The Glass Cannon Podcast - Cannon Fodder 4/3/24

Episode Date: April 3, 2024

Get ready for some new games! Troy and Joe drop breaking news on new shows that are recording in the Actual Play Factory this week before diving head-on into this week's episode of Gatewalkers. In We Are Stupid, an amazing update to the Light Cantrip in the PF2E Remaster; and in Listener Mail, a question about campaign fatigue brings up a whole host of interesting issues that plague GMs, players, and content creators in the TTRPG space. Please note that there will be no episode of Cannon Fodder next week. The show will return on Wednesday, April 17th. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/JNb3c9pPqWw For more podcasts and livestreams, visit glasscannonnetwork.com and for hundreds of hours of exclusive shows and benefits, make your membership official and join Glass Cannon Nation today by becoming a subscriber at jointhenaish.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You are listening to the Glass Cannon Network, the premier source for role playing game entertainment. Welcome to Cannon Fodder, a behind the scenes look at the Glass Cannon Network. Yo, what is going on everybody? Welcome back to Cannon Fodder. It is Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024. And I'm your old pal Joey Opie. And I'm Troy definitely not looking at pitcher props on FanDuel right now.

LaValley. The degenerate gambler himself, Troy LaValley, has launched into a new reason to lose all of his family's college funds, or his children's college funds. Baseball is back, baby baseball April baseball is back You know it's crazy. We're recording this the day after little lift the veil because you're going away Recording this the day after opening day and so last night I got to watch my first baseball game and of course it's on fucking 10 o'clock at night

So I stayed up late and we're recording this real early but dude baseball's back this is this year is just cooking year is cooking it's so funny we're going to talk very soon about some exciting upcoming news and things that are coming up for the network and so I was emailing some of our performers here that we that we use on the Glass cannon network that are not part of blood of the wild or legacy of the ancients or gatewalkers. And I realized like, I haven't talked to some of these people in like five months. And just like the time just flew by just absolutely flew by. Yeah, we're in it. We are in baseball season spring is here. And we've got an exciting FOD for you today. We're gonna actually the first thing that we're going to do is look back

at last week's FOD and talk about some of the comments below because the comments were hot on last week's FOD and I can't wait to talk about it. We're going to get into a little bit of news, exciting news about new games coming to the network, plus a, uh, a look at this week's episode of the GCP. A very light, we are stupid. No professor Eric this week is just a just a Joe personal We Are Stupid. And then of course, listener mail. I've got a monster question in listener mail that I don't know if you can answer.

So I'm excited for that. Wow. I'm wet with anticipation. Yeah. It was soaked. Soaked, bro. Let's get to the comments below from last week's FOD. There were tons of comments on last week's FOD.

I loved it. A lot of back and forth on episode length, which was really awesome to see. Like a lot of back and forth. And I really appreciate it. I'm not going to mention any of them here because there were so many of so many differing opinions. I don't think there's a consensus. And I think that that's great.

I think it's great that there are people are coming up with coming out with their opinions, making it clear what they're into, what they're not into. And it's great for us. It's almost like focus grouping a little bit, you know? Oh, for sure, for sure. To see how many people really want 90 to 120 minute episodes and to see how many people are adamant that they cannot listen to things

that are over 90 minutes or two hours because they have too much going on. Like it's really cool to see the variety. Yeah, it's real tricky. This is a different medium than traditional television as much as we're trying to use that as the basis. This is wildly different. You have to weigh the balance between knowing what your audience wants and also, especially

with any type of art like creating something that you would want to consume like it's very important for creators to create things that they're passionate about that they would be interested in when there's that connection like I think that it allows for a lot more creativity allows for a lot more excitement for the actual creator and the shows that we want to see I think differ from maybe a majority of the audience. So you have to find that balance and it's something that we're super aware of and I

think that you might see some changes along the way. And that was the point of the question last week. Thank you again to who brought it up. Was it Nixie? Yeah, Nixie in Arizona. Thanks again because that was a great conversation. And really what I wanted to shine a light on was we think about and talk about this all the time. This is not random, you know, the length of these episodes. So I appreciate all your feedback. We're going to always keep it in mind. Let's get to the

flat check discussion, how that was addressed in the comments below. I really liked one comment I wanted to pull out from at Kangler who said on the discussion about leaving the flat check argument in, leaving the argument in the episode, I for one love those moments being left in. Was it uncomfortable? Honestly, yes. But it's important in a world where sanitized theater kid actual plays, which I also enjoy, dominate the space, that we have a show that presents what an actual TTRPG session is like, warts and all. More importantly, people need to see adults arguing, resolving said argument, and moving on. Conflict resolution is a skill that is extremely lacking in the TTRPG space."

It's a great comment, really well said. One of the reasons I pulled it out is because I would say a conflict resolution is extremely lacking in a lot of spaces, in a ton of spaces, not just TTRPGs. So I think that showing that people can get into an argument and can resolve it and get out of it and then move on and have fun together is important. So kudos to you for leaving every aspect of that filthy, filthy fight in, that rock-throwing fight.

