The Glass Cannon Podcast - Cannon Fodder 8/23/23

Episode Date: August 23, 2023

Troy and Joe crack a cold one after a long day at the Actual Play factory and do a little Fod in-person at GCN Studios! They discuss GCP Campaign II Session Zero, exciting news about changes to the GCN Twitch channel, and the plans for this year's Glass Cannon Christmas Party. In We Are Stupid, they debate whether or not you can use your reaction before your first turn of combat. 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's going on, everybody? Welcome back to Cannon Fodder. It is Wednesday, August 23rd, 2023, and I'm your old pal, Joey O'Brien. And I'm Troy. Let's go La Valle! Beer o'clock, bro!

Oh, this is going to be good. How about a little, uh... Oh, let me get in on that. Oh, yeah! Oh, there she is! Oh! A little clink! Hey, ho! Everybody, you are, uh...

Honestly, this is kind of rude. You're interrupting happy hour here at Glass Cannon Studios. Yeah, we're here. We're here in person after a long day of Gatewalkers recording. Oh, man. Couple long days. Couple of long days. A lot of Fs.

Man, getting into the story. Can't talk about it at all, which is sad and rough. But we got plenty else to talk about. It's going to be awesome. And we said we got to sit down and record a FOD. Help it in ice cold brew like the old days of the FOD. Yep. It's happy hour, like you said. It's four o'clock. We're recording this at

four o'clock on a Tuesday. And that's happy hour here in the Power Zone. I waited until you were taking a sip so you would choke. He was making these Power Zone jokes while we were doing soundcheck. Welcome to the Power Zone. We don't have a name for the new studio.

We had the attic, and then we had the sex dungeon or the dungeon. Yeah. And so I just said, so it's called the Power Zone. The Power Zone. Yeah, it's awesome. It's great to be chilling here with you, doing a little FOD, having a little end-of-the-day beer, which is great. But it's also kind of sad, because you doing a little FOD. Yeah. Having a little end of the day beer, which is great, but it's also kind of sad because all our friends left.

All our friends. They got out of here real fast. Yeah. Like we were, we were playing with everybody and we were like, Hey, does anybody want to stick around and do a little FOD? And it was like,

ah, see, I got to go. Bye. I just heard the door close. I think I, I think I have a taxi downstairs. Everybody peaced on out.

The lights are now all on. The stage lights are off uh the air conditioning is off oh yeah i forgot about that and yeah it's just uh it's just us now and our old pal mcd on the ones and twos mcd's working the audio mcd thank you so much for working the audio this is awesome you um you came back from the store and you handed him a six pack of yingling and then we're drinking some other half green city. So like, we're just having a great time. What a silly job.

What a ridiculous, ridiculous job. I saw an old friend of mine yesterday, a friend from college. Physically old? No, she's younger than I am. But we were really close in college because she was on the speech team with me. So we were competitors together. college because she was on the speech team with me. So we were competitors together. And she is an attorney in Philadelphia and had a case where she had to come to my neighborhood in Cranford, to my municipal court, which is wild. She was like, do you want to meet up for a coffee after?

I was like, sure. So we met up for coffee and she's like, so how's your job? And I'm just like, I wouldn't call it a job compared to you who like just got out of a case, you know. So it is rather strange to also like, you know, she is dressed to the nines and like a suit and everything. And I just roll up in like T-shirt shorts. It's just ridiculous. I'm thinking in like a year and a half, maybe two years, I'm going to be I want to do suit every day. Suit every day. Full three piece suit on the road.

I want to come out while all you guys are dressed like schlubs. Suit. It's the best. I've always wanted to be a suit guy. My wife laughs at me. She's like, you've never taken your hat off in the 12 years that we've known each other. Suit guys are the best. I love, like what I want to do is full on, you know, we're in NFL training camp right now.

So I got NFL on the brain. Yeah. I want to walk into full on. We're in NFL training camp right now, so I got NFL on the brain. I want to walk into these venues full on NFL style. Three-piece suit, big headphones on, just carrying kind of like a man purse that has only the things I need for that night. And $1,500 Louis Vuitton. Sunglasses at 8 o'clock at night and just, like, walking up the street to the venue. Cameras following me everywhere. Dude, we could make that mandatory.

That's what they do in the NBA. It's like, guys, I'm sorry. We're changing the dress code now. Backstage, you need to be, like, dressed to the nines. Yeah. How badass would we look if we all rolled out on that stage in suits? We're so close to having our own individual camera person following us around every second of the day. That's how you make content, man.

That's how you make content. Well, speaking of content, we've got a juicy FOD for today. Lots to talk about. We're going to talk about what we did today, which is going to be great. We're going to talk about this Friday, which is the first time everybody's going to get the real deep mechanical insight into the new characters for Campaign 2 for Gatewalkers. This Friday, Session Zero, we're going to talk about that.

Also, some updates to Twitch are coming. We'll talk about that. We've got some tour updates, a new show on sale, tickets released for a sold-out show. I mean, this is just phenomenal. And then, of course, I'd love to do a little debate sesh for We Are Stupid as we look back at SideQuest Side Sesh Episode 10. Little We Are Stupid dip! Little We Are Stupid dip! But, you know, you said we couldn't talk about what we've been up to, but I think we could talk a little bit about it because it's pretty exciting.

All right. I think it's very exciting. It's all I want to talk about. I am forced to talk about the tour. I have no interest right now. I want to talk about Gatewalkers nonstop. You know what's funny too? I saw a comment somewhere.

I can't remember where it was, but somebody was like, I wish they would just shut up about Gatewalkers. I'm so tired of hearing about it. Somebody said that? Yeah, somebody said that. And I get it.

