The Glass Cannon Podcast - Cannon Fodder 1/17/24

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

The guys get excited about this week's season premiere of Time For Chaos, the continuation of Deadlands on Glass Cannon Labs, and new dice sets that are hitting the Glass Cannon Store! Plus, how to jump without a net as a GM and why the results can be even better than you expected. In Listener Mail, a controversial Crit/Fumble discussion, and how playing Roger Cumstone might influence Troy's Keeper style. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/O5SII3KhA-Y For more podcasts and livestreams, visit glasscannonnetwork.com and for hundreds of hours of exclusive shows and benefits, make your membership official and join Glass Cannon Nation today by becoming a subscriber at jointhenaish.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to Cannon Fodder. welcome to cannon fodder a behind the scenes look at the glass cannon network Yo! What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to Cannon Fodder. It is Wednesday, January 17th, 2024. Troy has thrown me off with some visual humor. For those listening on the pod, what in the hell is that? That is a little dude known as Haster, the Yellow King. You ever heard of him? Oh, dear. This is my Yellow King statue that I leave on my desk.

It's really one of the only things I have here besides the light that's supposed to make you not have seasonal affective disorder. I'm going to leave that on for the whole show. Yeah, that doesn't look creepy at all. Welcome back, everybody. It's a whole new FOD, a whole new week. Troy and I once again are starting off a week under the heavy hand of another storm. We were shoveling pre-show. The snow is coming down here on the East Coast.

And, man, I'll tell you, what drives me nuts is what drives me nuts. This is so bad. But I get up. I get up early. I make the kids lunches. I empty the dishwasher. I'm like looking outside. The snow's coming down.

It's all kind of piled up. The kids have a late opening today, which, by the way, pushes the recording of fodder back. And I'm like, they're going to ask me to go out and play in the snow. Like, I know they are. And like, do you know how much shit that I have to do after the long weekend to like get prepped and get ready for fodder and get ready for a live stream today that I'm doing for Deadlands? It was yesterday when this airs.

And they're just like, can we go outside? And I feel like a monster, Troy. I'm like, what happened to me? Because I'm just like, there's too much to do we can't do it you can't go play in the snow and then of course breakdown emotional breakdown and then it's like all right yeah go go play in the snow like we'll figure it out dude it's a real problem so i we usually work on bank holidays but i took off on friday and did my annual uh winter lake placid trip with a family and And it was funny. I left

here, no snow, went up there and we had like three feet of snow. It just constantly snowed. And I love it. My wife and I, we both love like the cold, the snow, everything. The kids are loving it. And then we got back home yesterday, which was Monday, if you're watching slash listening. And my mom was here watching my cat uh with her friend they'd like come up this is their little winter getaway uh to hang out and watch linus and then today they left and i'm like all right i gotta go shovel and i just see the kids got the day off from school because you got the delay we got the day off i don't even think it's that bad out there but it's just constant and so uh i mean it's great when you're a kid but as a parent i'm like all right gotta go gotta go play my pretend uh job good luck like with the awful work of like taking the kids getting

them all the ski pants and the boots on i always feel like such a goof going down because i imagine she thinks i'm just sitting down here playing video games yeah and uh i mean that's basically what you're doing troy is streaming balder's Gate 3. I feel like such an asshole. Today at noon. But no, she understands. But it is kind of shitty. I'd be like, Daddy's got to go stare at Asana tasks that I don't want to do. Daddy has to go delay the deadlines of Asana tasks.

Right. I have to go change some deadlines of Asana tasks. That takes a good hour. All right. Well, welcome back. We got some exciting news this week. Lots of news to get into. We're going to talk about a heavy role play episode in episode 17 of Campaign 2.

Europe. Very, very light on We Are Stupid, but there is a little mention in there. We're going to be targeting Troy LaValle in We Are Stupid. So keep an eye out for that. Keep an ear out for that. And then, of course, some listener mail. We're going to do a two-bagger today if we can fit it in. I got two great questiones I got to get to.

So let's kick it off quickly with the news. The biggest news. This is a big week. It's a season premiere week. It's a premiere week. Yeah. Tell them about it, Troy, because this is your baby. Okay.

Because this is your baby. Okay. Time for Chaos Season 2 is finally making its return to the Glass Cannon Network. We had this on the calendar all throughout last year, and it just kept getting bumped because it wasn't something I wanted to rush out. And then as it got to be later in the year, I'm like, you know what? This is going to be perfect to come out in January because we normally have slow content in january and we were pretty strong all the way through the end of the year so uh yeah it's coming out we've got uh four episodes in the can i think by the premiere we'll have five eps in the can for uh what we're planning to be another 20 episode season and uh the cast is loving it and it's a it's a totally different beast it's uh it's something that like i'm trying

to find peace with, not dreading to record, because I really want to enjoy doing it, but it's really stretching the boundaries of what I'm comfortable with. So I'm excited for people to see it, because this first ep is a banger. If you didn't watch season one,

I think you should go back and watch it, or if you stopped watching it, I'd say go back but i'm gonna i start with a very solid review i think like a recap of all of season one uh to kind of throw people uh right back into this and when i heard review i thought maybe it was a critical look at the role play of season one now here's what i didn't like about your performance ross it's a an. It's an airing of grievances to start the season. No, I do a solid recap that kind of encapsulates everything that happened. But, man, it's just a lot. I can't imagine what it's like to be a player.

