The Glass Cannon Podcast - Cannon Fodder 7/26/23

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

It's the last Fod before Gen Con! Troy and Joe do one final pass through the barrage of shows coming out of the Actual Play Factory this week and next. No We Are Stupid segment since SQSS went full roleplay this week, but Troy gives some interesting insights into how Episode 6 was almost one long deleted scene! 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

Rogers Days to Save event is back with our most incredible deal yet on our most reliable internet. Enjoy Rogers Ignite Internet now starting at just $50 a month. Backed by our Wi-Fi satisfaction guarantee. Visit rogers.com. You are listening to the Glass Cannon Network. The premier source for role-playing game entertainment. Welcome to Cannon Fodder. I'm your good buddy, Joe O'Brien, and it is Wednesday, July 26th, 2023.

And I'm Troy... I think I threw you off by doing the wrong name. I did the name before the date, and then it was just not the normal intro. We're a little muddy today, to be honest with you, because we just got a little look behind the scenes. We just got out of the trunk. We have been in the trunk, and it was intense. But we're getting out of the trunk trunk and we're about to cross through the gates see what i just did see what i just did we were in the trunk for five hours five hours

five hours we're in that fucking trunk it's hot in there it is it's actually very hot in this room right now when i run the camera and the lights and all well it's not three computers two computers but all three monitors and freaking even even though i have a little bit of a fan going that's quiet enough to not get picked up by the mic, it is just freaking hot in here, man. I was just being cheeky. I'm freezing. I'm wearing a hoodie. It's so cold in my, you're so lucky.

Well, that's also because you go right next to your HVAC, which makes your audio sound like this. Right, no. Then it keeps you cool. It is actually amazing. Downstairs in my basement, I've got an HVAC with the central air stuff. And when I'm downstairs in the middle of the summer, it is so cold down there. It feels amazing, like right next to the unit.

It's great. I'm freezing. Yeah. But, you know, we just got back from San Diego, and boy, are our arms tired. And we are entering, I mean, I said it on Twitter. I said it to you. I've said it in conversations with strangers. This is the hardest two weeks in the history of the Glass Cannon Network.

It sure is. It sure is. Even though we had a lot of like question marks about the first launch of the Gen Con booth last year, there's less question marks there. However, there's just more – there's more content in there. Not content is not the right word, but there's more pressure. There's more stuff that's involved in this whole thing from top to bottom now that it's year two. And it's a good problem to have, but man, is it a problem? We are juggling so many different systems. Like I said, I just, I just got out of the trunk and now I'll turn my, well, we'll cover all of it, but I'll say right now, I'll turn my attention to

Dragonbane as I now dig into Dragonbane and get ready for that character creation session, which is happening tomorrow. Dragonbane tomorrow, 2 o'clock Eastern, live on Twitch.tv slash The Glass Cannon. As part of Glass Cannon Labs, I'm going to be running character creation in Free League's new Dragonbane RPG system. in Free League's new Dragonbane RPG system. It's not the new system, but it's the new, it's the, whatever you call it, the update of that old Scandinavian system that is so well-loved by people that grew up there. It's an exciting cast, too.

It's Skid, oh man, Skid, Jason Charles Miller, Paula Deming, and Josephine McAdam. Holy shit! It's gonna be great. shit yeah i gave you a good one i think that's a good solid crew um it's a good solid crew yeah and then you're gonna be playing that obviously again at gen con you know if dude i don't even know where to start the reason these weeks are so crazy is because of all the stuff going on at Gen Con. That's part of it. Like I'm looking, I have to run a Pathfinder 2E game. I have to run Glass Cannon Live. I have to run a modern Cthulhu game, a classic Cthulhu game that I'm writing. And I have to run Marvel and then another Pathfinder and then play in five games. And you know what? That wouldn't be so bad.

Actually, that would be pretty bad. But that wouldn't be so bad if that was all that I had to prepare this week. But you were asking me right before we started, are we going to talk about it? And you know what? I think we will talk about it because that wouldn't be so bad were it not for the fact that this Friday we are recording Gatewalkers. It's finally happening. It's finally happening.

It is finally happening. The 17 dress rehearsals are over, and it's time for the rubber to hit the road, buddy. Are you ready? You're not ready, and you're scared. I'll be ready by Friday. I had a great day yesterday. Are you feeling good about the pilot?

I know the pilot is, you know, you put it up on a pedestal. I do put it up on a pedestal. You know, nobody watches an episode more than they watch the first one. And so there's a lot of expectations there. But I actually feel pretty good. After yesterday, I was just focusing on the pilot. Like, I almost feel like once we get into the adventure proper, that's... That's easy.

