moved in and settled in, and they're off just having adventures, and it goes from there. But yeah, the Helperbots make a return in the two-parter Lantern in the Smoke, which is also out in its entirety.
00:51:07
Speaker
Yeah, we've been at this for a minute now and it's been getting intimidating is the wrong word, but like looking behind me and seeing that we actually have a good number of early episodes out and those are all actually starting to tell a story together instead of just a pitch in my head.
00:51:30
Speaker
for a campaign, you know, is invigorating. And I hope, I really hope that our listeners and other DMs and GMs who want to podcast, get to experience that feeling, you know, of like looking behind them and saying, oh yeah, here's our early library. You can, you can check out at your leisure.
00:51:52
Speaker
Well, it's I'm sure it's even more of a challenge to not only do these tabletop games for per episode, but create an arc between all of them. I definitely I cannot imagine doing that. I mean, we'll be diving into the world of sequels eventually. But, you know, there's still a lot of horror movies out there. So we're definitely taking our time before we just jump back into that. It'd be probably by somebody's request that we would dive back into another character that people love.
00:52:22
Speaker
Sure. I have worked on developing a handful of television shows, and that has involved the seasonal arc of the first season of those shows. So in addition to being able to appreciate the continuity of, say, a season of TV like on Star Trek D Space Nine or Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Hannibal,
00:52:44
Speaker
I actually have in my background outlines for a season's worth of episodes or the scripts for those episodes and being able to tell because there is structure to it. It's something you learn. There's books on everything out there. I also have a background like yourself in theater. I got my bachelor's degree in theater.
00:53:06
Speaker
But as far as my writing training has gone, it's all been books, it's been online classes, it's been things like that, and they have more than paid for themselves by this point. But yeah, you lay out a plan of
00:53:22
Speaker
Okay I would like the following things to happen over the course of say a dozen stories and pin certain events to those and like acknowledge that some version of that will probably happen. You don't make it the last thing in the story like make it somewhere in act three or four of a five act structure because when you're running a game
00:53:49
Speaker
you're not running something that you have completely plotted out from A to Z. You have figured out what will happen if the good guys do nothing. And off of that, you plan your structure so that when the good guys do come in and they do intercede and they do get creative with tiki torches or a guest pass or a third thing,
00:54:11
Speaker
Holding the dog hostage. Exactly. That's been one of ours. And so that the thing that is going to underpin the season happens somewhere along the line, but it's not like critical to the villain's master plan, etc. You know?
00:54:29
Speaker
And what the characters do, their choices, the memorable choices they make, the characters they attach to, become stronger threads as the story moves forward, so that by the end of it, the characters have this rich history of, well, there was that one planet we blew up by accident. And, well, there was that museum full of people that we rescued successfully. We only almost crashed that ship.
00:54:58
Speaker
You know, like they have a whole, a whole season of stuff behind them. There are also, like you say, monsters of the week. There are just some stories that are just self-contained here and there because you don't want the entire thing to feel railroaded. You want them to feel like there's an essence of an element of randomness in the mix as well, you know?
00:55:23
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And I think your your show does a great job with that. And my my co-host Nick, all of his episodes that he writes are slightly connected, which is cool because he when he I did my first one with him was Friday the 13th. And he introduced me as an agent of paranormal activity, basically.
00:55:48
Speaker
So he's done a good job of creating at least somewhat of the beginning of an arc where we can see like there's reoccurring characters that I communicate with as an agent after I'm fighting my missions or in the middle of fighting my missions where I have resources if needed.
00:56:06
Speaker
But I think he's doing something, he's in the works, I think, of something similar to what you're saying is by creating a beginning of an arc to work with. Whereas that's something I get to learn from you and from him on how to do that. And I think you explained it beautifully, so I'm gonna definitely be playing around, maybe planning some sequels in the future to see if I can make that happen. Beautiful. Yeah, no, love a sequel hook.
Sequel Hooks and Audience Engagement
00:56:34
Speaker
Love a sequel hook.
00:56:36
Speaker
That's the fun about a lot of horror movies because they usually don't die. You're like, well, it's coming back. No, they'll inexplicably leap out of the water to throw you out of the canoe or the bus will turn red and black stripes and pull the kids into hell or things like that. And the mob will get pulled through the door frame and out of nowhere and you realize you're in the dreamscape all along. Exactly.
00:57:04
Speaker
Exactly. But it's really effective because it gives the listeners something to hang on to and it's also like kind of uneasy. I think how Nick and I described the horror side is like if you leave with that feeling that like your gut has dropped to the bottom of your body and you're like what did I just go through? Even if you enjoyed the funny moments but it's still a lingering feeling in the back of your mind then you know it was effective because it's leaving its impact on you. Oh my yes.
