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C2 Ep. 107 Eberron Reviewed 20
274 Plays2 years ago
We take a look back on the past arc and answer your questions.
This episode is brought to you by the generous donations of our amazing Show Sponsors: Laura Pickrahn, Darrin Katzska, Irene Viorritto, Ryan Royce, Darrell DeLaney, Charles Compton, Deviouspoptart, Nastasia Raulerson, David Scrams, Elizabeth Clark, Andy Dossett, Rebekah Gowman, deviouspoptart, Eðvarð Arnór Sigurðsson, Michael Clark, Eric Witman, Jerry Theuns, Philip Newman, Mark Stanley, and Shelby Johnson.
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Transcript
Patron Acknowledgments
00:00:00
Speaker
The following episode is brought to you by Mark Stanley, Philip Newman, Shelby Johnson, Jerry Thunes, Andy Dossett, Eric Whitman, Edvard Arnoff, Natasha Rallerson, Deavius Poptart, Rebecca Gaoeman, Elizabeth Clark, David Scrams, Charles Compton, Darryl Delaney, Ryan Royce, Darren Katska, Irene Villarito, and Laura Pickron, as well as all of our generous patrons.
00:00:34
Speaker
D20 radio, your game is roll.
Introduction to the Gala Arc Discussion
00:01:09
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome to Eberron Renewed, an actual play podcast set in the Eberron campaign setting. I am Jeff. I'm Phillip. And I'm Eric.
00:01:20
Speaker
And as you may be able to tell, since I'm introducing the episode, this is not an episode where we'll be playing the game. We're going to take a minute and talk about the last six episodes, the gala arc. You can hear Trevor did not introduce himself. Unfortunately, he's not going to be able to join us for this one. We'll make sure that he addresses any questions you had for him in the discord. And also Randy will not be with us today.
00:01:43
Speaker
but he also was not able to be with us for the arc, so I don't think he minds missing this hour of sitting down with us. Bold of you to promise that Trevor will look at the Discord. Oh, no, he'll answer the questions. If I have to get them to him. We have an agreement with the listener and I will honor it.
Character Reflections on the Gala Arc
00:02:04
Speaker
But yeah, so this arc, you know, every once in a while, you just got to do some shenanigans. And it kind of felt like this was that for us.
00:02:14
Speaker
We start the arc with the task to take this statue that none of us really felt great about doing, but we did it. And we did a crime effectively. And it really feels like this group, when all they have to do is crime, they crime good. We do. We crime real good. I like how I'm keeping my distance from it. They do this. Yeah, we are.
00:02:44
Speaker
It's just all the other stuff that we tend to not, you know, the things with interactions with humans who are making the right decisions morally. Yep. That's where we have trouble. We're bad at that. Um, yeah. But no, it just went really smoothly. Like we scouted the place out a little bit, jumped in, took the thing. And we're going and got out.
00:03:09
Speaker
Look, sometimes you gotta scare a family. I choose to think of it as the family was scared by it. I don't think we scared them actively. We did this thing that scared them. I mean, you dropped in superhero post and then said, run. So, I mean. I don't remember it that way.
00:03:28
Speaker
Okay, you might have to remind me, at what point did we learn from Reynard that he had Norsin in a dungeon somewhere? Was that before or after the job? It was before, I think, because I feel like that information was something we knew when Harbin asked Eris to go to the Gala. But maybe I miss her. Okay, that's right. I feel like that.
00:03:58
Speaker
I think that's right. I was just thinking of trying to remember all of the possible ways we were going to schedule these events. And also still unsure why we went to the show at all. In character choice reasons, why did we do that? Anyone recall how we justified that? That's hard to justify in character. Sana really, really, really wanted to go.
00:04:29
Speaker
And if there's one thing historically we do, it's make sure we do everything the other characters want. We love to cater to the NPC's whims and desires. No, we wanted to do something silly. It was too funny. It was too funny not to. Yes, and we hoped, we assumed and hoped that the listeners would enjoy some white content.
00:04:58
Speaker
So we went for it, and I regret none of it. No, yeah, I regret nothing about going to the gala. It was absolutely delightful from awkward conversation to pirate combat.
Phillip's Personal Story and Inspirations
00:05:14
Speaker
So let's talk about the shopping. Hob did not shop. Hob was shopped for, which was actually a miscommunication between me and Eric that ended up working out better.
00:05:30
Speaker
Okay, Phillip, I just, I just, I'm trying to figure out how to ask this question and you can tell me if it's the wrong way and we can go back and try to get. Eris is in her early twenties, right? Eris is probably about 20.
00:05:49
Speaker
about 20, but is a victim of arrested development because of the circumstances of her life. How much of heiress shopping is something that you have seen and witnessed personally? And we're just recreating that from your own life. So it's, it's very funny, uh, very long after that aired, um,
00:06:15
Speaker
I was going to attend the wedding of a former student of mine and took my daughter to buy a dress for the wedding because she is in the stage of growing like a weed. And so we discovered had no real formal outfit that would suit. I spent over the course of two days, I spent an entire work day
00:06:45
Speaker
shopping with her. So based on my observations, Eris is just a treat and easy to shop for and super cooperative. A lot of the way that Eris
00:07:10
Speaker
ended up dressing was somewhat based on observations from my daughter. My daughter tends to like wearing jeans under a dress and boots with everything and lots of things like that. So there were little elements of Aeris's outfit. As with all of Aeris's outfits, there's little bits of my daughter in there in the way that she dresses because it's
00:07:36
Speaker
It's the best way for me to be able to accurately describe an outfit is to describe one I've seen. Uh, but, uh, probably it would have been slightly more, more on point for both Eris and from my own experiences. If, if we had somehow described an enormous amount of time passing between successful beginning, beginning and, and, um,
00:08:05
Speaker
I think the thing I enjoyed the most about it, and this is definitely not my experience because my daughter loves shopping, Eris obviously doesn't. And I enjoy taking my daughter shopping, so there's a much greater
00:08:23
Speaker
meshing of interests when I take my daughter shopping than there is with Eris and Sana here. Less adversarial. Right. We're working together for this. The place where I definitely identified with Sana was Sana was pretty reasonably trying to push Eris towards a reasonable and socially and setting appropriate outfit.
00:08:50
Speaker
And Eris was kind of having none of that. And that I felt some sympathy for.
00:09:01
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I've dealt with the same thing. Yeah, my son now is at the point where it's like, I know that I need to be covered to be outside. So just whatever is covering me is fine. And I'm assuming if he's anything like me, he'll grow out of that. At some point early middle school when it starts mattering very much what he's covered with. Right.
00:09:21
Speaker
but you're not being oppressive to say, no, you really have to dress better than normal for this. Especially if part of the goal is to not stick out as much as possible. I'm not trying to change you. This is not oppressive. This is me saying, it's not gonna work if you don't at least give a little of this. Right, right. Yeah, and trying,
00:09:48
Speaker
trying to very, very gently give advice to
00:09:54
Speaker
Well, okay, I mean, my daughter is an adolescent. So as with adolescents of every kind, her body is growing differently in different parts of her body. Her legs are growing faster than any other part of her right now. Like she is all legs right now. Like she is just, her body is catching up in all the places. And I remember I had gigantic feet that I tripped over all the time when I was that age. And so trying to like say,
00:10:24
Speaker
this dress looks really good on you and here's why this dress looks really good on you in a in a gentle way that isn't a I isn't me saying I don't like this dress you've picked out that's not what I'm saying I'm just telling you what the merits of this one are really I'm not saying this is a bad one just saying here's the merits of this one
00:10:44
Speaker
It's not always something that she wants to hear. So I definitely sympathized with the difficulty of shopping with Eris, though it was substantially more exaggerated than any experience I've had shopping with my daughter. So describe how obviously we do it in the episode. Sure. So Milo's a pirate. Yes. Milo ends up as a pirate.