That's this Friday. That's this Friday, 8 p.m. Eastern. On YouTube. On YouTube, yes. Not on Twitch, similar to Gatewalkers. This will be YouTube premieres. You can watch it live together with your friends at 8 p.m. in the niche. And you guys can all chat and everything. And some of us will be there hanging out.

Yeah. And then obviously it's available on YouTube. And the podcast will be available at midnight that night. So right at heading into Saturday. Yeah, that's the plan. You know, we just saw a lot of success moving Glass Cannon from Twitch to YouTube. So it's something we want to play around with more this year and kind of get back to doing more live Twitch stuff. So I'm excited.

I think we've seen like larger audiences for sure just because our subscriber base is a lot higher on YouTube. And I think it's a better UI for what we're trying to do. Yep. And you know what I love about it is the ability to, and I might be speaking out of turn here about what the average viewer, the average customer coming to the channel can do. I don't know if it's just a channel ownership thing. I don't think it is. But if you want, you can watch the video with the chat replay. Yeah.

So if you didn't watch it live, at least I know I can, but I don't think that that's, I don't think that that is a channel owner thing. I think that any viewer can come in and watch the chat replay. Do you know for sure? Is that how it works for?

I'm positive you can because I'm locked in as myself on my phone and I like to go back and check out the chat replays. Yeah, so you have the option of like- Yeah, so it's great to just,

to be able to see that interaction, see the reactions that people have all in one place as opposed to two different places like we had it last season. So very much looking forward to that. And speaking of live content on Twitch, you are live actual today, the day of this release, Wednesday, January 17th. You are live on our Twitch channel playing more Baldur's Gate 3, 1 p.m. today. Dude, I'm so into this. I finally played a session off air, which made people a bit upset about.

But I was like, you know what? I am just loving this game, and I don't have enough time to really delve into it. I'm always doing it live. So I was like, fuck it. I'm going to play. I've got like an hour. And I think I did like an hour and a half. It is so phenomenal.

And the space with which I was playing it, I don't think I quite realized its brilliance. But now that I'm spending some more time with it consistently, it is just such an amazing, amazing game. So I don't know. I'd like to see it all the way through. Are you playing it on PS5? Yeah, I'm playing on PS5. Okay. And you're liking the interface and everything?

Oh, my God, yeah. The controller use is very easy and simple. Yeah, it's fantastic. You know, it's one of those games that sometimes you just have to sit down and be like, I'm just going to do some inventory management, or I'm just going to look at my spells and stuff like that. I love that. I love those kind of games where you're like, I know

I don't really want to get into it today. I just want to do a little cleanup. I just love that kind of stuff. I used to do that on Dragon Age Inquisition all the time. I was like, you know what? I'm just going to look at my weapons today. But this is great. I'll sort by weight and I'm like, why did I pick up that crate? I don't need that.

It's like you're carrying around a barrel of beer and it's in a ridiculous weight. You're like, when did I pick this up? I haven't had any encumbrance issues yet, but I know they're coming, so I'm just trying to get ahead of it. And then I'll be like, what? I've got this magical fucking sword that no one's using and I'll have to look and see who can use it.

But I mean, it's just, it's a real wonderful game. And it kind of gets me itching to like play a little 5e before it switches over to 6. Yeah. This is fun. There's some, like the bonus action. I really like the bonus action. I try to really make use of it because it's so tactical. All these combats are so tactical.

And you really have to like kitchen sink some of them because you'll just stumble into something where you're third level and you're fighting a creature that's sixth level. And you're like, I either got to flee or be like really on top of my shit. And so I was fighting this huge spider off air and like huge. And it was just – it was a – it could phase. It could like plane shift to like phase right next to you and just poison all of you. I'm like, holy, this is really hard. And I noticed that it kept walking on a web. So I shot a firebolt to the web, burned the web.

It fell and lost half of its hit points. And then it started walking over this pit, and I burned the web, and it fell straight to the underdark, and it was gone. And then I just had to clean up the mobs. So you get a huge XP boost and you know, you really have to like think at the whole, whole board, but it's, it's getting,

it's like getting my juices flowing for a tactical combat. That's great. That's great. Uh, no tactical combat, uh, in this week's GCP. We'll get to that in a second.

