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Episode 269: Podcast Production with the Table Top Jocks Server
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Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast! September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. Hobbes has completed the Marathon y'all!! Goblin Lore in conjunction with Drew from Show and Tell will continue putting out stories of hope ongoing. You can find the playlist here
Taya, Alex recently sat down with Ryan Inzana for a moderated chat with the Table Top Jocks Discord Server. They discussed production of a podcast, and what Gobin Lore has done for the past 7 years. Join them to learn more about the inner workings of the show, and hopefully gain some insight for those looking to do their own.
We also finally have a Linktree with all of our discounts/resources including how to join our Discord
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As promised, we keep Mental Health Links available every episode. But For general Mental Health the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has great resources for people struggling with mental health concerns as well as their families. We also want to draw attention to this article on stigma from NAMI's site.
If you’re thinking about suicide or just need someone to talk to right now, you can get support from any of the resources below.
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
- Veteran's can Press 1 at anytime to be taken to the Veteran's Line
- Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741-741
- International suicide hotlines: A comprehensive resource list for people outside the US.
- IMAlive: Click Chat Now to access a live online network of volunteers through instant messaging.
- TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, and TrevorText (LGBTQ+ crisis support): 1-866-488-7386, or text “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200
- Trans Lifeline (US): (877) 565-8860
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Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Special Episode
00:00:07
Speaker
rock
00:00:28
Speaker
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome to a slightly different episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast. ah Today we're going to be presenting a recording that we did for the uh, tabletop jocks, uh, creator server on creating podcast, uh, content, uh, that Alex and I, uh, did last week.
Meet the Hosts: Taya and Alex
00:00:48
Speaker
Um, so they were nice enough to record it and let us use the audio for our own purposes. So we're going to be providing that to you, uh, as an episode today.
00:01:00
Speaker
um but if you don't know who's talking, by the way, this is Taya, uh, Taya transcends on blue sky and ah Alex is also here briefly with me.
00:01:11
Speaker
Yep. Alex Newman, um not found on blue sky or other social media platforms. I mean, your blue sky is crashing and burning in real time. So oh that's good know.
00:01:23
Speaker
Yeah. ah The, the owner is throwing a hissy fit over so-called censorship because people, you know, that fled Twitter because of the Nazis are upset that Nazis have come to blue sky Fun stuff.
00:01:40
Speaker
You can guess which side the the ownership is siding with, even though their whole user base was basically built by trans people at the start. Mm-hmm.
00:01:50
Speaker
So, yeah, that's been lovely. Everybody's like, okay, where do we go next? oh Which I don't want to do again, ah Anyways, back to more interesting things.
Podcast Creation Insights and Equipment
00:02:02
Speaker
So we talked for about an hour on, you know, what goes into making the podcast and, uh,
00:02:09
Speaker
our planning process and our equipment and yeah, a little, a little bit of history stuff going yeah back to the beginning, but not, not a ton. Yeah. It was a fun conversation.
00:02:21
Speaker
Yeah, it was. Uh, so yeah, if you're interested in that sort of thing, ah feel free to give the episode a listen. Uh, we also want to say congrats to Hobbs on finishing your marathon.
00:02:34
Speaker
yeah. Yeah. yeah um As of the day we're recording this, he ran yesterday and finished in about four and a half hours ah and is taking a much needed rest today.
00:02:47
Speaker
yeah um Super cool. Yeah. um So great. Anyways, ah enjoy.
Upcoming Episodes and Content Overview
00:02:54
Speaker
And we will be back next week talking about Time Spiral Block.
00:03:00
Speaker
All right. Welcome, everybody. We appreciate you joining us tonight. ah Tonight we're sitting down with Taya and Alex from the Goblin Lore podcast. We're going to be talking a little bit about podcasting.
00:03:13
Speaker
I'm going to turn it over to them and let them introduce themselves.
00:03:19
Speaker
Hey, I'm Taya. Pronouns are she, her, they, them. I've been on the Goblin Lore podcast for, geez, like almost four years at this point, I think.
00:03:31
Speaker
And I was on the Lord Goyfe's podcast before that. um And yeah, I love Magic Story and talking about it, and I'm happy to be here.
00:03:42
Speaker
And I'm i'm Alex. so My pronouns are he, him. I was one of the members who founded the the podcast in June of 2018. So it's been a little over seven years now of doing this, so.
00:03:57
Speaker
Started is just a thing to kind of talk about magic in a different way with story focus, but some
Origins and Evolution of the Podcast
00:04:03
Speaker
other stuff too. And really glad what it's kind grown into. It's been a lot of fun and here glad to be here to kind of talk about talk about it.
00:04:14
Speaker
So how did the podcast come about? who Whose brainchild was this and how did it start? So this started um by ah Joe Ritterman, who was um Hobbs, myself, and Joe, or three people who are Minneapolis natives.
00:04:31
Speaker
Well, I don't think Hobbs would like being and called a Minneapolis native. Sorry. He is currently currently lives in Minneapolis. Fair. He is a transplant from California, but he the three of us have lived in Minnesota for a while.
00:04:45
Speaker
um Actually, we're all introduced to each other by a friend from Delaware who knew us all online. The three of us hadn't actually met in person until a GP Minneapolis event back then in 20. Actually, I think it was 2018. And Joe decided he wanted to do a podcast and that he thought Hobbs and I would be interesting people to have on it.
00:05:07
Speaker
ah Coincidentally, both of us, independent, not talking to each other, told Joe that, well, I'm not sure I can be a permanent host, but I would definitely be a guest. I'd love to be a guest. And Joe just forged ahead with recording with all three of us and both of us after the show, just like, yeah, let's let's just keep doing this.
00:05:25
Speaker
So you kind of got roped in. Yeah. A little bit, a little bit. I think both of us were, i don't want to speak too much for Hobbs, and he'll be on on your show and and a little bit later, but I know for myself, I didn't think I would have enough to say, which is kind of foolish, because once I get started, it's hard for me to stop talking.
