The Glass Cannon Podcast - Cannon Fodder 7/17/24

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

Troy and Joe are back from vacation and dig into a huge slate of shows scheduled to air on YouTube during Gen Con. A ton of new casts, new games, and the same old hijinks will be coming your way all day every day during Gen Con, whether you're in Indianapolis or not! This is your first chance to hear the lineup. In We Are Stupid, Joe gets busted for cheating, and in Listener Mail...the guys weigh in on some of their favorite cities and venues to visit while on tour. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/_dO-h4qCIPc 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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Now extended to flights within Canada and the U.S. Cheers to taking off this summer. More details at airCanada.com. You are listening to the Glass Cannon Network, the premier source for role-playing game entertainment. Welcome to Cannon Fodder. 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 July 17thth 2024 and we're back

I'm your old buddy Joe O'Brien and I'm Troy celebrating Christmas in July LaValley This is my this says this is my hallmark Christmas movies watching candle My mother-in-law gave it to me and I it's a year-round candle for me, but It's amazing doesn't smell like a Christmas tree Is that the smell or is it like nutmeg and cinnamon and shit like that? There's some spruce in there. It definitely smells like a Christmas day. A Christmas day, it smells like Christmas day.

It smells like a Christmas tree, but also, yeah, there's some cinnamon, a little all spice in there. It's great. So it's everything. It's everything that's in a house at Christmas time. In one candle. I've already gone through like three of these. So good.

Oh my God, that gets me high as a kite. What's up everybody? It is not Christmas vacation, but it was summer vacation. We just got back from a little break. Had a little little break ski from the FOD, which was nice. Where did you go? You went somewhere, right? I did.

I went to visit my folks in Haverhill, Massachusetts. I hadn't been to Haverhill in two years. I've just been like, you know, after three kids, I'm like, you come visit us. And so for the past couple of years, they just didn't come in here. And I'm like, we're going to stop by because we were on our way to a Fourth of July week in Portland, Maine, which is just fucking bomb. So great. And yeah, so we did that. And then, I don't know, it was back to work. It's a good place to go in the summer. You just drive north. It just gets cooler and the weather is better. Yeah, that's the way to go. Yeah, we have beautiful weather. I mean,

it's just like a lot of hustle and bustle in Portland. Everything's kind of walkable, even with an army of children. And, you know, just fucking lobster rolls, good beer. I mean, I had like 19 lobster rolls. I love lobster rolls. You can't throw a stone without finding a brewery that is like almost treehouse level. A lot of the breweries out there are fantastic. Our hotel was actually connected to the shipyard brewery. So by the end, I was like, norm from Cheers walking in there like, dry. But yeah, it was a great time. Just you walk outside, you know, not that I wake up so early, I'm out and getting coffee

and like 5 15 in the morning and there's no one on the streets and you've got the ocean smell in the air, which is my favorite smell. Oh, it's the best. Dawn at the ocean is great. Just like you feel just, you feel alive, Joe. That's great. That's fantastic. We went to Niagara falls for our break. My wife had never been, my kids have never been.

Uh, I was when I was a kid, but I haven't been in 30 years. It was amazing. I never went to the Canada side. So this time we went to the Canada side. We stayed over there. That is the good side from what I hear too. I don't remember much of the American side, but the Canada side has tons of hotels and casinos and carnivals.

It was awesome. We had an absolute blast and the weather was out of this world. It was also driving north. It was 75 degrees every day. It was gorgeous. There's just a mist in the air from the falls that just kind of gets everywhere. And it's just so refreshing. It's like, it's amazing.

So yeah, we had a blast. And it was nice to get away, but it's good to be back. Good to be catching up on, man, big news. We got a lot to talk about today with the upcoming content slate as we roll into San Diego Comic-Con and then Gen Con and Indie We'll go back over the last couple episodes of the GCP little we are stupid Of course because we're you know who doesn't take a summer vacation professor Eric

He's always on top of it, and then we'll get a little listener mail of course as always so let's kick it off With what I consider to be the big news, which is the announcement of the Gen Con YouTube premiere slate, which we were talking a lot about the Gen Con shows, but what if you're not gonna be at Indianapolis or in Indianapolis for Gen Con? We have got you covered. It's gonna feel like you're there

because we're going all day, air day, content. Tell them what to expect. Yeah, you know, with the re-imagination of the booth this year, we still wanted to keep the party going for everybody that can't come to GenCon. It's funny, we dropped all that stuff yesterday, and I'm getting, McD's tell me, so many people are like, oh man, I'm gonna miss out on all of that at GenCon.

I'm like, do you read? Do you read and see that this is all happening on YouTube? So we're recording it right now. We've already got several of these in the can. And basically, just like we did the past two years, from 10 a.m. all the way up until 6 p.m., and in some cases beyond 10 to 4 on Sunday, there's going to be content premiering on YouTube that we're recording all this month. And the real thrust of it is to help us pay for this booth.