You're hearing a lot and you're not seeing anything. It's kind of like, give it a rest. But to be honest, it's just been such a huge part of our every day for the last four or five solid months that uh it being this close to being shared with everybody

is very exciting and us being now deep into actual recording is so exciting so yeah talk to me about today what would you think about today i mean today let me go back even further to the state of the pod i mean people are fired up the videos that i mean state of the pod had a great audience you could tell people were excited about that i did a little q a afterwards on the discord then we dropped those videos each individual like hangout session uh with me and all the performers talking about their character those videos exploded exploded on youtube they've got about 15 000 views each so you can tell people are hungry for it. So while this one dude is like, I'm tired of

gatewalkers, I think they're tired of hearing about it and not seeing anything. Also, I saw that comment two months ago. It wasn't like while the content is imminent. It was when you and I were on fodder being like, we're so excited for gatewalkers. Yeah, but now it's here. Teeth are floating because we're dropping stuff, and I think you're going to see that again

when Session Zero comes out this Friday, which we'll talk about in a second. But, you know, behind the scenes, while we had recorded Episode 1, I don't know, that was pre-Gen Con. Pre-Gen Con. Pre-Gen Con. There was a break. I don't think we had recorded two or three yet. No. Last week.

We recorded Episode 2 last week after Gen Con. Episode 2, 3, 4, 5, six, seven, and eight. Yeah. We have been in the studio a lot over the past week and a half because of vacations and schedules that just so happened that we're getting into the groove. We want to get a bunch under our belt before the premiere on September 14th. And so we've just been at it. And wow.

It feels like we're fucking in it now. We're in a new campaign. Yeah. Yeah. Which is great. And I look forward to going back over it on the FOD when it's released. You and I have talked a lot about this. The new show is going to be on YouTube. It's going to premiere on YouTube on Thursday nights, starting September 14th. And there's going to be a video cannon fodder companion, right? That's the plan. Cannon fodder is going to move to video as well. We're still figuring out

the nuts and bolts of how that's going to work. I don't think it's going to be live. We can't commit to that schedule right now. I wish we could. Call in and take callers. But I think the plan is for that to be live and not live and not be live i think literally the exact opposite of what you just it's not gonna be live

but i think the plan is it's gonna be live no uh the plan is for it to be a video uh show as well as a podcast that will drop on the same day whereas the the glass cannon podcast is now gonna be the same day fodder drops now the same day day fodder drops now, whereas GCP is going to drop on Fridays now. So you can watch the premiere at 8 o'clock. And if you miss the premiere, the VOD will be straight to YouTube. And then the podcast will drop Friday at midnight on the East Coast. And then you'll have a couple days to digest it before you and I hop on the video and really talk about mechanics and everything else

along with the last 10 minutes. Yeah, our feelings of the episode, the session, what we remember, all that stuff. So we'll be talking all about it again in great detail. But suffice to say right now, we're just on cloud nine. Yeah. Being in this room, playing with this group, playing K-Walkers, it's awesome.

So we were in here Saturday. It was our first Saturday recording. Yeah. We're going to be in like one Saturday a month is kind of the plan right now and we had a it was about a nine hour day we were here and it was it was the best i texted you guys later that night because i couldn't stop thinking about it and i try to tell sam when i get home i'll be like i'm gonna tell all things that happen i could tell she's like she's excited for me but just can't she wasn't there she gets doesn't have no idea what the hell's going on. So I texted you guys. I'm like, that

to me, what we did on Saturday, it just felt like the old days. It just felt like the old days. And we haven't had that feeling in a long time. And so I think the audience is going to feel that as well. Hopefully people that have maybe moved on or taken a break from the Glass Cannon will flock back

to our banner because it feels like the old days again yeah so great to be in the room with everybody and to uh just you know feel those reactions immediate you know the way that the the comedy rolls out and everything and then also you know not to uh delve into sponsorships too much but the sponsors that have helped us put this on you know their tools are awesome And that is changing our game too. It's immersing us in a way that we haven't necessarily been before. We have access to, and look, honestly, the whole landscape of digital tools for RPG gamers has changed a ton since 2015.

Oh my God. And so we are experiencing that really for the first time all together. And it's just elevating the whole game. It's making everything so much more fun for us. Yeah, I mean, I'm so jazzed up about Foundry. Foundry has been a revelation for me. And like I said, I've been using it for a while now, but not actually playing with it until we did SideQuest, SideSesh.

I was just like sitting there masturbating with it, as one would say. Yeah, as is tradition. When you're playing with it by yourself, you're just masturbating with that digital tool. But it's nice to finally get in there and see you guys get wowed by the things that i've been excited to show you i mean we really got to jump into it in an episode that we recorded i know and i can't say anything you can't say anything but like to see it work the way that i intended

it to work and now i'm also feeling a lot more confident behind the scenes in my prep to kind of play around with the maps the the because there's some stuff on the maps like i don't care for what they did here i'm going to change it like i feel a lot more confident behind the scenes in my prep to kind of play around with the maps the the because there's some stuff on the maps like i don't care for what they did here i'm going to change it like i feel a lot more confident with the tools and i'm gaining confidence by the day and i'm seeing you guys do the same thing with demi plane demi plane is just changing the game uh in terms of how you interact with your uh character creation software and then of course we get our beautiful dice which uh for some people today we're rolling really really well i'm spoiling i'm spoiling too much i don't want to say too much but it was just one of those sessions in general where it was really one-sided and then the momentum shifted and you could feel it and

the die shifted with the momentum horrifying uh but wow what a, wow, what an awesome day. All right, let's talk about Campaign 2 Session 0. Goodness. What are you talking about? What am I? We released character videos. We've already met the characters. There were five Session 0s. There were.

What is this? It is time to start getting into the nuts and bolts of the Pathfinder 2E mechanics. Okay. We are jumping on. I mean, we recorded this a while ago as well because we needed to. We are jumping onto Demiplane, and we are building the characters mechanically. Okay, what skills are you rocking? What skills are you rocking?