00:05:45
Speaker
Um, but it was, it it was a lot of fun. And i also wasn't the early conception of it was a little vague too. And we kind of worked on kind of what the show was as we recorded it, as we move forward and,
00:05:59
Speaker
um like We always had the idea we wanted
Focusing on Mental Health and Storytelling
00:06:02
Speaker
to talk about story. We kind of always had the idea that we wanted to relate magic story and concepts from magic to people's in real lives.
00:06:10
Speaker
um Mental health focus kind of came in pretty early. Like literally, I think our second episode was about trauma and MTG. Yeah. So it was, that came in pretty early and it was a thing that was in the background of all three of us who all started it. So that was,
00:06:28
Speaker
but then kind of became a main flagship as we move forward. So how how did that mental health focus really come to be? i mean, was it a ah general interest or?
00:06:41
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I think um Hobbes is like in the field, which so it it is definitely something he's interested in, in something he's passionate about. um Both Joe and I have some history. So for myself, I am diagnosed with social anxiety.
00:06:56
Speaker
And so that was a thing yeah had for a long time. It shaped a lot of my life when it was undiagnosed. I didn't really understand and and was quite surprised at some point to learn that most people do not feel sick to their stomach when a random person comes up to them at the bus stop to ask them a question, a totally innocuous question.
00:07:14
Speaker
So shortly, actually, it was probably about a year before we started the podcast was when I finally saw therapist, got a diagnosis, had some understanding of what this was and had been
Audience Engagement and Growth Strategies
00:07:28
Speaker
working on it. And I went to, I mean, a big part of that was go starting to go to conventions and things that I thought were super cool that I could just never do.
00:07:37
Speaker
including the particular magic event that I met Joe and Hobbs at. And so for myself, it was, it was something I was always interested in talking about, especially at the time, because I found for me, one of the most helpful things early on in kind of my mental health journey was to listen, to hear other people tell their stories and to share my own.
00:08:01
Speaker
And so when we kind of brought that in as one of the topics for the podcast, I was, i was ready. I was on board for that.
00:08:11
Speaker
That's great. Yeah. I kind of got into this ah by accident. I do what I do a lot with streaming right now, where I guested on other people's podcasts quite a bit, and then eventually got asked to be a full-time um cast member for the Lorgoyfs.
00:08:30
Speaker
Michelle Rapp and I did most of the writing for the show for a while. Uh, it's been defunct for about five years now. So for those who aren't familiar, with that podcast, we did the magic story, but we rewrote it and then in like a satirical, funny fashion. And then we would, uh, we would voice act the, the summarized magic story,
00:08:52
Speaker
ah Um, yeah, that podcast was around for quite a while. Um, uh, but then, um, you know, the rest of the cast decided to move on, uh,
00:09:06
Speaker
You probably, most people know Michelle a lot better than anyone else as Kiln Fiend Potter on Blue Sky. She does pottery, she does um deck sleeve art. One of her designs is used on the deck sleeves that wrote Loading Ready Run use on most of their show with Jason Verasca.
00:09:26
Speaker
ah So she's she's a very creative person. um I'm really bummed I missed seeing her in Atlanta. But yeah, that's how I kind of got started into it. And then I was i was a several-time guest host on the Goblin Lore pod. And, you you know, they they had had the opening for the third guest for a while. And Alex and Hobbs finally invited me along to join them full-time.
Overcoming Podcasting Challenges
00:09:55
Speaker
Yeah, and really really glad you did. Yeah, it was about a year, year and a half in, um Joe left. And so Hobbs and I kept the show going with the two of us, but it's a lot of work to do a show, try to to try to do a weekly show with two of us. And so was very, very glad when Taya agreed to join the show as a permanent co-host.
00:10:18
Speaker
So starting out, how long did it take to build an audience base?
00:10:25
Speaker
Um, I don't, I'll be honest. I am not a good person to ask that question because aforementioned social anxiety for the, so for the first at least six months and to be perfectly honest, more like two years, I sort of pretended we didn't have an audience because that just made it easier for me to get in front of the mic and talk to my friends about whatever, just pretending no one was going to actually hear it.
00:10:49
Speaker
um I know we definitely had some slow building. And honestly, even today we have a relatively small audience, but there are people who who've listened to our show. And even when we've taken, we've taken some relatively large hiatuses, six, eight months. Sometimes people come back. Our next episode back always has, has good listenership.
00:11:10
Speaker
Doesn't really drop off. So it's been a fairly consistent um over the last seven years. This is kind of a slow build. Yeah, that was a good question for Alex to answer because I have no idea how many people even listen to the podcast. I don't get the numbers from Hobbs.
00:11:28
Speaker
I show up to chat with Alex once a week and talk about magic and the fact that we record it and publish it is just like, okay. yeah Maybe somebody's listening to it.
00:11:39
Speaker
I see the numbers occasionally and not often. And it's been a little while, but I know Hobbs will post things every so often. He has access to some of the metrics. So that is a good question to say for him for later this month.
00:11:51
Speaker
Well, maybe I'll revisit that. um But, you know, this is probably a good approach, quite honestly, because you you're just doing it for the the love of ah love of the game, right?
00:12:04
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yep. So how do you stay motivated then, ah you know, without reviewing those metrics? What what drives you to to keep going?
Staying Motivated and Enjoying Collaboration
00:12:16
Speaker
Well, that's a really good question. And I'll say and you know things have made it harder besides just the state of the world being depressing and making everything hard to be motivated about.
00:12:27
Speaker
ah you know We've lost um you know the amount of magic story we used to get is down from what it used to be. So it's a podcast that primarily talks about story. We've had to get creative with what to discuss and the long breaks between ah sets with story involved.
00:12:47
Speaker
ah You know, and and I'd say what motivates me the most doing about this is I enjoy hanging out with Alex and Hobbs. So, you know, I look forward to my Monday nights. It's like I'm hanging out with friends and ah that keeps me motivated to keep doing it.
