The Glass Cannon Podcast - Cannon Fodder 5/8/24

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

It's May 8th, and Gen Con 2024 will be here before you know it! Troy and Joe kick this Fod off with a massive rundown of the GCN events that will be going down at Gen Con this summer. Find out where and how to get tickets to all kinds of shows, from the first ever Get in the Trunk Live! to our live Starfinder 2E Playtest! Later, the guys get into the nitty gritty of this week's GCP episode, and in Listener Mail, Troy takes a break from focusing on films he hates (or refuses to watch!) to tell you about a few that he LOVES. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/C-yOWn4I2O8 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

You are listening to the Glass Cannon Network, the premier source for role-playing game entertainment. Welcome to Cannon Fodder, a behind-the-scenes look at the Glass Cannon Network. Yo! What is going on everybody? Welcome back to Cannon Fodder. It is Wednesday, May 8th, 2024 and I'm your old pal, Joe O'Brien. And I'm Troy, playoff mode, LaValley. Playoff mode.

That means for you, up all night every night. I mean, every night of the week you got a playoff game right now. Yeah, it's pretty wild. But I'm going to bed really early so I can wake up at five. So what I do is I watch as much as possible till about 10, 15, and then I wake up the next morning and watch the rest at 5 a.m. Wow, that's impressive. I would have thought you'd have to go to bed earlier to get up at 5 a.m. and not feel like shit.

Yeah, as long as I'm asleep before 11, I feel like it's a win. I'd like to get closer to seven hours, but I can't fucking go to bed at 9.30. I got shit to do. I went to bed at 9.30 exactly on the dot on Sunday because I had a wild Saturday night. It was a really good time. And I was like so exhausted that I went to bed at 9.30 on the dot on Sunday because I had a wild Saturday night. It was a really good time. I was so exhausted that I went to bed at 930 on Sunday. When I got up, I got up at 6 a.m. on Monday. I felt so amazing. I was like, why don't I do this more often? Because it's just not fun. It's just not as fun. I'll tell you, it's not fun, but you get used to it. You know what I mean?

If I've been doing it now for a couple of weeks and we had travel in the middle there, but I was still getting up for flights. I find that not only am I not tired during the day, but my brain is percolating. I don't know. It's too early to tell if it's actually working or if it's some sort of placebo effect, but I do find that I'm like, super like in the zone with my work and my time. And I also find that gaining that extra two hours, just somehow I have even less time. Like I've added time, but I think I'm adding more things,

or I'm just like looking at time differently. And I'm still like just all the way up until whatever playoff game happens at night. Yep, yep. It is whatever time you have, you will fill with shit. That's the way it goes. But yeah, I'm glad to see that you are thinking more clearly and getting more that the ideas are flowing. Let's see what good ideas you have. We're going to have a juicy FOD this week with some really exciting news about a bunch of new stuff that's coming, all focusing on Gen Con. This is going to have a juicy FOD this week with some really exciting news about a bunch of new stuff that's coming. All focusing on Gen Con.

This is going to be a Gen Con announcement day here on the FOD. I know, I know, it's only May 8th. I get that. It's months until Gen Con. However, the events are being posted. The tickets are about to go on sale. We want to run down everything that's going to be going on there and we're going to do that for you today.

We're also going to dig into this episode episode 33 of campaign 2 of the GCP Which would be a fun look back a little we are stupid and of course listener mail. We got International edition Looking forward to that The question is in English, yes, they are that courteous those international subscribers So I do want to say first. This is not the leading story, but let's just get it out of the way. I'm going to stream again this Friday. I'm going to keep playing control. It was so awesome last Wednesday night. I think I went for like three hours plus, I think, because

it was just a night stream and the story was so engaging. You just wanted to get to the next checkpoint, get to the next checkpoint. And it was really fun. So I'm going to do that again this Friday, 12 o'clock Eastern time, 12 to 2 Eastern. Little lunchtime Friday stream, take a break from work, pop on, watch a little Control, and we'll see as things get creepier and creepier in that game. It is awesome. But now, the big story and the remainder of our news time

is going to be dedicated to Gen Con, Gen Con 2024. Take it away, Troy. Take it away. If you're not already thinking about Gen Con, you're late. You're doing it wrong. You're doing it wrong. You're late. We are, I mean, we've learned over the past couple of years, Gen Con planning starts in

like the second one Gen Con ends. We're already like thinking to add to next year. But in January in earnest, we're like, how do we make this happen now that we have a booth? And, you know, very early on, we decided we wanted to do things a little differently this year and focus more on the performances at the con and create a booth that was going to be a little bit more of an experience both for our current fan base and for the fan base that we're trying to attract as we continue to grow the niche and grow our subscriber

and listener base. And so let's talk about the shows that are happening because the event catalog was released for Gen Con this past Sunday and I pitched four shows, all four shows got accepted. No surprises there with the Glass Cannon Network. You guys already know that Glass Cannon Live is happening Thursday night, the first night of the con. That's at Helium Comedy Club. That's already sold out.

Fastest we've ever sold that out. It's May. That show sold out. Then Friday night at the Athenaeum, we did this show last year at the Athenaeum. We did a classic 1920s Call of Cthulhu homebrew that I came up with. This year we're going to be doing Modern Call of Cthulhu. That's an 8 p.m. show at the Athenaeum. We've already sold more tickets to that show right now than we did last year.

When I announced the cast for this show, the cast doesn't even know who's in it, I think we're going to sell the rest of those tickets. That theater is huge and it's perfect for Call of Cthulhu. Anyway, so those are happening. Get very excited for that. If you haven't bought those Call of Cthulhu tickets, I highly suggest you buy them before I announce the cast because there's only going to be so many tickets. The premium seating is already sold out, so get on that.

Tickets are like 20 bucks to get in. However, let's talk about the con shows. On Thursday, first day of the con, at 12 o'clock, Get in the Trunk, live. I just vomited. I'm so terrified. At 12 o'clock getting the trunk live I just vomited. I'm so terrified the first ever. Yeah trunk live I said Joe said Joe you want to get the trunk live and Didn't even hesitate. I was like absolutely and then four days later. I was like what have I done? Have I done? What should they expect? This is where we're going to be playing in possible landscapes, Joe? Is this going to be a one-off?

