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Talking Dice Jail: Somewhat Compelling Origins
21 Plays1 year ago
Multiple people called out last second and we didn't have time to figure something else out, so here's the most podcasty part of our podcast to date! Make sure to let us know if you like this kind of content and we'll try to do it more often!
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Transcript
Naming the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
So, hello. Yeah, this is the first edition of, what do we call this, Talking Dice Jail? Let's do live from live from Dice Jail. Ah, even though it's not live in any sense of the word, that's right. Yeah, we were kind of just recorded in every capacity. Yeah, I really, I don't know why we ended up going with live in the name in the first place. I just remember Emma and I having like a very long, like three or four hour meeting. We were having an active mental breakdown at the time. Cause it coincide, starting the show coincided with us graduating college. so it's did So we were having like a bunch of active breakdowns. And so during several of those breakdowns,
00:00:53
Speaker
were us trying to scramble for a new name because Cam had picked a name and then found out that there was another equally niche podcast that had the name. Wait, really? Yeah. Our original name. The original name original name was Roll For Perception with R-O-L-E. um But Roll Perception with the same spelling is an existing podcast.
00:01:21
Speaker
oh yes so we sat in his office uh where he worked at the time and then just yelled several names at the wall and i don't actually remember how we ended up deciding that live from dice jail was a good idea i don't know either i remember distinctly thinking we saying several times we should not say that we are live from dice jail because we are not live i feel like eventually we just said We had that conversation several times, and then I think we went, well fuck, we can't come up with anything
Hiatus and Campaign Frustrations
00:01:54
Speaker
else. Yeah. And then it accidentally became like a a terrible omen.
00:02:01
Speaker
I don't know, I think it's kind of endearing that ah our live from show is in no sense of the word live. I actually meant the dice gel part has become like a horrible omen. As if you already weren't garbage at rolling before. Okay, we were and yes, that is why I suggested the name. Hey, luck is a skill. Not one we possess, obviously. Not in Pathfinder, it's not.
00:02:29
Speaker
Oh lordy, oi vey. Speaking of Pathfinder, our audience members I'm sure have noticed that we've taken a bit of a hiatus from Abomination Vaults. um I think we've briefly touched on it a few times, i like the start of Little Trouble in Big Ass Long.
00:02:46
Speaker
part one that abomination vaults has been frustrating us um just a wee bit I've more been telling people that it's slowly been crushing our souls but frustrating is a nice diplomatic word yeah and that that includes me as the GM it's it has very definitely been excuse me it has very definitely been frustrating uh to play because i mean in no small part is it's a very different campaign than we usually play and that then we prefer to play we we're not dungeon crawlers that's just which might be a misconception uh because you all came in on us in abomination vaults but no yeah we're very um narrative people
00:03:38
Speaker
Abomination Vaults is the first, at least for me, the first dungeon crawler I've ever run slash played. And it's, yeah, I've just opened the Foundry World up so that I can look at this stuff. But like, it's, yeah, it's very, it's a doozy. It's a doozy, very crunchy. It's also worth noting that all three of the cast members who are here this evening like their degrees are in screenwriting. yeah We're we're all or narrative folk.
00:04:13
Speaker
yeah we're We're the narrative nerd people, ah so. Yeah, we're we're narrative nerds. Yono writes web novels. Yep. Does he? Wait, what the fuck? What? Yeah, he does. You didn't know that? Where? No, where? I feel like that we need to be promoting his web novels, but like. Yeah, what? but i I don't know if he's written any. I have no idea. Well, I mean, if you if you click on his Discord profile, not only is his profile picture a character from one of his books, but he's got a link to his most recent one.
00:04:41
Speaker
At least I think it's the most recent one. Oh, I thought it's the score profile. God God. Oh my. I've read like the first chapter. This entire time, I thought his profile pic was like a shield of some kind. I never looked at it very close. Now it's a little robot dude. Oh my God, it is. But. Yeah, we're all we're we're narrative folk like and.
00:05:06
Speaker
but Like of all of us, Jacob is the crunchy person, the crunchy, like, you know, I brought him back into RPG stuff because I was like, oh yeah, Pathfinder is more tactical than D and&D, um which it is. But like.
00:05:24
Speaker
Even he's a little frustrated with his shit. yeah You're not designed to win. Abomination vaults is not designed with victory in mind. It's designed to crush your spirit is what it is. Like I'm looking at the void glutton right now. Like funny ah the blu glutton plus to hit is such horse shit. Like. I just.
Abomination Vaults Design Flaws
00:05:47
Speaker
The thing that really killed me was after the session, you and I had this conversation where you went By the way, that was just a side room. You didn't need anything from that room. You could have totally walked past the room, never discovered it and nothing would have happened. I think that was the part that like enraged me. but I was like, oh, you put a murder machine in the side of the wall for nothing. yeah Like there's quite literally nothing important here. The loot is okay-ish.
00:06:22
Speaker
um The experience is fine. The experience is terrifying. like it won' know like The XP that you get from oh yeah yeah from an extreme four encounter is 180 XP a piece. Which is like fine. that Which is like fine. yeah but But still, considering not worth the like emotional toll yeah like considering the loot you get from it is kind of shit.
00:06:53
Speaker
um Comparatively to the ordeal and the fact that it doesn't even really have anything Narratively like all you do is go through these little visions of oh look at that Belkora is shitty. Whoa Whoa, who'd a funk Belkora lived here? Whoa crazy the necromancer queen lived in her necromancer palace and was a bad person doing necromancy who like my god ands That's crazy um Yeah, and that's just like, that was really the kicker for me is just like, this was pointless. And, you know, looking forwards, I've i've mentioned it to Emma a few times, looking forwards through Abomination Bolts, once the author changes from the guy who does the first four floors, it looks like it gets a lot better, you know? Like, the next floor definitely looks to be the same general thing, but with some more variety.
00:07:49
Speaker
um like in enemy types and all that. But like the further down, once you go down a few, like another floor, you know, you start getting actual role play opportunities. Role play in my abomination vault. I know like the fire the abomination. Like the fact that it's a level one through 10 campaign and you're not getting really any role play opportunities until what would this be like level six.
00:08:23
Speaker
Yeah, like level six or seven is kind of shit. It's just wild. ki like barnacle Like by our standards, some people like this. Some people yeah they do like this and I can't knock that because, you know, if you're in this for the combat, then yeah, this is probably a lot of fun. Yeah, yeah I'm sure if you're a combat focused person, it's just like, I feel like every maybe five sessions there would come like a point where like we saw a thing and I was like okay I'm gonna try and talk our way out of the situation and there's just not and there's there's nothing like it's just like we have a long prolonged conversation and it doesn't matter because the thing is gonna try and kill us anyway yeah like that's the thing is even like in a lot of the encounters like it it specifically says the enemy will eventually get bored of talking and attack
00:09:14
Speaker
yeah like what it outright says point then It outright says that in a lot of things. Like which the um with with the ghouls in the library, when you like get to ghouls, it will outright says in a few spots, the ghouls will talk for a little bit. But if the party doesn't interest them fast enough or offer to feed themselves to the ghouls, then the ghouls are going to attack. Like what's even the fucking point then?
00:09:36
Speaker
Well, it's like it's rail-roading you. It's rail-roading the combat. Well, because that's the thing. is It is about the combat. this The story with massive air quotes exists to let you beat shit up. Which I suppose is cathartic to some people. It's just not cathartic to me.
00:09:58
Speaker
But the the other thing that really gets me, like admittedly with certain things, it's my mistake like misreading things because effects are dense and there's only so much that I can remember at once. And admittedly, there's moments where I'm not prepared properly because for some reason I don't anticipate you to do all the things that you do.
