The Glass Cannon Podcast - Cannon Fodder 4/26/23

Episode Date: April 26, 2023

The first live show of 2023 is in the books! Joe and Troy debrief the Boulder trip and share some exciting news about the Degenerate Dungeon and the next few weeks of Glass Cannon Labs. In We Are Stupid, it's all about Dominate. 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

Hey, I just got us a new Coca-Cola Spiced. Nice. What's it taste like? It's like barefoot water skiing while dolphins click with glee. Whoa, let me try. Nah, it's like gliding on a gondola through waving waters as a mermaid sings. Nah, it's like Coca-Cola with a refreshing burst of raspberry and spiced flavors. Yeah. Try new Coca-Cola with a refreshing burst of raspberry and spiced flavors. Yeah.

Try new Coca-Cola Spiced today. The all-new Hyundai Kona electric SUV. It charges fast and goes far. It's how we made it more one. You are listening to the glass cannon network the premier source for role-playing game entertainment welcome to cannon fodder a behind-the-scenes look at the glass cannon network yo what is going on everybody welcome back to the flood it is wednesday april 26. I'm your good buddy, Joey OB. And I'm Troy LaValle.

Yeah, he's got nothing, folks. He's exhausted from getting nasty in Boulder, Colorado. Tore that town apart. And by that town, I mean Denver. We were in Boulder for exactly, what, 90 minutes longer than our show? Yep. Like, we got to Boulder, did a show, and then screamed in the car back to Denver. 90 minutes too long, if you ask me.

Boulder looked beautiful. I was like, I wish I could have stayed here. It looked quite nice. I said during the show, is this the rich Denver? Yeah, is this the rich Denver? That's kind of what it looked like. It did crush me, though. I feel like I'm still feeling the after effects of, are your lips chapped? My lips are still chapped from just

like the dry air up there. It was pretty brutal. I've healed. Yeah, it's still lingering here, though, I feel like. I feel like the air is dry here right now. It is a beautiful day here on the East Coast. It's spring is in full effect. My son is nosebleeds four times a day right now. Are your kids getting nosebleeds? Is this just my kid? Do you live at a higher altitude than this? It's so crazy. Well, I mean, it's not that crazy because, like, I used to get nosebleeds all the time when I was a kid.

But I'm like, this poor guy, he just constantly comes in the room. He's like, dad. He's just got blood in his mouth blood on his chin it's like it looks so horrifying it's like hereditary though like i never had nosebleeds but i knew kids that did yeah yeah let me tell you how cool it feels uh in third grade to have to leave the classroom again as blood is pouring down he's got that week o'brien constitution dude, seriously, back in the day, McD used to be like, we were kids, and he would be like, you have a serious problem. And I'd be like, no, it's just like, it's a bloody nose. It happens.

It happens to everybody or whatever. And he'd be like, you are bleeding from your head. I will never write that off as just being an allergy thing. Something's really wrong here. I remember us being little kids and him saying that. So funny. Anyway, we have got a juicy show for you today. A little Boulder Talk, which is going to obviously roll us into talking about episode 72 of Strange Aeons. Got to dig into that. Plus

more tour stops. We're going to talk a little Degenerate Dungeon update and Labs. Labs is coming back this week, so we'll talk about that. We'll going to talk a little degenerate dungeon update and labs. Labs is coming back this week, so we'll talk about that. We'll talk about labs next week. And in We Are Stupid, man, we have got Professor Eric's notes on Dominate. Oh, dude, I can't wait to ignore them, even if

they're pro me. It's so funny. The internet immediately started attacking them. I'm like, I don't know what the fuck you guys are talking about, but there's a bigger issue here. All right. Get into it. We'll get into it. But first, what are your takeaways from your first tour stop

of 2023? What went well? What would you change? How's it going so far this year? Probably best show. Arguably, maybe the best show or certainly one of the best shows we've ever done. Everybody was just on point. I don't know if it was being in the room together, having that immediate feedback of the audience.

But, like, I felt good. I felt good right out the gate. You know, I'm – And you never feel good. And I never feel good. Yeah. I just – I'm experimenting with a looser style, not doing so much warm-up anymore. You know, the reason I do all those bits, making fun of you guys and stuff,

it's like I'm being the opening act. So that if it's not funny or it's not all funny, that's fine. We get that out of the way because it helps warm up the crowd. But I kind of want to get away from that and try to experiment with just doing our banter. The danger of that is sometimes our banter isn't great. While my jokes might not always be great, like I feel like I can cover for that. Covering for bad banter is a little bit more, it's a little bit trickier because I have to rely on other people. Whereas

like that, that's harder for me to do. But I think that it really, it just flowed. And then we got right into the action. I was very excited about it. I thought the banter was so funny. Not to spoil it for anybody who hasn't heard it yet, but Troy had a specific banter. He was like, I'd like to discuss this. And the setup alone was like two and a half minutes, and we would not stop poking at you about your description of what the banter was meant to be. I mean, it was just so funny. And I was hoping that would happen. That was part of the bit.

And, uh, yeah. So I think now it's going to be like, uh, you know, just like we take it to the recap. I think we're going to take it to the band,

take it to the band. Uh, what, what would you change? Uh, anything, anything that needs to be different for St. Paul?

