The Glass Cannon Podcast - Cannon Fodder 3/15/23

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

Live Tour and Gen Con updated kick off the show this week before Joe geeks out in anticipation of this week's new Glass Cannon Labs game. In We Are Stupid, the guys discuss incremental range penalties, Striking Runes, and the vorpal property. Also how much exposition can or should you really give from a good Survival check? It is time for NERDAGE! For more podcasts and livestreams, visit glasscannonnetwork.com and for exclusive content and benefits, subscribe today at patreon.com/glasscannon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to Cannon Fodder, a behind-the-scenes look at the Glass Cannon Network. What is going on, nash? Welcome back to Cannon Fodder. It is Wednesday, March 15th, 2023. The Ides of March. And I'm your good buddy, Joe O'Brien. And I'm Troy LaValle. Got nothing, huh? No. Ice cold. Yeah, I didn't have any

I didn't want to force it. Don't force it. You really shouldn't. We were just talking about this before we went live. Stop trying to be funny. Stop trying to be funny other podcasters. O'Brien. Because you're not. Because you're not. Funny happens by accident. Lesson one of today's show is when you're sitting around in your home game or somebody, a GM asks you to come in for a one shot and make a character, don't try to be funny. It's not going to be funny. It's going to suck. But if you just go in trying to be good and have a fun time, funny will happen.

Funny will out. Right? That's true. You can't force it. You can't. But unless you're really good. We got a buddy who he's the king of just like constantly riffing. Constantly.

Constantly like he's just throwing out zingers. I mean, it's just when you hang out with him for 10 minutes, it's nine and a half minutes of just on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, bit, bit, bit, bit. When you hang out with him for 10 minutes, you are out of breath after 10 minutes. I mean, you haven't even spoken. But you're just like, oh, I'm trying to figure out what's funny, what's not funny. Like you're trying to decipher all of the amazing bits that have been thrown at you. The thing is, though, it's so out of that nine and a half minutes, there's usually like seven to eight minutes of funny. But they're happening so fast that the bits that don't land don't you don't have time for them not to land because the next one's already come in.

This has been my thing with you for years about Family Guy. This is why I'm not a huge Family Guy fan. It's because I feel like when the average joke comes every eight seconds, it's just like I have a hard time enjoying myself because I'm too busy thinking about how good the last joke was. I can't even understand this joke. It's just too much for me. Welcome back to the FOD, everybody. We've got news coming at you this week, some fun stuff,

including I'm very excited about this week's Glass Cannon Labs. We are going to do a little bit of We Are Stupid, but I think there's going to be a little bit more sort of digging into the mind of the GM on that as opposed to just rules discussion because we're too busy getting everything right, Troy. We don't make mistakes anymore. Nope. We know the system down pat. We know the system down pat.

Starting off with the news, weekly studio update. There really isn't much there. It's certainly not much exciting. It's just the grind. We're getting some stuff, some duct work installed. We were talking about what needs to happen to the floor, the epoxying of the floor, area rugs. Really, really thrilling conversation, sound dampening panels. There's been a lot of discussion about stuff this week and a lot of

installations that are going to need to happen. But otherwise, yeah, things are just moving along. It's kind of the worst part of the process, I think, because there's like so much that has to get done before the stuff that could even be remotely considered fun, which isn't even the real fun. And we just, I mean, we have to do it, but like so much of it's like, God,

these are huge decisions that we have to make and we all have to be there in person and we live far away now. It's, it's, it's, it's a little stressful, but we, you know,

we got to get it done. I was talking to a friend of the show, Matt Jones, who helped me out with getting the trunk. And who helps out with getting the trunk? Mr. Jones! And me. And Steve.

And he also helps out with Alien. So I was actually talking to him about our Alien Labs show and what's coming in two weeks. Not this week, but next week. There will be more Alien. So I was chatting with him about that. And I was telling him about some of the headaches I'm going through with the office. And, yeah, he was just like, so you're talking about project management. And he's just like, it's the worst.

It's the worst because it's all these things you don't know how to do. And the problem is, oh, yeah, well, just hire somebody that knows how to do that. Yeah, but you also don't know who to hire, you know, like you don't know a who's good or who's a con artist, especially in the world of contracting in New York city. And you don't know, uh, especially when you're dealing things that are like safety issues, you know, we were talking about lighting, rigging and stuff. It's just like, you need to have somebody you could trust. That's going to hang stuff over your head. Did you talk about this last week? Like we're we're creating a lighting grid above the recording space and so we've got a contact of someone who we thought was going to do all of it no no no they just hang the lights once

the grids install oh it starts the grid right exactly you keep coming back to like who watches the watchers it's it's like this meeting I had with the lighting guy this week. We got a line on a great lighting guy and I was really excited. And he gave us a quote for an installation. And I was like, oh, man, this this fits in our budget. This is great. It's like a celebrity lighting. Yeah. He's got a ton of experience.

