The Glass Cannon Podcast - Cannon Fodder 5/1/24

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

Troy and Joe return from hanging with the Naish in Kansas City and Austin with some exciting news about new Glass Cannon Labs content, a primetime video game stream for Joe, and the return of Troy's Baldur's Gate 3 campaign. This week's episode of the GCP sparks lots of conversation, including how and when Troy decides to use backmatter from a Paizo AP and Joe's conspiracy theories regarding the party's newest member. In Listener Mail, when the rubber hits the road where should you begin your PF2E journey? With the original Core Rulebook? Or with the newly Remastered version? Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/pYylk7Wlnhs 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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If you need some time to think it over. Here's five seconds. Ah, do, da, da, da, da, da, da, do, do. Certain conditions apply. Details at phys.ca. 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. Yeah! What is going on, Nace? Welcome back to the FOD. Yeah! What is going on, Nesh? Welcome back to the FOD.

It is Wednesday, May 1st, 2024, and I'm your old pal, Joe O'Brien. And I'm Troy, gray hoodie in a black hat LaValley. Oh, gray hoodie in a black hat LaValley. It's my costume in life. That is your costume in life. I think I saw a comment on a recent Class Cannon episode that was like Troy not in a hoodie what's happening. Oh it was last week's episode I think. Last week's episode I think I was I was looking through those sweet sweet YouTube comments. We'll mention a few of those on

the FOD today man do we have a fantastic show we got a lot of news as we return from the road. We've got some exciting, I mean, an exciting lineup of live content coming on Twitch this week. And of course, we'll talk all about Hubert Hedge and episode 2032 of campaign two. A little bit of We Are Stupid and then a chunky listener mouse. So let's get into it. First of all, what on earth is happening? It's May. It's May? It's get into it. First of all, what on earth is happening? It's May. It's May

It's gonna be May. It's gonna be May Yeah, dude, it's May Which is like just get through fucking four months of ball sweat and I'm eating cider doughnuts and getting ready to fire up the Christmas Can't believe you're thinking about Christmas right now. That is so funny. Every day that goes by, I'm like, how many days till Christmas? How many days till I can start celebrating? But yeah, dude, it's May and we just got back from what felt like a three month tour. It was so strange.

I had a fantastic night, the first night in Kansas City with my family, like I discussed on the show that I was going to see. When I got back on Sunday, I told my wife, I said, I feel like I saw them a month ago. It felt, and it wasn't because it drug, it wasn't because it was bad or boring. It was great, but it just felt like it was such a journey. I don't know, hard to explain. It was our first five-dayer of the year because we just did a softball in Toronto in and out

day before, day after. This one, it's kind of our common tours. We fly in on a Wednesday, we fly out on a Sunday. At times felt like it was going by crazy fast, but then also when you look back, I went to the Royals game that night. When I was flying home Sunday morning, I was like, that Royals game felt like two years ago. It's weird. The time between days seems long.

The time seems fast, but then I come home, I'm so road weary. I've got a new thing. Monday after we come back, I do as little work as humanly possible because I'm not in it. I try to do stuff. You'll do bad work. Yeah, I try to do no creative stuff, no recordings. If I have any recording scheduled from now through the end of the year, I'm moving them off Mondays because I've yet... We're recording this on Tuesday.

Now yesterday I was just like, I need to do the most perfunctory bullshit that my brain doesn't require energy for because it really... Dude, it takes so much out of me. We went to a bar on Sixth Street after the Austin show and we go upstairs to the lounge area and people are just handing me Bud Lights. It takes all my energy to just grab the Bud Lights. People are talking and I don't know if they're talking to me. All day long, I'm just thinking about the show, doing the show and then I turn on for the show and I turn off and I don't know how to be a human being after that. I'm like, I feel so bad. Do you remember the famous?

Someone's talking to me and I can't have a conversation. Do you remember the famous, I consider it famous, in the waiting line scene from Garden State, that's the name of the song, in the waiting line scene from Garden State. That's the name of the song in the waiting line. But it's like that kind of trippy song and he's at like that party. And he's just sitting there and everything's happening around him. But he is not like that's what I pictured. And we were literally on a couch in that bar. And I was talking to Sydney and Kate and we were, I saw you, we were in the zone. We were fired up and we were we were honestly just talking about Pathfinder like we were Talking about mechanics class builds all this stuff how we're using our abilities how they're synergizing and I would look over and you were

Just like staring off into space and like and there were like eight or nine people hanging out and nobody was talking to you And you weren't talking to anybody and you were just in like Shutdown mode this happens for the show too like we'll have friends that come backstage or or your family in Philly will come by. I just feel so bad because I'm like, they're going to think I'm a real wiener because I cannot have a conversation. I just can. I feel bad because people are always excited to see me or whatever.

