The Glass Cannon Podcast - Cannon Fodder 9/27/23

Episode Date: September 27, 2023

The guys share some big news about their plans for New York Comic Con before giving a juicy update on the new GCN Subscription Service. In We Are Stupid, they focus in on how the Aid reaction works and discuss options for tables to make it more or less difficult at early levels. In Listener Mail, a potential new GM is looking for how to get started! Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/J_wQO8ovUaI For more podcasts and livestreams, visit glasscannonnetwork.com and for exclusive content and benefits, subscribe today at jointhenaish.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You are listening to the Glass Canon Network, the premier source for role-playing game entertainment. Welcome to Canon Fodder. welcome to cannon fodder a behind the scenes look at the glass cannon network Yo! What is going on, everybody? Welcome back to Cannon Fodder. It is Wednesday, September 27th, 2023. And I'm your old buddy, Joe O'Brien. And I'm Troy. It's a lot harder to do work in the background now that this is a video show. La Valle.

Finally. I've been trying to get this on video so that he can stop sending emails while I'm making strong points, Nish. Strong points! He's not even paying attention. That's your time. That's your time, Ferrer. I do enjoy the ones that people wouldn't know about where I would ask you a question and then be like, I need to change the settings on my ceiling fan. I'd just get up, walk away, go over to the switch, and you just talk as if I was there.

The fools. They never knew, Troy. What fools? What? Look at us, huh? Welcome back, everybody. It is great to be back with you here on video. For those of you listening that don't know, Fodder's back on YouTube.

Wait, has it ever been on YouTube? I think this is the first it's actually on YouTube. When we Twitched it, it would stay on Twitch. You know, I was looking through, I was cleaning up our YouTube channel the other day and I found some like old live thing that we did on YouTube sitting on the couch in our studio. We did like a cannon fodder live from the studio and we were just sitting there like a couple of douchebags on the couch holding microphones. And I remember it took us at least three hours to set that up, and it still looked and sounded terrible. Well, you know, we're all trying here. We did our best. We did our best.

Yes, yes, we did. But if you want to watch us do this, you can watch it on YouTube. Also, you can just keep listening. We'll still keep giving you the great sound quality that we do week in and week out. Thank you to CJ, our post-produ producer, who takes care of all that. Siege. Siege. But for now, I want to talk about some big news.

That's some exciting news this week. We'll also update you on the new subscription service. We've got a little We Are Stupid conversation for episode two of campaign two. And then, of course, listener mail. We're going to get to some of your questions. Oh, listener mail. Looking forward to this one. Normally, dude, when I structure out a show like this,

I try to tease the big news and get people to stay tuned in till the end. But the only reason to actually do that is to get them to watch advertisements, which we don't have on this show so what's the point might as well just give them the news up front and let them go about their day yeah yeah there are ads on the podcast version there are mid-roll ads in canon no just pre-roll I gotta keep the fucking lights on. I gotta keep the lights on. Big news this week is that we have been talking to our good friends over at Marvel.

After a very, very exciting San Diego Comic-Con, followed by a very exciting Gen Con booth show, we've come together and decided we're going to do another show. And we're going to do it at New York Comic Con. That's right! Oh, baby! Your boys from the Glass Cannon Network and we'll see who else is coming around. Some others. Yeah, I can't say too much yet, but we'll be at New York Comic Con

this year playing the Marvel Multiverse RPG. I mentioned in the rundown right before the show that I was going to, can we break the news on this? And you were like, that's happening. Got a lot of,

a lot of strands in old Duder's head. Yeah. There's a lot going on. And I was like, Oh yeah, I forgot about that. But it's going to be Friday, October 13th at New York comic-con.

And you know, where we're not doing a glass cannon Live New York this year or ever again it's nice that we're coming home to do a New York show so if you want to see your good time pals in the Big Apple you'll be able to do it at New York Comic Con and now you and I went there

very briefly once years ago for our first face to face meeting with Eric Mona of Paizo. And I haven't been back since because I was like, wow, this really sucks. But I'm excited to go and do a show there. That's a totally different

experience. And it's not going to be like San Diego Comic-Con because there wasn't a lot going on there, although that was still very, very cool. I had a good time. So now I'm kind of jazzed and I'm really looking forward to playing the Marvel RPG again because we have loved it every single time we've played it. I'm going to have to

come up with something Halloween themed, I think. Yeah. Every session has been an absolute blast. Cannot wait to play it again. And you know what? Marvel, just speaking generally as a company, obviously we're just working with a couple people, but Marvel in general has just been really cool.

Been very, very cool to work with. And some really passionate gamers behind the project who are really excited about this game. And they should be. Because it's a very, very good game. And so we're all, you know, as partners in this, we're all very excited to put on this show at Comic-Con. It's going to be 4.30 on October 13th, right? Friday. Yeah, Friday the 13th.