New York City theaters all over the place. Broadway, whatever. He's done all the TV shows, like all this stuff. Like this is going to be great. And I get on the horn with him, and I'm in the office. I'm showing him stuff on FaceTime, and he's just like, I mean, I don't install it into the ceiling. Once the grid's there, I'll come in and hang the lights. I'm like, yeah, well, who installs the grid?

It's not going to be Skid. Skid's not growing up there on a ladder. I'm not sitting underneath something that Skid's drilled into the ceiling. Exactly. So anyway, headaches galore, but things are moving according to schedule, maybe slightly behind schedule,

but hopefully it all comes together really quick in the next three weeks or so. And we have, you know, more updates as we go along. I don't want to talk about that anymore. I want to talk about, can we talk about the tour?

You have given me nine major tour updates in the last 48 hours. What can you talk about with the niche? Well, there's a chance that the first tickets, I mean, there's a chance by the time this pod drops on Wednesday that the first tickets for April will already be on sale. But I don't feel right talking about it just in case they haven't. I could say, I mean, I guess I could say what state we're coming to because it's pretty much locked in. What do you think, Joe? Should I say it? I don't see why.

What do you mean it's pretty much locked in? Is it not locked in? We signed a contract. I'm always worried until those tickets go on sale that something could fall through the cracks. But I think we're locked in. I like to give people a heads up because we're already coming down to zero hour. They should know if they live in this area that we're trying to come. Got a little more than a month to prepare.

Yeah, in the next five weeks. So April is booked. May, we're – oh, man, May is a fucking labyrinth that I'm going through this. A bit of a war with our booking agent who's a very very close friend of mine, groomsman at my wedding. And we will no longer be friends after this year has finished booking the tour. June is booked. June is fucking amazing. August is all set.

September is all set. But let's talk about next month. We are making a new stop to a state that we've never come to. And that state is the state of Colorado. Colorado! Colorado! Yeah, I'll be scoping out places. That is the number one place on my wife's list of states she wants to live in.

She wants to live in Colorado. Did you know that? Are you going to move her and the kids out there while you stay and continue to to build this empire now i'm gonna learn to ski and i'll stay here in the northeast the stinky smelly northeast overcrowded colorado's a paradise it is nice gets a little cold in the winter but i'm fucking psyched i've uh i've only been there once and it was very very quick for my old tailgate show that i worked on uh so i'm really excited we wanted to do this for a while when we knew that canada was going to have to be delayed it was a quick pivot uh to colorado and so yeah i mean like i said by the time this pod drops

there's a chance tickets are already on sale if not by the end of the week so that you'll have more than a month uh to sell this shit out so that we can come back every year. Stay posted or stay close to our website and our social medias for the announcement of that on sale, which, yeah, maybe even happened today for Colorado. Get excited. Durango, Colorado. We're coming to Durango. No, I'm just kidding. I'm kidding.

The joke is kind of like, why do you have to say Colorado? You know where you're going in Colorado if you're going to Colorado. Yeah. Yeah. I guess. But all right. We'll just keep the lip seal. What about the other ones?

Nothing else? You got nothing else for the people? I'm not ready. You can't give them states? I'm not ready. But June, we locked in. We cleared the dates in June. The way it works is like once you pick a city that you want to go to and you pick a venue that you like you say i want that venue on that

day and then our our our manager will be like well there's nine other bands that have uh that on hold that's and that by the way is not an exaggeration sorry and you're like all right so we're the ninth hold um well we want to book it and be like, all right, let's see if we clear the holds. Now we have to call eight bands. Right. And that venue will call and be like, are you guys ready to commit? No. All right, let's go to number seven.

You ready to commit? No. Are you? And if you clear all of those. Right, right. Don't forget that like when you call number seven, number seven's like, ah, ah, Johnny, we go way back. Can you give me 24 hours on this?

I got to check with the, I got to check it. You know what I mean? And then it just keeps getting pushed and keeps getting delayed. And, uh, but we cleared both of the, both of the June dates, which is very exciting.

We cleared our, our August Indianapolis days, man, Indianapolis. I, I'm going to need a whole podcast dedicated to what's going to be happening at Gen Con. This is my,

it's on my list today is to, as a Gen Con update. I mean, let's pivot. Let's pivot. Let's pivot to as a Gen Con update. I mean, let's pivot. Let's pivot. Let's pivot to Gen Con because Jeremy pivot. A couple of things are locked in, right? A couple of things that we can at least tease.