00:13:04
Speaker
Yeah, same for me. thats That's a big part of why we kept going. Like, honestly, when Joe left because he had to step away from the game. there was It was just totally amicable. like he just He just decided he needed to be done with Magic, and so he talked to Hobbs and I, and Hobbs and I talked about, okay, what do we want to do? And that was one of our bigger gaps.
00:13:27
Speaker
um And we decided we wanted to keep going because we just enjoyed talking to each other, and that also um happened in January of 2020. So it just happened to be good timing to have a good avenue to talk to your friends already.
00:13:44
Speaker
And the same thing
Flexibility in Topics and Planning
00:13:46
Speaker
now. It's great to talk the Hobbs. It's great to talk to Taya. um We have some freaking guests who come back, and it's it's a great chance to to catch up with some of them when we are but schedules a align and we have you know ideas to to bring folks back.
00:14:00
Speaker
and there's stuff that to about. I'm excited we can bring back Seanan to talk about her book when it comes out. oh yeah. I'm excited about that. Yeah. i'm I'm fortunate enough to personally know Seanan.
00:14:16
Speaker
you know We play Commander together once in a while, so of I've always had good luck getting her on the show any time she writes new magic story. Yeah, and that's been...
00:14:28
Speaker
It's been a lot of fun to to talk to sh to talk to her about the show or to talk to her about the story. yeah So we we have a comment from Joe Kilcar about scheduling ah being being one of the worst parts of of ah you podcasting.
00:14:45
Speaker
Could you speak to that a little bit? like hey Have you encountered any challenges in that regard? and How do you address that? I'd say it's not as hard as like trying to schedule commander streams where you need to wrangle four people together at the same time.
00:15:00
Speaker
ah so people who run commander streams, I feel for you. We're generally talking to one guest at a time. ah And we tend to be flexible with their needs.
00:15:13
Speaker
For the most part, we've been lucky with them being able to fit our normal time slot if not having to wait a week for their availability that night. But... We record at a you know relatively reasonable time for any part of the country. It's 6 Pacific, 9 Eastern that we record at on Mondays.
00:15:35
Speaker
So having a consistent schedule for recording i think is really important. And then when we do have guests on, ah you know we we try to accommodate them. So sometimes we record on like a Sunday afternoon or something if we need to. but ah For the most part, we have a very consistent schedule.
00:15:56
Speaker
um Yeah, that helps. yeah It helps a lot for us, too, because that has been our recording night for so long. and yeah Things will come up here and there, but by and large, week to week, we just we have that time available because we kind of build the rest of our schedules around knowing Monday night we have this unless something more serious comes up.
00:16:16
Speaker
Sure, it's already carved out. Yep. That's a really good approach, I think. um So let's see.
00:16:27
Speaker
what What about like prep? um You know, it with a weekly podcast, I feel like there's not a whole lot of time in between episodes to put together your notes, do your research.
00:16:39
Speaker
You know, what does that process look like with such a quick turnaround time? Yeah. it did It has changed some over over time. um Yeah, that our shows recently have had less prep. We've kind of some of it is we've done topics that we can we don't have to prep for as much.
00:16:58
Speaker
Well, depending on what
Storytelling Episodes and Preparation
00:17:00
Speaker
it is. Like when we talk story, there's still a lot of time to like read that story, but that's easier to bake into things, especially now that they put the story in like podcasts and there's audio versions that makes It was really nice for Edge of Eternity because there were so many Edge of Eternity stories.
00:17:17
Speaker
Yeah, we had four episodes on Edge Story, I think. That's the longest we've ever talked about a single story. And we didn't talk about the side stories at all. No, that was just the main story. Yeah, and so... And we have had some episodes that are are higher prep and more more of a lift, and those take just kind of more planning. And so what we'll try to do is...
00:17:41
Speaker
Stage that out early, kind of work on that, and then have some other things to sort of fill in between. And like when we have magic story, that's a helpful one where we know we have a couple episodes there. So as long as we're reading the stories and show up ready to talk about those stories for the night, there's kind of less or more flexible prep for those.
00:17:58
Speaker
They were definitely more ah organized with their preparation before I joined the podcast. I've seen some of the old documents. and i'm just I am the Red Mage. ah you know Planning is for Blue Mages.
00:18:14
Speaker
ah You know, I'm just like, okay, what's our topic? Do I need to prep for this? ah Sometimes we're figuring out our topic like the day before the podcast, especially like lately when we've been ah in between story and just having to come up with or come up with a completely different thing to talk about.
00:18:34
Speaker
ah Like we did just did a um multi-week discussion of the invasion
Spontaneity and Improvisation in Podcasting
00:18:41
Speaker
block. um Yeah. But, ah yeah. ah So, i think there' there's... It's not... Cut from the same cloth.
00:18:54
Speaker
Yeah. It's not the level of prep like I had to do when I was on Lorgoyce, because that we had to write write a new episode every week, so there was... Always a lot of prep on that show. It was a big difference between the two experiences where, I mean, it really is. We get it we have a topic, we pick an opening question, and then we just chat and go where things take us. We say, you know, that's part of the goblin energy of the show. We're never on the track very long anyways.
00:19:25
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's and's the, you know, we we can't we can't get derailed if we didn't start on the track to begin with. Sometimes there it's rare, but there have been episodes where we get more than five minutes in and then remember we should introduce ourselves.
00:19:41
Speaker
Well, that's really interesting. Cause I, I was wondering, i you know, I, I was actually listening to your podcast today on the way to and from work. And ah you all have really good chemistry and feed off each other, um i would say, fairly well.
00:19:56
Speaker
it It comes across like you've actually like sat down and compared notes. So I was kind of curious to find out like how much you know prep and and coordination there was beforehand.
00:20:08
Speaker
So this is actually quite impressive. Yeah, yeah. no not And even some of the episodes where we will do more prep things, it's We'll do like individual. So like some of the anniversaries or something, I think our seven year, we just did like a very goblin energy. Just like, what's a list of seven things you want to talk about or something? I can't remember exactly how. Yeah. it was just Yes. Seven things we want to talk about basically. Yeah.
