The Glass Cannon Podcast - Cannon Fodder 5/22/24

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

It's another epic session of the Glass Cannon Podcast Campaign Two, and Troy and Joe have lots to discuss: dying characters, NPC actions in combat, and using environmental improv to increase the intensity of an encounter. In We Are Stupid, should GMs "yes and" or just say no when a PC's action is nearly impossible? In Listener Mail, feedback for Glass Cannon Live! and examining the GCN approach to Exploration Activities in PF2E.  Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/zCHxRGXTBLk 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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undertaking to register in Canada. 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 everybody? Welcome back to Cannon Fodder. It is Wednesday, May 22nd, 2024 and I'm your old pal Joe O'Brien. And I'm Troy. The future is so bright I gotta wear shades lavalier. What's going on here? The graphic comes up, covers your face so I don't see you for a

second, then it comes down and you got aviators on. Roger Cumstone over here. We were playing some Delta Green and so I got my aviators just sitting here and I was like, I think I'm gonna wear shades for Cannon Potter today. That way you don't know what I'm thinking. I might be like, I raise you 25 dog. Yeah, exactly, you gotta do like hands over the mouth.

Just looking down. Yeah, man. Roger Cumstone is back and in action behind the scenes. Hasn't aired yet, but we've been playing. It's been fantastic getting the trunk is off and rolling. We got a lot of stuff to get into today. We got a lot of news to hit. We got a major episode of the Glass Cannon podcast to talk about a little bit of We Are

Stupid. And then of course, your listener mail. We'll get to that, obviously. Your listener mail. But I mean, on top of everything else that's going on, it's show week, buddy. It's show week again. Already. Yes.

Back to Canada. We go to Vancouver this week in St. Paul. Vancouver and St. Paul. Have you been to Vancouver before? No, no, I've never been to Canada. We go to Vancouver this week and St. Paul. Vancouver and St. Paul. Have you been to Vancouver before? No, no, I've never been to Vancouver. Me neither. It's going to be a long trip, but I'm looking forward to it. Really looking forward to coming back to St. Paul though, even though we've been there, because it's going to be an exciting time to be in Minnesota with the T-wolves and the conference finals. They're playing Friday night. What do you think? You got six, 700 bucks. You want to sit in the

nosebleeds? Oh, God. Wouldn't it be so cool to be rich, like disgusting rich? That kind of rich to be like, you know what? A thousand bucks to have like a 300 level seat. Sure. Yeah. You know what? Give me two. I like an open seat next to me for my snacks. When am I going to be in Minnesota during the T-Wolf finals anytime soon? A thousand bucks for 300 level seats? Sure. Yeah, that would be fun.

Yeah, it is an exciting time, not just because of the basketball team, but because the man, I don't want to take anything away from Vancouver. We just haven't been there yet. But man, that St. Paul crowd is great. I'm so excited to get back to the Amsterdam. They were so fired up there and it's sold, sold out show, sold out twice. It's just awesome. It's a cool spot too, because it's like a bar. I mean, it's, it's a bar that has a bat, like a, not even a back room. It's like the side room of the bar. You are in it. They've got a beautiful performance space in there. This will be our third time there.

And yeah, we've got a special guest. It's going to be fun. They sold it out. A couple seats left in Vancouver. You know, we'd love to sell that out. It's like 20 seats left. Some of those are VIP. It'd be great to get that sold out, increase the chance of us returning.

But it'll be a fun week. I can't believe that we're already back on the road. I feel like we just returned from Austin seconds ago. I know. I know. I feel the same way. I'm going to check into my flight during this cannon fight. Yeah, this is a quick turnaround.

So yeah, we are doing two more live shows and then next week we have another live show, but it's not Glass Cannon Live. We mentioned it before. Get your tickets while they last. It's a very small room. We are doing Kong. We're playing Kong through Evil Genius Games' Everyday Heroes. We're playing a Kong, we're going to build a Kong movie live at a comedy club in New

York City in Times Square on Friday, May 31st at 8.30pm. It's at Stand Up New York. Skid, myself and Troy are doing it along with Khalees Hawkins and Natalie Cuomo. We did it back in March with Rambo and it was a freaking blast and I'm only more excited for Kong. We're done session zeros. I know what skid is bringing to the table and it's going to be amazing. Is it better than Brian Dennehy? Oh my god better if you can imagine it better than Brian Dennehy. Natalie Cuomo's character blew my mind. I mean, she crushed it with, what was it?

Daisy Dukes Gunnington? Daisy Dukes Gunnington. Her name this time is even better, if you can imagine that. Even better! So yeah, it's gonna be fancy. Daisy Dukes Gunnington. That was so amazing.

We were like workshopping the name as we were walking on stage. Yeah, Yeah. But now she's got that was her first ever actual play session, a role playing game session. And so this time she's coming in like locked and loaded. She knows what's expected and she's already bringing great stuff to the table.

So anyway, that's May 31st. If you're in or around the New York area, come out. There's only going to be, I don't know, maybe 50 or 60 seats that are right up close there near us It's a small comedy club room Really really fun and it's already been selling so jump on that quick before it gets sold out and we'll hang and Yeah, little intimate hang in New York building a Kong movie. That should be you know, it's so funny I was just at the supermarket the other day and you know when you're in line at the supermarket and

funny, I was just at the supermarket the other day. And you know, when you're in line at the supermarket, and they got all those impulse purchase magazines, right? All stacked up penthouses. I have to stop myself every time buying a penthouse. Now, every time I have to stop myself from buying tabloids, because I love tabloid headlines. Like, you have to stop, you have to physically stop yourself from buying a tab because I like they do they're Amazing like the way that they were it's it is the the precursor to what became clickbait Like that's what it is. It's worded in such a way that you're just like I have to find out more Like I don't know what it is. You're like an 80s housewife I don't know anyone was trigger something in me now the difference is I don't I don't actually buy it

But just this week while I'm standing in line there, there's all the gossipy ones, of course. And then there's, was it Life Magazine? Just Life, right? Life, yeah. Lifetime person of the year. Like Time Life, yeah. So it's just Life Magazine.

And it was just Kong. And it was an exploration of the history and endurance of the character of Kong. It was this whole thing about why it has endured so long, what makes the character so captivating. I almost bought it, but I was like, I'm not going to buy a magazine like a moron. Kong spotted in Wyoming. That's usually what you see on there. That's cool. Yeah, dude, I know nothing about the genre. I think I've watched like two seconds of Godzilla when I was a kid, never understood what the hell was going on. Same thing with Kong. Like I

get it. I get it's storied history, but like I know nothing about it. I'm excited to dig into this because the adventure they've given me is like a six-hour adventure that I've got to make a two-hour show out of. So I'm interested to see what what goes down. It's gonna be really fun. All right. So I had told you guys before the last couple months, Jared and I started doing a new thing on the discord for our vorpal tier subscribers, the talk nerdy town hall with Joe and Jared is a live talk show where we chat about nerdy topics and bring you up to the stage using Discord Stages.