Friday the 13th, yeah. Now I get it. Yeah, really looking forward to that. More news will come up on that as we get closer, but we wanted to give you guys the heads up as soon as possible. So if you could possibly be there, get those plans together.

It's just a few weeks away. Can you believe that? It's just a few weeks away. That makes me sick to my stomach because now I have to do that prep. But also, I think you just need a badge to the con or just a Friday badge and you can get in. So come fill it up. Come see your pals. Yeah, you're not buying tickets to this show.

You just have to have a badge to the con and you're in, baby. Get to hang at the con all day and have a little happy hour with the GC. And so more news coming on that soon let's talk about the subscription service which is the biggest kind of thing we're working on behind the scenes it's day in and day out most of it has fallen on McD he's been fantastic getting back to people and you guys have been absolutely fantastic with your comments and your feedback sending screenshots explaining situations and things are just you know little loops whatever bugs getting tied off one by one but bugs getting squashed yeah and we're really really we're well over a

thousand at this point uh people that have transferred over and we're looking to do more even more in the coming weeks so want to let you know if you are a current patreon subscriber check your patreon because there is a post in the feed. Check that feed. If you are interested in moving over to this new system, which, by the way, is going to allow you to individually subscribe to each podcast that is exclusive to the Glass Cannon Network Nesh, the ones that you want to listen to individually, like I said, the Ancients, Blood of the Wild, Get in the Trunk.

Whatever is available at your plan level, basically. Yeah, sorry. Whatever is available at your plan level will be separated feeds on your mobile device to listen to. So it's a spectacular system so far. Rave reviews across the board from the people that have made the transition. If you're interested in doing that and you haven't already, go to your Patreon, look in the feed for the post about the beta, and you can sign up to join. There are, I want to say, roughly 1,500 people that have not yet been invited but are on that list, and those invites are coming out soon.

So if you want to be added into that next bulk, head over there now, sign up, and we'll get you an invite as soon as possible. And then a little after that, assuming that goes well, everybody is going to be – we're going to be letting everybody know how to come over. And, yeah, we want you to make that transition so that we can all get on this new system. Yeah, and we'll go into more detail once it's fully public and once everything is available to everybody. But the long and short of it is I think we're pretty close to be able to just make this available to everybody. And then eventually, it's going to phase out Patreon. So we're going to give everybody enough time to come on over. But eventually, your Patreon account will be useless.

So if you want that content, you're going to have to come over. But we'll give you ample time. You'll have months of prep to come over, but you're going to want to jump over quick so you can jump in on those legacy prices because you'll be able to be grandfathered into the new plans. We've streamlined the plans. It's so much easier for us. It's so much cleaner. And I don't know, I'm really excited about it. And the feedback has been great. I'm most excited that I have been able to hand this over to McD now because it's a real pain in the wiener. It is a pain in the wiener. Setting that up.

And McD's been doing a great job not only communicating with the niche but also communicating with the back-end developers, the people that are working on this for us to build this thing are like he's been hand-in-hand with them. That's just such an important role to, you know, be communicating with the developers and communicating with the end users that are showing you the problems. And nobody's better suited to it than McD. He's just a guy who could talk to anybody. He's the best. So please come over.

Try it out. The sooner, the better. Yeah. And there's a little there's a little life hack here that I feel like I want to give the people that are – Give them some hacks? The FOD viewers. The FOD listeners. Give them some hacks, zonies?

If you – because we had mentioned that your price gets grandfathered in if you move over to this new system. And if you are feeling spicy and you want to get a little blood of the wild in your life or maybe a little ad-free campaign to the Glass Cannon podcast, it behooves you – I shouldn't even be saying this. I mean I can't believe you are. It behooves you to upgrade your subscription on Patreon first to the $10 tier, then skip over, then do the migration because you're going to save a couple bones. So anyway, you guys are my friends. I want to tell you, I had to, you know, we'd make more money otherwise, but I mean, you guys, you seem like a good guy. You seem like a good guy.

So I wanted to help you out. Let me check with my boss. Yeah. Let me just check with my boss. You'll get a conversation, fake conversation, fake conversation. He said we can do it just this one time. Just this one time. Just for you.

We'll take off those winter tires. I want to talk about – I want to move on here. Pretty soon we're going to be getting into We Are Stupid because we're going to get a nice juicy topic about the second episode of the show and then your questions on listener mail yeah but first the we didn't talk about something in the last two weeks of the show uh i'm sorry the the you know since the premiere of the show that teased out in in the premiere episode and was featured in the youtube video of the second episode, but I don't believe has been mentioned on audio at all. So audio listeners may not realize that in those YouTube shows, we teased the coming of season two of Voyagers of the Jump, which I'm very, very excited about. And I just wanted to mention it here on Fodder because I feel like maybe some people don't know

about this, but it's only three weeks away now. It's three weeks. Columbus Day, right? Or Indigenous Peoples Day. Is it Monday? Is it released on Monday? I believe so, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Monday the 16th, right?

