The Glass Cannon Podcast - Cannon Fodder 12/13/23

Episode Date: December 13, 2023

It's the last Fod of the year! Troy and Joe do an extended Listener Mail as Naish questions are answered all throughout the guys' conversation about this week's episode of The Glass Cannon Podcast, all culminating the final question of the year: what's your favorite GCN episode of 2023? Happy Holidays to all! Cannon Fodder will return on Wednesday, January 3rd, 2024! Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/VlCzVsy1tN0 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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You are listening to the Glass Cannon Network, the premier source for role-playing game entertainment. Welcome to Cannon Fodder. welcome to cannon fodder a behind the scenes look at the glass cannon network yo what is going on everybody welcome back Welcome back to Cannon Fodder. It is Wednesday, December 13th, 2023, and I'm your old pal, Joe O'Brien. It's the last Cannon Fodder of the year. There'll be much listener mailing, and what's up, everybody? Welcome back. Hey. Hey, Merry Christmas, Troy. Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas, Joe. Merry Christmas, everyone. Yeah, I mean, you've been saying this for six weeks. I'm just now getting in the spirit. I'm just now really starting to feel it. I'm starting to dive fully into the music every single day. For me, it's only a couple weeks out from Christmas that I really, really dive in. That's crazy, because this is around the time where I start feeling sick that it's about to be over.

Oh, my God. You've got like another 13, 12 days of just sadness now. Dude, I'm telling you, you think people think I'm crazy when I start November 1st. It goes by so quickly. I'm like, how is there only 12 days left? It's just crazy. But now it's like I really jam it full. Polar Express tonight. Fucking all these light shows and shit every other night.

It's exciting. That's great. It is. And look at this. Cannafada releases, and it's 12 days till Christmas. What do you know? 12 days till Christmas. Look at us.

We know what we're doing. We know what we're doing. It's not our first rodeo. Welcome back, everybody. We got a great show for you today. We know what we're doing. It's not our first rodeo. Welcome back, everybody.

We got a great show for you today. Light on news because we're coming to the end of the year here. As Troy said, last FOD of the year. We're going to take a little holiday break two weeks off of FOD, and we will return on January whatever it is, third, I guess. Yeah, January 3rd. So today we're going to focus on the Glass Cannon podcast and a little extended listener mail today to say thank you to all of you for supporting us, for watching the show, for tuning in, for writing your questions. We love you guys. And so we'll answer a few more questions this week. But first, let's hit the news.

Wow. News of the week. Not much going on this week, but next week. And again, talk about it flying by. The Voyager season finale is already next week. Crazy pants. Crazy pants. Oh, my God.

It was a while to get the show off and running and up off the ground just because of scheduling and everything like that. We're like, when is this going to be able to release and blah, blah, blah. And now it's already over. It's so wild, but fantastic job to the whole Voyagers crew. I hope you guys are enjoying it. But yeah, the finale is next Monday night, a week before a week before Christmas. They're going to they're going to wrap up that story. So tune in for that live on Twitch, eight o'clock Eastern on Monday, the 18th of December. And then this is just more Twitch news.

I mentioned this before, but I said to save the date last week. Lock it in, Friday, December 29th, 8 p.m. Eastern, live on Twitch. Blood of the Wild Holiday Party. It's going to be called the Blood of the Wild Holiday Party. Blood of the Wild Christmas Party. It's going to be fantastic. Yeah, we're just going to get the crew together live, chat with the niche,

and talk and look back over the first year of Blood of the Wild. Look out for some exciting conversations. Maybe even some, I don't know, some shade thrown around. We'll see. We'll see. It should be an interesting and fun show.

If you're there live, we're going to be able to interact with you, answer your questions, and maybe get you in on perhaps some awards, voting for some awards for Blood of the Wild. We'll see how it goes. We're going to throw it together that day. So December 29th, 8 o'clock Eastern, live on Twitch. That's all I got for news. Is there anything else you want to talk about? Can we talk about that big secret thing? Or is that not talkaboutable? Dude, which big secret thing?

Well, there's a lot of big secret things. But the thing you teased visual only last week as we went off air. Yeah, I suppose we can. We just – We can say the facts of the case. The facts of the case as we – well, we know all the facts. as we, well, we know all the facts, but we recorded a one-shot of the Marvel Multiverse RPG in Glass Cannon Studios last week.

Yeah. It was after our fodder recording, so we weren't really sure if, you know, the studio was going to completely break down between the recording of fodder and the scheduled taping of this Marvel multiverse RPG one shot. But we did it. We got it done.

It's in edit now. We're hoping you see it. There's a lot of hoops that have to be jumped through because it's, you know, you're involving Disney. So I don't know when or if you'll ever see it. But the facts of the case are we played a a one-shot and it was great. It was fucking great. It was fantastic. You know, we've been working with them

for a while now. We got to do a lot of cool things with them this year. San Diego Comic-Con, New York Comic-Con. They did work with us at Gen Con as well. And we've been talking about doing some more stuff together. And we finally got this together. And it was the only other thing we've recorded in studio besides, like, a fodder. And yeah, just very, very exciting. It was something that I wrote and

pitched to them and they were like, sounds great. And we did it. And it was wonderful. I don't want to say anything about the cast. I want people to be excited when they see what we've put together. But you know, their plan is to get this out before Christmas. So we're turning this around real quickly. Uh, I'm actually right after we finished this call, going to start watching the video edit. I went through the audio edit.

It's long. And so now I got to sit and watch this video, make some last minute changes, and then we'll send it off to them for review. And, uh, you know, hopefully it was now that it's the 13th.