The booth is crazy expensive. We work with these publishers to help us get this booth up and running. And so we want to keep it popping for everybody who can't come, although come on, this is your last year to use an excuse. You can't come to GenCon. It's gonna be the best GenCon ever.

You should be there in person. And even if you are there, who's to say you can't throw on some headphones and listen to the tube? Yeah, you might be waiting in some lines. You might be waiting for some games to start or a panel to start. Boom, throw on the tube. We got you going all, we got you covered all day long.

It's going to be nonstop. I mean, there were like little breaks during when we did it live because we had to like, come on shuffle people, wet nap the microphones and stuff. Now it's just going to be like bang, bang, bang, bang. So the first day Thursday is Paizo Day. We're doing back to back four hour sessions. You just told me yours went a little long because Joe is going to be running a Pathfinder game with Sydney, Paula Deming, Skid and Eric Mona.

Four hour Pathfinder, John. And then right after that, I'm going to be running a star finder to a playtest scenario With Matthew skid Joe and Kate Samus So that is a pretty full Thursday and if you're there what's wild is like we're also gonna be doing getting the trunk live On stage which may or may not be streaming and then that night we have glass cannon live sold I've been sold out for months at helium Comedy Club And that night we have Glass Cannon Live sold out for months at Helium Comedy Club. That's just day one, not to mention gauntlets all day in the booth. A couple of those still left, Jared's gauntlets on Thursday, still available.

But then Friday- Those day one gauntlets, yeah, still available. Yeah, still available. We're so close to selling out those gauntlets. Jared just has a couple because he's not as famous as us, I guess. And then on a Friday or because it's the worst possible time, like the first hours of the convention when people are still traveling to Indianapolis. Uh, Friday we've got, all right.

So you got this week we're premiering on Friday, part one of a three part. Oh yeah. So this is the other, this is the other news. It all actually starts this Friday. It's starting this Friday, just in a couple days, Friday night, 8 o'clock Eastern time, YouTube premiere Pendragon character creation. So you're going to see the creation of some knights

of the round table. They're not worthy to be at the round table, let me tell you. But we're gonna create some nights in our Thorian role playing in Pendragon. And then that show will continue the following Friday night. And then that will be, the finale of that will be airing during Gen Con on Gen Con Friday. So anyway, that's fun.

We'll talk about that again in a second. Yeah, so the finale is gonna kick off day three of our streaming at 10 a.m. On Friday and then after that And this bunch you the cast for that is gonna be Brian Holland everybody's favorite chaos EMGM running Joe skid Nora Ibrahim and Paula Deming and then after that is part one of two of a new game called deathmatch island Have you heard about this game, Jared? This is from the Beautiful Minds at Evil Hat. I think it's based around the Aegon system, which I bought a while ago, never got to play,

but Jared got to play it. I know, he's the resident Evil Hat guy. Well, Jared is going to be running myself, Rob Kirkevich, Skid Mar, and Mary Lou through a two-part death match island. You know what it is, Joe? You know I'm a big brother guy, right? Yes. Jen The Two Ends, a friend of the show, our merch queen. She's a big, big brother. We talk about big brother all the time. It's kind of like big brother and survivor, except it's also squid game. But I think you're killing

each other. So I rolled up my character and I just, you roll everything is you determine like what their profession was coming in, how many like followers on social media they have. Oh my God, this is amazing. So I rolled up my character yesterday. I'm like, Oh my God, this is Big Brother, which starts tomorrow night, by the way, or tonight if you're watching this live. And so anyways, we're going to be running, it's going to be two parts. It might be two separate games.

I don't know what Jared's going to do, but I rolled up my character yesterday, Deathmatch Island. And then after that, we're going to be playing a brand new RPG by Renegade Publishing called Welcome to Night Vale. This is an RPG that came out of a podcast. Based on the podcast. Yeah. Based on the podcast. Did you know the podcast? I did know the podcast. Yeah a podcast. Based on the podcast. Yeah. Based on the podcast.

Did you know the podcast? I did know the podcast. Yeah, I didn't know the podcast. I was like, what the hell is this? Well, we posted this yesterday. Everybody's like, oh my God, I can't wait to see this. It's Jared once again running Clint, his old buddy Clint, Mary Lou, Paula Deming, and Matthew Capitacaza.

We have a character creation session where Jared and Matthew went one-on-one for two hours just to build a character in this world. We couldn't even do it with everybody because it would just have taken too much time. It's a character creation session that really digs into the very unique mechanics of this game while the session itself is going to air on Friday at 2 p.m. That rounds out day one. No. Day two. Day two. Excuse me. I'm doing this all on Instagram. We finish off day two with a Marvel multiverse role playing game character creation session

using the new X-Man expansion that we already have that is going to drop at Gen Con. We recorded this the other day. I could have done that for four hours. And that is me hosting. I'm just really hosting, walking people through the nuts and bolts, Joe Skid, Rob Kirkovich, Matthew Capodicaza, and Sidney Emanuel as they create their own unique X-Men squad of mutants. So awesome.