I'm also streaming this week live on Twitch this Friday. Uh, I did a Friday 12 Eastern slot last week. I'm going to do it again this week and and we're going to keep playing Returnal, which I did play off-air. I told people I was going to play it off-air because I was like, I'm playing this game. I'm having too much fun.

And don't worry. I made no progress because it is impossibly difficult, and I will not be finishing the game. It is too hard. It is like Souls-level hard minimum. Really? Yeah. Wow. So you've got to take your time be very cautious on every i have fought the first boss like four times and that doesn't

sound like a lot but the problem is you have to repeat the entire board each time to beat the to get to the boss so it's like yeah and it's not like bonfire it's not a miserable experience because every time the board's completely new and everything's changes shifted shifts new weapons new abilities new boosts new armor new magic like every single run and it's fun it's a lot of fun but it's hard man and i like last time i was off air and i was like i got what i need i'm going in you know and i took the boss fight the farthest. I had taken it yet, but then I died. I was like, God damn it.

So it, you know, if I beat this thing, it's going to be amazing. It's going to be worth it. My video, like Instagram and TikTok algorithm is just like spamming me with Elden Ring videos. And I haven't played since I platinum debt. But it's really like make me think it's time to get back into fucking. I did two full runs. I've never done or something. I did two full runs.

Absolutely loved it. And I've got a third one on deck, which is I think your initial runs. Like I've never done the full strength and full. What's the stat where you wear heavier armor? You know, those two things. Endurance. Yeah. So like You know, those two things. Yeah. So like big armor,

big two handed weapon, no shield kind of run. I haven't done yet. So I'm looking forward to that, but I, you know, we'll, we'll,

we'll see one of these days, but I'm glad I'm playing this one. I was going to wait for the DLC. I was going to like, I'll just wait for the DLC and then do like a true new run. Cause sometimes like you have to be halfway through the game to unlock the DLC. Also unlock the DLC. Also live this week is the,

we continue, actually, I should say, Glass Cannon Labs Deadlands is continuing, but if you, it was yesterday, meaning Tuesday this week, we had to do a session.

So if you missed it and you're just hearing about this, watch the VOD on our Twitch channel, because it's coming back next Thursday, the 25th. So next Thursday, the 25th is part four, but you might have missed part three, which was yesterday. So check that out if you did miss it. And then one more piece here before we get into the episode, which was a note McD sent me. He wants us to know that – and it's so funny because you brought it up in GCP episode 17 is the cast dice that were crafted in the Norse foundry. The forge. In the forge of the Norse.

And we had a lot of just logistical problems with it that were hard to pin down. It's nobody's fault. Just like shit got – wires were crossed or whatever. But now it's all been squared away and it should be coming and available on the website this week. So keep an eye out to our social channels because sometimes this week you should see those

go up on sale. Unique dice sets for each player with unique boxes. Carved dice boxes for each player. So it's kind of fun. If you guys want to check that out, keep an eye on our socials for that. Yeah,

they're fun. Angeline, who does all of our tour posters, they created these designs on the boxes based on our personalities and suggestions we made to them. And they're, I mean, they're all great and unique in their own way.

And they were available at the Philly show, but yours and mine were like stuck on a boat near China. And so they never made it over. We finally got those in, but getting them to our, uh, our merch purveyor and getting all the photos up, uh, those, if those are out this week, uh, they're going to be in super limited quantities and ours have never been sold. So like, uh, if you're interested in buying them, uh, make sure you get them because once they run out of stock i don't know when we'll get them back let's get into the episode so gcp episode 17 is a heavy role play episode we're kind of delving into the mystery here as we come across our first real what i would call big like deposition right like we go to paul mosby's farm to interview a witness, a couple,

perhaps witnesses, or actually, it was just interview Paul Mosby, who apparently had an incident with a Gorga. And we should just talk to this person. But when we get there, we find out there's also something going on with his son. And so this sort of combo led to two different, quote, unquote, interrogations, where we asked these people what their experiences were and what had happened to them and we start to piece you know little bits of clues together and uh this is where we come into we are stupid so uh professor eric wanted to highlight uh he said no notes in terms of rules on this week's episode, obviously. But he wanted to highlight that Troy LaValle is doing an unbelievable job GMing.

He said, I'm not going to say anything else because he's running it. He's running Gatewalkers. He knows it really well. And he's like, he did stuff in this that was just GM level stuff that was phenomenal. And so I wanted to share that with you and then also remind everyone that the best way to get and keep a job here at the Glass Cannon Network is to lay offerings at the ego of Troy LaValle.