Yep. We're going to we're going to have the booth right now. It's going to be the same size booth as last year, which is a real wrinkle in the penis, as they say, because I was all excited to do something else, but who knows? We could, we, that could, that could change by the time the con comes around,

but we're going to have the booth is going to be programming in there from 10 AM till 6 PM every single day, 10 to four on Sunday. We have pitched and two, two shows to be at the con itself. And both those shows have been accepted for submission. We should know about that pretty soon. And then we're going to

have two shows outside of the con, one of which will be Glass Cannon Live and the other will be something new. We already said this on Fodder, so you've given them no news so far. Did I talk about the shows that we pitched?

I think we said we pitched shows. The update is that they've been advanced. So basically Gen Con reviewed them and said, OK, you can now go to the next stage before final approval, which should hopefully come in soon because we got those in at early submission. There's an early submission deadline. We got those two shows in. submission deadline. We got those two shows in. We have no reason to think they won't be accepted, but we won't talk about them here just so that we don't get people's hopes up in the unlikely event that they are not approved. But we think they'll get approved. I think they'll get approved. One, I think, is for – let me see. I think one is for Friday

afternoon. Does that sound right? Yeah. One for Friday afternoon and one for Saturday night. Saturday night at the con. Yeah. I say Saturday night. Saturday at 6 p.m. Because we want to go out and have fun Saturday night. So one for Saturday at 6 p.m., which means we'd have a show Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday night. And then one show at the con Friday afternoon.

Again, I don't want to say what they are, just in the unlikely event that we don't get them, because people will start creaming in their jeans when I tell them what these shows are at the con. But this one that's going to be happening Friday night is going to be at a much bigger theater, because the Thursday night show is going to be Glass Cannon Live. That's going to be at Helium. That's

pretty much set in stone. But the Friday night show is going to be at a new theater that is a much larger theater. They're going to be cheaper tickets, and it's going to be a whole different experience with hopefully some special guests. But again, that's between now and then that show is going to take shape.

We want to do something that's like, that'll attract people that may not know us that maybe don't want to drop, you know, 40 or 140 on the VIP to try and expand the awareness of the brand a little bit more and do something fun with some of our friends, something different from Last Get In Live. Yeah, because once you're 70 episodes, 70 plus episodes into a campaign, guests become hard. It's hard to just slot someone in and have the same good time. So

let's take this opportunity to maybe do something a little different and make it a fun one night kind of thing for everybody. So that's the idea. And I think it's going to be awesome. Yeah, and we'll be at the booth a lot more. The last week was very, very hectic, but the plan is to have like time set up when we're going to be at the booth so we can meet and greet with people and chat.

It's so fucking hectic. We're running games constantly. If we're not running games at the booth, we're running games somewhere else. We're playing in games and then we've got our night shows, not to mention countless meetings. I'm aging just thinking about it, but I was on the Gen Con website today doing some work

and even though it's five months away, I'm so fucking excited. I get so excited, like giddy when I think about Gen Con. Well, speaking of games that I – that we're going to be programming in there, I am going to throw a – I'm just going to throw a hat in the ring here and a potential guess of a game that you don't know yet that might show up in that booth. And that's this week's Glass Cannon Labs game. As I dig into this game that we're going to be trying out tomorrow on Glass Cannon Labs, 2 o'clock Eastern, called Trophy Dark. I'm like, this is so amazing for a Gen Con booth.

It is wildly awesome. And I think that you're really going to love it. I don't know if you'd love playing in it. You don't love games anymore. But it is a wonderful layout that is very Blades in the Dark in its style in terms of how the die roll works and stuff. Yeah. And, you know, success with consequences, whatever, all that kind of stuff. But I just want to tell you about one part.

So this is something that Matthew Cabracaza brought to the table. Matthew is going to be running this tomorrow, Thursday, March 16th, 2 o'clock Eastern at twitch.tv slash theglasscanon. For myself, Skid, and McD, we're going to do kind of like an intercompany little tester of this game. Yeah, it's funny. I messaged him this morning. Well, we're recording this on Tuesday, obviously. So I messaged him on Tuesday morning to be like, all right, finally finalize the cast. Here it is.

And he's like, oh, man, this is great. I'm so excited. He's like, I think you'd really like this game. We should play it again because I think you'd like it. And I said, all right. Yeah. I mean, I'll tell you something that I think will get you geeked up and I want the audience to get excited about this as well. The basic premise and the basic concept is that it is a classic sort of sword and sorcery style game with the exception that in most games you are considered – not pathetic in – pathetic in its true meaning of just like it's just sad that you have to expose yourself to this kind of risk just to get these kind of things. Put your life on the line for money.