But yeah, it did not come across like, so we did a bit about it in Canon fodder and it was really fun doing like the reality show bit of like bringing the hotheads back together and making them fight each other. Those are fun, but they're train wrecks to watch. Nobody ever resolves anything. And the most interesting part to me about the conflict resolution of this is it, it was not a unanimous, it wasn't like a court of law. There wasn't like everybody turned around eventually

and realized Troy was right and vice versa. It did not happen, but everybody just moves on and is happy and is ready to play more. You know what I mean? Like everybody made their point and they're ready to move on. So anyway, I love that comment. That was good. And then at Steve D follows it up with Troy is like Walter Sobchak for the big Lebowski. He's not wrong. He's just an asshole. Which I love that line. I love that line. It was so good. And then somebody responded to him and said, over the line. So yeah, is that your favorite movie of all time? I think it is. It's probably my favorite comedy of all time. Yeah.

That's a fantastic movie. All right. And then one more, which is going to bring us into our next part out. Illerez comes up and just asks, any chance we can get more Jared Logan than we are now? Great question. And the answer is yes. And that brings us into the news for this week. Boopity boopity boopity boop. You guys know the show as Friends of the Pod.

I have it in my show notes today as Friends of the John, though I don't think it's going to have a brand name change any time soon. That's nice. I like that. Friends of the Pod is coming back. We had a fun run. Wait, we haven't done it since Assassin's Creed.

I was the last guy in kind of Labs was Deadlands. That was not Friends of the Tron. So Friends of the Pod returns soon. We don't have an air date yet. I mean, I think we do, but we're not announcing it just yet. But this week, it's recording. Talk to him about it, Troy. What is Jared Logan going to be running?

He's recording it this week. It'll be airing sometime in the next week or two. Yeah, I mean, we have been talking to pretty much every TT RPG publisher under the sun since the holidays. And even before that, just building relationships and whatnot. And now all the chickens are starting to come home to roost.

And one of those chickens is Cubicle 7. We've been talking to them. And as conversations advanced, they were like, we're game. I'm like, all right, I guess we're doing some Warhammer. I just assumed that's what it was. Then it came through and it's like, no, no, we want you to play something called The Laundry Files. It's like, what the F is that?

I'm like, all right, this just must be like something Warhammer related, like Warhammer adjacent. I look and I'm like, oh no, this is Lovecraftian cosmic horror set on a backdrop of like a British super secret service. It's Delta Green in England, basically. The laundry files. It's the second edition. I guess there was a first edition back in the day and they're going to be launching a Kickstarter for the second edition.

So Jared is going to be doing a one-shot with a cast. I said to Jared, I said, like, who do you want? You name it. I'll get them on. He's like, this is what I want. I'm like, done. So we're bringing back the team for Haunted City. Abu, Josephine McAdam, Ross Bryant, and then we're sprinkling in a little

Mary Lou to boot. Oh baby. Jared running Abu, Josephine, Ross, and Mary Lou through a Delta Green-ish modern Cthulian horror British secret service or whatever, British spy MI5 something. I don't know. I don't know anything about it either. It sounds amazing. And they're recording it this week. So yeah, very exciting. And hopefully that comes out in the next two weeks or so. And that's not the only one.

I guess we should also be clear. We love doing the behind the scenes stuff here. We've been reaching out to a lot of publishers, building these relationships. Friends of the Pod is designed to be a place for sponsored streams. You know what I mean? Cubicle seven is sponsoring the stream to make it happen to get their game out there.

The new version of this game out there. And we've been talking to free league as well. And free league is ready to rock on another run of Blade Runner. So we're going to see more Blade Runner coming too. Also recording this week. Now Jared is not running that, Skid is running that, as you may recall from the previous Blade Runner we did.

But you and I are not in it, this is a new story. This is a new Blade Runner story. Brand new story, they're releasing the first supplement for the Blade Runner RPG, it's called Fiery Angels. And this is, I believe this is the adventure that's included along with the supplement, or at least a portion of the adventure. This is gonna to be a three-shot. So three episodes, you get to really sink your teeth in and same thing. It's like, Skid, who do you want? And

he mentioned a couple of names. I'm like, all right, I'll fill out the rest. And so we've got, dude, this is going to be so good. It's going to be Jason Charles Miller, Seth Skorkowski, Alicia Marie, and Paula Deming. I just love it. I love it. I was actually working on, they've already, by the time this fodder airs, they should already have recorded the first one of these. And so I was working on graphics for their, for the overlays, right? For the actual, what you see on the show. And I'm putting it all together and I'm just like, Oh my God, I'm cracking up. This is, you know, three of the people in Voyagers of the Jump. And then you throw in Paula Deming and you throw in Jason Charles Miller.

I mean, it's just amazing. It's so it's so fun. So that's what I was talking about earlier when I said I can't believe how much time is flying. You know, I'm reaching out to some of these folks that I haven't talked to in a while and it's great to refresh, you know, I didn't get to play Voyagers of the Jump with Alicia Marie. We played some really fun Alien at the end of,

in the fall last year, but we haven't played since. And so I was like, I miss playing with you, and she was like, likewise. So anyway, I'm excited that that is getting up and running too and more to come that we can't talk about yet, but there should be more of these all through the spring into the summer. All new fun games that we're gonna be trying

with all different casts. Yeah, especially leading up to Gen games that we're gonna be trying with all different casts. Yeah, especially leading up to Gen Con. We're doing things a little differently this year. I think there's gonna be a ton of content coming in, you know, June, July, straight through to Gen Con week. Very, very exciting. I reached out to Seth, who I hadn't talked to. We've still never even met Seth.