00:10:21
Speaker
to be there. Who could ever predict the random bullshit that we do? Yeah. Yeah. found But there's some things like, ah I don't know if you remember the ghoul tattoo artist. Oh, yes, the ghoul tattoo artist. Oh, him. So that guy has an ability um when he consumes tattooed flesh, which makes him, which when he eats a piece of tattooed flesh,
00:10:49
Speaker
he regains 46 hit points. And if the flesh was tattooed, he also gains quickened one and can use this extra action to make a jaw strike. Quickened by default does not have a duration. white The ability does not specify a duration. The funny thing is, Nozakarin,
00:11:17
Speaker
her Nakazarin, I said her name wrong the entire boss fight, so her name is Nizaka right now, I do not give a shit. um um She has basically the same ability, except it specifies a duration. It lasts for one round.
00:11:36
Speaker
So, i like after you guys fought Alarosk for the first
Homebrewing Campaigns vs. Pre-Designed Modules
00:11:40
Speaker
time, I was like, there is no way in hell. Like this does not feel right that he is just, that he is just quickened one the entire time. Cause like, yeah, I know he's supposed to be sort of a boss, mini boss. I don't really know if he's supposed to be a boss or a mini boss. Cause he's the same level as Nazakaran, but with none of the gravitas.
00:12:05
Speaker
And, like, I looked up online and everyone was like, is this intentional? Is this intentional? Because Paizo's not fixed it.
00:12:16
Speaker
Oh. That's the thing is, this module is built officially by Paizo. I even looked in the PDF that I have of Abomination Vaults, it's the same. I looked in Archives of Nethis, it's the same. So I truly do not know. I'm assuming it has to be a typo, that there is no duration. Yeah, there's there's like there's no way they intended for that to happen. Right? Because that's just insane. Yeah, I cannot fathom that.
00:12:46
Speaker
Like, there's a reason that pretty much all quickened abilities, anything that gives you quickened immediately, like, is super short and has so many caveats on what you can actually use it for. Because quickened is so powerful. Yeah. So, yeah, that that, like, Abomination Vaults is full of things like that, where I'm just, like, scratching my head. Um...
00:13:14
Speaker
And it's just, it's just frustrating. And they're like, there's other things like gibbering Malvers, which are just frustratingly designed and enemies in the first place. Yeah. I mean, they've taken two of our party members. Yeah. They've taken two of our party members, two of your characters. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Two of my party members. Um, and it's, it's so frustrating to me that, you know, you guys are,
00:13:43
Speaker
you guys are level five now and you're so and you're you lost a player character to an enemy that you lost a character to at level three ah yeah yeah and it's it's like the it's just the enemies are very frustratingly designed it's part of the reason that i wanted to want to homebrew everything in Solar Frost as much as I possibly can. Also because I like the idea of Imulan being like a fully independent setting. Yeah, it's like holding your own. Yeah.
00:14:23
Speaker
It's like one of those things where it's just like, man, this kind of sucks. Because, like, as a GM,
Bionicle Tangent and Personal Stories
00:14:31
Speaker
I want you to win. Like, I think that that's the thing that always gets me is when Yono is like, Haha, fuck you, we're winning. It's like, OK, good, I want you to win. That is my goal. that That's the plan.
00:14:45
Speaker
Yeah, the plan is for you to be successful in this encounter. If the plan was for you to make us miserable and die all the time, I feel like that would be significantly easier. Yeah, like if my plan was to make you miserable and die all the time, then I would throw seven hermanthenies at you intentionally all the time. Exactly. And you haven't. I've only done that once and it was a horrible mistake that I acknowledged immediately.
00:15:11
Speaker
um
00:15:15
Speaker
I keep getting distracted because I have a wallpaper engine wallpaper open on one of my monitors and it's just it's a bunch of clips from Bionicle ads and it's just distracting the hell out of me. You and the goddamn Bionicles. I just need to move in front of it. There we go. That's much better. I can tell you my dog is named after a Bionicle. You're kidding.
00:15:39
Speaker
No, no. He once went on a first date and talked about Bionicle Colby. We'll get to that. I need to hear about the dog. Yeah, so ah my dog, when I was younger, um he was a little Pekingese carrier mix. He actually passed away a few years ago on Thanksgiving Day, of all things. oh ah Yeah, he shat himself to death. I'm not even joking.
00:16:05
Speaker
ah i i I mean, I'm only half joking. It was liver failure. Oh, my God. No. Yeah. ah Christmas Day of the previous year, ah he he got Lyme disease. um But I guess there was this. Oh, he was. I need to show you a picture of him. He's just like Kobe. He was a mess. He was one bug. I like one like a thing.
00:16:39
Speaker
But, oh he um yeah, there was this one Bionico movie that like my siblings and I loved as a kid. I must've owned the first one, but there was one part that we always quoted from it. um At the very beginning of the movie, ah one of the characters is like looking for another one. And so he's shouting, Takua. Oh my God, yes, that's from the Mask of Light. And yeah, Yeah, yeah.
00:17:10
Speaker
I never watched these movies. That's okay. You don't have to. I did force you to watch part of one at one point. No, you didn't. I think. And now, my stepdad loved that dog so much that he named his publishing company ah after him.
00:17:30
Speaker
Is that gonna get your stepdad's publishing company in trouble, but he's technically calling me. I don't think so. I don't think so. No, probably not. Bionicle's long defunct at this point. Also, he's not the the company's not named after Bionicle. It's named after the dog that was named after Bionicle. Mmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a difference. I don't know if the copyright lawyers will see it that way, but okay.
00:18:00
Speaker
Well, if Legos' lawyers haven't gotten to it yet, then they're not going to get to it anytime soon. Let's be real here. There. Oh my God. I i mean, I think Takua, like in general, is like I feel like that's an actual Polynesian name, isn't it? I think for the most part, like with how I'm trying to remember all the Bionicle things. But I I do know that um Like the names all changed at one point because they, Lego accidentally, uh, made a bunch of the names really offensive. Um, yeah, they did. So they, they built it into the lore that it was like, Oh, and a coming of age naming day where they add like extra syllables to make them not real names anymore. Um.
00:18:54
Speaker
At least I think that was the story. I don't actually, I don't really remember. It's been a while since I watched the nine hour Bionicle lore video. But don't worry, he'll be watching it immediately after this. Good, good. as you I very well might. I very well might. I've been meaning to go back and watch it again. This is just, it's fascinating, you know?
Podcast Editing and Episode Management
00:19:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So for the visuals for this episode, is it literally just going to be like an image of Colby's dog?
00:19:22
Speaker
It's gonna be an image of Colby's dog with the um the stars in front of them from ah from the end the Abomination Vaults
00:19:41
Speaker
Even though they were just, you know, the the version one was just super simple in After Effects. And then version two took me way too long in DaVinci Resolve.
00:19:53
Speaker
understandable yeah um speaking of editing uh for for the viewers uh i don't think we ever like properly announced that colby was editing the uh little trouble in big abs long Uh, yes, yes. Uh, you did episode one. Uh, but, um, yeah, the pond, the rest off on you. Yes, you did. Yes, you did. And I, I am a okay with that. Uh, cause, uh, lucky for me, I enjoy editing. Um, and mayhaps, uh, we'll be doing, I mean, not mayhaps. I I'm intending to do this as a career. Hell yeah. So.
00:20:39
Speaker
that's ah That's a good thing. and Admittedly, I haven't had the time to actually go through them, but like i'm hoping that they are I'm hoping that they're of better quality than what I've been doing, because you're much better at editing than I am.
00:20:53
Speaker
Ah, shucks. I haven't watched your episodes, I can't say. um I love the fact that like a great we're all sitting here like, I have no idea what the finished episodes sound like. Yeah, like that's the thing is the only person who actually knows what any of the finished episodes sounds like is the editor, which in the most part, which for up until now has been just me.