That's not... It runs itself. Yeah. Yeah. There's some – dude, it's a very different adventure from Giant Slayer and Strange Aeons. While there are certainly some similarities, it's very different and the way the adventure starts is very different and unique. So I think it requires a little bit more prep than I normally like to do. But I also like – I want everybody to play loose.

I don't want it to be so overprepared that there's no room for anybody else. You know what I mean? Like I have to prepare with that in mind. It's like I don't want to just have this all written down because then you guys do stuff and I don't want to be like, ah, sorry. There's no space for that. I've got too much planned. And so it's very, very tricky trying to prepare. The classic GM conundrum.

Yeah, you want to prepare loose and hard. Sorry, that doesn't fit into my plans. Or not even like, you know, it's like, oh, you want to improv that? No, I don't want to improv that. You know, I want to leave space for everybody to kind of – because you're going to be feeling out your characters at the same time. For sure. Because you're going to be feeling out your characters at the same time. For sure.

But there's just no way around it with our current plans for when we want to release that. And like about 19 deals that are closing or about to close, we have to do it. And I wish that we could put it off until after Gen Con week. That would make everything, everything in my life so much better. But I just don't think we can. Yeah. I mean, it's like having kids. There's never going to be a good time to do it you're never going to be like this is the time in my life when i can enter a child into it it's always going to be a shit show and it's always

going to be tough and yes this is probably the most extreme example of like the worst possible time to have such a high profile episode to have to do it. But it's just once it's done, it's done, you know? And that's the thing about setting these deadlines and setting these goals. Just get in there. Just do it. I know that the weight that's on your back is extremely heavy and stressful, and I'm sorry for that. But I am very much looking forward to it.

It's time. I've been sitting with this character and excited for this game for way too long. And it's just been all tech and money. And when I say money, I mean like the shit that was required to build that studio. It just – things just kept coming up, up until the last minute. It's just like things just kept coming up that we had to get in there in order to make this work the way we envision it. And it's just, it's a relief to feel like it's there

and we're ready and it's time to go. So I'm looking forward to it. We spent a lot of money. Oh yeah. We spent a ton of money. Yeah, way more than we spent on the Giant Slayer first episode. And people love Giant Slayer.

So let's not overthink it. Let's just get in there and have some fun. We should just do what everybody else does. Run a Kickstarter, make a million dollars and produce 15 episodes with other people's money that's not what everyone does you'd be surprised a lot of people do that um yeah it's uh but we're hoping it'll yield fruits i mean i i share your excitement i uh i really like this adventure path i really really feel like I'm in it. And so I'm excited to get out there and really trying to just bury any concerns of like, oh, I hope we start strong or, oh, I hope it'll be good enough.

I feel really confident in what we do. I mean, I just think that on our worst day, we're still the best. I mean, I just think that on our worst day, we're still the best. Yeah. And, you know, the people that are going to be playing together in that game have been playing together much longer than the team that played Giant Slayer Episode 1 together. That's the truth. So that's a cool thing to think about going into this. Man, I'm really looking forward to it.

So obviously we can't spoil anything more about that. We'll get you updates on that as we get closer, including hopefully release dates soon enough that we'll be talking about. But let's talk about Gen Con. We've talked about Gen Con a million times, but really we have to dial in here because this is essentially Gen Con week for us. This is the last fodder before Gen Con.

So next week, there won't be a canon fodder before Gen Con. So next week, there won't be a cannon fodder, I'm sorry to say, but we're heading to Indy early. I got there last year and realized that we ran into so many problems because of how late we arrived that when you're on the show floor, like you need to basically be there Monday. So it's a hectic week and we're getting out there early this year. And we're going to be on the floor early preparing and getting our booth ready. And I'm really, really looking forward to that. But why don't you talk to people a little bit about how they can find out the final, final calendar of what is happening in the booth over Gen Con when they

can catch live streams if they're not going to be at Gen Con, etc. What's the booth schedule like? And who's going to be in there? Yeah, I mean, if you're on social media, if you've seen starting this past Monday, we relaunched the blog page on our website. You can go to glasscannonetwork.com slash blog. And the real point of that blog is just so that if you're not on social media, you have a place to find out information. And also the streams will be embedded on there.