Brand new characters? What do you want to share? Right in the middle of season six, it's going to continue the story of a putt. No, this is going to be its own one-shot, different cast. I'm hoping you're not there. We'll see how the cast shakes out. It is going to be a one-shot. It's going to be a standalone, get-in-the- the trunk experience that will be what I'm working

on right now is a little bit, a little bit of home brew with a little bit of something else added in because we can't do like a full operation, but we can do in Delta Green parlance, a shotgun scenario. So a really fast sort of get right into it kind of thing. And we're going to do that. And what's our time? It's two hours. It's two hours.

Yeah. Two hours show. I'm putting the cast together as we speak. I'm really, really excited. And I'm so excited. Also very nervous, obviously, but I think it's just going to be so fun to just all new characters, completely different story. It'll be standalone. You can come see it.

If you've never seen a single episode of Get in the Trunk, you can come and see it. And I mean, I would assume laugh your ass off as these players try to stumble through some real world law enforcement situations. Yeah, it should be pretty wild and you know, I'm sure fans of the series will catch a couple O'Brien Easter eggs in there. He likes to connect the dots here and there. So that's happening first day, 12 o'clock Thursday and then Friday, three o'clock Call of Cthulhu Live. We're'clock, Call of Cthulhu Live.

We're doing two live Call of Cthulhu shows on Friday, one at the Athenaeum outside the con and then one at 3 p.m. in the con. This is going to be a 1920s Call of Cthulhu scenario. If I get the cast that I am putting together for this, it's a lot of people. I don't know if you even looked at any of these like cast matrixes that I'm putting together. It is going to be absolutely nuts. They've given us a 700 seat theater for that show based on the success of last year's show.

That's more than double the size. It's the biggest size auditorium we have for the Gen Con shows, which is crazy. I'm going all, I'm pulling out all the stops with this cast to ensure that we have a wild crowd in there. And then on Saturday, we're going to do two shows at 12 o'clock, Blades in the Dark Live, the busted mufflers. Wouldn't be Gen Con without the mufflers. It's an annual tradition. It's like Christmas, Christmas at Gen Con. It's going to be a whole new cast. I mean, Joe and I will be there with Jared, but I'm bringing in some new people and that's going to be a lot of fun.

I don't know which of these are going to be streamed and which aren't, but that will be Saturday at 12 o'clock and then a couple hours later at 5 p.m. the Starfinder 2e playtest live. Oh my. Looking forward to that. I don't know what to expect. We're going to be working with the developers with probably like draft copies between now and August, you know, like Word docs with all of the stuff to try and learn, you know, the ins and outs of this new system, make sure that we get it right and do a good job

of presenting this. But that'll be happening at 5pm. So is that it, Troy? That all that's going on at Gen Con this year? What are you guys gonna do in the booth? We can't possibly have a single minute left to do anything. How about I pack minutes into every second of the day? How about you pack eight more shows?

I'm gonna pack 18 more shows. No, what we're gonna do, so in years past, in the past two years, we had our first booth at Gen Con two years ago, did it again last year, and we streamed content live from the booth from 10 to 6 Thursday Friday Saturday 10 to 4 on Sunday. This year we're going to do is we're working with different publishers to pre-record all of that material maybe in studio maybe at home with class from all over and we're gonna premiere that during Gen Con hopefully from 10 a.m. to 6 just like we did last year but premiere it on YouTube so that if you're not at Gen Con or even if you are at gen con you can follow along with a ton of premieres all day

Long while the exhibition floor is open and then come see this live shows at night and just have content content content Work with some of our you know favorite publishers and partners, but what's gonna be going on in the booth? Well, hopefully a lot of things but one of the sort of centerpieces of the booth is going to be a gaming table where we are going to be running what is currently called the Glass Cannon Network Gauntlet, the GCN Gauntlet. These will be debuting during the first ever GCN retreat next month in Nashville. GCN retreat number one, Nashville, sold out in less than 24 hours. We're going to be doing these things called gauntlets.

Yeah, the Naishville thing is going to be like spring training. Yeah, spring training. Like pre-season. Getting warmed up. And basically the way it goes, I'll talk about how it's going to work in Naishville. Everybody's already paid for those packages. They're going to be coming in. We've already done signups for all these tables where me, Joe, Skid, Matthew, and Jared Logan,

who's also going to be at the first retreat, are going to be running these gauntlets. They're basically 45 to 60 minute encounters. Could be two encounters, could be one encounter where you'll get the chance to play as classic GCN characters that have all been converted to Pathfinder second edition. I think we're doing second level and sixth level encounters, but they're meant to be brutally hard where you almost never survive. By the end of the 45 minutes, you will most likely all have died. Might be a softball encounter to start.

Like if you're level 2, you might be fighting like a 5th level creature. It's like 5 level 2 characters going up against a 4th or 5th level creature. It's like five level two characters going up against a fourth or fifth level creature. And then if you survive that, in comes the 10th level dragon to wipe you out. But you'll get to play with some sort of mixed up party. It could be Colonel Luther next to Lork next to, I'm trying to think of other characters from our pantheon. Classic, classic character. Next to Lucky next next to Neco Bridgewalker.

It's going to be a real mishmash and you'll get to be able, when you sit down at Naishville, be able to pick with your group there who's going to play who and take on a monster that's going to be run by either myself, Joe Skid, Jared or Matthew. Well, at GenCon, we are going to offer the opportunity to sell these seats to you, the Naish. There will be games going on all day long. I have a tentative schedule here that I won't bore you with, but basically from about 1030 in the morning until 530 each day.

Then on the last day where the con closes early, 1032, 330, we're going to be running these gauntlets. They're one hour slots. And I'm thinking next Monday, we're going to put these up for sale. They're not going to be cheap because the booth is very, very expensive and our time is expensive. It's going to be $200 a seat to play in these things. But we're going to have five players.