I'm already running out of saliva here, so I'll go quick. Saturday kicks off with Joe. Saturday is free league day. Saturday is free league day. Yeah, fresh Saturday is free league day. That's right All free league baby free league all day. You're gonna be running alien. I think you're recording that later today Yeah, alien unique adventure with Kate Stamos Josephine McAdam Mary Lou and Matthew Capitacaza Even though Josephine's moved across the pond. We brought her back for this. And then after that, I mean, a couple people might be excited for the return of the one ring. This is going to be featuring elements of the new Moria book that they're dropping, right? So Jared is going to be running

Skid and Jason Charles Miller. Obviously, they were the first two phone calls I made. It's like, I put them on a group text. I'm like, Hey guys, we're going to do a two hour one ring session that's pre-recorded for Gencom. And they already started saying yes before I finished the text. It's a four hour session. By the way. That's a four hour, right. Yeah.

It's a beast. Skid and Jason Charles Miller, Alicia Marie and Harley Kane. Can't wait to see, if nothing else, the cosplay for that one. And then we finished day three with another free league title that you'll be running once again, Dragonbane. Back again, one year later, there is a whole new high level adventure that they've put out, a massive campaign, which is just so awesome. It's called Path to Glory. And yeah, it's going to be, we're just going to kick off the start of it and it'll be kind of like what we did last year with Sky King's Tomb, just a little taster.

We're not going to spoil anything about the grand scope of the campaign, but we'll give you a little sense of what it's like to play this game. Free League's very excited about it and we are too. Yeah. Jason Charles Miller, Matthew Capitacaza, Mary Lou and Josephine McAdam. It's so cool seeing all these mixes and the mixing and matching of all these casts is this really fun. That is a real fun one.

And then are we still on day three? I should say that Jason Charles Miller will be reprising his role as Sir Quack Inspire. So definitely tune into that Dragon Biggie. One of the greatest characters to Evergrace network, or at least the greatest voice, Sir Quack Inspire by Jason Charles Miller. My God, I'm looking now. We are completely jammed pack. We have 30 minutes that hasn't been accounted for in terms of like the show from floor will

coincide with all of these streams. We're kicking off Sunday with three back to back interviews that you've been recording. One with CJ Cervantes and Matt Forbeck from Marvel to talk about all the exciting things that they have going on. It sounds like a ton. Yeah, not only the X-Men expansion, which is dropping at Gen Con, but big news about the next expansion that's coming in 2025. So it's an awesome interview.

I'm not allowed to talk about it. And then you have an interview with Brian Holland, our good friend Brian Holland from Chaosium to talk about everything that they've got going on. And then you sit down with Carlos Cabrera, a new friend of ours from Renegade. Did you guys record that yet? Carlos Cabrera is a game designer. He's not from Renegade, but Renegade hired him to design the Welcome to Night Vale game. He's both an experienced game designer and a massive Welcome to Night Vale fan.

And so it was a really good sort of confluence there come together to make, you know, I think fans of Night Vale are going to love this game. It has been every step of the way designed by a super fan. It has been overseen by the Welcome to Night Vale team themselves. And it just it's checking all the boxes for if you want to do an existing IP right, you bring in the people that know that IP really well and are passionate about it. So that's that that would be Carlos Cabrera. So yeah, check out that interview for more about what went into designing and making

a game out of what is a huge podcast. Welcome to Night Vale. That's very exciting. It's good. It's good to have the interview element back with these premieres. And then we're going to have part two, the finale or perhaps a new Death Math Island scenario with the same cast as before. Then we finish off the day with a really interesting 5E supplement from Cubicle 7 called A Life

Well Lived. It's going to be Jared running Rob Kirkevich, Matthew Capitacaza, Ross Bryant and Sidney Emanuel through character creation for this supplement. When we started working with the Cupidical Seven, they were like, hey, we'd love you to do this. I sent it to Jared. I'm like, hey, Jared, would you like to run this?

He goes, yeah, but I feel like we should do character creation because this book is basically – it includes the system called the Life Path system. Life Path system. Yeah. I love those. Where basically you're building your life outside of when you're fighting goblins and orcs. It's like, what is your downtime life like?

And so we're going to spend a couple hours just kind of digging into that system. And so I was like, I need to get – I want to get writers like Rob and Matthew on there because I think they would have a field day with this and of course, throw Ross and Sidney in as well and I think it's going to be a really rich fun stream to kind of round out the best four days in gaming. Yeah. So it's going to be incredible whether you're there or not and that's the best part is if you can't make it to indie, you're going to have this fresh new content coming all weekend long, new games, new characters, new stories.

