Talking finale battle details, plot secrets, cut scenes, and our favorite moments from the campaign. It’s the last Afterparty for Season 1!
Housekeeping
- Join the Party is not over! We will be starting a new campaign after this one ends: bonus one-shots in January and February, then new campaign episodes starting on March 3rd, 2020, featuring DM Eric and players Brandon, Amanda, and Julia Schifini. Read more about what we’re planning on our website: jointhepartypod.com/season2-announcement
- Our Patreon page and patron-only Discord will stay as active as ever, so join up now if you’d like to be the first to hear about updates on the new campaign. That’s at patreon.com/jointhepartypod
Multitude
- Grab your tickets now to see us live in Austin on February 27, 2020! Head to multitude.productions/live today.
- Get your Join the Party enamel pins, Eric’s Labor Party modules, and new merch for all Multitude podcasts at multitude.productions/merch! Our TeePublic (jointhepartypod.com/merch) will remain up through the end of January 2020.
Sponsors
- Hero Forge, a great source for gifts this holiday season. Surprise the Gamers in your life with the perfect gift or gift card at heroforge.com today.
- Stedman, makers of our favorite pop filters and studio tools.
- Lily CBD, where code jointheparty will get you 10% off your purchase.
Find Us Online
- website: jointhepartypod.com
- patreon: patreon.com/jointhepartypod
- twitter: twitter.com/jointhepartypod
- facebook: facebook.com/jointhepartypod
- instagram: instagram.com/jointhepartypod
- tumblr: jointhepartypod.tumblr.com
- music: brandongrugle.bandcamp.com
Cast & Crew
- Dungeon Master: Eric Silver
- TR8c (Tracey): Brandon Grugle
- Inara Harthorn: Amanda McLoughlin
- Creative Contributors: Connor McLoughlin, Heddy Hunt, Julia Schifini
- Multitude: multitude.productions
About Us
Join the Party is a collaborative storytelling and roleplaying podcast. That means a group of friends create a story together, chapter by chapter, that everyone from seasoned players to true beginners can enjoy. Where else can you get adventure, intrigue, magic, drama, and lots of high fives all in one place? Right here.
After each episode we sit down for the Afterparty, where we break down our game and answer your questions about how to play Dungeons & Dragons and other roleplaying games at home. We also have the Punchbowl, an interview series with people pushing D&D forward creatively, communally and socially. It’s a party, and you’re invited! Find out more at jointhepartypod.com.
Transcript
[theme music]
Amanda: Hey, hi, hello, and welcome to the Afterparty After the End of the World.
Eric: It’s over! The end of the world is over, we're back to a world again.
Amanda: It's like that cut scene at the end of a zombie movie where everybody is like in a zombie wasteland still but like having cocktails.
[Brandon laughs]
That’s how I feel.
Eric: The end, [states] question mark?
Amanda: Yeah, and then it's like teasing a second movie and then there's more credits and then like Nick Fury shows up. It’s like what???
Eric: [laughing] At the end of the zombie movie?
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Nice.
Amanda: It’s a crossover.
Eric: That sounds great.
Brandon: He was a zombie the whole time. Did you bring cocktails?
Amanda: No.
Brandon: Oh…
Amanda: I’ve got water though.
Brandon: Okay!
Amanda: Well guys, we have a ton of questions from our listeners both in our patron only discord and from Twitter so…
Eric: And email.
Amanda: And email. I'm ready! Let's just get right into it shall we?
Eric: Yeah, let's do it!
Amanda: So let's start with some of those finale questions because the folks at home have just listened to it. I could not bear to listen to it.
[Brandon laughs]
So…um, I'm going to just do that when I'm emotionally ready.
[Eric chuckles]
So…let's start. Eric what was that faint purple outline in the sky, at the end of the finale? Was it the Council back from his prison or the five-star constellation being set back in place? That's from Pan.
Eric: Yes, it was the latter. The whole thing, I mean the whole crux of the story was that the Council was in that astral prison in the sky.