It's true. My love language is praise. Talk to me about what he's talking about. Obviously, you can't go into too much detail. But here's what I'm guessing. I'm guessing Palmose Beast pomo's beast farm doesn't have a whole lot in the book and you kind of brought it to life i don't know talk to me about what what's happening i'm hesitant to say too much i think yeah i know it's a weird situation

because we're still in the middle of the mystery yeah and like when i think that i don't know if you guys maybe it's something that i'm imposing upon you because I feel this way. But I think there's a tendency out there that like when stuff is being added to the adventure or changed, that a player may scoff at knowing that. So can we just – there's no way that what you've come up with is better than what the adventure writers did. Maybe it's just something that I feel like. Sometimes I'm like, this isn't it. That's exactly how you feel. That is not how I feel. I impress that upon people. So I'm hesitant to say what's in the book or what's not. But I will say that over the next few weeks, there is very little in the book about what's to go down.

And so – but I think that there are ways that these next few sessions could be handled by some GMs where it's just a lot of rolling and very little role playing and we just move on to the next thing. But I wasn't interested in doing that. I was interested in just kind of playing with you guys to give you guys an opportunity to role play. You know, we just came out of a big dungeon. I wanted a chance for you guys to talk more. And I think the best way to do that is just to present you with NPCs and give them some quirks and see what happens. And I think what really helps is like, I know what's going on really well i think i've done i've done my homework

and so what i'm doing is this sort of experimental uh gm tactic i don't want to call it where i'm just kind of like uh you ever heard the expression jumping off a cliff and building your wings on the way down yeah yeah this is kind of what I'm doing. I'm just starting with something that I don't really know where it's going to go, like an improv game, like a Harold improv, and seeing what you guys latch onto and then just playing with you and throughout the course of that play,

seeing if I can bring in story elements. And that's kind of what happened here. It's funny. There's no way i can uh no way i can say this without sounding conceited but i just it while i was in the moment and this used to happen when i did plays on stage i was just i'd be like oh man i am in the zone right now i could like i could step outside of myself and like watch myself in threes like i could watch myself on stage and you just knew in some performances,

like, oh man, I am in the pocket right now. And I just, I felt like that in the episode because I was surprising myself. I was like, oh man, I am making it rain out here. And I have, I'm looking at my computer and there's just, there's nothing there. It's just like, we're playing and doing stuff like that. And I, you know, it helps having thousands of hours

of practice in front of me. But it was really, really cool. And with these people. With these people, yeah. With these players. We've toured the country together. It makes a big, big difference. But I was just like really surprising myself.

And it's something that I'm trying to do a lot more of. And I've talked about this before. But to see it actually work in practice was a cool moment. I'm going to come at you a little bit here because a i don't like you hearing i don't like hearing you talk so greatly about yourself i understand you gotta knock you down a peg but i also um i don't think this is helpful for anyone to hear how great you are you talk about how great you are so let's see how we can uh yeah i want to give something practical that can help somebody right which is like you said you were prepping less less than ever these days because of uh how you wanted to

approach this new game now part of that fits into what you're saying right here but part of it doesn't jive with me which is you know you saying you know this adventure so well you did your homework like you also said you were prepping less. So what's the truth here? Is it because having you read more of this adventure that total than you ever read of giant slayer? Yeah, for sure. For sure. But what does it mean when you say you're prepping less than because I'm

prepping less of the interactions? Like I don't have dialogue written out. Whereas in the past, maybe I would have snippets of dialogue or whole speeches ready to go that i would have to change in the moment based on what you guys said i'm not doing any of that i'm just like really tapping into what's happening man i wish i could i kind of want to tell you more because it would be helpful like i don't just pat myself on the back um it's funny so francis does the video editing and i've been doing the audio editing

but i'm training him on the audio editing to take this off my plate. And so we did this episode together. And so we're on a – what's that? Fucking Zoom call while I'm logged in to the work computer from my home and I'm editing there and I'm stopping to like explain why I'm making a certain cut or why I'm changing something. to like explain why I'm making a certain cut or why I'm changing something. And throughout the course of this episode, there was only one edit. It was almost a completely unedited episode. And there was one little bad start to training. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

this is what it's always like, but it's funny. I mean, it was almost the first perfect episode, perfect episode and sort of no edits. I I've never had a no edit episode. Maybe you have, I think you maybe have,

but I've done some no edit episodes of blood of the wild um uh i there might have been one or two of legacy the ancients but blood of the wild has a handful already yeah of of perfect uh apps just because jared and mary lou uh and paula to a certain extent as well are so accustomed to live play that it just it helps make the edit a little bit easier. Oh, my God. When we switched in COVID, put Giant Slayer and Androids on hold and started playing more, I mean, those years of being live or recording without editing and also doing live shows, it has completely changed how we do things. I think back to early GCP. I mean, I'd be making edits every three seconds, even in role play episodes.

Just like, oh, that was clunkier. That was like, it just doesn't happen anymore. The edits are so easy. And I purposely leave stuff in maybe other podcasts with edit out because I want you to see a little bit how the sausage is made. Rawness. I want it to seem raw. But this one had like one thing where like you went to talk and I said I started to talk and then I stopped to let you finish. And I just cut that out.