All right, what bonuses do you get to your class? We really dive into the nitty-gritty. It's going to be a nice, chunky episode where you're going to get plenty of band, plenty of conversation. Now, all of us together, instead of just the one-on-one with me and one of the performers, you're getting all of us together talking about the excitement and characters, and then diving

into the straight-up mechanics, which, you know, mechanics nerds will love it. But I think even if you're not into the game, you'll find it very interesting, because the characters start to take shape when you see what they're good at and what they excel at. And also understand this was the first time every other player heard anything about the other characters.

That's right. Nobody saw everybody else's character video before this session zero. So this is the first time we're starting to build the party. And I believe, not 100% sure, but I believe, I may be speaking only for myself, you'll see changes from the initial concept that was delivered in the character intro video to what ends up happening in session zero. There are adjustments that are made once you see what the other characters are, what they're putting their points in.

Maybe you wanted to shift this concept or that a little bit. Overall, I think Ancestry and Class across the board, they're all the same. Big decisions like that. But the way that you kind of built it, I know I made after uh hearing everybody's character which you know is like i can't not i obsess over everybody's character and how it should all fit together so yeah that's what that's what session zero is and you're going to see that live on twitch this friday which is freaking great i remember when we finished recording it being like that was a lot of fun and they're gonna fucking love it yeah so that i hope they do i'll be and they're going to fucking love it. Yeah. So that,

that'll be, I hope they do. I'll be out. That's going to be on Twitch and that'll be the last sort of a gate walkers related content campaign to related content. It'll be on Twitch because when the show launches on Thursday, September 14th, that's on YouTube.

Um, but speaking to Twitch, we got something else we're cooking up. Yes. Speaking of Twitch, another exciting change coming this Friday, uh, to Twitch, uh, for coming this Friday to Twitch.

For those of you that may want to watch this character creation session, this session zero, but are not going to be able to make it live. For those of you that have been wanting to check out Glass Cannon Labs, the several Glass Cannon Labs we've done over the course of this year. We are, and this is, by the way, spearheaded by McD, I should say, who is our community manager, really focused on community, and felt that this would be a really great time to share some of this content with members of the nation that are not able to see it live or on a regular basis. And so, correct me if I'm wrong, McD, but I believe as of this Friday, we are going to remove VOD restrictions from our Twitch channel

and allow anybody through the remainder of this year, anyone can view our VODs on Twitch. Yeah, that's the plan. You know, it was a couple weeks ago I was looking at our Gen Con content because I like to see like where our video, our VODs are faring compared to other videos in the Pathfinder category, in the Tabletop category, or anything else that we like lock into a specific category. I like to see where do our VODs land

because after Gen Con, all of our videos were like flooding the internet. And that helps us, I mean, flooding the sort of like top videos on demand. And so that helps, you know, as people are like, oh, what are the top videos? Oh, wow, a lot of stuff from the, who's the Glass Cannon Network? We hope that we attract people that way. But I noticed that there were people that had videos with more views than us.

And sometimes that happens. That happens a lot, actually. There's European people we've never heard of, other podcasts. I'm like, I've never heard of this show. And I think one of the reasons because of that, this came up in one of our Monday meetings, is because we locked the VODs. And the reason we do that is we're just trying to incentivize subscribers to our Twitch. You get a lot of other benefits as a Twitch subscriber. And if you have Amazon Prime, you can get it for free if you choose to use it on our channel.

But we want to make sure those benefits are there because the Twitch revenue is a nice source of revenue for us. It helps us bring on more employees and grow. But at the same time, we think that we could be inhibiting growth by keeping the VODs locked. So it's a real tough line to tread. So what we're going to do is we're going to unlock it between, you know, Friday and the end of the year and really use it as an experiment and see. And so those Glass Cannon Labs are only available, like you said, as VODs. Those are all going to be unlocked. And you can go back and watch every single one that we've done all year because we made highlights of those videos. So they didn't disappear after the 30, 60-day window. Anyone can go on there.

And I think it'll be an interesting experience. And so to counter that, we're also going to try and do some cool things for subscribers because we still want people to subscribe. We just don't want – we'd love to be in a world where we don't have to keep the VODs restricted. connects with them in a way that premiering these episodes, these pre-recorded episodes, does not necessarily interact with the live chat in a way that we like to. And even Glass Cannon Labs, I absolutely love it. And I love doing it live. And I love that there's people there. But look, I've run a bunch of games of Alien on that, in addition to Cimberum. You can't interact with the chat while you're trying to run that game. You know what I mean?

There's just so much going on. And so I wish we could do it a little bit more. So what we're thinking of is some content ideas that we're kicking around that are just not TTRPG, super intense, take your focus away from the audience kind of stuff. And what could we do on that channel that has a little bit more interaction with people? And so that's what we're going to be looking to experiment with through the rest of the year. So keep an ear out on the FOD for more info about that and get excited to

start complaining about how you won't have access to that. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it is a catch 22, but I applaud McD for pushing this. I think that it's great for our community to be able to get access to our TTRPG content without having to subscribe to it if it's financially too difficult for them.

I would love to share that content with them. Yeah, like if we could unlock this for our Patreon subscribers, we would. If there was any sort of functionality, that would absolutely be an available tier. It's just right now that functionality doesn't exist. But at the same time, we can't just hemorrhage all of the Twitch revenue because it does help us. It pays salaries. Yeah, you know, it pays it pays for the people that work here. And so it's very, very important to, you know, maintain that as much as possible. So if you are a Twitch subscriber, or a very loyal subscriber, we appreciate you so much. We're not saying that, yeah,

we don't need that anymore. Like that is not at all where we're at. What we are saying is we want to try to think of something that's going to be even more specifically geared to something you would enjoy. And so, yeah, that's what we're going to keep thinking about. And we'll be back to you when we have more on that. But as of this Friday, VODs will be unlocked. So go ahead and check out Glass Cannon Labs if you haven't before. Check out Campaign 2 Session 0 if you miss it. Yes. And which will hit YouTube and podcast a week later. So there's going to be a week for this one.