You'll get to choose who your GM is and come and play these, what we think are going to be really, really fun gauntlets all weekend long at GenCon. Awesome. That is it. So yeah, when is it going on sale? On Friday? Monday. Monday.

Sorry, I was drinking water. Yeah, Monday. I need a hot second to get this all ready, but you'll be able to go to our website, glasscannonetwork.com. We'll put this all, all the links on social media so you'll be able to directly go there and buy, you can buy as many as you want. And if you want to play with multiple different GMs, you can. And yeah, you know, it's not for everybody. It's an expensive luxury item, but frankly, if I was going to be running a game for anybody

else, I'd charge a lot more than $200. Well, good for you. That must be nice. going to be running a game for anybody else. I charge a lot more than $200. But for you, that must be nice. It is it is great though, too. I mean, yeah, I mean, the issues that I have with the price are kind of offset by the knowing how expensive it is to get the booth and build the booth. It's so crazy expensive that we are looking at not making any money. We will still lose money on that booth basically. So it's, it's wild how expensive it all is. But if we can have some great experiences with you guys, it's going to be awesome. All right, let's get into the episode. That's

it for news. This one. Wow. What a wild app. Talk to me about the beginning from the first time you read the adventure. This kind of, this must throw you for a loop as a reader, just like it throws up us for a loop as, as players. Were you like, what? When all of a sudden, uh, you're in some foreign jungle, like, like what goes through your head? When is this what sold it for you? Were you like, now I want to do Gatewalkers?

Um, well, no, I don't think it was what sold it for me, but I thought it was cool. It's like, you, you're always expect I felt – feel like with this adventure right from the beginning, you're always expecting one thing and they just keep diverting it. There are problems with that as well, I think. Depends on your group, depends on your audience, but I think at the end of the day, seeing this yet another zag in the adventure was very alluring to me. Also get to get the chance to fight very strange and weird creatures. That's right up my alley and

You know, I like this creature in particular because there's only one of them and there's five of you But I never felt like I was just gonna get smoshed like in a giant slayer for real It was that was an intense combat. We'll get to that in a second. But where where are we? What is this this jungle? What is this place? I don't know, man. You don't know. You're going to find out. I mean, you guys rolled some recall knowledge to try and figure it out and you got varying

thoughts on where this was. Everything looks very foreign to you, but you're also – we don't know where all of you guys have been in the world. How many of you like stayed in your homeland and never really ventured too far outside of its borders. You know, you're definitely in a jungle. Somebody said Mwangi expanse. Obviously, some of you are thinking you're on another planet. I think that, you know, it won't take long before you start getting more and more clues as to where you are or if it's even important where

you are. Let's say for the sake of argument that it is Castroville, which some people suspect immediately skid spit that out, that it's possibly this planet that we were at in Dead Sons when we played androids and aliens. As a GM, does it irritate you if players sort of reveal what is supposed to be a surprise by their kind of metagame knowledge? Does that bother you at all? No.

I mean, dude, playing with me, that used to happen all the time in Skids games because they read so many of these frigging things that like I just see it. I can see it coming a mile away. My friends used to hate watching wrestling with me because I could like call the match as it was happening. It was like, here comes the double clothesline and now he's going to flip out of the ring. I could just see 10 steps ahead. So yeah, it doesn't bother me.

It only bothers me when I think that someone is saying something because they read something on the internet. And I do think that happens from time to time with our group. It's kind of impossible if you're not, you know, I always say don't read the boards for numerous reasons, but most of all so that you're not spoiled. So I do think that some of that knowledge where the people directly sought it out or not is sort of seeps into the unconsciousness

and they don't look as brilliant as they are. Again, sticking with the Castroville thing, how are you approaching the recall knowledge for something like this? I don't think we've ever really encountered something of this before in any of our games where you are transported instantly to a foreign place and have absolutely no frame of reference for where you are beyond what you've heard about the climates in certain parts of the world or something like that, right? How are you basing what could potentially be known about this place, even if it's just

a different continent or if it's an entirely different planet? What do you feel like, I guess my question is, what do you feel like Pathfinder, TUI, PCs of our stature, what do you think we know of or are aware of in terms of other planets? Like is this, do you estimate somewhat common knowledge among scholars of the other planets in the solar system right now or is there, do they not even have any idea what is happening on other planets? I imagine they have no idea what's happening on other planets. I mean, I'm not thinking about other planets.

You guys jump to that conclusion, some of you are running with it, but I mean the book is pretty explicit like you roll a recall knowledge, here's the information. When they don't give that information, I try to—what I've been doing as of late is like repurposing the flavor into recall knowledge checks. I'm like, well, they wouldn't know this unless they wrote something. So let me repurpose this. Here's your critical success. Here's your success.

Here's your failure. Here's your critical failure. I'll just kind of reword it and make up what the critical failure is to lead you astray. But you know these iodara are all over Galarian. There was a time when you could just walk through and be transported someplace completely else in the world. So when you arrive there, what do your five senses tell you? It's this, it's that.

I'm just really trying to get into the reality of the situation for these characters. You roll those, or I roll those checks in secret. And I'm just giving you what's in the book. Maybe I'm flavoring it up a little bit, and I'm just giving you what's in the book. Maybe I'm flavoring it up a little bit, but I'm looking at the page right here and it just tells you the checks, tells you what you get for information for a crit success, success failure, and crit failure. Do you feel as a GM in general when you approach these APs and you see those layouts for a

recall knowledge success tier chart, do you feel that you generally give exactly what the book says, a little more than the book says, or a little less than the book says in terms of giving the characters knowledge about their situation? Aaron Ross Powell I think I tend to give more just because I think sometimes the knowledge is stingy. It really depends on how much you guys press. But I feel like sometimes the difference between success and critical success isn't enough. So I really try to hold back that critical success if nobody got it.

Like if there's one chunk in there, I'll try to hold that back. Juicy chunk. But then I'll still say some of the other stuff that's in there. But to me, it also like really depends on the show. I don't play outside of performance. So I think it'd be different in a home game. Just the facts, ma'am. But like for what we do, I also want to inform the audience as well as the players.