Like it was always there, and it was covered up by sky, but you know if you looked really hard enough and you knew that purple was like the magic color that those five stars are put back. Especially because it was like daytime, too, so I kind of liked the idea that it was like very faint like when you see just a faint outline of the moon.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: It’s when it's like very very clear out.
Amanda: I love that. What happened to the Council of Bright when they transformed into this giant thing? Is it some kind of spell or cantrip? From Macy.
Brandon: [chuckles] Is it Ganondorf?
Eric: Yeah!
Brandon: It was Ganondorf?
Eric: Yeah the entire last arc, House Party, was inspired very hard by Breath of the Wild. I'm not a Zelda person, I've never played a Legend of Zelda game like with intent before.
Brandon: [surprised] Really?!
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: That’s wild!
Eric: Yeah, well I played a little bit of WindWaker but like…I didn't get it and like that's not the one that you jump into?
Brandon: [chuckles] Yeah.
Eric: It's like, it’s Link but he’s so shaded! So it's the same but this thing's weird!
[Brandon laughing]
So I just never really played those and they kind of like the openness was like really confusing to me and the way you do puzzles, just to kind of like access different places. Very different to me like very nonlinear, but that's how I made that, house party. Like the mansion was the way that the final like Ganondorf place was in.
I don't know, for those of you who play but you can kind of like, go whatever route you want depending on whatever skills you have and then you guys decided to go through a secret back entrance and that was accessible to you depending all of the Perception rolls and whether or not Brinks tried to sabotage you. I don't know if you remember Brandon but Brinks did come back and say like, ‘Nothing there!’.
Brandon: Oh yeah! No in the editing phase, I realized what you were doing.
[Amanda laughs]
Eric: So… I do love that video game bosses have two health bars. Like they do the big transfer and they turn into this big thing. So I like the idea that the Undying Light energy could be harnessed in these ways. We'd already established that they have this and the shadow does exist from the Shadow Realm, where you…
Brandon: [laughing] Was it called the Shadow Realm?
Eric: No, but you know what I’m talking about.
Brandon: [screams] CHAAA!! Also Yugio does not live there.
Eric: [laughing] The game Yugio lives in the Shadow Realm.
[Brandon laughs]
Eric: The game came fully formed form a shadow and just popped up and all of these cards existed.
Brandon: I’ll just ask the guy with the Yugio podcast.
[Brandon and Amanda laughing]
Eric: So I like the idea that there was a transformation there, and that they turned into a big light and dark monster.
Amanda: Yeah
Eric: And that that is something that can happen. I think if you use these magic sponsors monstrously… We've all talked about like using this magic and the different types of energy that we explored. I mean, the whole thing is like it could empower a warlock like it did to Johnny. It can power warforged and mechanics. It is a…a life source like it is for Franny, and then it's a literal piece of a god!
So, I think there's a lot of different things that happens from Undying Light energy, and something that I really wanted to hammer home, especially in the final battle.
Brandon: Can I ask you a question?
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: What would happen if Franny just didn't have any more Undying Light juice for the rest of her life?
Amanda: Oh no, Brandon! It’s too mccobb I can't imagine it.
[Brandon laughing]
Eric: So this is actually another thing, I pulled this from Futurama. For those of you watch…
[Brandon laughing]
You know robots run on beer and alcohol, like they use that for power. And I always like when Bender didn't have alcohol, he turned into like a boozy hobo…
Brandon: [yelling] OH YEAH!!
Eric: Like he had the rust, like, uh wino beard and he's like out of it and I like the idea that Franny, although she's so like crass and gross and who she is.
Amanda: Amazing, perfect. Idol.
Eric: Which she is as a hag. Like that's some witchy shit which I really liked about her.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: She then regressed into this regular grandma which she hates being, and she's not helpful. She's just like fucking Mary Poppins, but even Mary Poppins is helpful!
[Brandon laughing]
You know, she's just like a British grandmother, and I kind of like that so she would have been really unhappy she would have been very low energy. And just like, non, non-magical. By the end of that.
Brandon: She would have been stuck as a grandma for life?
Eric: Yeah, well I mean remember how powerful she was during Hunting Party? She just threw a whole person and suggestion and command at everybody. So she was a very powerful witch. So, she would have really kind of wasted away.