I can't wait a week, Troy. I know. So now you'll be able to listen to it, but the podcast will hit the GCP podcast feed the following Friday, and the video will hit YouTube. So you'll get to see it either way, but if you just can't wait for that video. But, dude, you know, for my for my money like there's nothing better than i like if labs was on youtube i would not enjoy it as much as watching the twitch

vod because i love being able to see the chat replay as well like that whole audience being there and reacting live to things is a huge part of it and so i can't wait to see what people are going to have to say about session zero Zero. I cannot wait to see. And so actually my wife is just like, save Friday night. I want to do something. And I was like, cool. Instead of saying what I really wanted to say, which is like, I'm not doing that. I'm going to watch this.

But I know that whatever we put together, she's going to go to bed at like 9 o'clock. So I'm just going to immediately slip away just like hang out with people watching Session Zero because I'm so excited I lurk constantly but I'm lurking under the glass cannon because I don't have I probably have a Tour of the Valley Twitch but I never log in it's the perfect work because you are a lurker

I just lurk and I watch you don't just hang out with people you lurk well I just you guys have your own Twitch channels I would have to log out of the glass cannon one it's such a pain in the penis to re-log back in you do Chrome profiles, man.

You guys have been trying to push Chrome profiles for a long time, and I don't think they exist. You are like my dad. I don't like them. All right, let's get a quick tour update before we dig into SideQuest Side Session and a little We Are Stupid. New show went up. It's a holly jolly Christmas this year year back again in philadelphia ladies and gentlemen best show of the year my favorite certainly my favorite indie show is probably always the best of the year uh that video uh hopefully came out today uh that was the plan um but man the philly show christmas forget about it

and those tickets went on sale and cooked. Fastest sales of the year. Last week they went on sale. On Friday, right? Yep. Last Friday they went on sale. We're recording this Tuesday. They're half gone.

Yep. Over half. Half the tickets are gone. Over half. Over half, yep. Is that true, McDermott? He's so low key. I'm expecting him to yell at me.

He had two yinglings in his hand. I imagine just like to yell at me. He had two yinglings in his hand. Like Stone Cold Steve Austin. Yeah, it is more than half sold, which is phenomenal. 80% of VIP, gone. Actually, this friend that I talked to was like, so, another friend of ours, reached out to me and was like, you know, Joe, it looks like he's coming to Philadelphia. I was looking at his social media, and she has never seen me before. She's one of my best friends. She's never been to one of these shows. She has interest in gaming she doesn't yeah uh and she's like i

think we're going to come and see you this year and i was like i'm not trying to be an obnoxious asshole but you got to kind of get on it it's like it's going to sell it's actually going to sell out uh and i've used my car and she was like and city winery holy shit you know so it is it's a great venue people in philly know that venue and so yeah it's just a cool place so shit. So it is. It's a great venue. People in Philly know that venue. And so, yeah, it's just a cool place. So please come. And it is a Christmas party for the whole nation. Oh, my God. Don't forget.

Wear your Christmas sweater. I'm usually in a onesie. It's a good time. Exactly. Exactly. That venue was sick last year. Now we're playing three City Wineries in a row. So I'm excited.

Boston is going to be in a couple of weeks. We might sell out Boston dude you know taking a little time off from Boston was a great idea I'm so glad we did it

there's like 30 something tickets left please Boston that crowd is so rowdy oh my god it's my homecoming show you know it's like you in Philly

and then we got St. Louis and Chicago last week St. Louis sold out but then the venue you know why I love Boston? Because it's like Asheville, but just more Irish.

Like it's just as fired up, but like it's all Irish people. They're good. You usually have a little too many, which is fun. It's like one of the only ones where I really do these days. I reserve that one show a year where like... I mean, I think it's in the hype video. It's just like me carrying a case of beer on the stage.

It's the show where you threw out your arm cheering for yourself. For myself. Yeah, because you were so like dehydrated from drinking. That's the only reason. My arm came right out of its socket. I mean, yeah, I always say it's one of my favorite shows, if not my favorite, just because of the crowd. And I feel like it's the one crowd that likes me.

And then October. So we got St. Louis and Chicago. St. Louis was sold out. And then the house manager reached out to me last week and was like, yo, we can open up the wall to release 60 more tickets if you want. And I was like, well, let's do it. We've got three months before that show. There are people who missed out on these. Even if we don't sell all 60, because I like the idea of the sellout, let's do it. We've got three months before that show. There are people who missed out on these. Even if we don't sell all 60, because I like the idea of the sellout, let's put them up.

So there were 60 more tickets that were released, and we still had VIPs left, like 25 VIPs. So grab those. Chicago, you're doing better. You're doing better, but you have to do a lot better, or we won't be back for at least two years, if ever. If ever. You heard it here first which is so sad because i'd be like new york i'm never playing new york again dude new york makes you feel bad about yourself guaranteed we will not play new york in 2024 actually i never put that together before that is very new york of new york yep it's just like you're not good enough it's all

talk though like yeah i can hang out saturday night that's new york that's the new york crowds and then we put up tickets like oh i can't i gotta think fuck so we're not doing new york this year and i have no plans on doing new york next year i just sent our tour manager my 2024 plan and there's no new york on there so fuck you new york chicago do you want to be in there do you want to be in there do Do you want to be in there? Do you want to wait until 2026? Try me, Chicago. Try me. This is clearly our first FOD with a beer in a while. This is fantastic.

I'll fire it up. I'll fire it up. Did you just buy single cans? I just bought two single cans. That's good. It's for the best. Yeah. Speaking of which, we should probably share that we're drinking Other Half Green City.