If you're a member of the Vorpal subscriber tier, you can come to that show live. We're going to be doing it May 29th. So that's next week. We'll be doing it next week, May 29th at 7.30 PM Eastern, 4.30 Pacific. We're going live, doing another hour. If not more this time, the hour just flies by so fast because we get to bring you guys up to the stage, hear what you have to say, the questions you have to ask, and then get your input on these really fun nerdy topics.

So last time our topic was the advantages and disadvantages of modern role playing, modern setting role playing versus fantastical role playing. So like, what's awesome about having like magic and dragons and wizards and shit But what's awesome about you know, a Delta green kind of setting and I'm not talking about the Cthulhu and horror aspect I'm talking about like what's cool about playing in, you know, New York City in a role playing game And what are those advantages and disadvantages people brought great ideas to the table? We had a really great conversation So we'll have a new topic and a new hang coming next week. So keep an eye out for that. And if you're in the Vorpulteer, you get to like speak you're part of the call, right? Yeah. Yeah. So you can raise discord has

this thing. So you raise your hand, I see a little graphic of you raising your hand. And I'll say, Hey, let's bring up shoddy 79 to the stage. Boom, you come up onto the stage, we could hear your voice, you know, and you talk to us and hang for a bit. It's just like talk radio. That's all it is. It's like talk radio. And we've been having a really great time with it. So that's May 29. Come by for that. Join the Vorpult here if you're not there already. And you can come and hang out you'll get that unlocked in your in your discord. Last thing, I'll kick

it to you for a quick Gen Con update. I don't know if you want to we'll do periodic Gen Con updates, you know, as we get closer to the event in a couple months. But you know, it was a big, big release last Sunday as all the tickets went on sale. What's been going on on your end? I know you're paying closer attention to that than I am right now. Yeah, everything went on sale on Sunday as part of the Gen Con events catalog, the gauntlets as well that are going to be happening in our booth, booth 174, those went on sale as well,

and 13 out of 22 of them sold out. Oh baby. Yeah, so there's only nine left. I mean, it's crazy to me, there's a skid one at Friday at 10, 15 a.m. that has one ticket left. That is insane to me, like who is not grabbing that final skid one? Final skid slot.

Yeah. You and mine, yours and mine are all sold out. There's a couple of Jared's that are sold out. We got to get some Matthew love going. Here's the thing. If those Matthew ones are slow to sell, I've got some fun ideas on how I'm going to make those a little bit jazzed up, and you're going to wish you bought them before I announce it because then everyone's going to rush to get it. Could be some guest player action. We'll see. If magic can't sell, we're going to

move them one way or another. But then we had four live shows go on sale in addition to Glass Cannon Live, which is sold out, and Call of Cthulhu Live at the Athenaeum, which over 300 tickets have been sold. We have like double the amount of tickets that we sold last year almost. And there's like 70 something tickets left to that. And again, I haven't even announced the cast for this, but Get in the Trunk Live went on sale for Thursday,

completely sold out. Oh, I'm so nervous. Call of Cthulhu Live is a, that's our largest show of the weekend happening at the con, a 700 seat theater. We've already sold well over 200 tickets for that. Blades in the Dark Live on Saturday and the Starfinder 2e play test. All of those things went on sale.

And I'll tell you what, all of them are going to sell out. They have all in years past. So don't wait, grab those tickets before we drop the cast because I'm literally just waiting for one of our people to confirm whether or not they are going to Gen Con so that I can put the final pieces into the cast list. But they're crazy. The cast for all of these shows are nuts, especially this one that Call of Cthulhu at the con. I've put like 19 people on this show and it's going to be a good time.

But grab those gauntlets. I think we're going to have a lot of fun with these. I've been working on like the Nashville retreat schedule, prepping for the gauntlets for those. You had said last week that's going to be like preseason for the gauntlets. We're really excited about this. We're talking to like people with terrain and minis and whatnot. So it's going to be a good time. You're working on all the conversion of the characters.

Gen Con will be here before we know it. And I'm really excited because even though our dance card is full, I think it's gonna be a little bit more breathing room than years past, which I'm looking forward to because it is my favorite con and we never really get to enjoy it. Experience it.

Work it, work it, work it, work it, work it. Yeah, work, work, work, work, work. Yeah. Well, we'll keep up with those periodic updates through the FOD as we get closer to Gen Con. But yeah, for now, they're on sale. Grab those tickets while you can, because yeah, it sounds like a lot of those things will be sold out soon.

All right, let's move on to our shows, particularly GCP Campaign 2 and Cannon Fodder. It's been a big couple of weeks. Big couple of weeks of episodes. Big FOD last week, hour and 20 minutes long-ish. Heated, I wouldn't say heated, but just interesting debate, particularly around the system, the balance, the approach, the strategy, the gameplay, the bottle caps,

etc. So much feedback, so many amazing comments. I love to pull comments out and highlight them here on the next episode of the FOD, but to be honest, I just couldn't. There were so many really great long comments that I... It was hard to highlight any particular one and Everybody on every side of the issue. It was really really interesting. I guess I just want to ask you real quick Yeah, I know you read all these comments What was your sort of takeaway after seeing what everybody had to say about how bottle caps are used or suggestions or whatever? What was your takeaway? Well, I don't read the comments anymore. I've moved on. You don't read YouTube comments?

No. I'll scan through the YouTube comments once in a while and then a little bit on Discord very rarely on the subreddit. Just not super interested, but I love to see the engagement. I think there's – obviously, I see a lot of numbers. That's what interests me. Like, a lot of people are going back and forth, a lot of excitement, which is good. I think there's probably a lot of people that are wondering, like, am I going to make any

adjustments or changes? And I've given it a lot of thought and I'm not changing anything. I feel like DiCaprio in Wolf of Wall Street. I'm not leaving! I'm not leaving! I just – I mean, are you kidding me? I'll give you a spoiler. In a couple weeks, not this week's episode, but next week's episode, I give everybody

a bottle cap or something that goes down in this week's episode that drops this week. That's total spoiler. And it was really earned. You earned them 100,000%. And so I gave it. If you want more caps, you're going to have to to be a hero I'm not removing them from the game I'm just like I'm just not giving them away for free I think there's this like misconception just because I don't like them and I also truly believe they're don't they're

not necessary that I'm removing them from the game I'm not I'm not gonna give them out more frequently I'm not removing from'm not going to give them out more frequently. I'm not removing from the game. I just want people to really earn them. I mean the way I look at it dude, like in the last four hours or so of the GCP, people got to watch a gaming group in real time like struggle with bad luck, bad tactics, harsh rulings from me and this impossible decision at the end that ended up creating this amazing story that we told with like 85% of the rules as written. Tens of thousands of people have watched it, commented on it, talked about it, loved it, hated it, thought about it, argued about it.