That was the only cut in the episode. But anyways, it wasn't a great episode for him to learn my process. However, during it, I was pausing and explaining like, so this here, I just completely made up. And they kind of latched onto it. So then I just – I was giving him like a director's cut of explaining like my process. And he was like, man, this would be so good for people to know. I'm like, I know, but I can't, I feel, I don't really want to talk about it too much. But then later I'd be like, all right, you see right here in this moment is when I realize that I can tie this in to something

in the larger narrative. And then, so I was like going through my process while watching it with him. But what I will say is that, fuck, I really don't want to give too much away. All right. So for example, when Jiminy is like, the devil's going to take me away. I just thought that was a funny joke that I could make to make you guys laugh. And that was supposed to be the end of it. But when you latched onto it, I just turned it into something else. And it ended up being, in my opinion, the highlight of the episode when Brother Ramius is conducting this. Yeah, it was so intense. But the thing is, like, I have in my brain important things to get out to you guys or

to like, that the adventure doesn't, wouldn't explicitly tell the players that I think would really help you guys along the way. So I'm just – as you become interested in things, I'm finding ways to get that information out through role play. Well, this brings me to my next and final question for this one because we are at an important juncture in the story in that I can't dig too deep here. here. It's not the time to go digging into process and the mystery because we're really at, we're just at the, what, we're just seeing what's above the surface right now. Like there's so much beneath and I don't want to try to push you into spoiling things at all. However, from a GM standpoint, this is my final question. And you just started saying this, like, how do you determine the pace at which you trickle clues, right? Like, because you have to get us a certain amount of information to move the story forward in some way.

And you want that. I mean, do you completely control that is, I guess, another question is like, do you sometimes hold back? Because I don't recall a lot of die rolls in this episode. Do you guys roll before you talk to Paul Mosby? And then I say, based on the results of that, we'll see what information comes out. Right, but it all kind of felt like it came out of role play. And, you know, I don't know.

I guess I'm just like, is there a methodology to how many clues you get in an episode, right? That kind of thing. Like, was there one major thing in this episode that we figured out that even if we don't know it's major yet, did you release that by your decision? Or did that come because of a dice roll?

Like there's information you got and there's information you missed based on your roles. Now I imagine there are GMs out there that are running this. There will be like, all right, so you go to Par Mosby's farm. Everybody roll one of these four checks. And you roll those checks and you're like, this is what you learned at Paul Mosby's farm.

You learned this, this, and this. All right, so now what do you guys want to do? You want to rest and go to the Thin Lands Farm? And that's it. Perfect. I'm 100% sure there are people who run things like that. That's my kind of game. No, I enjoy it.

I know everybody else really enjoys these extended role play kind of things. But I just like – I'm greedy for the clues. I'm like, just give me the clues. Well, here's the thing is what we did allowed you to get those same clues that, you know, another game might get without the role play. But I was also able to layer in some very interesting things about the deeper mystery going on here. That you would have – there's no way you would have got it. In fact, I think it's possible you wouldn't even get it until like much later in the story. And it wouldn't have the same impact.

Because now – And you, as the GM, would not have had as much fun weaving that together. Because you wouldn't have the same impact because now and you as the gm would not have had as much fun weaving that together because you wouldn't have had that opportunity like you said yourself some of these opportunities came up to you in the moment you didn't think of them while you were prepping the episode no i just i kind of listened to what you guys are interested in and roll with it and then as i'm doing that i'm like oh i'm thinking live you know because we're not cutting we're not editing i'm like oh God, this could be a great opportunity to start trickling in something here that's not even explicitly said in the book. Because I know when you guys realize something later, it's going to have so much more I just – I read what's in the book and say, interesting. Okay, now let's go play our game and see what happens. And if it's close to what the book is doing, great.

If it's exactly like the book, great. If it's something completely different, that's okay too. And Time for Chaos has really given me the confidence to do that. Now, the difficult thing is when you're doing this and you're giving the players sort of the keys to the car, When you're doing this and you're giving the players sort of the keys to the car, the difficulty is like if their choices or what they're interested in isn't interesting, you as a GM then have to find a way to pivot it into something interesting or like just let them know that like this line of thinking is not going to lead anywhere. And that's tricky because sometimes I think – and I've done this before. You can let it go on for too long and you know that like this isn't going to lead anywhere. And that's tricky because sometimes I think, and I've done this before, you can let it go on for too long and you know that this isn't going to lead to anything. And maybe it's because you're sitting there thinking like, can I turn this into something? And then you realize you can't.