Yeah. Brooklyn Zone. Double hazy IPA. Brooklynlyn zone other half green city great great great beer that was recommended to me by my brother-in-law russ uh who i hope is listening right now thank you russell have you been to the brewery i have not oh it's great yeah i would love to go there actually yeah it's you could go right now um we should do a field trip that's like we're making content i'm doing uh finger quotes right now. We have to do content for the network. If we did that, we should... Oh, McD's got

his... He's sneaking in there. Oh, he wants a second. No, I still have full beer. He was like bringing me a yingle. He's bringing us yingles. A little fresh yingle. I'm never going to turn down a fresh yingle. A little lager, John. Yeah, sure. I guess some of the local stuff.

Some of the local stuff. of the local if we did a field trip we should do it at single cut have you been to single cut mcd you could talk uh no where do you even go yeah no i haven't it's right down the street and we are yeah our studio our old studio was even closer and we never went as a group yeah it uh yeah no we never went as a group i went with nick lowe multiple times i don't know if we ever went mcd to single cut we may have no no i found out about one of my favorite board games i've ever played at single cut they have board games yeah yeah roll through the ages i played i was with you and your father-in-law we played yes well mcd the reason i ask is as community manager i think there's one community you're neglecting, which is the employees.

You're right. I do basically nothing for you guys. I think we need a field trip. I mean, Mick D comes up from Philly every single time we record in the studio. It's amazing. And he's in here now because CJ, who usually does the audio, is on vacation. And McDermott's in there handling all the audio, doing all the map stuff, handling checks for pickups,

things we need to fix at the end of the show, and then also has to get out 19 social posts during that time. Yeah, that's true. I got to get back to that. He's wearing a double. Poor Francis worked the double last night, too. He was here until midnight

and then showed back up at 8 a.m. Dude, you know what Francis was working on? What is francis working on voyagers of the jump season two the jump the jump uh what going on this last year you know as the year ended we had so much going on i was just kind of like that's dust coming out of an old man's penis it's like nothing and then blood of the wild started coming and now there's too much content. This year, we've made it a point to make sure that the content machine will keep rolling. People don't like when I say content machine, but you know what? It is gross.

It's heartless. It's soulless. That's what it is. But we are a content machine. Yeah, but that's not something to aspire to. No? What you should aspire to is making one beautiful thing. We make a lot of beautiful things.

We're like Picasso and Van Gogh if they met up with Salvador Dali and Frito-Cola and then hung out at a dinner with Jesus and Gandhi. That explains us. and Gandhi. That explains us. If you ever needed the Glasgow Network summed up in a modest one sentence, I think that would be it. It's no wonder certain people hate us. Oh, boy. Well,

dude, I don't want to stop doing this at all. This is fantastic. Well, this is what they this is what this puts asses in the seats. This is great, though, because like some I think there'll be a point where we could do some cannon fodders in here for the new cannon fodder. in the seats. This is great, though, because I think there'll be a point where we could do some cannon fodders in here for the new cannon fodder. Oh, I presume we'll be doing several

in here. Timing will work out in such a way that we can do that, but we want to keep them fresh. We can't pre-record cannon fodders like we can other shows, because cannon fodder needs to be much more immediate. And cut, it's August, dude, and we've done it. We said we were going to do it pretty much every Tuesday we record the next day's cannon fodder. Yeah, it's we said in january like let's try to stick to

this you know and and we've had like a week off i think uh gen con week um but otherwise yeah we've been we've been rocking and rolling on the fod which is freaking great um all right let's uh let's talk a little side quest side session um i was i was listening to this week's episode uh remember now i'm spread really thin yeah i'm playing legacy of the ancients i'm playing blood of the wild i'm running get in the trunk i am playing in uh gatewalkers are you enjoying any of this yeah i'm enjoying all of it but like i'm so in the zone that like we actually uh haven't recorded side quest side session like six weeks almost yeah it's like i'm so in the zone that like we actually uh haven't recorded side quest side session like six weeks almost yeah it's like way before gen con we had to like get way ahead and we did and now tomorrow we're recording next week's episode right so if you're listening to

this now we are recording so we have we know as much of the story as you do right now yeah side quest side set i know a little more and so i was listening to remind myself of where we are you know get caught up and everything like that and i just couldn't help loving side quest side sesh like as you know as i'm re-listening to it it's different than gatewalkers it is a different sort of vibe different feeling and the freedom and looseness with which i am i feel and approach the game uh is something I really, really enjoy. And so I'm loving it. And I'm going to be sad when it ends.

But that's a good thing. You know what I mean? It's like great things should come in small packages. And there will be another time for SideQuest SideSesh, which I very much so am looking forward to after listening. I feel like 210 was a quintessential side quest, side sesh kind of episode where we played the game, we did the mechanics, we moved through the story. We didn't just shit around, but man, did we laugh a lot.

And we were goofy. But you know what I mean? All at the same time. It was great. It came at the right time for us. You know, we were on the fence for a long time. We knew we we wanted to like slow down on strange aeons so that we could really focus on gatewalkers but

i'm such a stickler for making sure that there's still content going i don't want to take weeks off especially where it's been so long since giant slayer ended and this was like a real and i don't want to say risk for us but we were really on the fence like do we really want to add this to our workload especially with is it going to take away from other stuff that's really what it comes down to because at the end of the day we enjoy playing games but when you're playing 15 different games it can sometimes it takes away yeah dilutes um but we we did it and i'm i'm so glad and the general vibe that i'm getting i see it in the comments on the youtube videos. I see it on Reddit. There was a post last week someone talking about like, man, what a great

idea to bring back SideQuest, SideSesh. It's just been a great palette cleanser and really gets us back to a special time. It's impossible to capture the first season of SideQuest, SideSesh. You know, it's impossible to capture Why try? What's happening in the world. But we found a way to kind

of do it. That vibe of silly. Strange Islands is silly, but it has gravitas. This is silly, too. And nobody told Jared that. Yeah. We weren't like, when you make your character, make sure that. And Jared hates silly. Yes.