It just, you know, it's the spirit of Gen Con. It's just like pack as much into four days of gaming as you can. And if you're like, fuck you too, I don't want to watch that shit. It will all be available at the premium tier on our subscription service. So if you subscribe to the premium tier, you'll get the audio for every single one of those and And I haven't figured out how those are gonna drop just yet Probably maybe the week afterwards of gen con but try and catch those YouTube premieres. Let's pump those numbs Pump those numbs

Alright in other news we are going to San Diego Comic Con Next week. No. Yep. No. Yes. Shut your mouth. Yes. Oh, it is. Shut your mouth. It is. We're flying out next week. So a week from this Friday.

Pardon me. A week from this Friday. You're throwing up just thinking about it. That's what happened. My body rejected it. Bleh. Oh, I can't. I'm ready.

A week from this Friday, The Good Enuf's Return, where you actually get to play Marvel, not just create characters, but play the game. We're going to play a sesh. This is going to be Deadpool themed, right? Like a Deadpool themed John. Oh man, so excited. Deadpool role plays the Marvel multiverse.

And I mean, it's pretty wild. It's part of a longer adventure. And so I'm running the first part, but it's going to be modified and they're giveaways. So if you're coming, I think you're going to get a copy of this adventure with a very fun variant cover featuring all of us dressed as Deadpool. So please come out to that. And then if you're coming to San Diego Comic Con, I'm going to be doing a panel at 1115 on Saturday morning that talks about the difference between a home game and an actual play, kind

of the business of actual play. And then later that day, I want to say at 5, 5 30, I'm going to be on Faster Purple Worm Kill Kill with a friend of the show you might know, Sidney Emanuel. Check that out. Come see us. It's going to be fun. I think I hopefully will have more niche people there. Last year was weird with the strike and we found out and started announcing it like a week before we went out there. But please, if you're coming or if you're in the area, break in and come see us. It's gonna be a good time. We love playing Marvel.

And then we, like we said, we're headed to Gen Con, but I just want to throw this out there real quick. If you are going to Gen Con, we are still looking for some volunteers, merch volunteers for the shows. So if you want to help out with that, you can get, if you couldn't get into a show, maybe that's a way to get in. So hit us up at contact at glasscannonnetwork.com. If you want to try to be a merge volunteer at, this would be at Helium Comedy Club for Glass Cannon Live or at the Athenaeum for, Athenaeum

for the Call of Cthulhu live show, either of those we need merch volunteers. And also, I think so McDermott just told me before we started recording this that there, we could also use some help at the booth. Now that is not volunteer, that would be a paid gig hourly. So if there's a chance you want to work our booth for a couple hours at Gen Con, we still could use some help there and that's a paid gig. So hit us up with that as well if you're interested in working the merch booth for a little bit during Gen Con. Oh and then lastly tune into our streams. I mean it's on Twitch. It's just it's all Elden Ring now. It's all Elden Ring at the moment. Troy and I are diving in deep. You started a new run. You're doing a new run. I played once last week.

Wow. You called me crazy for doing it. Well, you know, I looked into it and I was just like, if I'm going to do this, I just want to start from scratch. So I'm doing it all faith build. Like a faith tank kind of. But I played once last week. I see you're putting in two streams a week. I'm like, I'm never going to catch up because I'm the only game I'm playing on the side

now is Starfield. I got back into Starfield and I'm loving it. I'm just mainlining the mission so I can beat it. I'm excited to get back into that one day. Oh, dude. It's fucking fantastic. I forgot how wonderful it is. I know people had some problems with it and not, but I'm having a blast.

But it's only going to get better with age. It's going to keep improving and improving. But anyway, yeah, so you're doing a new run to Shadow of the Uratory. I'm in it now. I'm in the DLC and it's, it's everything that everyone is. Are you in it already? Did you put a hundred hours in before you went in? No, it took me 20 hours.

It took me 20 hours. So you're going in. What level are you? I went in at level a hundred. I saw that's pretty good. Yeah. You're gonna be, that's gonna be a tough time. I got my ass handed to me and have continued to do so.

So yeah, the streams this week, tune in. I'm streaming at 1 o'clock today on our channel and at 2 o'clock tomorrow. Just trying to work through Shatter of the Uratory. I got to the first boss. I mean, I just laughed out loud. Like I did it three times and was like, there's not even a chance, not even the slightest chance.

You're going to have to leave the DLC, go like grind a little bit and then come back in. No, it doesn't work that way, which is very interesting. Now you can to increase your life bar, but you're- I know it has a new level system. So once you go in, you're locked into that? So the only way to get ready for that boss is you have to grind the power levels within the DLC. Interesting.