00:21:14
Speaker
And with respect and love, I just don't want to relive any of this all over again. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's the reason that I never- I talk to you all enough each week anyway. I mean, that's the reason I never touch the episodes again after I'm done rendering. It's one of those things where it's like every- Oh, I love that dog. Well, we just sent a picture of the dog in the chat. That doesn't look so much like a dog so much as it looks like Chewbacca.
00:21:42
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's what right we that's what you would compare him to. There's this one great photo that that I have of him. ah of but When he had Lyme disease, ah our our aunt was dog sitting him, and so she sent us a photo of him screaming, and she said he won't stop screaming. And I'm trying to find that photo right now. Oh, God.
00:22:07
Speaker
so ill i'll let you know if i do please do i think we we absolutely need that photo no no ifs ands or buts about it um
Gaming Sessions and Consistency
00:22:19
Speaker
Can you tell that this is a whole group of people with ADHD? What? No. Because I just literally forgot what we were talking about. We were talking about editing. Yes, yes, editing. That's right. Oh, right. How when we first started the show and even to this day, whenever I talk to my family or ah friends or whoever outside of this group, everyone looks at it and goes, oh, my God, it's so long.
00:22:50
Speaker
Oh my god, these are so long. How how that how does any- You can't expect anyone to listen to this. And it's like, okay, but like, yes, comma. That's what actual plays are. God bless comma my poor sister who actually I think suffered through, like, I want to say the first like five episodes. Oh, Jesus.
00:23:11
Speaker
those were Those were rough. That was before we had Zencaster. That was before I figured out the audio specs. I can't even blame her for giving up. I'm like, yeah that you tried? Oh my God.
00:23:25
Speaker
that is amazing okay so all the background in images are just gonna be of colby's dog right yeah it's just gonna be a slideshow yes you know what colby i'm putting you in charge of editing this since we're not doing a session of very well very well colby you're gonna be in charge of this you're gonna do like an in memoriam slideshow for takua
00:23:57
Speaker
Yeah, in case anyone was wondering, scheduling got weird, so this was plan B. Oh, yes, yes. This was plan H. What do you mean? Well, I was trying to be optimistic. Plan Z. The day crabs fries.
00:24:12
Speaker
Listen, Emma, you were not in the call before we started this. It was chaos. what was the Cats and dogs. It was Kobe and I just talking, going back and forth, being like, we could maybe do this, but like, no, that'll be shit. Yeah, yeah. We could maybe do this, but like, no, that that just won't work.
00:24:30
Speaker
And then yeah it was like me opening opening something up. I was like, oh, maybe this will work, this thing that I found on Steam. And then just going through it and being like suffering through the tutorial and then being like, yeah, no, this is not going to work. yeah we Yeah. We briefly considered doing a fist full of flowers ah just trying to quickly run that but we we would not have been able to to make that in time yeah that's that's the problem with all those one shots is that they're designed for like four to six hours of play yeah like i think i saw one that was like an extra life thing i think it might have been um
00:25:07
Speaker
I don't remember what it was called, but it's the it's the five v extra life adventure ah that like the Lokatha race is from. Or the fifth edition version of the Lokatha race is from. um And I want to say it's it is specifically a one shot that is meant to be eight to 10 hours long. Oh, good lord. Yeah.
00:25:35
Speaker
One shots are not one shots for us. like and that's no thing that i are not That's the thing that I keep telling people is like we relatively speaking, we play for a very short amount of time every week. Like yes two and a half hours is short for a lot of groups. Like there's plenty of people who will play for 12 hours straight. And I do not understand. And how they have the time or the stamina because a lot of people like that's the thing we also are a consistent group we have a consistent day of the week that we play every week except for days like this where you know jacob calls out 20 minutes before the game is supposed to start um but
00:26:21
Speaker
Like we have that consistency. A lot of other people play like once a month or once every two months. So they cram everything into one day. They like book off one day that everyone can just completely not do anything else. And they just.
00:26:38
Speaker
like basically have a full day long house party. Which to a certain extent, sounds like it would be kind of fun. You know? I think it would be fun. I think it would kill us.
Audience Engagement and Technical Challenges
00:26:48
Speaker
It would be fun to do once. The amount of liquor that we would consume would kill us. By the end, no one would be coherent. Again, no they would not. It would be fun to do once, like a charity livestream maybe.
00:27:05
Speaker
Okay, one day when we make enough money that we can give something to charity? You know, extra life things do exist, but we don't have the viewership for it, let's be real. At least in this stage.
00:27:20
Speaker
um that we do very much appreciate the the viewers, the limited viewership that we do have. Because ah the folks that we do have, incredible. You guys are amazing. The folks that we do have are great, especially you, Jane. Jane, you're awesome. And thank you for telling us that ah our upload of part three of Little Trouble in Big Absalom was actually just part two. Oh my God, yeah. I i still cannot believe I did that. We really appreciate Jane. Jane's one of the people who always lets us know. Yeah. whatever Whatever one of the real ones. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's yeah. It is genuinely really nice, though, to like actually hear from people, even when it's them talking about our screw ups, because like with with the first part of Little Trouble in Big Absalom, we couldn't get the recordings to work properly because the the module, the Foundry module that I used to record doesn't function anymore.
00:28:17
Speaker
uh yeah it works fine for me but colby can't download it because it's not been updated to the latest version of core foundry so we were trying to figure out the new one and just somewhere it somewhere it got lost in translation that uh the spectator player needs to have like viewer access to all tokens or something like that. Yeah. later Yeah. The spectator needed to own everybody. And that like that that got lost in translation somewhere. um So like our first part of Little Trouble in Big Absalom, I was like, you know what, it's fine if it's just basically a black screen. No one looks at it anyway. And then like we post it and then like a day later someone comments and is like, hey, you you fucked up the recording. That's a very violent
00:29:14
Speaker
retelling of the moment. You weren't that mean if you're listening. You weren't that mean. You were an angel. You were incredibly helpful. You were actually fairly nice about it. I just responded to the comment like, thanks. Glad someone noticed. It means that we should keep putting effort into the video version. Kudos. If you're ever debating like, oh, should I say something about the episode? Please do. Yes, please do. Good Lord, it makes my day.
00:29:41
Speaker
we We are pretty regularly like, what are we doing? Everything is wrong. Which is, you know, that fun post-graduate nightmare that I feel ends eventually, maybe? At some point, maybe. yeah Maybe not. um It's been in here and I still feel like I'm in limbo. ah So do I. so It's been more than a year for me and I've got a full-time job and I feel aggressively in limbo.
Post-Graduation Struggles and Future Plans
00:30:10
Speaker
Okay, you're an adult with a job.
00:30:13
Speaker
and I'm not! I'm debatably an adult, but I do have a job. What do you mean you're debatably an adult? You're debatably an adult. Have you met me?
00:30:25
Speaker
kid the chioca was I got a side with him on this. He's unfair, so I'm not going to make it.
00:30:34
Speaker
Oh my lord, but yeah, seriously, if you ever even have an inkling of a thing to say on any of the episodes, please dear god, say it, whether you're watching on YouTube or listening on Spotify or whatever. Let me add a caveat.
00:30:50
Speaker
If it's like, oh, this part of the show could be better, awesome. If it's like, oh, I hate this member of the party and I hope they die. Well, yeah, don't bully people. We'd prefer if you didn't. I just like throwing caveats out there. That's a good caveat. Because yes, well, we want to put Jacob in a guillotine. Jacob is ours to guillotine. You can't guillotine him. You cannot have him. His execution is ours and ours alone. Yeah, we get to do that. I will be executing him for the party in approximately a month when I go to see him.