You know, he was pretty clear that at Session Zero's A Blood of the Wild, he was like, I'm not interested in playing a silly campaign. Like, I really want to delve into these characters. do i want to have comedy and laugh all the time absolutely but i don't want you to be a teddy bear leshy right exactly like i don't just want to be goofy for goofy's sake so nobody told him that and he makes rufus who is a an interesting deep weird character who is also happens to be hilarious and uh and i feel like a lot of us have gone down that path you know uh um balthazar is a very serious and very strange character who is so twisted and hilarious you know what i mean all at the same time and carazor is just an iconic character on the network so there's just a lot of great stuff coming out of it and i felt like i felt like this weekend this week's episode just really captured a lot of that because we got into

exploration we got into you know moving in these caves and you're doing clearly what are like little mini games in the in the adventure and having us roll different skill checks as we're passing through let me ask you about that first so yeah as you're looking at this module uh you were passing through these like difficult difficult cave areas and stuff. You choose. Do you want to do acrobatics to finally move along the edges? Do you want to do athletics to just jump over it? Do you want to do whatever?

And now you have to move through this intense briar patch. Do you want to – you got to use survival to figure out or nature for how to get rid of these things? you got to use survival to figure out or nature for how to get rid of these things. When you are preparing this or even what you're looking at in the pre written, what are the failure options for a full total failure of the whole party? Cause you obviously have to move things along. So like,

what do you do? Is it, what's the penalty if everybody fails? They're all just like damage. Is it just like you lose time? They were all different. Like, uh,

you know, I don't want to lift the veil too much because you haven't finished the adventure yet. But obviously we finished those obstacles. You did finish those obstacles. And I mean, I think the general penalty for these particular ones that you're dealing with is just damage. So it weakens you up for the fight that you're about to encounter. For the following encounter. And to you guys' credit, because my fear is that someone is just going, because imagine when you're playing society play,

there just must be a couple dweebs who are like, I would like to heal every second that I take damage. And I applaud you guys for leaning into it and just being like, oh, all right, so we can't. And so I was trying to impress upon you, like, listen, if you want to stop, you can, but there'll be penalties. And there are penalties that are written in there and others that I came up with because I really want you to keep moving.

If you take a little damage, you'll just be a little weaker for the next fight. And you guys leaned into it. But for these particular ones, I'm just looking here to make sure. Yeah, it's damage. It's just worse and worse damage.

And then like critical failures, add conditions that last for hours. Oh, okay. That's cool. Success is damage. Failure is more damage. Failure is more damage. Critical failure is more damage and a condition.

So like you could go through these and if you have a real rough go of it, you know, you're coming on the other side, beat up with, you know, straddled with several conditions. Yeah. Saddled with several straddled. That's disturbing. And this is why we love SideQuest SideSession. Well, I'll tell you what.

How about a little round of applause for us? Because Professor Eric reviews this entire episode, of which there are multiple rounds of combat. And we didn't do anything wrong, apparently. I feel like you're going to get the same thing out of Gatewalkers. I feel like we're cooking with gas. Maybe. Maybe. I do worry about gatewalkers

because obviously we're so far ahead like somebody's gonna catch something professor eric's gonna be like can't do this and we're gonna be like all right we'll fix that in 12 weeks yeah well we've got a couple of those things between episodes and you're very good at gatewalkers where if something seems too good to be true you're immediately like well that's 100 wrong it's so funny i i went to uh even today like this is why people online hate me and like i get it but like i would go to these guys after the the session i tell them flat out i'm like i don't like how powerful your character is you clearly did something wrong stop let me see your sheet and then i say let me see your sheet and uh and everybody is like

more than happy to and love showing me and they're like well yeah tell me if i'm doing something wrong you know what i mean like let's look into it and uh and i love and i honestly love it like i'm being facetious about how i approach it but i really am always i'm i always want to be a student of the game of every class of every ancestry i want to know like how are you getting those bonuses what is that build that that's allowing that to happen? And it's so much fun to see, you know, that kind of thing, to understand things about other classes that I never knew. And I was just like, when I learned it, I was like, I never knew that. I haven't played a fighter in 2E. And I was like, that is really cool to know. And honestly, it's something that I'm not going to forget. Because it's not like a weird, strange, like, outside ability.

This is something that all fighters have. And I am like, this is really interesting. Now I'm starting to see, from a game design perspective, how these classes are so different from each other and how they're built. It's not just about abilities. It's about proficiencies and how proficiency works at so many different tiers. It's getting really, really interesting to me as I get deeper into other classes. It's really fun. Yeah, I always feel like an outsider looking in because I don't play a lot. I certainly don't play a lot of 2E. I just run it.

And so when I hear you guys talk about it, talk about things, I'll just start looking it up. I'll look it up on Demiplane and I'll see like, oh, okay, that's how that works. Oh, that's interesting. You know, because what I'm, what I study, I'm studying just basic universal rules. I'm not studying like how the psychic class works. Right. So when people do things, I just, I go with trust until I hear different.

But if something sounds a little weird, I'll be looking at it. I'm like, oh, okay. What's that ability called? What's that spell called? I don't go with trust at all. I don't. You go the opposite. I don't.

Well, I just don't. It's not that I distrust everyone. It's that I don't put, I don't think about the person that's saying it at all. I just listen to what's being said. And I think like like how does that all you know piece together from a game design standpoint right from a character building standpoint and usually for everything that seems so good there's like a downside yeah and there was an incident with one of the characters on another day where i went after the session i said

how can you do that and the person person was like, hmm, like, you know, finger to the side of their nose because a little bit after this, I am going to be so weak from doing it that I can't do this for a while. That is so cool. I love hearing that. You know, I,

I try to not say that kind of stuff on air cause it drags things to a halt, but I do love learning about how, you know, all these different abilities, abilities synergize and balance. Yeah, the drawbacks. I think it's much more prevalent in 2E than we ever saw this in 1E. It's like there are some times you can stretch your powers to a new limit, but there is a tradeoff.