00:57:34
Speaker
Like, if my players are laughing with relief as soon as the scene has ended, I know I'm doing my job. Yeah, exactly. That's what I was doing in the middle of Blair Witch Project. I was laughing too soon, but there were multiple points where I was like, oh, I'm out of it. This is great. And he's like, wait, there's more. It's going to be smooth sailing from here, gang.
00:58:01
Speaker
And it almost never is. Oh, no. Never say that and then never build your hopes up. No, no, we don't want that. Yeah. The same reason you started your YouTube channel is the reason I started anywhere but now with our talented
00:58:18
Speaker
I didn't want to wait for someone else to come up with an opportunity for me to say their lines or write something for them without my name on it and actually just produce something, you know, with our stamp on it, with the kind of story ingredients that really resonate with us, with some lovely royalty-free music provided by Tabletop Audio. Thanks, Tim!
00:58:46
Speaker
and Pixabay. You know, just really make it sing. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I'm glad that you've had a similar experience. I feel like a lot of actors are starting to get to that place where they don't necessarily want to say the lines and I mean admit the writer and actor strike.
00:59:03
Speaker
Granted, they definitely don't want to say the lines that they were supposed to say because they're not getting paid enough for it. But I think the beauty of just getting out and creating something of your own, even if it doesn't get anywhere, it's fulfilling a creative desire in you. Like when you mentioned your friend, I think your voice actor Deborah or Dora earlier.
00:59:25
Speaker
how she has a creative well to pull from. Like this is an opportunity whenever we record or create these stories just to fill our own creative wells.
00:59:35
Speaker
Yes. And to have more to pull from for the future and more creativity to dive into. Absolutely. And it also builds confidence as well. In addition to writing the mods and producing them with some music and sound and getting them out there, I'm also building a portfolio. I'm building a library of games I can point to
01:00:02
Speaker
that I've said, well, yes, I wrote this and you can play it right here if you'd like. But everything is practice. Everything is training for the next thing, it feels like.
01:00:10
Speaker
Yeah, and all the previous experiences that you had as well lead into what you are now. Like, you know, your career in voice acting and your degree in theater and your writing ability, those help you be a better host with what you're doing now than you would have been otherwise. I certainly hope so. Oh, definitely. I enjoy listening to your podcast, so I'm definitely a fan over here. But all those previous experiences are only going to make what you create next even better.
01:00:38
Speaker
Yes. Yes. Because very early on in my career as a writer, I got it into my head that I knew what I was doing or that, well, since I had started to make money doing it, then I was now a professional and blah, blah, blah. And my cup was more or less full and
01:00:59
Speaker
my head was tucked so far up my own backside for the longest time about what I considered to be good writing about this and that and everything like it took me a long time to humble myself and come back down to earth and realize
01:01:17
Speaker
just because something met my standards of quality did not mean that it would necessarily be popular or financially successful and this taught me things of like oh comic relief might have been a good ingredient to throw in there or producing theater in Times Square and after it's over like oh maybe we should learn how to make the characters sound different from each other so they're not talking with the exact same voice
01:01:45
Speaker
You see these things when they are behind you. Hindsight is what is 2020, you know? Oh, absolutely. I think I was in a similar boat to you a while ago when I went through a phase where I was like, oh, well, I'm, you know, an actor working professionally. I can't like some of these other like theater productions I'm going to see. I'll be I would be like hypercritical.
01:02:08
Speaker
for no reason other than to be hypercritical. And when you get your education in it, it's hard not to meet because you're exposed to so much of it and you know what quote unquote good within a spectrum looks like. Yeah. But there's so much beauty in the messy. Like there's a great, oh my gosh, it's such a good bad horror movie. It's called The Velocipaster. The Velocipaster. I wanted to make sure I heard that right.
01:02:38
Speaker
Yes, it's on Amazon Prime. It is so incredibly good, bad that I
01:02:44
Speaker
So that it's wonderful. Yes, exactly. And if I was so, like you said, if my head was so far up my behind, I couldn't appreciate that because, you know, it was made on a shoestring budget and the dinosaurs look insane. But oh my gosh, is it fun? It is. It's one of those ones that I watch annually every year now that in like killer clowns from outer space or two that I watch annually. Killer clowns has better production value, but
01:03:11
Speaker
It's a thin line though. It's a thin line. Well, the last pastor will lower your expectations, trust me, in a good way. It's just so enjoyable. I appreciate the warning. Oh my. Yeah, my husband won't even watch it with me anymore. I have to find new people to watch it with every year because everyone that sees it
01:03:32
Speaker
does not get the
The Charm of 'So Bad It's Good' Films
01:03:33
Speaker
hype. My sister-in-law is the only one who understands because she's seen just equally weird horror movies like Lamageddon. Yes, that is a real movie and it is hilariously horrifying as well.