00:31:31
Speaker
Um, so worry not about that. Jacob, middle name Perez. We'll be dying soon. Doc's him. Doc's him now. I actually don't remember his middle name. Wait. Nope. It's gone. Unless this is dad's
00:32:04
Speaker
Anyways, I guess,
00:32:08
Speaker
um you know, I've gotta say I'm really glad we started Soul of Frost. Yeah, i think I think that was a good good thing for us. It's definitely a good counterbalance to Abomination Vaults and me trying to shove little story elements into Abomination Vaults. I mean, don't get me wrong. I love Petra Palmer probably as much as a person can love there their Pathfinder character.
Character Creations and RPG Lore
00:32:31
Speaker
um She's just in a hellscape that I hate. She, Petra Palmer is just in a constant state of anxiety. That's because I'm in a constant state of anxiety. I was gonna say, I think that's just Emma May's. Like, yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't, it, it would have been a lot better if I had built a character that I grew to hate if I had made Woosbert.
00:32:54
Speaker
Oh god, oh my god. I loved how much you hated Boozbert. Okay, it's because I made him on accident and thought I was playing one session and like a year later I had joined a podcast and had sold my soul to some kind of D&D devil.
00:33:17
Speaker
which is why I wanted Woosberg to die so desperately. i feel like I feel like we need to give the audience some context here for Woosberg. Yes, they don't know who Woosberg is. let's I think we should go into just sort of the context, because what the hell else are we going to talk about? yeah like What Aymalan was leading up to this? Yes.
00:33:37
Speaker
Let's start with, Cam can give kind of the brief overview of I'm Alon and the state of the party before I joined. And then I will explain to you the birth of Woosbert and how I ended up here. So I guess this is actually gonna kind of be like the the whole deep lore of like dice jail as a group. yeah So buckle up. Which you know, it we have nothing better to do so. Buckle up. You're getting exclusive content.
00:34:06
Speaker
buckle up, crack them knuckles, grab yourself a beverage. um get Get yourself some Spike Donald. was in high school. It was like my I think it was my senior near close to the end of my senior year in high school. um Or you know what? No, we can go even further back to my introduction to D and&D. Um,
00:34:33
Speaker
which was my high school best friend um was like, oh, yeah, we should I'm gonna I'm gonna teach you how to play D and&D. And I was like, okay, I guess we'll do that. And I was staying over his house.
00:34:48
Speaker
um And he was like, all right, we're going to do this. I'm going to we're going to we're going to make you a character and I'm going to introduce you to it. And then we'll we'll play more. I was like, OK, cool. And so he had me open up Ork Pub. I don't know if you guys have ever used Ork Pub. No, I have not. But it was ah was it was it. I don't know if it still exists or not, but it's a D and&D character creator.
00:35:18
Speaker
And i I who' was trying to create my character, which of course was me trying to create my Skyrim character at the time. natural, because that's all I knew. My man. My man. That's literally what I did for Oberyn. He was just my Morrowind character. I remember you telling me that. But yeah, I was like, oh, OK, cool. I want to be all of these things. And he was like, OK, well, I guess these are kind of the closest things. And I was like, OK, so what do all of these things mean?
00:35:56
Speaker
And I like, you know, in reference to stats and he was like, Oh, don't, you don't need those. Just get me a picture. Oh no. So my entire character was I'm a Tabaxi rogue who doesn't know what any of his abilities do. Who doesn't know that he has abilities in the first place, who doesn't have any stats and has two knives in his inventory.
00:36:21
Speaker
Casual. God bless. That's that's that great first character we love to say. Oh, it gets better. It gets better. Because then my friend is like, all right, now that you've made your character, which again, is a race, a class and a screenshot, not even a screenshot. I think I took a picture of my screen with my phone um of my Skyrim character. Love that for you. And this my friend is like all right and he gives me this little introduction to me coming into the city and going to the thieves guild and i was like okay cool i guess i'm kind of getting into this and he he also made me buy tabletop simulator for this oh no i've never used tabletop simulator at all up until that point
00:37:14
Speaker
or cents um so basically he had me waste like however much it cost 30 40 dollars um 20 30 dollars um and uh so he had he drops me into this map and it's like all right you're in the thieves guild go he's like what do you mean go you know he goes go like talk to people and i was like what What do you mean? Like what am I supposed to be doing? Ask a question. Were there other other people with you? No, no, it's just me and my friend. Nobody else. And he's just saying, okay, go talk to people. No, no, no, no. I completely forgot a very important step.
00:37:59
Speaker
It wasn't go talk to people. It was, okay, this is the Thieves Guild. And he then proceeded to go through each and every one of the maybe 20 NPCs, show me their picture and give me their whole entire story. What's even the point of talking to them then? And then he says, okay, go talk to them.
00:38:23
Speaker
And I was like, what, what do you mean, sir? What do you mean? Talk to them. I don't understand. Like, how does this work? I've never played an RPG before. And I don't even remember what happened from that point. I just know that it eventually ended.
00:38:45
Speaker
I like that that didn't turn you off of RPGs forever. Well, that's the thing is like it got the juices flowing because I was like, oh, this is cool. I like the creativity
D&D Beginnings and Group Dynamics
00:38:53
Speaker
of it. And then I I was kind of into Rooster Teeth stuff at that point, because this was this was like maybe sophomore, junior year of high school. I was in I was I was listening to or watching ah I think it's called Heroes and Half-Wits, the Rooster Teeth actual play.
00:39:10
Speaker
um for DD5e and I was like holy shit this is awesome and like that was my first experience real experience with actual plays and everything and it was from what I remember it was a really good actual play like I really enjoyed the characters I really I i thought I understood the gameplay ah more on that later but like that was my first proper experience into what 5e could be um So around senior year, I was like, hey, you know, it would be kind of fun to try running this myself. Also good to know, I did not know that the core rule book existed. I did not know that the basic rules exist. Oh no. um Did you think it was all just like theater of the mind? Oh, we'll get there. Oh no. I didn't even really know that D&D Beyond existed.
00:40:07
Speaker
Oh, I knew what D&D Beyond was. No, I knew that you rolled a d20 and that weapons had damaged ice. Oh, boy. And that you had hit points and AC and that things had difficulty classes. And that was about it. And so.
00:40:34
Speaker
i went through the process of building a world that was what i did first was start building a world and i i tried very hard to use a bunch of tools that i found on the internet which looking back on it those were not the tools i should have been using but you know lessons learned um and i went through and homebrewed a whole bunch of shit. Because I also, from this friend, was basically told nobody ever uses the stuff that's actually, you know, part of the game. Like, you know, everyone uses things from the 5eSRD wiki or whatever, which is all homebrew.
00:41:13
Speaker
because this friend of mine had been playing in this campaign for several years, and it was it was a post-level 20 campaign. Oh, what? Oh, Jesus. Also good to note, this guy was playing in a post-level 20 campaign, never once learned the rules. Did not know how spell slots worked at all. Huh? ah Yeah, so he was just casting 9th level spell slots, 9th level spells every turn.
00:41:39
Speaker
um And as GM just kind of didn't notice um anyways um That is my understanding of it at the very least no slander towards anyone um But I went through and started building ah This world and I built I was like okay. I'm gonna just sort of do a mashup of three things that I really like I like Standard fan or I guess four things are like I like standard fantasy stuff I think Using black powder is cool. I think powder punk is kind of cool. I like steampunk. I think steampunk is kind of neat. And I like cyberpunk type shit a little bit. I think that sort of sci-fi aesthetic is neat. So that's how we ended up with the last bastion being the fantasy elves, the steampunk dwarves, and the black powder, uh, they weren't even called the outcasts yet they were just i think they were called the green skin pact or something like that um facing off against not the eight points hegemony the cyber empire ah good choice to change that one
00:42:53
Speaker
I'm very glad that I changed it because I realized pretty quickly that it was stupid. But and I said it on the on this the world called Vofamel. Vofamel was a world at that point. Oh, entire world was just this one continent. I think I did know that.