I'm just like, hey, hey, and I'm on another fucking planet. It's weird. Anyways, I come back and all I want to do is just see my kids and my wife. And then like, I have to go back to work on Monday. And I'm like, I go back to that zone and be like, what, I have a job. What am I doing? Yeah, I got in Sunday and I, my wife was like, I assume you want to nap. And I was like, yeah, that'd be amazing. Cause I, you know, I slept for three hours. So I got a nap in and slept hard. Two hours later, I got up, forced myself up, forced myself into the shower, came downstairs. An hour after that, I was still so exhausted.

I couldn't do anything. I was just like, I'm sorry. I can't help around the house because I wanted to paint this thing. I was like, I'm not doing it today. I was just so completely spent. But yeah, it was a fantastic trip. Kansas City barbecue lived up to the hype. I had burnt ends.

They were amazing. Austin was crazy. I was telling people like I was in Austin a long time ago and this time I was like, this is what is this? New Orleans? Nashville? Like it was amazing. Mardi Gras.

And we found the best way to enjoy it the way we like to enjoy things. We're not on a bachelorette party. We found a way to enjoy Austin. It was the first time I ever enjoyed Austin. Now I can't wait to go back. Yeah. Oh man. And the theater was great too.

One of the best theaters we've ever played. It was beautiful. The shows, dude, the shows were fucking electric. I don't want to just sit here and jerk each other off. We'll do that after the show. The shows were just like, they're on another level. There's some crazy cosmic shit going on that is creating an arena for us to perform. Two totally different shows, one call that heavy, one role play. And I mean, they were just, they were wild.

I'm, we're in it. They're really fun. Well, it's good to be back. Time to get back to work and we'll, we'll let, let's go through some news here in terms of what's upcoming. Our live content on Twitch is going to be a chock full this week. And it starts today, May 1st, as you are listening to this, if you're listening to this early in the day, we're going to be live at two o'clock Eastern today with a Glass Cannon

Labs. We haven't had a Labs since Deadlands and now we've got another Labs coming today, two o'clock Eastern, going to be playing Harnworld. Jared's going to be running it and Harnworld, for those that don't know, is a system agnostic fantasy setting, although there are system elements to it if you choose to take it. However, on this particular run, my understanding is Jared's going to be running it in Pathfinder 2e.

So he's going to be playing the Pathfinder 2e system in the Harnworld setting, and this is in conjunction with a Kickstarter that is just about to wrap up for a new Harnworld release. So check that out. See if you're interested. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's two o'clock today.

Who else? Who's playing in that? Yeah. It's going to be Jared running Skid, Mary Lou, Paula and Clint. That's right. Yeah. Clint. Yeah.

And it's funny because when I asked Jared to do it, he's like, you know you've been a GM too long when you're asked to be a Harn master. Because Harn's been around since like, I think it came out as if it was like an agnostic fantasy campaign role playing setting in 83. And then it had evolutions and now there's this whole system. And they even the Columbia games, the publisher was like, you don't have to learn the system. Just play it using either Pathfinder or 5e. We just want people to learn more about the world and it has a very like OSR feel to the

way the art looks and the maps look. Yeah, so I mean, Jared's like, he texted me and he was like, I'm ready. Get me a cast. I was like, all right, give me a second. So he's excited and it it's gonna be live too. So you never know what the hell is gonna happen. Yeah. Live live.

Truly live. So that's gonna be really fun. So check that out on Twitch. And then tonight, so it's gonna be a back to back. I'm actually gonna do a night video game stream tonight, May 1st, 8pm Eastern. Also twitch.tv slash the glass cannon. Gonna be playing a game I've heard a lot about from the niche, different VIP hangs. May 1st, 8pm Eastern, also twitch.tv slash the glass cannon. Uh, gonna be playing a game I've heard a lot about from the niche, different VIP hangs, people have met, have you played this?

Have you played this? Have you played this? And I feel like it's time because, and this is little like little side dish. You teased it last week, but in a week we are, we are not launching. We are heading into the recording of getting the trunk season six. So we are about to start that recording and I'm going to start playing Control in order to prepare for this. You know about Control, Troy?

Control? I don't. I was just, when you said we're recording this week, I was like, oh, I need to cancel that recording because I've got too many recordings this week. Control Ultimate Edition is now out and I've never played Control. See if this sounds familiar, Troy, and this is, I do not know what I'm talking about. This is my vague understanding because I'm going in blind. But Control is the name, it's called like the Department of Control. And it is a government organization whose sole purpose is to defend humanity from supernatural threats.