And so I lean on the side of giving more. I may not need to do that though, kind of like treasure. You didn't roll the perception check to seek to do that though, kind of like treasure. You didn't roll the perception check to seek to find that treasure. You lost the treasure. Maybe I can be more stingy with the knowledge as well. Over the years, the one thing I've learned is the players, no matter how much you think they know, they always know way less and they forget everything that they do know. You can err on the side of giving a little bit more. Yeah. Yeah. I do the same thing. I err on the side of giving more information. I think it just

makes for a more fun game ultimately because just laboring in the dark, so to speak, for like really, really long periods of time, it's just not as interesting to me. So I do. Surprises are fun to withhold and to have a good reveal is always great. But like it's, I would err on the side of giving more information generally speaking, because like you said, you know, players need everything they can get in terms of knowledge because it will just go, you know, in one ear and out the other. Yeah. Let's talk about the encounter.

Uh, the, the monkey face, scorpion tailed creature, which was such a perfect like alien so to speak Jungle creature right like something you've never seen before that never even heard of before that That is a terrifying encounter. Is this a The kind of a random encounter in the sense that it's a creature in the book You can use it in a jungle encounter and you just decided to make it the encounter or is this the designed first encounter when you step into the foliage moving toward this civilization? Without saying too much, they've left, they've kind of, and this may be a trend in these

two adventure paths, but they've given you a, here's the suggested XYZ for this section of the adventure, but feel free to mix things up or put things off to later or be bopping scat. I'm trying not to say too much. So yeah, that's all I'm going to say about it. This next section- So this is not a design encounter that's the first thing you see on the planet. You chose this as a GM to throw this at us. If that's the question, then no.

This is the as designed first encounter. OK, interesting. Yeah. And so. This is the welcome to this horrifying jungle. Welcome to the jungle, yeah. Yeah, and it's cool because what was going on with this monkey? Like is there some weird like

species that is like Scorpion was fucking a monkey and this came up like Yeah, is it is it the result of some? Weird experimentation right didn't we just we came out of a lab that was trying to combine things with things like Muro type shit or like what's going on here? Like, where are you? Right. Obviously you guys think other planets, so it's easy to be like, oh, alien, but like if you start thinking about other options,

let your mind wander down that path, it might help you think of other alternatives. Oh, sure, and when I say alien, I just mean the all-encompassing term of like just completely outside of your known world or ecosystem or whatever. Because yeah, there's, I mean, there's huge ways where this could go. One of the things I like about the Ayudhara and enjoyed when I had them involved in Emerald

Spire is that there's also no limit to when you can be, you know? So I mean, we also talked about potentially being some sort of primordial landscape or something. So it's really, really interesting to have no idea where or when you are as adventurers and have to kind of that's the mystery you have to puzzle out is really fun. So I'm definitely, definitely looking forward to that. Last question before we move on to We Are Stupid and Listener Male. I want you to be honest with me. Are we still talking about the tree fish or still? No. Do you want to keep talking with me. You still talking about the tree fisher still?

No. Do you wanna keep talking about him? You wanna talk about its abilities? It kinda fucked you guys up. You mean like every single encounter in the entire Gatewalkers adventure path? Which is wild because I'm not, I didn't balance it for five,

I'm just leaving it for four because you guys are struggling with just talking to the counterment for four characters. Yet again, it just came out and smashed. Obviously, I'm rolling well, you guys are rolling poorly. You guys I think are spotty in your synergy and it's going to be deadly if that trend continues. I think you guys were struggling to hit some of the knowledge checks, but you can cut the

filament. You can cut its tail and then it can no longer do that harpoon thing. Just little things like that trying to- Yeah, but you also have to think back, hindsight, moment by moment. Here's what actually happens in these encounters within a round Your first turn we are debilitated immediately. So there is no time for synergy like immediately I feel most of the time as the healer that like I am bringing somebody up from dying in round one

Because your first hits are putting people down. I mean, this is what happened with Asta. Now I don't recall exactly if it was the second hit on Asta that actually put her to dying or I think the first hit just grabbed her sec. And then there, maybe there was a constrict that put her to die, something like that, but it was so fast. And then I was like, I know I just have to heal her again. And, but I decided not to, because I was like, I think if memory serves, I was like, now I just have to heal her again. Yeah. But I decided not to. Because I was like, I think if memory serves,

I was like, you have a bottle cap. I'm going to try to take the creature out. And I did hit it, you know, which was good. I agree that like we could be getting a little bit better with synergy mechanically to lower ACs. Sometimes you're great. Sometimes you're great, but like. Yeah, but it's also hard when like the creature

is 30 feet off the ground in the trees. That is such an enormous situational advantage Sometimes you're great, but like... Yeah, but it's also hard when like the creature is 30 feet off the ground in the trees. That is such an enormous situational advantage that, yeah, it makes it really challenging. But I... Nobody climbed the tree. I thoroughly enjoyed it from a narrative perspective. I think that it seemed exactly like how you would write it in a movie. And that to me was a good thing in this case, because it was like, one of your party

is immediately like bam and pulled up and is like unconscious and poisoned. Everybody's like, what the fuck is that? Like, and then we, we do kill it, which is great. So nobody dies, but then you're just like, what is going to be the next thing, you know, in this jungle? So yeah. I think it was a great introductory encounter and it makes you fear whatever may be coming next, which brings me to my last question. I was just saying I love that image too of it pulling up Asta's unconscious body. I imagine just her limp body bowing as this thing is yanking it up and everyone's like, but yes, your Yes, your question your question Getting to the end of the episode. I want your honest assessment here because you you tend to say that you

root for the players And there was some air come your biggest audience and I tend to and I do tend to agree with you But you like a good challenge were you like a good challenge. Were you like trying to control the amount of joy and glee that was bursting inside of you when brother Ramias decided to go over the rocks first? No, I, I, listen, I think it's fucking idiot. If you, if brother Ramias had been like a real thorn in my side as of late then yeah I'd be like, you know, it's time to give him a little comeuppance

But and it's not to say that you've been a mess at all, but I know I see that and I'm like, oh no This is not good. Well, that's what I think I would have loved it, dude It's like sign me up anybody that goes up my class You're going down Baron. But like now I see it, having played the amount of 2E that we played at this point, I'm like, oh, god. Oh, no. I know. So like, do that.