00:43:14
Speaker
called Vofamo and i I was like okay yeah this is the thing and certain things are still persistent with today like you know the two factions are still fighting their war the the warforged or the robot people are their own sort of neutral party that's always kind of been a thing and the orcs sort of the orcs and goblins home area has always kind of been a zombie wasteland
00:43:41
Speaker
That's all persistent. ah What wasn't persistent was ah things like the fact that as part of my homebrewing, I homebrewed a bunch of classes without understanding any of the rules. Oh no.
00:43:59
Speaker
um And I sort of kind of bullied my friends who I convinced into playing with me to use those classes. That did not function.
00:44:11
Speaker
yeah um and And also, ah I did not know where to find information like monster stats. I did not know any of this garbage. Plus, when when it actually came time to play the game, I did not trust my friends to not cheat.
00:44:41
Speaker
So I rolled everything for them. Oh, no. It was bad. It was so
00:45:00
Speaker
was honestly an introduction that I'm still somewhat proud of, like an opening sequence that I'm still somewhat proud of. Like the whole thing was, oh yeah, you guys are being sent behind enemy lines, you've got to infiltrate the the enemy city, and you've got to kill their leaders to end the war. pretty solid And we're gonna start out by sending you ah through the Underdark.
00:45:21
Speaker
Um, so they went to like this underdark passage, they started going through and they were given a code phrase to tell to their allies once they got into the underdark. And I was like, all right, this is cool. They're going to use their code phrase. And, but I set up a fight, uh, with a bunch of drow who were their allies, who didn't know that they were allies. Uh, and like they were supposed to say the code phrase and end the fight.
00:45:50
Speaker
And what ended up happening was my friends just didn't pay attention to me. Because one of them, of course, was Jacob Perez. Oh, my. Oh, yes, Jacob Perez. Makes perfect sense. And if you thought Jacob was bad at paying attention now, oh my god, it was so much worse in high school. I can only imagine. Also, oh my god, it was so much worse when I was so much worse at running the game. um Now,
00:46:19
Speaker
ah
00:46:21
Speaker
this fight is going on and eventually it ends because they kill two of the three drow and the third one just breaks down crying because they were because the they the three drow that they were fighting were brothers and I was like okay this is going to be kind of a neat little interaction I guess and my friend, who the the friend who introduced me to all this goes to one of the dead drow, cuts off his genitals, and force feeds them to the final living drow. Hey buddy, what the fuck? After I'm describing, after I described several times that this was a child by elf standards,
00:47:18
Speaker
I was like, trying very hard to get him to not do this. And he was like, no, I'm force feeding him this guy's dick. I was like, no, no, no, please stop. And then eventually I was like, okay, fine. He's crying. Look what you did. um And crying is kind of a.
00:47:35
Speaker
And understatement there I didn't know what to do at this point because also this dude was sitting next to me in the room and He was sleeping over at my house that night. So I was just like I don't know what to do I do not know what to do here because this is my best friend concerns Me too. Um But you know that whole mess That was my my first proper D and&D session, was that whole mess. And that was also the start to I'm On. home And, you know, that campaign went on for actually a good while, I think. Like, it kept going. my My friend who did the dick feeding ah ended up leaving the campaign after maybe two or three sessions.
00:48:25
Speaker
um following such such wonderful moments as him getting pissed at me because natural 20s are supposed to be magical when I I wouldn't when I said that ah you know you're running down a long ah street and they're still shooting crossbows at you it even though you rolled a nat 20 on your unnecessary athletics check to run away from them
00:48:58
Speaker
you know, they're still shooting crossbows at you and get to roll the hit. And he stopped playing at that point. um And, you know, that that little thing kept going on for a while. There were balancing issues like me throwing a drider at two players who were first level.
00:49:24
Speaker
Um, which is a challenge rating six monster. um, who was remaining for the next, Um, because that kept going into college and it ended.
00:49:55
Speaker
little bit after COVID started when basically both Jacob and my other friend were like dude this sucks we don't want to play with you anymore and I was like okay damn that's fine because I don't really want to play with you either because we wanted we wanted different things Jacob didn't really get it which is fair um and I was I was trying to make my own fun at that point by just trying so hard to figure out all of the rules, because I like rules.
Homebrew Campaign Development
00:50:28
Speaker
Rules give me comfort. And my other friend, all he wanted to do was And so I was like, okay, fine.
00:50:46
Speaker
and the The straw that kind of broke the camel's back was that my friend who was no longer playing called me on the phone and told me that I was playing D and&D wrong. Dude.
00:51:02
Speaker
um And he wasn't even, you know, he wasn't complaining about like me not knowing the rules or anything because he also didn't know the rules. He was complaining that I was using the rules or that I was trying to use the rules.
00:51:14
Speaker
He was complaining about things that are preference. And that was sort of my moment of realizing like, oh, maybe this just isn't my group. These might be my friends, but this isn't my group. Right. Which I think is an important lesson for a lot of people to learn is that, you know, just because they're your friends doesn't mean they're your players.
00:51:38
Speaker
Cause like, you know, there's a serious, it's just like dating, you know? yeah yeah You don't mesh with everybody. right And that is how I went on r slash LFG, made a post and was like, oh yeah, I want to kind of just string together some one shots and just see what see what happens. And that is how I ended up meeting Yono as well as couple other players was during the height of the pandemic. We were in complete lockdown. And that's when we started. That's when I started running this campaign. And it was I will never forget our for like Yono and I's first session to together because
00:52:31
Speaker
um I ran this one shot that I managed to actually make a one shot, barely. And- Has that ever happened again? Um, no. No, I don't think it has.
00:52:46
Speaker
But I was using, admittedly, I was using the this really good supplement. Shout out to Nerzugul, I think is the name. I still use some of his stuff. even I converted it over to Pathfinder because it's just really good materials. You can find it on DriveThruRPG. But i I will never forget getting to the end of that session and like,
00:53:14
Speaker
all of the players being like, holy shit, that was awesome. It was the first time that anyone had actually enjoyed something I had run. And that was the moment where I was like, holy fuck, I can enjoy this. Oh, dude, this can be a good, a good thing for me. You know, this isn't me just desperately smashing my head against a wall. It's not that I suck, even though I definitely was not, you know, I i didn't have a whole lot of experience at that point.
00:53:44
Speaker
But like, it's not just that I suck. And so that's, that's, yeah, again, that's how I met Yono. We played that campaign for several months up until um partway through sophomore year of college.
00:54:04
Speaker
when one of our players at the time left to go to grad school. And this was a and a forgotten realms, excuse me, a homebrew forgotten realms campaign. And as we were concluding that, I was like, hey, you know i've had I have had this setting that I've been sort of reworking and I'd like to play it.
00:54:30
Speaker
and Yono and our other player who was still with us at the time, because that's a whole story for another day. But the other player who was still with us at the time and Yono were like, yeah, that sounds great. So we got so we got two new players, one of whom was Rachel. And what I ended up doing was creating Imalon, mixing up elements from Vofamel, the already existing setting, doing things like, you know, changing cyber empire to 8 points of Gemini, giving them some actual lore and all that jazz, um as well as combining aspects of a board game I had tried to design. So that is where Prasage for Token and Omen all came from.
00:55:22
Speaker
Those were the names of the continents in this fantasy war game that I had tried to design in high school. Which is another little fun fact for you. um And then what we ended up doing was I converted the Dragon of Icespire Peak adventure to Imalon. For anyone who doesn't know, that is the the D and&D Essentials Kit adventure.