So if you visit the page, you can watch them live. But the main thrust of it this week is to announce all of the shows, casts, times, and locations of everything that's happening at Gen Con. So on Monday, we announced what's happening on day one of Gen Con, which is the Thursday. Yesterday, Tuesday, we announced day two. And then today, well, later today, if you listen to this right when it comes out, you'll find out what's happened on day three. And then you'll find out the cast tomorrow for day four. And there is a lot going on. Now, during the day, from basically 10 a.m. till 6 p.m. on the first three days, 10 a.m.

to 4 p.m. on Sunday. There will be streaming in the booth at twitch.tv slash theglasscanon. If you're not at the con, you can watch it. Now, some of that stuff, there might be some dead space in there. We have like 15 minutes between each thing. And then right now on Saturday night, because we're doing Blades,

we're not running against ourselves. So from like 5 p.m. on or 4 p.m. on, there's nothing in there. But for the most part, there's going to be content happening from open to close every single day that will be streamed. Now, if you're at the con,

you can come by the booth and you can watch it. We have a TV outside the booth where you can actually listen or you can put your headphones on your phone and watch it in real time while listening to it on your headphones. Or the shows that we're doing at the con, like the Busted Mufflers and Modern Cthulhu.

Modern Cthulhu is sold out. The only way you can see it is via stream now. But there are still seats left for the Busted Mufflers. That said, we've sold almost 300, and there's still another 100. That's a big-ass theater. And that show will only exist in person. It will never exist outside of there again.

And then Thursday night, the Busted Mufflers. If you're not there, you can't see it anywhere else. And then the Busted, excuse me, that Thursday night we're at Helium. That's sold out. Obviously that will release on, as Strange Aeons always does. And then we're doing the Call of Cthulhu Friday night.

That one's not sold out, but again, almost 300 tickets sold to that. Huge theater. I think it's almost a 500 seat. There's plenty of seats left they're only 15 we keep saying get those tickets you're going to want to see this and uh like an idiot i'm i'm writing the scenario basically and but i'm really really excited about that i'm really excited about the modern cthulhu too but and then the booth you know if you want to see what the casts are and everything, go check out glasscannonetwork.com slash blog and you'll see

everything we planned. We have a blog? Yeah, we got a blog now. We got a blog? Yeah. Talk about the blog. Well, the team that built our website last year, we contacted them early in the year and asked them about the viability of adding a blog page just because we feel like a lot of people still can't find our information if you're not on Facebook,

Discord, Instagram, TikTok, all this stuff. You don't have a one-stop shop, but anybody can go to a fucking website. If you don't believe in Twitter, that's fine. Go to our website. Everybody, if you don't believe in our website, and then that will kind of give you the information. We'll post the schedule there. Whenever there's a stream, you'll be able to watch it from the website now. And we're hoping over time to add some more functionality to it. And who knows, maybe we'll do some guest blogs or like Into the Mind of Joe prepping an episode of Get in the Trunk or something, some vlogs. You know, Joe and I have talked about maybe adding some shows that you can only watch on

the website, some shows that are embedded into the website like uh i don't want to say anything but yet until it comes to fruition but we want to do some fun stuff on there just to kind of drive traffic to the site and so the blog is another way to do that did you mention uh the stream for vast grim that's happening this week i didn't man i didn't even talk about rune quest which happened two nights ago uh yeah friends of the pod two friends of the pods two friends of the pod rune quest was so freaking awesome so we we did character creation on monday night uh on stream you can find that uh on youtube you can also find the audio if you want on our patreon feed and that was just character creation and it was so fun well a two shot is coming after that uh and what's so amazing is like i feel like this is the first time we legitimately like we recorded this months ago

in anticipation that this time would be way too busy and that we would need to release it around this time leading into gen con and the release of the new cults of rune quest books that uh that chaos team is putting out and i hadn't't played RuneQuest before. You played it before on New Game Who Dis. I hadn't played it. I was excited to jump in and man, did it not disappoint. It was so awesome. And I encourage you guys to check it out if you get a chance. Such a cool system. And the story we told was so great. it was just tight and short and awesome and nora and josephine were fantastic they were in it yeah they were both in it and dare i say they carried it like they really did they truly did like both of their characters were so phenomenal that i just i

was in awe of both of them and i i don't say that a lot. I don't say, you don't hear me say that a lot about every show. I like a lot of characters, but I will say Joe and Nora's characters had me in awe the whole run. They were fantastic. So I highly recommend you check that out if you haven't already.

And then this Friday night in two days, Friday night, also streaming on the main channel at twitch.tv slash the glass cannon is character creation for vast grim, a game of what is it cyber punk it's like grim dark sci-fi grim dark sci-fi yes so it's grim dark sci-fi uh you talked about this before about how this first came together but everybody uh should know if you want to check out character creation you can watch it all together uh fr Friday night on twitch.tv slash The Glass Cannon at 8 o'clock Eastern.