So yeah, hopefully we get, we get 12 days to get this up. I think that's the plan you should uh stay tuned to marvel's youtube channel for your old buddies from the glass cannon or our youtube channel if they don't like it very much i'm totally like yeah here we paid for it but yeah you can have it uh pay attention to our socials and everything like that for you know if and when this releases when we can post about it and everything like that so keep an eye out um the only thing i'll say about it is it was my favorite session yet of the marvel multi

was your favorite yeah it was pretty favorite yeah it was pretty fun and we've had a few fun ones so yeah that's that's saying something funny and intense and it just feels like a comic book at the end of the day it felt like a comic book slash comic book movie uh yeah time for chaos we are are still recording another episode yesterday i know people are chomping at the bit wondering when we're going to release it uh when i feel like it uh you know i no longer feel compelled and stressed to release things uh by a certain date or announce these things because it drives us crazy behind the scenes and it doesn't make any sense to do so. We'll release it when we're damn good and ready. But I think people who enjoy the show are going to really like it.

So far, we've got a few episodes in the can that are all so wildly different and just diving into the mystery of this new season. And fans of the show are going to be really excited. You can expect that in early, early, early 2024 yeah let's hope fingers crossed um okay well it's not 2025 like fingers crossed no it's still early like 2024 uh well yeah i just want it early early early 2024 that's all that's what i'm fingers crossing for. But we'll see. Again, like you said, let's not kill ourselves. Let's make sure that when we release it, it is – we're comfortable and we have the stock of episodes we need to make sure everybody – episode recordings aren't stressful. When episode recordings become stressful, you see a lack of return on investment of the time of all the performers. They're not relaxed. And when that happens, you get worse role play, worse game, worse story,

worse overall show. So it's a little secret we've unlocked over years of stressful performing. Yeah, it's just not worth it. And it doesn't move the needle either way. I think back to like I've used the Sopranos example before. They used to go a year and a half, two years, and now I get it. I'm like, there's a reason they did that. Like as a fan, like you want it to come out and I get that, but like, it'll be out and it'll be fantastic. And I have a pretty solid recap in episode one of season two that if you haven't watched season

one in a while, or maybe you never watched season one, you'll be able to jump right in. Awesome. All right. Let's talk about the glass cannon podcast episode 12 uh yeah it was a good one it actually was a good one look i like them all i i've been thoroughly enjoying campaign too but i feel like this is one of those apps one of those sessions let's say among friends that's got a little bit of everything, right? It's like, it has a little bit of everything. It starts off with intense mechanical role play kind of stuff, not a combat, but almost like a combat. Then it rolls into role playing. And then you get a little bit more combat.

And then you get more role playing and incredibly dramatic role playing at the end. So let's go back and review the app. I'll also say we're skipping. There is no We Are Stupid segment because we got a clean bill of health from Professor Eric. He wrote in, said no rules were violated in this episode, and he appreciated some of the things that we did. So let's start with the opening of the show

and dealing with Zephyr's poison. Zephyr's poison that lingers over from last week's episode. And we're doing a mixture of an antidote tincture that is made on the fly by Talitha. We have Brother Ramius doing treat poison, which is an action under the, what do you call it? The medicine skill tree thing. And all those mechanics, apparently, we're good. We were good. Look at us.

Yeah, yeah, look at us. And it worked out well. Zephyr makes her saves relatively quickly, and we get out of that sticky situation, which I'm happy about. And then we come across the Leshies. Of course, we don't know they're leshies at the start it's just through a doorway so this turns out to be a fantastic role play in my mind uh what a great and funny scene also incidentally it happens to be where you come out hard with your anti-leshy platform. Come out hard.

I mean, not just anti-leshy. Anti-anyone that likes leshies, which was, that's a bold statement, LaVallette. Just busting balls. Play whatever you want. I think they're dumb. I think bards are dumb, too. People love bards. Like what you like.

I don't care. I played a bard once i i didn't just i've played multiple bards but uh i didn't dislike the main bard that i played on our network but uh i also didn't like the class that much i was like i hate it i hate bards yeah it wasn't my favorite uh and believe me i look i ran a campaign where skid played an amazing bard all the way up to high level. And it was game breaking, like the way that it. Oh, yeah. Your allies. It's incredible.

I'm not saying there's something wrong with the class. I'm just saying it's not my bag of chips, especially when it comes to like having to perform. Right. Like having to actually. And when you're doing shows, right, you want to role play the singing or the dancing or the stand-up comedy or whatever it is. It's just not for me. I'd rather be a quiet killer. There's so much in this game that I don't like.

And I just like being outspoken and over-the-top exaggeration. But if you enjoy it, you should enjoy it. Who cares if I don't like it? Totally. All right. Well, let's talk about the Leshy role play. I just have a question. Where does this start in your preparation?

How do you first begin behind the scenes finding this voice for Wisteria, which to me was so anti-Leshy voice, and that's what made it so good and so funny. So how did this develop? Was there any prep to it, or was it just a spur of the moment decision? No prep to like what the voice was going to be until you guys started knocking. I didn't know what I was going to do, but when you guys Well, there were like five different ways we could have gone before knocking on that door. So

really, it's not like you had. You could have walked right in the second you came to the Treetop Fortress after you defeated the Oak Stewards and those sprites or whatever. You could have just walked right in that door. I believe it was unlocked, but on this side it's barred. Yeah. It gives you pause.

Now, if you guys just open the door and walk in, you see these two little squashes walking around, but where you guys did a parlay, isn't it romantic or from the last cannon? I was like, okay, well now I need to,

I need to come up with a voice here that is going to break expectations because I figured there's going to be a moment here of role play before they go in. Before they actually see the creature. How do I do a voice so there'll be a fun reveal? And so that just kind of came in the moment. And then I wanted to make it so that you could hear

that there was another character in there and then I was just like, well, let me just do an opposite weird voice because you're only going to hear that. Yeah, sure. Who's there? They're like, what the fuck is going on? And then you go in there and it's the reveal of these little squashes. And you know what?

The benefit of video, if you don't watch the video, you should watch this. There's a lot of fun stuff with these little pumpkin-headed guys walking around. But yeah, I don't know. That was kind of all in the moment, which is what I'm really trying to drive more and more towards with my GMing is less prep, more play. Yeah, you said that before.