I know it's October 16th, and I know we're doing New York Comic Con on the 13th. That's the 9th. Sorry. It's the week after Indigenous Peoples Day. So Monday, October 16th at 8 p.m. Eastern. Get yourself ready for some Voyagers of the Jump. It's coming back, baby. I'm very, very excited.

So I wanted to make sure you guys knew about that. Jump for my love. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping.

Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping.

Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping.

Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping.

Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping.

Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping.

Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. Jumping. I really love Voyagers of the Jump. Are you done? You make it.

It's right for you to jump in. I really love Voyagers of the Jump. And I kind of have, I have insider info, which is just not fair. Like, I just know stuff about season two that I want to share so bad. And it would just, Matthew would be so angry. It would ruin things for everybody. You can't stop talking about it on tour. I need to tell somebody. I know.

I don't care. You don't stop talking about it on tour. So I'm just going to, I need to tell somebody, I know, like, I don't care. You don't know anything. But I am a big fan. Very excited for October 16th. Stay tuned for more info on that. More details as we get closer. Let's talk about another big release that's happening today. A release you don't have to wait for.

For those of you that were waiting on the next episode of Strange Aeons, Glass Cannon Live, Boston dropped today, right? Yeah, today. Are we on schedule for that? Did it actually end up dropping? Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's a fucking show and a half the whole tour all year. How can Chicago, St. Louis, and Philly not be phenomenal? The whole year has been great. And Boston Show just – it's right up there among the greats. When we were talking about the release of it coming out this week, you and I were just banting back and forth as we do the funniest bits from the show. And some of them are just so funny.

They're just so funny. So keep an eye out for Glass Cannon Live Boston releases as a podcast as well. And where is that, Troy? Is that on Patreon right now? Nope. Strange Ions is going to be on the Glass Cannon podcast feed, the publicly available feed. Ah, okay. So it's still dropping on the Glass Cannon podcast feed.

Yeah. Part of the new transition to the new system is streamlining things, cleaning things up, not having things in 10 different places. We wanted to offer the ad-free version of Campaign 2, but Strange Ions is now going to be available on the Glass Cannon podcast feed. And on days that we travel, like Chicago and St. Louis, we have that Chicago show on a Thursday. On Friday morning, you'll be able to listen to the Strange Ions show on the Glass Cannon podcast feed. Great. Speaking of St. Louis and Chicago, where are we at with those?

I know St. Louis had sold out and then we released a few more. Are they still available? We released like 60 more tickets and there are 13 left in St. Louis. And it's great. They're all the bar stools at the bar. Which to me is exactly where I'd want to sit. Not to wait for a drink. Just go, yo, six more bottles of wine

please and uh right there they're so fancy these places too i would be like at the bar ordering cocktails left and right so at 13 bar stools i mean get those tickets we got to sell that out because then we'll come back to st louis chicago we've been giving you a lot of shit but you've been doing great we've got over it's been showing up. Yeah, we're getting there. I think it's possible to do a sellout. If those people that went to, what was it, Liberty Hall? What the hell was the place? Lincoln Hall back in the day.

We used to sell out Lincoln Hall in seconds. We've got to get those people to buy the rest of these tickets. I think there's a chance. We've still got a month. It'd be great to sell that out. Otherwise, probably won't putago on the list next year is that a threat that's a promise such a jerk oh man uh okay let's talk about episode two of campaign two all right i'll talk uh uh let's get into what we'll call we are stupid got another

nice report card from uh professor eric who was like hey no mistakes but that's because you didn't do anything about the game uh a thousand exactly you just uh played improv with your friends and then sent me a file but i don't know why i don't listen to this professor eric brought up an interesting point that that i do want to talk about but first oh episode two oh your takeaways your thoughts the the group first walking into, you know, the central location of the beginning of, of the, of the adventure path, uh, lots of NPCs around, but it seemed like a few of them were kind of off the cuff or is Rodney Thimble Dick in the book? Just Rodney Thimble Dick is in the book. I love that guy. I, I really, I wasn't joking. He's

like, you'll see me again. We got to bring old Rodney ThimbleDick back. But this was an interesting one because when I read Gatewalkers and I had mentioned last week in Cannon Fodder, I thought it was kind of a weak, I hate to say weak opening. It's just a different opening. You know what I mean?

There's some openings just like combat. You're in combat or like you're thrown into a situation. You've got to figure a way out a puzzle or this or that. This one is a very slow burn. There's a openings, it's like combat, you're in combat, or like you're thrown into a situation, you've got to figure a way out a puzzle, this, that. This one is a very slow burn. There's a lot of backstory. The characters already know each other, and now you're being thrown into this investigation. And then the investigation is leading to something that will most likely not end up in a combat that is kind of like a espionage thing. You know what I mean?