I love that. 10 years ago, I used to have to psych myself up to go do standup in front of five other comics with jokes that I wrote that day and often had to pay $5 to do it. I'd be bouncing around town with Randy putting those Bud Light goritas and 7-Eleven cups just going to comedy clubs. I'm like, well, I can't afford to buy a drink there. I would be like, dude, I'd be taking change to those banks that like change out for dollar bills just so I would have the $5 to give to the mic and then like I'd be at 7-Eleven

giving them change for a Bud Light gorita and now we get to do this and we have so many people that like it. You know, I mentioned a couple of times on a couple of shows. Bud Lightgarita and now we get to do this and we have so many people that like it. I mentioned a couple of times on a couple of shows, I know on Time for Chaos that I'm on a big reading kick this year. I'm already 20 for 20. I've got 20 books for the first 20 weeks of the year and I'm reading stuff mostly about business but all kinds of stuff.

I'm reading about investing, Wall Street startups, marketing, the chemistry of the brain and how it leads people to make the decisions they make, parenting. I think that because of these books, I'm learning so much and implementing them immediately. Because of that, our business, people like a behind the scenes look, I think it's doing better than it has the last two years combined. I'm putting these ideas into action. A couple of months ago, I finished – have you ever read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius? It's funny because I'm reading it and then I see that Seinfeld is reading at the same

time. It's like way into it. He's like the father of Stoicism, the most powerful man in the world. His whole jam is like, you know, as you become more popular or whatever, I don't know what word he uses off the top of my head, but like a lot more people are going to comment and talk about what you're doing. All of it has nothing to do with you. Whether they're clapping for you or chiding you, it's just noise. He gets even more bleak.

He's like, if you get overwhelmed by that or start to let it affect you, just remember all those people are going to die and all of their opinions will be like dust. No one is ever going to remember them. You are also going to die. Why waste a second worrying about what other people think? You should take your time to perfect your craft and focus on like trusting your gut and becoming the best at what you do. And for me, that's like, I can't listen anymore to the noise. That to me is like the death of art. The minute you let the noise start to infect what it is you're trying to create, that's a dangerous path

to go down. My job is to trust myself to create. It's one thing to listen to your customers. I understand and I get that, but I listen with data, not like feedback. And the data across all metrics for 2024 is just like a line graph is. But you know, if you want more bottle caps, you can buy them in our merch store. If you want to get them on the show, you got to be a hero. You know, I think of like Roger Benning question. The question is, you don't give them for when they are deserved and earned. I don't think it's a lot of time. It's no a lot of times because you forget for sure for sure.

You also like I'm also fine with them like not the economy not flowing. You know what I mean? Like I don't need them to be a part of the game. And if people really want them I think that they've got to make bigger and bolder choices. Say what you want about Roger Cumstone and Colonel Luther. They make big bold choices. They change the color of the room. That's what I'm looking for.

You don't have to be like— You mean like releasing a unicorn? Releasing your— Didn't she get a bottle cap for that? I don't know. No, but I mean that was bad for the party. It was just good for the show. Does that bottle cap for anything? That's what bold choices usually are.

They're just bad. We need bolder choices though. Like I think that like. You see you can't talk, you talk out of both sides of your mouth. I don't think I do. You can't say like, you need to make bolder choices and say you need to be safer tactically.

You play poorly. Oh, but then you have to play wildly. choices and say you need to be safer tactically. You play poorly. Oh, but then you have to play wildly. I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I think you can make bold choices without making stupid, dangerous choices. But it's tough. Tooey is very swingy. There's a fine line between a bold choice and a dangerous choice.

I think that if you play safe, I think some people are playing safe. And if you play safe, you're never gonna get any caps, unless you make a funny joke. I enjoy a good joke. But like, I don't know dude, I stand by what I said. I understand that the game is built so that these prevent people from dying all the time.

I get that. I just don't care about that. I don't like them. I don't like the Deus ex machina nature of them. Even if I remove their ability to like – because I saw that comment come up on the YouTube things like just remove their ability to save you from dying so you get to like do a reroll instead. I was like, that's not a bad idea.

I just don't really like them a reroll instead. I was like, that's not a bad idea. I just don't really like them. I like you. But that doesn't make any sense. Like, what do you mean? If what you don't like is them bringing you back, why not just remove that? I mean, I think that's one of the best suggestions that I got. You got a ton of times, a ton. You are kind of sounding like the most popular comment was bottle caps are part of the game and you need to implement them because you don't understand.

They were. That was the one. It was not. Maybe not on YouTube. A ton of people don't like that they auto stabilize you. They were like, you just remove that, just make them like bottle caps in one E, where it's like advantage essentially.

The word I heard through the grapefriending through my sources is that it was a lot of the comments on other sites were just like, did you understand bottle caps are part of the game, they're not optional. And I was like, okay, they are in my game. Well, of course they're optional, but it's something's got to give but,

again, I think going back to what we talked about last week, what I said that I want to rehash all the arguments, but I do want to make it clear that you want to make sure that the choices you're making are resulting in results you want. So you know, if it's that I think a good example of this comes from a great comment that came from the episode last week from Pengu Ken who said what an excellent app. I mean, really, this was an impossible situation. And the fact that any of them managed to escape was super climactic. That look on Troy's face at the end says it all. So here's the question 35 episodes in two PC deaths. Is it time to take a step back and think about is this the nature of the story the crew wants to tell? And that that's where my head is that it's like if you don't want bottle caps, that's fine

But you have to make sure you want a game where a PC dies every 15 episodes. That's the rate you're going at right, right? Yeah, I mean is that what you want. Do you want main characters dead every 15 episodes. That's the rate you're going at right now. Right, right. Yeah, I mean. Is that what you want? Do you want main characters dead every 15 episodes? I think there's a little recency bias for that. You know what I mean? Like that is the current. Sure, it's a small sample size.