It is such great fodder for, so to speak, for prepping for Delta Green and getting into the Delta Green zone and into that world. It's supposed to be a spectacular story. It won an IGN Game of the Year award. It won all kinds of stuff. It came out in 2019, but the ultimate edition was just released, which has some updates and all of the DLC all packed into it. So, uh, I've heard about this game for years and it's been on my wishlist for a

long time, so I'm pulling the trigger and trying it out, uh, tomorrow night. So, or I mean tonight. So check that out eight o'clock Eastern time. Then tomorrow, I was thinking about tomorrow, Thursday, the second, you, Troy are going to be streaming on twitch.tv at 2pm Eastern. You took a week off, but now it's time to get back to ball. Oh man, I've taken longer than a week off because I haven't played in preparation for our trip and then we went away.

I want to get like an hour in before, but now the problem is like I used to get a little time like after the kids go to bed,'d like squeeze in ten minutes here 15 minutes there But now with the Bruins and Celtics and the playoffs I use that time to like just watch as much of that as I can before My wife and I sit down to watch TV. So I I'm never gonna finish this game, dude I'm never going to finish this game. Can I ask a spoilery question a very very light spoilery question? Yeah, do you ever see Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 3? Do you ever go to Baldur's Gate? I think I'm in Baldur's Gate, but I'm not 100% sure. Basically, there's these guys in the final act here, they're guarding this section and I got to go fight the final boss and they're like,

oh, if you pass that gate, you're going to have to fight the final boss. I think that's Baldur's Gate, but I don't fucking know. I really don't know. I have to pay attention to the story. So you so it really does feel like a tabletop RPG. Yeah, especially the way I play it. Well, just excited overall about that lineup of live content. Labs today, two o'clock Eastern. I'm doing a prime time stream, a premiere of Control tonight at eight o'clock and then tomorrow, Troy two o'clock. Now this won't be live, but of course you've got Glass Cannon Thursday night at eight o'clock

YouTube premiere. But then on Monday, don't forget is the YouTube premiere of the finale of the Blade Runner series. The Blade Runner series, which I heard before episode one launched that episode three was unbelievable. So yeah, this is from specifically from Paula Deming during a Blood of the Wild recording. She was like, that episode three was an unbelievable session. So I can't wait for you guys to see it.

That's Monday night at 8pm Eastern. So that does it for the news. Unless you have anything to add, Troy, I'm going to jump right into the Glass Cannon podcast episode 32. What do you think? No, I'd say just keep buying those tickets to these shows that are coming up and stay tuned for some Gen Con announcements because the Gen Con catalog is going to be announced. Other stuff that we're going to be doing besides the two shows, one of which, Helium shows already sold out and we've already sold I think more tickets to the Call of Cthulhu Live

than we did last year, but we're going to be doing a lot more stuff that you can get tickets for that will be announced real soon. That's awesome. Yeah, we and also let me just take a second to look back at the tour, not just the fun times we had there, but a huge thank you to everybody that came out and bought tickets to Kansas City and Austin because Troy gave you a lot of shit in Kansas City and that crowd was awesome. And Austin, I mean, could not have felt more packed. It was incredible. And awesome VIP was sold out. And so our meet and greet ahead of time was just incredible. And I met the nicest people and it was, it was awesome to see some familiar faces. Got some great gifts over the, by the way, I got one right here.

Check this out. Look at that. Somebody made me a coaster. Oh, I got one of those too. Yeah. Mine says Troy. Yeah, I bet it does. And I'm using it for my fodder water.

So, thank you so much. So many new faces, especially the VIP. People are loving the VIP before the show, which is nice. Yeah, I mean it's really, really inspiring weekend. You know, we get holed up in our little home studios so much and do this. It's good to get back out in front of the fans. Not that you need a reminder, but it's always nice to get that reminder of what a difference our content makes in people's lives.

Let's talk about Glass Cannon Podcasts, Campaign 2, Episode 32, a largely role-playing episode. Some of my least favorite episodes we have, well, at the start is the fallout from a boss fight or a chapter boss fight. I'm always like, I don't know what to do next. I'm a little up in the air as a character. I'm like, somebody else take the reins here and do do next. I'm a little up in the air as a character. Somebody else take the reins here and do something. But I had a fantastic time, except, I should say, I had a fantastic time despite Hubert Hedge. What is this?

What is this nonsense? Why do you like that guy? You mean one of the greatest NPCs to grace the Glass Cannon Network? You're just giving that title with no... There's no proof. There's no evidence. There's no history. There's nothing there. He was hitting dingers right out the gate. Uh, it wasn't me.