00:20:31
Speaker
ah But like we very specifically don't share those seven before the show starts. So then that is part of the conversation too. That's kind of fun, yeah I think. um you know it's You don't know where it's going to go ah There's a lot of room for improv and and comedy, so i like that idea.
00:20:52
Speaker
um We do have a ah question from the audience, from GamerDadBob. um Bob asks, do you all do anything to promote your podcast beyond publishing or posting to Blue Sky or X, or is it mostly word of mouth these days?
00:21:10
Speaker
ah ah So there's there's a few things that we do. Most of it is Blue Sky. It is either Hobbs posting on the official um pod account or just Hobbs posting on his own account because Hobbs is terminally online and has thousands of followers.
00:21:24
Speaker
And it seems like everybody knows who Hobbs is. ah so he he drives a lot of our social media engagement uh i do things like guesting on other people's podcast or uh you know commander streams and plug the podcast when i'm on there uh you know handing out stickers at conventions something i do fairly regularly yeah like joe's i like being
Promotion and Social Media Strategies
00:21:50
Speaker
on joe's show um the uh uh yeah so you know i wouldn't say that a lot of it is word of mouth for us uh but we're not we're also not out here yeah know week after week trying to grow the show we're just we're happy that people listen and if they tell a friend or something that's great if somebody picks up one of our stickers at
00:22:16
Speaker
a convention and gives a listen, that's great. um But, ah you know, we're not doing this for a living, so we don't have to make this, ah we don't have to make a financial tie-in to our podcast. You know, it's, we're not out, we don't even um mention our Patreon at all during our episodes. Other, you know, i and I think it just covers the cost of our ah recording, you know,
00:22:46
Speaker
or podcast recording software that the subscription that's about it um yeah and and the occasional stickers like all the stickers we have pubs at least all the stickers i have has been bought from that patreon money but yeah it's like a cost neutral it it makes enough that it's cost neutral for all the hosts and that's like our biggest ambition on that side it's always great when you're covering your costs Yeah, it covers our costs, but then if we need to take... Yeah, we never did on the Lorgoy. Our editing costs more than the show ever brought in.
00:23:21
Speaker
We were paying out of pocket quite a bit just to keep that on the air, but we really loved doing it. So, yeah, it is nice that our our small expenses are covered. but It's very appreciated to our patrons.
00:23:33
Speaker
Speaking of editing, we actually had a question from Cass about editing.
Equipment and Editing Approaches
00:23:37
Speaker
How do you go about editing, keeping schedule... And she also asks, um do you have any high-level equipment suggestions?
00:23:45
Speaker
Okay, so I had this on my list of things to cover, so thank you for asking this question. We'll start with the first one, equipment. um We all use Elgato Wavelink 3 mics that were bought ah from the Patreon money. I was using just a regular Blue Yeti at the start, and Hobbs, who does our video editing, was just saying, you know, he noticed a big difference in my audio quality compared to theirs, so we got a We got me one of the mics too, and ah since we're an audio-only podcast, that's really the only expense. A mic with a pop filter on it ah is pretty much your your entry cost.
00:24:26
Speaker
ah When you get into video, things start costing a lot more, or get into streaming, and you have to have a nice streaming setup and proper lighting and all that stuff.
00:24:38
Speaker
yeah I just spent $200 on new lighting for my streaming setup to hopefully get rid of some of the glare. oh We'll see how that goes. But it's doing an audio-only podcast is, yeah, ah kind of, ah it's it's kind of really affordable to do for the most part.
00:24:55
Speaker
ah Hobbs usually edits the day after we record and then we release the day after that. ah We don't do heavy editing on this show. It's not like ah when I was on Lorgois, we had a professional editor that edited every one of our shows. Hobbs does, you know, level um audio leveling and removing some of the ums and ands and stops.
00:25:23
Speaker
But we don't do a lot of... um We don't do a lot of editing on our show. It's ah it very rare that we even like mark something to be cut, even though our show is very stream-of-conscious.
00:25:41
Speaker
ah So there isn't much to do in the way of cutting out things ah from the show. uh so yeah it's uh i would say our our editing it goes pretty light again when you get involved a video you know that complicates everything by like tenfold uh as for the program um we use uh we record uh with the zepk ah Zencaster program, which also does some basic ah editing, like leveling and stuff like that. And then um Hobbs uses Audacity for the remaining edit.
00:26:23
Speaker
Audacity, unfortunately, was bought by a shady Russian company. ah So if you do it, I would look, if you want to use it, I would look for an older pre-acquisition version that doesn't have a bunch of um other software bundled in with it.
Balancing Flexibility and Consistency
00:26:40
Speaker
ah That's really good advice. yeah Yeah, they do have they do have a standalone Audacity if you dig a little bit on their website that doesn't have all that other crap packaged in.
00:26:53
Speaker
um But ah yeah, i so I'm still using a version before they got before they even made the acquisition because they're little shady, I little shady i think
00:27:07
Speaker
So for someone who's looking to start a podcast, what advice would you give them? That was another one on my list. Kind of, uh, I put it down as like, what do we wish we knew when we started? um but, uh, for me, it's, um, just knowing to, are ah
00:27:34
Speaker
you know, be willing to open up the the things you talk about. You know, if we were only a magic story related podcast, we would be having some serious issues right now.
00:27:45
Speaker
But we talk about um all kinds of things. ah Alex is going to talk about a bit about the Malthos aspect, um which we just did with like the Spider-Man set because there's no story for it. ah Neither of us are big Spider-Man fans.
00:28:04
Speaker
ah Hobbs is our huge Spider-Fan, and he wasn't available to record because of his marathon prep. So we were kind of, ah we we took it from that standpoint. But yeah, I just, people should be flexible with their plans. That that would be my biggest lesson. ah And expect things to change. And if you can't record a session for some reason, don't take it personally, don't feel like you failed.
00:28:31
Speaker
i you know, your audience, uh, turns out to be mostly very understanding and, uh, you know, they'll still tune in the week after the next episode. Yeah. Uh, it's little, um, I don't know. Take your mental health time.
