The Glass Cannon Podcast - Cannon Fodder 7/19/23

Episode Date: July 19, 2023

Troy and Joe are going long this week as there's just too much to discuss! This includes but is not limited to the GCN Marvel event at San Diego Comic-Con, changing monster rules on the fly, and the five straight nights of streaming we'll have on the GCN next week! In We Are Stupid, we take a close look at the Sleep spell in Pathfinder 2E! For more podcasts and livestreams, visit glasscannonnetwork.com and for exclusive content and benefits, subscribe today at patreon.com/glasscannon. 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, July 19th, 2023, and I'm your old pal, Joey O'Brien. And I'm Troy. 15 days till Gen Con La Valle. Count it down, brother. And you know what the best part is? We're ready.

I'm not going to make it. I don't think I'm going to survive. I'm in rough shape, dude. I was lamenting to you pre-stream that we are sleep training Evie right now. Wow. Dash and Archer just having some trouble sleeping as well. They don't take after their dad. So they're waking up constantly.

So it is this nightly occurrence that has been going on. I mean, the sleep training just started last week. But like every week, my wife and I, every night we go to bed. I can't even talk straight. Every night we go to bed, we are up like every 45 minutes. And then we come back and we try to go back to sleep. Then we're up again. It's just, it is like literally worse than the infant stage.

We were just like up feet, up feet, up feet. Because now we've got three of them. And so I feel like a fucking crazy person at all times. And then I just look at like Gen Con work, San Diego Comic ConCon, Glass Cannon podcast, time for chaos, get in the truck. I'm just like, ah, ah, all day long. Yeah, it is incredibly, incredibly unhealthy to not get your sleep. So figure it out, man. Figure it out. You know, and I never was one where I was like, got to get my eight hours. I was like, five hours, I'm fine. But over the past six

to eight months, I've been looking for all little biohacks that can help because we just have a lot going on. And the easiest one is make sure you get your sleep. Eight hours to me just seems crazy. But make sure you get your sleep. Watch everything that you eat.

Makes everything better. At this point, I'm just going to bed at 10 and hoping that Get your sleep. Watch everything that you eat. Makes everything better. Makes everything better. So at this point, I'm just going to bed at 10 and hoping that by 6 or 5, 3 or 4 hours of sleep happened. And it's not going. It's not working out so far. Do you go to sleep? Not when we're on the road and we've had 800 vodka sodas. But like at home when you're only having 400 vodka sodas, but like at home, when you're only having 400 vodka sodas, do you go to bed and then like sleep through the night and wake up or you

just cause does anyone do that? Or you just can't, you're up every once in a while and you take a piss or you're just like, you're like, ah, I'm awake and I'm just going to go back to sleep. I get up every once in a while and take a piss. I mean,

I am, uh, I'm in my forties. I'm a man in my forties. So my prostate is growing steadily and uh it just it happens you don't i mean i can't remember the last time i went to sleep and woke up to like a 7 a.m alarm like that doesn't really happen yeah but i think some people experience that and i i want to talk to healthy people healthy

people is it just healthy yes not even piss even piss related, just like, I'm awake. And then you go back to sleep. Like, I don't know. I've been at like beyond exhaustion. My understanding is that it is an entire lifestyle. Like it is entire. You have to have a certain lifestyle that you work towards in order to sleep soundly eight hours a night. And it has a lot to do with your eating habits and your drinking habits. You know, you have to you have to really monitor what you're taking into your body after like seven o'clock p.m. And that is really going to do, you know, great things for you to get a whole night's sleep. Now, as far as anxiety and stuff like that goes, I don't know how people deal with that and sleep with that and wake up. You know, I mean, like you just seem like a constant

sufferer of anxiety. And that might be why you wake up to it. You know, I mean, like you just seem like a constant sufferer of anxiety. And that might be why you wake up a lot beyond your kids waking you up. But maybe, maybe. I think that it's purely like physiological food and drink. That's what I always think. I'm like, I need to not eat after seven o'clock, not have any drinks ever, not have any fun or smile ever. And then like you'll sleep through the night

but i mean i've been on top of that i've been really like uh just eating super super clean i don't eat anything with fucking additives except unless it's like a special day and i thought that would make a big change lift away do everything nothing makes a difference just this brain you got the three kids i mean you haven't tested it without three kids yeah so we'll see take it out for a spin after that let's get into the fad today let's get into the fad we have dude we have so much to discuss we got comic con this week we got uh fun lab stuff coming up we got a new friends of the pod dropping we've got getting the trunk premiered uh we've got side quest side sessions off and rolling and yeah we're gonna talk a little And yeah, we're going to talk a little.

Ironically enough, we're going to talk about sleep in We Are Stupid. So I'm looking forward to that. That worked out well. Nice job, Professor Eric. So big week this week, we head out to San Diego Comic-Con for the first time ever. And that is after our character creation session last week. We hope you guys saw it. We did the Marvel Multiverse RPG character creation system. What were some of your takeaways, Troy,

from mechanics to the actual stories and how they worked out? What did you think about the character creation sesh? I mean, dude, it brought me back to playing the Marvel Super Heroes role-playing game when I was a kid because we, in the X amount of hours that I played that game, we spent 75% of it just making up our own superheroes. I don't – we barely did like adventures. We maybe would do encounters like we would build a superhero and then be like, all right, he's going up against Thanos and then just immediately die and build another one. So I always say character creation is the best part and this sort of solidified it.