Like you don't want to fight these Oak stewards, fuck you up. But you don't, like basically these Oak stewards and fuck you up. Uh, but you don't, I, you know, like basically how you guys go about it. I have no idea what you're going to do. So that's a lot more difficult to prepare. Episode two felt to me a lot like a score in blades in the dark.

Yeah. You know, it, it felt very like we have this objective. That's very, very clear. Uh, there really isn't a mystery ahead of us in terms of like what we need to do here.

And we have a very basic understanding of the defenses that are sort of preventing us from doing that. So start the score. You know, what's the what's the the what do they call it? The establishment role. What's the detail? Well, you give the detail and then you do the – oh, my God. It's not the establishment role, but I know what you're talking about. Something like that.

Yeah. It's been a while. We didn't play some plays. It was interesting because we did spend a decent amount of time talking about the strategy of the plan for how to execute. Now, where we are right now, it seems successful, but you don't really 100% know. You just know that we got to the gates without the guard knowing. And that's huge. That's huge. So it's a great step in the right direction. But I'm curious, we've come upon this before. I'm curious as to your takeaway, just in general, about long planning meetings between players on a show before actually going and doing it.

Blades in the Dark's mechanics cut that out. Pathfinder does not. And so we really have to kind of come up with a long plan. What were your thoughts? What was going through your head as we were talking all this stuff out? were your thoughts? What was going through your head as we were talking all this stuff out? Yeah. I mean, I loved it because what I was going to say is that this presented a very unique encounter in that it was really left up to you guys. All I can do is kind of react to how you go about solving this situation. And so it's a lot more difficult to plan because I'm thinking like,

well, maybe they'll do this. Maybe they'll do this. Maybe they'll do this. I could plan out what I'm going to do if you do that. But really, I just have to improv. So I've got to like know what the score is, know what I feel comfortable doing, knowing how far you can push it. Because if you just came up and started fighting the Oak Stewards, I'm like, all right, well, then it's now we're going to get into a combat. Let's do that. So I have to know all those stat blocks and everything. But at the same time, that's why I liked you guys doing all of that planning because it was allowing me to prepare our improv based on that. It's like, okay.

Oh, so they're going to do that. Interesting. So maybe I'll do this. So it's different when you're in the middle of a combat like being like, let's talk this out. Well, you really don't have that time. You have six seconds. Let's keep it snappy. I mean, you used to go five, four, three, two in your games.

I don't do that so much, but I hate it when like you really don't have all this time to do this planning. You should just make a decision and do it and hope it works. Act and react. Yeah. With this, I was happy to let you do it. Yeah. And you're like whispering in hushed tones. Like we've seen the location.

We know what the guards look like. We know something about this alarm. How are we going to approach it? and you know everybody's tossing around ideas it's just always so funny too because these were just nerds that are sitting around playing a game like nobody actually knows how to break in anything or like actual thievery you know so it's always just so funny to watch people stumble into like how to do an illegal activity, which is what I think makes Delta Green just so enjoyable for me to run because it's just like these people that would never get into murdering and ditching bodies, try to figure out how they would murder people and ditch bodies. Yeah, so the planning process I was concerned would be all pointless because then you would arrive and there would'd be something there an encounter or an event that would just throw your plans out of whack immediately so far though so good like nothing has thrown it out of whack everything

seems to be going according to plan and some exciting you know news at least for the players at the end of it with the the aura recorder so i mean it's it's cool it's fun um and i like that you cased the joint too that was great like yeah you guys went there and i was like oh i wonder if they're gonna go there and then just do it i'm like i'd like a little more time here let's go to patsy's and so you cased the joint you guys sure you don't want to go to patsy's you went you went and talked to all michaels and uh got to know oh these guys seem like legit. They don't seem like bad dudes.

That changes how we may approach this. And then you went to Patsy's and then went back at night and to be able to use Foundry VTT and have night and have the gates lit up and have Darkvision come into play. That was a lot of fun. And I was excited to show that off to you guys because they did a real great job with the – it was Gatewalkers Premium Maps. So, yeah, all around really, really fun. And, dude, I just finished the edit on – or at least the audio portion of episode three, and it's fun as shit. I'm excited for people to listen. Yeah.

I actually don't want to talk anymore about the episode because it's just going to lead me into two – perhaps foreshadowing too much of what comes. So, yeah, let's save it. Let's save it for next week. But I do want to bring up a conversation starter that Professor Eric brought up in lieu of a we are stupid. And the one mechanical thing that we kind of came up against at the end of the episode was the actual penetration into the area. I knew you were going to do that. That's why I chose that word. That's a child.

The thievery checks, the deception checks, these things that were necessary to accomplish our goal here, to put our plan into action. We asked for an aid at one point, and Skid mentioned that it just feels so high. The DC-20 aid level seems so high. The DC 20 aid level seems so high. And I agree, but you and I typically think alike in these situations, which is usually like the developers made things a certain way because they know what they're doing and they tested things and they know what they're doing. That said, I also put a lot of stock in Professor Eric's extensive experience as a player because Yeah. By the way, let's bring it up and just look at it here on Demiplane so we can actually get kind of word for word. And I think we could also even discuss for a second here the – how we should approach this from a raw versus interpreted standpoint.