I fucking hate prepping, man. I'm at the point – I'm trying to like find peace with it. I'm trying to find peace with it, but I'm such a – this perfectionism and this OCD-ness that is innate in me. perfectionism and this OCD-ness that is innate in me, it drains the fun out of this stuff sometimes. Because I hate prepping six hours for a one-hour show or for a two-hour show. I'm trying to find a way past it. But it's hard, especially with these pre-written adventure paths or something like Master Neolithic Tap.

There's so much stuff in there. You have to know that you can't really fuck around with it because if you miss a little thing later, you got to wedge it in somewhere else. And so it's tricky. It's really, really tricky. I haven't cracked the nut yet, but one of my goals for next year is like,

just try and make peace with the prep because the prep just, it ruins it for me. And I'm trying to get past it. Well, yeah, I mean,. And I don't, I'm trying to get past it. Well, yeah. I mean, what you're doing essentially, right? If you boil it down as you're building, you're spending hours and hours and hours and hours and hours constructing that net underneath the high wire. And then you just walk across the high wire and you didn't need a lot of that, right?

You don't fall. You never needed it. And you did all this work. Without the net, you can still do the whole act. There's just a little bit more risk, right? And in some ways, that's even more thrilling because you might have to not have a perfect show, but you might stumble upon something you never would have if you didn't have the net under you to catch you, right? That's sort of the metaphor that I see it as, is more risk, but there's also, you can get the same reward.

I think I've talked about Gary Vee on the show before, and I follow him on social media. He's wonderful. And he posted this thing the other day that was like, perfectionism is just another way that fear manifests. It's like your people who claim to be perfectionists, who are perfectionists, it all comes from a fear. And that fear manifests. It's like your people who claim to be perfectionists, who are perfectionists, it all comes from a fear. And that fear that he says is like, it's a fear of being judged. Because if you're not good enough, people are going to judge you. But in a way, I know I don't care about, I know that doesn't really bother me. I can go on the internet any day of the week and find people who don't like me, who are like armchair psychologists, who think they know everything about what goes on here at the Glass Catanergo, what goes on in my

head and all this stuff. And it really doesn't, it doesn't bother me. I wish that those people didn't feel that way. But like I, you know, I've, I've, I've built, I've, I'm responsible for that in some way in the way that I carry myself, but it doesn't, it doesn't really bother me. I can't let that get to me or bother me. Otherwise I can't move forward. So then I'm trying to diagnose what is this perfectionism. It's just because I want, it's a desire to want to do the best and be the best. And it's not that I care about like, because I can do my best and people will still hate it. So that doesn't bother me. It's a feeling of like, I did my best. You know what I mean?

When we walk off stage sometimes on Glass Cannon Live and I'm like, ugh. And I don't want to do it in front of you guys because I don't want you to feel bad if you had a good show. But I feel sick sometimes because I'm like, that wasn't it. And it was still a great show. I watched it later. It was still a great show. It's just a feeling you're chasing. I'm chasing trying to like, that was fucking great. That was great. And sometimes you feel it. Sometimes you don't. And sometimes you're like i'm chasing trying to like that was fucking great that was great and sometimes

you feel it sometimes you don't and sometimes you're like that was good and good is fine good is better than bad but it's that i want it to be i want everything to be great and that's that's hard it's hard because everything isn't great especially in something would what we do which is largely improvised and largely like not up to us. It's up to rolls of the dice that you've got to like immediately react to and it's hard. And then you get personalities and egos involved and people that want to win and they get angry when things don't work out. They can't always turn that into something interesting. It's really tricky. And even nine years in or eight years in, it's still a nut that we're constantly trying to crack.

Just a whole mix of psychological flaws it's all just people being people thrown in the mix together every additional person that you add adds complications you know what i mean for any show or piece of performance you know in any way uh but it can also be it can also be a great thing so it's um yeah it's a fine line but you know what i'm gonna i'm gonna just jump in and throw in a little listener mail here because we're doing a little mid-ap listener mail and weave it throughout. Listen to mail. Gotta get your brain out of on in time. Listen to mail.

Gotta cue that fucking beat. This question came in from Jeremy. Jeremy asks a question specifically for Troy that I thought was appropriate here. Are there any moments where you actually enjoy unplanned improv or does every addition of it just add more stress? You had spoken about, I don't want to do that role play. Sometimes I don't like doing improv. This show seemed like you were having a great time. So I think Jeremy and some of the listeners might be curious about what defines that line for you. I don't know. Maybe I'm contradicting

myself or maybe I've just in my efforts to try and not get so down about prep. I've changed my opinions on things. But my problem with improv is I can't control what other people do. Do you know what I mean? It's not like I need to. And as a perfectionist. As a control freak, that's hard. But as a performer, you can't want to do that. It's just like sometimes you may be improvising with someone who isn't

as skilled at it. You know what I mean? And so that for me as a producer, as a director, there's risk in that. You know what I mean? So I'm constantly going back and forth in my head between these three hats of producer, director, and performer. And so what worries me with improv is not that other people can't keep up. It's just like we're playing a dangerous game here where we've got people of various levels improvising for an audience. Hope it all works out. But I actually like improvising. And you're going to see a lot more of that in the episodes of Glass Cannon that are coming up over the next month or so. There is stuff in there that you'll hear about on Cannon Fodder afterwards.

Like I walked in with nothing and just started playing with you guys. This Marvel show that we just recorded, I had a sketch, but I went into it being like, I wanted to, let me discover this story with you guys. Because I find that the more that I write,

the harder it is sometimes to let you guys go on tangents because I'm trying to bring you back to my story. And I don't want to do that anymore. I think that a lot of Giant Slayer may have suffered from that from time to time. I want to just kind of follow you guys' lead. But my concerns with improv are when you've got a bunch of people just goofing around, hope this works out. And for a show like Glass Cannon that is edited, it's fine. I can be like, ah, that didn't work.