But that was a good thing because I had kind of, I guess it's just all these years of playing these games, my instincts took me right to the boss. I kind of knew the path to go right to the boss. I got there and I got trounced and people in chat were just like, the game is meant for you to explore the world more before you get there because There's like power-ups all over and so I went and started exploring and I found a lot more cool stuff Couple like mini bosses got some power-ups. I still haven't tried it again. I'm gonna try it again this week So we'll see if I'm any closer, but that's wild

So you just said I'm just gonna go do what I need to do to unlock the DLC and you know Wow, okay Yeah, I think I'm going to meander my way through because now that I've platinum, I don't really care about getting everything. I know there are certain quests that you have to do to line stuff up, but I'm like, I think it's going to take another hundred hours before I get into the DLC. It would if you were meandering. Yeah. But I just went, I ran to every boss. I just ran to every, ran past the enemies, didn't fight anybody, literally. Wow, that is insanity.

That's a cool way to play. You've also played through it multiple times. You're not a psychopath. I've already done two full playthroughs before. And so it's not that I have this all memorized. I was still reading online and trying to remember the paths. And these aren't like cheats. These aren't skips. These aren't like speed run glitches that you

expose. I'm literally just running past enemies. If there's an enemy I can't run past, I kill them. Now, early on, very early on, you have to fight. Like you have to go into these side dungeons and fight bosses just to get some levels before you go to Godric and Margit, like Margit and Godric. But once you're like level 20 or something like that, like there's no reason you can't run past and do that fight. Like you can get it done. So I actually got two Moog, who's the guy you have to beat by racing through the quest that gets you there and skips you ahead. And I fought him at like level 25 or 30. Holy shit. It was unbelievable.

Like he totally one shot me. When I was hitting him, I was doing like less than a percent of his health on each hit. And so I was just like, all right, I simply can't do this. So then it was a combination of running to bosses and actually just looking online for where the upgrade materials are. That's all I did. I just ran to get the smithing stones for the weapons, picked my weapon, and just ran to level that up. That's all I did. And when it was strong enough, I'd just go fight bosses. And honestly, it was a blast. It was one of the most fun runs I've had. That's cool.

Because I, you know, it's, I don't know, it's just fun to run to bosses. It was really, really fun. And then also to be so powerful later on that, like, when you level up your weapon pass, it's what I don't know. It's just fun to run to bosses It was really really fun and then also to be so powerful later on that like when you level up your weapon pass where it's expected and then go back to a boss you skipped Before and just like trounce them in three hits dude I beat the godskin duo first try with like no effort whatsoever Really? My weapon was leveled up as it could be. And I just like, smash, smash, smash. It was awesome. Anyway, fun stuff.

That's cool. Dude, now you got me fired up because we're recording this on Tuesday and I'm about to stream it. And so now I'm like, well, fuck, maybe I'm going after Godric today. Yeah, dude, just do it. It could be a little bit hard, but like, it's worth it.

It's not worth grinding out the souls from beating minions in the levels. It's just not, or runes rather. It doesn't really help you level like boss souls is what you need to level. And, uh, and then the upgrade materials really advance you quickly because that's what really makes your weapon go up in power, not the scaling of the stat. It's all about the upgrade materials. Yeah. So now I'm really, now I'm really excited. Yeah. It's just amazing that the Wiki will just, you go to the wiki be like smithingstone 2 and it'll tell you where every single one of them is. You just got to get 12 of them and then you're done. Now

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Check out Glass Cannon. I actually don't think, I don't think we have to dive too deep into these episodes. We went on vacation just after 41 aired and then 42 aired this past week. Really fun stuff as we delve underground our first steps into the memory cache. To me the highlight is the trap of the two episodes. The trap is just really, really incredible and talk to me about that a little bit. I kind of want to know how much of that is detailed in the adventure. How much of that is you adding things to it, if anything at all? It was just a very interesting trap in that it triggered feelings of failure and your memories of shame in your life. What a cool thing to find in a place dedicated to memory. Tell me about this trap and give me some stats.

Yeah, it's called Scholar's Bane. It's a hazard four and it's a complex hazard. These ones I prefer unless I'm in a hurry because usually something will happen right when the trigger happens. Then you roll for initiative. Then there's a routine that takes place. This one was fun because usually – I've seen this happen now a lot in like our conversion for Strange Aeons and then playing Gatewalkers is like, I like these things where a routine will start off with like a lot of shit that goes down, but as you slowly disable it, it's less effective.

And so I think this thing, let me just look. Yeah, the trap lose one action for each eye sensor that was disabled or destroyed. So it starts out with four actions. So it can just keep attacking, attacking, attacking. But then it's three actions, then it's two actions, then it's one action. And yeah, I mean, it's just really interesting. In the book, I think there's probably a lot of people like everyone, I've said this before, is like we just play it straight.