But man, it was fun seeing everybody not only like start to come to grips with the system, but choose their – how they would develop this character because a lot of you guys came in with nothing and that's really what I wanted you to do. And so having you discover the system lets you decide if you wanted to go outside in or inside out, have your concept that was starting to develop, fit the mechanics that were available to you. Or as you're starting to discover the mechanics, be like, oh, maybe he's this kind of guy or this kind of woman. And so it was really cool to kind of just throw that stuff out there and then sit back and watch you guys be geniuses i really loved the way that it came together i was i was definitely nervous because i went in with

nothing and the uh but to come out of it at the end with the keepers as we're calling ourselves at the moment it was just so fun to like once everybody's code names were revealed and you just like we rattled off the six members of this team the superhero team i was like i'm so fired up i just got i got completely sucked in by the game in the system and i so i was talking to cj over at marvel who has been my contact through this whole thing and the marvel people were watching it and they loved it and and we're super thankful for them uh to them for sharing the game with us and helping sponsor gen con and everything they were like they were like i was talking to him and i said the way that the power system works i i absolutely love because

basically if you're a pathfinder player what this does is it gives you an opportunity at character creation when you're quote unquote like level one. It gives you the operation to the option to basically just take 12 feet. You know, that's essentially what it is. And it's it's so much fun because you've got feet trees and you've got things to build and other things. And really what they mostly are are really fun abilities that set you apart from your allies. And some of them are combat. Some of them clearly are non-combat and some of them can be used in both in really effective ways, whether that's, you know, moving silently or, or actually use, you know, using certain movements in a fight. So I loved it. I was,

I was so excited. In fact, I'm still working on it. I'm still like making tweaks and because these kind of things, I'll get analysis paralysis down to the last minute. I'll be on the plane to San Diego still like swapping out powers because it's so much fun. And yeah, so I took a bit of a, I guess you could say outside in sort of thing where I didn't have a concept and I started with the mechanics, then back built a concept. And I'm really excited about it. And now you're telling me we might get art? Is this going to happen?

Yeah, I wanted to, as I'm going through this, I'm like, are we going to have a video screen? You're like, yeah. I'm like, well, then I've got to have art commissioned. So I found a member of the nation who's done art for us before, who did some art of the Marvel Super Heroes team that we did on New Game Who Dis. I remember seeing that and loving it. So he's going to bang out some portraits

that we will debut at Comic-Con, which just sounds crazy that we're fucking going to Comic-Con to play, to debut the Marvel game. It's amazing. I'll tell you, it brings me so much pure childlike joy to say that the Marvel Multiverse RPG did this for me. This is what it did for me. It allowed me to go to my first ever San Diego Comic-Con, and I'm going to reveal a superhero I made up. Like, I mean, does it get better than that? Like, with artwork and gameplay and a narrative and everything like for the first time in front of a live audience it's just i mean of course like um i'm my nerves are frayed i'm so nervous but like it's such an exciting thing

to be a part of and i feel very very lucky so that it's just it's so cool um but we got a lot to to to discuss so we'll we'll uh i mean next cannon fodder we'll know how it all went down next week we'll already be back from comic-con so well let me ask you is there anything that you're looking forward to doing besides our show at comic-con like is there is there something you're like oh man or or anything in san diego as well yeah i mean that's the thing is i love san diego i love the gas lamp district and i didn't realize till alicia said i was like oh my god the the Gaslamp. I forgot all about that. Like all those great bars and restaurants.

So I want some tacos. I want some fucking margs. Like there's no tomorrow. So I'm excited about that, obviously. But for the con itself, you know I love walking the showroom floor and it's my understanding it's like a showroom floor unlike any other. Like celebrities, couldn't care less. Any of that

stuff, like signings, don't care. Like I just want to see booths. You know, obviously, it's my interest in sports cards. I want to see if there's any sort of sports card presence there. But I'm excited to just kind of take in the con, enjoy some phenomenal Mexican food and Margie's. You know, my wife and I, we got engaged on a trip to LA and we were in Santa Monica when I proposed. Then the next day, we went to San Diego for like 24 hours just to check out San Diego. I'd been there once or twice before, maybe only once before actually, to go to a Padres game when I was living in LA. I remember going to this fucking five-star phenomenal Mexican joint. I want to try and track that down. fucking five-star phenomenal mexican joint so i want to try and track that down and uh you know it's great breweries out there ballast point has a location there so i'm you know i'm i'm just

looking forward to the whole thing usually i go i have dread i'm like i'm leaving my kids and i'm like i'm nervous about i've got to like learn this adventure and learn a brand new system but i'm really trying to like let that all go and and just enjoy the moment so it'll be a good time um let's talk about glass cannon labs we have sort of not repurposed labs because labs has always just been about chilling and hanging out but this month labs has essentially become prep for gen con because we're like let's kill two birds with one stone and so last week we created marvel characters next week. So there is no labs this week because we're flying out to San Diego.

That's more flying out to San Diego. So sorry, no labs tomorrow. But next week, labs is going to return with me at the helm because we're going to be doing Dragon Bane character creation. that don't know is the new, not a new game, but in the updated game from Free League of one of the most iconic Norwegian, Swedish, I can't remember which one it is, Scandinavian, let's say role playing games of the 80s, I want to say 70s, 80s. So I don't know a whole lot about the history of it. But I do know that it has long time been a passion project of Tomas, who's the head of Free League and the lead creator, and they have recreated Dragonbane. And so it's a classic RPG, fantasy, high fantasy RPG that I'm really looking forward to playing

with you guys. You're going to play, right? Are you playing? No, I'm not playing Dragonbane. You're not playing Dragonbane. I can tell you the cast. Oh, who's the cast? Let me I'm not playing Dragonbane. You're not playing Dragonbane. I can tell you the cast. Who's the cast? Let me just look at my list here. It is, who the hell's Joe? Oh, that's you. Joe, it's going to be- I'll be running it.

Skid, Jason Charles Miller, Josephine McAdam, and Paula Deming. That's right. Oh, God, what a great combo. What a great cast. That's a great cast. Dude, I just finished casting for Gen Con. I just finished like five minutes before this call. It has been a nightmare.

I feel like beautiful mind. Just like move this person to here. Are you available this time? But it's done. And I'm really excited about the cast that we have. I just like, cause it's not even based on availability. It's like,

what is going to be the best group for this game and this host? And I mean, man, you've got a stellar fucking group for this. Yeah. Stellar group. And I think it's going to be a really, really cool game. So I urge everybody to check it out next week.

Dragon Bane character creation is going to be happening. And then that's because we're going to play those characters in the booth together at Gen Con. So really, really looking forward to that. And thank you to Free League for stepping up and also sponsoring the Glass Cannon Gen Con booth. Before I get into getting the trunk,

I want to talk about the premiere of getting the trunk with you. Yeah, go ahead. But you were talking about labs a little bit, and it's important, like you said, labs change. But what a cool way to change, because it's just become like a proper lab. Like we're going to play that game at Gen Con. Let's use labs to start preparing for it.