00:55:52
Speaker
And we played that for quite a while until we hit a TPK. And at that point, I was like, okay, well, here are our options. A, we can make new characters and try to continue this campaign. Or B, we can go full homebrew. And, uh,
00:56:17
Speaker
players were like let's do full homebrew because you know all the things that we've liked about playing Icefire Peak with you is the stuff that you've made up which also was a moment where I was like holy shit this is great I like this and that is how the Dreamwalkers started was with was with us TPK in Dragon of Icefire Peak and
00:56:46
Speaker
The Dreamwalkers was like my first real proper homebrew campaign knowing a lot of the things and having experienced like a lot of the experience that I have like needed to like learn how to GM. um And admittedly, I didn't do a great job. And part of that is because I studied abroad in Dublin. um And there's there's a lot in there that you know, I'm not gonna talk about here, but it was a mess. And that is sort of where Emma comes into the story, was during the opening arc of the Dreamwalkers campaign, where while I was running Dreamwalkers, I was also running a second campaign for Emma and a couple of our other friends,
00:57:44
Speaker
um which kind of wasn't going well ah for a multitude of reasons. um But Emma, I don't even remember exactly how I was like, oh yeah, you should join this game. Oh yes, ah allow me to cut in. Here's what happened. So we lived together in an apartment with how many other people? Five other people? Five other people, there were seven of us total. Yeah, so we lived in ah in an apartment together.
00:58:10
Speaker
um And he was like, oh, I want to like play D and&D with like these friends of ours. And so we had started the sessions. We made it through like two.
00:58:25
Speaker
We got like three. Okay. We made it through like maybe four. Yeah. Three or four. Two were like functional. Yeah. Two were functional. Um, and like, it's a story for a different day, but one of those had like my greatest all time role play moment. ah yeah that was so So, so good. We can tell that story. I'm curious, but, um,
00:58:48
Speaker
it so some time had passed. Like we were having just the absolute worst time trying to make this work. I was in another campaign with another year group and One night that Cam was playing, i don't remember what day did you pick of the week? you picked a yeah Was it still Thursday? It's always been Thursday. i yeah i think so When I originally started the group, it was Monday. But like it's been Thursday for years. So it was it was Thursday. um And with the time difference, things were happening at like 2 AM our time. And I want to say that it was like my birthday. It was like my birthday and Cam was like, hey, I'm playing a session. You should just come and listen in. I was like, OK.
00:59:33
Speaker
Sure. Whatever, man. And so like Cam and I weren't really good friends at that point. Like we were starting to be friends, but like, you know, yeah we were still in the process of building that relationship up. And so he was like, you should listen to my like session tonight. And I was like, Oh, Jesus Christ. It's two in the morning, but fine.
00:59:55
Speaker
And so it came in. Um, the first thing that I was ever asked was Yono asking me if I was a type of cheese, what cheese would I be? Incredible. And I just, I maybe said mozzarella. I don't really remember. I just remember being like, it's two in the morning. What the hell is happening? Oh my God. It wasn't two in the morning. It was five in the morning. When we were in Dublin, we played at five in the morning.
01:00:23
Speaker
Good Lord, how did you? Seems inaccurate, but I whatever it was. At least it felt like five in the morning. It was yeah not the right hour. It was the wrong hour. um And so I listened through the session and I was like, OK, this is nice. I'm going to go back to bed. I'm going to have my Thursdays back. I don't remember what happened, but the next week he goes. Would you want to like just create a character come in for like a week? Like it would be cool, whatever. And I'm an idiot.
01:00:53
Speaker
yeah So I say, sure, I can make a character and come in for a week. Now, here's the birth of Woosbert. Oh, right. That's how we got here. Because I need everyone to know I really genuinely, truly thought that this was maybe going to be a month max. OK.
01:01:15
Speaker
So I had started getting these scam texts in Ireland. And it was this woman who wanted me to invest in cryptocurrency. And so I have this fun thing that I like to do where when people try and scam me, I come up with really elaborate backstories and just create these narratives. And basically I try to get them to stop talking to me before I stop talking to them. It's a game. I don't know why I play it.
01:01:48
Speaker
But so this woman was messaging me basically being like, oh, you should like submit your money for like this thing. And she's like trying to get that rapport so that like, I feel like we're friends. So like, I trust her, right? So I was like, okay, well, I got to come up with a backstory for this person. And one of our other roommates and our dear friend Avery worked at a job where she had to go through a lot of paperwork and found a lot of names, right?
01:02:18
Speaker
And she had told us about this guy whose legal name was Woosbert.
01:02:25
Speaker
And we were always just like, oh my God, Woosbert. So when I needed a name, um I was like, okay, obviously I'm gonna say that my name is Woosbert. And then I was like, what's the most boring last name I can possibly pick? ah And the answer was Smith. But because Cam's last name is Smith, I made it Smith with a Y.
01:02:49
Speaker
and I created this backstory that he was a Lithuanian fortune teller. Yes, ah he was a Lithuanian fortune teller and he had recently broken up with his girlfriend Cordelia who wanted to become the Lithuanian um Steve Irwin and that they had broken up because the snake had bit him in the face.
01:03:17
Speaker
And I had like this whole crazy backstory, like at some point like vodka bottles were like glued to his hands. Like all of this stuff, right? And eventually I get this one to leave me alone. But this happened right around the time that Cam was like, hey, do you want to make a character? And I said, oh, you know, it would be fun if I make Woosbert Smith, the divination wizard,
01:03:45
Speaker
with a Beast Tamer ex-girlfriend. So I made that character and he was unbelievably frail. Woosbert was such a terrible character. In so many ways. Woosbert was great. I loved Woosbert so much. in But like every conceivable, because I didn't build him i didn't build him for longevity, right?
01:04:12
Speaker
I was like, oh, like he'll just be here for like a couple episodes and then and he'll leave and it'll be over. But it was like the second that I agreed to step in, two of Cam's other players backed out.
01:04:29
Speaker
And so it was suddenly like, oh, actually I need you to stay so that we have a functioning party. And Woosbert Smith just kept getting dragged along at the brink of death.
01:04:42
Speaker
No, I should note, I don't think I ever specifically said that. Said what? I don't think I ever said that we needed you to stay to have a functioning party. No, but that felt like the implication at a certain point. I don't know. Regardless, um... Yeah, so... Suddenly I'm here with this character who's about to die. He's on death's door every single session.
01:05:08
Speaker
And I'm like, this is it. This is finally the time that he's going to die. But I had a really strong like conviction that I wasn't going to kill him, right? I wasn't going to like just let him die by like jumping off the cliff. But if he died, I would have sung and danced and held a parade so that I could have done something conceivably useful.
01:05:33
Speaker
But no, Woosbert Smith kept surviving. I swear to God, you spent more time unconscious than conscious. That is completely true. Though, however, Woosbert was involved in the murder of two gods and did turn that horrible thing in the desert into a turtle. This is true. What what was that? Was that the Nightwalker? I think so.
01:05:53
Speaker
i We should also note, I think, that ah the other two players in this game at this point were Yono and Rachel. Yes. And Rachel's character was a cleric rogue, and Yono's character was a dex build fighter, which as anyone who's GM for 5e, probably real, can probably agree with, that shit is not fun to play with.
01:06:20
Speaker
Yona was basically the only one actually getting anything done in combat. Yes. And so I was like, please let me die so I can do something. And he wouldn't fucking die. He would not die. And then we stopped playing Dreamwalkers because we were like, OK, we're going to do this podcast thing and we're going to swap over to Pathfinder. You've missed a bit. You've missed a bit. where You've missed the entire introduction of Colby Colville. Oh, my apologies. So what happened was that a after they killed a god for the first time, Yono was like, ah, shit, I'm going to grad school. I'm not going to be able to play because my like one of my classes is on Thursday and I can't pick another one, which is something that has happened, as our viewers might notice, has happened a couple of times, but no longer because he is fully done.