Um, well, when we get to talking about dominate, there's something I'll certainly change that I'd like to change for Gatewalkers, too, which is just a general shut up and listen to the GM. I think that's a good rule of thumb in general.

But, you know, I hate... Show Day is such a pain in the fucking dick. I'm sorry to be so crass this early in the morning, but like, it's just, we have to get there so early and I don't even get there.

I usually show up like 45 minutes after you guys show up just because it drives me nuts being there as long as that. And like, I'm always, I have so much trouble enjoying that day because I'm constantly just looking over my notes. I want to get to a point where I can just show up and rock and roll. But like,

that's just not in my personality. But when you add to that, having to be at the venue so early and just stay there, uh, you know, it's draining, it really is. And try, so you got to keep that energy up and do the show. You know, this is part of any performance, but having to be there so early to run sound checks and it's always a new tech staff and, uh, you just never know what you're going to get we're very fortunate everything came out without a hitch you know i i had this whole new intro package that i've been working on that like i've been getting uh some nice emails about people really like that and uh so so so much went right it's just we're still honing this process the one thing and i said this uh you guys like it just went by way too fast like i prefer i

don't like being away from home longer but i prefer a two-show weekend because i feel like we get a little more time to breathe like we just kind of got off the plane it was just like and then i was up at 4 a.m to get back on a plane right right yeah it was um yeah i wonder if there's things that we can do to streamline show day to make show day a little bit better. But it is tough. I always think of The Paper, which is one of my favorite like under-the-radar movies. I just love that movie. If you've never seen The Paper, like I think it's 1993 or something like that, 1992.

Go see it – or not go see it. Pick it up, watch it, stream it. It's amazing. There's a lot – it's about a newspaper in New York. And there's a line in there that Robert Duvall does. And he's kind of the head editor of this newspaper. And he's exhausted. And he's burnt out. And his life has fallen apart.

And he's just like, the thing with this job, working at a newspaper, he's like, every day you start from zero. Because it's like you have to make the news new every day, right? So every day you start from zero. And that's how I feel about every venue that we haven't been to before. It's like every time? So every day you start from zero. And that's how I feel about every venue like that we haven't been to before. It's like every time you walk in, you're like, you start from zero. People have no idea who you are.

They have no idea what you do. Nobody understands tabletop RPG podcasting slash live show. You know, they don't know how to set up a stage. They don't know what kind of sound you need. It's just unlike anything they do. It's not their fault. And so you're just like, you spend the first hour explaining who you are,

what you do, what needs to happen. And you can say, get that done over email. We do. It's just that that stuff never gets from the promoter to the actual people on the floor doing the sound until we're there. And nine times out of 10, it works out. But you guys might be surprised how many times

we are pulling our hair out to the seconds before the doors open to like make the show sound or look right. And like, I mean, there's so much little shit that goes into it. And like, we're still we're doing everything ourselves. Like we have McD on the road with us, which is fantastic. We used to have Brennan on the road that just having one extra person is a huge help. But like, we're doing everything ourselves. So like the the the communication with the venue starts months in advance. And then the weeks leading up to the show is when like,

all right, here's the, here's our plan. How does this jive with your plan? And then there's back and forth on that. But then when we get there, it's just like, hopefully it's like a game of telephone. Hopefully the people that we've been talking to on email, hopefully one of those people is in the, in the building. mean you but you can't you can't imagine how much shit goes wrong i think about the fucking doug for a lounge uh you know which was such a shit show you know we go through an extensive contract period i don't want to do shit on this one venue but this is what cannon fodder is giving you the truth we go through this extensive like back and forth on what what our requirements are what our needs are because if you guys can't

do it that's fine we'll pick another venue And that was supposed to be a fully seated show. And we show up, you know, I think it was like 300 people, right? We show up, there's like 150 chairs. And I, of course, immediately lose my mind. I just go from zero to 10. Like, what the fuck is going on here? I'm calling my age, calling our agent. He's calling the venue, working on the pro, and the guy's like, sorry, I'm on vacation in Hawaii. Let me try and call the manager. So again, 10 games to telephone. So then I'm just walking around the venue looking for chairs. I go outside into the

parking deck, and there's hundreds of chairs sitting right there. Stacked. Stacked. And so I go to the manager. I ask you, I'm like, can you go to this guy and tell him it's fucking chairs back there? I have the agent calling, and they're like, oh yeah, no, you can't use those chairs. So now I'm at 20. I'm like,

wait a minute, you can't use those chairs! Those chairs are for the upstairs dining room. So after a bunch of fucking back and forth, they finally bring out some of the chairs and they don't bring out all of them. So then they oversell the show and it ruins our experience and it ruins the experience of the people who came. Because now they're in this

overpacked, sweaty room. They paid for a seat and we look like assholes. So every venue is just different. I vent on that one. There's always something a little different at every venue. And again, the reason is as much as you tell the people this over the email, a lot of time you're not even talking to the people at the venue. They're just used to rock shows, you know?