But I thought this was a great chance for you guys to kind of on the spot, think about some backstory. So it's not saying in the adventure, like ask each PC their their most shameful memory. Like, yeah, it's in. So that just added a great layer to it. And that's just an example of how you like just a little tweak to these games to delve into the characters a little bit better are going to any chance you have, especially in an encounter to like dig into someone's backstory, you got to take it because when you're doing a podcast, at least, because

otherwise it's just like grind, grind, grind, grind, grind. Totally. That's, that's great. And those, those scenes came up, you got to know a little bit about everybody, you know, a little bit more about everybody, especially the darker memories. And to me, it cracked me up. I said it in the show. It's like the standout was Sydney. Hers was the darkest by far. It's just so funny because I thought she did a fantastic job. And I'm going to throw Matthew under the bus here because it was give me your memory of shame. And Matthew's memory is like a memory of shame that just like, it's something that's just not his fault

and is like only gonna make him look more heroic, right? So it's like- He struggles with these. Remember before he did something, Skip was like, oh, how horrifying for you. It's like, what is your darkest memory? And it was like the most benign sort of thing. I don't know why.

I guess he needs time to like write it and rewrite it. It only made you feel bad for him and make him seem like more heroic, which is fine. But Sydney was bald because she made her character look like a piece of shit. And I like that scene, if we came out of it, I was just like, I think we should kick you out of the party like like you are bad, bad business.

You know, the scene where she deliberately destroys the wedding dress of this moment that she like, it's just so cold and nasty and mean. And what a great scene. I thought it was it seems simple. It seems almost like it's funny. But really, I think what it is, it's a true scene of shame, like doing something shameful. And so yeah, I think Sydney crushed that.

It was awesome. We've kind of seen this from Asta, right? Like there's this little undercurrent of like something dark is here. And at first, she's just kind of brushed it off. It's like, oh, she's a weird forest person. But now you're like, oh no, she might be evil. Yeah, she might be evil. And I think what I'm predicting or guessing or I guess predicting isn't the right word, but my, what I suspect here is that Sydney is doing a

spectacular job of playing the sort of features of, fox, of being fox-like. Because there's something very cute about foxes, there's something very innocent looking about foxes, but they also, like as creatures, are pretty nasty. And you'd be surprised, I think, at how, I don't know the word I'm looking for here, not violent as much as they're nasty creatures. And so, despite being a lot cuter than other animals that might do the same kind of things

that they do. So I feel like Sydney is kind of crushing it right now with it. So I really appreciated that. But yeah, that was the highlight for me. Obviously the Skelly encounter was really fun and man, oh man, did your old buddy Joe O'Brien get away with a fast one? Big cheat from old Joe O'Brien here. We're going to find out in We Are Stupid from our good buddy, Professor Eric.

Sing us in, Nick. Let's find out how stupid we were. Two full episodes. Not a whole lot to dig into here. Honestly, I think we're getting really good at this. And the only person that just blatantly cheated if memory serves is me multiple times. So let's start with episode 41, where Professor Eric just weighs in and says he is not aware of an exploration activity that would give a free recall knowledge at the start of combat

during initiative. He says this might be a little bit too strong compared to the scout ability, which gives a plus one of the party's initiative for or search, which gives the blind GM checks before wandering into hazards or traps. That seems to be the most powerful initiative powers that are out there in exploration. There's nothing that just lets you recall knowledge for free, probably by design. And then real quick, I apparently, and I don't remember this exactly,

but when Brother Remius, I was flanking a creature and because I have my fists, I can be flanking. I could provide flanking to say Barnes, right, if he was on the other side of me, but I casted a Divine Lance while in flanking with this creature. It did not provoke an attack of opportunity. And so we had an attack against the creature's off guard AC. But that is incorrect right from the wording of flanking, quote, a creature is off guard to melee attacks from creatures that are flanking it when it's flanked. So even if you're right up next to it, if you do a ranged attack, it does not benefit, you do not benefit from its off guard AC.

So just something to keep in mind. I just missed it. And then on to episode 42, he goes in and talks a little bit about the complex hazard. So you and I had a little banter back and forth about the detecting magic. And I'm still like, I'm still a little banter back and forth about the detecting magic. And I'm still like, I'm still a little bit baffled by this. I don't think he really answered my question, but his response is that the way to overcome these complex hazards or define them is really like you need to have a rogue or an investigator because they have a class fee called trap finder, which gives them a plus one bonus to perception checks and also gives them a free check to check for traps