I was like, hey Seth, do you wanna do this? But he goes, not just yes, but hell yes. That's awesome. I just it's gonna be great. It's gonna be fantastic. So I hope you guys enjoy that. Get excited. Please come out in droves and support these shows on YouTube. Come out, watch them support the GMs, give them some love. Because it's a lot of work, you know, putting a new take putting a new cast together, running a new game. I really hope skit has a great time. I mean, you've, we put together what I would consider a dream cast for skit, right? I mean, Jason Charles Miller and Cesar

Cascio are two of his favorite artists, creators in all spaces. And, and then he loves playing Paul with Paul Deming and blood of the wild, you know, so familiar with her, obviously, and Alicia Marie has played so much with her in Alien and Voyager the Jump. So the chemistry is all there. It's fantastic. You gotta have that for Skid, because Skid hates recording remotely,

and so you gotta make sure you just pad it with all of his best buddies and people he loves. Oh, it's so awesome. It's so exciting. You know what I was gonna say is, dude, I was looking up, so I was Googling the laundry files while we're talking here, and I believe it's called the laundry files.

I think it's just the laundry. It might be the laundry, but anyways, it's based on, yeah, it's just called the laundry. It's based on a series of novels called the laundry files. It's a series of novels by a British writer named Charles Strauss and they mix genres of love, this sounds right up your alley, dude. Lovecraftian horror. I didn't realize it was based on a series of novels and I'm going to buy them right now.

Well, on top of it, so it mixes genres of Lovecraftian horror, spy thriller, sci-fi and workplace humor, all like Cthulhu Mythos, H.P. Lovecraft, and two of them won the Hugo Award for best novella. Oh, wait a minute. I know this. Book one is the Atrocity Archives. Oh, wait a minute. I know this book one is the atrocity archives. Somebody, oh my gosh. I didn't realize these,

that this series was called the laundry, was called laundry files. This book was sent to us by a fan in the old office. It was sent to us by a fan. They were like, you gotta check this out. You'd love it. And it was to skit, I think. And it sat on a bookshelf in our office for a really long time.

I recognize the image or the picture, but I never read it. Damn it. I should have read it. Well, now you know. That's the easy thing right up your alley, especially the two that won the Hugo, man. Can't go wrong. That's amazing.

All right, very exciting stuff there. Let's get back into the world of the GCP and the world of Gatewalkers. We had, oh my gosh, what a wild up last week. There's one huge, obviously, a point of that episode that we're going to discuss, but it kicks off with, as you teased in last week's FOD, a chance for Brother Ramius and Zephyr to do, you know, a little connecting. And I really loved that scene and I love that the two of them, it's interesting to me. I feel like, I don't know, from the jump, I've kind of felt this, there's this distance in Zephyr, right? There's this like, she's kind of a loner in a way, kind of closed off, kind of has her own shit going on. And I don't want to pry, but it's also interesting that her and Brother

Ramius are the two of the group that really share a kind of that monkish sort of lifestyle, right? That sort of cloistered focused training where Brother Ramius is maybe more spiritual and Zephyrs may be more physical. There is that similar sort of upbringing, but they've never had really a moment to connect. I feel like these kinds of moments are huge for RPGs for TTRPGs. You gotta have, you can't always do everything as a group. Sometimes you need two characters to kind of split off and connect in a way that will drive up the stakes of the story, that will

give people reasons to want to sacrifice for each other. I think you, I think Roger and Vicki do a great job of it in getting the trunk. There's a lot of like, you take these side scenes where you're like, we want to make these connections here. And over time, it builds relationships that the audience can follow along with and understand. I just wonder if, you know, is that easy to do at any RPG gaming table? Is there something about, you know, one player saying, I just want to role play with this one other player for 10 minutes while everybody else watches?

Is that weird? You know, I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think it's weird in a home game or in a show. You know, there was an episode of Time for Chaos this season that started off with Rob and Kate's character. They were basically, I had resolved what Ross and Nora were doing in their scene. It kind of came to a head in the previous episode.

Whereas Kate and Rob were still like, they'd snuck into this building and they were downstairs in the basement. They discovered this hidden room. And like, there was just no way for me to cut back to what Ross and Nora were doing because the end of the previous episode kind of wrapped up their story. They'd be walking back to the hotel.

And so I just stuck with them. And I think at a certain point, Rob was like, I feel bad we're like role playing this whole episode. I'm like, dude, this is the show. Just like lean into it. This might be the whole first hour of the show. And it ended up being like 45 minutes of pretty much just Rob and Kate.

And so what do you have to do is like, as the GM, you're the ringleader. You've got to listen and then find ways to involve other people, even if it's just as like from a commentary standpoint. Out of character. Yeah. Yeah.

Isn't this crazy skit that they're having this conversation? You know, like you find ways of doing it and you can do that. And that's important both for a show and for something that you're not recording is just so people don't tune out, start checking their phone and whatnot. But let it flow. When two people are talking, you can always edit stuff out later. But like when two people are into it, just shut up and let it flow.

Do you think the GMs should facilitate this in order to create more in party bonds? Like do you think do you think that you should create situations where the party is split and it's not for and it's not dangerous encountery reasons, but more exploratory or whatever reasons, even if the players don't come up with the idea, maybe you come up with the idea as a GM in order to try to get, I feel like you're going to form more solid relationships by having one on one on one time.