So like labs is kind of a great catch-all for not only trying new games, but using it as a testing ground for stuff that we're going to do in a more high-profile setting, arguably. And we needed to create characters before we did this Gen Con game of Dragonbane anyway. And we most likely would not get everybody on one call to talk this all out. It would happen over email and stuff like that. And it just wouldn't be as fun or as effective. And people would take a lot of time. They'd make decisions.

Then they'd find out that other people did the same thing. And it would be you know kind of confusing how about we ask these folks to just take two hours out of their day and in two hours you just get get on a call and we bang it out together and everybody feels heard and like they've carved out their piece of this party for the for the character and why not just air that in front of the nation you know what i mean so it's just worked perfectly um for me i really was excited at this idea of using labs for the character creation for gen con because we got to do it anyway and we might as well uh do it along with the niche it's also great seeing people's comments live it was awesome like having people in chat throwing out

code names for heroes like you know suggestions, uh, name suggestions for the team, for the superhero team. And it was very, very fun. I mean, that's what labs is supposed to be. It's kind of like we have a, uh, double a, uh, triple a and the majors, like our double a team is our, uh, is glass can labs, uh, triple a is friends of the pod. And then the majors is like green lit to series. Yeah. It's awesome. Speaking of which friends of the pod, uh, I'm going to get to get in the trunk in a second, but we got a new Friends of the Pod coming. You and I mentioned this as a tease months

ago on Cannon Fodder. I don't know if anybody even remembers, but we actually pre-recorded a few months ago a Friends of the Pod with our friends at Chaosium, and particularly Brian Holland, who appeared in the Gen Con booth last year. He ran us through a bunch of demos of some really, really fun games that Chaosium puts

out besides Call of Cthulhu. One of those games that they published that we did play in New Game Hoodists is RuneQuest. And RuneQuest, just an amazing system, returns through Friends of the Pod. And this is a proper friends of the pot this is a full this is a triple a fully pre-produced three full episodes you're going to get of friends of the pod rune quest and it's going to start this coming monday night september 24th at 8 p.m eastern on our twitch channel twitch.tv slash the glass cannon you're going to see character creation which is phenomenal in

oh my god we have so much fun with it it is so much fun we actually trim it down spoiler alert we trim it down for those that are used to real character creation room quest we trim it down but in real rude quest character creation you begin with your grandparents you create your grandparents and then on down through the years. It's amazing how the mechanics, how they work. And so, uh, we just trim that a little bit and, and so that we can fit it within two hours,

but it's so much fun. And then we do a two part adventure with Brian Holland running it. You play in it. I play in it. And then, uh, Josephine McAdam and Nora Ibrahim. I mean,

it's amazing. So please come check it out on twitch.tv slash the glass cannon on monday night uh if you've never heard of rune quest you don't know how it works this is the perfect opportunity to tune in and really start to learn the system and we got another friends of the pod next week we have two friends of the pods next week so many friends dude it's actually going to be a stream every single night next week there's going to be monday's gonna be friends of the pod tuesday is getting the trunk wednesday is Get in the Trunk. Wednesday is Haunted City. Thursday is SideQuest SideSesh.

Friday is going to be another Friends of the Pod. Another character creation session for this game. When I was at PAX Unplugged, I was walking around. I think it was Saturday morning. We had a show that night. I was like, I want to do the con for a little bit to clear my head. I'm walking around and I see this booth for

a game called Vast Grimm, which is kind of a, it's in the vein of these OSR, Morkborg, Mirkburi type games. And it's basically Grimdark set in space. And so I had heard of it because at Gen Con, Todd Stashwick was like, hey, I got this cool, I pre-ordered this game called Vast Grim and I saw like hard copies of it. I was like, yo, I got to buy one of those. And I started talking to the guy. I'm like, I don't know if you know the Glass Cannon Network. And he's like, oh my God, I know the Glass Cannon Network.

I'm like, you're full of shit. But he actually did know us. And he's like, here, drink the dice. Take all this stuff. I'm like, yeah, we're launching a new show called Glass Cannon Labs. Maybe we can play. We'll see. I didn't realize that I'd very soon run out of time to play games.

But as we were building the Gen Con booth, I'm like, I wonder if Vast Grimm would want to do something. They were like, absolutely. We'd love to do it. Why don't we do two things? We'll do Friends of the Pod as well. So we're going to do a Friends of the Pod character creation session for Vast Grimm that will air next Friday night. And then they're going to play a scenario with those characters, just like Dragonbane, like you're're doing on labs, uh, in the booth at Gen Con. So that'll be very exciting.

Uh, it's Jared with an all woman cast, uh, Kate, Sydney, Nora, and Paula, right?

That's right. Kate, Sydney, Nora, and Paula. So we've got so much going on, dude. I love,

I love, I'm having so much fun with these combos of the casts, you know, because like every one of these these days are like all people we've at least played with once before or twice, you know, and in some cases, dozens and dozens of times. And now they're all mixing and matching. And it's just it's just so much fun. So, yeah, I mean, next week will be well, it'll be two weeks before we'll have our big you know pre-gen con fodder but you know i'm just going to geek out so much about what that week's of content is going to be like and just seeing all these different casts mixing and matching and having fun together it's going to be great let's talk about get the trunk get in the trunk premiered last week last fod i couldn't

really get into it because it had just aired the night before and i didn't want to like spoil anything so minor spoilers ahead for those of you that do not want to hear anything about season five uh of get in the trunk but uh and when i'm not going to talk about last night's episode because that just aired so let's just talk about the season five episode one premiere the three hour beast of a that feels like a fallout and downtime of uh of the night floors what what if anything i just want to talk to you as a player now for a second what if anything did you expect going into that session uh were you surprised uh talk to me about your reactions post uh premiere of season one or season or episode one i i knew there was going to be a time jump i you'd kind of like, maybe let's slip or like it prepped us

in some way, like just so you know, it's going to take place at a different time. But I didn't know what that gap was going to be. And I also didn't know that it was going to happen in segments with like different portions of this person's life. And so once that started to become clear to me, I was like, okay, storyteller hat goes on. How do we really paint a picture that has all the highs and all the lows? How do you turn on a dime and then do it all while improvving and just coming up with it on the fly? Because I wanted to come in with ideas, but I also wanted to really listen and react to what other people were doing. And obviously, Sydney and I, Vicky and Roger have their own thing that's going on as it's connected.