00:11:15
Speaker
Randy sent a picture and I said, oh, so you want a pirate shirt? And he's like, no, like it's fancy and it's got frills. And it's like, yeah, a pirate shirt. That's fine. Like you don't have to deny that you want to look like a fancy pirate. It's cinched at the shoulder, elbow and wrist, but it's not a pirate shirt.
00:11:33
Speaker
We've all seen the Seinfeld episode, Randy. It's okay. I will say never in my D&D career or podcasting career have I wanted to call in a replacement for my role-playing, the role-playing sauna shopping with Aeris, because here's the deal. I can fumble my way through describing battlefield tactics or sword dueling.
00:11:57
Speaker
And I feel like some people are going to give me a bit of grace because it's not something that is common knowledge. It's not something that a person would be expected to know. And then I found that I had painted myself into the corner of attempting to accurately describe shopping for women's clothing, which is something that I feel like is a few tears below the, oh, it's OK that you don't understand any of this. And we are very fortunate to have
00:12:23
Speaker
But by below, you mean you should be more accessible to us. Yes, yes, yes. The higher tiers, it's more, it's more, more, more forgivable. What'd it be clear? Describe over your head. Describing theoretical physics all the way down is tying shoelaces. And just like a notch above that is understanding how women's clothing works. And I realized how little I was prepared for that conversation. I was like, oh crap. And so I almost tried to see if I convinced my wife to come in and role play Sana, but I know that she would say no.
00:12:55
Speaker
That would have been delightful. That's a new stretch goal for us as a podcast, is we get Miley on the podcast. For five minutes. Role-playing. That's all you're gonna get. And the first four is gonna be, no, just please, come on, just play along, come on. Yeah, and we don't want to cape on that too much. It's just guys saying, oh, I don't know, women's clothes. It's just, I'm not in an area where there's four.
00:13:24
Speaker
A blind spot of mine that, yeah. Because I play a male character who had a difficult time coming up with formal clothes for this setting, just simply because, what? What is the hob where? I don't know.
Character Dynamics: Harbin and Aeris
00:13:39
Speaker
Most of the time in that episode I was quiet, I was redrafting what hob looked like because every time I was like, no, this is a party clown. We need to do this again. Well, and it became clear that we really were going to the gala.
00:13:54
Speaker
in the same session that we went to the gala. Like it became firmly fixed that we were doing it. And so it wasn't like all of us had
00:14:03
Speaker
three or four weeks between recordings to think through the costume. It was, we were trying to make it up on our, on the fly. And so there was a lot of, there was a lot of us on our phones in the room while we're recording trying, what do I call that? What's the word? And I will say another. And that's why Trevor ended up a big dumb bird. I will say another, another wrinkle in, I think this is just in general when we describe anything in this campaign.
00:14:31
Speaker
we have really kind of taken an eraser to the line of like how an anachronistic is sharn like how modern are the style and like everything because I feel like sometimes it's like hardcore high fantasy descriptions and then it's like military half jacket that's like you know something that you would see today and so yeah yeah I mean I personally I really like that
00:14:58
Speaker
our Eberron's whole idea is basically like, it has the things we want. It just does. We'll figure out a way to make it Eberron-y, but it's gonna have the things we want. I want a motorcycle, it has one. Sure. And I think that's great. Eberron-y. Eberron-y. And I understand, I completely understand if there's somebody who started playing an Eberron,
00:15:28
Speaker
when it was being, it wasn't a contest necessarily, but there were like finalists for this new setting that everyone was chosen, right? So presumably there were people playing it to decide if it was good enough. And if you're one of those people that is just like, if it's not in a book, then it's not there. I like that you play that way, but I can't for the life of me understand why wouldn't you just say,
00:15:52
Speaker
I will figure out a way to dress this up to make it look and feel appropriate. But if you want to say there's, I mean, whatever, rock and roll music in Eberron, like fully pyrotechnic rock concerts, we'll make it work. There's ways to do it. Why not do it? I can describe all of those things with spells from D&D. So why, you know, absolutely. We fly around in a magic boat, so very similar to it is kind of
00:16:18
Speaker
Well and so a perfect example of this is I've used a fair amount of elements from the Star Wars role-playing game because it's effectively the same system as Genesis and so I can pull like encounters and like little mini arcs from that and adapt them for Eberron. But obviously Star Wars is a sci-fi setting and so you're getting really far afield in some ways. In other ways it's very very close when it comes to Eberron.
00:16:40
Speaker
But a perfect example was the Gorm, the shop owner, the Curio shop that you were sent to take him down. That store is from a Star Wars adventure.
00:16:56
Speaker
I was like, okay, so there's supposed to be two like droid based battle turrets that pop up when they walk in. What do I, ghosts, ghosts that, that man a cannon that works. And so that, that's how like you take a droid and you're like, how do you make this work? And it's like, just fantasy Eberrona yet.
Anachronisms at the Gala
00:17:16
Speaker
Well, now I think I'm misremembering. I said go pirates, but I think they were just ghosts with a cannon that I conflated with pirates. I also assumed that they are pirates. They had a cannon, so they are pirates. Also, let us all just linger on the moment. They had a cannon. They had a cannon. I can't have a gun, but they had a cannon.
00:17:39
Speaker
I want to know how their ghosty fingers manipulated the cannon, or if it's a ghost cannon, how the ghost cannon ball hurt me. What kind of damage is dealt by a ghost cannon ball?
00:17:51
Speaker
Yeah, apparently the building was susceptible to psychic damage because the door blew right off of that film. Okay. But yeah, so Milo looked like a pirate. Raynard looked like a bird. Eris was wearing a dress, which is not normal for her. Obviously very stylized and had her boots on, right?
00:18:18
Speaker
Not, well, not her boots, but she had boots. She had boots on. Had some boots. They're her boots now. They're her boots now. And then Hob just basically, I mean, he looked like a Cinnabyte from Hellraiser, but not scary. I don't know how else to say it. That's what he was wearing. It wasn't all leather like that, but it was the long robe, sleeveless, the whole deal.
00:18:44
Speaker
And yeah, when we were describing all four of them, and the picture in my head, I was like, okay, they actually look pretty cool. They actually look pretty cool together right now, and that's pretty rad. Which is not something I've ever felt about our characters, especially when Vern was in the mix. Yeah, so we go to the gala, and we just, I want to spend most of the time talking about, since Trevor's not here, because I really did want to talk to Trevor a little bit about his,
00:19:15
Speaker
backsliding with the notion of seeing his father in person. I mean, that was some, it's Trevor, so it was played for laughs by everybody at the table, but there was some real stuff there that could have been- It really took me a minute to figure out what was happening. Yeah. Oh yeah. It really, there was a lot of whiplash there of, wait, why? Why? And then it clicked. Yeah, because he started with, he started with, Raynard drinks a pitcher full of wine.