Brandon: That's…that's a really sad thought. I'm sorry for putting that out in the world.
Eric: It’s is a good question, like, it’s real.
Eric: So I know we played it as a joke because she didn't have access to it but like Proof X, you know?
Amanda: Speaking of which, Eric…knowing, that you and I met at a English undergraduate program, known for its like postmodern…
Brandon: [yells] NERDS!!!
Eric: Brandon, you went to the same school!!
Brandon: I know!
[everyone laughs]
Amanda: Known for kind of postmodern approaches that you're definitely going to want to give people a definitive answer because author's intent matters the most, right?
Eric: Oh god. That’s true. Everything that I say is real, so…
[Brandon laughs]
Amanda: So, several people in the discord wanted to know…who did those dang hands belong to? Is it the Undying Light and shadow? Is it Johnny? Is it good and bad? What are these hands?
Eric: I will give you the context surrounding it. I don't think it necessarily matters who it is whether or not it is Johnny, or the Undying Light or the shadow. I think like they're all kind of entwined which is what happened to Johnny, he faded into the veil. Very Sirius Black-esque in that way, so it kind of doesn't matter?
But I think what is important and something that got set up was that Brandon and Tracey, [scoffs] I’ve included both of you, killed the god of death!
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: So like, if no one can die…you have to go to this waystation which is what Adamah was dealing with and put you in that boardroom again. But like you guys couldn't die, so when you all passed out from that huge blast that happened from…I think it was sunburst, but I also made it like affect everyone because having the skeletal whale back there again kind of like messed with everything.
Amanda: So cool!
Eric: You like do have cosmic friends, which I think we established in the games that you played against the gods. Like you have a relationship with these deities, and like, that's what happens.
So, obviously we also see that the Council of Bright is perverting a lot of things including on Undying Light energy. So like, a lot of people have problems here. So whether or not it is Johnny or the gods I think it doesn't really matter. Whatever that means to you and whoever wants to reach out and help these people is kind of up the interpretation of listener, but I think the context is that like…
Amanda: They’re different manifestations of the same source.
Eric: Exactly! More like there were deities at work.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Like there was a higher power. I know that there is another question about why I did that, and again it's because no one can die because Brandon knocked the fuck out the god of death.
Brandon: I didn't…I did nothing!
Eric: No, you kept telling me like, I want to kill Ze’ol! And I said, I will let you.
Brandon: [innocently] I’ve done no murders!
[Eric laughs]
He’s put that upon Tracey!
Eric: But it was the fact that I was not planning on that to happen. I did want, at the end after the bone whale came out, there is a sense of desperation from the monster in the play of the Council of Bright. So he did that big sunburst which damages everything in like a sphere? And that included you and Chad and him, and everybody else kind of around in that area. So like everyone kind of passed out on the same time.
And like, you know from video games, like lots of video games don't know what to do. It’s like, you won! Anyway, congratulations! If it happens at the same time…but I needed something to happen because just, your damage went out. And I mean, I'm not…I'm not surprised that that happened. Honestly, I thought you guys were going to get knocked out earlier because you gave so much up during the god challenges and just, there was no short rest during that entire last sequence.
Brandon: Why, yee of little faith.
Eric: I mean, I was trying to kill you, so…
Brandon: [laughs] Yee of murderous intent.
Amanda: So, that definitely gets that Hearts question around like what were the conditions for the PCs to win that final fight?
Brandon: It’s like, say nice things about DM…
Eric: [chuckles] Say nice things to Eric!
So I had this, this 11-page document that I made just for that final one.
Amanda: And what was the title of that Eric?
Eric: Uh, COBBBEG Fight. Council of Bright, Big Bad Evil Guy…Fight.
[Amanda and Brandon laugh heartily]
Amanda: Cause I know you did tease to us that you made a document called The finale, Pippin the finale.
Eric: That was for…[laughing] the finale, pippin, the finale ended up being for Hunting Party and then House Party. Like it grew…that thing is a monster of a document.
Amanda: Final, final v2 promise. Yes, this time final copy.