00:28:47
Speaker
You know, that's absolutely. yeah Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. um It's a little like a variation of the the two cakes meme where there's the artist worrying that their cake isn't good enough, as good as this other cake, and and the audience is just excited for two cakes. I think our show has been a little bit like that. We're worried about the gap sometimes, and then really the audience is just happy when we have a new episode.
00:29:10
Speaker
I know, and and it makes some sense as my as a podcast listener myself. I know when there's a show that has a gap, and then all of a sudden there's a new episode, I'm excited for the new episode. I'm not upset that they didn't record one two weeks ago, usually. So that's really good advice. And I think for me, we're doing a weeklong a weekly podcast, and as as you mentioned earlier, Ryan. That can be a lot sometimes. um first couple of episodes that we recorded felt really good and felt it felt easy i mean and and honestly showing up kind of talking that part was easy i was talking to my friends and it that part fortunately has remained easy but then i realized that every week another week has gone by and you need another idea and you need another idea and so like and just
00:29:57
Speaker
yeah it's been seven years of and now It's been seven years of that. And so being flexible and finding, especially early on, we did some episodes that was were a lot more prep and a lot more research and things.
00:30:09
Speaker
And mixing in things that we can do with less prep was really helpful to not have some burnout. And also just finding ways for people to contribute. What does what does everybody want to do?
00:30:22
Speaker
We had some solo episodes and, and, As you go through time, you'll get better. I remember remember the first episode I recorded solo, I scripted the entire thing because, i don't know, my my social anxiety and without... i'm good in a conversation with no one else to have a conversation with. i was I wanted to have that those lines, and and that helped a lot.
00:30:44
Speaker
I've done my most recent one, which has been a little while still, probably been over a year since I've done a solo one. But then i think I just had like six bullet points and then I sat down and started going.
00:30:56
Speaker
And so don't be afraid to try new things topics wise, content wise, but also like structure wise. Maybe you like some heavily structured things, but you can find some things that are less structured that fit, yeah that kind of scratch a different creative itch or that fill in a different niche that makes it fresh and you help you to keep going with it.
00:31:21
Speaker
Well, that's some really good advice that you give. And in fact, I, I feel like it's just in general, really good life advice, uh, to try to be flexible, try to treat yourself well, um, value your, your mental health.
00:31:37
Speaker
Um, so this, this is great. Have, have looking back on the, the seven years, um, the, I'm sure you've made mistakes along the way.
00:31:50
Speaker
ah Can you share with us any that you've made that um kind of changed your approach to your podcast?
00:32:00
Speaker
I think one that dovetails off of the last topic, one the first thing that kind of comes to mind, and I guess it's kind of a mistake and is is kind of what it we've been kind of talking about earlier shows were more heavily structured and, um,
00:32:15
Speaker
The last couple of years, it's frankly, some of it, it's it's just been hard to to find the time and the mental capacity to do some of that.
Managing Expectations and Creative Friction
00:32:24
Speaker
And so there was a there was a stretch in time where I i was carrying unnecessary and rather silly guilt and about that, which made which increased the friction and made it harder to do the podcast. And there was a stretch there where I was burning myself out that because of what I was doing, but almost because of worrying about what I wasn't doing. And the show was great. We were having, we were recording good episodes. We were having a good time.
00:32:55
Speaker
And I was burning myself out because I was worried that I was not doing some of these more structured, more researched things that we, we had done some in the past.
00:33:07
Speaker
And so I guess that as as a kind of a lesson from there too, is, Sometimes you need to if you forgive yourself for things that aren't necessarily even your fault, but just take some perspective there. If if if you're feeling a lot of extra friction, and it's it's a thing that i've I'm trying to be more cognizant of myself, ah try to examine that and see if there's something that needs to change, whether it's actually in the show or within your perception of the show.
00:33:39
Speaker
So looking back on it, like when you've kind of changed your approach or you've introduced new, you know, elements to the the podcast, you know, how did your your listeners react or or did they react?
00:33:57
Speaker
Um... don't we get ah We get some feedback, not a ton. I think it's been generally fairly positive. We have a Discord um that that some folks are in, and they kind of have been with us through the journey is it as we have changed and done to sort of different approaches and different things. But so from but from a number standpoint, our audience has kind of always been there to some extent. And I think part of the, one of the things that helps that for us is that our show is kind of weird.
00:34:28
Speaker
in the niche that we've carved out. So we're, we're definitely Vorthos adjacent. We talk a lot of story related topics, but we also do this like mental health approach. And then we also do this Mel stuff.
00:34:42
Speaker
And to kind of explain what that is, I, I told Hobbs and Tay, I was going to talk about this specific weird card of mine that I, I
Exploring the Melthos Concept
00:34:52
Speaker
just, I love. So the,
00:34:54
Speaker
i I think folks kind of understand what the concept of Vorthos is. People who enjoy the game from the from a story standpoint, not necessarily because of the gameplay of the game itself.
00:35:05
Speaker
A Mel is similar, but from a mechanical standpoint. So you kind of enjoy are interested in mechanical interactions, not necessarily because they're winning the game, but because they're interesting. Well, a lot of what we do is this Melthos thing where there's...
00:35:19
Speaker
The mechanics are telling the story. And so I think one of the best cards to illustrate that is a card from Mirage called Floodgate. And this is legitimately one of my favorite cards. So I'm just going to read this whole card and then explain why this is a really, really good Melthos card.
00:35:36
Speaker
It is a zero five wall creature for three and a blue with Defender. It has, when this creature has flying, sacrifice it. When this creature leaves the battlefield, it deals damage to each non-blue creature without flying, equal to half the number of islands you control, rounded down.
00:35:56
Speaker
And then the art, or three goblins running away from a dam that's breaking, with the flavor text, Quick, Rark, teach me to swim. ah quote from Makut, Goblin Casualty.
00:36:10
Speaker
So this card is literally a dam holding back water. So if you give it flying, you have to sacrifice it because it's not holding the water back. It's doing nothing.
00:36:20
Speaker
Whenever it leaves the battlefield, that water floats floods the battlefield and does damage to your creatures, your non-blue creatures, who can probably, the blue creatures can probably swim. The creatures with flying can avoid the water.