Right? Yeah, it's hard and Pathfinder and D&D don't lend themselves to that. It's like, all right, we're gonna go this way, you guys go that way. It's like, well, then you're gonna die. Whereas like in Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green and these other systems that we play,

they're a little more narrative focused. You still might die, but it just kind of works. You could die with the whole party in those games in any instance, you never know, right? So it's like, what's the difference? Ultimately, yeah, so, you know, I think anytime you can set up things like that as a GM It's it's good. It lets people start to bond and once you build those bonds, then you're fighting for each other You're not just fighting for the cause you're fighting for each other and it changes what you'll do if like, you know You can kill this guy, but you know that they're one

roll away from death. You really have to choose. I was playing Baldur's Gate yesterday. I was like, I have a scroll of Revivify, but I really don't want to fucking use it. But if I go hit this guy and then he does an AOE, it's going to kill this. It's the same kind of thing. Now that's in a video game, but I think that it makes you weigh options differently when you're in battle and someone is dying.

It may change how you fight and it may lead to more disaster or it may lead to a real good moment between two characters. You saved my life. You know what I would say? If you're a player in one of these D&D or Pathfinder games, do yourself a favor and find a way

to get some one-on-one connection time with the healer. Yeah, that's a good person to buddy up with. A good person to buddy up with. When the decision gets tough, maybe they'll make the right one. Dude, it's like working at bar jobs. I had so many shithead managers, just like pieces of shit. And objectively too, not like bad bosses, not like, oh man, this guy's such a pain in the ass to work for.

Bad people. Bad human beings. And every spectrum of bad. Things I can't even tell you about. Oh no, 100%. Real, real bad. And the first thing I would do is just make them laugh and make them be like, that guy Troy is the fucking best.

I would buddy up with them and they'd say shit. I'd say, oh man. All of their evil. evil not enable their evil but just be like, oh man You son of a gun get out of here because it's like you don't want to get on that bad guy guys bad side What's all the time they tell you the stories of the horrible things they do that are do or you're just like oh Wow, man, that's you're crazy. I'm gonna take two weeks off for Christmas cool. He's like, yeah, man That's what I love. Wow, you're crazy. I'm going to take two weeks off for Christmas. Cool?

He's like, yeah, man, get the fuck out of here. Oh my god. My cousin, Michael, who was just such a doe-eyed angel, like innocent angel when he moved to New York, he moved in with me at like 23 years old, 22 years old. And he was trying to model and act and stuff like that. And he got a job bartending in New York at a nightclub downtown. And I mean, just bartending in New York at a nightclub downtown.

And I mean, just to see the look on his face when he would come home and talk about what his boss told him or was doing. He was just like, I can't, I can't work there. I can't. He's hard. He's a horrible person. Like, yeah, they're freaking horrible. All right. Anyway, let's get back to the episode. And really what to me is that the cru crux of this episode and it's just so amazing. I laugh, I'm smiling, but I'm dying inside because now once again, after the fan crit and fumble arguments finally kind of go to a lull for a little bit, we just throw some fuel back on that fire and get ready for it to explode as you roll a natural one and pull a fan critical that silences you for 1d4 rounds.

Then you roll a four and essentially completely neuter the encounter and just, you know, I mean, we don't know. We're not out of it. We're not out of the woods, but like you had to be furious though. You didn't seem it on air at all. You were very go with the flow. No, dude, I go with the flow. You can't.

As a player and as a jam. Yeah. Yeah, it sucks. It's especially as a spellcaster, like his whole jam is casting spells and he's got some great spells. I mean, look at what he did in the first round before he fumbled, like getting that Scorching Ray off. It almost killed, like took Suki out.

Not Suki out. Not Suki, fucking, what's her name? Asta. It was almost her full HP in one ray. Yeah. And it wasn't even a crit, I don't think. Or no, it was a crit. I think it was a crit.

Just brutal stuff. And I mean, I've got some good spells in my arsenal, so it sucks. And it sucks that it comes from a fan crit. This is why people hate them. This is why people hate them. This is why people hate them however I wrote that one before me this how you know that I'm not fudging because I could have looked at that for him and

Like ah two rounds damn it four rounds. Let it let it roll four rounds Absolutely brutal and counter breaking right and in a lot of ways and so people I know to come out of the woodwork. These are bullshit. They blah, blah, blah, whatever. Look, we've had this discussion a million times. And what I'll say is I don't really care that it, it neuters an encounter because like you don't, every single encounter does not have to be life and death. Every once in a while, a die roll can put you in easy mode. It happens. Sometimes two players crit in the first round, one of them's got a x3 critical if you're playing oney, and it just kills the encounter and it's over. You know what I mean? So you don't necessarily need fan critical or fumbles in order to have an encounter,

just get wiped by the roll of the die. In this case, you know, you rolled the natural one. It is what it is. But I agree that like it's not as thrilling. Uh, however, we're not out of the woods and we are playing terribly at this moment. Like, uh, Kate cannot hit the broad side of a barn. And this is multiple weeks in a row at this point. She is ice cold.

Everybody goes on these. Yeah, she's on a she's on a Hey baseball season just started right? She's in a slump. She's got the yips. Whatever it is and she's just got to pull herself out of it. But we have what how much time do we have at the at the cliffhangers? Two rounds? I think there's two rounds left but we still haven't barely done anything to this guy. Yeah, I mean that's why I'm like I could come down there and start laying out some damage with my, my weapons, but I'm like, why should I?