It's a small sample size. And you guys are going to level up. Yeah, it's early levels for sure. You know, there were decisions I could have made in early Giant Slayer where there would have been a higher body count before episode 50 that I just didn't make and

Now I just feel more comfortable making them. Yeah. No, I if death happens too often it becomes meaningless I just don't right I don't want to I don't want to change what we're doing I think that it works so status quo for now I think it I mean look I know What we've recorded we're a little bit ahead and I think it, I mean, look, I know what we've recorded, we're a little bit ahead. And I mean, it's never been better. So I mean, like, I certainly don't have a problem with the game and the way that it's being played. I just, yeah, these small sample sizes, things can seem can seem really tough. And I just wanted to acknowledge, you know, all those people that

commented, there were a lot of really great suggestions, arguments. One of my favorite ones, were a lot of really great suggestions, arguments. One of my favorite ones, I don't remember who said it, I apologize. But it was a maybe it was a listener mail. It was a really just kind of a fun suggestion, which was Oh, god, sorry, I lost my train of thought. I can't remember what it was. If I think about it, I'll get back to it. Anyway, let's talk about the actual episode this week. I'll get back to it. Anyway, let's talk about the actual episode this week. This week, it had me going back to GCP campaign one, Episode 50, which you just mentioned. Yeah. What does this episode have in common with Episode 50 of campaign one? Matthew's character does. Yes, but it goes a deeper layer than that. There are little things to jump on. There is.

Oh, it's one big thing. Both episodes began with another character on death's door. Yeah. That's the episode. That's the person that's at risk. And then suddenly in the episode, it pivots to Matthew. risk. Right. And then suddenly, in the episode, it pivots to Matthew. Who was it in Campaign One, Troy?

It was Baron. It was Baron. Baron had fallen from a height that could have killed him permanently. And you knew we had that died. That was the Cliffy. Yeah. Going into the episode, I remember

after we recorded it, you were like, everybody's going to think he's going to die, and then it horribly dies instead. Insanity. I couldn't help but think of that as we went into this episode with Brother Ramious having the death roll and then natural 20. That was awesome. But then yeah, so then the sadness happens. So let's talk about it. I hate it giving you a bottle cap for that, but it was a really good thing that you had kind of put together. Because begrudgingly sending bottle caps. Yeah. See, I gave you a bottle cap for that. You took the time to do some work there. You

were into cap. Yeah. All right. Talk to me about- No problem giving you a cap. I just didn't want you to have to use it to save yourself from death. I'm glad you not 20 there. Yeah, me too. Me too, I didn't want to use it at all. Hated it. I would just like, I'll keep it for the next character. Well, but then I said on air that I was going to keep it.

And the main reason for that is because something has changed for me. I honestly think that 10 episodes ago, I think I would have, excuse me, just like let Ramious go. But just something has happened recently where I finally found him. You know, it took a while and I finally have connected with him and I get him a little bit better than I did before. And so I'm super into it now and I don't want him to die.

You know what you've done? You found a lighter side of him. You know what I mean? And that's what you have to find. I think that there is a tendency to like, especially with a new campaign, the character so precious you don't know a whole lot about him. You want to play him straight because if you start to veer off into silly, then they're just, they're silly.

So you found a way with Ramius to discover this other side of him, this like drug side of him that has added a lightness and a humor without sacrificing any of what makes Ramious Ramious, without sacrificing any of his past and his trauma that he's experienced. And that's hard to do. But I see now that you've found him and now he's going to be a lot harder for you to let go. And I didn't want to see him die either. Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I would say the drugs are one small aspect of it. That's not I would say the drugs are one small aspect of it. That's not the key thing. To me, it was the transition that I never expected that happened throughout second level here.

And the drugs help add to it in a very interesting way. They flesh it out in an interesting way. But he goes from being this tragic figure that I had in my mind of a cloistered priest, as that initial character concept, he has sort of morphed into something that I'm connecting with a lot more, for whatever reason or another.

And it's kind of the, yes, the drug addicted, which by the way, comes because of his past trauma, his drug addicted kind of harried frontier doctor. That vibe to me is so funny because of how many, what's the word on medicine checks, treat wounds. How many treat wounds he has failed and hurt people with and stuff and how exhausted he is by it. He's just like, and then the players are all cracking up because they're imagining their characters just like going through this torturous like process to try to heal.

And that's like frontier medicine, right? Like it's like it's brutal. It's gross. It's like you got to do what you got to do. I never thought about that when I first made the character. And now, like as it moves in that direction, I'm enjoying it a lot. So anyway, I'm also it a lot. So anyway, I'm also glad that that he didn't die. Let's talk about the Who cares about Toledo? I know Toledo. You know, it's it's a tough one. Let's, sure, let's jump to Toledo. We don't have

to get into tactics and stuff. Let's jump to Toledo. I know Toledo's death. I it must have taken you by surprise. I mean, it totally took me by surprise. It happened so suddenly and so quickly where one hit takes her to dying too. And then suddenly a natural one drops her to, you know, all the way down. What's going through your head as that happens, you know, are you thinking of any Deus ex machinas or are you, you know, and then I guess then next what leads to the decision to take it out of combat and make the end narrative? Like how did that all come together? Yeah. So when she's in the river, I'm like that what she doesn't realize is that's the safest place to be. There's two things that I added to this encounter. One, the ability to throw one more of those things which didn't amount to anything. Now we talked about that it did one – very early on in the combat it crit someone and shouldn't have crit.

Again, didn't have any effect on the end of the combat in my estimation because there were other decisions I would have made that would have made everything equal. And the other thing I added was the waterfall. But the waterfall for me was just a danger. It's like, how do you raise the stakes? Sort of how the waterfall would function in terms of game mechanics. I was going to cross that bridge when I came to it. I just thought like, how interesting is someone- That's what I felt. That's what I felt was happening. I was like – I said it at one point. I was like you would have been better off going over the waterfall because at least

we don't know what would happen there. You wouldn't have been like here from the fall. We know exactly what's going to happen. You're going to die. Yeah. I mean there's so many fun things you could have done with the waterfall. To me I was just like in the middle of the episode when she started going down there I'm like there's a waterfall.

I'm going to have there's a waterfall. I'm going to have there be a waterfall. This is great. Has to be. Has to be. Now it adds stakes to the moment. Then if she started going towards the waterfall, I didn't start thinking about what it would be until she's got like past the halfway point of the map.