It's a sad thing to do. And when you really dig into that, this game brings out the best of it because you essentially do not come back and no one ever survives. It's sort of the vibe that I get from it. And what you're telling is the tale of these desperate people that end up biting off more than they can chew. And there's one thing that I wanted to read to you that I just read before we connected for fodder. And it's just giving you an outline of the world and the gameplay. And it says there are two things that you can fight in that you can come up against in game.

Folk and monsters. Folk are people, sometimes strange or magic using people, and normal animals. They can be fought and removed with a risk role. The risk role is the lifeblood of the game. It's when in Blades in the Dark you say, all right, I'm ready to roll. I roll 2d6 and 4 or 5 is a success a consequence six is a pure success whatever that's a risk roll they say risk roles are the the lifeblood of the game next paragraph monsters are something else they relentlessly serve the forest and cannot be defeated by mere treasure hunters if you attempt

a risk role to incapacitate or kill a monster you will die that's that's the line that's it so i mean i am so excited to get into this so what they say is like instead your risk role needs to be a role to hide a role to escape a role to use a ritual against it you know like you could do everything but kill it you cannot kill it because it is a capital M monster. And monsters are not killable, which is such a great concept to go in with. So anyway, that's the basis of it. There's a lot more little like fun narrative mechanics that go into it about how the players can bargain with each other for horrible things to happen to each other's characters and stuff. I mean it's going to be really fun and I suspect it might show up in the booth. That's awesome.

Well, if they've got a healthy marketing budget, it might. Yeah, well, maybe if people love it on Labs, come on, buy a bunch of copies. Give these nice folks at Trophy Talk some money. They made a really cool game. Yeah, it just fits the one-shot thing really well, so join us for that. And then remember, the next week, that is March 23rd, Thursday, March 23rd, and I for that and then remember the next week that is march 23rd thursday march 23rd and i'll mention this again on the next vod alien is going to return with its true episode one since uh we did character creation last time and character creation was

amazing uh yeah it's going to be a really really fun show so hang out for that um all right i'm good on news actually i did want to check in with you on Dark Souls because you sort of – and Skyrim. You kind of took a break when you had a baby and then suddenly you were back on and you had some time to stream. And I was curious. Where are you in Dark Souls? I'm back, baby. So I'm having so much fun doing this. This was one of my like side New Year's resolutions of like I want to start streaming in the employee lounge.

I think it's a lot of fun. It gives you that great one-on-one time with the nays you like to hang out and watch twitch streams it's and it's also just like scratches an itch for me because our work is mostly fun but very stressful and so this is a way to kind of i mean i have to tell you you stream all the time uh so i wanted to do dark souls uh maybe platinum run because it's the only Soulsborne game of the originals that I didn't Platinum, and then just fuck around in Skyrim. And so, I'm up to the painted world of Ariamis. I've been soloing every

boss fight, no summons. And it has been an absolute blast. I'm not one to go back and play old games, and I'm just shocked at how much it holds up and how much fun we're having. Because honestly, we're all having a blast the people in chat as well so i play that usually how many times did you fight

ornstein and smog six or seven i think well that's not bad yeah i'm like i'm in the zone right now also because playing dark souls 2 3 yeah and elden ring and uh demon souls remastered and sekiro and Bloodborne like you're just now I go back to this I'm like these guys are fucking kidding I remember the four kings fight being like I just summoned 20 people to come help me do that and I still just stood in the back while they did all the work and I mean we've been having a lot of fun with it so I'd say I'm probably about 60 65 percent I just finished the Painted World of Ariamis. Now we're in the Duke's Archives.

Oh, I love the Duke's Archives. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's a good chance I'm playing that today, which by the time this comes out will have been tomorrow. And then Fridays, I've been doing Friday Skyrim. And that has been a revelation because it's a game I have no plan. I usually have plans with games. And I have no plan other than to

just explore the world with this character and it has been so much fun you know and i miss that to me that is the exact opposite of what i'm dealing with right now in the torture of streaming dead space dead space is the exact opposite of skyrim in that Dead Space is a beautifully designed, amazingly built game that is so innovative in the shit that it has and it makes you do that it feels like such a real space horror exploration thing. The mix of zero G, the mix of needing pressure suits and no oxygen, and it's so much fun. But it is so intense. Like when I finish a game session my heart

is pounding out of my chest my palms are sweaty i'm just like i don't even know if i enjoyed that like i'm just so exhausted and horrified as skyrim i remember skyrim it's just so relaxing and so peaceful because there's just no real stakes you know know, like you die, you could just reload anything. You could save at any second. Save in the middle of a fight and come back in the middle of a fight. Save in the middle of a fight. And it's just fun.