I just let the character take over, and what a fun little guy. But, man, you just... You hate him. I hate him. Skid hates him, too. You guys always hate these people. You hate Tumsy. You hate Hubert hedge. You hate anybody. That's just a little weird. Just Tumsy and Hubert hedge. That's it. Love Dressma test. Love Dressma test. There's something

I loved Dressma test. Um, I mean maybe it was uh, you know, uh, looking back with uh, what is what do they say with like looking back with, what do they say with like frosted glasses or something? I don't know what the saying is, but like rose colored lenses. But I definitely, oh, well, there's a lot of levels on Hubert Hetch. Okay. There's like, there's the first level of mine, which is like, don't try too hard. Like, don't try too hard to make a really fun, ridiculous NPC. Just play naturally, please. And then there's another part of me that's like, I don't like him because I don't trust this character. I think there's something very fishy going on here. I think that he is incredibly suspicious. And because now there's the actual in-story reasons, which is like, he's a denizen of the first world. So immediately, I don't trust them. Like, you can't. They can be good, but like, you can never really put your trust in a denizen of the

first world, in my opinion, for various reasons. Now there's the other level, which is like a meta level. Now this isn't fair to the narrative in the character, and I'm not going to bring Brother Remus into this part of it, but you don't like playing NPCs, and yet you launch excitedly into bringing this character in. Very early on, it's evident that we have no interest in this character because he's unbearable. And so maybe half jokingly, I think it was more than half, we are like, or less than half, I should say, we are like, go on your way. You're good to go. And you refuse to leave

and will only stay and move forward with the adventure. And it immediately puts up red flags for me. I'm like, he does not want to role play this character. We do not want him to come with us and yet he is forcing himself to come along narratively, admittedly, like, oh, I don't want to travel out there alone. It's too dangerous out there. I need to be with somebody, whatever. I just feel like he's trying to stay with us for nefarious reasons. Your thoughts? Well, I can only say so much, but I think of something.

McD and I were having a conversation after one of the shows because an NPC appears in the Kansas City and Austin shows. That is me just bringing someone along and it, I think McD was like, smart move, smart move bringing these NPCs along because it like allows me to be there to like kind of be directly involved with scenes if I feel like the scenes need to be directed in a different way. When I don't have an NPC present in the scene, I can only kind of interject as a narrator to move pace along. When I have an NPC in the story, now I can inject humor, I can ask questions, and I can

also like direct the story in certain ways if you guys are meandering without putting you on rails, just kind of help guide the story along, but also guide the entertainment along whether it's a funny NPC or not. just kind of help guide the story along, but also guide the entertainment along, whether it's a funny NPC or not. So yeah, for us, I read Hubert and I'm like, my initial reaction was like, really, I don't fucking want to do this because I'm an over planner. But as I've leaned more into being like, what's this deal? Great.

And just fucking making shit up and then kind of seeing what makes you guys laugh and just keep doing more of that. Yeah, I mean, it's a blast. See, this is again why I don't buy it. And you know who else doesn't buy it? At Holly Weaver who commented on YouTube on the video. I have a bad feeling about the hedgehog. He has Benedict Arnold written all over him. And I'm with you, Holly. I agree with this. And there's another reason because that reason you just gave is another lie. You're lying again right to my face because you have what you need right now. You have an artifact. You have the ability to drive us exactly where you want through the key. It is an amazing tool, an awesome item that

comes to us in this episode where we learn a little bit more about its magical power, but then also it seems to have this magnetic ability to be drawing us to this place. And I'm like, oh man, what a perfect tool for a GM. You know what I mean? Just like get the show on the road. Here's exactly where you have to go. Getting away from my conspiracy theories about Hubert Hedge for a second, let's talk about

the key, not only as a narrative device and a tool for the GM to use, but also is it something that you – you probably won't answer this, but is it something that you leaned on a little bit more just to get it going? Because I felt like we were in for a little bit of sandboxy thin lands sort of situation. And then there was absolutely none of it, which really surprised me. Is that because you decided the story needed to get moved along or because there really is no exploration in thin lands, you just have to kind of get out of there. They leave it up to you. A lot of times they'll be like, if they haven't reached a certain experience point, feel free

to throw in some encounters. I think there might even be some random encounters. Some stuff in the back matter. It's like possible thin lands encounters. But I tend to eschew those unless I feel like it needs it. I'm never worried about the experience points. I'm more concerned about the flow of the episodes. If like we've been role playing for a while, we need combat, all right, I'll throw an encounter

in there. Or like we've had a lot of fights and a puzzle, I'll throw a puzzle or something. But I don't know. I'm just, I feel like there's enough content here that I don't really need to add too much a la the Burelou fight in Giant Slayer. That was just a back matter fight that I just felt like the transition from one thing to the other needed something. And so I added that. But maybe it's just the writing styles have changed for Paizo, but I haven't seen a lot of like gray area. Whereas

Strange Aeons and older AP, I was encountering it just last week for the passage between Casimir and Cathir. Yeah, it's very open-ended. It says one of those things in the book, like, if you find they need more XP to reach the next level, feel free to throw some encounters in. But I just was like, let's just see what happens live because I didn't know if you're going to take a boat or if you're going to teleport and you had another idea and all this other shit happened. And so I was like, let's just see what happens.