I'm like, I really need to think what's going to happen when she goes to that waterfall. She started getting pulled back and I was like, ah, she'll live forever. The thing was very good about not attacking creatures that had the dying condition but I see it as this life sensibility. I'm like, well, I got to use it. Once I hit with it and brought her back down to dying, it still really hadn't dawned on me that she was a natural one away from perma death because so many of you had experienced that throughout the episode.

Lucky had it happen. You obviously had it happen. And I just figured like fate is going to save them. And when she went down, I'm looking at its hit points, which like you guys did so little damage to this thing. And I'm like, if they keep fighting this, I'm going to take at least two or three of them out until finally someone decides to be the lone survivor. So I made – I was like, this is a great story moment.

Like you've got a chance here. It finally killed someone to eat. Soterios Johnson Does it say that in the adventure? Like I don't mean does it say – does the party run away. I mean does it say it's there to eat? Aaron Ross Yeah. Yeah. It's there because mean, does it say it's there to eat? To eat. Yeah. Yeah. It's there because it's hungry and it sees an opportunity to eat. It does not pursue you if you go on land like if you go on land.

Yeah. That's why what I said is ever just like just run inland. You know what I mean? We saw just like run inland. Yeah. You know, I who knows what I would have done. But like skitter up with its creepy— It's got million little legs. But I mean to me, I was just like, how do we hammer this home in a good story moment? Because we're also an hour and a half from the episode, I Don't Want This Combat Lasting Three Eps and it just hit me.

I was like, oh, let's do something we haven't quite done yet, like a full on abandon. Abandon the encounter, abandon the corpse of your friend and all their magical gear because it's the only way to stay alive. It ended up creating a really, really cool story moment, I think. Now what's going to happen? Will you ever go back? Yeah, I agree. I was tortured by the decision.

Of course, the knee-jerk reaction is easy to be like, yeah, use this opportunity to run away, you know, but it was just, it was a really tough decision to just like leave her behind, you know, but I've always been, you know, I was interested in this back when you and I played in our first campaign together with skid and our other GM. Do you remember we, that really started in the jungle and, and he was was asking us what sort of setting we would like to play in. And I was like, I'd love to play a jungle adventure because I've never played one before. And he sort of latched onto that. And that was really the setting where things really got started and really got underway.

It's just so dangerous. And that's the kind of thing that happens. It's like these wild animals that are, they just eat you. You know what I mean? Not to mention disease and like you said, rivers and waterfalls and treacherous terrain. It's just a very deadly area. And not that I'm glad Talitha died, it's that I'm glad that it's been represented well. You know how Skid always complains that like regular animals are not represented well in Pathfinder. Their actual deadliness is not well accounted for mechanically. It's like, I like it when a jungle setting

is accounted for mechanically, it should feel that deadly. A party that goes into a jungle it's never been in before, you know, an expedition, people die, they die, you know, and so for that to happen, it makes it feel that much more real to me. I love that about Side Quest, Side Sessions season 3. You get dropped on that jungle and you've got to make your way inland. I never realized how much I enjoy that setting. Yeah. The unknown civilizations, unknown creatures. No one has made a single knowledge check since entering the jungle because the DCs are so high because these are creatures so far outside of anything you've read about.

It makes it feel a lot more real. It's tough to lose somebody this early, but I don't know. It just felt like that's the way that it had to be and you're lucky it was only one person. Yeah, I agree. Ad Authoritative News Network commented on the episode said, excellent episode. I really liked this comment. Start went zero to 60 and the foot never came off the gas. It's going to be very interesting to see where the characters go from here. You think you know?

You think you know what the next three apps are gonna be? Oh my God. That's what I'm saying. Like I know people are angry, are angry about how we play the game. And I, you know, I don't, when I say like, I don't- I don't know who you're talking about. Dude, well, I get- I know some people are, but I don't- I get briefs about other sites that write about us.

And you know, cause I just don't, when I say I don't care, it's not like, I don't care, I'm better than you. It's just that like that's not – that has nothing to do with me. When someone comments, that is an exercise for the commenter that you can't absorb that. But like I know people are really angry about this and it's tricky because it's like, say you're a filmmaker, right? You're – who's a filmmaker?

Ridley Scott. Does he still make movies? James Cameron? Yeah. All right. So you're James Cameron. You make an Avatar 6. And the trailer comes out on YouTube. And this actually might be insightful, I think, when I get to the end of it for everyone in actual play. Avatar 6. And the trailer comes out on YouTube, million comments, subreddit, discourse, every talking about Avatar. Amongst those commenters, do you know how many, what the percentage of them are filmmakers? 2% maybe, 5% in the performance entertainment industry,

the people that are commenting on this? Oh, I would say it's way less than that. Yeah, very, very small. Yeah, half, a quarter of a percent maybe. In actual play, when someone watches our show or any show or anything where we do, and then they run online to comment on YouTube on subreddits and stuff like that, the percentage of people that are amateur GMs, amateur players is probably 98%.

Yeah. And so when you watch this, there's that, I think the anger comes from like that's wrong. I can do better. Like I – Or I do it differently. I do it differently and so that's why I try to like –

That's why you can't watch movies. That's why you don't like movies. That's why I don't like movies because I'm a filmmaker. Exactly. I can do better. Yeah, I know I can do better. I just – I couldn't get there anymore. It's like I would make a better movie than David Lynch.

No. But I think that the anger comes from that. It's got to be infuriating. It's like, how these guys, they play the game wrong. But like that, I don't want to say like I don't care because I'm so happy for the engagement. I think it fosters a good discourse, but like it has nothing to do with what we do. We just got to do our thing. Yeah, no, I agree.

But we also have that element of we share a structural integrity with these other people because we say we play this game. And we say we play this named game that has a published set of rules. And we say we care about those rules. We don't say we don't care about them. And so yes, there are times when we eschew them. We don't say we don't care about them.

And so yes, there are times when we eschew them and there are times when we make mistakes, but ultimately we do have that shared structure that we need to be aware of. And we make mistakes and we correct those mistakes when we can and we like to. And so yeah, I mean, it's not that I don't, welcome all those comments, but I do agree that like, really fiercely negative comments that are based from someone who plays

the game differently. It's very important to not listen to that. Because you, you don't want to change the way you play the game if you're having fun. You know, if you're not having any fun, you have to reanalyze and maybe we have to play our game a little bit differently. But you know, lately, the way that I felt, I know that I talked a lot in cannon fodder about these episodes, these most recent episodes and my frustration with the the the difficulty of the encounters has seemed a little unfair. but the oh, but overall, I'm having fun playing the game, you know what I mean? And

that's what's important. Yeah, exactly. And I'm also like realizing where I am wrong in certain areas of things that something is quote unquote, unfair. It's like, it can be very easy as a player to assign something as unfair when you're not exactly paying attention to what the roles are, right? So you look at Kate, Kate's a really good example. You look at Action Kate and you see miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss.