I'm just going to wait this out, crawl around and try and, uh, try and stay hidden in the day. Like stay in the darkness, right? Like what a cool ability. Uh, do you, do you have the step block up at all? I know we don't want to talk about too much, but you said this guy has a special ability that allows his flat check from consumer to be seven instead of five. And for whatever reason, that just tickled my fancy. I love those little mechanical

bonuses. I'm like, that is so freaking cool because obviously the percentage chance increasing by 10% that he, you know, you're going to miss him. It's just, that's a cool, cool ability to have. Yeah, it's called shadow blending. Um, When they're concealed as a result of dim light, the flat check to target him as a DC of seven, not five. Yeah. So yeah, it just behooves me to spend my whole round just getting back into dim light because if all you can do is ranged, it just adds a little extra light keeping me around for

another round because you're probably going to hit that DC seven, but look at how many people missed it. Yeah. I mean, geez, you say that and7, but look at how many people missed it. Yeah. I mean, geez, you say that and it's just look how often those flat checks get missed, you know? And it's not necessarily, I think Skid would really agree with me on this. And this isn't, I guess it's partially a mathematical argument, but it's largely a, it's more of a feeling.

It's more of an esoteric sort of thing, but when you enter in the flat check, you can't see it as only the flat check because hitting a DC-5 is what? You got an 80% chance to succeed on that role, something like that. If you have an 80% chance to succeed on that role, what you're thinking is like, oh, well, it's an 80% chance that you get through. And that's not that big of a deal. Yes, every once in a while it means you can't hit, but whatever.

But the problem is that it's an 80% chance just to get past the flat check. Then you still have your, at best, 50% roll to hit. So when you combine those two probabilities together, it feels to me like that 20% swing is a lot higher because you have to get two rolls in a row. Somebody mentioned recently, I can't remember if it was in the comments, I think it was about the previous episode where we had the debate about the flat check. They were like recently had a session where players, like three

players in a row rolled natural 20s on their flat check and missed their attack. Like it's just brutal. It just feels awful. And like, so that's the hard part of the flat check. It's not just passing that one check. That doesn't mean you hit, right? It's the fact that it's added to an already lower probability roll that then expands that

to where you feel like you just miss and miss and miss. So this is why the light spell comes in huge. Brother Ramius is able to cast the light spell, shed some light on this guy and help reduce that flat, get rid of that flat check so that we're just dealing with our normal misses instead of having to add a flat check on top of it. That's going to bring me to, we are stupid for today. It's going to be a short one. It's going to be focused on light. Now when we do remaster changes versus regular old school PF2E changes, I think we are stupid is a little intense, might be a little bit offensive, but I'm not offended because I believe strongly in this.

Do what I do. No, do what I say, not what I do, Nash. I need to practice what I preach and I really don't do it enough. If you are a spellcaster, you should reread your spells every once in a while. Even the ones that you use a lot. Just reread them. Because I remember back in the day, even Jade Regent days, before we were recording and stuff,

I remember getting into a groove with a certain ability or spell. I was a druid then, a certain ability or spell that over time, like, it would basically, like a game of telephone, it would evolve slightly over a year's time without looking back at it to where I was doing one part of it completely wrong or something, right? Like that has happened before in the past.

And so it really behooves you even these classic cantrips that you use all the time and you think you know inside and out, especially with the remaster coming in, it's like double check, reread them each time. And that brings me to light. We don't have professor Eric this week, because like we said, we're recording really early because I'm traveling. So he is going to weigh in on maybe other parts of the episode that I missed that would, and we'll deal with that in a few weeks. But let's talk about light. I'm going to bring it up here on Demiplane.

I've got it set up here. There we go. So this is remastered light and it might be, Troy, no exaggeration, the, the coolest and biggest upgrade that I've gotten in the remaster. Really? Yeah. Because this now maybe because it's, I don't remember if PF2E light was two actions, I'm assuming it was, but this light upgrade is huge because what it

essentially does, let's boil it down. In, in path, light was a spell and dancing lights was a spell. They were two separate spells. In the remaster, they seem to have combined them into this light spell, which creates an orb of light that sheds bright light in a 20 foot radius and dim for the next 20, just like light.

In a color you choose, that's fun. We'll see if that ever comes up. If you create the light in the same space as a willing creature, you can attach the light to the creature causing it to float near the creature as it moves. That's very cool because you don't have to attach it to an object or an item. A lot of times you'd be like, oh, it's something they're wearing or their sword. But what if their sword falls out of their hands, falls down a cliff, whatever, right? Little things like that. You can sustain the spell to move the light up to 60 feet.

You can detach it from a creature as part of this movement. Now you couldn't do that with light. You could cast it on something else, but you couldn't necessarily move that one ball of light. And sustain is just one action. So recasting the light would be two actions. That's what I did in this episode. In this episode, I, whatchamacallit, I cast light the traditional way. So the first time the enemy moved into the other corner of the room to stay in the darkness again,

I cast a new light for two actions in that corner. That prevents me from casting a two action heal. That prevents me from casting a two action attack spell, right? Just to keep the light on him and it put the light out in that other area. But that is what has changed in the remaster because this is like dancing lights. Not only can you move that light, you can also cast the spell again and get another ball of light. That's cool. And they're both going. And then you could do a third one and a fourth one. So this means that now a caster that is casting light as a cantrip at whatever first level can essentially cast a light ball that follows four different PCs, no matter

what rooms they go in or where they go. And that is powerful. A huge change to that spell. It's basically dancing lights, but they combine it with light and they, it's really interesting. And I was really excited when I read that. So I didn't catch it before this episode. It'll be in next week's episode. I'm going to, I'm going to use it correctly. I found it out between episodes. It's meant for a four person party.

It's like, all right, you all have light. Yeah. And just make it easier. You all have light. And then this is really cool. One more added benefit. Look at this. Heightened fourth level.