And I like that about it. It's like, it's not trying to give you the most intense experience. It's trying to let you tell any story you want to tell and at the pace you want to tell it, which is great. I mean, so the last one was last Friday and I logged on. It was the first time I'd logged on a few weeks because Evie was born on a Friday, which is normally when I stream.

I was like, where the hell are we? And I had like, I was trying to make my way to the college of the Magical College of Winterhold. And basically it's going to take a year to get there. Because if I see a cave, I'm like, oh, what's in that cave? And that's three hours of a stream. So this is what happened. I was like, oh, what's in that cave? And that's three hours of a stream. So this is what happened. I was like, oh, what's going on over here? And so I went in and it was just like, like oftentimes it's a bandits have kind of taken control of an old, you know, an old fortress.

So after I cleared all the bandits, I start to turn the corner and there are these fucking the Dwemer machines, you know, the dwarf machines are still going. The dwarves are gone, but they've left these little constructs behind. And so I start taking out a couple of those, and then the adventure completely changes. Now there's no more bandits. The bandits have not made it this far into the ruin, and it's just these machines. And I am way underleveled for this. So I'm going back and forth with Chad. I'm like, am I going to just keep pushing through to do this this or should I just turn around? Because I'm getting annihilated by these

things. Well, anyway, we keep pushing through and coming up with tactics. I'm like, what if we try this? What if we do this? What if we pause it, turn this guy out, close the door, throw this bomb, running away, jumping off, making them chase me around. We get all the way to the end and we ended the stream with me opening up this like ancient door where this enormous like 20 foot tall construct comes out. I have like no way of beating this thing. But next stream is going to be just me. This Friday, hopefully, will be me just trying to defeat this construct. And it's so fun because as I'm going along, I'm like, oh, look at this.

This must be what's happening here is that this part of the lore. We're having a blast with that. Yeah, I mean, it's genius because you know that that cave and that Dwemer ruin is all part of a side quest that you get from some NPC somewhere to retrieve something in there or do something in there. And it's all mapped out, but it's there and it exists. And if you walk in there before talking to the quest giver, it's still all there. You can still explore it all. It's not like a level in traditional games. They really did an amazing thing in 2011, I think it was, with Skyrim.

It just changed the whole landscape. And I can't wait for – all I think about is Starfield, I think it's called, which is their next – like their science fiction setting game that's hopefully coming this year. It keeps getting pushed back. September, they said, lately. And I'm just going to dive into that. You know what? Good. I'm glad it's after Gen Con.

Let's make it be after Gen Con. That'll be your gift. So that I show up in Indianapolis. All right. Let's move it on to We Are Stupid. Not much to be stupid about this week. You know, there are a couple of things that we said last week in Cannon Fodder that we didn't correct this week. But that's just because those shows were recorded before we did that fodder.

But we'll get around to all of that. Eric, Professor Eric throws out a compliment to you, Troy, with keeping up with all of the – how difficult it is to keep up with all the conditions on your monsters and NPCs and stuff like that, to adjust those ACs exactly right so that you're making sure something is appropriately a hit or a crit even, which makes a huge difference, making sure that those values are correct. Making sure that those values are correct. Matthew said something in passing that he could only throw his hatchet 10 feet. And Professor Eric just points out he can throw it further than 10 feet. But every 10 feet is a minus 2 to hit. That is something that was really from 1E2. And it kind of translates over in a way.

So we'll make Matthew aware of that. And we got the animal companion actions right this week, which is great. But one thing he dug into, and I heard this, not at the time I heard it in my re-listen of the show, is the plus two striking Vorpal Scimitar, this weapon. Holy crap. Let's talk about that for a second. One thing that Skid said in passing is that he believed the plus two striking meant that you get an additional two damage die. So you roll three damage die in addition to it being plus two to hit. That is not the case. Perhaps Skid just sort of said something that we heard wrong, but Eric heard the same thing that I heard, which is that you add two additional damage dice. You do not. The plus two part is just the weapon potency rune. It only applies to the two hit.

Weapon striking is either striking, greater striking, or major striking. And they are plus one damage die, plus two damage die, plus three damage die, respectively. So that's good to know. I didn't realize, because we've never played the game to that level, I don't believe, of a greater striking rune. I never heard of that before. So a greater striking rune is I never heard of that before. So a greater striking rune is going to be two additional damage die. So this plus two striking

Vorpal is going to be plus two to hit one additional damage die, and then the Vorpal property. And he goes on to say the weapon is still an amazing boost at this level while they are in the dreamlands. Plus two weapon potencyency room is a 10th level rune we are seventh level vorpal is a level 17 yeah well i i said this on air i was like when you first came to the caravancer i that weapon was sitting right there and you guys just didn't go look for it when i was a young impudent gm 100 years ago i like, are you guys sure you want to check that room? Check out that. You got to check out that.