I want to make everybody look good. I haven't had to do that that much, but that's where my fear comes from. And for my own self, it's like sometimes with improv, you're starting off trying to figure it out. Improv, you're starting off trying to figure it out. And that trying to figure it out phase, you have to have a good internal clock for comedic timing to know when, like, if you didn't figure it out yet, move on. Right. You know, what is the game of the scene? It can be a little bit funny.

If you can't spot the unskilled improv at the table, it's you. It's you. Rounders. Rounders, yeah. So it's not that I dislike it. I just dislike bad improv. Like if somebody said to me an awful night, it's like, hey, let's go watch an improv show. Right.

I'm like, oh, I've said that for years. And then this is what I decide to do for a living. It's just so crazy and ridiculous. Ross Bryant, one of the most brilliant improvisers in the world. I'd go see a Ross Bryant show. Oh, yeah. Are you kidding me? Yeah. I'd go see a Ross Bryant show. Oh, yeah. Are you kidding me? Yeah. I'd go see it just because I want to support Ross and I want to see it.

But like, I don't think I want to see it twice. And he's brilliant. Just because improv after a while, it's just, oh, man, you've got to, I guess as an audience member, you've got to go in being like, you can't go in with your arms folded, like, show me your brilliance you have to be like let's see what happens here we're in a lab together i hope everything works out that's how i feel when i watch it you have to be like you have to be on the team with the performers right you have to want to laugh like if you're if you're not trying to laugh and trying

to find the funny in an improv show in the audience you're you're doing something wrong uh yeah it's uh oh man that's that's really interesting talk forever about it but well yeah and we don't we have we've talked more about improv on fodder in the last three or four months than we really ever have before um and i think that that might be a symptom if you want to say a result of this this new mindset that you're bringing to prep less, which I started doing with Delta Green after season one. After season one, I just started prepping a lot less, and it's been a lot more fun. And even in season five, where things are getting really intense, and there's a whole lot to keep in my head, I just realized it just doesn't matter that much, because everything else is completely

ancillary to the characters and their development. You know, the PCs and their development is the most important thing. As long as you can throw them something to work with, a bone to chew on and then let them go, like, you're good. You don't really have to do that much. So, yeah, it's an interesting change of psychology. Yeah. You know, and it's different for a home game than for what we do because we're trying to put out a semi-polished product that also is largely improvised.

I mean, that Marvel show that we just recorded, I went in with the basics and then just let you guys come up with stuff. But you have to think – you have to be thinking live in the moment. Like I think I've talked about Harold form improv. It was this – that's what UCB teaches and I think it was Del Close out in Chicago that came up with this method. Episodes of Seinfeld kind of do it perfectly, the Harold method. I think it was Harold before they even knew it was named Harold. But it's like,

you start out with these four different storylines, and they all have little bits and pieces. And then 30 minutes later, somehow they all collide together. The more disparate they are, the better. And then how do you find a way for them all to collide together? And it's something I'm really trying to play with in these shows, especially one-offs, where like, let's just discover it together. I might have, I'll fill in the middle here and there, but like at the beginning, if you guys start sowing seeds in the beginning, I'm immediately thinking, how do I then tie these together in the end? And a lot of times you guys are doing it and driving it. And so that I've just got to like tie it up with a bow or whoever the host is has to just tie it up with a bow. But it's just a new way. We're trying to do stuff to innovate. This, this form is going to get so stale,

so fucking fast. If we don't continue to try to innovate. And, you know, I think a lot of people that watch may not appreciate or even understand what we're doing, but like, this is,

these are some of the initiatives we're taking just to do something different. Well, let's get back to the episode and the finding, most importantly, of the drugs. I love the drugs. Yeah. Yeah. We find a big stash of drugs.

And it was so funny, too, because you're like, you find 10 doses and then it became 20 doses of flay leaf poison. I loved Matthew's reaction. He's like, flay leaf poison? As if it was something different. You're just like, drugs are poison, Matthew. They're all poison. It was great, man. When you, five, six episodes ago, snuck off into the woods to do Flayleaf, I knew in my head, I'm like, oh my God, there's Flayleaf in the greenhouse. I didn't add that in there. That was in there, which was wonderful. Maybe I would have put it in there anyway,

since you opened that door. But it was great when like a character improv or character backstory ties up with something that's directly in the adventure path. Let's use this as a jumping off point for another great question. This one from Andy in Portland, who says, now I might have to trim this down a little bit, but the long and short of it, well, here it is. Is it better for the narrative for characters to immediately call attention to something another PC does that was supposed to be secret from the other player characters? Now, this goes on with more explanations of how Brother Ramius was like, I want to take these drugs. And the other characters like, hey, what do you need drugs for? Why are you doing drugs? The heart of the question is not necessarily about Ramius as much as it is.

And I get this question and I really appreciate it. Sometimes PCs want to keep things secret from other PCs, right? And the player may want to hint at that to the other players. Is it how do you define the line between when it's good for the other players to just be like, oh shit, that person's sneaking around and doing something versus saying, my character looks closer. My character goes through their bag. My character, right? Like it feels like that's usually what people end up doing. And I don't necessarily think that that's the smartest thing.

However, ignoring it entirely could make it less interesting. So how do you walk that fine line of wanting to keep a secret as a pc but letting the other players in on that secret without letting their characters in on it's tough right like i whenever something happens where somebody finds something and the other pcs don't know and they don't tell them i'm always like all right all right well you did that you're not gonna like it if somebody else does it later because i also like like what's – it better have a payoff. If you're doing it, then you better be thinking about a fun payoff later. Yeah.