That means when we are seventh level characters, the orb will start shedding light in a 60 foot radius and dim for 60 feet. And that just heightens automatically at seventh level. So that's really cool. So I was really happy with that upgrade to light and noted anyone that pointed that out. We'll get it right next week. I was very excited about light there. Yeah, you get really fired up in your pants about light. I waited till you took a drink. Yeah, about about light. Okay, let's get let's take it to a listener mail. Okay, we might have some more we are stupid about this.

I'm sure we fuck stuff up. So yeah, yeah. I mean, I relistened to the app and I, I didn't catch anything. But I could be wrong. So we'll see if Professor Eric finds anything but I'm sure there are things. I'm sure there are things. Also, this is probably a good time to mention right before we get into listener mail, we're going to be off next week for fodder. No fod next week, a little fodder spring break, one week off. Spring break. And we had just double fist and Miller lights. Flash in the neighbors.

Flash in the neighbors. Man, our spring breaks are a lot different now. Did you ever go to spring break in college, like to Mexico or Florida or Florida? I never did Mexico or anything like that. My junior year, a couple of my theater buddies and I, we just went to New York. We were like, let's watch some Broadway shows. We were just like, let's do New York. Then senior year, I had two of my college roommates from New Orleans. We went to Mardi Gras. It happened. It lined up with spring break. It was 2000. I graduated college in 2000

and we went to fucking Mardi Gras. And it was awesome. I've never been back to New Orleans. I was supposed to go back when I was working at CBS tailgate fan show, but the one week I took off ever was for your wedding. So I didn't get to go back to New Orleans. Oh, wow. Dude, I would love to go back to Mardi Gras. I was just telling Sam last night. Was that LSU?

Is that where that is? Yeah, LSU. It's in New Orleans? It's in New Orleans. I always say to our booking agent, I'm like, dude, can we do New Orleans? He goes, New Orleans is a tough town. It's a music town. I'm like, fucked up. We go to New Orleans. Because I think that would be

something similar to Nashville. Like we could do a retreat there and make it a destination. My God, would that be fun. New Orleans is also one of, I mean, maybe two bucket list places for me in the US. Like there's only one or two places left that I haven't been in the US that I really want to go. And I've never been. I've never been in New Orleans places left that I haven't been in the US that I really want to go and I've never been. I've never been in New Orleans or Louisiana at all. Never been in the state. I mean, drinking on the street. Can't beat it, right? But it's just a wild town. But dude, the food is out of this world. You just have to close your eyes and eat it. But also the fucking music.

Like I'm not, yeah, my music's all over the place, but I got way into like New Orleans style music because of my college roommates. They were obsessed with it. They got me into Rebirth Breath band, just listen to that shit. And then you go and you're like, oh yeah, fucking Rebirth plays every Tuesday at Tipititas. And you just go and listen to this band

that you were like listening to their CDs. It's such a fun time. We should probably do it. That would be like a four day, let's do New Orleans, right? That should be a retreat. Yeah. That's what it should be. Company retreat?

Comp retreat, John Ski. All right, let's get into a little listener mail. I got a chunky one today that I'm excited to bring to the table for discussion. Chunk. Chunk. It's time to listen to mail. Got to get your brain up for it.

Time to listen to me. You gotta cue that fuckabee. All right, this one is from Hans Batista. That shows this one just because this name, this made up name is phenomenal. Sounds like a Bond villain. It does. Hans Batista. Sounds like a Bond villain. It does. Hans Batista. Hello, Mr. Bond.

Hans Batista, we meet again. Hello, Mr. Bond. I see you're all tied up at the moment. I'll just leave you alone. Surely you won't escape. Amazing. What's up, Hans? All right, Hans says, now I warned you, this was a little bit of a joke, but I'm going

to say it again. I'm going to say it again. I'm going to say it again. I'm going to say it again. I'm going to say it again. I'm going to say it again. I'm going to say it again. I'm going to say it again. I'm going to say it again. I'm going to say it again. you alone, surely you won't escape. What's up Hans? All right. Hans says, no, I warned you, this was a little long, so pay attention.

Hey, good buddies. My name is Hans and I found you guys when the first few apps of androids and aliens dropped years ago. And I was still in the Marines and have loved listening in since it made for some good company while I was standing post for hours, trying to stay awake and has been my go-to podcast ever since. It made for some good company while I was standing post for hours trying to stay awake and has been my go-to podcast ever since. I just love hearing that out of the gate, like to just picture a Marine on guard duty on watch, just like staying awake listening to A&A. It just, it makes me smile. That's so awesome. I've got a question for you. Listening to the last few FODs, I've noticed that Troy has mentioned a few times that he'd

like to get certain adventures over with. He kind of hinted at it while talking about the middle rooms of Giant Slayer in the last Canada Fodder. He mentioned he wanted to finish up Strange Aeons as well for similar reasons. And I also recall him mentioning a similar feeling when he made it to Act 3 of Baldur's Gate. This is a feeling I think all players and GMs feel at some point, but my question is why do you think that feeling is so ubiquitous across all these sorts of games and how do you

combat that mid-campaign fatigue so that it doesn't feel like a slog that you just want to get to the end of so that you can move on? And then he goes on to say that he almost saw us at Grand Mercy Theatre for the Halloween show. He was there and had VIP tickets, got them last minute, and then drank too much. It was like, and his girlfriend was like, we're leaving. He's like, I gotta go. So he said, if you ever come down to Florida,

I'll catch you there. So anyway, thanks, Hans. Appreciate you. Thank you, Hans. Semper Fi. Let's talk. Mid-campaign fatigue. I think this is a very real thing.