That's, that's Bushley GMing. You know, I didn't do it. You guys do want to check out that room. You lose that treasure. But I was so glad that it was written in that, like,

if the PCs didn't find this Vorpal Blade, the denizen of Lang Houndmaster uses it because now it's being used against you. You're being penalized for not finding it essentially, but then you still get it at the end. I was like, this is great because now you've got this weapon for the rest of your dreamlands adventure. You won't have it in the real world, but it's just a fun tool. Like how often do you get to play with a fucking Vorpal weapon? It is a good note. I want to do, I want to ask you a couple

questions before we get out of here, but they are pretty deep questions regarding your GMing of this specific game. And also one of them can really apply to any game that anybody is running, whether it's D&D or Pathfinder. I've been struggling a little bit with the Dreamlands in terms of my understanding of what they are and i wonder if you could explain just from all of your reading how how you envision the dreamlands and i don't just mean what you see when you're there i mean like are the dreamlands i i always imagine them as as uh about about as solid as smoke right like that they could be constantly shifting and changing, that the people and the psyches within them are constantly in flux and that there is no stability.

But the more we play it, the more it seems like they're just another place, like just another land, just another plane. From your reading of it, how do you envision the dream lands and what they actually are when we are not adventuring in them what is what is happening there yeah well i think the truth lies somewhere in the middle paizo even says that it like the dream lands is a plane of existence that overlaps

the ethereal plane um if you get back into their like if you if you're really into their lore books you can read about like all the different planes, plane of fire and the plane of this. And there's a hierarchy to the planes and the way that they're organized. There is like a spherical nature to them. Yeah. My concept of the Dreamlands has changed a lot as we've continued to play in them. I initially thought of them as just like more like a world of vignettes, like you would go here and that you couldn't travel from Celefe to where you met Queviandra in whatever town that was. But now I realize, no, it actually is more like a world, but it's a world that is – that follows the same – in my estimation, follows the same logic of dreams and that it's kind of highly mutable and protean.

There might be a straight line between two points, but it's probably, it probably works more akin to how dreams work. But I initially thought that like if you were, if you were in the area where the Viscount was, you couldn't just get in a car and drive to where that drug den is. I think you can. Now, I get in a car, obviously, but you can travel there. And now there's something that will happen in this Thursday show that really solidified for me, a little spoiler alert for this show, in how Dreamland's travel works. how dreamlands travel uh works i think it's a much it's a much more um it's much more of a full world than just like spots you know any like memories but it is composed and i think it's constantly evolving based on the dreams of people in the material plane like the dreams and the nightmares of people in the material plane give form to and the nightmares of people in the material plane

feed give form to the populate and give form to the dreamland well that's so strange though so like because at first i thought of it the way you think of kind of inception right which to me was like a mind-blowing movie and it's kind of like when we go into these dreams whose dream are we in like if you're in the dreamlands do you always have to be in someone's dream, even if it's not one of your party? No, I think – You know, that formed because all these dreams came together to form a city that is still growing.

But now those dreams have been around for so long it has formed this opulent city. Whereas other dreams have come together and formed the drug den town of, I can't remember the names of these towns. And then the Doom Idol of Ib. What was that city called? The one where they were having the party?

The one where they were having the party, yeah. Sarkarth or something? Anyways, like enough dreams got together to start to form actual cities over time. And now new dreams that come in may change it, but it would take a very powerful dream to completely wipe out that city. No, that city has already been formed. Are there lords of the dreamlands? Like creatures or people or whatever that only exist in the dreamlands and live there and are there all the time, whether you are there or not?

I think so. Yeah, for sure. I think like any adventure, some people become powerful enough to leave the dreamlands. But some people are tied to that. What about the people that were at the party with the Doom Idol of Ib, for example? Are they all people that are dreaming, that are asleep in the material plane? Or are they people that fully and only exist in the dreamlands? I think they're people that fully and only exist in the dreamlands. And when they died, their whole life was lived in the dreamlands and they died and they're no longer. How are they born in the dreamland. I think there are people that fully and only exist in the dreamlands. And when they died there, their whole life was lived in the dreamlands and they died and they're no longer. How are they born in the dreamlands?