And that whole, that sort of mantra is I think creating much more engaging content. It's like what I'm trying to live by. It's like, let's just see what happens. Like I do my work, I do my prep, I read it, I study it, I try to like cross-reference everything with the rules, look at how the remaster handles things and then let's just see what happens. I'm just feeling a lot more relaxed and I think it's yielding better overall results. Yeah. I tend to agree with you, especially with the live shows. Those felt really organic and really fun and that NPC felt very organic. That was a player-driven NPC that you reluctantly bring along.

That's why I'm a little bit more suspicious of the hedge master because he's a little – he's just too eager to join us and he is a fey or whatever. You know what I mean? Like a first-world creature. You're like, oh, you guys are always little bastards. He's a fun little guy. But that's good. I mean, that means I'm doing my job.

If you're on your toes and you don't trust anything, that's good. Yeah. What I get concerned about is that like Brother Ramious is going to like kind of trust them. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, they just like walk right into it. Ever since EWIGA, you guys will never be the same. That's true.

That is true. You even said it. You were like, from this day forward, I will never trust for the Valley's NPCs Never again, but then there's not the added layer that he's just profoundly annoying at Steven barkus on YouTube says Joe is allergic to ridiculousness lol Ridiculousness is fun to me. Yeah, I think there's a lot of people out there that find this to be fun I think some people at our table enjoy it. I hate it.

I know. I don't know. I don't always hate it. It's funny because I don't think I like it. I don't always hate it because what happened in Austin was hilarious. But there was times when I was a little like, all right, I kind of want to play the game at some point. You know what I mean?

I get more impatient than others about the ridiculous side play. Dude, you hear me give comments about like how I think certain things should be and like, you know that I hate it too. I know, I know. I hate it probably more than you. But like when I'm faced with having to do it, I'm just going to find something to lean into and just try to make you guys laugh with it. If it gets ridiculous, it gets ridiculous. I always think like, I'm allowed to do that. I've been on stage eating shit in front of a crowd with jokes that I wrote.

I'm allowed to do that. Dude, I totally feel you. Sometimes it's like, all right, can we just get back to fighting? Yeah. Yeah. There was a brief time where you were training on Pathfinder mechanics and you were playing some Pathfinder. You weren't running it. Tooey, you weren't running it. You were playing it and it was behind the scenes. And I remember you, we weren't doing it together. You were doing it yourself. And I remember you talking about like the thing

that you were looking forward to the most is doing absolutely no role play and just moving from encounter to encounter and working mechanics and just working mechanics and fighting and not only fighting but like whether it's scouting, whether it's exploration, whatever it is, there's die always being rolled and it just cracked me up because that is not how we play once we all get around the table. But anyway, fun times, fun app, not too much more to go into there. I will touch on We Are Stupid for just a second, but overall excited at this cliffy, which had us all abuzz after the episode with theories and talking about what's going on and where we are and just we'll see next week. I mean, just, just, uh,

so much to be discovered. So I'm looking forward to next week's spot as well. All right. Let's, uh, talk about, we are stupid for 30 seconds. Uh, first I want to say, uh, professor Eric had only one note. The aid action is now based DC 15 in the remaster and you and I actually talked about that after the episode. So that was before Professor Eric sent it in. Obviously, any GM can change the DC to anything at any time they want. But the recommended base in the remaster

is now 15 instead of 20. And Skid really likes that. I know if he was running 2E, he said he would appreciate it a lot more just because it facilitates more interaction between the players and gets more exciting help from one player to another, which is always a good thing. I wanted to mention one that came in in the comments. Actually, this is from Missing Unknown. I think this might have been on a cannon fodder comment, but Missing Unknown said,

please correct me if I'm wrong. Dimensional Assault allows you to teleport half your speed unless Sydney has 50 feet of movement. She shouldn't be able to teleport that far, even with our Cascades stance. I did not go back and look at the maps or anything, but that is the correct assessment of dimensional assault. And I believe I knew at the time, I suspected at the time that she was going too far. And I was just like, I'm going to let it go. I like I remember being like, this is the one I'm going to jump on right now because we're talking about a difference of 10 feet of movement or something like that. I was like, we'll look into it after it, but I do believe you are correct and thank

you for writing in. By all means, comment with rule corrections if you catch them because even Professor Eric is the first to admit that he can't catch them all. All right. Let's get into a little listener mail here, see what the Niche wants to chat about. It's got some good stuff today. Thank you, Nicholas. Always an interesting time doing that drop over video because when it's an audio podcast,

you can just sit there staring at the question and preparing yourself. And on video, you're reminded, someone's looking at you the entire time the song is playing. Very uncomfortable. All right. Let's get to Jeremy Mail. Jeremy Mail! I'm calling it today because we've got two questions from the niche and they're both from dudes named Jeremy.