Obviously, hindsight's 20-20. You look back, you think, how could I not assume that some creature would attack in this horrible situation? But whatever. Moving things along, going with the narrative, just moving it forward, I'm fine with it. We'll see what happens, but it is to me, extremely concerning mechanically to be in the front.

It is not a place for a cleric. My AC is so low that the concern is not getting hit. I will get hit 100% of the time, save for natural ones. The concern is how easily I can be crit. And that is just, it worries me so much. And I have been, I think, really good across the board so far at staying out of direct contact when it's possible. And it was just this one slip up, one mistake.

You were high. Now I'm, yeah, I was high. I am high. In my defense, your honor, I was high. And now I'm, now I'm in the vanguard. So man, we'll see what happens. I worry about athletics. I worry about acrobatics. I mean, I'm on a rock in the middle of a river. It's like, all these things are running through my head. And I'm very concerned about where this is going to go. But great Cliffy, great Cliffy.

I thought overall, I feel like I like to tell you when I don't like an episode. And I think that that's important to share. I think likewise, I got to tell you when I like an episode. I think that that was a stellar episode of an actual play just because it had everything. From the jump, it opens in a completely foreign landscape. You have no idea where or when you are.

So everybody's like, OK, let's start to get our bearings and its knowledge checks and its survival and its perception and it's looking around. Then you see some sort of evidence of some civilization. It's like, OK, let's just get there. Then you have an encounter. and it's deadly and scary, but it's also fast and pretty clean. What do you call it?

A clean encounter. It was. Clean. Yeah, you'll like it when it's clean. You like it when it's clean. Generally speaking, that felt to me like a clean encounter. And then we had the patching up, Brother Rami is smoking the weed

that's like the fact this sucks like yeah and then Hubert obviously like involved with the whole thing and then it ends on yet and it ends on like an extremely dangerous cliffy so I don't know I just felt like it was a really solid solid up yeah yeah no it flowed man yeah yeah it was a good one all right with that let's analyze what we may have done right or wrong in a little We Are Stupid. We are stupid! Thank you, Nick. We are stupid. Not too bad this week. Not too bad this week. We got really good marks from Professor Eric, but just going through a couple quick ones. For those of

you that heard Skid say that the shield cantrip gives Buggles a plus two to his AC, that is incorrect. It is a plus one and skid corrected it later in the episode. So in case you didn't listen to the end, or you just got angry and commented immediately, he did correct that by the end. But yeah, it is only a plus one for the shield cantrip. Also, Professor Eric confirms Matthew's correct call on the AC penalties versus what Professor Eric called, unless we called it, I don't remember, the Asta pinata as Asta was drug up and unconscious. Unconscious is a minus four status penalty to your AC.

Off guard is a minus two circumstance penalty to your AC. Off guard is a minus two circumstance penalty to your AC. So they stack for a net minus six to your AC when you are unconscious. So just an important detail to point out. Unconscious, I got to dig more into unconscious. You know, it's weird because like, when you get the dying condition on foundry, you get the unconscious condition and off guard and prone. Like immediately. Yeah. When you remove the dying condition, it removes dying. It removes unconscious. Yeah. But I don't think that's true unless you're healed above hit points. So maybe,

I got to look into that. And also like, I just get, it's like a bugaboo for me. It's like when you're unconscious, what can you can, what can't you and can you not do? Like we made a big joke about her not taking falling damage. And it was like, if I fell out of bed and I was unconscious, it would fucking hurt. I hit my head on a rock.

I think I take a point of damage in that scenario. Yeah. Like you get lowered saves, you get a lowered reflex save when you're sleeping. It's very strange. Yeah, I think for me, it's pretty straightforward. If I'm running games, if you're unconscious, you are. And this, to me, comes from money.

I think it makes perfect sense. You are entirely helpless and entirely vulnerable. The only thing you might not be vulnerable to in my eyes is anything with a will save but like Reflex saves it should be zero like you cannot even roll you get hit whatever it is, you know Now if you want to do luck rolls, you know to say like oh you're laying there unconscious There's a rock nearby somebody shot a fireball part of you is behind a rock I'll do a flat check to see if some of it Right, this is not the rule when you're in conscious you take a minus four to reflex it makes no sense to me

I would love you. I would love you guys in the comments to explain to me why that makes any sense I feel like we could do a whole we are stupid up here Just analyzing the unconscious condition as it's played in these games You know because like is an undead is a mindless undead unconscious Right like yeah, and by that same token does that mean somebody can be unconscious? But moving around and be and have their id be aware of certain threats or something like that You know, like I don't't know, like, it's an interesting topic for conversation. I would love feedback from you guys. So put it in the comments

if you have any thoughts on how you handle this. I generally consider unconscious to you become an object that is can is immobile and cannot do anything at all is completely vulnerable, can be coup de grace from, you know, one e term in terminology. And, yes, certainly does not get any benefit of getting to roll anything besides flat checks. If you were bleeding, let's say, or, or, you know, wheel saves are kind of funky. If you were under a mental spell, that could be a really fun thing to play around with during while being unconscious. But yeah, anyway, weird., anyway weird weird Speaking of the fall professor Eric actually brings this up. This is a fun little topic for a second. Let's talk about the falling damage

He you know Professor Eric agrees with the players that by raw you would take no damage because the falling damage does not make any distinction between Being conscious and falling or being unconscious and falling. There is no qualifier in the explanation and it says you must be more than five feet up to take any damage. However, he said that this also definitely falls under GM Fiat because each situation could be different. Like you said, if she is dumped onto a pile of rocks That's entirely different than being dumped onto a pile of grass like where she is Could could factor in and in this case What would happen is she would have gone from dying to to dying three if you let her go and what professor?