So they're like, people come, they stand, they have a great time, they drink some beers. It's rock and roll, baby. And you're like, that's not what this is. We're kind of like a theater show. It's like a dinner theater. Right, exactly. And so you say like, well, why don't you just have it in a theater? We have.

Some cities we do do that. But the venue has to be the right size. It has to be the right fit. And it just doesn't always work out that way. So anyway, this was not intended to be a right fit. And it just doesn't always work out that way. So anyway, this was not intended to be a bitch session. But just to give you guys some insight onto like, you know, why sometimes we get a little strung out at these things. It can be it can be a little stressful. So new cities are exciting to see the niche always gives me heartburn about a new venue. When we go back to a venue

we've been to before, I usually feel a lot better because if they haven't had turnover at the, you know, sound engineer position or the house manager position, it makes everything so much easier. People are like, look, great to have you back. Always love your fans, love your show. Like, cause they always love the niche when they come in there. Like by the end of that show, they're always like, this was way better than most of our rock band shows.

I remember the Nashville show, like half the staff was wearing a Nashville shirt by the end. Yeah. Yeah. That wearing a Nashville shirt by the end. Yeah. Yeah. That was a good one. All right. Let's keep it cooking here. Spending a lot of time on,

on the tour, but yeah, thank you, Boulder. Thank you, Denver. Thank you. Everybody in that area who traveled to the show and sold it out.

It was a hell of a show. I'm still riding high off that thing. And I can't wait for the next stop in St. Paul. So we'll be in St. Paul Memorial day weekend, but it's like Thursday, right? The Thursday before Memorial Day weekend we will be in St. Paul.

Going to see our good buddy Paul Charchian, who some of you may know from... And we're going to the Twins game the night before. Going to the Twins game. That's going to be really fun. And then after that we head to Asheville on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. So Asheville tickets still available. St. Paul, I mean, barely available. Grab the last couple tickets for St. Paul. Asheville on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. So Asheville tickets still available. St. Paul, I mean, barely available.

Grab the last couple of tickets for St. Paul. Asheville, there's about half the place is still available. We're over half sold at Asheville, which is great. We could do a show now. I'm not going to be upset if this is all we get, but we've got plenty of time. Selling these venues out means we can come back. If we only go half or 60%, that means it's going to be a while before we come back to

Carolina. That's the nature of it. But yeah, St. Paul, we probably sell out in the next couple weeks. Labs is back this week. Trophy Dark is going to be completed tomorrow. Tomorrow, Matthew is going to finish out the Trophy Dark session that we began. That should be really fun.

It's a very Blades in the Dark kind of system, speaking of Haunted City. And I'm looking forward to wrapping up that one shot. And then next week, May the 4th, good buddy, Star Wars. You were playing. You're playing again in the labs. I'm playing. Since the birth of your daughter, you haven't played in labs. So you're back.

I already regret signing up for this. Not sure why you did it. We're doing nine different recordings next week. And I'm really enjoying this like once every couple weeks recording. Yeah, exactly. That's the pace I like. Like twice a month I prefer at this point in my life. But no, it'll be fun.

And it's going to be me, you, Skid, Matthew is GM. And it looks like we're hoping to add Rob Kirkavich, who may know more about Star Wars than all of us combined. Oh, man. Robbie K. It's just so cool. What else? What else?

What else? Yeah, Star Wars. Hopefully, Rob is joining us. That's going to be a couple weeks. The plan right now is for two weeks of Star Wars, and then we'll update more on the labs after that. Let's talk about the Donjon. Let's talk about the Donjon before we get into Dominate. We're going to dig deeply into Dominate for a second.

That's the whole discussion, right? That's really the whole thing is Dominate. But first, let's talk about Degenerate Dungeon. So those of you that are unfamiliar, we started a live stream last football season every Sunday morning. stream last football season every Sunday morning. Troy, myself, my brother-in-law, Hollywood Hagen, and our good buddy Dave Woody, along with Mick D, the five of us would jump on every Sunday morning and give you ideas for football bets that we were making anyway for the NFL season. We had such a blast doing it, and a lot of it was inspired by my brother-in-law, Hollywood's podcast that he has, sports betting podcast. So what we have, we weren't sure what was going to happen to the dungeon after the NFL

season concluded, how we were going to approach it going into baseball season, etc. And what we ended up doing is bringing on Hollywood Hagen and Dave Woody to basically mothball their podcast and become full-time sort of degenerate dungeon, not full-time like in real life, but not do their original sports betting podcast and divert all their energies to the degenerate dungeon on the GCN Employee Lounge. So now you're going to be getting in the lead. The plan right now is a weekly stream starting tonight, starting tonight, 10 p.m. Eastern time. tonight, starting tonight, 10 p.m. Eastern time, you are going to get 10 p.m. Eastern time live every week, a sports betting live stream on Twitch that will then be released in audio form,

hopefully the next day, for audio consumption for those audiences that want to hear that. So that is the plan right now. Jump the Sharp has been mothballed. It's now becoming the Degenerate Dungeon. We're going to be trying to expand this gcn sports thing every once in a while uh for fun but the the best part about it honestly is that you and i don't aren't doing anything yeah well for the first time that's key is like what you know one of the things we're always looking for is like more content creators and up now, the only other person we found was Jared, the Strayable Blood team. And they kind of fit our jam, Jonski. And as we continue to grow, we would love to just bring on people who just make their own podcast.