Jared runs it. Cast is Sydney, Kate, Nora, and Paula. So Sydney, Kate, Nora, and Paula, great group. And they create characters this Friday night. And then they're going to play those characters live from the Gen Con booth during Gen Con. So cool. All the single ladies. All the single ladies.

All the single ladies. That should be the theme for that. I don't think there's many single ladies. That's not true. All the taken ladies! All the taken ladies! Get your hands up! Yeah, that's awesome that they are gonna that we're able to stream that character

creation. Oh, just similar to what we're doing with Dragonbane, so I'm pumped. Dude, I wanted to play that so bad. I mean, I literally got that with the intention of playing it on Labs, and right up until the last Dude, I wanted to play that so bad. I mean, I literally got that with the intention of playing it on labs and right up until the last second, I was going to run it in the booth and do that. And I'm like, Troy, you got to stop. I was like, Jared, can you do this? And he's like, hell yeah. So that's going to be, yeah, that'd be a lot of fun, man. Stream every day this week, stream every day next week. And some uh i mean god think think about it like think

about thursday you know we start at 10 a.m we go 10 to 6 and then you get a little bit of a break and then side quest side sesh if you're not at the con if you're at the con you get to watch strange aeons uh and then it's awesome yeah it's just it's just wild um uh it's so exciting uh pathfinder 2e followed by is is it D&D 5E? Is that what's next on Friday or on Thursday? On Thursday, we start off Pathfinder 2E. Mona's going to join me, you, and Skid and Matthew. And then...

I guess go to the website. Go to the website. We're having the Beetle and Grim guys to talk about Faster Purple worm kill kill that's on thursday that's thursday right all right so guys if you catch something on thursday catch this panel that it's i call it a panel because it's not an actual play troy and i are going to sit in the booth with matthew lillard and bill ray or from beetle and grims and we're just going to preview for you uh faster purple worm kill kill the tv show that troy and i went out and shot in la yeah we talked about it on fod we talked about going out and do it we couldn't be too we had to be precious with the details but now uh our hope is we don't 100 know but our hope is

that we'll have some super cuts to play of our game like live so you guys can be the first to see some actual cuts from the show before it airs yeah lily said he was cutting out takes together so we might even have some outtakes it'll be a lot of fun uh we're doing that and then yeah we finish out the day with the dd5e so that's that's a hell of a dude oh no we don't we finish out the daytime and then in the evening side quest side sesh uh speaking of which let's spend a few minutes on side quest side sesh before we run uh it was there's no we are stupid because wow i had a fantastic time it was it has to be i would i would venture to say that side quest side sesh episode six episode six right side quest side sesh episode six is the fastest hour and 22 minute episode that i've ever been a part of.

Like something happened to me in that episode where I was so in the zone and it was having so much fun that when that ended, I was shocked. I thought you ended the episode at like 56 minutes and I couldn't believe how much we had covered and how much we had done. It's a whole role playing episode playing around outside of the big event, and there's all these kind of mini-games happening. So, I want to kick it to you for a minute. Talk me through the prep of this, these mini-games. Like, is each game detailed in the book, or did you make up your own games? Did you do your own spins on it? Like,

how did this all come together yeah so there are three games in the book and i almost cut all of them i was just gonna like take you right to you know what will be this week's episode uh there's uh the the kebabs not even games the kebabs and the picture plants yeah so what was that so what was that about? Like, what is the – is it to show, like, cultural – like, because I know – I don't know what the mechanic is, but I know that there's a mechanic happening in the back, behind the scenes. There is a mechanic happening in the background.

And so, you know, if you partake and you do well, you're gaining things that are going to help you later in the adventure. So it's sort of like cultural points, kind of like people are liking you, like- Yeah, basically, yeah. Because I didn't know if it was like, if you make it right and eat it, you get a plus two to strength for the day or something, but it wasn't like that, right? No, you're gaining points that can help you with something later in the adventure. I can totally reveal that because it's done now. You either did it or you didn't do it.