00:19:43
Speaker
And then it wasn't until the next time we cut back to him, he was like, my dad's here. And we all went, oh. And then, and then yeah, just, it was great. And I mean, he was awful to Verla because that's what he does. But, but man, it was, I mean, it was good stuff from, from Trevor. Hopefully he'll get to speak on it at some point. Um, but Eris and Harbin, you two talk a little bit about the Eris and Harbin adventure because man, it was fun and I loved Eris's,
00:20:13
Speaker
Talk about it. I have a question when it gets to a certain point, though. Sure. You two. I mean, it got off weird really fast, like because we were both playing it awkward and it got to a very natural point in awkward of
00:20:31
Speaker
now we're gonna stand here in silence until we can leave. And I didn't want it to come off that Eris hates Harbin or something because she doesn't really have strong feelings about Harbin. She probably feels a lot of guilt about the fact that we have effectively kidnapped Harbin's father and she doesn't really know what to do with that.
00:20:59
Speaker
Um, and so mostly she's been avoiding it and so now she can't. And I, I as a player was kind of like, okay, I gotta do something here. Cause this is just, this is dull. Us just standing there. Awkwarding is boring. It was funny for like 30 seconds and now it's boring. Uh, so either Eris is going to just lose her nerve and say something that will, uh,
00:21:28
Speaker
uh, incriminate all of us. I didn't want to do that because that's not cool. Um, so let's go explore is the thing I came up with. Nice. Eris is not someone who values the personal space of others very much. Um,
00:21:54
Speaker
And Eris has a lot of very specific things that she is absolutely die hard about when it comes to herself, but kind of, you know, not so much when it, as it applies to respecting the same things and others. Yeah. And yeah.
00:22:17
Speaker
It was a great snoopin. Yeah, and I mean from from the Harbin perspective like Harbin Harbin really likes Eris not any like like like like Harbin likes her like Harbin is around the same age as Eris
00:22:32
Speaker
He has grown up in an environment where pretty much every decision has been made for him. And he has been kind of like he's always wanted to, but now he's been fully thrust into learning artifice. And here is somebody that is effectively Harbin's
00:22:50
Speaker
Exact opposite like it just very You know not anchored down by obligation and familial attachments and all these things Gets to make her own decisions live the life that she wants to live is brilliant when it comes to artifice from Harbin's perspective and so it's Harbin's trying to navigate like
00:23:11
Speaker
I know I want this person to be in my life. I don't know what capacity that is yet. Like, and so it's like, is this like a professional like, Hey, we should work together. Is this, we should be friends. Is this maybe more? I don't know because I'm an idiot. So, um,
00:23:31
Speaker
Yeah, well that's one of the things as it was going on I was kind of wondering Even I mean obviously back to the very beginnings of just even Harbin saying do you guys want to go to the gala? It was like I wonder if the listener thinks we're trying to set up some sort of will they won't they thing with Harbin and Eris because it never ever felt that way to me knowing that
00:23:53
Speaker
I mean, I don't know that I have much of a better handle on Eris than the average listener. Phillip and I have obviously talked a little bit, but we don't really talk a ton about characters and motivations and stuff that you guys don't hear on these episodes.
00:24:05
Speaker
But it was just like, this is never going to be that with these two, at least not during this gala. They're not going to realize they like each other. They're going to be two awkward teenagers forced to hang out together, awkward late adolescence, forced to hang out together for a minute. And it's going to be weird and cute, but not even remotely romantic. And so I was excited to see how it plays out. Yeah, it is adorable.
00:24:31
Speaker
Yeah, like it is it was I enjoyed it a lot. It was very funny just as a player It was very hard to not I mean obviously you listen I didn't you know succeed all the time it was very hard that time hard to not just be snickering all the time because
00:24:45
Speaker
It was a fun interaction. I thought it was the fun of the gala. I'm also trying to very much play Harbin, not to draw any comparisons on the actual trauma of their two very different backgrounds.
00:25:01
Speaker
trying to play hard and is also suffering from a great deal of arrested development because he's never been allowed to make a decision for himself like he's never he's never been afforded the opportunity to grow in that in that respect so uh he's got not i guess not exactly a helicopter parent you don't necessarily get the impression of norsen as a super like an overly attentive father but
00:25:22
Speaker
He is in the sense that he has scheduled and organized every aspect of his son's life. He had a deeply regimented upbringing, and neither of these two were what you'd call well socialized. The question I had, Philip, you steal the dagger. Eris steals the dagger.
00:25:44
Speaker
and Harbin's like, what are you doing? And Eris gives a great answer that I have no doubt is true. I want to know if either you or Eris was thinking of that when they grabbed the dagger or was it, oh, don't dagger and I have no weapons. Yeah, it became true when she said it and she probably will do that or something like that.
00:26:05
Speaker
But and I have no doubt she has done that. Like she supplemented her work in the not. Oh, my goodness. I've lost the name. Highwall. Highwall. I was going to say the walls. I knew that wasn't right.
00:26:17
Speaker
by doing artifice for people and selling it or whatever. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. It became true. It was very much. It was very much her. She's sort of a magpie. It's interesting. This thing resonates with me because I like dark wool stuff. So I'll grab this.
00:26:39
Speaker
It was as a player, it was a little bit of the, ah, that's what I should have with that done with that triumph. Uh, when she was snooping around and she rolled a triumph and I was like, I don't know. And Eric gave me something really cool, but it was like, ah, okay. There should have been some kind of neat.
00:26:58
Speaker
but for Eris it was I'm going to be more comfortable now that I have a weapon and this is a cool thing and he doesn't know what this is so it's just gonna sit here gathering dust I'll do something cooler with it I bet I can find someone who will give me real money for this because it's interesting and important to them and so it was
Intrigue and Conflict: Overheard Plot and Pirate Attack
00:27:23
Speaker
Then, when Harbin calls her out on it, because, I mean, Eris has randomly stolen stuff many times in the campaign, not constantly, but, and I think this is the first time any character has questioned it.
00:27:45
Speaker
Uh, and, and so I, I, I, I liked that. I thought that, and I, I'm glad that happened. And I, it was, it was fun for Eris to have to invent a reason why it was okay other than the, I want to. Yeah. I want to, and nobody's going to stop me. I mean, I think.
00:28:07
Speaker
And Harbin might have been the first person in this campaign, Eris has stolen in front of, that recognizes it as breaking a social morning. Right. I was like, yeah, she took it. She saw it. She liked it. She took it. Whatever. We did so much worse that night than her taking it.
00:28:24
Speaker
This is probably the most valuable thing she's just randomly pocketed because it's usually like pins or cigarettes in one case. Or a dozen teleportation discs. We were stealing those already, so it was just like, yeah. One for you, one for me. That barely counts.
00:28:45
Speaker
In the interest of moving the plot of the campaign forward, Eric did throw some stuff in there for us. Yes. And Harrison Harbin over here, it was it was Satan and Hollerack, right? Yeah. Having a conversation about the Solomon Callaway of it all, the not so hostile, but pretty darn hostile takeover of the the council that Callaway is trying to do.