Other times it's like they're just harping on something that is a dead end. And sometimes you have to be like, all right, so you talk to him for a little while and there's really nothing else you're going to get out of him. And you've got to be comfortable doing that as well. Yeah, you know what? a while and there's really nothing else you're going to get out of him and you got to be comfortable doing that as well yeah you know what i mean i kind of felt if i'm honest i kind of felt like that in the very very beginning of the episode i didn't like the approach of anyone at the table from what i recall this was a while ago to the uh the scratched in symbol on the floor like that was the big cliffhanger of the previous episode

yeah we begin the episode in the room and you're kind of like so where are you headed pa mosby's farm and i'm like hold on a second like and people are like debating like the thin lands farms or pa mosby's farm let's just go to Palm Osby. You know what I mean? And I'm just like, how are we not talking about the elephant in the room, right? Like someone did this. And my first instinct, my meta instinct was that there was nothing there. And there was nothing we were going to find out from that thing. It was just meant to creep us out and you had nothing to add to it. And maybe some of the players kind of picked up on that, but I was like, I can't in good conscience as a character, not be like, where did this come from? Who heard what? Nobody heard anything. What's the symbol? What's the history of this symbol? You know what I mean?

So like, I don't know. What was your feelings on that moment? Did you kind of get to a point where you got, were you almost like, I got to tell them, like, you're not going to get anything from this. It's just meant to creep you out. Now, can you move on? I think I just, in my brain, I was trying to think, I was just trying to know what your guys plan were so was so i could start thinking about what to do yeah and so i just forgot maybe that like you guys just found this and that it might have some impact on you you know yeah um i just wanted some direction on where we were going i i it's just i think it was just callous uh carelessness like i should have been like what do you guys do about this star here?

Yeah. It wasn't that it wasn't important. I think I just wanted to like start mentally preparing for what you guys were going to do because Thin Lance Farms is much different from Paul Mosby's farm. And so in my head, I have to like start thinking about

how am I going to make this interesting? Yeah, it makes sense. It makes sense. But I don't, we didn't really get much from that symbol, but it did creep the hell out of me. And I don't know. I think it's important that someone is able to get that close to us without being detected. Like that is freaky.

Right. And rightfully so. And we don't need all the answers today, but it's just something to think about. We're cooking. I mean, it's really like we're in it now. I think that the Giant Slayer, it was like right around episode 12, the orc raid and Jasun, the Jasun situation where you've, that's what really

hooked people. And I wish it didn't take 12 episodes to do that. But I kind of think the same thing is happening here. It's not that those first, the initial episodes don't have that same pop. It's just now, now everyone's on, everyone kind of understands what the situation is here. We've got a new character.

We've lost a character. And the mystery, while still very opaque, is starting to coalesce in weird ways. And your enemy seems really close now. At first, it was this esoteric, like, Bolan, he must be a problem. And then you realize, oh, there's somebody else. But now you're seeing things in alleyways. You're seeing symbols outside your door. You're talking to people who have been haunted by visions through two generations.

Like, what the fuck is going on here? Right. And we're talking about an enemy who is potentially millennia old, right? Yeah. So, yeah, it is a daunting task With more to come next week obviously So we'll keep digging into it next week But for now let's get in some listener mail Before we head out of here

Good buddy There he is Mr. Nick Lowe ladies and gentlemen And the ones and twos You gotta get your brain out of on it Time for the system to make You gotta cue that fucking kick All right, let's kick it off with Journalist Joe from the UK. Journalist Joe has appeared on the fodder before. Journalist Joe asks the hard-hitting questions.

Oh, boy. Journalist Joe is good at what he does. You know what he's not good at, Journalist Joe from the UK? Spelling? Spelling the word favorite. Did he put a U in there? He puts a U in there with that dummy. Y'all take a left to hell.

I mean, for real, like, it's just so funny to me how Google Docs is like, that is misspelled. Favorite. Really? You're just an American program? It's a different setting. You have to pour tea all over your keyboard. Right. Journalist Joe asked a question I think is going to come up.

Ready for some hot debate on the boards? He starts to write off. I know there's a mixed opinion on this, but I love, capital L-O-V-E, fan crits and fumbles. The randomness, unbalanced and often universe-breaking nature of them is pure entertainment to me. As it seems, one eStarfinder content on the network is not going to make a comeback. Could we get a regular segment where Skid reads A&A submissions and gives a brutally honest review? No, I don't think that that's going to happen anytime soon. But he says, one of my favorite parts, is where he misspelled it, of every show is each time a Natty 20 or Natty 1 is rolled, the mixture of dread and

excitement is palpable. Could I kill a PC? Or more likely, will Skid brand me an idiot? Either way, I can't wait. So it is a good question. This is something we've discussed internally a few times. I just wanted to kind of bring it out there, put it out there in the ether for people to talk about it. People may not know this that are not on certain boards, whether it be subreddit or Discord.

There's a lot of people that do not like fan crits and fumbles because they think that they they foul up the game balance and the game balance is very important to uh ensuring both that the characters survive when they're meant to and don't survive when they're meant to right like the the what is meant to happen the correct fate of the story in their estimation gets messed with uh on the other hand i think a lot of people just think they're fun and funny, and the more dangerous and the more imbalanced, the better. Can I ask you where you stand on it as a gamer, Troy? Not as a businessman, as a gamer. I can't divorce the two because they're so important.