00:36:33
Speaker
And it's equal to half the islands you have. So all of these little bits of mechanic build into the specific flavor of what's going on. And then of course you have the flavor text and the god the art, which is just beautiful Jeff Maricola art.
00:36:48
Speaker
And so this is just like a perfect little encapsulation of that concept of the, those mechanics and the flavor and everything coming together and kind of telling the story together.
00:37:00
Speaker
And so that's one of the things we talk about a lot on our show. We will talk Malthos topics. Like Taya said, we'll do Malthos set reviews. And so we're talking about random commons and uncommons and why it's so funny to me that the Daily Bugle land gives a creature menace or gives a legendary creature menace because it's what they're doing in the Spider-Man comics. They're declaring that Spider-Man is a menace.
00:37:26
Speaker
And then we don't even talk about like the actual good cards instead. We talk about these weird, funky things.
00:37:34
Speaker
I love it. Or we'll talk about. It's a very unique approach. Yeah, and one of my favorite episodes we've ever done that I think we should revisit at some point, Teo, was when we talked about kind of the idea of when a legendary creature is reprinted with a different color identity. Like, not reprinted, but when they have a new card that has a different color identity. Yeah, now we get that in the same set.
00:37:56
Speaker
You know before we were talking about cards that were like five years apart. True. Yeah. True. Yeah, like that. That's another one where it's just like that sort of concept is super fascinating to me, but it's a really small niche. And so what that ends up kind of doing is we do. There isn't a huge, giant audience for this, but when people kind of discover it, nobody else really does this. And so when we have new episodes, they listen to the new episodes because we're the only ones who kind of cover this really weird little corner.
00:38:26
Speaker
I think you touched on a really important point there. You know, as as content creators, ah it you know, looking around, there's no shortage of of Magic the Gathering content.
00:38:38
Speaker
Right. And if you type any card into YouTube or Google, you're going to get, you know, deck lists, you're going to get like a lot of the same content. So this, this unique approach kind of sets you apart. Right. Yeah.
00:38:59
Speaker
As far as I know, there aren't a whole lot of people doing it. So I find that really interesting, really refreshing. um You know, when people kind of think about, like, what can I do that's a little bit different?
00:39:11
Speaker
um then And it's something you can do that's different that you're really interested in or excited about. Exactly. Helps a lot. So we got ah another question from Cass.
00:39:23
Speaker
um Cass asks, what would you suggest are things you should prepare before starting your podcast? um Like ah a shes she's asking like a checklist of things to kind of go through to make make sure that you're prepared.
00:39:41
Speaker
So.
Starting a Podcast: Tips and Equipment
00:39:43
Speaker
I'll let Alex add after i go through it, but I was thinking about this since I saw the question while Alex was talking about Malthos. And, um you know, the first things are just, are do you have your basics? did you Did you get a good mic or do you have something to edit with?
00:40:01
Speaker
um Figuring out where you're going to publish your ah podcast, what hosting service you're going to use. Yeah. And the ah um i think having ah at least an outline of a plan for what your topics going to be on your first few episodes, because that's going to be when you kind of start to carve out your niches.
00:40:30
Speaker
what what are you know Like Ryan just said, there are so many magic content creators. What are you going to bring that's different from what everybody else is already doing? ah So i i would, you know, have that planned out and then just,
00:40:47
Speaker
um i would say plan to record a bit ahead of when you're going to release because it'll take you longer to edit than you think while you're getting used to editing.
00:40:58
Speaker
ah You'll want to have, know, all of that work done ah kind of in advance. So you can release your few, ah the few, your first few episodes at a regular basis, because if you're trying to establish an audience early, you know, being regular is one of the best things you can do. Once you're someone like Spice, you can release a new episode every four months and, you know, everyone's cool with it. But um but of course, whenever he releases anything, it's the most amazing bit of content ever. So ah it's... so
00:41:41
Speaker
Yeah. you ever attempt to record more than one episode in in a sitting or does that become a little too unwieldy? Oh, you're right, Joe. It, they, I was, yep, I'm sorry.
00:41:58
Speaker
Thank you for the reminder. Yeah.
00:42:02
Speaker
Yeah, I just i just watched this video ah on Spider-Man earlier today. It was very, very good.
00:42:15
Speaker
I liked it. But... um Yeah, going back to your question, we generally don't record. i don't think we've ever recorded two on the same day, but sometimes if opportunities align, we will record, you know, like twice in a week so we can get a week ahead of ah recording.
00:42:33
Speaker
Sometimes that lines up like that. Occasionally, if we miss like a normal recording night, we will record later and miss that week, but then be an episode ahead for the next week. Yeah.
00:42:44
Speaker
We've done that a few times. that There's a couple, like going way, way back. There's one or two big interview episodes we've done with some artists where we did just record with somebody for ah a big chunk of time and split that into a few episodes. But it's been many, many years since we've done that.
00:43:01
Speaker
ah Joe had a really good
Structure and Listener Engagement
00:43:03
Speaker
question. um So he asked, do you have any interesting starting bits you do for the podcast, such as pre-podcast discussions?
00:43:13
Speaker
uh, or a personal catch-up of of what you've experienced recently? Yeah, we start... before we even start recording, we have usually a 10 to 15 minute catch-up session, uh,
00:43:26
Speaker
yeah well before we even start recording we have usually a ten to fifteen minute catchup session ah just between ourselves, make sure we know what we're going to be talking about, make sure we know we're going to be over just to talk about things that are going on or things that may be interesting.
00:43:43
Speaker
But when we kick off an episode, we we we have a regular cadence, as Alex mentioned earlier, sometimes it gets off track before we even start. paul But ah we we have, ah and this is something I've seen other content creators say, we have a A starting phrase that we've always used that we always start the episode with, which is, Hello, Podwalkers. Welcome to another episode of Goblin Lore Podcast. ah And that's the first thing we say no matter what. It gets us kind of into that ah recording phase where we can then just talk about anything. And then we usually do introductions.