00:29:14
Speaker
Jeff heard that and it informed the way Hob acted later, even though Hob didn't hear it, but that doesn't matter. Hob knew some things, he talked to Savia, he knows some stuff, so. And then we got the letter that was more on that. Yeah. It was like from, it was from Solomon to- Alderach. Alderach, is that right? Yeah. I don't know what Eris is going to do with that at the moment. Like, Eris is very much on the fence of
00:29:45
Speaker
I don't know. Eris's mode right now might be kind of a plague on both your houses. Like she's, she's not.
00:29:51
Speaker
at the moment feeling a great deal of loyalty to the Boromar, but she also doesn't like Solomon. Solomon gives her the creeps in some way. I think the problem is Eris can't yet articulate what's bad about Solomon that's not bad about the Boromar clan. And so it's gonna require something like that for her to want to put this in the hands of, I don't even know if it'd do any good in the hands of Satan, but.
00:30:19
Speaker
There's going to need to be a one of these is the lesser of two evils before she's going to feel any any reason to do something with that.
00:30:29
Speaker
Well, and that's kind of, and this is getting ahead of ourselves, but I'll forget about it later. After the battle, when Hob is healing Haldirak, and he keeps mentioning that he works for Boromar, it is not because he loves Satan Boromar and the Boromar clan. Well, one, they are currently buttering his bread, and he's protecting his own self-interest and that of his crew. But also, I mean, it's just that old adage, the devil you know.
00:30:58
Speaker
I'm sure Hobbs not dumb. He knows there are things he doesn't know about the Bormar clan, but he knows so much and so much of it he's been okay with this far that it's hard to be like, let's see what this other evil guy has to say.
00:31:13
Speaker
Let's stick with the brand of evil that I'm comfortable with. Well, Hob has a much more, I think, plausible and mature attitude. Not at all surprising that Hob's attitude towards something is more plausible and mature than Eris's, but Hob has a much more plausible and mature attitude towards this than Eris because, I mean, Eris is a criminal. She knows she's a criminal. She's not like,
00:31:38
Speaker
We're doing something good here when we go steal the teleportation things. She's just fine with that kind of crime for some reason. And so it's just, but, but. Satan. Again, Satan has, has broken a rule that Eris would largely ignore if it was directed to anyone other than people she can, she is concerned about, um, to her mind and Solomon
00:32:09
Speaker
has also to the degree that he was involved in, uh, our initial introduction to him of stealing Olive's work. Um, and so Eris would say, well, we should, we should take them both down. And then when someone goes, what, really? I mean, what? She wouldn't have an answer to that. It would just be, I don't know. I can make a bomb. Yeah.
00:32:38
Speaker
And that's when Eris turned the corner to being a super villain. I've wondered with the power dynamics in the council, like how would Hob or Eris or anyone react to the idea of what if instead of replacing this rich, powerful guy with this rich, powerful guy, what if we tried a more representative sort of structure on our city council? Maybe get someone from the cogs, maybe get,
00:33:07
Speaker
I don't think Hobb would be okay with it because he doesn't understand that and that's wild to me. He understands that the power vacuum has to be filled with like. It can't be something new and it's funny. It's very hard in ways that I think last campaign wasn't.
00:33:30
Speaker
because while Barak had a lot of flaws that I exaggerated, they were mostly flaws that I was like, okay, this is a flaw that a decent person can have and still behave like a pretty responsible member of society. The flaws that Eris has really do make her a force of destruction in a social order.
00:33:53
Speaker
Uh, as, as they play out right now. Um, and I've enjoyed getting to show a, a Eris learning something through, through doing this stuff with Highwall. Um, but I don't know. I don't know that she's yet been able to, um,
00:34:11
Speaker
take that lesson and apply it broader because, again, it's, hey, here's some people who are kind of like me and people are being unkind to them. That's not OK. But the idea that maybe something like fundamental about the city needs to be fixed so that there's lots of other people who are mistreated. They just happen not to be kind of like Eris.
00:34:37
Speaker
And I mean, I don't know what the demographics of the cogs are, but I can tell you it's never occurred to Eris that that's the same problem down there that is going on in Highwall. It's the same problem, man, and there's a root cause.
00:34:57
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And you saying that, I was going to think, like, the way, the way that Dex never surrendered to a system. Like, it was like, your ideas are dumb and I don't want to be a part of this. Whereas Hob is very much like, that's the way it is kind of guy. Yeah. Like, and it's, it's, yeah. Hob says so many things that Jeff's like, what are you talking about, dude? It's so hard to know so much better.
00:35:24
Speaker
where he's like yeah where he's just like I don't know that's what we were told to do like what okay yeah and then and then pirates show up and they they steal a statue not of their friend they should have no
00:35:46
Speaker
I gotta ask, were pirates always gonna show up or was it something crazy happened, needed to happen and you're like, yeah, all right, let's just lean into this episode. There was always going to be another force that wanted to get the statue. And I kind of made a judgment call in the moment of like, this arc has been very kind of
00:36:05
Speaker
Silly and zany and off the wall So I could just do like mercenaries or street tufts breaking in and that'd be fine Or I could do pirates and that would fit in with the tone that we currently have going much better So I decided that was the right nothing makes more sense Nothing makes more sense than coming right in through the wind the roof like we did and who else is gonna do that? Right
00:36:34
Speaker
It's called good writing, folks. Look it up. Look it up. Oh, real quick. I do want to shout out Hobbs Old Dwarf. They happened somewhere in the intervening period there. I never enumerated them. That was all you.
00:36:55
Speaker
But yeah, you gave us a fight when Eris didn't have her coterie of offense.
00:37:09
Speaker
And obviously, Milo was not really a part of the fight because Randy wasn't here. And I think I failed my first three roles, so it was a lot of fun. Randy also didn't have his weapons. That wasn't specified on Trevor's then, but Trevor did a good job of just operating under that assumption and running with it.
00:37:29
Speaker
Yeah, because Trevor does use his ranged weapon. Is it a bow? I think it was a bow or it was also a bow. He's usually got a dagger, but I think in this case he grabbed a steak knife or something. And he has his new weapon for Beerus as well.
00:37:44
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, it was very generous of you to let me to let me sneak in the the wrist mounted dart launcher. Yeah. But yeah, having having none of her stuff and not not being able to use magic just directly offensively, like the way that we've designed her artifice is the attack spell is not an option. Like there's there's no way for her to get the attack spell.
00:38:12
Speaker
through artifice. So it was fun to need to think of other things to do.
00:38:23
Speaker
It was a fun fight. And then there was Hob, who they did not take his hands, so he could still do his thing. That's right. Yeah. Don't expect the silly slipper blackjack thing to make multiple appearances. That was a dumb idea in the moment. I don't think it actually works, so it's probably going to get lost in the sands of time. Now, if Phillip could come up with some way for Aeris to make it, you know, have its own turn because it works independently now, maybe that's something we'll keep around. Animated slipper blackjack.
00:38:51
Speaker
Eris has made my shoes sentient and I do not like it. They just say ow a lot every time I take a step.
00:39:01
Speaker
But, you know, at one point, Hob gets hit with something where you can't take actions, but luckily, I have an incidental where I can take out an entire group of minions, so we just did that. And it was a fun little fight. Aeris, or, you know, Philip, had the great idea of how to get Harbin out of there and bring Tasha. Like, that was just, that was really on your toes stuff. I really appreciate that. I was really worried about Harbin. Like, as a player, I was like, I don't really want to endanger Harbin here.