They are one. They have become one. I think it is a very fun way for our subscribers to interact and engage with our content and for us to engage with them. I think it's great. I think that they – despite our best efforts, we've had a hard time curating them because there's just so many more subscribers than there were initially. It was a lot easier to like update the spreadsheet every once in a while and so sometimes things will come out and be like man that needed a that needed about four or five edits before it got to the show and so that's tricky and like i don't like the game breaking ones but i think i've also become better at just like restating them in the game world right you know it's like all right well

that didn't happen uh an alien didn't pop out of the sky. It was good. This is that Strange Aeons recently. It was like a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy one, I think. And I was like, well, we'll say that you fell back and something hit on your head. So I like to restate them. That's for flavor's sake. That's just kind of fun for the audience.

It's just like making sure that the game world isn't breaking. But I understand people not liking them. I think it's tricky. I think it's also tricky that they worked differently in first edition than they do in second edition, where crits are so more – they just happen more often. But we're still only doing them on Nat 20s and Nat 1s. So, I mean, I think overall I like them. I think that they just need a type of editing that we are currently unable to like – they need more care than we're able to give them with ours. blame us, not the submitters, for imbalanced or silly crits and fumbles that take you out of it, right? If your complaint is that they take me out of the story, you can blame us for that. It's just something that has been really, really hard for us to devote time to with all the other stuff that we have going on, the proper curating of those submissions. So that's on us.

That said, I think that curating during the show is perfectly fine. You know what I mean? I think tweaking the GM is always in control of the game. There's plenty of times in Blood of the Wild where Jared just says, I'm not even pulling a Cranford or Fancritter fumble on this one. I don't want to. And there's reasons for that. And the GM is always in control

the gm can always change whatever they want if something seems ridiculous however um i agree that i love them love them because it is a way to see all of the different people that we don't know that are a part of our show you know what i mean and and to hear their names and where they're from what what countries they're from you know uh what far off places it's just fantastic uh we had one recently i don't know if the episodes aired or not but uh we had one recently that i was editing that was from uh alaska and i was like every time i see one from alaska i'm just like thank you so much for listening to our show. And I hope you get out. I hope it's okay. I hope you survive. Exactly. I do. I just, I love the interaction and I am never concerned. Look, I don't run any Pathfinder games on this network anymore. If I did, I

wouldn't be concerned in the least with these things. I would change anything I wanted on the fly as a GM that I felt was crazy. You know, if it was like, if you roll this failure, you're frightened five. I'd be like, okay, you're frightened two. Okay, and let's move on. Like, I don't care about maintaining the sanctity of the original submission. What I care about is hearing their name and hearing where they're from and letting them know that we appreciate them being a fan. That's it.

Yeah. That's what they're there for. I think we all have to have a better understanding that like Joe's going to read it and then the GM is going to decide how it actually works. And everyone just has to be okay with that. Right. And yeah, I agree that the game system has been built to not have these happen. The game system is built to have crits be as rewarding as they're meant to be and fumbles be not as painful as they're meant to be. We just don't play that game. Our game has a little bit more swings. It has a little bit

more danger and a little bit more, you know, reward for players, right? There's a little bit more that can go their way. There's a little bit less that can go their way. The question you have to end up asking yourself is is the game balanced in our game right is that does as many bad things happen as good things for the players and i would venture to say yes yeah i think there's only correct me if i'm wrong only been one character death that resulted from a fan fumble which i I think was in Raiders in Raiders. Yeah. Um,

that was, and that was, but that also resulted, uh, it just, that was coincidental more than anything else. Yeah. It,

it came from a die roll of a homebrew rule to famous 86, 69. Yeah. Yeah. So there were multiple layers to that. It was a homebrew sort of thing. 86-69 rule. Yeah, yeah. So there were multiple layers to that. It was a homebrew sort of thing. People don't like that. I get it.

But at the end of the day, let's boil down what it really was. A die roll. Yeah. It happened because of an extremely unlikely die roll. And that's what kills characters. It's fine. It's fine. The dice know.

They know. They know. They know it's your time. Anyway, thanks, journalist Joe. One more before we get out of here. And this goes back to the premiere of Time for Chaos. I hesitate to even ask this question because I feel like you're going to say something mean about me. What?

Nick from Vancouver. Thank you for writing in. Nick from Vancouver. Nick! Looking back. This is for you, Troy. This is a question for Troy. hoover looking back this is for you troy this is a question for troy looking back on being a player on get in the trunk has it informed you in any way and how you approach running call of cthulhu

type games have you found any little things that you would not have discovered if you were never a player in that sort of mystery type game that you you know transfer over to being a gm um trying to think you know one of the things i always notice is like i wear i want my players to take really good notes but then i take shitty notes can't you gotta practice what you preach a little bit but i'm like man you're really missing out not taking notes here and then i still like well why am i taking notes i need to take shitty notes. I'm like, you got to practice what you preach a little bit. But I'm like, man, you're really missing out on not taking notes here. And then I still like, well,

why am I taking notes? I need to take better notes. But, you know, I think that I've definitely been influenced by the masterful way with which you handle

multi, multi location scenes. You know what I mean? Like when one or two investigators are over here and one or two investigators are over here and one or two over there. That's definitely informed the way that I do things.