And we just help produce it the Glass Cannon way. And then we have more content on our network that we don't have, we're not really directly involved in that would be ideal. And so in listening to their show, jump the sharp, I was like, they just get it, they understand how to do this. Now, it's not the genre that we normally work in. But that doesn't matter to me, to me, there's, there's, it's all about content. It really is all about content. And we had so much fun. It's just kind of like a goof doing that show during football season. And then I keep listening to them. I'm like, I think these guys have it. Now, only a very small percentage of our audience crosses over to even be interested in this. But to me, content is king. Put that show up at 10 o'clock every week or when Haunted City starts rolling, you know, it might start at 10, 15 or whatever. Drop that podcast at noon on Thursday and just see what happens. Because there might be a trickle effect both ways. Like more people might start listening to the dungeon and then there might be dungeon people that find their way over to the network. You know, it's an experiment if nothing else. But to me, all I'm interested in is like talent and Hagen and Woody have it. Yeah, Hagen and Woody definitely have it. And that's the best part. I want to put any fears at rest because I think a lot of people in the niche listen to this and think, I don't like sports.

I don't care about sports. You can't even get gatewalkers out. Why are you making a show about sports right now? And the fact is we're not making it like we are putting no effort into this. It is this is what we talk about with bringing on content creators. It's similar to Haunted City in that, you know, we have some internal like production stuff that has to happen with with Haunted City. But other than that, you from the from the uh creation of every episode to the recordings to all that stuff like none of us are involved in it and that's what

that's what haunted city was it was that experiment of of that and in this way we're doing we're doing this a similar thing with degenerate dungeon where it's being hosted run scripted run down uh literally from the production perspective going live all. None of us have to be there for that. Hagen is handling all of it, and the podcast cutting, the podcast uploads, all those little nitty-gritty things, none of that's happening on our end. So it's just going to run on its own, which is great, and we can focus on Gatewalkers. Yeah, it's like you and I are having meetings with these guys leading up to the live stream tonight, and then our job is done.

We've made the logo. We've done this. We've showed you how to upload a new RSS feed. Here's the logo packages, everything you need. Now we can just be on the show whenever we want, which is great for me. I enjoy doing that because the prep is so low. And to me it's just kind of a banter cast. We're talking about

sports, which I enjoy way more than gaming. It's just fun to talk sports with my buddies. Well, it's like, yeah, it's like actually being able to do a bit of your hobby. You know, like this used to be our hobby. Then it became our job. So now the hobby is talking about sports. Like every once in a while, you got to break out, do something that's your hobby so that, you know, when you come back to do the regular work, you don't feel so burnt out all the time.

So this is great. So thank you to Hagen and Woody. I hope you guys try it out live every Wednesday night, 10 p.m. Eastern, on twitch.tv slash GCN Employee Lounge. And give us a follow on at GCN Sports on Twitter. Yes. They've rebranded their Twitter to at GCN Sports for the donjon. Yeah, so at GCN Sports on Twitter, that'll be kind of our sports thing. We'll keep it separate from the nerdy stuff.

Speaking of the nerdy stuff, let's get into it. We are stupid. Professor Eric took a look over the Boulder show, and he came back with a grade of A+. I mean, it is what it is. You can't make up problems when there weren't problems in terms of the rules. He said that his view of it was that the mechanics, that it was a fairly good, I guess it's on A plus, just an A minus, a fairly good episode mechanically.

And then he did say this, maybe there was less complexity because there were so many crit successes against spell effects, which might have hidden the complexity. So that is a good note there. The headline of the mechanical debate of the show, though, was the dominate spell. So first I want to go into the nitty gritty of the language, all that stuff. I want to talk about interpretations. We'll go over what happened. And then we'll talk about the bigger issue at the end. Because if you talk about the bigger

issue first, it sort of nullifies all of the language and all the mechanics. It clouds. It clouds the actual rules discussion. So there's two discussions here. There's rules discussion, and then there's something else. Right. So I'd like to start with the rules discussion. Now, for those of you that listen to our show and think, hey, I don't care. Just entertain me and have a good time. I don't care about digging into the nitty-gritty of the rules. I get it. For those of you that are like, I want this rule interpreted the way I want it interpreted, I get that too. I think you and I really lean on the side of digging into the rules.

We really like to read them, parse the words. We like to get all lawyer-y about it. It's just fun for us. And at the end of the day, we have to interpret how we have to interpret. I think the larger, one of the larger issues before we dive into this is that like, it is called rules lawyering because any contract, two lawyers can read and read two different things. And that is just like the fact of lawyering and language. It is what it is. There is no correct, correct answer, except in one person's interpretation. That said, let's dig into this language for dominate. What happens in the show is the creature casts dominate on Ethel Merman,

who then critically fails his save, his will save against the Dominate. And you rolled that will save because of the critical fumble from an episode ago. I forgot that part. So you critically failed. Yeah, I believe it was a natural five, something like that. Natural six, maybe. Okay, failure. All right.