00:39:30
Speaker
But I also don't want to leave because this is going to be fun. So I don't want to do Eris runs off with Harbin to get Harbin out of here. But yeah, that that was a lot of fun getting to getting to have Tasha crash the door. I did not expect to nearly die. That was that. That got real fast.
00:39:55
Speaker
Well, OK, you got really messed up by the captain. Yeah. Right. Their cast, their caster was focusing on Haldorak most of the time, keeping him blasted against the wall. But yeah, she messed you up good. Yeah. Still, it was spells and marshals. Harris is not.
00:40:12
Speaker
Eris has not yet got all of her critical injuries taken care of. And that is? Yeah, we might have to go see what's his name. You all need some healing. Just replace some more parts. Never mind Eris. She's more man than machine now. Or nope. Flip that. Yeah, flip that.
00:40:33
Speaker
Now I want the story where it's inverse. That's the weird alternate, where it's C-3PO, but they're slowly making more humans. Well, I hate that. Well, I'm never watching Star Wars if that happens. From what I heard, it does. That's what I heard.
00:40:52
Speaker
That's the thing about combat and Genesis, especially once the XP levels get higher and you're adding enemies that have high level magic and adversary ranks and all these things. Like the swing in an attack being fairly mundane to nearly deadly is so much narrower because the wound threshold is so much smaller than your HP and D&D fifth edition. Because how many wounds does heirs have?
00:41:22
Speaker
like, wound threshold wise? Just guessing. 14, I think? 14, 15? Yeah. And so, like, if a lot of these enemies have, like, a base attack of eight, and so, if I roll five success on a roll, which is not uncommon when I'm rolling, you know, three yellows and a couple of green, then all of a sudden, you... Well, stop doing it. Well, and no armor.
00:41:45
Speaker
Yeah. Like Eris is not wearing, Eris is usually wearing leather armor, which is not a lot, but it's a little boost to her soak. So it's just her brawn.
00:41:55
Speaker
I could be wrong, I've never actually seen any of the character sheets or monster cards or whatever you call them. It seems like the NPCs we fight, the monsters, whatever, have more wounds than we do as well, by necessity, because they're sometimes four on two fights. So when I hit them for 12 wounds and I'm thinking, yes! It's like, oh no, they've got at least three more rounds of them. It's like, ah crap.
00:42:20
Speaker
Yeah, their wound threshold and their soak is typically a lot. Like the captain that you all were fighting, this is off the top of my head, so I might be way off, but I think she had like 40 wound threshold and like nine soak or something.
Genesis Combat System Discussion
00:42:35
Speaker
So like, or seven soak, like you all have to like hit well in order to do any damage and even then you're not doing a lot. So, yeah.
00:42:44
Speaker
And for those who don't play Genesis and just listen for another NPC example, Hob is the tank of the group and I have 17 wounds and four soak and I only have 17 wounds because I spent three talents to get more. So that's kind of, if you want to discrepancy. Just simply because, you know, Eris being a ranged attacker and a spellcaster could have been the glass cannon in somebody's head. Yeah, well in Milo, Milo has like 10. Not much harder than her. Yeah. Yeah.
00:43:16
Speaker
Yes, it's Hob and his fragile friends coming to man. But yeah, and then...
00:43:24
Speaker
ending in just such a great way, this fight, with, what does she say, the Lazar, whatever, sends their regards, and then just gets owned by Tasha. Just absolutely, just whomped by Tasha coming through the door again. Tasha needs a novelty horn. It's the trombone sound from Price is Right, every time she kills someone.
00:43:51
Speaker
That moment when I when Tasha came in and hit the captain was the moment I realized I was like Oh posey should have been here at the gala like I just kind of realized like a rain said should have been here so Yeah, but yeah, you didn't leave a lot of people out of the gala, but our answers was one Yeah, now that would have been
00:44:12
Speaker
And then we just sort of casually back our ship out of the foyer. Go home. Well, we'll see in yet. Except we don't go home. Good party. Yeah. Thank you. But yeah, that's true. We did not go home. We got rid of our extra.
00:44:32
Speaker
of our extra crew and took the people we were comfortable in incriminating. And then Basil takes us to Norsen.
00:44:47
Speaker
It was like an enchanted kind of cone of silence bag over his head, basically, so we could talk freely to figure out. Because what we had not done as characters or players was discuss how this was gonna go. So we had to end game, take a second to be like, all right, now that we're here, we were the dog that caught the car.
00:45:08
Speaker
I'm sure Eric has made this decision somewhere in the moment as to whether or not it was the case. But the idea of Eris and Hobb just going into Goblin in order to not be overheard by Norsin, when that's gotta be the second most common language on the continent we live on. So if Eris, if Norsin is bilingual, it's probably in Goblin.
00:45:35
Speaker
to say nothing of the inspiration of the character. Right. Right. Which I did not think about until just now. Yeah. Oh well.
00:45:49
Speaker
was what we had. I have not listened to this episode since it dropped. I know that's only been two weeks, but I am who I am, so I don't remember any of it. Why, either around the table or in character or whatever, why did Hob be the one who did talk? Because I don't feel like I very well could have just steamrolled it, but I feel like there was... Coercion.
00:46:12
Speaker
Yeah, you're the one with coercion points. And I really thought that, and I think all of us thought, and I think we all stared real hard at him for a minute. I really thought Reynard was going to take the lead on this as our bard.
00:46:30
Speaker
with lots of point presence, and I think lots of points in deception. I hope lots of points in deception with as much as he wants. And also the one who asked for this. And the one whose idea this was. But no. So yeah, it falls on Hob. I mean, you don't want Eris to be it.
00:46:53
Speaker
And I do want to say that is a, that is a Raynard thing, not a Trevor thing. Trevor was playing Raynard as having had a pretty traumatic night and also drunk again for the first time in Who Knows How Long. So it made a lot of sense that he wasn't up to it. And also, I think being confronted with the consequences of his stupid declaration to his brother probably messed him up a little bit. I mean, you say that right up until he kisses him.
00:47:23
Speaker
It is still Trevor. He's still going to do something. They're still chaos involved. He is. Trevor could have been like, real quick, I signed an autograph for him. Just to let him know. I would have been like, well, that's Trevor. My thing is I don't really know what we gained from the conversation. I'm not sure, as a player, I'm not yet sure we're in a
00:47:54
Speaker
position where we've really improved our situation, I think we've probably just set some things off, is really what we've done. Yeah, I agree. I hope that it had, for the nothing we gained from it, except for learning
00:48:17
Speaker
We on a shadow of a doubt that TARDIS appetizers is the lizard man. Sure. Which does, which is not unimportant. Oh, that's useful information. Yeah.
00:48:27
Speaker
Jeff Hobbs and Hob Hobbs that it might have had an effect on Norse and Milhach, but I also don't think that it did. Yeah. Also, we still got him. We still actually don't. I'm telling you, we as players have no idea what we're going to do with him. Like this is the worst possible way to acquire your bad guy.
00:48:53
Speaker
It's not we've questioned him and now we fight him and we can decide in the moment of the fight. Well, we were fighting him so we killed him and that's a nice bow on that. No, we've got him unarmed, tied up. Do we want to do a murder or are we in a catch and release situation? Right.