01:07:16
Speaker
but um So the party went down to just Emma and Rachel for like a month. At least a month, if not more. That was rough. It was rough. And the entire time I was trying to find a third player. And at this point,
01:07:37
Speaker
we were, in our senior year, we were working on making our senior short films. And my lead actor was Colby. ah hello My short film, which took place in Imalon. And I was like, oh, but one day we were in our After Effects class. And I just looked at it and was like, you know what? Colby, are you free on Thursday nights?
01:08:04
Speaker
And Colby was like, yeah, I think so. And I was like, you want to play D&D with me? And Colby, I don't even remember your exact response, but it was something along the lines of, fuck it, why not? Yeah, I think that was my exact response. Just like, all right. That sounds about right. I got nothing better to do. Yeah, and so that's how Bogwog was born. Oh, Bogwog.
01:08:27
Speaker
oh bogwag beautiful boy Oh beautiful beautiful boy ah that also helped kill a god yes yes he did it was the first thing he ever did bug walk he was like Ripley Bart um He was a ah ah wandering troubadour who just wanted to record stories. And actually, a little fun fact, before ah the creation of Thicket, ah when we were discussing, you know, creating a new I'm Along campaign, um one of my original ideas was actually to bring Bogwog back.
01:09:06
Speaker
ah as a witch. um Oh, my God. i I think we do need to bring this concept back at some point, because it was so cool. I love this concept. ah So witches have familiars. And in his case, ah the familiar was a leech that attached to his head ah to suck up all of the stories that he had collected. um But it disguised itself as a hat, as a wizard's hat.
01:09:34
Speaker
Oh, I need this. I need this. So I would like Woosberg for this. Because like with my with my original iteration of Bogwog, I didn't really know what to do with him um because he was only ah really the second character I had ever played. Oh, no, the third one. um My.
01:09:59
Speaker
i I had, ah and I still do, I have another game going on with ah another friend from college. um And you know it was his game where I had my first character. He was a Changeling, it was Descent into Avernus. My first character was a Changeling rogue named Jib. ah Yes, that's another Elder Scrolls reference.
01:10:23
Speaker
And I used his Changeling abilities maybe twice in the entire campaign. I had no idea what I was doing. um And it really it wasn't until my my next character ah for our ah the Curse of Strahd campaign that I played with that group.
01:10:44
Speaker
where I made a artificer alchemist, sort of like a um you know mad scientist type deal, because it's a curse of straw. got got You got to do the horror tropes named Dexian. And yes, that is, in fact, another Elder Scrolls reference.
01:11:03
Speaker
And that was ah the second character where I sort of like, or that was the first character where I really sort of like knew what a story was. um I actually figured out how to play him. um And Bogwog, I had like a bit of a you know basic understanding of like what I wanted the character to be. um But i he was still sort of floundering, um pun intended. Because I,
01:11:34
Speaker
I think vaguely he was like kicked out of the circus or he left the circus. There was a circus involved for sure. He had left the circus or something like that because he had heard about the Dreamwalker's deeds or some nonsense. Yes, yes. You were coming to find us, but we don't know why you were coming to find us. ah Yeah. And then you didn't know that we were us when you found us. Yeah. After you wandered into an extra dimensional storm. Hey, it happened to the best of us.
01:12:03
Speaker
ah Um, but yeah, the character didn't really have any long-term goals, like nothing specific. So I didn't really know what direction to take him. Uh, so the whole like brain parasite thing, um, for me, that was like, a oh, that's a cool hook. I can do something with that. Um, so if, uh, you know,
01:12:24
Speaker
upon the finishing of solo frost or abomination vaults um you know or are losing another character or upon me losing another character in abomination but no my new character is specifically less likely to die fingers crossed um i do you say that but he did die the last session yeah he well he got better I got that. But yeah, like if I get another chance to like make a character, I i want to bring back that bog concept. um because I just I think it's a lot of fun to to be had there on the. Yeah, we we had we had bog come in as part of that. And then we we kept playing that for a while.
Transition to Pathfinder and Podcast Creation
01:13:14
Speaker
And I don't remember exactly how the Pathfinder conversation. Well, I remember how the conversation came up. Yes, because the whole OGL mindset. Yes. That and it was like it was a licensing decision more than anything else. and Well, and I was like, oh, well, let's let's try some. Well, also for me, I had been curious about trying other systems for a while and I was like, oh, this is an opportunity. So I took it. I was like, oh, let's try something different.
01:13:43
Speaker
um And that's how we ended up switching over to ah Pathfinder. And, like, something that we had been doing before we actually started Dice Jail was I had been recording the sessions because Yono was away. And we had absentee players all the time who wanted to be able to listen to the sessions to catch up on what they had missed. And at one point, Yono texted me and was like, dude, this could be a fucking podcast.
01:14:14
Speaker
We should make a podcast. Great Yano impression. i Like dude, I'm going to say something. I'm going to do something crazy right now. All right. I'm going to do something crazy. We should do a podcast. um my god Oh my God. um And I was like, Oh yeah, that's a fun idea. Uh, like, cause I had thought about it before too. And, but I'd always been like, no, there's no way anybody would My father had also decided that he should suggest that we start a podcast. David Mays was like, you know what you guys need to do is a podcast. but And why? To this day baffles me. The man wants me to start a podcast in every form. I mean, I feel like you should start a podcast in every form too, because you're just so interesting to listen to.
01:15:05
Speaker
How does that manage to feel like an insult? It's not. You're just interesting to listen to and I don't know what other words to put in that sentence to make it sound better. You just have the most unique things to say. he You sound like an angry aunt. You're being passive aggressive to me. Thanksgiving dinner.
01:15:27
Speaker
Um, but that, that was how we, we ended up with abomination vaults. We put dream walkers on what we thought was just hiatus so that I could rewrite the entirety of I'm Alon to fit with, to a fit with Pathfinder and all the new ancestries and shit from Pathfinder and be so that I could strip out every single piece of D and D lore. Well, Cam, do you remember how you and I started to have this conversation?
01:15:56
Speaker
because i I texted you and I said, my dad is being ridiculous. He thinks we should start a podcast and he went, oh yeah, by the way, I've been meaning to talk to you.
01:16:10
Speaker
And this man went, I think your father is right. And I've been meaning to discuss it. And I went, what is wrong with the men I know? And then I agreed anyway, like a moron.
01:16:22
Speaker
Don't you know, white men yearn to podcast. Exactly. Apparently mean you all yearn for podcasting. We yearn to podcast. And apparently that dream is being projected onto me. ah But we, yeah, we, we, when I finally, after several months, ended up getting I'm on to a state where I was happy with it. um we were discussing how to get back to it. And at first we were like, oh yeah, we'll just finish Abomination Vaults. And then we realized that Abomination Vaults was going to take us a very long time. So we decided on the two campaigns thing. And then we ended up not going back to Dreamwalkers, which honestly I'm kind of happy with because I was not pleased with how Dreamwalkers was going.
01:17:14
Speaker
I felt like I was running out of ideas because, admittedly, I was basically just copying the structure of a medieval, like pretty spot on. Like the PS1 game, medieval? No, a medieval, the New Blood game. Oh.