Eric points out this kind of an interesting thing is that dying three seems like it's the most brutal course of action that you could like You know do to a player. It's almost like you're you're picking on them in some way that dying three seems like it's the most brutal course of action that you could like, you know, do to a player. It's almost like you're, you're picking on them in some way. But what he says is this is actually the most generous thing you could have done as a GM. That's what I was trying to do. Yeah. Because, because you pull her up in that thing, constrict her in that thing. And correct me if I'm wrong, I'm following Professor Eric here, but he says she would take bleed. She would have five bleed. And that being dying two with bleed

is a thousand times worse than being dying three with no bleed. Right? So he says from my side, and this is quote, from my side, having a very similar near TPK against this creature when he was running, Gatewalkers. He said, it felt like Troy was really giving you a chance and really was being helpful by making it dying three, which we didn't end up doing at all. But by making it dying three, you were being generous as opposed to giving the bleed, which is much more dangerous. So anyway, just something to think about, an interesting perspective on how it's better to be dying two and bleed, or better to be dying three than dying one and bleeding, or dying two and bleeding, right? That was my intent.

Okay, let's move on to Flaleaf. This is just a funny moment in the show. However, it is a mechanical thing. Professor Eric points out, make sure you're rolling saves on addiction and its effects over the next couple hours. I actually dug into thing. Professor Eric points out, make sure you're rolling saves on addiction and its effects over the next couple hours. Right. I actually dug into this, Professor Eric, if you want to get back to me or if anybody

wants to comment in the comments, we'll talk about it next week. I can't find anything about addiction in the player core. I'm not sure if it just hasn't been addressed yet in the remaster or if I completely can't find it, but I'd love any insight you could give me. I didn't look for long, but when I looked in the sections where I found it before, I just couldn't seem to find it. So let me know what I'm missing. But I don't know if it's been, it's in the originally original game mastery guide addiction. Oh, is it in the GM core? Yeah. I don't know if it's, no, but I don't think it's been updated

yet. This is like addiction. Yeah. Usually professor Eric cites books and pages from the player coin GM core when he puts these things in here. But in this case, he just said, you should have made a save against addiction and dealing with the usual conditions for the next couple of hours that Flayleafs gives you like that. Absolutely. And in fact, we will be doing that in terms of the next couple of hours of its effects. However, we didn't roll on addiction. I just assumed that Brother Amias is addicted, but I haven't really done the mechanics of it per se, meaning him not having it causes him to have debuffs, being fatigued or sickened if he just doesn't have Flayleaf. We haven't really delved that far. I'm not sure that it's something

I really want to do. I mean, we can talk about it, But right now it's more of a... It's not that it's a bit. It really is a central part of his character that's been there since the beginning. But I would like to get some clarity on the exact raw rules for that and where they come from. So anybody can chime in on that. My understanding of it is like, if you voluntarily fail the save, that's what can lead you down the path to addiction and then you have to start making addiction saves which run on their own track, separate from the track of the drug. Yes, yes. But that this is legacy content, they may update it, I

imagine they're just going to port it over. If it gets addressed. Yeah. What I'm looking for is the remaster rules. That's what I'm looking for. And if they have it, if they don't have them yet, then great. I'm just gonna keep smoking with no repercussions whatsoever. No consequences. Just like real life. Just like real life. Last comment from Professor Eric is, I just want to point out that the combat, even this tougher one, is

continuing to flow well and left a lot of time after the combat for roleplay investigation and more character development. I hope you're all able to appreciate the comfort level you've been reaching with the rules. And then he just says, I feel bad generally only sending things you did poorly. So I want to make sure to send a well done comment to the whole, to the whole crew. So he agrees. It was a smooth combat, smooth combat, and it was a tough one. And it left us room for roleplay at the end. So fantastic. Thank you, professor Eric.

Let's turn it to the nation. Get into a little listener mail. You gotta get your brain off on it, darling. This is the way you're gonna get me. You gotta cue that fuck beanie. Shh. Told you it was gonna be International Edition. Let's kick it off with Nicola from Burlington, Canada. Nicola. In our first International Edition, Nicola writes a very kind message to everyone on the show

about how they came to first listen to the show and love the show and everything. And thank you for that story. It's fantastic. I won't recount the whole thing here, but to first listen to the show and love the show and everything. And thank you for that story. It's fantastic. I won't recount the whole thing here. But I will get to a quick question. And this is a quick one. How do you come up for the introduction music to each of your shows? They have such unique vibes. I'm curious about why you pick certain sounds, who produces it, and why it's important for that pick particular john for your shows.

Troy, your thoughts Troy picks the songs for the for the the important for that particular John for your shows. Troy, your thoughts. Troy picks the theme songs for the shows. Yeah. I imagine this listener is from the Toronto area. Now he's got plenty of free time to write questions into listener mail. Oh.

Am I right, Toronto? Oh, man. Free time. Had to go to overtime for the record all the way down to overtime, but you squeak. We always do. Lucky son of a bitch. They always end up on the golf course. So yeah, I mean, it started originally, let's go back to the first song that was picked

was for the Glass Cannon podcast. I wanted to do something that was like that eight bit old Nintendo game because I was like, how do we write from the outset, let people know like this is something nostalgic. We're trying to like tap into a nostalgia. And to me, when I heard that Clef, there was a couple of different eight bits we were listening to. We used to get our music on Incompetech, which was like one dude, this one composer. Kevin MacLeod came up with this stuff. And now every time I hear that song, I'm like, I don't want to, this one composer. Kevin MacLeod came up with this stuff. Now, every time I hear that song, I'm like, I don't want to hear this song anymore. But as the shows have moved on, we've gotten better licensing deals with,

and I shouldn't say better, but more robust licensing deals with other music companies that have just given us a larger catalog to work with. And so what I try to do is just think about what the show's like, what I'm looking for and then just start playing around. Like I knew Time for Chaos, I wanted it to be much different and weirder. And then I downloaded something and I kind of manipulated the music to get it where I wanted, added some effects. But for the most part, I leave it as is. And with shows that I don't run for the most part, really with it as is and what shows that I don't run for the most part

really would like Jared. I'll be like, Hey Jared, here's a bunch of tracks. Is there one that really speaks to you? And then he'll, you know, he'll, he'll give us the blood of the wild track. He picked the haunted city track. The haunted city track is among my favorite. Yeah, like that. That track is phenomenal.