If you are casting Dominate and your target fails just fails it says this quote you control the target it gains the controlled condition but it can attempt a will save at the end of each of its turns on a success the spell ends there Here we go. Clear as day, I think. Clear as day. Except if I tell you to go to sleep, if I tell you to attack your ally, if I tell you to go make me a ham sandwich, you have to do it. But you get a will save at the end of your turn after all three of your actions are done. And if you succeed, you're no longer controlled. We all in agreement here.

You're saying that if you tell the creature to kill its allies on a failure, it does it? Yes, and then you get a will save at the end. Okay. Are you not... I'm not there.

Let's look at the controlled condition. I can see that interpretation for sure. Controlled condition. Someone else is making your decisions for you, usually because you're being commanded or magically dominated. The controller dictates how you act and can make you use any of your actions, including attacks, reactions, or even delay. The controller usually does not have to spend their own actions when controlling you. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

That makes sense. I hadn't picked up quite that part. Okay. Critical failure. As failure, but the target receives a new save only if you give it a new order that is against its nature, such as killing its allies. So, okay, so what are the two? Here's the two interpretations. Interpretation one will be Troy.

In this interpretation on a critical failure, you remove the normal end of round save that you would normally get if you just failed. And it only gets added back if you give a command against the creature's nature. Right. I'll explain the way that I interpret it, which I consider to be the correct way. If you fail, I control you. You gain the controlled condition. Whatever I ask you to do, you have to do. But at the end of your turn, you get a will save. You succeed. The spell ends. Critical failure.

As failure, that means everything I just said remains true. But the one difference is the target receives a new save only if you give it a new order that is against its nature, such as killing its allies. There's nothing there that says you get that save immediately. No, because as failure, you get it at the end of the turn. If in critical failure, I say, go downstairs and take a nap, you don't get a save whatsoever. If I say, attack your allies, well, okay, I've asked you to do something good. You do get a save, but you get it at the end of your turn as failure.

Because here's the thing, where there's three actions in Pathfinder second edition, how does, I can't understand how Matthew thinks this works. Like, I'm like, attack Aldo. Well, I get a will save because you told me attack. Okay, let's go with your interpretation. Get your will save. All right. Second attack. Attack Aldo again. Well, I get another will save. No. Okay. All right. Second attack. Attack Aldo again. Will I get another will save? No. Okay. All right. Take another will save. All right. Then third action. You know what? Go ahead and attack Aldo a third time. Do I get third will save? I guess so in your incorrect interpretation of this, you know, because otherwise now it's like, no, no, I only get one will save if you get. Well, okay. What if you're my, my decisions on what you do change based on what happens? So let's say we go with Matthew's interpretation, which is you get the will save immediately with critical failure. Okay, attack Aldo. Roll a will save.

Ah, I failed. I'm still controlled. Okay, you've got to attack him. You attack Aldo, and you fumble. And because of that fumble, we use fan fumbles. Something happens with the fan fumble where it makes no sense for me to now continue using attack. You know, it just, it adds a layer of complexity because of the three actions that doesn't make sense to interpret it any other way. To me, that sense adds failure

means that everything from failure is true, except what comes after that comma. Interpretation two is Matthew. Matthew's interpretation, just to be clear, is when you critically fail, you remove the normal end of round save, just like in Troy's interpretation. And it adds a new save when ordered against its nature. This save happens immediately in Matthew's interpretation. You get that save immediately when you are ordered. So I totally get where you are coming from. I get the slippery slope of trying to bring up rolling a new save. Because when does that happen? You get one new save once at the top of an order

or each order? Or what if the order only slightly changes? What if you hit Aldo and he goes unconscious and then you turn and hit Suki? Is that new order do you then get a new save now with critical failure you're getting three will saves whereas like in in failure i could say attack aldo three times and you have to do it hit hit hit aldo's dead okay now you get to roll your will save but with critical failure you roll three different will saves or like or you don't. You just roll one. But now you're like really reinterpreting the way this is written as failure means you get the save at the end. The difference is with critical failure. If I don't tell you to do something against your will, you never get that save.

It's horrible. Yeah. All right. So then let's dig into Professor Eric's interpretation. Professor Eric, who I respect his opinions on this greatly, because I think he takes emotion out of it. He looks at the rule itself. And then he will, generally speaking, factor in actual play podcasting. He's like, this is inevitable, you got to think about this. So his approach is personally, he says, I'm going to read his words.

Personally, I agree with Troy's interpretation. Critical fail should be worse than failure. On a regular fail, the creature basically loses slash uses all of its actions against the party before getting a save, regardless if it's harmless or dangerous. So on a critical fail, it either gets no save, meaning it wastes its actions harmlessly, or it uses its actions aggressively and gets a save. This makes the critical fail equal to or worse than the fail. If a destructive command allowed the victim to snap out early, then a critical fail is actually better for the party than failure.

You know what I mean? Because you get another save if you critically fail in this and in that interpretation. Unless the GM goes with the quote boring option of something that is not against their nature and just ends up effectively skipping their turns for a long time, take them out of the combat entirely. The no way out option is extremely frustrating for a player and extremely boring in actual play. And I think favoring an interpretation that discourages sitting out is helpful, even if it's more deadly. So, yeah, I totally agree with the way that Eric thought about this here and laid it out.