We discussed that it is a reaction. We discussed that it is – its trigger is an ally is about to use an action that requires a skill check or an attack roll. And then obviously the ally has to be willing to accept your aid. To do this reaction, you must first prepare to help, usually using an action during your turn. You must explain to the GM exactly how you're trying to help. First, let's address that point. I want to get a sense from you because we had some back and forth about this on air. I think cannon fodder is a good area to expand on this. I argued in the episode

that we should have the right. This is actually in the, no, I argued that we could, I've argued in the past. I don't know if I did it in the episode that we could have the right to describe how we're helping at the moment of the reaction triggering, as opposed to knowing ahead of time exactly how we're going to help because it's not our turn yet or whatever. What are your thoughts on that in general? Do you believe that the players must know how they're going to help at the time of their turn to set up an aid properly?

Yeah, no, I think that you made a good argument and I'm fine with that, especially where it's a reaction. It does allow for a little bit of gamesmanship, but that's okay because as written, you're really not reacting until you're reacting. You're spending an action. You're spending an action. On your turn and your reaction. And your reaction. And your reaction. And your reaction. So the payment is pretty good to be able to decide in the moment because situations will change.

I think the fact that it's a reaction, you should be allowed to – you shouldn't be committed to the first action because oftentimes it's not going to make sense now that the situation has changed. Yeah. So I agree. I tend to agree. I think that rules-wise, you could kind of see it both ways. If you're looking word for word, you must first prepare to help, usually by using an action on your turn. You must explain to the GM exactly how you're trying to help. It sort of sounds like that means at that time. But, you know, when you use your aid reaction, attempt a skill check or an attack type decided by the GM, the typical DC is 20. So word on the street from Professor Eric is that this 20 DC is considered by a lot of experienced players to be too hard at lower levels. This is apparently a common feeling. And he knows of several groups that change the DC for the aid to the DC of the check.

So it could be the AC of the creature or whatever, or 20, whichever is lower. So like that is one way they go about it, 20 or whichever is the DC of the check the person actually has to do anyway. So if you had a, let's say they're trying to do a deception, right? It's against the perception DC of the creature. What this sort of rule suggests is what's the perception DC if it's lower than 20, make that the DC of the eight, because that's sort of a good bar. Yeah. I mean, this is where it really is like, just roll and I'll let you know what happens because I don't, I can set the DC aloud if you want, and then let you know what happens uh because i don't i can set the dc aloud if you want and then you know otherwise i can kind of you never need to set it aloud

ever yeah i mean if you want a high stakes it'd be like all right you got to hit this but sometimes i like to be like roll and then i'll i'll decide and that's what i did here um when uh when kate rolled to or did i think kate rolled to aid skid in the thievery check. For me, going back to Blades in the Dark, the way I'm starting to think about it is like, what is the situation? Is it controlled, risky, or desperate? And the DC is going to change based on that. Because of the diversion that Lucky created,

while it wasn't a controlled situation, it went from desperate to risky in my mind. So that may have altered the DC. And I will say that without the aid, Skid would have failed the check. Now, he wouldn't have critically failed it. So he wouldn't have set off the alarm per se. But now your diversion is gone. You would have lost the diversion because you know that alarm only lasts for one minute.

So now you've got to change your strategy and it may have changed things. So I don't know. I think I was happy to have it happen, but I was prepared for it to not happen. And that's kind of where I'm at in my head right now. It's like, what's the situation? If it's in the middle of battle,

what is the real situation? Otherwise, I'm fine with the DC-20. I'm sure the designers put that in there for a reason, but I'm happy to sway that. I'm not going to go higher than that. You know what I mean? I don't think so. Yeah. Unless it's a ridiculous thing that you're trying to do.

Like, all right, you want to do that? I think that's ridiculous. In my head, I'm going to be like, that's DC 25. Yeah. And you can also change it based on, you know, how powerful the characters are or where you're at in the game. But yes, usually what Eric is saying about what some people who change this are commonly doing is DC of the check or 20, whichever is lower. So if it's above 20, you still make 20 the DC. Now, one of the main reasons he believes that people are doing this is because – They like an easier game. No. No, actually. It's because aiding is a very strong action it is a smart tactical action to use particularly at later levels an individual plus

one is very important to distinguish between a critical fail or a critical hit at a lot of times so a plus one is very important and it's used often at higher levels. But newer players and players that are just getting started are tending to not use aid as their action because it's so difficult that they sort of forget about it, and they don't get in a groove to actually use this thing that is very valuable tactically. And so it's sort of a change to help farm people along, to be like, no, this is a legitimately good thing to do in combat or out of combat for skill checks or attacks when you're lower level so that you get into a groove of using it at higher level too because it can continue to be tactically important. It's interesting. It almost feels like it was written to be prohibitive, like it was written that the developers don't want you to use it or not use it until higher levels. Yes. Well, I mean – And I wonder what the thought behind that was. I think the thought behind it was just to, well, A, make it relevant at later levels, you know, where the 20 is so easy to hit. It's really more about at later levels, can you crit?