Yeah, it's really, really good. I mean, I love getting the trunk sidequest side session. I That just came up on YouTube. Yeah, is that just Is that its own thing? Yeah, it was it was originally new game who dis music I think it was the new game who dis music and then I kept is getting in truck Yeah, and change the new game who dis yeah, I This is getting the trunk. Yeah, I mean, but yeah, that's a, I mean, I know how to play instruments, but I'm not like crazy musically inclined.

Everybody makes fun of my particular taste, but like, I feel like I've been hitting some bangers with the theme music. All right, let's go to another international. Nicholas from Sweden asks, what do you reckon the chances are of getting the trunk season six recorded in person in the new studio? God. Zero percent chance. We wanted to, we talked about it and we still talk about it at a future time, but it's just

physically impossible. If you want the show to ever come out, we can't physically get it done right now. With getting Gatewalkers in studio is already multiple hour commutes for multiple people. And with the other shows we all have to record, it's just, it's too much. We can't do it. And it comes down to money too.

You know, if you want to be transparent, like, you know, the reason we're able to do Gatewalkers in the studio is because of our sponsors. We don't even have publisher support for Gatewalkers and we certainly don't have publisher support for getting the trunk in terms of monetary support. That's the big difference maker. If we had sponsors come along for getting the trunk or we were working with publishers with deep pockets, we could certainly do it in studio, but it's just not financially feasible because the minute we go in studio, the electric bill goes up, everything goes

up and... Yeah, the personnel that you need, the equipment that you need, it's all very expensive. The edits are longer and everything and it's something we've talked about. I mean, you and I have talked about this a lot lately. It's like, man, do we do it like Kickstart or do something like that to be able to bring it into studio because that would be really fucking cool. The entire cast is available to do it. You know, I talked about doing it for Time for Chaos next season as well as I just fly

everybody out, shoot the whole thing in two weeks, the entire season, then get it done with. But it's just really, really expensive. It all just comes down to money. Yeah. Yeah. Things are really expensive. Yeah, great question.

I wish we could, but we just can't. But you know, we're getting ready to hop in and start recording getting the trunk remote right now. Very excited. And hopefully, you know, in the next month or so just announcing release dates and stuff like that. So very excited about season six about to about to commence. One last question. This is a fun one. Jared from Nevada City. We know that Troy is not a fan of certain movies. But what film would he recommend to the nation if he could recommend one film? And what film would Joe put out there? Yeah, so I guess this would be like, what's something that most people wouldn't know about that you'd throw out there as a movie recommendation from your indie movie days, your foreign film days, your film snob days? Well, I always went back and forth between, Woody Allen was my favorite, still is probably my favorite, although I haven't seen what he's done lately. Then I started getting into indie cinema and I got way into John Cassavetes – then I started getting into like indie cinema and I got way into

John Cassavetes and that just kind of led to like French New Wave and Tarkovsky and just a lot of great, great foreign films. And if I had to recommend one, I would say watch – it's certainly not a starter Cassavetes movie. But I would say watch Woman Under the Influence. Have you ever seen Woman Under the Influence? No, I've never seen any of these movies that you're talking. All right, so I would say, my other recommendation,

I'll go see Husbands, like wait to Husbands, just see a Woman Under the Influence. Well, Husbands is the one you and Francis were talking about in the office the other day, right? You were like raving about it, but it's so bizarre. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's just, he made movies in a very different way. There was nobody making independent films. He would do like Rosemary's Baby, fight with Polanski the entire time, like, let's do it

this way. Like they get into fist fights. But the only reason he did it was he'd take that money and then pour it into making his own films. And by pouring it into making his own films, he really just run up large restaurant and bar tabs to create a relationship with himself and his friends that would end up being the actors so that once they turn the cameras on, the relationships were there. Sometimes there were scripts, sometimes there weren't.

It was highly improvisational and then he would just create a film out of it in the editing room. Anyway, so, Woman Under the Influence is stars, Woman Under the Influence stars Jenna Rowlands who was his wife, his widow, I think she's still alive, and Peter Falk as a husband and wife and she's just a very complicated person. I think, I don't know if she won the Oscar. She certainly had to have been nominated for the Oscar. It's 70s, it's gritty, and it's, if you've never seen the Cassavetes film, I recommend

starting with this one over like an old one like Faces or Husbands, which is a little more complex. Killing of a Chinese bookie is very weird with Ben Guzzara. Watch A Woman Under the Influence. I want you to watch this too, because it is like an acting tour de force, and it is a film done in a way that you've never, I guarantee even if you've watched like super indie stuff, really never seen a film quite like this. And the acting is among the greatest acting you will ever see in your entire life.

Jenna Rollins is just a tour de force. In its criterion collection, I'm sure, as I used to have the, I probably still do, in my gonna sell on eBay. 1974. 74. In here for movies. Wow.

She is so amazing. I don't even wanna say too much about it, but it's just about them and their very, very complicated relationship as husband and wife and her very complicated relationship with her mind. It is currently streaming on Macs. Oh is it? Yeah.

Oh man. I haven't seen it in a long, long time, but I used to, there was this guy, he was a professor at BU and my buddy Dave Kang was his TA. I think his name is Ray Carney. It was Ray Carney and he's the foremost expert on Cassavetes and so I've read like four or five of his books and go so deep into Cassavetes and his way of doing things. He died crazy young because he smoked like nine packs a day. But his son went on to, Nick Kassavetes went on to do like, what's that tearjerker movie with the gosselin and-

The notebook? The notebook, yeah. I think that's Nick Kassavetes. His son, so it's like in the blood of these guys. Nicholas David Rowland Kassavetes, she's so lovely. John Q, the notebook, alpha dog. Holy shit. Yeah, so his dad was John Cassavetes. Not exactly a lightweight. I mean, you want to talk, I mean, just Google Jenna Rowlands.