I think at the time on stage, I totally agreed with you. But the reason that I agree. OK, well, let me just say one thing. I let me point out the problem I have with the wording. There is a problem here with the wording. And all of this is caused by the wording. And it's a very simple wording.

It is, but the target receives a new save only if you give it a new order. I don't know why they had to use the word new save. Why couldn't they just say as failure? Because you've already rolled the save to, to, to, to critically fail.

So you get, you get your, the new save is any save after that, you know, for on failure, it happens at the end to critically fail. The new save is any save after that. On failure, it happens at the end of each round. On critical failure, it happens only if you have it attack your allies. That's why it's a new save, because I've

already cast dominate, and you've failed that initial save. I get that. So the new save is this. But it's the reason that it can be debated. The whole reason this is a debate is because of that. If you just said as failure, but the target can attempt a will save at the end of its turn, if it is given a new order that is against its nature. To me, that's implied in as failure. You look at as failure. Oh, when do you get the save? At the end of your turn. Okay,

so it's just like that. But now you only get it if you tell it to attack your allies. I also think, like, otherwise it would use a modifier that expresses time. Like, you get a new save when you give it. No, it doesn't. It says you only get that save. Failure is you get a save at the end of your turn regardless. Critical failure, same thing, but you only get that save if you If you're doing something against you. If you're doing something against you, well. I go back

to first edition dominate person, okay? It's a different spell, right? Because dominate person as opposed to just straight up dominate. Dominate monster, I think was another one. Dominate monster. In that one, if you failed your save,

you were dominated. End of story. If you told it to do something against its will, like failed your save, you were dominated. End of story. If you told it to do something against its will, like attacking your allies, you would get a new save right then and there before you attacked your allies with a plus two. Okay? And so if the spirit of that kind of – that carries over to what Matthew was saying. I should get it right away. But Pathfinder 2E is a whole new ballgame. And to me, critical failure should be worse. Yeah, I think in a way what they do in 2E is they try to make it, this is just one role now. And on a critical failure, you've already failed

it twice. It's essentially like how I think that it can be interpreted, the difference between 1E and 2E roles. And yeah, maybe it's true that Matthew is being motivated by that feeling of 1E dominate, which is, you know, that was definitely the feeling there. Let's talk about- Three actions, it's just also, sorry, three actions is what really makes it tricky, right? Because then are you saying you get a will save before each action or a will save before the three actions begin? And just the fact that you can't give me a clear answer means that your whole theory is wrong. You know what I mean? Like it's very unclear. You're supposed to get a will save before every single action. So now critical failure is you get four will saves. Get the

fuck out of here with that interpretation. It doesn't make any sense. You know, and anyone, I think that's agreeing with Matthew has never stood behind a GM screen in their life. that's agreeing with Matthew has never stood behind a GM screen in their life. I'll take it a step further. Because players want things to be so easy all the time. That is just wrong.

Some players want that. Not you, just 95% of my players across all podcasts. I don't know. Let me tell you a story. If Skid cast Dominate on one of his shows and interpreted it the way I interpreted it, no one would say anything.

If Jared cast Dominate and interpreted it the way I interpreted it, no one would raise an eyebrow. It's me. Why do you think that is? Me. Because people want to beat me. I'm the asshole. So they got to take me down.

And this is the same thing. The people that complain about me on the boards, it's because I've become successful playing a game that they think they play better. And that's, that angers them, you know, in the same fucking nugget.

It just, it, that there's a through line there. I think that, uh, as it infects our, our old school crew crew i can see that you're very angry i get fired up lashing out and saying really mean things to a lot of different people it's very rude you know but it's the it's it's honest and i think people should should hear this honesty because no one gets attacked more than i do and

the thing is like it i i say it doesn't bother me. And like, obviously, I'm getting fired up. But that's mostly for the hyperbole of the show. I don't want people attacking other people that way that can't take it. You know what I mean? Like, I can take it. But like, I just the slings and arrows. It's just ridiculous.

The bias, the bias that exists. You relentlessly attack all of the original people on this podcast. Relentlessly. Not only in game, but also personally. Relentlessly. And so, like, what do you expect? Like, you are reaping. I went to an all boys high school.

You are reaping what you sow. Yes. Some people can't take a joke or maybe it is a joke whatever and like but like when you hear a thousand times that you're not funny and you suck from somebody you want to beat that person in a game i'm telling you it's a the natural competitive nature let's talk about the larger general issue not make it about your psychosis let's make it about gaming in general and this the way that I approach thinking about something like this. Let's take it out of rules lawyer time and take it into

just the way that I approach a game, a game like Pathfinder. A lot of people make fun of me because of my desire to interpret things negative toward myself. I always look at an interpretation and think like, well, that is too easy or that shouldn't work that way. It probably needs to be more difficult. I'm not sure where I got that from. It might have been that Pathfinder is generally pretty difficult. It's pretty tough. And I had often found that I'd often been frustrated over time by how I got nickel and dimed down to, you know, not getting to do what I wanted to do or things being a lot harder than I expected, especially when it came to like combat maneuvers and stuff like that. I'd be like, you basically can't do anything unless you spend all the things on the feature

or whatever. This is all just to say, I don't know where this comes from, but I do have a natural inclination to interpret things in general on the more difficult end for a player. And I think that that is far and away not arguable that it is the better way to play the game. It doesn't make any sense to make a game pitched in each interpretation fork in the road toward player safety, you know, or player character safety is what I mean. Player character safety, like pitching rules that way and not having it be an uphill battle is I just don't understand it. I believe that you should always be struggling.