Uh, they could be, I wonder, like, is it like an Adam and Eve type thing? Like the first dream created man and woman. Um, I,

I imagine that that is kind of how it works, but you could also travel there and have a dreamland baby with someone that was created whose lineage goes back to an initial dream. Yeah. Wow. It's so weird. Right? Like now there are people that are just mating and having children. But like if you look back at their family tree, it started with a figment of a dream.

That's how I think of it. What about the literal history of the dreamlands in terms of how it comes into Pathfinder like is it or into Galarian because when you talk about the plane of fire the plane of air the plane of water like these are things that pre-existed Galarian right in terms of literature these are ideas that have been

around for a long time and they were in other games for example and stuff like that like is the dreamlands to your knowledge something that like, I don't remember it being a plane ever talked about in my Pathfinder games until this adventure. Like what did they, did Paizo create these dream lands, the idea of a plane of dreams like this?

I don't think so. They may have named it that. But I think that it comes from Lovecraftian stuff, like the great old ones and the outer gods when they came to Earth or Galarian million millennia before humans existed. Their dreams began to populate the dreamlands. If you read The Call of Cthulhu, Cthulhu comes here with all his buddies, goes underground and sleeps. And his dreams are so powerful that they create another plane of existence. And then other old ones as well dream and start to populate this world.

But then flash forward millennia later and these outer gods still lay dreaming. Other people, humans' dreams begin to populate the dreamlands as well. So it's a plane that's populated not only by these alien intellects, but also humans that have come. So it takes on this whole other thing. And it looks like it was created by Lovecraft, like the initial idea of something called the Dreamlands. But Lange, I feel like Lange I wonder if Lange was Lovecraft or if Lange was like Gygax

and friends. Because Lange predates Paizo for sure. I did not know that. I remember Denizens of Lange. Unless I'm crazy I feel like Lange goes back. And you can just see it in like Skid's reaction. I did not know that I remember a denizens of Lang unless I'm crazy I feel like Lang goes back and you can just see it in like Skid's

reaction like oh Lang yeah of course because he probably was right against denizens of Lang he knew about it years ago yeah but I could be wrong but the thing about Lang is like that's a whole other that's like a plateau in the dreamlands that has its own rules as well.

And when a denizen of Leng dies, its body is reformed on Leng. So it's very hard to actually kill one. Permakill. Yeah. All these ones that you've killed, they're just being reformed. And is there any way – I guess we got to figure out if there's any way to stop that cycle. And is there any way – I guess we got to figure out if there's any way to stop that cycle. Like a lich is going to be reformed if you destroy it as long as it's artifact or whatever it's called.

What's the word? It's – I'm blanking on the name. Did you say lich? Yeah. Phylactery? Phylactery. Yeah, yeah. It's phylactery.

But if you destroy the phylactery, the lich never rises again. Is there something in Leng or something that you can destroy to prevent the reanimation? It can be killed, for sure. It's in the monster stat blocks on how to do it. Oh, well, tell me. This is off air. All right. You have to. All right. You have to. Buy a Philly cheesesteak. I can do that. All right. You have to buy every which way. And there was an instance in this episode where you said there was just a mass of tracks all over each other and you can't really read what's happening here. But I don't really feel like there – I don't remember if there was a role tied to it or a bad role.

I certainly don't remember a bad survival role. checks in general, strange aons or not, you do seem loathe to give a lot of information based on a survival check. And I'm wondering if maybe you're being too stingy and if GMs should give like a surprising amount of information on a really good survival role. Because even if you're only looking at tracks and you sort of mentally can only imagine tracks only telling you so much of a story i feel like that the survival skill represents a skill beyond what we as like a an ordinary human being and gm and not tracker can pull from that data and that it could be a chance for some really good exposition and i just feel like that sort of that doesn't exist in our game so much. Like I don't feel like people roll a survival check and then are like aware of what they're about to encounter in any way that could get them actually prepared for it.

Even after a good roll. I don't know. Is this making sense? Yeah, I think so. I think sometimes I'm better with it than others. I mean obviously when it says in the book like survival check, give them this information, that's easy. It's going out of the box and trying to give you information. For me, I'm always worried about just giving out too much information or leading you guys astray with irrelevant information.

Then you guys get hung up on something just because I said it. just because I said it. But no, I guess I could like be a little more forthcoming if you really roll a critical survival check or something, finding the hair of a creature in the next room and then being able to discern like,

oh, this might roll a, this looks like it might belong to a blah, blah, blah. And then you guys could prepare a little bit more. I guess I could do that. Yeah, I mean like for the moment, I'm like, if it's not, if nothing's coming to me. I guess I could do that. Yeah, I mean, like for the moment, I'm like, if it's not, if nothing's coming to me, I just don't say anything.