Like you're a little bit blah, blah, blah afterwards. I don't want to give away what's actually happening because I'm thinking of it. Even as we get into these deviant abilities, because this is a big part of the Gatewalkers Adventure Path. We were playing today and something came over like, oh my God, we forgot all about really, really cool stuff. We're like, yes, you now are super powerful, but there's always a chance X, Y, and Z could happen.

X, Y, and Z could happen. Well, it seems like we didn't make any mistakes. There is a topic that professor eric has brought before the class okay or debate which i i really appreciate i really love uh so let's get into it he writes uh this this question regarding reactions specifically when do you get your reaction okay so this is this is amazing because uh the in in the show uh in the episode you were so excited to show off the ability that king wapetes wapetes wabikis king wabikis had called insert it here uh what is it i think it's called insert it here insert it here which is uh yeah wabiki's

uh he's a party animal wait i've got his his stat block right here it was something where he can uh as an as an action or as a reaction his allies can move or something they can use their reaction to move during his turn uh yes i believe it is called squad tactics squad one action it's auditory and linguistic wabiki's directs his guards to a more strategic position each guard can spend their reaction to stride so and you were so excited about this yes and i was like but the problem is they don't have their reactions because they hadn't gone yet he had rolled the higher initiative and you were like, ah, fuck. And you retconned your whole turn, pulled it all back.

It basically ruined the combat for you. And we trounced the guards because of it. Yeah. So Professor Eric writes in and he says, regarding reactions before initiative, as long as you're generally consistent for both players and GM monsters, any ruling is fine. Yeah. players and GM monsters. Any ruling is fine. Yeah, I think over the past few years, the most common interpretation has evolved to unless one side was ambushed, everyone has their reaction before the first turn.

This is, again, just his opinion based on a ton of games with a lot of different players and different GMs, not just his his home game. However, he does acknowledge that it is still a hotly debated topic whenever it flares back up. I think the consensus is more based on, quote, it's typically more fun to get to use your reactions than not, and maybe a bit on GMs getting tired of arguing about it with players. So, hold on one more.

I got a lot, so yeah. All right, go ahead. It's made me think of stuff, because I think that the only reason we would think that you don't do it is a carryover from first edition. Nope. It's like the rules of Pathfinder. There's a part of our brain that makes us think like, oh, you don't get that because you're flat-footed until your turn starts.

You don't get it. I don't see that. Show me. The rules of the core rulebook of Pathfinder 2E, once your first turn begins, you gain your actions and reaction. Okay. You can use one reaction per round. Now. Once your first turn begins, you gain your actions and reaction.

You gain your actions and reaction, which is exactly what I was saying. Okay. So you were right, and I wouldn't change it. The core rulebook also says. Here we go. Your reactions let you respond immediately to what's happening around you the gm determines whether you can use reactions before your first turn begins depending on the situation in which the encounter happens so it is that actually

proceeds where it says on your first turn you get your actions reaction when i'm looking so what i was basing it off of was less of the reaction paragraph which is where this comes from and more on what we learned here on fodder about things like slowed the slowed condition right where it's like when you get slowed you don't lose an action in that current turn you don't regain one action when you would regain actions and so i always I always piled those together. Your three actions and your one reaction come to you at the start of your turn. And so that's what I was basing my initial reaction, so to speak, off of when in the episode I was like, I don't think you can do that. But I think that it is pretty clear that it is totally GM discretion on whether reactions happen before the combat or not.

And what Professor Eric is saying is, generally speaking, the community has decided that you can use your reactions before unless you are fully ambushed. Yeah. Like a real surprise attack kind of situation. Yeah, it's funny because you know that Paizo, this was like they were writing this and there was a little pushback. It was like, let's just make it super unclear. That's what they must do.

I mean, or super clear and it's ambiguous. Let's let GMs decide. Right, right. The GM determines whether you can use reactions before your first turn begins, depending on the situation in which the encounter happens. Next sentence. Once your first turn begins, you gain your situation in which the encounter happens. Next sentence. Once your first turn begins,

you gain your actions and reactions. So that's your general, or that's your specific. And the general, yeah. So what would you say? I think that I probably now, because my immediate thing when I heard you say the first thing is like, oh no, you were right. But now I think that like, no, they were ready

and they should be able to respond to wabiki's their king um just because they didn't go in the initiative it's it's unnecessarily hamstrings them especially in a fight when they just fell immediately you know it's less interesting of a encounter great i agree with you you're ready for me to blow your mind yeah what about when their turn comes one turn like the next, like it's Wabiki's. Then it's the next, then it's his turn. Then I,

the guards turn. Does he get a new reaction? All right. So it's round one. He has not acted yet. The guards have not acted yet. Wabiki's has to use his action and on Wabiki's turn. And then it comes to the guards turn.

No. Yeah. Wabiki's uses his action to squad tactics they both use their reaction if it's in the same round he doesn't get a second reaction you only get one reaction per round but it resets on your turn it does but i feel like the trade-off here is like if i'm going to use they used it early i used it early so starting at the second round yes when wabiki's goes and uses squad tactics do they get their reaction even though they have not had their next turn yet yes i think so because it's a new round you still get one

reaction per round and it refreshes at the first of the round whoever's going if you decide to uh allow reactions to happen before your turn then they're burned in that round and they reset at the top of the next round. Okay. Yeah, that's kind of like, are we all okay here with the fact that reactions are happening before someone's turn? Great. So now they're resetting at the top of a round. I think that's the only—because otherwise you'd be like, well, I should get another reaction, and I think it's better. Well, you have somebody who could, from squad tactics, move up, then have their turn, and immediately be ready for an AOO right after that.