And the tricky part is you're thinking this encounter must be too hard because there's no statistical way that she could be rolling single digits, low single digits, every single roll across the board, blah, blah, blah. It's just she keeps missing by whatever. But it is tricky because she is not doing that. She's rolling poorly on the first attack and well on the second attack, but the map is bringing it down till it's just a miss. So she's

rolling a natural 14, a natural 15, and that's a miss. But that's the second attack. That's fine to miss from in the way that I think about the game. A natural 14, a natural 15, that should be a miss with your second attack against a higher level creature, you know. But we're not seeing every one of those roles behind her screen, right? Like we're not seeing all those numbers. And so it can start to feel like this creature is just impossible to hit. It's like, well, no, her roles are not, they're just not hitting at the right time, you know, and, you know, we'll see the way that all kind of shakes out. I, you know, obviously got to try to not be too knee jerky about things being too hard. But Professor Eric said it well in his analysis.

He just felt that in this particular AP, they are stringing together a bit like a lot of single enemy encounters that when you string them all together, it does start to feel like you're way outmatched. And you should be with one creature. Pepper in some encounters that have lower level creatures that are our level or lower, and there's four of them. And we will feel, even if it's challenging, we'll feel more appropriate, appropriately leveled.

You know? Yeah. Anyway. Oh, can we talk about the snail for one second before we move on to We Are Stupid? I don't know if there's anything you want to reveal here just purely technically. Yeah.

Is there like, what were we looking at in terms of- I played him like an idiot coward and he could have easily TPK'd you. I should make the snail one of the gauntlet creatures and play it to win. For real. Yeah. As written, I mean, it's very, very high to hit, decent AC. You know, it's fun. It's like in 2E, the books have them – a lot of the monsters are in the back, like

they don't put the stat block even if it's a – one that was created for the – I used to do that in 1E too but I'm finding it a lot more common in 2E. I'm stalling while I get to it. All right. So, yeah, I mean, right off the bat, it has this thing called reflective shell. So, when it's submerged in water, it gets a plus four circumstance bonus to stealth checks. And if the water is moving, this bonus increases to eight. Why is that important? It had a plus 12 to its initiative bonus right out the gate on top of

like its regular stealth, which was already plus 12. So that plus 24 to initiative. That makes it. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm sorry. I can't imagine. I'm sorry. Not plus 12, plus eight. Plus four plus eight. Plus eight. Yeah, they don't stack. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's a total, a cumulative plus 20 to initiative. Yeah, it's going to like, you guys are rolling your highest. It must look, from the river bank, it must just look like a rock. Yeah, well, it's shell just reflects

the water and then all of a sudden it comes out. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. And then obviously, what's it's AC? It's AC is 21. Oh, that's at 72 hit points. Of which I think you guys removed like 20 of them. I mean, that's another thing is like, like seven rounds of combat. When Talitha went down, I want to say it had like 48 hit points left across 10 rounds of combat. And now you've lost one of your people that can like stand and bang.

So that was another reason I was like, I'm just going to eat Talitha. What do you want to do here? Want to dance? You know what? I'm just going to eat Talitha. She's tiny. This feast will be done soon. Oh, you know what? I'm just going to eat till the end. She's tiny. This feast will be done soon. Oh, you know what?

I'm sorry. It doesn't move very far. It swims 20 feet. What's its hit? Two hit. Plus 13. Plus 13. Lob amoeba is plus 14.

Yeah. Lob amoeba plus 14. And I abandoned that pretty quickly because like I didn't want those. The amoeba thing is pretty cool. Like a success, you take bludgeoning damage and then the Amoeba stays there and the Amoeba has like a little lame step block. Does it have one hit point? Yeah, one hit point. And that's why you're lucky it couldn't hit twice and Hubert just

hits with his tail and kills it. Because all it had was one hit point. AC15, they're minions. AC15, one hit point and the same skills and saving throws as the... Jesus, AC15 and Asta missed it. I mean, we could not- Missed it twice. Missed it twice. Could not get a break. I mean, you should see Matthew's face when she did that.

Matthew was just like, you're attacking it again? That's why I said, I was like, oh, I thought you were attacking the only relevant creature in the battle. It's so funny to poke at Sydney. She's the best. When you fail, you don't take any damage but the amoeba remains adjacent to you and then critical failure, it just – the amoeba dies on impact and misses. So even with a failure, which I think one of you failed, it like landed next to you

so then on the next round, it can like strike and it's just an added little piece of shit that makes you – you know, diverted from the actual encounter. Yeah. Anyways, yeah, that's very interesting. That's pretty much it for him. It was called a medicana. You know what, I skipped it. I skipped a pretty major thing.

And you mentioned it. I'm sorry if I didn't get to it earlier. This is going backwards chronologically, but Hubert. Yeah, you've been edge became very huge in this combat. Where does that decision come in? When you were like, all right, I got to go save brother Amias. I love this character so much.

I have to save it. Was that what you were thinking? That's what I said. No, as written, Hubert does nothing. And it's meant to do nothing, which is perfect. Because that's how I like my NPCs. Yeah. But, you know, I just feel like at a certain point, one of the points of having an MPC is to kind of

like – in grad school, I had this crazy theatre director. His name is Andre Servan. He's like this world famous theatre director and he directed our thesis and he would often direct the thesis of the third year graduate students. This guy is this like Romanian psychopath and He was notorious for like coming on stage in the middle of productions dressed as a character to like give notes to the actors on stage while the show was going on. I mean I know he pulled this shit with like the MFA students. I don't know if he was doing – he's directed operas at the Met and shit,

and he directed Liev Schreiber and Hamlet, and I think Liev Schreiber was like, get the fuck off stage, because at one point, he was in a staircase built into the stage, like giving Liev Schreiber notes during Hamlet on off-Broadway. But he would do this, and I remember watching the group the year before me do an MFA thesis. I can't remember

the name of the fucking play, but I see this like old lady walk on. I'm like, who the hell is playing the old lady? And then the old lady turns and just had like a shawl over and it's fucking André Cervan like giving them directions during the performance. Anyways, the reason I bring this up is that- That is so funny. That's how I like to use my NPCs when they're around during initiatives. Like I'm usually going to stay back, but if I feel like the director needs to step in and do something, that's what my NPCs do. So that's what Hubert Edge

is doing. He's my homage to Andre Serban there. It's like, all right, let's at least give you guys a fighting chance here. What are you going to, you got a potion on your belt? And then also add a little humor in to, otherwise- Do I put it in the belly button? Pretty desperate situation. Yeah, that was great. All right, let's go into We Are Stupid, courtesy of Professor Eric. Luckily, a very light We Are Stupid this week.