00:44:23
Speaker
ah And then ah do our questions of the week as we're doing introductions or right after we do introductions. which are something at least tangentially related to the main topic. ah for so if we can't come up with something, every so often we'll just do, ah what's something you're doing for your mental health recently? We've been a few of of those, but usually we can find something close, parallel, or actually related.
00:44:53
Speaker
who Yeah, like our last episode, um the ah um are We were doing an episode on Spider-Man, our previous one to our current one. are or no or didn't No, we did ask this during our recording that we did this week. It was which magic character are which ah superhero would you want to be in a magic setting with magic characters? So it was it was and yeah related to the topic. We were talking with Reinhard Suarez about ah superhero tropes and how a lot of them show up in magic.
00:45:29
Speaker
ah And so, yeah, we we did it. We did a bit of like a Marvel crossover question. you're always trying to find something ah related to, I think, it just be an icebreaker.
00:45:43
Speaker
yeah and sometimes it's it's helpful to get the conversation started, and sometimes it's just helpful, as you said, it's kind of an icebreaker to just get us into conversation mode, and then we can start the topic and move forward from there.
00:45:57
Speaker
Going back to planning, our question of the week is probably the most planning that we do for anything. is you know we We discuss it back and forth on Discord for a while, what we're going to what is going to be the question. ye do Do you take any suggestions from your Discord in regards to, like, topics?
00:46:16
Speaker
We do, and also Blue Sky. Like, the the idea of going back and covering previous Magic's story was a Blue Sky suggestion from a listener, and they suggested we started with Invasion, which is a block that both of us were interested in, so that was an easy choice to start with. But um I would say it's...
00:46:38
Speaker
it's When you're soliciting opinions, for us at least, the problem is just not getting enough opinions back. So, you know, that kind of goes to show, you know, that our overall engagement is a little lower unless it's Hobbs. Hobbs tends to get more attention and Alex isn't on social media at all. So getting any.
00:47:01
Speaker
Yeah. It's kind of nice, to be honest. yeah Yeah. So, yeah. No, but ah yeah, i do find it valuable to solicit feedback from your listeners. We asked in Discord fairly regularly, you know, if people have any suggestions and we've gotten really good suggestions that way.
00:47:23
Speaker
yeah Those are also our most dedicated listeners, so we know if they're saying something that that's probably important to, you know, quite a few of our listeners.
00:47:36
Speaker
So what are your thoughts on, um you know, recording if you're dealing with a bad day or, you know, something going on in your personal life? You know, the saying the show must go on.
00:47:50
Speaker
Oh no, that doesn't apply to us at all. We are, we are cancel happy. Sure. Yes. yeah And yeah. And some of that comes down to, you know, we're, we try, we try to practice what we preach. We talk about mental health being really important.
00:48:05
Speaker
If you need to take a break, you take a break. And that's Hobbs is been focused on training for his marathon. And he just said, Hey, I can keep editing for, for you guys, but I can't record. And so Tay and I are like, well, we'll, we'll keep recording.
00:48:19
Speaker
And so we've, We've kept the show going, the the the two of us in these months. point hobbs Hobbs is doing his marathon this weekend, and then at some point he'll be ready to come back. And that's great.
00:48:29
Speaker
And yeah, so we ah say one thing that is helpful is this is the way that we kind of get to to chat and hang out. um Honestly, even Hobbs, who's in the same city as me, I don't see him very often.
00:48:43
Speaker
Honestly, later in October, I'll be going out to CommandFest Tacoma, and that will... I will probably... Not even probably. By the end of that weekend, I will have seen Taya for more time this year than Hobbs, who lives maybe 15 miles away from me.
00:48:57
Speaker
And so talking on the podcast is one of the best ways that we have to hang out. And so that helps. That helps a lot. But ultimately, if something comes up, it just...
00:49:09
Speaker
take the night off, take the week off. We'll, we'll take a month off of the cast. If we need to, we've, we have done that where we just let everybody know we're not recording. Was it a couple of years ago? I think we just took November off or something.
00:49:20
Speaker
Yeah. We just, we just said there was too much going on. you know, yeah if everyone heads up. I think we, we did record an episode before the end of November to have something to jump into December with, but still we took, we took four, five weeks off.
00:49:36
Speaker
I felt that was gonna be the answer. And I do think that you know saying the show must go on is kind of an antiquated way of thinking. um So we we got another question from Cass.
00:49:49
Speaker
um Do you record through Discord? How do you capture the audio for your podcast? Yeah, I mentioned it briefly earlier, but we use Zencaster, which is a subscription ah recording platform that's designed for podcasters.
Adapting to Content Changes with Zencastr
00:50:05
Speaker
it It handles collecting all the audio tracks from everybody. is um you know So it makes it easy for editing because they all get sent to the ah the account and then whoever's doing the editing can just download them from there.
00:50:22
Speaker
ah It will do basic editing on its own too. It handles publishing um out to the various... ah podcast services so it's kind of a ah yeah that's our that's our recording tool that we use although discord works all right and that's you know even some bigger podcasts uh record on discord like the vorthos cast records on discord it's worked for them for years uh that's you know totally fine way to do it we we use discord before zencaster
00:50:57
Speaker
We ran into a few issues. though we we ran in there There were some issues that we ran into for multiple episodes, and then Hobbs is... eight I don't know how we he found Zencaster, but I think he just decided we needed something else, and and he found Zencaster, and it's been working for us ever since. But we used Discord for a long time.
00:51:17
Speaker
That might have been the first thing we did, too.
00:51:22
Speaker
All right. yeah Cass has follow-up question. what What did you feel like was the problem with Discord? ah some Just some technical things that I would guess probably aren't an issue now, but we were having some weird desyncing or where we'd be talking and it would be recorded.
00:51:43
Speaker
Because it was only recording on one side, we would have like some loss of audio occasionally. One of the nice things about Zencaster is that everybody is recording on their own side, and then those files are uploaded.