Oh, I thought his name was Jeremy Mail. No. That's crazy that he's writing into listening to Mail. Listening to Mail, Jeremy Mail. Or Jeremy, parentheses, mail. We got two Jeremy's this week. One, who I pitched last week and the other, or I mentioned it last week and the other,

we'll get to in a second. So Jeremy from Chesapeake, Virginia, I believe. No, no, that's the other one. Yeah, all right, I don't know where this Jeremy's from. First Jeremy says, this is important to set up. Okay. Since y'all are the ones that got me into pathfinder, I want to, I look to you as experts and I'm hoping you can help me.

I'm a daunted but confused newbie who only has the beginner box at this point. Uh, I have a quick question regarding two E and then the remaster core rule books, the difference between the two. I appreciate the need to distance themselves from D&D based verbiage but in my opinion the end result is often goofy and just less cool which maybe shouldn't matter but it also kind of feels like it does to me I think that you would agree with that to a certain extent Jared would as well because of this I'm honestly inclined towards just getting the original 2E core rule book rather than the remaster book. But then I think it might be foolish to not go with

what's new and updated. I'm sure there are other balance changes that took place. My question is this, is it silly to go out of my way to stick with the OG content at this point with the revised books out there? Are they ultimately compatible with one another? Slash, how does that work? I'd love to give Pathfinder Society a shot since I don't have people to play with. So does it matter which book I show up with? Sorry for the long-winded question, but I would really appreciate your insight. Jeremy, thank you for writing in. I think that this is a great question for somebody who's new to Pathfinder. And it's a really, I think this is a question that Paizo themselves have to deal with.

As new people come to the hobby and they are confused by what they're looking at. Here's a core rule book. Here's a player core. Which one's the core? What's the actual core supposed to mean? The center, the one, the base of all that all comes from. Which one do you go with, Troy? What would you advise in this situation for somebody who is not playing on air and is just playing at home

and hates the reworded verbiage? Yeah, man, I mean, this really bothers me and I want to be like kind in my response. Because like, it's more it doesn't bother me. It bothers me because of my obsessive compulsiveness. I like things to be clean and neat and dip, dip up and black and white with gaming and then let the gray be the gray. But like this is just, it just seems very sloppy and it's no one's fault per se.

Well, that's not true, but we're not here to blame. I just feel like we're probably four or five years from this being completely clean. You know what I mean? Like right now it's just this limbo phase that is, you know, everyone's just kind of making up their own rules. That's why it's tricky to say like,

well, here's how it's supposed to be. Something like shocking grass. You just go through our YouTube comments or any of the comments on any of other forums and there are people who just very strongly believe, well, you just do this. You could just use both. Other people be like, actually no. And like there probably isn't a really clear cut answer to these things because everything

is kind of left up to the people that want to create their own hybrid system. But I just don't like it. To go back to the original question, I would say just start with the GM Core and just use that and don't use anything else. Just start with that. And if it doesn't exist within the GM or the player core, don't use it. And then over the next couple of years, you're just, I mean, the way Pisa puts up material within a year, you're going to have a ton more material to add to. So I would just start there and don't look back. And if I was to do another show, that's how I would do it.

I wouldn't say, oh, I'm going to run Age of Ash. I would wait until a remaster AP came out that spoke to me if we weren't working on our own thing. Yeah. I agree with you fully. I think that I don't really need to add too much onto it. Ultimately, you are going to be kind of planting your flag in a place that is just going to eventually be deserted, right?

No one is going to stay for the long run in that way. And the verbiage, the wording of things, you know, I mean, you can always say whatever you want at your table. I don't really care, but it really is there. It's not just that. That is one very small part of this. The player core also represents and the GM core core in my opinion, a massive published errata to the 2E system after multiple years of feedback. So spells have been changed the way they work. I didn't even know about this thing until we got great comments on YouTube. I mean, it auto updated in Demiplane and I just didn't put two and two together.