If it's a fun magical item that you don't want to roll on the table for, that's just lame. If you're doing it for story-wise, that's fine. Sow the seeds of an interesting story. But then what's the beginning, middle, and end of that story? If it's just like – if you're just doing it because it seems fun in the moment, I don't know. I mean I think a lot of people do it because they'll say in the moment i don't know hey i mean i think a lot of people do it because they'll say this is what my character would do right my character is a thief my character is neutral aligned my character doesn't care about whatever or if it's not

something as simple as finding something valuable but it is something like brother ramius's situation where you know you're dealing with like a drug addict here is it more interesting for the players to for the other players to have their characters try to see this and call them out on it or to keep it a secret for the time being let's let's ask it that way not how do you do it but should you do it should the other players like try to out this secret right away or do you let it go for a little bit and see what that player has in mind one of the scariest phrases i think that I can ever hear at a table is that this is what my character would do. You know, like that is – that can be so annoying if it's antithetical to the party makeup.

If sometimes it's like – there are moments and I'm guilty of it myself. But there are moments when it can be used in a good way where you're like, I think we all know that this is what my character would do. And everybody's like, yeah, no, we get it. But other times, like, this is what my character would do just to, like, try and excuse shitty table behavior. game, there's no way those other characters would know. You really just got to kind of let it go until the player decides to share it or the GM forces that player's hand because he needs everybody else to know it. I think it's kind of lame to be like, hey, what are you hiding over there? If you didn't roll a perception check to see it. Right. If you didn't, like, weren't looking for the same thing or had a suspicion previously, you know, don't make up a suspicion out of nowhere.

That's the way I feel about it. I'm like, just let them do their thing, you know, and let it, let it develop. But I agree that the player that is doing the secret thing, have a point in mind here, have a way, a plan for where this story would go. Even if your plan doesn't work out in the end, how you want it to work out, at least you can begin executing steps towards that plan, and that should be an interesting narrative. Okay, so then we move on out of this room into another

combat situation. Listening at the door, you hear padded footsteps outside. Sneakily open up the door, roll a really high stealth check. Not seen, and we see this oak steward in the distance. Talitha natural 20 on a hand crossbow instant kill. Is that what you felt at the time?

Is that something you felt in retrospect? Are you like, this is awesome. What were your thoughts on that moment in the one shot of the Oak steward? I mean, I thought it was very, very cool. I had to be careful what I say here.

Cause there's a lot of stuff about this compound. the way there's right when i started reading i'm like man there are so many different ways they could go about this from going left to going right to going upstairs early to going upstairs later to climbing up to that water tower and exploring like there's just so many different ways you could go so i'm sitting there watching i'm like okay they're gonna go through this door let's let's see what happens here oh they one shot that guy now what's gonna happen're going to shut the door and move on. I'm watching as an audience member, just like, what an interesting choice. So yeah, I'm all about it. I thought it was great. But the whole time I'm just wondering,

where are you guys going to go next? Because there's so many different options. You guys were making your way up to that door. And then I sort of led you guys there with a secret perception check. One of you heard some noise. Hey, you know, maybe I'm pushing you towards that door. Maybe I'm actually just rolling a lot of checks back there just to see what you guys see. The reality of the situation, right? The noise was made, you know?

Trying to make it feel like there's a living compound and not just a dungeon where you're walking from room to room. Well, I roll secret perception. I think it was Zephyr that heard something. Wait, what's over there? So you guys changed course. How cool. You strike team Delta, this Oak steward. And then like, I'm just sitting there. It's a great moment as a GM, because you don't get it that often where you're like, what are they going to do next? All of a

sudden you're an audience member and that's what you just got to kind of wait and watch. And that's what it was for me. And then what I love about it is you add another layer of depth which is like possible animal companion right like left parentless so we're all cheering and then you see this like little fox come padding up and just nudging the body and it's and then you just and we close the door like it's just it's really cool how they're they're tugs on your strings a little bit if you uh care at all which i tend to well you're taking a bleeding heart you're taking a walk through the episode you'll get to the end pretty shortly here but i mean this is what i think we do better than anybody you just go to the end you turn on a dime it's like you have this very funny scene with these two squash people and the whole time i'm thinking i know i think i know where this episode's ending.

We're going to end on the opposite end of the spectrum. And you've got to find those moments within the episode as well. And so killing the oakster, yeah, sad little fog. It's like, how do you turn on a dime? Robert McKee, the screenwriting teacher, has his famous book, Story.

His whole thing was like, if you start a scene here as a writer, screenwriting teacher has his famous book story. Like his whole thing was like, you know, if you start a scene here as a writer, then you need the characters to end up here. If they're happy at the end of this, I'm being super pedantic, but like if the characters start out happy by the end of the scene, they have to be angry.

Or if they start out like in love or like they just finished making love by the end of the scene, they're fighting, you know, it's like, that's good screenwriting. And also like start the scene late and get out early so there always should be some sort of reversal now you can't you can't make every screenplay like that every movie would be the same but back in the day that was this that was what was preached and so try and find those moments in your gameplay to like flip it like that. You guys are so excited,

but I know you all love animals, have this little Fox and you're like, Oh, what's going on? So we guys like, is that a wild shape? Wait, should we go kill the Fox?

Right. Is it a wild shape? I forgot about that. Like it could be, you know, just a, you know, another pure evil combatant,

whatever. That's actually in a different form. Like, yeah, what a scary place to be. And this is one of the reasons that like, as a player, I just, I just hate Faye. It's so annoying. Like you can never trust anything.

You can't believe your eyes, any of your senses, you know, it's a, uh, it's, it's kind of a scary thing, but then you were getting to walk them into the end here where you really drop, drop the hammer. This is what we used to say back when I was uh in school and we were working on uh editing and creating story you know it was like the method was funny funny funny sad right it was just like make them laugh make them laugh like that and then drop the hammer right at the end and uh and it's just oh and you're left emotionally kind of racked this ending scene was brutal this week. Brutal. Yeah.

Yeah. I, I saw it coming once you guys didn't pursue across the bridge there. I'm like, okay, I'm looking at my timer. I'm like, I think I see the ending here.