if they are in the area, like a GM check for traps, if they are in the area. If they have that Trap Finder and they combine it with detecting magic as an exploration activity, they would automatically get a role to detect it from the GM. So this is the kind of specific area you have to be in. My big thing about it that I'm still don't think that this is clear. It's clear, the rule is clear. But what I just don't understand is like if you're a really powerful caster, if I'm a 15th level wizard, and I'm detecting magic, I can't detect a magical trap that's level three, you know what I mean? Like, it just doesn't really make much sense to me. I'm curious what the design of that is. If the magic is to hide it and detect magic just reveals it,

you know, that also seems kind of stupid. So I guess that is the whole reason, but that's the only logical thing I can come to is when the magic is designed to hide itself, how do you find it even if you're a powerful wizard? I guess that's the question. Two more things real fast. He pointed out that Barnes, he believes, did a four-action round. We missed this. Exploit vulnerability, mirror, strike, and then move in the round after the

first skeleton was defeated. So seems like Matthew got away with one there. I'm not sure how we missed it, but four actions in a round. And then here's the big one. Dummy, the final blow against the final skeleton, the cliffy at the end of the episode, I fired off a two action heal to explode one of these skeletons apart,

Brother Ramius's first offensive use of the heal spell. I was so pumped, but I didn't read the spell. Of course, of course I didn't read the spell. Quote, the spell has a range of 30 feet. It's not even the last line. If you're healing a living creature, increase the hit points restored by eight. You do not get the flat plus 16 on the two action version if you are attacking with it. So the two action version is a blast that attacks for 2d8 at this level. That's it. No bonus damage, because I did 25 points of

damage. We were like, we were like, Whoa, and then I looked at the dice. And I looked back and I was like, that seems amazing. Wow, yeah, it is plus 16 at this level. It's plus 16. So yeah, that is 25 points of damage, whatever it was. And that ended the encounter, but it really just should have been nine. Should have been nine, not 25. Huge difference.

So yeah, I- So you just added the bonus that is only meant for healing. Yeah, I thought that it worked exactly the same, whether you were healing or harming undead. I didn't realize that you only get that bonus in the two action version if you are healing. So good, noted, got it. We'll never make that mistake again. But that was it.

Pretty light, honestly, for We Are Stupid, and I think proud of us for a couple of combats there, too. While you were going, I was just looking more into the hazard thing, because I know it's still bugging you. And it's like you detect it. You detect its presence with Detect Magic, but it doesn't, it can be found, but the spell doesn't provide a way to understand how to,

it reveals the hazard's presence. So you should know if you hold Detect Magic for long enough that there is a hazard there. You just don't know anything about it. Right, so we did it wrong. You should have said, all you should have really said is there is magic. You don't even need to say it's a hazard.

You just say like, there is magic in this next area. There's the presence of magic. Because that's all Detect Magic really does. But that would have put us on guard a little bit. It would not have changed any of the start of the hazard, but it definitely would have had us a little bit more on guard. And I'm not sure how that would have changed things,

probably not much. Yeah. But as long as, that makes more sense to me that it can be detected. Detect magic is not like, it doesn't give you the answer to everything. Right. But to have no idea that there's no presence of magic seemed odd to me.

So yeah, that makes sense. Professor Eric, you want to clarify that, if our interpretation here at the end makes sense. Yes, we would detect the presence of magic, but no, we would not get any details about the hazard. I'm fine with that. That makes sense to me. Yeah.

All right, let's get into a little listener mail here before we bounce. All right. I'll do it. I'll answer one. I'll do one. Alright, let's get into a little listener mail here before we bounce Quick one from Ryan L in Brisbane, I would assume that's International Edition, right? Brisbane? Brisbane? Brisbane? Brisbane?

Ryan L from Brisbane asks, will the acquisition of Demiplane by Roll20 change anything for the GCN? And yeah, great question. It will. It's kind of became a conflict of interest. Once that acquisition occurred, Roll20 being another virtual tabletop in the market, created a conflict with another sponsor that we had foundry VTT. And so

as a result, Demiplane had to move on and they are fine with that. And we are fine with that. And it was all good. You know, we loved working with them for the time that we could. And it was very exciting for them. I feel that that comment that acquisition whatever that that merger with role 20 was very exciting for them and and awesome stuff is ahead for them. But yeah, it just it created a conflict of interest we couldn't continue with. So that that's it. After this last episode that

you heard, we're not going to be, Demi Plains not going to be an official sponsor anymore, but yeah, still friendly. And we've still had a few conversations on other games and stuff like that, that they cover character creation for and stuff. So yeah, we're, everything's all good, but you're just not going to hear them as a sponsor of the show anymore. Yeah. In terms of what people are going to use for character sheets, now people can use whatever the hell they want. We might move everything to foundry, but I'm not forcing that on people right now because there's a small bit of a small learning curve.