Yeah. I think it's a very real thing. Yeah. I think it's frightening for GMs, right? Especially if you're liking a campaign and you can feel players waning, feel the passion in the project waning. I mean, we've had this happen on our own shows. But then you can go to look at something like Jade Regent, which was into book five, right?

Of six. Play from the beginning. And we never had any fatigue in that campaign of us. Yeah. So, no, we didn't. So what do you think it is that creates fatigue and is there a way to combat it? It's, it's a tough question. Yeah. I mean, I think all I can speak from is from my experience and maybe our collective experience, I think one of the things that exacerbates this

is that we do it for a living too, you know what I mean? So it's like, there's always this other part that's creeping in that's like, this is work. This is work. And like you got- And there's pressure. There's pressure. Hey, shut up, this is fun.

But it's tricky and that makes it hard too because you think like, am I just doing this adventure because we've committed to it and it would be weird to stop it now? I mean, we still feel shitty about having to stop Emerald Spire and Raiders. Raiders. You know, it's not an ideal thing for us to do,

but also there is a precedent for doing it. So I mean, I struggle with this all the time. I think to myself, I'm like, I think I've already mentioned with strange hands, I'm like, what if we just started, did something else? But like, I love, I really love the adventure and I really want to finish it. And I do too.

And so I don't feel fatigue from it. I just feel like, fatigue isn't the right word. I would say I don't feel fatigue from it. I just feel like fatigue isn't the right word. I would say I don't feel fatigue from it. I feel a constant pressure that it's not the best business decision to keep playing Strange Aeons from a live show standpoint. I feel like doing new stuff at live shows could be a better business decision and would be really fun for us. But I don't feel Strange Aon's campaign fatigue at all.

And I'll be honest with you about shows I feel fatigue in and Strange Aon's is not one of them. I really love it. Yeah, I just don't feel that. I love it. I wish we could play it more often and that is the goal, you know, to hopefully really start chunking along with it because I do want to finish. I want to take you to the finish line.

It's just hard. We've been playing for so long. I always, when I'm doing those recaps, I'm like, these guys don't know anything about what's happening up here. And I feel bad because there's a really good story and it's just hard to remember because we play so many other things. But that's one thing.

But dude, there's been times where Gatewalk. Real quick, it's not only because we play other things. It's like that's also the only campaign that really is two hour episodes once a month, super, sometimes twice a month, and then sometimes four months off. So it's just really, it's hard to remember everything. Whereas the way that it's written for the, the at home gaming group that's playing weekly, you finish strange hands in a year and everything stays tight.

You know, it's just, it's not working that way. I have solutions for it, you know, because at the time when we did it, I'll never forget it. I was on stage at the Bohemian Hall beer garden. And we did our first like, it was kind of like a mini con, it was called glass cannon podcast live. And it was the third time maybe we had done a live show in front of an audience. We did one at the Geekery, we did one at Gen Con, like our first Gen Con, and then we did this one. And they were just with like bringing our Glass Cannon podcast characters or Androids and Aliens characters,

whatever, into like a new scenario. No, it was GCP characters because if you remember, at the beer garden, we played the super trailer for A&A. That's right. It wasn't aired yet. It was just about to start releasing. Yeah. So we played these characters, and I was on stage. And I was like, this is fun.

But there are no stakes. There's no stakes. Because we played those characters in dream sequences, like battle royale style. That's all it was. And I was like, this was fun once, maybe twice, but like I can't do this again. We got to do an adventure with real stakes. And so that's what led me to let's do an adventure path.

And at the time there were no three book adventure paths. It was just six book and I was like, this will be great. And everybody thought we were crazy, but we're still doing it and we're in book fucking four and there's a good chance we will finish it. I just think that in order to really make it work, we have to play more often and that's something we want to do. And that's part of the solution that we've discussed, but we're getting off topic. We're getting off topic.

Let's focus on mid-campaign fatigue. There are times in Daywalkers, especially lately with this remaster, I don't want to say nonsense, but it's a real pain in the ass that this all happened because like you just launched 2E, everybody get all these books. It's like, well now the ass that this all happened because like you just launched 2e. Hey, everybody get all these books. It's like, well now we've got this new thing. It's like, it's just too much and it's like, well, fuck Gatewalkers. It's not, it's not super compatible. And I think we've come up with a solution that works, but there are times when I'm like,

fuck man, I've just TPK and I'll start Wardens of Wildwood. You know what I mean? Just like have the most, but then we do that and two, into that, they'll have the 2.0 or 3.0, whatever, 3.5. Well, I don't necessarily think that, I don't wanna, I don't want my silence to act like I agree with you about how Paisos approach this situation.

I feel like a lot of that is completely out of their control. I'm not blaming Paiso, it's just shitty. It is shitty for every player, everybody that bought books at 2E, it is shitty, objectively. But I would say it's not anybody's fault.

But look, it's the law, right? It's legal shit. It's somebody's fault. But I don't have the person in front of me. I don't know who that person is. But like- Dude, how many times do we have to make changes and we're like, this is shit we could have done a while ago and we just didn't.

And I'm sure Paizo feels the same thing. They're like, I wonder if this will ever be a problem with this license and they're like, yeah What and I don't think it was they think they were like nah I think it was more like they were like we got to put out four bucks every month Oh, like every deadline is just like and you just keep moving you just keep going I totally get that as business owners this so much so many times where like, oh man, we really got to get a phone call with so and so. It's not a problem right now. We'll deal with it later.