So I wanted to collaborate with her and we have such a great rapport now from playing so much together that we can, we trust each other so much to be like, Oh, what about this? Oh, what about this? What about this?

And go back and forth. So that was a lot of fun, but I watched it back. I was sitting in there. I didn't chat because I'm logged in as glass cannon. And so I, the ma, you know, I think McD is on that. And so I'm like, I didn't chat because I'm logged in as Glass Cannon. And so I think Mick D is on that.

And so I'm like, I don't chat as Glass Cannon. I don't even know if I have a Troy LaBelle Twitch. But I watched the whole fucking thing just because I love seeing people's reactions. And I just forgot about so many things. I forgot about you guys' reactions to certain things and things that we came up with in the moment. But it was a lot of fun. I mean, really. People are so juiced to have this show back. It's such a tentpole of the network. Yeah. And it's such a great time to play. And I mean, I remember thinking I had a plan and I was

shocked by what you and Sydney did in that episode. I was just like, completely turned around. I'm like, how am I supposed to prepare this adventure now? I mean, now you guys have so much baggage going in to the adventure that it's just like, how is this going to possibly play out well within the group? It's going to be like straight up PVP. It's really fun. But that's what's cool. Like, you know, you say PVP, but it's really just you and Sydney really working well together. And that's exciting. And that's what's cool like you know you say you say pvp but it it's really just you and sydney uh really working well together and that's that's exciting and that's awesome and uh i'm curious to see curious to see where it goes um yeah man let's talk uh well let's just talk gen con briefly

because there really is some a few of our shows are sold out. A few are very close to selling out. So can you just remind people really quick, uh, what's still available if they want to grab tickets to see us live, uh, while we're in Indy. All right. So obviously we've got the booth. The booth is its own thing.

You can come by the booth. We're going to release that schedule. Hopefully next week, we're going to start trickling that schedule out. Uh, so you'll get to see what's happening at the booth and what time, if there's somebody you want to see, come by the booth and you can wave to us while we're playing or hang around afterwards to say hello. I don't know right now if we're going to have set times

for meet and greets. I haven't got that far in my plans. My initial conception of a larger booth this year had us doing a lot more fan interaction. But I mean, you just got a meeting schedule from Tristan. I mean, I don't think you're going to be able to even wave to anyone. Because this is a big business weekend for us. But anyways, the point is, if there's someone you want to see, please come by the booth, you watch it. We have it on the TV as well. So you can watch it in real time. It's very, it's a lot of fun. And we're going to be releasing a bunch of new merch as well. We'll talk more Gen Con next week. In answer to your actual question, we've got Glass Cannon Live. That's happening Thursday night.

Sold out at Helium Comedy Club. You're going to have to get tickets on the black market. And then why am I thinking a lot when I can just look at my fucking schedule? And then we've got Friday. There is Modern Call of Cthulhu that is happening at the con. That is 1 p.m. at the con. That is sold out. But it's my understanding that is going to be streamed on the Gen Con Twitch.

So you can watch that one. And then later that night, Friday night, we have Call of Cthulhu live, which is going to be something. It's just a fucking event. You're going to wish you were there because if we ever do it again, you'll be able to say you were there first. There are still tickets left for that. There are 11 premium seats left if you want to sit super close to the stage, but there's still a ton of just general admission. Those general admission ones are only $15.

Please come to this show. I don't know. I don't – maybe we'll sell it out. We got a couple weeks left. But like that was meant to be a big theater with cheap tickets just to put a ton of asses in the seats. We've already got a ton of asses coming. And we've got a poster. So many asses.

So many asses. Angeline made a poster just for that show that is absolutely outstanding. And you'll only be able to get it at that show, I think. Maybe if they have some leftovers, we'll bring them by the Gen Con booth. And then Saturday, we have Busted Mufflers. Am I already on to Saturday? Saturday is Busted Mufflers, which is at 5.30, I believe. And there are still tickets left for that as well.

And that one is is to my understanding, not going to be streamed. So that busted muffler show will only live in that room. If you see it live, uh, I believe it's at the West and tickets are $14 to that. So, uh,

come on out. And then Jared Logan is doing a, a standup performance, which I think is like right before our Friday show. And that's sold out as well. So if you want tickets to events, it's got to be Call of Cthulhu Live Friday night at the Athenium Theater, which is,

you know, a long walk or an Uber ride away from the con. And then Busted Mufflers at the con on Saturday early evening. Still some tickets left for that. And then we already announced fucking we're coming to Boston in September. We're coming to Chicago and St. Louis for the first time. St. Louis in October. Tickets are already on sale for all of those.

I just went browsing around yesterday because I was trying to my wife was like, can you please update our schedule with all of your flight numbers through the summer so that I have them on my sure. And I was doing all that and I was like, let me check in on Chicago. Dirt cheap right now, buddy. Dirt cheap bought already bought my flight to chicago really yeah yeah my flight to chicago

is literally like 115 dollars so it's a round trip obviously that's one way but still flying to chicago and that's a thursday night show in chicago so uh so yeah it's a wednesday flight so it's nice and cheap was awesome but you didn't get the flight home from St. Louis. Because it was $1,000. Because it's Sunday. They don't want anybody enjoying the pleasure of flying home on Sunday of Halloween weekend. That's essentially what it is. It's like Halloween weekend.

Yeah. So I was like, oh, they're getting you. But whatever. Well, we'll take it as it comes. Too bad the Rams weren't still there. We could catch a Rams game and just come home on Monday. But there's no team. There's no football team, right? No football team.

But, you know, we'll probably – Maybe the Cardinals will be in the World Series or in the – They'll be foolish. They'll be foolish. They'll be foolish. That'll be fun. Yeah. I can't wait to get back to Chicago.