Look, I get super frustrated. I get angry about this stuff. Anybody can can attest. But I think that makes a better game and a better show when you have more when you have more struggle in a case like this. When you when there's a spell for dominate and you critically fail it, there should be no question in your mind that you are about to kill your friend there or attempt to kill your friend. Right. No question. You have critically failed a will save.

Don't even worry about the text. Something terrible is about to happen. And if something terrible doesn't happen, you're interpreting it wrong because there's no way that you could get out of a critical failure on a will save against dominate and not have something terrible occur. Now, I think that that is a general interpretation of the a point where I honestly believe that my interpretation of the wording of the raw is against your interpretation as the GM, it's like, I have to back down immediately. I just have to say my piece. Say your piece. Make my argument. But at the end, the GM has all of the power and trying to act like that's not the case is kind of foolish. You know, the GM is both the opposing attorney and the judge.

So it's kind of like you're fighting an uphill battle there. And the thing is, it isn't just about power, right? Because I'm sure I know there are horror stories all over the Internet about like power hungry GMs. To me, it's not about that. What it is about is that behind the screen, I have a thousand percent more knowledge about what's going on than the players do. So you just need to trust me that I am making the ruling that I'm making because it's going to make for a better experience for the

audience. This, this goes back to giant slayer, man. Like you guys would nickel and dime me on fucking everything. You know what it does? It makes me not want to play with you. Um, and there were a lot of times where I just didn't feel like playing because like, I can't make a single ruling without it being questioned. So then what happens to me is like, I start questioning like, well, maybe I'm wrong about everything. You know, it's like, that's why Time for Chaos was such a breath of fresh air. Nobody, I made a ruling and we moved on.

That's the way it should be. Now you should always say your piece because I am not infallible. In fact, I'm incredibly fallible when it comes with this rule set. But like when I make a ruling and I feel good about that ruling, we move on.

And it's not because like, I'm the one in charge. It's because I understand in this instance, it is a one on five fight. And you should be stomping these encounters. But due to poor party makeup, you're not. However, how cool is it going to be if I dominate Ethel and now it's a two on four fight for a couple rounds until he makes his will save? You know, to me, that's so much more interesting. Now, I'm not interpreting the spell incorrectly just because I think that's going to be interesting. Like we did, like I did with the Abyss Gigas in Giant Slayer.

That was a purposeful reinterpretation because I thought it would make it more interesting. But however, in this instance, I'm just using my interpretation because I think it's going to make a better show. So you just got to go with it. You just got to go with it. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I agree. I agree that you just have to go with it. I think it's hard. Some people, you know, people don't want to be wrong. I don't like being wrong. I told them wrong. When I have my interpretation of a thing and then you just say that that's wrong, it's just – yeah, it's hard. You got to put yourself in a headspace where you are willing to just give away your interpretation of a thing to just roll with the GM. And if you can't play with that GM because it happens too often, then don't play with that GM. You just got to move on.

But if you can't trust your GM, then what are you doing? Why are you playing with them at all? Yeah. It doesn't really make much sense. I think that we, in general, always have to work at getting better, at not getting so personally involved in these things, and definitely thinking about the greater show. It's taken me a long time. about the greater show. It's taken me a long time. I definitely, I mean, look, we talked a few weeks ago about me, you know, choosing other characters actions for them or telling them what to do, what not to do. I think that that's an over exaggerated interpretation of what my intentions

are. And it can seem like I'm trying to be tactical and all that kind of stuff. And that's true. I love being tactical. I have a really good time with that. But at the end of the day, whenever I kick it to the GM, be like, this is your call. I mean, just show me a time that I, you know, dig in, right? That I dig in and I will not give up this hill. It's like, it doesn't make a lot of sense. We're not, life's too short. And the games are much more fun when they're more dangerous, in my opinion. I have no memory, not a single memory of a character dying or something truly awful or upsetting happening to us because of a gross misinterpretation and aggressive overuse of power in our games in seven years. I can't, I can't think of one time that that has happened.

So it's like, just relax and play the game and have fun. It's hard. It's hard. You know, I think that the added pressure of an audience and whether we're recording remotely in person or in front of an actual live audience, that the pressure to perform sometimes I think it can,

it can lead to, you know know it raises our emotions up so that one thing that we wouldn't normally everything's amplified yeah everything's amplified normally get fired up about you get fired up about um it's it's hard i'm not saying like just be this way all the time but like we have to work towards that because while there's fun in replicating what happens at every other fucking table because people are constantly arguing. I mean, look at your council of thieves game when you guys stood up and almost started coming to blows.