And what was cool is it goes back. There's so much foreshadowing. It starts right with the Cory Mona conversation. You could even go further back to finding out about Bolan's story. The gnomes were displaced. Well, where'd they go? I don't know. The whole time it's like the gnomes left.

You talk into the Leshies even, he's like, oh, he said the gnomes were left. And you're like, no, the gnomes, they were forced out. And now you see what really happened. So I was happy the way that it worked out. And it really left you guys feeling like, oh, fuck, this changes everything about what we think of Bolin now. philosophy, part of his theology, I should say, behind Gruhastha is you're not here to judge, right? Like if you're going to reach nirvana, if there's going to be a oneness of understanding,

you're not here to say this faith is right, this faith is wrong, right? And so there is a great deal of open-mindedness that is part of his ethos. And to think of this kid, Bolan, who is consistently bullied, consistently sort of beat down by humanity, to find him find solace in nature and become an enemy of humanity makes sense. There's a psychological basis for his ethos that is understandable and perhaps he can be reasoned with uh he could be um he could come to understand that violence is not necessarily the answer to that problem but acknowledging there is a problem there that is worth uh addressing or examining but then you see something like this and it really kind of it kind of pushes it to one way where you're like okay so this is just like a, I don't want to say a book one, but you know, perhaps like a chapter boss, right? That you were just going to kill this guy, I guess. You know what I mean? Because it's so awful.

It's kind of hard to wrap your head around reasoning with this person, but we shall see. But a room like that really, really pushes things over the edge. Let's let's leave the episode now and just dive into a few more listener mails before we get out of here. I want to, I want to get to some good questions that people had both about the network and about games in general, because I do love highlighting on here. Remember you can, you can always email us at wait, is it contact at glass kind of network?

We have so many email addresses, contact, contact at glass kind of network.comcom. We have so many email addresses. It's not listener mail? Contact at glasscannonetwork.com with the subject listener mail and send in your mail that way. You can also go to our website and you can find a link to a form where you can submit your listener mail. Some of these are from email.

Some of these, most of these are actually from the form. So go to our website and click through there if you want to submit one for the first THOD of 2024. But I like to get in a mix of questions that are not just things about the network or about the shows, but that are also questions about that people are having from their game table. What should I do here? What should I what would you guys do? Do you have any ideas for me that kind of thing? But first, a network question from Noah Wilson in Madison, Wisconsin. How did you guys find Abu Salim? Or did he find you?

Also, I love his TV work. And is there a chance of getting him on any other shows? Or is he just too busy? Thanks for all the great laughs. Thank you, Noah. Abu's had a week. Yeah. Abu's had a week.

So cool. It is. It's really, really cool. What we can say about Abu Salim is I believe that that connection came through Jared, right? Like you think Jared had a connection with Abu from before. Yeah, I can't remember how he got connected to him. You know, Jared knows a lot of celebs and whatnot, but he's the one that he was working with him on. They did a Vampire the Masquerade series when it was Stream of Blood.

I think he was on that long running series and so um when when jared came over here i was like do you think uh abu would want to uh do a series another series with you here and he was like i'll ask he was all about it and his stars continued to rise throughout all of this but uh you know with haunted city winding down abu actually reached out to me on discord and was like hey troy Troy. And we started talking. And I'm the type of person that's like, I never want to bother anybody. You know what I mean? I'm like, Abu is doing House of the Dragon. I don't want

to be like, hey, you want to do one of our fucking shows? You want to play a game with us? But he reached out to me and we just started chatting. I was like, listen, I would love to have you on some more stuff. I just assume you're crazy busy. He's like, I am, but I really love doing this and would love to do some more. And so we were psyched to get him on the Assassin's Creed thing that we did. And hopefully we can get him on some more stuff next year before he is winning Academy Awards.

Exactly. Winning Emmys. I would say the main thing I'll say, Noah, is yes, he's so busy that he can rarely get on stuff probably, but we know that Abu loves playing and wants to try to make time to do it. And that's an important leap. As long as somebody wants to find time to do it, they'll do their best to do that. So as long as he can, I'm sure we'll see him again on the network. Let's bring it to Arctic Pine in England. What's up, Pine? Arctic

Pine. Hi, Troy and Joe. I was hoping you could give a bit of advice. Oh, man. This is great. This is a tough one. This is a tough one. So she's running a game every other weekend, and she has a player that has been asking for a specific type of weapon

for a while, right? They want to upgrade this weapon, but it's a very specific type, not in the pre pre-written adventure so she homebrewed a magic weapon that fits exactly for what they need and another player found it while exploring and claimed it and won't even let the wizard identify it so it's like like, and the other player has no idea that it's for them and like that it's magical properties fit. Why don't you let them find it? Well, all right,

let's just move on to what do you do now? Right. The mistake has already been made. You can always just lie about where things are, I guess, but in the moment, and it just happened. I saw that episode of the office when they're doing a secret Santa,

and then he turns it into a Yankee swap. And Jim made this like special thing for Pam and she takes she takes the ipad oh god that was so good he just is like uh uh like trying oh my god it's so good i'll take the uh iphone so just wrapping it up um pine says i just find it intimidating sometimes how would you broach this issue and then she says i find it intimidating sometimes as a usually pretty shy woman DMing for a group of five pretty confident men. And they're all great people, by the way. So it doesn't sound like she has shitty players. It just sounds like how do you like what would you do improv wise to navigate this tricky situation where like you need them to identify a magic item?

You need this player to understand that that item's for them but do it narratively just off the top of my head let's do some brainstorming here i'd have like the net i'm just thinking like the next time uh the character goes to draw that weapon maybe it like burns his hand he's like the fuck looks down in it and sees some sort of uh rune start to glow on it and it's a rune that matches something on the crest of this wizard or something like something that ties it directly to the wizard. And he realizes like, I need you to look at this.