And the reason that wouldn't work is you're basically saying there was a surprise round. I used my reaction in the surprise round, and I'm going to use it again in the first round. Right. It could get OP real fast, and the game is not meant to be that way. So yeah, that's how I would rule it, but you know what? Other GMs might rule it a different way. Totally. There are GMs that I imagine are just

like, eh, have fun, have seven reactions, I don't fucking care. Seven reactions, okay, I'm going to kill you anyway uh the yeah but ultimately i think that where professor eric comes down on it is the way that he comes down on most things professor eric is wise that's why we like professor he's wise his main fair his main point comes down to one simple word consistency you know whatever you do you know whatever it is just like be consistent and you can change it for a combat where it's clearly an ambush you know what i mean where your characters are so caught off guard you are not going to get your reactions before your first turn uh okay let's go back the only thing you know i did it with is being inconsistent

now now i've delved into this i'm 99 sure i did this against you what in strange aeons what episode 70 70 something okay episode 70 something earlier in the year outside the jail complex on the moon against the uh against the guard outside who fired a fireball. What was he? Not a wraith, not a goblin, a ghoul. Ghoul. And he got us all in a group. Yep. And then he shot a fireball at us. Yes.

You reactioned twice in that round. Why reactioned? No, just on the first one. But I had not acted yet. And I used a reactionary spell to divert some of that damage. Never occurred to me at the time. It's like, use a reaction. I did, you know, and now that you mention that, I do remember seeing comments being like,

you don't get a reaction until you start your turn. Really? Yeah, I did. I'm not, I'm 100% sure I saw that, but it never, like, sunk in, you know, sometimes you do something like, huh, huh, I don't really care, it was fun. Otherwise, I was gonna fuck them up with two fireballs in a row, so it was fine.

Oh, that was the other thing, is you cheated on the two fireballs in a row. Yeah, I think I did. You gave him a surprise round. Basically, yeah. Yeah. And then he rolled like a 29 initiative or a 32 initiative. I told you, the only thing I'm good about

being consistent with is inconsistency. Inconsistency. But you know where that inconsistency comes from? Lack of confidence in the rules. You know what I mean? Because my inconsistency, going back to Giant Slayer, is that sometimes I will read a thing a certain way,

prep a thing a certain way, and then when it starts to come out in play, realize that I completely fucking bungled the prep and the interpretation. And then when it goes to shit, I have no recourse but to start like trying to react on tilt to try and make up for the fact that I prepped the wrong way. And so that's where the inconsistency comes is because I'm not trying to cheat the system or like, fuck you guys.

I'm trying to make up for the fact that now you're about to annihilate an encounter that is not meant to be annihilated. Annihilated. It's supposed to be a fun, like, tricky encounter. And I'm not trying to kill you. I think a lot of people misinterpret it as like, Troy just wants to win, win, win. I could care less about winning. I actually love when you guys win. It makes my job a lot easier.

But it's about making sure that I'm providing the appropriate challenge. And when I fuck up the prep and then it I'm like oh my god they're gonna stop this in one round because I misread one thing that's when I start getting a little cheeky yeah I do the same thing I I never take any delight in in killing a character or winning a combat from the GM chair um but I get really, really upset when I don't feel like I've laid a proper challenge in front of the players. It really bothers me.

Yeah. So I do hate it when I mess up in their favor. I like it much more when I mess up in my favor in the sense that I don't like it. It makes me upset and I'm sad. Yeah. You know what I mean? But I'm like, I'm sorry, guys.

I'll make it up to you in another way. It's easier to make that up than it is to make up when your mistake made it too easy. Then when you try to correct it, it makes you look bad. And they can catch you on something and it stinks. This is why I don't relent a lot when people try to game like, oh, can I do this? Can I do that? And they seem like perfectly reasonable things but i'm just so worried that like if i say yes it's going to throw off the balance of something

that is already not like super hard it's going to make something way even easier yeah you know and you guys man spoiler alert for the gatewalkers uh they are you guys are coming right out of the gate trying to get it nickel and diamond me i'm like oh my god is this what's gonna be for 150 episodes and so i tend to provide more pushback because it's safer just to say no yeah but i'm trying to get better at saying yes in ways where i don't think it's going to be game breaking but man you guys are really you're really pushing it yeah saying no uh it's part of your job as a GM part of your job you gotta say no you can't say yes to everything it would ruin the game it's like being a parent sometimes you gotta say no

sometimes you gotta say no uh well that's all I got buddy uh do you have anything else uh for man what a fun thought good thought it's gonna be back in the room you get a nice nice rich sound here and uh yeah I'm just I'm just so excited we're we. I really feel like we're back in it. Eight episodes in the can and that's it. That's the last that we're going to record before we launch on September 14th. Are you going to be watching live or are you going to be watching football?

That's Thursday night football. Yeah. What's the game that night? Do you know? I don't know. That's week two. That would be the lead off game of week two. I'm probably going to watch football but I'll have it on my phone.

You know who's playing? Who? Vikings Eagles. Get out of here! That's a good game! Nope, I won't be watching. Yeah, I guess not. Session one.

Well, Joe won't be there, but hopefully all of you will be. I'm actually really, really excited for session zero, even more so than episode one. So I'm very excited for everybody. That's this Friday, 8 o'clock Eastern, twitch.tv slash TheGlassCanon. Dude, this is awesome. Yeah, man. Yeah, everybody check it out this Friday. And

yeah, I mean, next week, hopefully we'll have more news on Labs next week. I'll see what is coming back and when. If. If? If? I know, because now we're getting to that point where it's like, you want to run a game? It's just like being with your friends at home. You want to run a game?

No, I don't want to. No, man, I'll play. I'll play something. You want to run something? No, I don't want to run something. But yeah, McDermott's just in my ear. He's like, aliens. Alien.

So yeah, we'll get it done. All right, thanks, everybody. Have a fantastic one, and enjoy Session Zero this Friday. We'll see you next week. Bye. We're back. 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.