Like we're not alone in that. Like these games sort of, you know what that was, that fight was about. If I remember correctly, cover, you know what I mean? Like it just,

there are things that you can get nickel and dimed on. And as a GM, you can just be like, I'm at the end of my rope. I can't take another nickel and diming right now. And that's really what it came down to, you know. And the thing is, like, I reacted too because I'm like, just fucking shut up and let me move on with the show. But, like, you know, it's hard.

This game lends itself to a me versus you type. It's just, it's a part of the game. But you have to try and bury that. You have to try and bury that. And it's difficult. It's difficult. I understand. I'm having less difficulty with it these days.

You're getting better. You're also playing with more groups, man. That really helps. I'm playing with some actual good GMs, which has really changed my… That makes it a little bit easier when you're playing with good GMs. Well, no, it is true though. You never have to question. Like anything else.

It's like when you have the pleasure, the honor of the experience of playing in several different tables with different excellent GMs. It's a privilege and it really does open your eyes up to like how things can be run in a way that is fun for everybody but also deadly and dangerous and while keeping everything safe and above board and everything but also making sure that people realize things are dangerous. back is motivated by an intense intense emotional uh like intense emotional desire within him i can't think of how to word this appropriately to not be wrong no no that's that is the mean interpretation no the the intense desire within him to not directly harm his friends characters like i think that he is so sensitive about that that that might be what motivated all that pushback people get so sensitive about being the one that cut down another character that's a very scary thing to have to deal with and sure you can blame it on the gm as much as you want but at the end of the day it really was your character that killed another character.

I just have started to think more so that like that's just fun. I don't care what side of the screen I'm on. That is fucking fun. Any other interpretation is stupid. Stop being a baby and play the game. When you said last week, order the amber dies, like when someone gets powered up

and they've got to attack their confusion or you maybe even mentioned Dominic, everyone gets juiced up. And I'm like, oh God, that sounds like a fucking dream. Because when I do it, people do everything they can to game the system to not do it.

Something as simple as suggestion. It's supposed to take you out of the fight. You don't want to do it. All right, you don't want to play my game. That's fine. Don't play my game. system to not do it. Something as simple as suggestion. It's supposed to take you out of the fight. You don't want to do it. You don't want to play my game. That's fine. Don't play my game. I'll do something else. It drives me crazy. I'm also running a game in a much different way than other people.

I'm not interested in your enjoyment. I'm interested in the audience's enjoyment. If you enjoy it as well, it's going to make them enjoy it more. But like, all I really care about is the audience's enjoyment. And so get that through your head.

Make it work. It's a very different way to play. Like most GMs should be, that's all they should care about is their players' enjoyment. And maybe if I did that, the audience would enjoy it more. But like, you've been playing with me for eight me for eight years you know what to expect put on a show yeah yeah no no i i get it uh but you know i do think there's something to be said there's definitely something to be said for losing control of your character it is one of the most

sensitive things killing a character a lot of times is better emotionally for people than having their character controlled by the gm and doing things they don't want to do. I don't know. People get very, very, very sensitive about that for good reason. But yeah, you got to rein it in, especially when you're doing a show. I mean, to me, it's just so obvious that like when that kind of dominate or confusion or suggestion happens, it's devastating. It's painful and it creates amazing drama. You got to just try to buy in.

I don't know. Lean into the story opportunity. Like when something happens, you can be bummed about it or you can lean into it. Guess which one's going to create a better story. And you know what? I'll say suggestion, confusion, dominate. Every single one of those I would take any day of the week. I would kill my own ally happily, then be paralyzed.

I would take all of those over paralyzed. At least you get to do stuff. It's so hard to lean into that. It's so hard to be happy and excited about that. I just think that this controlled condition is something to be embraced. It can be so dramatic and so fun and so intense. And yeah, I, I do think it takes a certain kind of person to, uh, gladly get their character killed by another character and not be, you know, bitter and angry about it. I, I understand that

that would be hard, uh, and at, you know, a more sensitive table that might not work, but we have to make that work. It's just, it's, it's too much fun for an audience. It's too crazy. The stories are too amazing. You'll remember it forever. Alright, we gotta go. We have gone way over here with your ranting. Let's get out of here. Well, I'm fired up, man. I like getting fired up over this because I care. I really

care. And that's why I get so preposterous about it because I want... You care about the audience, not your players. That's where we're going to leave the message reliever that's that's all you need to I remember emails back in the giant slayer days like 20 episodes

in all that matters is the audience yeah you know I said this for a long time so this is not a good show new news all right everybody have a great one we'll see on glass cannon labs tomorrow we'll see the dead degenerate dungeon tonight we got strange aeons tomorrow night I mean tons going on and gate walkers coming everybody. Have a great one. We'll see you on glass cannon labs tomorrow. We'll see you in the dead degenerate dungeon tonight. Uh, we got strange aeons tomorrow night.

I mean, they have tons going on and gate walkers coming soon. Studio updates coming next week, uh, including some getting the trunk updates coming soon. We'll talk to you later. Bye. I get fired up.

You're just fired up. 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 patreon.com slash glass cannon. you