Whereas there's a small learning curve is the year a land and shit. Yeah. And it's also just a bad time right now. It just happens to be a bad time as we're running up to Gen Con. There's a lot of other stuff going on, but maybe as that calms down, people can start to like port their sheets into foundry if they'd like. That's what I'd prefer to do if I can find the time to sit down and get it done. But yeah, that's really going to change. So the only things that are changing is sponsor spot opening up, but then also less money, but then also perhaps a move to Foundry Sheets, which I think a lot of people would love to see. So, you know, we'll see if that if that comes to fruition. Yep. All right. One more question before we get out of here from Oliver

in the UK. So another international one. Hey guys, I'm a huge fan of the show and Gatewalkers. Oh, Gatewalkers is truly the highlight of my week. Thanks a lot. I have a dual loaded question for the FOD this week. What has been your favorite city to tour in and what has been your favorite venue to play in? All the best and keep up the great work, Oliver from the UK. This is, I think you might have some new ones at the top of your list after this year. Yeah, I'm looking. I have to go back and look at the cities we went to because I remember. I'd say the most fun I've had because sometimes it's just too much work and it's not time to have fun, but that kind of colors the experience, right?

Like it may not be the best city. It's just like the stars aligned. It was Austin this year. It was great. You know, our buddy George came. We got to hang out with him the day before and then after the show we went and hung out and you know, it was fun man. Awesome. It was fun, man. Fun town.

It was fun and I've never had fun there before so I was like, all right, I get it. I finally get Austin. Obviously, Nashville is great but we had so much extra work this time around. In terms of favorite venue of all time, not the Dougfur Lounge. That was the worst one. I can easily tell you the worst one. That was the worst one and the city's already- More than half of the worst one. Can easily tell you the worst one. That was the worst one. And the city's already a disaster and now we got to go to a bad venue.

But in terms of best venue, I don't know, you got one that pops off the top of your head? Yeah. So for city, I'm going to go San Francisco. I love going to San Francisco. Oh, you like the independent. Yeah. I just, well, no, no, I'm just going to say for city.

Oh, city. I'm sorry. Going to a city. I love going to San Francisco. Yeah. I just, well, no, no, I'm just going to say for city. Oh, city. I'm sorry. Going to a city. I love going to San Francisco. I don't have any friends or family that live there, uh, currently, at least that I'm aware of, and so I never really get a chance to go there except on tour. And it's just a beautiful city and I love being there. And so, and I love the weather. It's like my favorite weather of all the cities.

And so, yeah, I would say San Francisco is my favorite place to get to go visit on on tour. And as far as venue goes, man, there's a lot of close ones. I would give my honorable mention to Columbus. Then I can't remember the name of that theater. I love that place. Newport Music Hall. Newport Music Hall. It's got a lot of history. It's an old theater. Love that place. But I'll say I think the favorite thing I always think of going into a venue that I just love, I love the way that it feels. I love the way that it looks. And I love everybody that's there when we get to go there. Terragram Ballroom in LA. It's like my favorite venue. Trevor Burrus Terragram?

Aaron Ross Yeah. Because it's just so like, I love that stage. I think that stage is one of the coolest looking stages we play. Oh, I'm thinking now. Okay. Yeah. It has the big light around the outside. It just looks like you're putting on a great show and then it's got a nice big green room area and all of our friends in LA are always there.

So I have great memories of like everybody coming back, partying in the green room, all the casts from all the different shows. And so yeah, it's special place for me is Terragram. I'd probably lean Paradise just because it's basically our home. I love a Paradise too. Home club now. You know that show's almost sold out? Boston September.

Get out of here. Amazing. There's like 30 tickets left. I was looking at the ticket counts today. Yeah, I lean Paradise, but to be less of a homer if I had to pick another one, I really liked, it wasn't a sold out show or anything, but the Grey Eagle in Asheville was pretty great. Yeah, that was great.

So many great venues. Yeah, I'll also give an honorable mention to Amsterdam Bar and Hall. I love that, it's just a bar, but it's big and has great seating and everybody's kind of, but you're still raised up on stage so you can see everybody really well. And it also, and it just, it's all brick.

It just feels like a pub. It's great. Not the best green room, but one of the best stages and bar scenes for a show. I love the Amsterdam Bar and Hall in St. Paul. All right, buddy. Let's go do it. There she is, Joe.

There she is. We're back. We got another one back in the can. We did it. We did it. We did it. We did it. Let's take another two weeks off.

Let's take another two weeks off. Now, from now on, we've got a FOD for you every week as we lead up to San Diego Comic Con, as we lead up to Gen Con, as we lead into August, which is going to have bigger news than even Gen Con for the new stuff that's coming down the pike. Wait till you guys see. It's going to blow your mind.

So we're looking forward to all these F these thoughts coming up through the remainder of the summer Have a good one everybody take it easy, and we'll see you next time bye bye bye It's time to make your membership official become an official member of the nays today at join the nays calm That's joined the N a is H JointheNash.com. That's JointheNash.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 Nash today at JointheNash.com.