But there were changes to how the cleric class works in the remaster that fundamentally buffed me in a really cool way in terms of healing. And I don't need to get into the mechanics of it now, but it's a great change. And it's a minor change, but it makes the builds so much more fun to work with for clerics. And like that, for example, is something that has nothing to do with verbiage or copyright. That is all about balancing the game and making it more fun for the players. And so I think that you should probably err on that side. Now, I would say all of that with a little bit of hesitation. Your last comment gives me no hesitation.

If you want to play Pathfinder Society, you can't go with the old core rule books. I mean, you can, but if you have the choice and you're just starting, start with the player core and the GM core. That's the books that you should show up with because that will be the base off which everyone is trying to play.

There will be some hybrid items that come into it because what I'm starting to find is there are – I'll give you an example without getting into too much specifics, but there is a class like – there's a deity, right? A focus spell that comes from a deity. That focus spell is – it has not been remastered and the reason it hasn't been remastered is because that spell is from gods and magic, like a tui supplement that came out that has not yet been covered in the remaster.

The remaster, to my knowledge, is not necessarily going to remaster every single supplemental book. However, you know at some point there's going to be a new deity book that comes out that dives deeper into the deities, into the sub domains, into the sub deities and thus into focus spells and all that stuff. And they'll all be built with the remaster rules. So right now there are inevitably, and this is what drives Troy nuts. There are these lingering things out there that haven't been remastered. We talked about how the changes that they made to spells in the remaster affected the Magus in a negative way, because the Magus has not been through

the remaster yet. So that's going to happen during this transitional period. But I would say no question that the older 2E core rulebook is outdated at this point, not only from a verbiage standpoint, but much more importantly, from a mechanics standpoint. The rules that you're reading in that book, we just said one today, the base DC for aid, an action that will happen nearly in every encounter you play with a group, particularly in Pathfinder Society, is different in the remaster than it is in the core.

So I'd say go with player core and GM GM Core and those are the books you should bring to sessions. Yeah. And just to say something positive, there's something nice about a fresh start at least and there's a lot less material to consume. So you can start with that. You can read those cover to cover and you're ready to go. Whereas like if you go back to a couple of years ago when the core came out, there's

50 other books. You don't have to read all of them. But you know, if you're a nerds or completionists, it's a lot easier to get caught up now than it was if you're starting now with all the back stuff. You know, what's interesting, let me let me throw a couple other things out there. One is, first of all, this isn't a Pathfinder 2e versus D&D conversation. Because the other thing is, if you just want to play 5e, just play 5e. I think that's part of the issue is like if you want to play the new D&D, play the new

D&D because the Pathfinder 2e core, if that's what you're looking for, if that's more important to you, those old school spells, abilities, monsters that you have nostalgia with, then just play Dungeons and Dragons. That's totally fine. It made me think of something though. I wonder if somebody is just going to go and do this. I don't see why. I think that somebody will.

I think fans will create Pathfinder 2e remaster full mechanics with the names of all the old stuff in it. Like, they'll make their own like, you know, kind of hybrid system that has the mechanical rules from the remaster with all the old, all the old names, Stone Skin, Magic Missile, and Scrooge Ray. I'm never gonna call it Magic Missile. So like, it's kind of what we're doing, but like, we're not in danger of getting in trouble for that. I mean, I guess. I mean, maybe. I'm saying this would be like fan made stuff on Red. Like I bet you you'll be able to find this stuff at some point.

If that's really what you want to do is like maintain some of that nostalgia while at the same time benefiting from a really fun system that is different from 5E, then like, I don't know. Some fans might make it. But I would say go with the remaster and go with what's new. You know?

I mean you know what? Remember we were in this same exact position in that strange transitional two-year period between 1e and 2e. And it was like how do we keep going with 1e or do we need to change to what is more supported even though we had tons of unexplored content in 1E. We had classes we'd never played, we had hybrid classes we'd never played on air, we had obviously several adventure paths we wanted to get to and never played. It was a tough decision but eventually what

won out was go with what's newest and most updated and most supported by the company you're buying it from and that that ended up being a good decision. Yeah. I mean, I think it's pretty safe to say that Legacy of the Ancients will be the last 1E content we ever put out. Pretty safe, so you never know. There was a time when 2E came out, I was like, oh, I'm sure I'll dabble in 1E. I'll never play 1E again.

I'd be shocked. If I was going to teach my kids something right now, I'd start with the player court. Totally. All right. Let's get one more in here. A quick one from Jeremy in Chesapeake, Virginia. What's up, Jeremy? The other Jeremy from Today's Listener Mail.