00:49:12
Speaker
Because he does, because, because, because Norsen does kind of say, I may be, I may be getting his intent wrong, but it felt like some of the things Norsen was saying was like, but if I stop now, all these people died in vain, which is just the worst line of reasoning. But he, something's that effect, right? Yeah.
00:49:30
Speaker
Yeah, I mean he because like at least the way that he was presenting it to you all he realizes that a lot of mistakes were made and he's trying to fix the mistakes because the way the quote-unquote science currently exists and is in the hands of people is bad and so he wants to fix it so that it's not bad anymore is like his justification so whether or not that's
Emotional and Tonal Shifts in the Episode
00:49:56
Speaker
Bunch of smoke or the truth? I assume our next recording session is going to have to be what in the world are we doing with him? Yeah. Because we got a, we punted for a day. The absolute whiplash from the beginning of that episode to the end of that episode. And it really, I mean, you can, you can,
00:50:25
Speaker
you can hear the loss of ideas in the way the episode ends. It was just kind of like, well, we did that. I guess we all leave defeated and like, fancy dressed. We all take our designer fashions home to contemplate what we've gotten ourselves into, I guess. But I think, I don't know, that just, that felt,
00:50:53
Speaker
right and real to me, that's how it would go. So we are gonna start in the question and answer tier of our Discord for our listener
Listener Question Segment
00:51:02
Speaker
questions. As always, if you have a question, you can ask it on our Discord. The Discord is easiest to find, I believe now if you go to the Facebook group, would probably be the easiest way to find the Discord invite now, which is of course at the Geek Pantheon on Facebook and all other social medias.
00:51:22
Speaker
So, some questions. Again, these are from the QA tier first. That is a patron level if you're interested in being a patron. You can find that at patreon.com slash the geek pantheon. We have tiers starting for as little as one dollar.
00:51:36
Speaker
So, first set of questions are from Laura. She has one for Trevor, asking, were you happy with how the meeting with Norsin met? Did you expect to learn more or less? We will get Trevor on that. Also, a question for Trevor that I think we can handle. At least Eric and I, I don't actually know if Phillip ever listened to that string of episodes. Okay. How long do you think Tinsel would survive working with the Boromars? Would he and Viggo be friends? Tinsel's too much for Viggo. Viggo can't handle Tinsel. Yeah. Go ahead.
00:52:08
Speaker
Tinsel is, above all other things you might describe Tinsel as, a liability to the group is the biggest one. And I think the Bormars would have taken him out very quickly. See, I think Tinsel would be the lone wolf nuclear option. Yeah, you don't put Tinsel on the team because he's gonna get them all killed.
00:52:27
Speaker
But you have that one person in reserve that when you need stuff just wrecked, you don't care about collateral damage. He's their deniable asset. Yeah, you just send tinsel in and you know nothing's going to be left in his wake. Tinsel's just in a locked cage full of candy cages just waiting to be activated.
00:52:52
Speaker
Oh, man. It's like a... What is the boondock saying? It's Il Duce. Yes, Il Duce. Il Duce, thank you. Yeah. For those of you that don't know what we're talking about, go check out the Geek Pantheon podcast for our D&D arc that we did way back when with me, Jeff, and the Trevers.
00:53:11
Speaker
Jeff, as Hugh Manfighter, the human fighter. If you want to hear me be even worse at tabletop role playing, go check out the thing we did five years ago. Randy is not here. Her question for Randy is what shenanigans would you have liked for Milo to get up to during the party? He loved the hell out of that condo line.
00:53:32
Speaker
I do regret that Randy was not there to do so chaos at the party. I reiterate Randy's message to all of our listeners. Go get your shingles vaccine if you're over 50. So you don't miss your D&D game where there's a fun pirate fight.
00:53:50
Speaker
That's the worst part about shingles. Okay, continuing Laura's questions. Hob made all those chill dwarf friends who just wanted to relax at a party, so is it safe to say in another universe that he and Thorin would be great pals? I can't imagine they would dislike each other. I think that pals is strong, but I can't imagine they would have anything but respect for each other.
00:54:20
Speaker
and probably a weird conversation.
00:54:26
Speaker
Why did no one show Eris the beauty of leggings under her dress? I can't help, I mean I can't answer that question. We all collectively shrugged. Just so you know on this on this audio medium they both threw their hands up like the emoji as though that was gonna help. Yep, I mean yeah Eris would probably dig leggings they're very practical in a lot of ways. She would need durable leggings so it would have to be
00:54:52
Speaker
something on the durable end of that. But Eris would probably like the practicality of leggings, although the lack of pockets that leggings usually suffer from would be a downside for Eris.
00:55:10
Speaker
All right. And then last, also, if you have any small details about your party outfits that you might have thought of later, I'd love to know. Laura will make sure that anything you want to know, we will tell you about our party outfits, I promise. It does kind of coincide with a question that Liz had about Hobb's party outfit. She asked if he was still wearing, and I don't have it pulled up right now, so I'm just going to say the skirt portion of his robe
00:55:40
Speaker
Underneath everything else and know what it was was I didn't do a great job of describing it These the the below the waist portion of Hobbs outfit was essentially four panels of leather that were heavy enough to hang independently and between them were gussets of of linen so that it was very very movable there's a I'm about to
00:56:09
Speaker
the depths of my nerdery. There's a designer named Charles James who's in the Metropolitan Museum of Art for several dresses, the taxi dress being one of them. But he created a dress called a clover dress that you can look up. Charles James clover dress and you can see the idea. Now this one has wiring in it. I want to make sure I got that right. I think it's called clover leaf dress.
00:56:27
Speaker
This one has wiring in it that makes it stand out, but it's the same idea of gusseted fabric for extra movement. Without the wires that make it literally a four foot force field around this model's body in this dress. So yeah, the other questions we have, let me switch to the other channel.
00:56:46
Speaker
We do have a question. Do we intend to continue running in Genesis for campaign three? We have not made any decisions about what system we are using for campaign three. But yes, we are likely moving on from Genesis for it. It's safe to say. Yes, safe to say.
00:57:03
Speaker
We have conversations to have among the group about what we're gonna do for campaign three, but safe to say it's gonna be good, right? Sure. I'm comfortable saying it. Okay, Irene has a question. Eric, if the crew had waited until the party to steal the statue, how would that have changed the interaction with the pirates?
00:57:27
Speaker
And then she also asked, like Phillip did earlier, where there are always going to be pirates crashing the party. The answer to that is not necessarily pirates, but something. But that's a great question. Like, what would have happened if rival crews showed up at the party to steal the statue? Was that a possibility? Yeah, I mean, it would have manifested in quite a few different ways, depending on how you all approached stealing the statue during the gala. If you all were
00:57:53
Speaker
kind of like the other event with PrimaFit and his invention where you all were split up and somewhere on the inside and somewhere on the outside, then probably the people on the outside would have seen an airship rolling up over the gala and seeing the pirates making their preparations, so interacting in some capacity that way. Or if you all were inside, then they would have
00:58:20
Speaker
Crashed in and disrupted your all's plans and see how that that works and That's the one thing that I'm sad that it didn't go the way of you all waiting for the gala is I would have really liked to have seen a Like Tasha chasing down a pirate ship through the towers of sharn because they got the statue or having to go get it from them
00:58:44
Speaker
But my regret on the same line is while it was really cool to see us very competently steal something, the Ocean's 11 factor of what the gala would have been like if we were also trying to pull this great con and teleport the statue out in the middle of the gala, that would have been very fun. Yeah. Yeah.