Yeah, I just, I feel like if there's, like in this place, for example, where there were all those tracks like all over each other, I feel like there's a world in which it just behooves you as a GM. Yeah, you give your players a little bit of an advantage, but they had a good role. And I feel like telling them a little bit of the story of what happened

in this place. It's like, oh, there was a fight here. And you can tell from the way you're looking at it, it seems that there were multiple humanoid figures that attacked a creature. You know what I mean? Like giving them a little bit more detail than what you think you could pull out of it, even a good survival check. It just tells a story and it makes things more interesting than like you can't tell you can't even with a good survival check well i just feel like that using that as the example that brought this up like i feel like i told you everything you needed to know like there wasn't a fight it's just a lot of people what does that mean i thought the caravanserai was abandoned who are all these people so that gets you thinking yeah you mentioned this week that they were looking for something it seems like

people are like ransacking the place or whatever um i feel like i'm giving enough maybe you guys need to have more internal discussion as to what my clues mean um but do your clues have to be so vague you know well yeah could you say like there's a bunch of denizens of lang you know what i mean like yeah but you wouldn't know that like unless you could like there's a bunch of denizens of lang you know what i mean like yeah but you wouldn't know that like unless you could nikes that's well that's what i'm saying you could right like they could have a similar uh style of boot that they wear i don't know the nike swoosh more than anything i'm not arguing so much for more advantage for players as much as i am more chance for exposition because what happens happens is you as the GM know this whole cool story that's happening in the background. The players don't know anything. And then eventually they come up against some somebody or some people and they just kill them. And you don't really get the exposition.

Just an idea to throw out there that like survival checks can be an opportunity for exposition that, yeah, it might allow the players to prepare a little bit more for something that you didn't want them to prepare too much for. But it also could give a really good chance for exposition and flesh out some of that really cool story that's happening. Yeah, I'm all of a I'm all about like finding a way to give more of the story to you guys when it would otherwise be completely inaccessible unless you, unless you find a journal that conveniently tells the story. Stick a journal in every room. Why the big bad became who they are. So I'm all about that. And I agree, maybe survival is a way to do it. I think it's just, how do you do it in a way that isn't too ham-fisted? Like you look at these tracks and you just feel like that guy hates his mother. I know it sounds funny, but there's like, there are ways to pull it off that, you

know, because if you think about, think about Sherlock Holmes, right? Like that's a good example. It's like, yeah, it's all really well crafted like that, but it's all these minor, minor details that he, as a character, is immediately able to extrapolate into these things that you would think are impossible to know from the data that you had. But he draws it all out by putting it all together. And I feel like that's a fun use for survival checks, is to see all these minor details. And even if you, as the GM, don't know what they are, you don't have to go into each one. You could just say, there's just evidence here that leads you to believe that there was an assistant and there was – you know what I mean?

Like there was somebody that was obviously subservient to somebody else who was told to do something. I don't know. Like because you could tell this or that. I don't know. It's just – it's an interesting way to use the skill that I think doesn't get enough love in our games and in mine either. I feel like it's a hard one to utilize well. We want to give those skills some love. I did some digging here while we were talking, and the Plateau of Lang was a creation of

Lovecraft. So I guess it's possible it was used in original D&D as they were borrowing from other mythos, but it's also possible that it's been incorporated into gaming recently. But yeah, it's all Lovecraft. Everything's Lovecraft. Everything's Lovecraft. Okay. Well, that's going to wrap it up for this week's FOD.

Thank you guys so much for hanging out with us. Troy, I'm assuming you've got nothing else, right? You're ready to say goodbye to the peoples? Yeah. I mean, I guess I like to give teases. There's been a lot of talk about why aren't they using such and such a tool or such and such a tool? We get that a lot. Like, why aren't we doing this?

Well, there's a reason for that. We have to build relationships with different people and make sure that it's going to be the right fit for us. However, we are in the midst of working out some pretty exciting deals with people that may begin to feature some of the products that the niche has been clamoring for for a long, long time. So just everybody chill. We're not a lemonade stand anymore.

Just calm yourselves down. Yeah, fun. So many fun announcements coming up. I mean, fodder is a great way to discuss this stuff and it kills me the things we can't talk about but more will be coming soon until then have a great week everybody enjoy Strange Ants tomorrow night come out and hang out for Trophy Dark

tomorrow with Matthew Skid Eye and McD and we'll see you guys next time bye bye Colorado Colorado Bye. Bye. Colorado. Colorado. Thanks for listening to the Glass Cannon Network. For more podcasts and live streams, visit glasscannonnetwork.com.

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