Because also we want to look at the differences in the success levels, right? Yeah. Because you can critically succeed. Can I highlight this? Yeah, you can critically succeed and get a plus two to the check. Yeah, or a plus three if you're a master. And obviously that changes as you get into higher levels, right? A master or if you're legendary.

But then this is the real – this is the one for my money. A good reason to just set it at 20 is there's a lot of risk there, right? Yeah. or if you're legendary. But then this is the real – this is the one for my money. A good reason to just set it at 20 is there's a lot of risk there, right? Yeah. If you critically fail, you actually hurt the check as opposed to 1E where it was just like whatever. And so Eric's response to that is basically what it is meant to do is scare people off from aiding in situations where they're not skilled because you actually risk hurting the check. Whereas in 1E, there was no downside to attempting to aid somebody and everybody around the table would just be like, I'll aid. Yeah, yeah. I'll aid.

Yeah, I'll aid. And everybody's rolling it. In 1E, not only does it not stack, but you could be the one that ruins it right so like if so it's really uh you want to make that choice and make it carefully so yeah anyway yeah thank you for bringing up that convo professor eric it's a good one yeah it's cool it's good to talk about the nitty-gritty like that especially now where we don't have a lot of stuff to talk about totally and because i strongly believe that aid is something that will come up

nearly every episode, like at one time or another. People are always aiding people. So it's a very relevant thing to have a clear understanding of as a table about how you're going to approach it. All right, let's kick it over

to our good buddy, Nick Lowe. Sing us in. You're going to say, lick no. Lick no. It's time to say lick no. Lick no! It's time for Listener Mail. You gotta get your

brain up on it. It's time for Listener Mail. You gotta cue that fucking signal. Thank you, Nick, for that wildly inappropriate singing music. For Listener Mail, great to have you guys back. Thank you so much for writing in.

Remember, email us at contact at glasscanonetwork.com with the subject line listener mail. That's how you get your question in. And we can choose some juicy ones to throw here up on the show. I have one here from Roger. What's up, Rog? Rog. You're already professional GMs in one sense of the word, but have any of you considered becoming the kind where a group can hire you to run a game for them? With your fame and skill level, you could charge lawyer or therapist rates, hundreds an hour.

If that happens, I may as well declare bankruptcy. Also, since Joe likes TV dramas set in the north of England, particularly Happy Valley, has he seen Scott and Bailey? It's by the same writer and is one of the best police series ever made. No, I never saw that show or heard of that show. But I do love Happy Valley, so I will be looking that up. Have you ever considered doing GM for Hire stuff? We've talked about it loosely. We've never talked about it as like a business model thing,

but have you ever considered just freelancing out your services? I have. I have. I mean, have I thought about it? Has the thought entered my mind? Yes. Yeah. I mean, from a business standpoint, we used to have the $100 tier, and that's kind of what we did. Basically, you're paying the subscription for all the content, but you're paying an added amount to have us run games for you. A higher GM run. Yeah. A one-off for you, yeah.

And it just got to be untenable even with all of us just because our schedules making content got to be the point where we couldn't get other people's schedules. We stopped doing it. And then we thought like, well, what if we offer that as a service? But it's kind of the same problem. We have too much else going on. But I do think that there could be like a great – it would kind of the same problem. We just, we have too much else going on, but I do think that there's a, it could be like a great, I'd be like a side gig.

I wouldn't do it with the glass can. I'd be like, yo, it's like cameos, like make a little extra scratch, throw the valley. But, you know,

I don't know. It's a, it's a fine line. I think if we started doing that, it could open up the door to a lot of nonsense. And then be like, why, why aren't you doing,

how come I don't have you in the show? I got three hired games this week. It was like, well, you're an employee here. You got to take care of that shit first. They're like, yeah, but they pay really well. I don't know. Sometimes I see people do it online. I don't want to throw shade at anybody, but I'm just kind of like – it just leaves me with a weird taste because if I were to do it, I would charge a stupid amount and then i just feel like an asshole but i know what my time is worth and so i would be like sure i'll write a game for you here's my final offer and be like there'd be a couple people to pay it'd be great i could uh i could pay off some college loans maybe but uh you know i think i would just end

up looking like an asshole because i've seen people it. I'm like, eh, that seems a little gross. Yeah, I feel the same way. I've had the same thought and I've also just thought it's not – no one is going to pay nor should they pay what I would have to charge to do it just because we have so little time. And so like – and like running a game is a lot of work. It's a ton of work outside of the hours that you're actually there. So you'd have to charge for all the hours you're preparing when you're not even hanging out with the people and stuff or factor that into the hourly rate of the actual being there running the game. It's an interesting concept. I'm not saying I would never do it, but I'll certainly do it when I'm like an old washed up glass can veteran with nobody listens to anymore.