In Call of Cthulhu, I think they split up a little less than I'd like them to, but at the same time, it's kind of the only thing that's going to keep them alive because you never know. It's like, you know what? The two of us will go over there. I'm thinking like, you are both going to die if that happens if all four of you go only one of

you will die right you know so it's it's a little tricky you're both going to die yeah yeah and i feel like in in in so far in delta green the way that these scenarios have been paced out you're kind of always doing stuff to investigate and then getting into trouble but it's not you're not faced with death kind of until the end or you know you can do wrong turned into death maybe we just haven't with call of cthulhu and masks in general like you could be like you know why don't we just start here and go check this out and be like get killed uh with something like that like they're not written in such a way that it's like the end of the section is your big fight.

You know, those tend to have big moments as well, but like there's so many other ways to die on the way to there. But you know, I definitely, definitely been influenced by that. I mean, you'll,

you'll see it. You'll see it right away in, in the new season. And there were a lot of episodes of last year of time for chaos. Did you, you definitely know that I'm, I'm cribbing from you and in the new season. There were a lot of episodes of last year of Time for Chaos. You definitely know that I'm cribbing from you in the way. It's just like, hold on one second. Now let's go back to the hallway. And I love being able to do that.

And it gets the players being like, ah, ah, ah, come on. It's mini Cliffies. I fucking hate you. It's a bunch of mini Cliffies. Yeah. That's really fun. I will say, speaking to your notes thing, that that's something that I took, Nick, when I was running Delta Green, that I took from my one season of playing Delta Green, is I set out to take really good notes. I was like, I am going to solve this goddamn mystery.

I can never solve anything. But this time, I'm going to do it. And I really struggled. And I really, you know, I took good notes for a little while and then I just fell off. And even with my good notes, I couldn't figure anything out. And I got frustrated with it and stuff like that. And it definitely informed me as a handler that handholding is okay. You know, that there are times when you can just disseminate information and repeat information and just, you know, don't get on the player so much about

note-taking and don't punish them so much for not taking notes. Uh, because ultimately like you, you don't either. So shut up. I'm glad that you're kind of in that same zone. Uh, I like to lay everything out. And if you guys come to something on your own, it's, it's that much more rewarding and it's great. But if you don't, I'm not going to hold everything back i will uh walk you through it and be like well you think maybe this and this together could mean x and it just helps to for everybody to have fun and keep the story moving so yeah um anyway great question last thing from nick real quick anything i can look forward to in season two of time for chaos you You got any, like, is there like a little little nug? If you've watched any of the promos

we've dropped, you probably have an idea of where they're going. But I will say, I mean, right out the gate, there's stuff that goes down that even I wasn't prepared for. And I was like, all right, I guess this is going to be a part of this season. And, you know, one of the things that

I told them, you know, initially was like, all right, so guess this is going to be a part of this season. And one of the things that I told them initially was like, all right, so think of this season as like another arc for your character. You came in as brand new characters in season one. You started out in Peru, and then there was some time passing, and then it's a lot shorter. So think about like what direction you want to take your character and what are the secrets they want to get through? What do you want to deal with? And then let's see how through improvisation we can work through some of those things without knowing where the ending is going to be. And so they all kind of came in with very interesting things that right out of the gate, I'm just kind of testing immediately with them through improv. And, you know, just watching Ross Bryant just do unbelievable things right away and watching everyone just watch. It's fun. So I can't tell you too, too much, but I will say it gets crazy quick. Okay.

Yeah. All right. Good to know. That is going to wrap it up for this week of the FOD. Thank you as always for hanging out with us, for chilling with your boys, with your buddies. With us.

That's all you got. We got an encounter. No, I'm thinking about what's coming. We have an encounter coming up. The cliffy was danger descending upon the camp, was it not? Yeah, three Gorgas it looks like. Three Gorgas.

It gave you a handful last time, but now you're second level. Should be easy, right? More to talk about next week, including all of Professor Eric's notes on what we're about to do wrong. Looking forward to it. Guys, check us out on twitch.tv slash the glass counter for Troy and I's live streams.

Time for Chaos Season 2 premieres on Friday night. Gatewalkers is there on Thursday night on our YouTube channel. Check it out there. Thanks, everybody. Have a good one, and we'll see you next time. Bye. Peace on Up and Out. Thanks for listening to the Glass Cannon Network. For more podcasts and live streams, visit glasscannonnetwork.com.

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