There's so many other things that we're dealing with. I totally get it. But there are times even in Gatewalkers, which I love, where I'm like, man, this would be easier just to do awarding some Wildwood or whatever comes out after that. But you know, campaign fatigue, there's a lot of factors that contribute to it. I think that if you really do feel fatigue, you do two things. You take a break, number one, and then you see if you really miss it. You tell all the players like, because sometimes you can feel with the players like, wow, they

are not into this. Take a break, which is harder to do when you're running a show, but fuck it. If I felt that, if I really felt that now, I'd feel comfortable to be like, you know what, we're gonna take a two-month break. We're not gonna release any content and be really transparent with the audience and be like, you know what, I feel like there's a disconnect between the players and the adventure, between me and the players, between me and the adventure. We're gonna take a, we're gonna take a legit break and then come back and see like, do we miss this?

Do we miss this game? And if the answer is no, move on. COVID forced us to do that, forced us to take some hard looks and I think in the end it was the best decision. It's also interesting because I got campaign fatigue in Giant Slayer in book five. Yeah. Which a lot of audience members did too, and I got it as a player. But it is multi-layered. It wasn't just that I felt the encounters and stuff

were repetitive. I also started to not be that interested in playing my character. Like, my character was, because I was playing Dalgryth at the time, and I had lost Pembroke, and I had lost a Jimmer, you know, to kind of connect with in a melee sort of combatant way. And I was just like floundering and I was not enjoying myself.

And so I, uh, that break, that COVID break was huge. You know, it was huge. That really long break. It made me want to go back to giant slayer. I couldn't wait to get back and play Giant Slayer. So taking a break is one option. Another one is analyzing, right? You want to know, it's like Apollo 13. I love this line in Apollo 13 when Ed Harris is like, let's work the problem people. Let's not make things worse by guessing. It's like, try to identify what really is the source of the problem. Is it that the players all are not feeling this adventure? Is it that one player doesn't like the adventure and is spreading that? Because we've talked about people that have big personalities at a table. I'm one of those people. You can change the mood of a table on your own,

even if you're not necessarily intending to. Is it that all player or two, is it into their character? If their character doesn't feel they're not connecting with their character, each different problem has a different solution. And if it is a character issue, perhaps it's, Hey, do you want to move on from this character? Like if you want, we can let this character go off into the sunset and you can bring in a new character, if that's going gonna give you a spark of life to bring this campaign back to life.

So that is an option. I like the take a break option. I don't feel like you ever have to complete a campaign that you begin. I mean, I'm the first to tell you, most people, I don't know about most people, most people around me, Matthew, you in particular, if you start a book, you finish it.

If I start a book and I'm not that into it, I just stop, I move on to the next. I'm like start a book and I'm not that into it, I just stop. I move on to the next. I'm like, there's too many books for the amount of years I'll be alive. It's the better way to be. I just, I can't do it. Yeah. And some people just can't do it.

But recognize yourself, recognize that in yourself. If you're a GM, if you're too attached to it and you feel like you just have to tick off some sort of box, like I completed this adventure and you're going to drag your players through it just to get it done. That might not be the best. Take a long look in the mirror, especially if you're running a homebrew and think, I wrote this thing. I love this thing, but these guys don't seem to love it. Maybe I need to change some things about how I'm approaching it, whatever it is. Or maybe we just need to take a break and play a Delta Green operation for two months. Let's try Delta Green. We never done a ball block completely change everything. And then

maybe we'll want to come back. So yeah, yeah, it's a great question. Thanks for bringing it up. Hans Batista. Hans Batista. See you later, Mr. Bob. That was kind of creepy. Our heads like molded into each other. Great question. I think everybody suffers from it and I would love for you guys to write in, in the comments here on YouTube.

Even if you're just listening to this, go to YouTube to write comments. It's a great place for us to kind of see these comments, but write your thoughts on mid-campaign fatigue if you have suffered from it, if you had solutions to how you dealt with it. And then I don't want anybody talking about fan crits and fumbles, but I feel like there was something else that I was interested in hearing audience conversation. Was it the player's role playing with each other? No, I don't think it was. I can't remember what it was, but there was something in my mind. I was like, ask for comments on this. Anyway, I'm sure it'll naturally out, but if it is talking about mid-campaign fatigue

and what you kind of see, maybe it can be network related or it could be your own game related. Just write in the comments and we'll bring it up on the next fodder. Like I said, no fodder next week. We're going to be on a little fodder spring break. And we return April 17th. spring break and we return April 17th fodder will will return April 17th so look out for it then and we'll get caught up on so many things I think that we're stupid on as I talked to professor Eric

about spring break I was like take a couple weeks off if you want he was like no thanks I'll be analyzing every episode and you'll get a treatise when you return so we might do some back we are stupids, we'll see. But that's gonna wrap it up. Thanks everybody, it's been a pleasure, have a fantastic week and look out for news on our social media about release dates for The Laundry, for the new Blade Runner Fiery Angels three shot. It's gonna be really fun stuff coming.

So we'll see you in a couple weeks, take it easy everybody. Later! Bye! It's time to make your membership official. Become an official member of the Naish today at JoinTheNaish.com. That's JoinTheNaish.com, where you'll get access to exclusive podcasts and live streams you can't find anywhere else. See what everybody's talking about and join the nation today at join the nation.com