Little Pequots. Little Pequots. get back to Chicago. Little Pequod's. Little Pequod's. Bruce Sconeys. Dude, it's great. Me, you, Matthew,

Skid, jammed into that booth. I remember us getting Pequod's and a pitcher. I think, no, no, no. It was just the four of us,

I think, right? I don't know. I'm blanky. I feel like somebody, anyway, it was big stack of pizza and a pitcher of beer. I mean, just amazing.

Amazing. Can't wait. Let's talk – let's talk some SideQuest SideSesh. I didn't think we'd ever get to it. I know. I know. I want to talk SideQuest SideSesh because I'm having so much fun. Also, a very exciting announcement coming up about another new show that's recording.

But it will air soon. God, I can't believe – I want to get all this stuff in. But yeah, we green-lighted a season two we talked about a little bit ago, and that's recording. We'll talk about that in a second. But SideQuest, SideSesh has been an absolute blast. And we talked about it a little bit in studio last week, which was really fun. It was great doing FOD in studio, by the way. Are we going to do that more?

Or is that like, are we going to stay at home? You and I were talking about this right before we went live, but I want to reveal some of that convo to the nation live. So where we're at right now is when Glass Cannon Podcast Campaign 2 launches, Cannon Fodder will also have a video component in addition to audio, because why not? have a video component in addition to audio because why not? And I think that it would be irresponsible to say that we could always do that in studio because you and I are not going to drive three hours round trip to record fodder. However, on instances when we happen to be in there and we can bang out those fodders, we'll absolutely do some in studio, some remote. It's so fun to do that. It was so great doing it in studio last week. It was awesome.

Yeah. Yeah, a lot of fun. I mean, for us, we did it as a test. It's like now Francis is going and making a cut that will never see the light of the day, light of day that I can watch on the flight to San Diego and see like, okay, oh, you know what? That camera, we're going to move that slightly. We're like, see that cut there? It's just good practice for us. But it'll be fun already i could already tell you something

i'll share this with the days this little internal john which was great um one thing that you're gonna think is really funny is in the video in the cut of the video when it starts and i'm like yeah what's going on everybody it's just's just you. It's just your face. Oh, because the camera was on me. Francis didn't know what fodder was or that I would start the show off because you start off everything and all the testing we've done. So the camera was just sitting on you. And then I start and a couple of beats later, it just moves over to me.

Well, you know, that's just in the live cut because the way we've got how many cameras in there? Six or eight cameras? Six. Six, maybe seven. I can't remember. But all of that stuff is recorded. So all those cameras are running. Francis is just live switching to make his life easier. So like we have the shot of you, but that's funny. Yeah, the raw cut would have it starting on me just sitting there reading. Just, yeah, looking at me being like, why are you so loud checking up on the socks um side quest side sesh is uh episode five airs breath of fresh air drops this week oh it's just so much fun so laid back uh we're actually

recording it today we're recording some more today looking forward to that episode five is largely a uh role playing up so we don't really have We Are Stupid from episode five this week. But like I said, Professor Eric wrote in about our conversations about the sleep spell. So we are going to talk about that for a minute in We Are Stupid. But episode five is really about getting to this hidden city, which I think is just such an awesome and fun sort of setting, a hidden city in the jungle. Sign me up. It's a very tropish sort of adventure type thing that I'm always, always down for. This has got to be intimidating, though, from the GM seat, because your characters are essentially entering a hidden, quote unquote,

alien city, a city where nothing is sort of what they can expect. And all of the characters are strange and different. And there's a mystery to be solved. And they want to start talking to people right away. Talk to me about your prep process for like, how many people did you prepare to like talk to or about? You know, how many NPCs did you have ready? How did you decide to disseminate information through, you know, just walking raw into a city?

When I say I prepared nothing for the cocktail party, I am not even slightly exaggerating. That is not true. Dude, I didn't. I didn't. A hundred percent. All I have in my notes for that is like, as you're talking to people. You didn't prepare Jimmy? No, I didn't prepare Jimmy.

Timmy. Tim. Montgomery Pip. Montgomery Pip. Dude, yeah, that was all. And I don't prepare Jimmy. Timmy, Tim. Montgomery Pip. Montgomery Pip. Dude, yeah, that was all. And I don't know why. Usually I do more preparation for that, but I'm experimenting with some stuff. This is all like fucking training right now for gay walkers.

It's practice. It's reps. Yeah. And so I'm going through a lot. There's a lot of stuff behind the scenes that maybe I'll talk about at some point. It's just like different things that I'm practicing to like – it's just like doing lifting at the gym. I'm like, let me try this. Let me try over-prepare this, under-prepare this. But all I have in my notes is like, you know, if people ask questions about Selmius Foster,

if people ask questions about this, here are possible responses. So I have that and I'm trying to work that in. But I didn't know how you guys were going to attack this. I'm just curious. I want people to get a glimpse into your notes. Like, when you write that, do you write responses as dialogue? Like, do you write like a sentence as someone would say it? Or do you write like the basic idea or the gist of what there would get to? I do both. In this instance, all I did was copy and paste

what Paizo had in the scenario so that I have that. So they had dialogue, I would assume? It's not even, no, it's not written as dialogue. It's summaries. Sometimes I'll take it when something is just given as information, I will rewrite it as dialogue. So I have that dialogue ready and then either use it or extrapolate upon it. In this instance, I just had what they had and I wanted to see what you guys were going to do. And as you were getting to the party, like, it's funny. Sometimes I prepare these things and, you know, I read it once, I read it twice, I prepare it again.

And then you guys start getting into it and I can see that like a couple of things happen. My original vision of how things look changes as we're getting into it. I'm like, oh, you know what? I read this wrong. It's not quite like that. Or you guys start to envision it in a way that's different than either how I envisioned it or how it's pictured. And I just kind of follow your lead and change it on the fly. Does that make sense?