01:17:36
Speaker
it's it's one of my favorite games and i was like oh yeah this is great because you're going to different worlds fighting new enemies in every world uh and you know it's a fantasy themed fps um and that's basically what the dreamwalkers was was the characters going to these different little pocket worlds fighting a bunch of shit like basically in mini dungeons and collecting a stone at the end um but that was massive amounts of travel time in between massive amounts of travel time because i did not know what else to do and i knew there needed to be something else um uh and yeah we we ended up uh in part
01:18:21
Speaker
the whole reason that i didn't just say all right we're going back to dreamwalkers was because i'd been discussing it with rachel and rachel had said i don't want to go back to dreamwalkers unless i can build my character exactly the way i had her and i was like um okay but like that stuff doesn't exist in pathfinder these are not things that exist these are not things that you can do and That is how that conversation ended up starting, and I sent so many surveys of the group to fill out. Oh, so many surveys. Oh my god, that's right. Because I did not know how ranked choice voting worked. Yeah, that went bad. But regardless, we landed on starting something new, and we landed on playing something in Salter.
01:19:15
Speaker
um because another another campaign that I had played that I had dragged Emma into
01:19:23
Speaker
was... Actually, on that one, I kind of dragged you into it. This is true. We kind of dragged each other in. You dragged me into the group. I dragged the whole group into the campaign. That's true. And that's where Bastion Parker was born. That's where Bastion Parker was born. That was where Salter came into existence. um And, you know, that's that's where that's why Bastion knows characters like Don Collar and why Bastion is familiar with the dragon and all that.
01:19:51
Speaker
and uh we landed on playing a campaign in sultry i don't even remember what the original prompt was that i gave for like i don't campaign would remember either um i will say It is funny in some respects because every time you and I, when Don Collar and Bastion are speaking and we allude to like the party who died,
Campaign Villains and Fresh Starts
01:20:17
Speaker
those are all the player characters of this other campaign that we were a part of and then we just reed retroactively decided all of them except this one died.
01:20:27
Speaker
from hypothermia no less yes so so wait was dawn caller an actual like pc yeah yes oh she had hair though because she was a goliath at that point because the non the non-time used to be goliaths oh that makes a lot of sense
01:20:46
Speaker
But yeah, we we ended up going with the Psalter campaign. like Actually, I'm kind of curious, why did you guys, or did you guys vote for that? Or what did you guys vote for? I voted for Psalter. I did, but that's just because I wanted to bring back Bastion Parker. That's really funny. um let me Let me actually see if I can find the cervix.
01:21:08
Speaker
Let's see, I'm finding all the character cervix. Returning to Imalon, this is probably it. That seems like the one. Oh, no, I deleted all of the forms. No, that's. But um yeah, like, why why did you? Well, Emma, you wanted to play Bastion again, but Colby, why did you vote for Salter? I just thought it sounded cool.
01:21:34
Speaker
Fair enough, honestly. I was like, yeah, yeah, I like these all sound great to me. I don't know anything about this world, but like, yeah, fuck it, we will. Well, that is kind of why it's Psalter is a good starting point to I'm alone as a setting is because like, you know, the rest of the world still has parts to play, but Psalter is so disconnected from everything. Right. It allows you to be ingrained, but separate. Yeah, it's it very much feels like its own thing.
01:22:01
Speaker
yeah it it very very much is its own thing which is honestly something i appreciate because up until this point uh like the audience i know you guys probably don't know what and like jack should about what we talk what we're talking about when we keep talking about eight points but like eight points are basically the big dads of the entire setting um yeah and every other Imalon campaign up until this point, they have kind of just turned into the Big Bads. Because when we were playing Icefire Peak, like, yeah, the Big Bad was technically still the dragon. However, really, it was the Prasadian Ambassador, or the Eight Points Ambassador to Prasad, who was actually the Big Bad, because he was blackmailing them.
01:22:46
Speaker
uh and when it was the dreamwalkers actually it turned into eight points being the bad guys not whatever extra-dimensional nonsense was happening because eight points started invading another continent and i do remember when that happened and i remember being like what the fuck are we doing yeah yeah i honestly it was because i didn't know what else to do like Fair. i I had I had never created the best villain I think I've ever created was that ambassador. And I was like, OK, I'm just going to try to recreate that because I was. I remember how I was at that point, I was not doing good. ah So I am was having a crisis. Cam was having several crises at once. As I was trying to minimize, but
01:23:39
Speaker
Um, but, uh, yeah, it's, it's very refreshing to have Salter where, you know, eight points, the effects of eight points in the whole Vafemelian war thing are still felt, but they're not the entire story. And I think the other thing that's important to me is that because there's so many more options since we switched to Pathfinder, um, we've only got one Vafemelian character in this campaign.
01:24:09
Speaker
where in every other Imalon campaign, like three quarters of the party have been Vafameleon characters. Which is part of why Eight Points is involved all the time. Because there's so many Vafameleon characters. Well, and if you want to get technical, technical fashions, not even Vafameleon, really? Well, I guess she is. Yes, she is. But she's not like a Vafit Vafit, you know what I mean?
01:24:31
Speaker
Well, you are from Vofomel. Okay, fair. The brain is Bastion, and Bastion is from Vofomel, because Bastion is a Vofet. We should talk about Vofets at some point. That's probably an important thing, because I'm sure people have been like, what the fuck are they talking about, Vofet? It's Cam's magic human word.
01:24:52
Speaker
We'll get to that. Well, I guess we can get to that now, because I was running out of things to say. Well, I have to go to an RA meeting in like three minutes. I can hop back on after. I just have to do that.
Closing Remarks and Future Content
01:25:04
Speaker
You know what? No, I think that's probably a good wrapping up point, to be entirely honest. Fair enough. Because we've been talking for like 90 minutes. Oh my god, we have. I guess that's a story for another day. I guess so. We'll get into those stories for another day. I guess if you enjoyed this talking dice jail,
01:25:21
Speaker
or whatever we ended up calling it. Live from live from Dice Jail. Live from live from Dice Jail. If you enjoyed live from live from Dice Jail. I'm not marking it as live from live from Dice Jail. We're calling it something different. Ah, come on. i But if you enjoy talking Dice Jail, let us know, seriously, because we'll do this more often. We can do We will, if you want to know do each other things about characters, if you want to know things about the world, we can't shut up. If you want to know about the entire process of filming Cam's movie that Colby starred in.
01:25:56
Speaker
I can talk about it for hours. Or Kobe's movie that Cam starred in that has nothing to do with D and B. Oh, that's right. Or my movies. I mean, be actually, if you want to talk about movies, um we will not shut the fuck up. so Literally, just if you want us to talk, like leave a comment and we'll talk more. We can do that. oh we can we are right we If you want us to talk on any topic, just put it in the comments and we will We are all friends. We are all genuinely friends who enjoy each other's company. Like, I don't know about that. Except for the times we want to stone each other. Well, yeah, we we frequently want to murder Jacob, but you know, that's a that's a whole different kaboodle. And remember, guardless you do not have permission to murder Jacob. Only only only us. That's our right.
01:26:46
Speaker
Yeah, if you enjoyed, let us know. And sorry, there's no proper episode this week. Again, blame Jacob. We will send in photos of dogs so we can just have a stream of like dog images for you all to look at on the YouTube. Please do. I talked about my dogs and all that, but I didn't even mention my dog with a diaper.
01:27:07
Speaker
Oh my god. See, now we have to have another episode to talk about the dog with a diaper. Exactly, exactly. So if you would like to hear about the dog with a diaper, uh, let us know.
01:27:19
Speaker
All right, I think that's it for us. We will be back with you next week for hopefully an episode of Soul of Frost. If not, you'll be the first to know. And I think that's everything, right, guys? That's everything. Yeah, that's about it. And then in two weeks' time, we will finally close out Little Trouble in Big Absalom. Hopefully. Hopefully. I am going to go. You do that. All right. With love. Goodbye. Goodbye, everyone.
01:27:47
Speaker
We want to give a special shout out to our first member on Buy Me A Coffee, Jane Meyer. Thank you so much for your support, Jane. And to anyone else who would like to support us in exchange for some pretty cool rewards, you can check us out on buymeacoffee.com slash live from DiceGL.