00:51:56
Speaker
So even in one case, we actually ran into an issue with Zencaster where I was I couldn't, like I had a guest on, it was just me and him and I couldn't hear him for just chunks of time. Like he just wouldn't send his audio to me, but it was still recording on his side.
00:52:11
Speaker
And so we were able, and fortunately it was ah only in the last few minutes of the, of the show, but I was kind of able to get the show finished and you couldn't really tell that there was a problem because it recorded both sides and we were able to put the conversation together.
00:52:27
Speaker
So Joe, um, mentions that, uh, their recent episode had that issue. So, um, they're, they're happy to hear about alternatives. Yeah. Um,
00:52:41
Speaker
so i'm I'm looking at the list of questions that I prepared to see if we've covered everything at this month because I kind of had our our own outline to go through. um But ah I guess that the one thing that we haven't talked about is um I mean, we're making fan content for a game controlled by a corporate entity. ah So it's like we don't really necessarily have control over what Wizard does. And then they could do things like throw the fastball that they did at Atlanta and say, oh, you're only getting three standard sets next year. So...
00:53:21
Speaker
uh or not three standard but three in-universe standard sets so we know we'll we'll only have story for three sets and there's a big gap between the second and third one time-wise so those are all things completely out of our control and i think we've talked a little bit already about the things we do to um you know, mitigate that by having other things to talk about and being flexible in everything. But, ah you know, it's it's not so applicable to like streaming, but if you're if you're basing your podcast on somebody else's property, you've gotta be ready for them to pull the rug out from underneath you.
00:54:02
Speaker
yeah and and be ready to have some conversations about it like a few years ago when well i don't know now that i think about it was more than a few years ago but there were some you know some issues with the story and they uh around the war of the spark and there were some just things that made magic story harder to talk about and hobbs and i very specifically decided to talk less about the story and to talk more community stuff more mental health focus which was always present or like let's go into some of these other topics that were present before, but kind of change the ratio and focus less on this one thing that we think is a bad place. And then, or, and then as that got better, it was like, well, let's go back and talk about how this is good. This is getting better. Now here's some things that are great. Here's some things that could still get better, but,
00:54:47
Speaker
Just kind of be ready to have those conversations, especially if it's a podcast you're doing with multiple people or yourself to kind of think about what you want to do and kind of be ready to shift, be ready to add things in or kind of change that balance of what you're talking about.
00:55:03
Speaker
Because it's, you know, um the Loregrafes have around a long time. there were, you know, people were kind of getting tired of doing it, but it was something wizards did that really put the last nail in the coffin. It was some of the... ah racial issues around the Strixhaven story. ah And then we just decided we didn't want to cover story at that point or or even like rewrite that.
00:55:32
Speaker
ah So yeah know sometimes ah and getting out is also a possible answer. um But yeah, you just have to be prepared for it um since you don't know what what they're gonna do.
00:55:49
Speaker
Yeah, it it all comes back to the the flexibility thing. um Yeah. So i think we'll go ahead because we are coming up on 10 p.m. Eastern. um We'll do a ah last call for the audience for questions.
00:56:05
Speaker
And while we're doing that, Alex, Taya, if there's any other topics that you wanted to touch on, we can touch on those. Or um you could go ahead and use this time to tell us a little bit about...
00:56:18
Speaker
things that you may have coming up or where we could find you.
00:56:23
Speaker
Yeah. As Alex mentioned, we're, we're both going to be at Tacoma, Command Fest Tacoma, which is starts, we're going to be there specifically the Saturday and Sunday, the first and second.
00:56:35
Speaker
So just, just a month from today. ah Looking forward to that con. Yeah. Yeah, i'm I am, as mentioned earlier, not on social media, so there's not many places to find me. I am on the Goblin Lord Discord, which which is open for folks who who might be interested in joining.
00:56:58
Speaker
That's kind of it for me. and We could go ahead and put a link to that Discord in the the general chat, Tabletop Talks, ah so anyone who is interested in it.
00:57:09
Speaker
but and join. Sure. I see that and see that one person is typing, so at least there there's a question coming.
00:57:21
Speaker
ah Okay. yeah i um reno Yeah. So Reno mentioned, yeah, they they came to Lurk. However, um they had some interest in the hardware, so mics and mixers.
00:57:38
Speaker
I think we talked a little bit about the the mics, but were there any other hardware suggestions that you had? No, we don't since we don't record in person, we don't have to worry about mixers or anything like that. That's all done digitally in editing all the audio mixing.
00:57:56
Speaker
So, yeah, it really, ah the only hardware we have is the mics. you pretty pretty low You said that it was ah an Elgato mic, correct?
00:58:09
Speaker
ah Elgato Wave 3. Okay. That is not the mic I used when I started. but the i am kind of embarrassed by my really poor all audio quality in that the first chunk of our show. but yeah I can honestly say you both sound great tonight.
00:58:29
Speaker
Yeah. um Well, I want to thank you both for coming out. um I think you you did a ah great job. And I learned, certainly learned a lot um today.
00:58:42
Speaker
um
00:58:45
Speaker
reno Reno mentions that they appreciate the Elgato suggestion. Gamer Dad Bob also mentioned that it's a great mic. So if you're listening, definitely check out that hardware.
00:58:58
Speaker
Yeah. but um But I appreciate you joining us tonight. You both did a great job. Next week, ah we we have another one coming up.
00:59:09
Speaker
I will actually be stepping back and Gene will be hosting. We'll be sitting down with CommandZoey. We'll be talking a little bit about streaming.
00:59:21
Speaker
So um if that interests you, please ah please try to join us. And thank you again. You're welcome. Thanks for inviting us. It was a really fun conversation.
00:59:33
Speaker
Absolutely. It's been a pleasure.
00:59:37
Speaker
Have a great night, everybody. Bye. Thank you. hello podwalkers you have been listening to the goblin lore podcast goblin more can be found on blue sky at goblin lo pod or by going to our linkt treee for all of our links especially to our discord and our discounts we welcome all feedback through social media or by joining our discord which is very active and now goblins i just want to remind you that goblins like snowflakes are only dangerous in numbers