Something as simple as like this being a party, like a garden party and the rooms being off to the side. Like I may have had one way of doing it or picturing it, but I start to realize, you know, it's actually a little different from how I conceived it now that I'm reading it again for the third or fourth time while we're doing it live. But then you guys might say something and I'm like, oh, that's interesting. And so I'll just go along with it. And so-

You mean like you'll change the settings slightly based on what the players say, because what you see, they're seeing in their mind. Yeah. Right. And then sometimes it's just so vague, vaguely written. It's meant to be like, oh, whatever you want to do. But I don't want to – Yeah, that's a really good note. I think setting is something that a lot of GMs have a tendency to constantly recorrect their players on. Sometimes it's like just sit back and let the setting change to something you see the players all seeing and just let the world mold into what's in their mind for

the moment. You don't have to constantly reshape things to what you were saying, unless it is vital to the story. You can really change a lot of that stuff on the fly. And what you're doing is you're letting the player's imagination drive the boat. And anytime you can do that, it really starts to – it does a few things. It starts to make the story much richer because now there's several people collaborating on the narrative and not just one person driving the ship. But also like it starts to activate other people's imaginations as well. They start contributing and then you're just going to create a much richer tapestry. That's kind of what happened a little bit here and then that happens in the role play as well. You're like, I kind of

want to talk to these people. Let me talk to somebody. And it's like, all right, there's a shark-faced guy. And it just kind of took over from there. And I forgot how funny it was until I rewatched it. I was like, oh my God, is it a problem with the vault? It's just so dumb, but we're having a lot of fun with it. And it's been a great, great prep, great prep for the stuff that's coming up. It's just nice to play loose again too. We tend to play tight, even live shows. Live shows get a bit looser. We're on the road. Those have their own energy, but we play tight a lot. And that's probably the energy that I give off because I'm so like, I could be constricting. You want it to be perfect. Yeah, that's that search for perfection. But like when you can loosen up, it's a fine line.

But it's, again, just great practice getting back into the skin of SideQuest SideSession. A new show, a new season has begun recording this week. A show that was greenlit for a season two. A show that people have discussed a lot in the nation wanting to come back that they thoroughly enjoyed that i personally thoroughly enjoyed and uh i'm very happy to say that this past monday the crew got together and voyagers of the jump season two episode one is in the can they are underway yep they're underway so uh underway I can't say anything else Can't say anything else

I will say a big thank you to Mongoose Publishing for helping make that happen As sponsors of the show But man, just so awesome to See that on the schedule And word on the street Is that it was amazing So that's the report

I got from our producer on the show. And I'm very excited to listen to it slash see it live with you guys. I won't see it ahead of time. I'll see it when it airs. So looking forward to it. The cast is back. The original cast is back. And Matthew has told me the story.

I wasn't totally paying attention because if people talk for more than a minute, I just start – I go someplace else. But that first minute – You catch up on some sleep. Right. Yeah. That first minute sounded really good. Going back to SideQuest, SideSesh, I wanted to – this might be an interesting topic. I went back because I remember we were talking last week and it was just – there was a lot going on because we had 19 people in the studio. But you had talked about Hungry Flurry or whatever it was, how they had

to be at a different target. And I was like, I don't remember that. And then I Googled something, I don't know if it was Archives of Memphis or some other bestiary. And it was like, this one doesn't say it and this one does. Well, I went back and looked on Foundry and sure enough, it did say single target. So Eric was right to correct me. But here's what's interesting. Like, I want to play by the book, obviously. I missed that in the throes of getting used to Foundry and like just didn't read that. But I wonder like, I have this problem sometimes where I see something and I'm like, but only I can do that. Like the players can't, you know what I mean? Like sometimes,

especially if a combat is like easy, I may see a restriction that I'm just like, I don't want to do it. And then if nobody calls me on it, it's fine. Or other times I notice it too late. I may notice that it's a single target and just let it go. How do you feel about that? I mean, this is one of the reasons why I can't wait to run our own campaign because then there's nobody sitting back and be like, actually, that monster doesn't do that. And be like, well, my version of the monster does. But like, how do you feel like about that as a GM, especially in more restrictive games or self-restrictive games like Pathfinder, where what if you just be like, I don't care

that it says that? I think that you and I both believe in the rules. We think that the rules are there for a reason. And I think that it's hard as a GM to cherry pick what the players are restricted by and you're not restricted by. I don't have any problem with changing rules that are changed for both of us. You know what I mean? But you – to echo yourself back to you, your primary reason for trying to be on book as much as possible when it comes to the rules is because you don't think you really know the depth of game balance that might be thrown out of whack by even a smallest change that doesn't seem to really affect much. So that is why typically I will try when running monsters, especially

to not play around with what they've already said there. And I'm not even talking about like homebrew. I'm not talking about pre-written modules. I'm talking about a monster stat block. It doesn't matter whether it's homebrew or not. There's a reason that the game mechanics have been built a certain way. And I think that you should stick to those. I think that doing separate targets. Here's what I would say. I would say, you know, like if you want to attack the same target, fine, but take the map.

You know what I mean? Like roll for it, dude. You know what I mean? Like you don't have to split your targets. Just attack twice and split your targets, but take the map you know what i mean like roll for it dude you know what i mean like you don't have to split your targets just attack twice and split your targets but take the map you know it's it's the two attacks at the highest bonus against one creature the highest bonus for most monsters against us especially when it's a smaller number of monsters is very very likely to hit almost certainly going to hit yeah and and it could very well crit on not a natural 20 so to do that twice in a row can be devastating and uh maybe that's why they they brooded into

the game that way that said i think that there is sorry go ahead no i was just gonna say it's not that i see it and just say nah i don't like that and do it like i realize that after because to me that's like that's kind of the same as fudging dice it's basically in the same ballpark as fudging dice the rule says this but yeah uh i realize that after the fact either during the episode or usually after the episode's recording i'm like i don't care about that does that make sense it's kind of like who cares but like obviously i think maybe it's who cares if you killed a character you know with two consecutive crits you know what i mean that like you rolled a natural 19 and a natural 18 and you crit twice you didn't even roll a natural 20 and you killed a character um because you did the rule wrong that would suck but yeah generally speaking i i think that

looking back i'd be like ah you know it's it's not a big deal. To me, it's just more interesting than anything because I always want to get to the core of the game design and be curious. Well, what is behind – what is the thought behind this game design? And I like that idea that the thought, generally speaking, is if you aren't going to take the map, then putting that on one target, I'm sure in play testing has resulted in just too much of a wild swing, so to speak, in in terms of damage output in a single round to a single character. So, yeah, I don't know. It's it is interesting, but I will say that there are changes that I like. Now, I have not run a game like Pathfinder in a long time. I've been running other games for a while now. a game like Pathfinder in a long time. I've been running other games for a while now.