And then the wizard, as he starts to examine it, realizes not only it's magical properties, but it's somehow linked to his personal backstory. So that's a great idea to get to him or something. That's a great idea. And way less or something. That's a great idea. And way less complicated than my idea, which I love.

I'm also the beneficiary of this too, though, in the past, which is why I like this is right to where I went. Now this complicates your life a little bit, but I love it. And I think all players do to make the weapon sentient. I love a good sentient weapon. Like Suison. Now here's the thing love a good sentient weapon like suison now here's the thing about a

good sentient weapon it doesn't always talk it's not like it's adding a character to your roleplay it's not like you have to do all this it can be extremely mysterious it can only speak in the mind of one person like that's possible and but weapons that have like a soul infused within them that have a history that can you can use as a tool to kind of guide players is a really fun concept that I've only seen once in all of my years of role playing. And I absolutely loved it. Another great part about that is, is that Troy and I's ideas could be combined. It could be one in the same thing because the weapon could also, even for the person it's for, it could also, if it's sentient, it could not perform when they need it to perform if they are disappointing the weapon, which is a really cool thing to play with too.

So anyway, two quick ideas for you to mess around with there. Don't worry. You'll get this taken care of. That's the best part about this. Like as much as I harp on and on about how I want my games to be more realistic and how I don't like

just ignoring basic physics, people are like, that's a game with dragons flying around and magic going on. Like, as much as I do go on that, I do love the fact that in a purely magical world, you can do anything

if you can just, you know, if you piece together a small plan for it. So anyway, I think that's a fun idea. I think we did some good here today. anything if you can just you know if you piece together a small plan for it so anyway i think that's a fun idea uh i think we did some good here today yeah he's gonna brainstorm with stuff like that it's tricky it is tricky it is tricky uh all right last one and then we'll wrap it up this one from a friend of the show sharky writes in with this question sharky from hell it says so sharky from hell sharky from hell what up shark. Sharky from hell. Sharky from hell. What up,

Sharky? Now that we're almost to the end of the year, actually, for Fodder, we are at the end of the year. This is it. What is your favorite episode of any GCN show in 2023? Oh, man, so many shows. Good question. Good question. Crazy. Sometimes at the end of the year, Good question. Good question. Sometimes at the end of the year, I go through and I like with a calculator and try and calculate generally how many hours of content we put out or how many shows. It was a lot this year. So many crazy, crazy memories.

I'm going through my calendar here and just looking at bookings to try and remember. I'm like, holy shit, we did SideQuest Side Sessions. Yeah sessions yeah jolly forgot about that i mean we had some humdingers in that i think i'll do a couple let's just talk about it because just picking one i know my favorite but i want to i want to yeah yeah let's do some honorable mentions uh and a lot of them are going to be games that i'm in or that highlight me in some way because i love when i have fun moments in shows and i will say as an honorable mention i love the uh carnival fucking episode of of uh side quest side session oh my god where we were playing all those different games and we had the uh i'm not here to dance but i see the peanut whatever the penis joke that was so fun but that episode was like almost entirely improv right like

you were gonna cut it you going to cut the carnival. I didn't even really have anything other than like the list of the three games that were available. So anyway. Yeah, that's fun. That was a great episode this year. I thought also we're going to be unfairly skewed here because I'm not going to say episode three of Voyagers this year because like I haven't watched Voyagers this year. Like Troy and I, all of us us like nobody watches anyone else's shows really sydney was like trying to be such a good sport and listen to blood of the wild but i think she's like

30 episodes back now because like you're trying you want to be a good teammate but like you just got so much going on and so many stories in your own head for the shows you are on so we are unfairly probably not going to weigh some of the amazing episodes near the end of haunted city that i i read like about i got synopses from jared and stuff like that that sound incredible but yeah unfortunately we'll be narrowing it to the stuff that i'm focused on primarily yeah any honorable mentions for you anything's jump out of you the the uh i mean i was on two of them uh one of them is coming out soon which is the one that I ran of a faster purple worm kill kill that you're on. Oh yeah. That was just a great moment,

you know, like the, everything put together. And it was also like a really fun scenario that we played out. That was an honorable mention. I'm trying to think, I try to think through like the live shows, like what was my favorite live show?

I know the indie show was always red hot, but like they all like jumbled together in my head. I remember walking off stage. We looked, that was the best show of the tour. I don't remember which one I was talking. I really liked, it might be recency bias,

but I really liked the St. Louis show. I thought the St. Louis show was really, really great. I mean, there were some real big belly laughs in that show. I really liked that one.

Oh, let's, let's delve off of a of pathfinder for a second i really enjoyed i would say it's the second episode technically in our three ep run of rune quest i really liked the rune quest one where we had that encounter in the village with the guys that were trying to steal from the apple tree and what stands out to me more than anything honestly is josephine and uh nora's gameplay in that game in that episode in particular where nora was the like super hippie tree hugger kind of like elf and josephine was

this incredibly intimidating like like holy warrior on horseback, but like for darkness, she was like a priest of darkness on this war horse and was super intimidating and like killed my boss, my character's boss, like right in front of me. I mean, that episode was awesome. So an honorable mention for that one too.

Yeah, GCP, just getting it back up. The first episode is memorable to have that be on hiatus for so long and come back with a big juicy three hour ep or however long it was. And all the little backstories and everything. Yeah, that was special. But for me, my head goes straight to Gen Con, which is the most ambitious thing we've ever done this year. I don't know how we were able to do what we did the year before, but I think about Gen Con. I think about the lead up to that,

the amount of stress and all the fun shit that we did, both in the booth and outside of the booth. But I think, and I was really, cause you, you send me an email or to be like, Hey, just be thinking about this listener mail question.

And I was like, okay, I was driving my son to school. And then I was like, I don't remember what I did yesterday, let alone like the shows we did this year. And then right when you brought it up again, I'm driving my son to school. And then I was like, God, I don't remember what I did yesterday, let alone the shows we did this year. And then right when you brought it up again, I'm going through the calendar.