00:59:05
Speaker
You know, I can't believe we didn't have a moment when we were talking about when to steal it and we're all like, well, we could do it at the party. We could do it during the party. And like, you know, one of the reasonable members like Kath or Sana would say, yeah, just like prima fits party. And then we immediately abandoned him. Yeah. I mean, the, the best, the best heist that we've done on this show period was in campaign one where we did the flashbacks and, and, uh, although that also went terribly wrong at the end.
00:59:36
Speaker
Yeah, oh yeah, I said that, yeah. That's gonna happen.
00:59:44
Speaker
Okay, Shelby asks, how afraid are you, both players and characters, that Satan is playing nice and is working towards something senator? He's working towards something senator. He's working towards something senator. I mean, I don't want to say there's- Council's not enough for him anymore. I don't want to say there's synonyms, but. I will say that as a player, I'm not scared of it at all because it sounds awesome if that happens.
01:00:12
Speaker
Yeah, either way, it's gonna be awesome. As a player, I am not afraid, I am certain. And anticipated. Yes. As a character, Hobb is not afraid of it. Hobb recognizes it as a possibility, but it's like
01:00:30
Speaker
Why be scared of an inevitability? Even if that was true, what am I capable of doing about it? Right. Exactly. Now, I will say Hob is scared of it in the sense of he doesn't want to see himself going down a more sinister road to stay in good graces with Boromar. That concerns him. But what Satan is planning is outside of his scope of concern, I guess is a way to say it. Eris is irrationally certain of it.
01:00:57
Speaker
but is afraid of it because Eris is at core of quite a frightened person. But her instinct, like the big emotional shift in Eris was that her instinct is not, I'm going to run away because I'm afraid of this. I've successfully cocooned myself with a whole bunch of people that I care about that keep me safe. And Satan is obviously going to ruin that.
01:01:38
Speaker
say D&D or other systems and that Genesis is better for street level play. Do you want to elaborate on that? So I don't remember the exact quotes that I made in the past. Genesis is not bad for high fantasy or epic level play. I think that you could do a very fun game of high fantasy
01:01:45
Speaker
and so he must die.
01:01:58
Speaker
with Genesis. I was specifically speaking for this campaign doing a street level defenders style like in terms of power campaign that Genesis is better suited for that in my opinion because the power creep isn't as great. At this stage, I mean this campaign has been going on for two years now I think, yeah over two years.
01:02:22
Speaker
and I mean you all would be what level 14 maybe 13 which at that point in D&D terms is demigod level of power yeah so it's yeah like it would be like oh you need a statue and Milo would have gone yeah yeah you summoned it can you vaguely describe the statue to me got it
01:02:46
Speaker
Whereas with Genesis, I could still pull the same monster cards that I did for session one of this campaign and they would be just as deadly. The captain ended Eris in two hits.
01:03:01
Speaker
Um, like, whereas with it twice, and she was done and it with D and D getting a pirate captain, captain that's capable of that. They're almost assuredly going to have to be a spellcaster of some kind. They're going to have to like, they have to have some sort of vampire. Yeah. You can't have this purely martial monster. Generally speaking, that is going to be able to go toe to toe, especially in a one-on-one fight with a level 13 player character. Whereas Genesis, that's much more reasonable.
01:03:31
Speaker
and easier to accomplish. You'd basically have to build him out with character levels. And from my perspective as a DM, that's really hard to run at the table. Especially if you've got lots of moving pieces of a fight like you did in this one.
01:03:48
Speaker
Yeah, and while it's fun and engaging for a player who's playing a fighter to make seven attacks in a turn, it's oftentimes less so when it's a single monster doing that. So yeah, that's why I think Genesis is better for street level play. I don't think Genesis is bad for high fantasy or epic.
01:04:08
Speaker
I think D&D does that well, too. But I think what I was trying to say anyway, way back when I said this, is that for this specific campaign of street level play, I prefer Genesis over D&D. So. Here, here. Yeah, sounds good to me. And then Shelby continues, what video games, if any, is everyone playing right now? Crusader Kings III. Nice.
01:04:38
Speaker
NBA 2K, whatever is current, and WWE 2K, whatever is current, because those are games that I- Is it still 2K? Because wouldn't it have to be like 2K 22? Yeah, that's exactly what it is. That sounds stupid. They really locked themselves into something dumb there. I mean, the whole studio is 2K studio, so all of their games, it's 2K something. Well, that was a bad decision. Let's date ourselves.
01:05:05
Speaker
We are still in the 2K millennium. I have a feeling it's going to outlive the company. 2K4 sounds kind of cool, but now like when we get like 2K36. 2K112.
01:05:24
Speaker
Anyway, the reason that I'm playing those games is because my video game time has turned into decompression and chill out mode and stuff that I can play if I get the itch to play something while I'm editing, where I can focus on listening to the audio and pause it when I need to make an edit. I can play Crusader Kings while editing, same thing.
01:05:42
Speaker
Yeah, I play I also play a lot of NBA 2k at least a couple games a week Switch sports with my kids a lot of that if you haven't picked up switch sports yet it is Man, it's hard to say it's as good as Wii sports because we sports was so revolutionary that it seems so but it's it's very weak switch sports is very good Yeah, you've mentioned I need to go with Could have done with less net and racket games and maybe another thing Different than that disc golf or something anyway racket came up suck
01:06:13
Speaker
This has badminton tennis and volleyball. You don't need all three of those things. Especially considering that you're using the little joystick things to do it. There's a limited way you can represent those motions.
01:06:28
Speaker
But their new soccer game is great. And then I, gosh, I'm like 180 hours into Assassin's Creed Odyssey at this point. I put it on as a lark and just really enjoy it. But it's the same sort of thing. I like that I can boot it up, clear one fort, call it a day, be like, I did a thing in my video game today and it was fun. Move on with my life.
01:06:49
Speaker
It's great. And I will be moving on to Origins when I'm done. Finally, from Shelby. Jeff mentions using Flurry of Blows in episode 105. Is that a talent from somewhere I'm missing or something you guys designed? Do you feel comfortable sharing it? Any of the other work? One of their players is making a similar build. I assume a Genesis Barbarian or Monk or something.
01:07:12
Speaker
So anyway, so is that from somewhere I'm missing or just something you guys designed and by you guys He very much does not include should not be including me and you feel comfortable sharing it Eric go
01:07:22
Speaker
Yeah, it is a talent that I created when Jeff told me that he wanted to be playing a monk. As part of my conversion of Eberron into Genesis, I knew that, you know, Flurry of Blows is an iconic monk thing from the D&D class. And so I wanted to make sure that that was represented in some capacity within the game for Jeff.
01:07:50
Speaker
that you added as a first tier talent, and it was for two advantage, I can essentially just, the flavor is hit again, but the mechanics is, you double the hit points, before soak. So. It would be akin to the linked quality on a weapon, right, Eric? Yeah, the unarmed strike basically has the linked property, so. That's cool.
01:08:12
Speaker
I'm going to shoot really straight. Shelby, if you want to know how I would have tweaked this talent after playing with it for a while, I will say I would like to re-roll just the successes and failures to get a different number. It could go up or it could go down, but there's some investment in agency and choosing to do it again.