01:03:46
Speaker
I sit humbled up until today I thought the most ludicrous ones I'd heard of were Sharknado, you know, in terms of this so bad it's good arena. Oh, yeah. Yes. Please introduce yourself to Velocipaster. Return of the Killer Tomatoes is also Velocipaster. Return of the Killer Tomatoes. Oh, I've seen Return of the Killer Tomatoes. I saw Return when it came out. Have you seen Attack of the Killer Tomatoes? The 70's so bad it's awful.
01:04:14
Speaker
No. Yeah, Return is a sequel. Return is a sequel. I guess I started with a sequel. Yeah. And that one actually had, you know, production values. But yes, introduce yourself to Lomageddon and Velocipaster. How can I not with glowing endorsements like that? It'll be one that'll make you question your career in filmmaking after you're done. Oh, I've seen those movies.
01:04:41
Speaker
but it more in a fun way of like, should I just get a broomstick and pretend it's a dinosaur? Why not? I can make a career out of it. Wow. Truly incredible. Yeah. Wow. Just wow. The mic dropped when I said llama-geddon, didn't it? It did. It really did. That's fantastic. Llama-geddon. Philosophaster. Nice. Very nice.
01:05:06
Speaker
I'm beefing up everyone's Halloween watch list. It's that time of year. It's basically fall now, so. Have you seen Plan 9 from Outer Space? No. Plan 9 from Outer Space cost roughly $37 to produce.
01:05:21
Speaker
It was shot in black and white. It is truly horrible. The cockpit to an airplane is at one point presented by a shower curtain. The flying saucers are paper plates taped together. A headstone in a graveyard falls over because it is made of cardboard. Bela Lugosi, the actor that played Dracula in the 1930s, Dracula,
01:05:44
Speaker
plays the lead monster in this until he died halfway through production and was replaced by the filmmaker's dentist. And he spends the rest of the movie with his cape in front of his face because he's a different actor, several inches taller than Bela Lugosi. Plan 9 from Outer Space. I gotta watch that. Yes. Talking about movies so bad they're good, that movie is so, so bad. Like, it's not as bad as Troll 2.
01:06:12
Speaker
But it is bad. Popcorn, your beverage of choice, and enjoy with my compliments.
01:06:19
Speaker
Oh my gosh, I can't wait. I can't wait to put my husband through this one because we're going to watch an amazing horror movie. It's a classic. It's a classic how we've never seen it because I'm introducing to him a lot of the classics because he hadn't seen Halloween until we watched it together. And what you were saying earlier about when you go through a film the second time, you notice all the Easter eggs. That was something I was noticing. I kept my mouth quiet while we watched it.
01:06:47
Speaker
Afterwards I was like, did you notice there that meant something but But now I can introduce him to plan nine from outer space I really look forward to watching that I truly hope you enjoy it in the spirit is intended
01:07:03
Speaker
Well, it's one of those, like you were saying, it's got to have a little comedy. This one, they just tipped over the comedy jar together and just threw it in there with the low production value. And they're like, we're going to make something, a paper machine dinosaur. Let's go. Paper plate, flying saucers, actors reading from the script on camera. Yeah, no, it's that bad. It's truly horrendous. And it must be seen to be believed.
01:07:30
Speaker
I cannot wait. I seriously cannot wait to watch it. Fantastic. So Kylie, how can our listeners get in touch with you? Yeah. So you can look up Survive This Crit on YouTube or anywhere you listen to your podcast. We're trying to get our listeners more involved. So now we have a new thing where if they comment and leave a review,
01:07:55
Speaker
they can actually be featured as an NPC, either played by myself or my co-host, in the episode by commenting the film they want us to review and if they're a fight, flight, or freeze, because that gives us a good idea of how they're going to react, you know, because we want to honor the NPC.
01:08:12
Speaker
So definitely get involved through our YouTube and through wherever you listen to podcasts. We have an Instagram under the same name as well. I have a personal Instagram that I'm on fairly frequently. It's mostly pictures of my dogs and my husband. So if you like dogs, that's a good place to be. Share a lot of pictures of my dogs. Wonderful. But yeah, those are the best places to get in touch with us.
01:08:38
Speaker
Great. And finally, to our listeners, another great big thank you for sharing your precious time with us. If you feel it's been well spent, please share the joy of GMing with your friends who are looking to enjoy themselves. You can email your questions for me and our future guests and send that lovely fan art to anywhere but now podcast at gmail.com. And if you'd like me to run a game of Doctor Who for you, reach out on startplaying.games.
01:09:06
Speaker
Leave a review, rate the show, and follow us on Blue Sky, Twitter, and YouTube at anywhere but now and wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to join our Discord. Links to everything in the doobly-doo. From all of us, I'm Casey Jones. There's exciting things to come, my friends. I'm glad you're along for the ride. Thanks so much, and have a great day.