And the thing that jumps out to me is the show that we did at the Athenaeum. And I don't even think it was necessarily our best show of the year. I thought it was a fantastic show. We had some technical problems. We didn't have monitors on stage. We could barely hear each other. They fucked up the audio in the booth and everything. But to me, that was such a

special show because we were doing a live show with a bunch of people that we really liked, just kind of throwing them all in a powder keg together, doing a game that has become kind of close to my heart, but not everybody loves, and doing something that I wrote that also I didn't really know what was going to happen, and I didn't have any ending for, and I was stressing out about it. And it wasn't for lack of not wanting to have an ending. I just ran out of time and got to a point where I was like, let me just write a bunch of ideas and let's see what happens. Let's trust the process. And I think of two moments in that show in particular, which are my favorite moments of the entire year. And one was the improv with you, because we're doing this very, very, very silly show. And you go downstairs, you're like, you guys start going down a staircase and you all get separated somehow in this staircase and you end up in all different rooms and you go into this room and you see your dead brother playing pool and we

just we went from this when i've talked about this earlier in the episode like what we do best silly goofy off the wall show babe ruth eating hot dogs and drinking scotch to this like beautiful uh i don't want to toot our own horn too much, but I've rewatched it a couple times. It's this beautiful, unbelievable moment of roleplay between two people where we're yes-anding each other in a way that I was like,

wow, this is, to me, the height of Glass Cannon. And the second moment from that show was when Skid's playing Babe babe ruth and he just was like smashing his way out of the greenhouse and i'm and i'm thinking i'm sitting on stage with no idea where to go next and uh he rushes out of the greenhouse and i'm like you you're at Yankee Stadium or wherever it was. And you see the crowds cheering and Skid just got into it.

And he took his hat off. And it's that moment where he lifted his hat off and looked around at the crowd because he was goofing the whole show as well. But then you could see it. You could see the whole crowd. You could feel it as if it was on a film. You could see it. Yeah. And I still crowd. You could feel it as if it was on a film. You could see it. And I still had no idea where it's going to go, but I'm like, let's roll some dice, see

if he gets that home run. And then he rolls, the first one is a strike, and everybody's like, oh, is he going to strike out here? Because it's left up to the dice. And then the second one was a hit, and again, I didn't know where it was going to go. And I'm like, oh, Rob's character is just running around wildly. Rob's character is the ball.

You just bash Rob's head. So it was just this sort of conflagration of all these moments of improv and between three of the main founders where I felt like, holy shit, we're doing something really, really special here. I don't even think everyone really will appreciate it or it or, or understand it. But it was those, those moments are the moments that I remember the most. Yeah. Uh, call of Cthulhu live at the Athenaeum. Film or movie?

Like it was a film. I think it's a film. Like a film. Uh, well, mine, uh, mine to take the cake,

uh, episode of the year for me, I'm going to have to go to get in the trunk. So I'll go get in the trunk. Season five, episode 12, closer, where And because I had envisioned from the beginning of the season, if and when that event happens in season five, it was always in my mind a cliffhanger. And it didn't work out that way timing wise. And I'm so happy that it didn't because letting you guys then run with it at the end brought something I never expected. And this is to loud, not only you and skid for your great role play, but obviously Sydney, and then Francis too, who doesn't get too many opportunities to just kind of role play on his own like that.

And each one of you took such a different tack to how to deal with your own reality being turned upside down, that no two of you did it the same way. And it left me completely blown away by how much I didn't understand about what we were doing together in that show and in that episode. And yeah, so that ends up when I look back, I'm like, that was my favorite moment of the year. Yeah. So yeah, anyway, great question, Sharky. Thanks for kicking off a good good conversation it's good to look back and think because sometimes we're just grinding so much we don't take it's always the next thing always the next thing always the next thing yeah uh and

you know what you know what's so wild is like dark horse if it comes out it might be the marvel show that might be my favorite thing of the year if it comes out this year because that was wonderful that was wonderful on so many levels and i hope you guys hope you guys get to hear it i don't mean to be a tease i really don't like i i'm sure you're gonna see it and hear it but uh it was it was just great yeah it's gonna come out i mean it's gonna come out one way or another might be out next week that's i guess what i'm saying is it's gonna come out i just wonder if it's gonna come out in 2023 you know there's a lot of red tape and we're coming up on the holidays, but I really hope it hits. Everybody really wants it, too.

So that's what I'm going to do. That's going to wrap it up, dude. We have two more GCP episodes for this year, right? Or three, two more, I think. And they're not going to have. There's no break for GCP, by the way. Fodder won't be here, but you will get a GCP on Christmas week. Don't worry about it.

You'll get a fodder on New Year's week. So, yeah. I mean, it's crazy that we're not going to have companion cannon fodders to these episodes. They are wonderful episodes, but in a way, I love that you just let them speak for themselves. Enjoy these crazy eps, crazy end to the year,

crazy end to the return. Write in with your questions. Go to the website. If you want to ask questions about these eps, go to the website website hit up listener mail uh we'll have a big chunky fodder when we come back in the new year we'll go long on fod and we'll give you guys a nice chunky one because there's lots to talk about for two full weeks of the of the uh gcp so definitely definitely looking forward to that um jeez i feel like uh if there's anything else uh no that's it but just remember uh hang out with us on friday december 29th at eight o'clock eastern on live on twitch for the blood of the wild a holiday party that'll be really fun otherwise have a great holiday everybody and

and happy new year merry christmas merry christmas happy new year and uh, we'll see you next year. Bye. Thanks for listening to the Glass Cannon Network. For more podcasts and live streams, visit glasscannonnetwork.com. And for exclusive shows and content you can't find anywhere else, subscribe today at jointhenash.com. Bis zum nächsten Mal.