Then I'll do it on the side for super fans. On the convention circuit, you make a little extra money like our old wrestler signing headshots at a convention. You know, there was – I don't want to say this. There was this group that asked me to do something like this. It's pretty well known. It's like, hey, we'll pay you to run these games. And I was like, okay, I see a lot of people do it. And then when I saw what they pay,

I was like, absolutely not. That is so much work to do this. I don't want to, I can't, I've got a full-time job doing this company. I can't go do that for that little amount of money. No way. So yeah, I just, yeah. I think that if I were ever to do it, it would be cost prohibitive. Yeah, it's a fine line, but it's a really good question.

And one of these days, I'm sure one of these days, we'll have to. We'll have to. Maybe for charity, it would be fun. Yeah, totally. Okay, one more question, and then we're going to get on our way here. But this one is so fantastic. It's nice and juicy. And the best part is I don't have to talk at all.

I'm just going to relax. Troy hates these ones. I'm so excited. He doesn't always run these by me, so sometimes I'm like, all right. I know. This is fresh. Well, because I partially know the answer. Nick writes in.

What's up, Nick? Nick writes in with a question. GCP, first off, thank you, folks, for all that you do. You rock. Thank you, Nick. You rock. Stop it. Is this Nick Lowe?

Quote, I've been searching everywhere for a FOD that goes into detail about Troy's prep. I found an article online. Do you remember that? I found an article online, but that seems like it was from ages ago and you all have grown so much since then. Is there any way we could get a look at Troy's prep notes for a session we've listened to or just a real good breakdown of how the man himself gives us such amazing content? I'm an aspiring DM and I'd love to know what happens behind that GM screen.

Thank you, Nick. Nick. Well, first of all, I can answer the question for you. Could you get a look at Troy's prep notes for a session? I don't get a look at Troy's prep notes for a session after we've played. No one will ever see it, right? Yeah. No, I would never share my notes.

Pay no attention to what happens. There's just a bunch of horribly inappropriate things written in there. Yeah, it gets dirty. Pay no attention to what happens behind the curtain. I wouldn't want to share my notes. I don't think that – I'm sure it would be helpful to see how I do things. But that's kind of like – that's my proprietary John. I do think it would be interesting to talk about it. And we do sometimes.

I think we'll get into it more as we get back into this form of cannon fodder when we get into the nitty gritty of like how I'm prepping encounters and prepping certain set pieces for gay walkers. with. I've thought about doing a daily or even a weekly show that is just talking Game Master stuff. Even if it was a 15-minute episode a day and you had a little digest or every other day or a couple times a week, something more frequent but smaller bite-sized things where I just go into GM stuff. I don't know. We don't have the time to do it I saw the things would have to suffer and I would really need a program director to kind of like come up with the sort of concept and then

let me go brainstorm it's like alright so this week it's going to be about initiative and I'm like great alright I can think about that but I don't have the time to program the show you know what I mean I would have I could probably have the time to do the show. You know what I mean? I could probably have the time to do the show, 15 minutes, right? But I wouldn't have the time to program it from week to week. I guess I could do like a mailbag, but that's what Listener Mail's for. That's kind of what this is. And so,

yeah, that's kind of the response, Nick, is like, I really appreciate the question. I love that you're an aspiring GM, and I encourage you to get back there and just get started and just try it out because the reality is you can never just like read something and know how to GM. You can never hear an episode of fodder and know the secrets to how to make your game better. Not only is every game so unique in terms of the players and the chemistry and the game you're playing and the setting and the system that you have to bob and weave in a lot of different ways. But when it comes to wanting to know a given GM's style, strategy, approach to prep, there's no way they could just lay out in a simple answer in a show what they do to prep for a game. It really is about, like you said, Troy, I think it's a great idea, small tidbits, small segments. You would have to take 15 minutes on each different aspect of a game, of each different kind of game you could be playing, or each different kind of situation or scenario you could be in, which could be hundreds,

hundreds of different little scenarios over the years that experience has taught you. Oh, in this situation, I do this. In this situation, I do that. This is a perfect example. Earlier today, we were talking about the approach that the players discussing. Oh, the engagement role. That's what it's called. The players discussing the approach to the score that we had in episode two.

As a GM, you're giving us some insight to what you're doing. You're sitting back there picking apart the plan and not necessarily just thinking about how to, um, how to, uh, break it, break the plan.