And to run a game like Pathfinder, where you have the stat blocks, and obviously very clear rules that a lot of people know, and but that also has a breadth of rules that are impossible to fully always know, it would be exhausting to me to see that decide to make that change for narrative reasons, because I know I'm not going to kill a character and I know it's going to be fun and keep people on their toes. And then to have somebody correct me on air, you know, like that would irritate me. So I will say that I get that, that like wanting to make those little bobbin weaves as a GM and then have somebody put a microscope over it and then tell you, and I'm not talking about people writing in or doing that on a form. I'm talking about me doing it to you on a show. That would be kind of exhausting

because you might be like, yeah, I wanted to do it that time. But you also don't, you shouldn't have to pull back the GM screen that clearly for that kind of stuff. So, yeah, it's weird. Most of the time when I see I get a rule wrong, I'm like, goddammit, I missed that.

Fuck, all right, I'll learn for next time. But sometimes I see it and I'm like, that rule's stupid. I don't a rule wrong i'm like god damn it i missed that fuck all right i'll learn for next time but sometimes i see it i'm like that road's stupid i don't like it i'm glad i missed it you know yeah yeah no i agree with you i i definitely do do that sometimes um but i mean this yeah this is why and you know gcp 2.0 i don't want to talk too much about it because it just makes people angry but like i i do want to make that happen and and every every intention to because I can't wait to play something that no one knows. And I'm going to try with Gatewalkers to bob and weave and there will be plenty of opportunities for that. But man, it's going to be so nice to play something that literally no one but the writers and I know and that we completely own is obviously awesome as well. And that's the reason like when I mentioned like making our own game, whether I do that

or not, because I know this is always a topic of conversation on the Discord and on the boards, whether I do that or not for GCP 2.0 in the future, the whole reason to do it isn't because like we don't like Pathfinder or like we don't appreciate that. It's like owning your own IP is the most important thing as a growing business. And you know, there's so little opportunity to do that when we're playing so many other people's games. If we have an opportunity to do that,

I mean, that is clutch. Like we have a great relationship with Paizo now, but let's just say down the line, like Paizo gets sold and then they're like, well, what's going on with the Glass Cannon Podcast here? No, no, we got to start charging them. Thank God we have our own system that we're playing. You know what I mean? You have to think about

worst case scenarios. We wouldn't be creating a new system because I think I'm better than the fucking writers at Paizo. We'd be doing it because ownership is clutch. I know you're right. I'm sure. I wouldn't be doing it by myself. But yeah, it's about owning your own stuff. That's what's important.

Otherwise, you're always going to be hitched to other companies, which can be great as well if you have great relationships, which we do. But you have to protect against worst-case scenarios. And it'd be interesting. I'll take this opportunity to say this is probably like a longer treatise another time, but I'm going to take this opportunity to say that we're a few years in now, and I'm regularly playing now. I've pivoted to playing more 2E than 1E,

but I am still dabbling in 1E, and then I've got, you know, through Legacy of the Ancients, and then I've got multiple regular 2E games going on, and I definitely like 2E better. You do. It's official. A hundred percent.

All I think about now is in 2E. Like, I just think of everything in the free. I just needed a lot of time to sink into it, you know what I mean? And it's just a really fun mechanically designed game, and I'm really enjoying it. Yeah, every day we play it, I enjoy it more and more. It also is nice to get better at it. Something's more enjoyable when you

know what the hell you're doing. We're smoking materially. Speaking of knowing what the hell you're doing, every week when we can, we try to jam in a little We Are Stupid just so that everybody can learn to E along with us as we work our way through SideQuest, SideSesh, and Professor Eric is

always there to help us out. Since episode five of season two was primarily role play, there was no really rules to shine a light on, but Professor Eric wanted us to get his rundown from his mind on the sleep spell because we had kind of bantered about it and it had come up in the previous episode. And so let me just give you his quick rundown of the difference between sleep and 2E versus 1E. First of all, right out of the gate, the 2E version, quote, is significantly weaker in combat than the 1E version. First of all, you are unconscious however you don't fall prone and don't release what you're holding in your hands so that's a huge first step you just sort of like doze for a second there uh the way matthew does sometimes like on screen when we're

going too long uh right you know standing on his feet um other creatures can wake you up obviously within our in an with an interact action but you can also you also get a free perception check if there's any noise going on around you so at the start of your turn it's free and the dc is typically very low because of how loud combat is and And so you almost certainly will wake up. You wake up when you take damage. You wake up if an ally takes an interact action to wake you up. You wake up if you get healing. You know what I mean? There's all these different factors by which you wake up. So it's really hard to use in combat. Even on a fail or a crit fail, you fall asleep standing up with your weapons in hand. And so when your turn starts, you get a free perception check.

It's basically like you're going to lose no actions on that spell. But that's level one. Also heightened to level two or three, pretty much. And Professor Eric says this is pretty much exclusively a non-combat spell. It is useful for infiltration and for stealth. If you're trying to sneak into a place and there's a guard there, put the guard to sleep and then sneak by. Great. In which case, the free perception check does come up and it's against the stealth DC of those that are going by. Or I guess if you were a GM, what I would probably do is do opposing checks.