01:08:33
Speaker
Other than that, I think two advantage is the right cost. I think that it's everything is good. I just think Re-roll and only count success and failure to see how hard you hit him again. This just doesn't like re-rolls. No, I've noticed that. It doesn't like multiple rolls in a turn. I see your point there. It is fun to grab the button. It's part of the fun of the game is the big fist full of dice. Yeah.
01:08:58
Speaker
And it feels more like doing something again than activating something to happen. So that's the only thing I would change about it, but I fully understand that, yeah, I mean, inside of Genesis, typically that's not how it would go, so that's not how it goes. All right, and then Mark asks, now that you've been playing Genesis around the table as originally planned, how is everyone feeling about this system? I love it.
01:09:22
Speaker
It is definitely more fun in person. Yes, it is. I mean, all games are, but like if you're playing 5E and Roll20 across the continent with people, you still see the 20, you still get excited. It's just, Genesis is way more fun to all watch the dice settle together and do the math, whoever does the math first to figure out if it's good or bad kind of thing. It's fun. Yeah.
01:09:46
Speaker
Oh, I'm, I'm very happy with, with the system. I'm very happy with, with the way the system represents this character, uh, having played a good bit of an artificer in fivey. Um, our artificer is better. It's more of an artificer. I get to make things and fifth edition really doesn't want you to make things like actively wants you to not create new things. Um,
01:10:12
Speaker
And Genesis says, heck yes, you should make things. You should make all the things. And that's precisely what I wanted this character to do. So, yeah. Yes. And that is absolutely great for this. Anybody that is like, that is mostly thanks to, I would say, Phillip, and you can disagree with me. That is mostly thanks to the Keyforge supplement that they came out with. Yes, I would say that's how our campaign started. I mean, the core, the core rulebook has a strong crafting system in it, like just from, and, and the, uh, and things like, um,
01:10:41
Speaker
Some of the things Eris has made have been just using the strict crafting rules. The thing that the Keyforge book does entirely apart from the Ambercraft system, which is a different thing, but the thing that the Keyforge does is it basically disassembles the crafting system and says, okay, you start with a melee weapon. Here are the basic things for a melee weapon. Now, here's a menu of all the possible attributes you could add to a melee weapon, increase its damage, lower its crit rating, all these things.
01:11:11
Speaker
add these magical effects to it. Like it's, it's just a beautiful little menu and you pick all the things you want. And then it tells you, here's how much it costs to craft that. And here's what the difficulty of the role. And so it, it becomes like casting a spell where you make it as difficult and as expensive as you want it to be. And that is, I think exactly what a crafting system in a TTRPG should be. Yep.
01:11:38
Speaker
Yeah, I will say one thing that I'm realizing is as playing a martial class, I don't get the same experience of freedom and creativity in this system that a spellcaster or an artificer or something like that does. But even, I mean, because it's just ridiculous what a spell, you get to come up with what the effect of the spell is as a spellcaster in Genesis and that's super fun. But even inside of that with the talents and the
01:12:07
Speaker
the tinkering that Eris has done for Hob, there's still a lot of freedom. I don't exercise it as much as I should because I'm not good at the game, but it's there to be accessed. But man, the freedom inside of spell casting is just, it's bonkers and a lot of fun. Yeah, if Randy ever realizes half the things that he can do, we're going to go. It's going to be a problem.
01:12:30
Speaker
We, okay, so yeah, so we played a one-shot actually with some patrons. We have a one-shot tier on our Patreon, if that's something that interests you. And the latest one was Eric, Phillip and I, with two of our patrons playing. And Phillip unlocked what that class can do in ways that, I mean, you were summoning all sorts of evil creatures to destroy everybody and it was amazing. I did not know, I had never played a straight caster, like Eris is the only magic user I've ever played.
01:13:00
Speaker
The things you can do when you really look hard at that menu and decide, and especially if you have lots of dice that you're throwing at it, cause there is Erica giving me a, a very, someone with a lot of points in Arcana. Um, it's crazy. Yep. Yep. So.
01:13:17
Speaker
It was like, at one point during the fight, the phrase, I push him towards the wind to go was said because of Philip's ability to summon things. Okay, and then our last question is from Becca. Always coming in strong with the off topic. I love it. What is your favorite mythological creature or being? Griffin. I like griffins.
01:13:48
Speaker
Pegasus, you can't go wrong. I don't wanna be securely strapped in, but Pegasus. I've always been a big fan of minotaurs, so that's... There you go. I was really expecting one of you to come in with a deep cut. Which hat is the bull on your minotaur, Eric? Because depending on where you are in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean, it's either a bull with like a centaur half of a man,
01:14:16
Speaker
or it's a man with a bull's head. Man with a bull's head is what I envision with the Minotaur, but that's, yeah. That's also what I ended. I was just curious. Yeah. I have seen, and this may be just a modern
01:14:32
Speaker
What's we're looking for? Interpretation that has no basis in history, but the almost Seder-like, bipedal, bull, half-body, man's torso, bull's head. That's something I've seen before. I think that's what you get in D&D. In D&D, you've got bull's legs, human chest and arms, bull's head.
01:14:52
Speaker
I prefer my Minotaur to be the really dumb version from the Henry Cavill movie Immortals where it's just a dude with a bull helmet on. That's who was guarding the labyrinth in that dumb movie. So anyway. There are multiple Minotaur subplots in Assassin's Creed Odyssey that range from very scary and difficult to like the dumbest thing I've done in a video game. They were all over that game.
01:15:18
Speaker
And that is the last of our questions. Thank you everyone who wrote in. We love getting questions from you all. I mentioned the socials, I mentioned the Patreon, but I want to make sure before we go that I mentioned that we do have a YouTube channel, youtube.com slash the geek pantheon. On that you'll find two different types of videos. We do have an actual play, youtube.videod, visual, I don't know what I'm saying.
01:15:45
Speaker
It's great, it's called Kyber Sharps, Philip Diams it and you should watch it. You can see it and hear it is where I was going. That was awesome. We're gonna start a purely visual, we're gonna start a silent movie style actual play on the YouTube channel. Yes. Light piano music. I am technically an industry professional and that is how I do things.
01:16:13
Speaker
And then also on there are Eric's DM videos where he does deep dives into books or classes. He'll bring out situations you might find in your game and different ways you can handle those. They're very good and informative and the thumbnails are always choice.
01:16:32
Speaker
So that's very true. The thumbnails are very worth looking at. Um, I will really quickly plug. It's a couple of weeks back, but I got the pleasure of talking to Ajit George, the creative director and creator of the radiant citadel setting that journey. But he goes into a lot of details of things that had not been discussed up to that point in the press for the book. And so if you're excited and want to know more info about that, that book coming out, then definitely. So yeah, it was a lot of fun.
01:17:02
Speaker
Well, there you go. After all that, we hope you guys have a great week. We will be back next Friday. Fingers crossed. I know we missed a week. I got ill. Summer scheduling is a pain. Summer scheduling is the worst. So hopefully next week we'll be back with the beginning of our next arc or continuation of this one where we just say, okay, now what do we do with him?
01:17:29
Speaker
We will catch you next week. In the meantime, I have been Jeff. I'm Philip. And I'm Eric. Thank you all for listening.