And if you succeed, there is really no drawback. Well, I guess you could have your hand bitten off. So the snapping turtle lottery is in there and the caterpillar art is in there. There's no archery contest and no stand-up comedy stage or no stage even. Oh, yeah. When he said that he wanted to do that

thing i was like oh i'll combine that idea with the caterpillar art but then you guys just had these ideas and i was like i'll just say yes to whatever they want to do and figure out how to make it weird and uh we got there pretty easily but i almost cut all of this i was just kind of like let's just get past this i'm so glad that we didn't because i hadn't really prepared anything other than just knowing the basic mechanics of like dipping the thing in. What do you have to roll? What the check is? I just thought we had a lot of fun doing it. So much fun. I'm so glad that I did it because I really – I wasn't going to do it. But 10 minutes in, I'm like, oh my God, what the hell was I thinking? This is so fun. No, it's amazing. And I can tell you flat out, that was one of my favorite episodes

we've done. I had an absolute blast. And if I, pardon me, if I was in your position and you've got to do, well, I guess we can't say how long SideQuest SideSession is going to be, but knowing what I know about how long Pathfinder scenarios are and how much time we're covering with side quest side session until the release of Gatewalkers, I would absolutely cut that part. I would cut that part because I would need to keep the action moving. I need to keep this to a certain amount of episodes that I have in my head

for like what it would need to be. And this stuff is just totally unnecessary. When you talk about necessity for the story, it's not necessary for the story. It's just kind of a fun side thing to do. So I definitely would have cut it. And I loved it more than anybody. So it just goes to show you, like, be careful because sometimes if you go in and something you think is going to be boring can totally explode into a great time if you let the players run wild. And it really brings the world to life even more. I mean, people always look back to Feast of Ravenmoor and what we did with that.

So much of what brought that town to life is when you guys were just, you know, goofing off. And this really gave you a chance to learn a little bit about the culture, some of which is in the book and some of which I'm just making up to weird you guys out. And, you know, also let the characters develop a little bit, see what they're interested in doing, what they're interested in partaking in. And in that respect, just a home run app. So funny. I mean, dude, you've said two of the funniest lines I think you've said in the history of the network. It's the kind of line where like I was laughing but i'm just more like you know like man that is so yeah so funny i just i appreciate that kind of humor in a way

that doesn't it makes me laugh in a deep way that isn't even verbal i'm like oh oh like when you hear a comedian just crush a joke you're like ah that is just so funny yeah yeah i i definitely we've talked about that before that feeling where like you don't even necessarily laugh out loud you're just like oh like your brain is trying to catch up with how deeply deeply funny that is uh i don't know what you're talking about i remember there was the one about i don't see a penis but i'm ready to dance i mean it just i made this whole thing up about the penis and everything about how the stamen is just a giant penis exploding. And you'd already made a penis joke, but like, you're just shit talking this Archer.

And he's like, you want to go? You're like, I don't see a penis, but I'm ready to dance. I mean, connecting it to the narrative in a way that was shit talking. And it was just, it was so, so funny. It broke me. It broke me. I would make that a t-shirt, but no one would wear it. Yeah.

I don't see a penis, but I'm ready to dance. I mean, that is a t-shirt that you just can't wear, unfortunately. Even the cumstone t-shirt we have, like I specifically told the artist, I'm like, you got to write cumstone in a way where you can't really read it. But people who know, know. Because I'm like, no one's gonna wear a shirt that's cum stone on it oh man uh good stuff well um i think i'm just gonna wrap it up there i know it's a short five this week guys we apologize but like we said uh busy week we got a lot going

on and we're excited to uh spend this time playing games for you all so that's what we're going to focus on now for the rest of the week. And then heading into Gen Con reminder, no cannon fodder next week, uh, as it is Gen Con week. And there will be a ton of other content for you to consume during that time. Uh,

so very much looking forward to seeing you guys live from Gen Con. Uh, sorry, you'll miss the FOD, but we'll be back August 9th, Wednesday, August 9th. Look for the FOD to return. I know I'll be back. Wednesday, August 9th. Look for the FOD to return.

I know I'll be back. I can't promise Troy. He might not survive Gen Con. It's no joke. It's very possible. It's very possible. It sadly is no joke. I'm just going to pass out in a St. Elmo's shrimp cocktail.

Yes. That's the beauty of the shrimp cocktail. It's like a place where you can pass out when it's all over. Well, that's going to do it, everybody. I hope you have a fantastic week. I hope everyone has a great weekend. Enjoy SideQuest SideSesh tomorrow night, Haunted City tonight. All right, let me go in order.

Haunted City tonight, Glass Cannon Labs Dragon Bay character creation tomorrow afternoon. Tomorrow night, SideQuest SideSesh continues with Episode 7 and possibly a little penis dancing friday night is vast grim character creation monday night is rune quest tuesday night is get in the trunk episode four and then we're we're heading to gen con got one more haunted city before thursday and every day after that all day and all night pretty much content content content shows fun awesomeness. We look forward to seeing you guys as part of all of it. Take it easy. Have a good one.

And we'll see you in two weeks. Bye. What have I done? 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 glasscanon.