The Glass Cannon has inspired me to try to be more creative and take up writing, and so I have returned to college for a creative writing program. Awesome. Good for you. I plan on writing short stories or novels, but I'm also very much interested in writing for TTRPGs. As you seem to have many relationships throughout the community, I was wondering if you have any recommendations for gaining entry into that line of work. It's a great question. And I don't think you can find a better place than Paizo to try to get in. Because they are, from our understanding, because we've never really tried to get into this, but our understanding

is that Paizo is very active about seeking out new writers all the time and new voices all the time. And they frequently have contests and little one shot type things and they they they enjoy getting submissions for this kind of stuff. They'll put out calls for it. So I would double down on paizo seriously, I would go to the forums, and I would start I would start in the paizo forums and I believe that you'll find forums for this kind of stuff. If you don't, then in general discussion, you can ask about how to submit work, you can ask about contests or entries or anything like

that that they may do. And I know back in the day, at least piezo often would would find that's how they would find new writers. And then a writer would get tasked to do like one of the entry level things was remember they were talking telling us about this, like one of the entry level things is like, if they liked something that you submitted, they would say, okay, give us a monster. And you would have to write a monster, you'd have to create one, stat it out, write its background or backstory, or its natural habitat or how it acts, whatever. And if they liked it and it worked, it would get scheduled and put into the back matter of a book. So like when you talk about a monster or an encounter

that's in the back matter of Strange Aeons or the back matter of Giant Slayer, nine times out of 10, that was not written by the person that wrote the book. A lot of times, you know, those were written by freelancers that were- Yeah, I wrote one of them. You wrote one of them, yeah, exactly. And so that is a way

in. And then if they really like what you did there, they can say, all right, why don't you try writing a society scenario, if you can show that you really know the society world, you know, that you're up on the plot hooks and the world state and all that stuff. And you want to write a spec script of like, you know, potential thing like that. I think that that that would be the next phase. And then you see people all the time that become developers there, a lot of the ways that they get there is by freelance writing ahead of time. So I know Paizo is one that puts out a lot of content and also

cares a lot about the pre written stuff. Other systems don't care as much. I don't think this is my opinion about publishing pre written adventures as much, I don't think, this is my opinion, about publishing pre-written adventures as much as Paizo. I mean, the volume at which they put out pre-written adventures is just spectacular. And so that's a really good place to start, I think. Also, don't they have a thing, like I'm not very well versed on this, but don't they have a thing where you can, it's called like Paizo Unlimited or something where

you can like submit shit for the community? And like, I'm sure they're discovering people out of there, but I don't, I'm speaking on my ass. Go poking around the community, honestly, and Paizo forums are a great place to start getting some information on how to do this. My understanding of it, the way that it works in general is like, you would not be sending a resume to, you know, like, editors at Paizo to consider you for a writer early on, nor would you do that at Wizards, nor would you do that at any of these gaming companies for the most part. For the most part, you would need to be entering contests, you would be need to start you need to write fan stuff, you would need to write an adventure for the community,

post it on Reddit, and be like, hey, I've made this adventure if anyone would like to play it. It's a great way to start stretching your muscles because, man, people on Reddit will give you straight up honest comments about what they like and don't like about your adventure. You could learn a lot about how to write for that stuff there. So I think that that's a really good place to start

is within the community. I found a Pathfinder Infinite. Look into Pathfinder Infinite. It's a program that allows you to create content, adventures, locations, monsters, classes, archetypes, backgrounds based on Paizo's IP, including the Lost Homens campaign setting. And to make some money while you're at it, your work might even be recognized by the community and earn you an invitation for the Infinite Masters Elite Creator Program, which without even looking up, I'm sure it might be some sort of track to getting a freelance gig. So start there. And I know Chaosium has something similar to this as well, and the name's escaping me. But yeah, a lot of opportunities. But the best thing to do is just

start fucking writing and writing and writing and writing and sharing it with your friends and getting feedback. Yeah. And you have to just get involved in these communities. They need to know who you are. It's a very common saying, right, that it's like it's not what you know, it's who you know, right? It's not what you can do, it's who you know. In entertainment, that's a big thing and I believe in publishing, it's the same way.

You have to start building relationships in order to get gigs and get the opportunity for gigs. And the best way to do that is be active in communities. Be posting online, comment on other people's work, you know, and generally speaking over time, you will get those opportunities that you seek. So awesome. Well, that's going to do it for today. Thank you guys so much, man. Always, always a pleasure to hang out, do a little FOD, chill with the nash. And man, Kansas City and Austin were fun. They really were. Still kind of like shaking off that hangover, but excited to get back into it.

We got more live streams this week, Gatewalkers this week, Blade Runner wraps up next week. And then before you know it, we'll be back with you guys. So until then, take it easy, everybody. Have a fantastic week and we'll see you next time. Later. It's time to make your membership official. Become an official member of the Naish today at jointhenash.com. That's jointhenash.com where you'll get access to exclusive podcasts and

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