We are stupid! Yeah, we may be bad at the game, but we're not that stupid. Yeah, we're not that stupid. I should not even think we're that bad at the game. We get such a bad rap. I think we know the game pretty well. I'm always like, this is so funny when it's like, Troy needs to learn the rules better. I know the fucking rules. I just play in the way I want to play.

I play the way I want to play. We Are Stupid has no real, no mistakes this week, which is huge in an episode with character death, so that's really good. Professor Eric lays out good job across the board with all the dying and wounded tracking. Good job with all the action penalties for standing up and grabbing stuff, et cetera. I feel like that's the kind of thing that can often get overlooked that standing after you've been prone after you go dying, getting back up, grabbing your shit. These are actions.

They it's very, very back up, grabbing your shit. These are actions. It's very, very... The game wants to punish you, really punish you for going down. So yes, you have bottle caps that can save you from permanently losing your character. But if you go down and get that dying condition, it is bad news. Your action economy is trounced for a couple rounds and you have the wounded condition, which makes you much more likely to die if you're going to go down again. I'm glad that we got that right. He, Professor Eric, was totally down with the bow, rope, archer bit shooting the rope out to Letha. He said it's definitely the kind of place where if you try to track actions

too tightly, it would get too cumbersome and just not be fun. But using one whole turn for an action like that felt right to me. So in terms of balance, so basically pull it out tight onto the thing and shoot, you know, he's like, if you want to get into the nitty gritty, you could see like, well, it's going to take a total of four actions. So you'll take two rounds to set it up. He was like, usually if somebody wants a player wants to do something creative like that, you don't

have what to do. Make it take a whole round. That's kind of how I just naturally do it. It's like, you want to do something ridiculous rather than dig into like, well, you have to take it and this, that losing your turn in that way is much more of a, that's a big decision. Like, all right, you can do it, but that's going to be your turn. You can't attack, you can't do this.

Yeah, exactly. All right. One more note from Professor Eric before we'll go into listener mail here. I'm going to read this whole thing and then I want to stick on one point a bit. Speaking of ridiculous actions and bold actions, he says in terms of Asta doing the unwilling mount, remember she wanted to get on the snail at a certain point with a crossbow bolt, like four hit points left, she has like four hit points, by the way. He says, I'd probably allow it under the rule of cool,

but treated as a grapple check with maybe a minus four circumstance penalty. So this is the interesting part. He says the developers have commented many times that the presence of a feat shouldn't be taken to mean that you can't attempt an action without the feat. Just applying a suitable penalty can often do the trick. So we don't want to, you know, this is notes from the developers is just because there's a feat for something doesn't necessarily mean you cannot do it if you don't have the feat. If you're in a gray area, probably let them try it at a severe penalty minus four is extremely severe in

in two, that's a very severe penalty. So try it at that penalty. And then Professor Eric, of course, finishes it with, of course, quote, I'd say it's probably a horrible, horrible idea to attempt in this case. Right. That's why it goes back to the trip. Like I'm obviously poo-pooing it. They're just bad ideas in the moment. If Kate can't hit with a bow, she's not going to trip this thing when the AC and the reflex DC are the exact same.

And then she's got four hit points and everyone is like dying too or wounded and she wants to mount this thing. If I was a real asshole, I'd be like, okay, great. Just give me like a ride. You're dead. You're dead. It was a bad idea. It was a bad idea.

Bad idea. Okay, it's on you and then shaboom, suit a pothead. Now you're waiting. Yeah. I mean, just like tame it. Tame a wild mom. Oh, man. Yeah, I thought that it was a ridiculous idea, but I also, I do, you know, despite the whole

unicorn thing, which was a hindsight sort of situation, I do appreciate certain players ability to think outside the box much more than I do. I think very much in the box. I'm like, here are my actions, here's what I'm able to do. And I don't really try to push it too much. And that leads to what Troy would call safe play, which he does not reward. Let's do a little listener mail.

Thank you, good buddy Nick. This one is Joe from Down Under says, last weekend my girlfriend and I attended our first ever Glass Cannon Live in Austin and it was amazing. I've never met a nicer bunch of celebrities in my life. He called you a celebrity, Troy. Everyone was welcoming and willing to answer questions, sign merch and take photos. I was able to give Skid and Sydney my blessing for any current or future characters with an Australian accent. Special shout out to skid I loved talking to him about advanced

DND and I could have talked for hours but you guys had to get ready for an amazing show. Looking forward to attending a future glass cannon live hashtag niche for life doc Mysterio on the discord. No question there just want to shout out a very nice email. Thank you very much. Doc Mysterio appreciate you. Marcus Aure shout out, it's a very nice email. Thank you very much. Doc Mysterio. Appreciate you. Marcus Aurelius would say, it's very nice, but that has nothing to do with it. You're going to die. You're going to die. We're all going to die. We're all going to die. Who cares about anything you say.

No, that's really not. I mean, we really have been trying to make the – for years, we've been trying to make the Live True experience like something where people were like, that was a great fucking time for the minute I walked in and the minute I left. A true party. So I love hearing that. were like, that was a great fucking time for the minute I walked in and the minute I left our true party. So I love, I love hearing that. Yeah, it's great. I love when people walk away feeling like they got to like just chat with us about whatever they wanted to talk about. It's great. Okay, let's go into this one. This will be the meat of the matter here. Finn from Washington writes in and says, I've heard you mentioned many times that players aren't stopping and asking for perception

checks because they want to put the story first. We talked about this last week with Brother Ramious just moving over the river and probably should have stopped and done a ton of perception checks, but I didn't want to burden or slow down the story with something as crass as a perception check. Now, the question is, have you ever considered revisiting exploration activities somewhat as raw? The question is, have you ever considered revisiting exploration activities somewhat as raw? The question goes on and on, but essentially, it boils down to this. Exploration activities were laid out in TUI as something very detailed. We've talked before about how we don't really approach exploration activities raw, where

every time we are out of an encounter and in exploration, you say, what are each of your activities in right, we just sort of like play narratively. The question is, should we not be doing that? Should we be saying my character has similar to instincts from Burning Wheel, my character, when I don't say anything different, is always avoiding notice in exploration mode. Or my character is always searching in exploration mode so that you always trigger automatic checks. How do you feel about that as a GM for 2E? How do you approach exploration mode?