What was the Woody Allen movie she was in? She was in this great Woody Allen movie with Ian Hull, fucking Bilbo, who's got one of the greatest lines in all of cinema. What was the fucking Woody Allen movie that she did? Oh, Another Woman. Oh my God. So she's married to Ian Hull and he leaves her for another woman. And she, you know, so that's kind of the play on words.

It's a drama. But most people think Woody Allen, think like bananas and goofy stuff. Like he did those. He started out doing like, you know, Marx Brothers type movies. And then he did like serious comed think like bananas and goofy stuff. He did those. He started out doing like Marx Brothers type movies and then he did like serious comedies like Andy Hall and then there was just like fucking dark shit. When you originally asked me, I was going to be like Hannah and her sisters because when people see Woody Allen, they never think of like Hannah and her sisters. But unbelievable, dramatic, very, very intense drama, sad, with some humor for sure.

But yeah, if you want to get out of Jenna Rowland's kick after you watch this, go watch another woman and then just watch everything she did with her husband. Wow. Wow. Nice. That was good. I never talk about film anymore because dude, I used to be a bit of a cinephile and then I just stopped.

I know. You were were like super super into it Also, Nick Cassavetes was in Husbands and a woman under the influence. Yeah, he's just a kid. Yeah. Yeah, you see him put him in the house at the end of husbands Oh, that's cool. That's cool Okay, so I know the other thing I just to comment on yours real quick I will check this movie out because I'm I don't like watch indie movies or foreign films or anything. I just don't. I always just watch like I am a mainstream guy, very, very boring kind of film taste kind of guy. But I remember when I first, it's like, so through high school and college, all the only thing I watched

were comedies and action movies. Those are the only, that's the only genre I watched. I never even saw a drama until I was out of college. And I started seeing dramas and I was like, holy shit, these are so much better than everything I've been watching. And I'll never forget the first time I saw One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. When I saw that, that really jumped out to me as what you would call an acting tour de force. I had never seen people

act like that. Like it seemed, it seems very improvisational. You know what I mean? There's a lot of like yelling over each other. There's a lot of very intense moments that feel so real. And I was just like, I started to associate that in a way in my mind with the seventies. So I started to be like, they just did it different back then. Like they were just better actors back then. But it's true. Like, you know, I'm excited to see this movie because I appreciate good acting so much. And you can, you can be looking at a movie and see fantastic, a fantastic script, a fantastic idea, fantastic story, and great cinematography, and be completely let down by the acting.

Like that happens to me all the time. Because I just, I tend to hold that to a higher standard. And so when you see great acting, it's just, it is the most engaging thing to me in cinema. Well, I mean, dude, you're in for a treat because this is unlike anything you've ever seen. You mentioned Cuckoo's Nest, you've seen Network? Yeah, yeah. When I think of Cuckoo's Nest. Do you have an associate network?

Yeah. Yeah. When I think of Cuckoo's Nest, I always think of network, because they won every Academy Award that year. That year, yeah. It's like, best director, writer, actor. Yeah, network is just phenomenal, too. All right, so I'll give one recommendation.

Like I said, I'm a very mainstream guy. I've got a mainstream. Operation Dumbo Drop, is that you? Yeah, exactly. I've got a very mainstream movie that this is my wife and I's go to, like, she introduced it to me and it's our go to, like, suggest to a friend if they have, because so many people did not see this movie. It has major stars in it, totally flew under the radar.

And I, if you haven't seen this movie, check it out. It's called The Lookout. It is, it has Joseph Gordon-Levitt in it. It's from 2007. The Lookout. It's going back away. It is so good. It's phenomenal. It looks like it would just be bad, and it's so fantastic. I'm not going to say anything because I knew nothing about it. My wife was just like, you've never seen this movie? You should check this out.

It's really good. We watched it together and I was just like, I was blown away. Yeah, I share it with people all the time. I never heard of it at the time. I watched it like 10 years after it came out. So random. Yeah, it's so random. It's Jeff Daniels and-

Isla Fisher. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, yeah, with a few terrific other actors in it as well. Matthew Good, who you may know from Downton Abbey, among other things. But yeah, it's just a fantastic story, which by the way, I think you'd be into it, Troy. I think it's in the, I wanna say it's in the Boston area. It might be more like Minnesota.

And the reason that I'm combining those two, the reason I'm combining those two is because it starts, it has a very strong hockey influence. It's a very like, yeah, it's like, he's a hockey player coming at like a college hockey player. And that's where it starts. And then it goes into a really interesting direction. So, very cool. Something to, yeah, when do you ever see a movie where the central character is a hockey player and it's, you know what I mean? Like, and it's not supposed to be pro hockey or something. It's really interesting. But, uh, yeah, anyway, check that one out. All right. That is going to wrap it up. That was a really fun question. Thanks for that one. I can talk for hours. I know, I know. Really got, um,

really got Troy going there on the, uh, which Which were called on the film question. I knew that that would fire you up. That's great. Yeah, man I'm not all Hallmark. I contain multitudes contain multitudes Thanks everybody for for checking everything out Keep an eye on our social media as we release all the info and links and everything for Gen Con where to go buy tickets where To get in because some of those Gen Con shows with smaller audience numbers are going to sell out. So jump on those as quick as possible.

I know it's months away, but if you think you're going to be there, definitely grab that stuff. We got Glass Cannon, a podcast campaign to episode 34 tomorrow night, eight o'clock. We've got I'm streaming two o'clock, or I keep saying two o'clock. I'm streaming 12 o'clock Eastern time on Friday, continuing control, and then more amazing stuff coming next week. So thanks everybody. Have a good one.

We'll see you next time. Later. Bye. It's time to make your membership official. Become an official member of the Naish today at jointhenaish.com. That's jointhenaish.com, where you'll get access to exclusive podcasts and live streams you can't find anywhere else. See what everybody's talking about

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