That's not necessarily what you're, what you're saying or what you're thinking. What you're thinking is like, how can I make this an interesting set piece for this plan? How can I, how will I react to this plan and make it a fun show for everybody? Like you're, you gotta always be listening to the players in detail when they're talking to each other and, and thinking about how you can jump on little things that they say to expand their fun and, and give them opportunities to shine. And that's just,

you know, one little thing that comes up today, but that's not something you would mention in a macro view of how you game. So it's very you got to take it case by case you got to keep listening to the fod you know and it's these things are going to come out over the course of campaign two yeah and like i mean i could tell a novel about like how i prep gatewalkers versus how i'm prepping season two of time for chaos you know because i'm in the middle of that prep like gatewalkers versus how I'm prepping season two of Time for Chaos, you know, because I'm in the middle of that prep. Like Gatewalkers, I'm kind of like ahead on my prep. And so I've prepped up through like, you know, section one of book one, I feel pretty confident with that. And then before a day before recording, or a couple days before, I'll look over those notes. And then day

before I really dig into what I think you guys are going to do, but I've had a lot of that prep done. Eventually, I'll start prepping the other sections to get ahead as well. Whereas Time for Chaos, it's like I know where the players are going to go next. I've got to now prep that whole chapter, essentially, as a whole different fucking beast than prepping a Pathfinder adventure. While I also use very similar setups, I just use Google Docs, for example. A lot of people like to use OneNote. Other people like to write it all out, which seems crazy to me. But yeah, I mean, I could certainly – there's a lot to talk about, but everything is its own –

everything comes with its own approach. Every game, every show, every session. Episode, yeah. I don't have – yeah, there's not one formula to how to get this done. I prepped seasons four and five of Get in the Trunk wildly different than I prepped seasons one and two. It's just over time, things change. You adapt to certain scenarios, players certain games so the you know not to not to give a non-answer but the point is just get back there and start gming stop waiting for some light from the sky to tell you how to do it there is no guide any dungeon master guide out

there is a fantastic resource that you will can read – but when you finish reading it, you're not ready. Like you're not just like, now I'll do it great. The only way to do it great is to get in there and do it and keep reading these books like reference books as you come across situations and scenarios and keep going back to them. You can't just read it once and think that you have what it takes. That also sounds weirdly not what I mean. I just mean that like you're always learning. You're always improving. You're never done figuring out how to GM. Yeah, you only learn by doing it. Like you're not gonna learn from the book, you'll learn tips and tricks. And then like, as you're going, you can listen to shows like this and be like,

oh, that's a good I never thought about doing it that way. Like I was telling last week about how I roll my secret, some of my secret checks. Even you were like, oh, that's a cool idea. Maybe I'll use that. Yeah. Always learning. What I was going to say is before I ever GMed for our Jade Regent campaign long before Glass Cannon, I was like, I've never really GMed before. I've only been a player. Oh, I'll get the Pathfinder Game Mastery Guide. And I remember being like like they should call this something else because it doesn't there was like two pages in this entire 300 page book about like how to run a game it was mainly about like how to uh run a homebrew that's what the game mastery guide was for for oney at least

i uh i don't think i've looked at the 2e1 but anyways they're not telling you like all right first it's like how to generate random treasure it's like how to how to create terrain and how to you know randomize weather i'm like i don't care about any of that how do i start what do i read it okay but i'm gonna read it and be like there's no map for this how do i do this encounter if there's no map how do i how do i even get them from the tavern into brine snub marsh that's i was like i i don't understand like are they just gonna i'm gonna give them and they're gonna be like come on we have to go into brine snub marsh that's i was like i i don't understand like are they just gonna i'm gonna give them and they're gonna be like come on we have to go to brine snub marsh you know how you learn is just be like all right here's here's session one let's start playing and uh yeah i don't know it's really the only way to learn you learn by doing and then you

listen to stuff like this and then read some books to pick up some like hacks to make your life easier that's really all you can do. It's real exciting. It's exciting, Nick. I know it's nerve wracking, but it's just, it's the best. Like you just got to jump in and try it. Like I don't know too many GMs that have done, you know, a hundred hours of GMing games and are like, God, I just hate it.

I just hate it. You know what I mean? Like if people put the time, they might do it once or twice and be like, this is not for me just hate it you know what i mean like if people put the time they might do it once or twice and be like this is not for me i'd rather play that's fine but if people put time in and really just like want to gm after a while like they very rarely are like i just want to play i don't want to jam anymore like most of them end up loving it and being addicted to it so like trust me try it out you're gonna enjoy it and you're gonna mess up we all do you're gonna learn we all do we still are uh it'd be really fun but uh with that we're gonna call it this week uh thank you guys so much as always for uh coming out hanging out watching us on youtube don't forget you can get your fad on youtube these days so uh come watch us on YouTube and and yeah looking forward to episode

three of gate walkers I mean just just so exciting it's cooking dude it's gonna be October next week are you ready for this no no I gotta get my Christmas clothes ready all right everybody have a good one we'll see you next week bye 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 glass cannon you