I wouldn't do the Burning Wheel way. I just feel like we do do it. We just don't make a big deal out of it. You know what I mean? When I describe a scene to you, if your reaction is to barrel forward into the scene, then you just, you're not, there's nothing in my description that has made you want to either stealth or perceive or do something else. But I always, like even when there's danger, I explain the things to you. I just don't ask everyone what they're doing

I give you an opera. I give you the opportunity in the space to say hold on here. I'm gonna do a perception and This group just doesn't do it There's something coming up in a couple of us I wish I could talk about this exact moment where it's like I lay something out and someone is like, alright I'm gonna just blow a button, well, this is what happens. And it's like, how was there not a perception check? Like the way I described that. Yeah, I think we do.

When do you cross over to giving a secret perception check? Like when are you like, you know what, they didn't ask for it, but this is really important. So I'll give it to them and I'll do it secretly and maybe not mention it if they fail, but do mention it if they don't fail. The secret checks in TUI make it complicated. It puts a lot of onus on the GM to decide when and when not to put the party in danger. Yeah. It depends on the situation.

If it's a hazard that has a minimum proficiency attached to it, I'm not going to give it to you. You have to be actively searching for that. If it's a hazard that doesn't, I'll do the secret checks as written because that's what you're supposed to do. Now, if it's like you're walking past an area and there is something in the brush that I think is an important story element and everyone's just barreling through and not doing a perception check, I may have to be like, you know, I'm making my perception check. And if one of

you hits, I'll be like, as you're walking through, you notice there's some tracks here leading to a blah, blah, blah. But if I throw it out there and everybody misses the DC for the perception check, I'll be like, oh, interesting. Just move on because now there was like treasure there that you missed, but you all rolled that perception check. So let's just kind of keep you all on guard

without giving up that there you just missed treasure or a clue or something like that You you were the one that really? Instilled very early on years ago. It's like I love just asking people to roll percept check once in a while keep them on their toes You can do that now in the game where it's like if you think they're gonna miss something that you want them to find Have them roll the check and if they all miss it make it seem dangerous Yeah, there's big I used to love bluffing as a GM bluffing as a GM. I think it's a very important aspect to GMing well, because you need to like, call for checks that are meaningless occasionally, just so that when you do fall call for a check, they don't know

something's up for sure. And then I love doing it with maps. That is my favorite. My personal favorite is like, let's take a look at the map when there's no encounter and no real need to be on a map. That way you also nullify that whenever you put up a map, an encounter is imminent, that kind of thing. It's definitely extra work, but I mean, bluffing is work. You have to work at bluffing. It doesn't come for free. Knowing when to pick those moments is important to the overall enjoyment of the party. The map one is key. You don't have to do it all the time. If you just do it once in a while, it just sows that seed of doubt and that's all you need.

The other thing that I'll do is roll initiative when there's no combat. I like doing that too sometimes. They're like, all right, look, every there's no combat. So I like doing that too sometimes. Say like, all right, look, every second is important here. Everybody roll for initiative. And it's really just about like, who's opening a door, who's looking through, who's doing whatever. And they might think that there's an immediate combat, but you, they open it, they look in, there's nothing there.

All right, you guys are out of initiative. It's just like, what the fuck was that? It's like, so that you never know when I say roll for initiative, that there's that there's definitely creatures to fight. I once did it in one of our games. If you remember, I had a role for initiative on what was an NPC encounter. It was meant to be an NPC friendly encounter, not super friendly, like they didn't know who you were or whatever. But I started it off with initiative because I wanted to see if players naturally just attacked people without asking them who they were first, because I gave the initiative role. And that's, you know, it's another good way to bluff your players is put them in initiative when they meet somebody new that is not meant to be an enemy

and see if they delay if they roll high, or if they just start killing people just because you said roll initiative and then punish them for that, you know, like, you got to really act how your character would act in the moment. It can be good pre-encounter too to get people moving about the space so that when the enemy finally attacks, it's more natural in the way that they've explored the actual tactical map rather than the encounter starting and they're all at the door and the enemies are here. It's kind of fun to be like, something seems off about this room. Let's roll for initiative. All right, what do you do? I'm going to move 15 feet this way. I want to go 15 feet this way. I want to go there. Now everybody's spread

out and all of a sudden the enemy goes at the top of the next round or something. That can be fun. Yeah. And you can also set it up like a bluff where there is no enemy, right? Roll for initiative. Where do you move? Where do you move? What are you looking at? What are you doing? And then you get people spending buffs. Yeah people being like I'm gonna cast blasts I feel like something's happening and it's like once a day buffs that you now lost, you know, it's It's important to do so that when you do call for it and it does matter it they don't automatically know what's coming That's all it's not that it's just like oh, it's so fun to mess with your players. That's not it It's so that certain tells that so they don't have know what's coming. That's all. It's not that it's just like, Oh, it's so fun to mess with your players. That's not it. It's so that certain tells that so they don't have tells

on you. When you whenever you say this, it means this is going to happen. Yeah, so thank you, Finn, for writing in with that. I would say generally speaking, we approach exploration activities, not mechanically and not raw, we just sort of discuss it narratively. And then as it needs to be translated into mechanics, we'll do it, you know, from time to time. But for the most part, we don't go around the horn asking everybody, you know, what can I'd like to hear everybody comment on this, whoever's interested in weighing in, what do you do at your home tables where you run or play pf2, like, do you announce what your exploration your capital letter exploration activity is every time you're between encounters or do you just kind of like flow with the narrative and sort of you know bring that up

every once in a while only when it's relevant to die rolls i don't know i'm curious to uh to see what what people think about that call in yeah call in let us know uh well that's gonna do it for today buddy that's gonna wrap that about wrapraps it up, huh that about wraps are all up Yeah, there it is the comments flow. Let the comments flow keep them coming guys We love the engagement despite Troy's new like idea that he doesn't listen to any of you and you're cuz you're all gonna die Quite to the contrary. I'm interested in what you have to say. It just doesn't have anything to do with me, man. Yeah, and he wore sunglasses for the whole thing. He wants to cut off any connection between himself and God.

The path to enlightenment is blind. On those wise words, I'm out of here. All right, take it easy, everybody. Have a good one. Bye! It's time to make your membership official. Become an official member of the Naish today at jointhenaish.com That's join the Naish.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 JoinTheNation.com! Welcome to a journey into the heart of the Texas Renaissance Festival, the nation's largest and rowdiest celebration of medieval fantasy. But what lurks beneath the facade

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