I think that would be more interesting. Or against a perception DC, right? Their stealth role against his perception DC or her perception DC, whatever character is asleep. The fourth level heightened version does not get perception checks to wake up and you fall prone and you drop anything you're holding. So as it levels up, it becomes combat viable, but the early versions are not combat viable. Yeah. And if you're a much more powerful spellcaster than the players so usually this would probably happen in boss encounters uh your dcs are going to be higher and a crit fail on a height and forth you're asleep for a minute not around uh so it makes it a lot more viable in combat for sure

yeah yeah and it has the incapacitate trait right so uh yes it does yeah so you'd pretty much have to be it have to be a boss fight for you to really be damaged by that by that uh spell um so it's good to know uh and it's interesting and i think it makes a lot of sense i think that it's great from a um uh you, Skid is always talking about bringing more kind of logical reality into these things despite its fantasy nature. And if you were magically asleep and all of this screaming combat happening around you, it'd have to be a pretty powerful spell for you to just completely snooze through all that. If the magical sleep really was just sleep and wasn't like magically putting you unconscious to a point of like uh you know well and they and it does that at higher levels but at the at the early levels it's mostly a non-combat spell so i mean one of the best changes from 1e to 2e is the way that the spells have been sort of reinvented and that the spells from the ground up yeah varying levels

of power so it still retains some 1E stuff, but the best and worst parts have now been pulled into heightened and not heightened. It's really, really cool. And every day we play, I see a new spell that I'm like, God, that's so brilliant. The way they took the 1E spell and translated it to here, and now it just

has so much more versatility and options. It's really, really cool. Yeah. Do you remember in our jade regent game uh land keith our good buddy drew how could i forget old land when he when he would evil eye people with the high level which evil eye and then sleep hex i mean in jade region and he had the i can't remember the feat but's like the, the something it's where you can do it a second time. If somebody even succeeded, usually they're immune to it for 24 hours, but he had a feat where like once a day or something, he can make somebody had it. I feel like, or maybe it's a

higher level thing, but yeah, it's a greater hex. Uh, anyway, it was just a greater hex or some sort of feat that allows you to, if, if, if even succeeds you can use it again i can use it again he would just put you to sleep constantly and you guys infiltrated this like uh yeti uh like society and there were all these like fucking badass yetis and he hexed so many of them to sleep i'm not gonna lie i fudged a couple of those i'm like i'm tired of you putting them to sleep so funny yeah no i i love the way that they're doing it i will say as atticus in strange aeons we're now what ninth level something like that and that has been really fun to um i honestly did not fully explore and and really really understand the power of heightening until the last, like, three months, honestly. It's been, like, the last three months that I really – as I got fifth-level spells and really started to say, well, what – I just was – I would take my fifth-level spells. I'd be like, all right, I got Kona Cold, and I've got – what's the illusion spell?

It's not Phantasmal Killer. I can't remember what it is. I have some got uh what's the illusion spell it's it's it's not um phantasmal killer i can't remember what it is i have some illusion spell that's oh it's the reaction to uh the shadow siphon where i can half the damage from a certain thing i'm like kona cold is awesome and everything but it can be not combat viable sometimes when you are a backline caster, because your allies right away, they get up in the mix of it. And a 60 foot cone is always almost always going to include your allies. And if it doesn't, you're probably only clipping one or two enemies. So unless you get a really good initiative, it's not really going to be that viable. So let me look at this. What does a magic missile look like heightened to fifth level?

What does a magic missile look like heightened to fifth level? It is a guaranteed hit 94 plus 9 at that level if you take the three-action version. Minimum 18 damage. Minimum 18 damage guaranteed. You know, guaranteed hit. It's just really fun to experiment with that kind of stuff. Lightning bolt. Like, I was so excited to get that.

I think it's third level. I never thought about heightening it to fourth level or fifth level and i started doing that too and when i'm ready when i'm uh preparing now to go into combat when i know it's going to be combat i just now i can just do all blaster stuff and i didn't have to take a different spell at fifth level that's you know just preparing it i just prepared it in that slot it's just so much fun yeah like sydney just started to wrap her head around heightened do you guys remember you guys talking heel she had never thought it was a first it in that slot. It's just so much fun. Yeah, like Sydney just started to wrap her head around Heightened. I remember you guys talking. Heightened Heal. She had never Heightened Heal. She thought it was a first level spell and that was it. Yeah, it takes a while.

Because it's just such a, it's a real new mechanic to us, even though we've been playing this for a few years. But dude, what a difference. Minimum 18 damage now. Anytime you catch me saying like, looks like he's on his last legs, there's no other reason not to just take him out because i can't especially because we had 19 hit points and that's minimum 18 you're

gonna take him out right especially because i've been rolling lately like let's take the uh stupefied condition out of it plus 17 ish is my spell attack roll know, and you are pretty much always at 31 or higher on ACs now. And so that means I've got to roll natty 14s, natty 15s and up in order to hit you. You know, it's no joke. So I'm like, am I going to waste a spell slot and have to roll a natty 14 or higher or just guaranteed 94 plus nine damage? That's just it's awesome. And just really fun to have that option if you need it. It's so funny you said that.

So what I haven't really looked at yet is the beginning of the conversion of book four of Strange Aeons. And you just said, your AC is always like 31, 32. I'm like, hmm, I wonder how that's carried over because book four is not book three. It is very, very different. So I'm looking right now at what the acs are for the uh sort of opening possible encounters of book four and i'll

say is very interesting you're a dirty player la vallee we got luis loza doing the conversion for book four uh and he's a beast. A beast. So exciting. So exciting. Is he going to be a PAX Unplugged or a Gen Con? He'll be a Gen Con, right? He'll be a Gen Con, yeah. We got to hang out.

He's a good dude. He came to our Christmas party and I was just sitting at the bar. I'm like, I'm going to hold court here because I don't feel like moving about.

And him and I talked for, God, about a half an hour. I was just, I don't even know what the hell we talked about. I was drinking. Well, that's going to wrap it up for what the hell we talked about. I was drinking. Well, that's going to wrap it up for the pod. Long pod

today. Juicy pod, but I mean, we had a lot going on, you know. We got a lot going on. A lot of stuff. But really fun times. Looking forward to a hell of a week coming up. We got SideQuest SideChest Episode 6 comes out tomorrow night. You got Haunted City tonight. Tonight! Haunted City tonight! Followed by the

Donjon. Yeah, and then next week, get ready for five straight nights of streaming. From RuneQuest to Get in the Trunk to Haunted City to SideQuest to Vast Grimm. Every night of the week, we got you covered on twitch.tv slash The Glass Cannon. So come hang out. Until then, take it easy, everybody. We'll see you next week. Bye.

Folks, work hard. Thanks for listening to the Glass Cannon Network. For more podcasts and live streams, visit glasscannonnetwork.com. And for exclusive shows and content you can't find anywhere else, subscribe today at patreon.com slash glasscannon.