Eric: [laughing] Exactly. So here are the conditions for Council of Bright version 1, you had to destroy the Council mobile thrown turret around him. The other thing was that there was that, uh, the barrier that was protecting him, and then he had pretty high HP but very low AC. So it was just like hitting him as many times as possible.
Amanda: Yep.
Eric: So like he was gonna get knocked down but then you have the second HP bar.
Brandon: Right.
Eric: ANd then he had a really big HP bar. I will say that Franny also cut down a lot of the HP from making the, pleas to the Undying Light.
Brandon: Oh she did?
Eric: She did.
Brandon: Oh, I thought she was doing nothing.
Eric: Oh, no. She took like chunks out of the max HP, like you guys were going from one side and she was going from the other side when you think about it. So…then the conditions was seal him away or kill him. And the How was Franny or The Speaker, if you conjured her, could bring all five items together in full concentration. And you need the Council of Bright to stay in the same spot for a full round as they were trying to seal them away.
So like everything broke bad…
[Amanda laughs]
Like, you were not even close to what ended up happening but you ended up doing all the, all the action. I mean having Chad in there really let Inara do sneak attacks the entire time.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: And the Council of Bright got a lot more panicked as a lot of things started failing. And Franny was really like taking chunks out of his HP.
Brandon: Cause he's also a coward.
Eric: That's, I mean…100%.
[Brandon laughs]
He had…he had a bubble protecting him, he had someone else on the turret, and then he had to like have energy surrounding him. I mean he’s like, the Council of Bright never died, it was just like he returned back to his regular form and then he tried to run away.
Brandon: Yeah I know.
Amanda: Yeah, yeah.
Eric: So, like, that's the kind of person he is 100%. I didn't realize how resonant, the Council of Bright’s butt was going to be.
[everyone laughs
Amanda: [still laughing] I know…I was wondering during that fight too and, like, one of the things that we do here on Join the Party is, we don't make gross jokes. Like we don't want to turn anybody off because we're having a bunch of like bodily humor, you know, or just like we don't want to get gross, we want to do the story. But that felt so in character and so true…
Brandon: [giggling] It totally did.
Amanda: To the fucking mccobb stupid-type jokes that we would be making in that situation.
[Eric and Brandon laugh]
And for me too like that battle was so enthralling just to do and having that little through line of humor and a reason to like yell in the face of your enemy..I don't know, it was really fun. I like it a lot.
Brandon: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's the thing that like GTP does best. I think those, the lines that we thread were like the emotional stakes but also at the same time, butt jokes, you know.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: 100%. Yeah.
Amanda: Uh, Zach Cougs, new moderator. Hello Zach, would like to know, was the final boardroom scene that saved and sent Inara and Tracey back after the Council of detonated his final form all part of your plan Eric? Or did you have to factor that in because Tracey killed/disrupted Ze’ol in the prior episode?
Eric: [laughs] I didn't think people were going to die. I know the condition, especially with Franny who had all the items and then when The Speaker, who was eligible for conjuring…you had to roll like a bunch of those Religion rolls to get her to show up. I thought it was going to be more about like holding the Council in place even in this monstrous form.
I didn't think people were going to die. And like I did realize that there was no death anymore so I needed to figure something out. And then of course the reason is you made a bargain with Adamah. So…I think Adamah was stlll, like your lawyer. It was like she was still on retainer for you.
[Brandon laughing]
And I think that was really what happened from like the challenge episode onward, especially when she was so involved in the epilogue.
Amanda: And our final finale question is from Paul. Were there any other versions of the final showdown with the Council in your head that could have come about under different circumstances? Like what it might have looked like if a certain saving throw was made at the end of Hunting Party, for example?
Eric: Aw, yes, that's true. [chuckles] I think this is related…can you bring up the thing about how Oatcake could have saved the day?
Amanda: Yes. So, this is from Chris P. via email. So my save the day plan would have been to have a Inara ask/bribe the mightiest of all characters in the JTP universe: Oatcake with the pups namesake, oatcakes. Do that puppy voodoo that Oatcake does, pop into the bubble. Land on Alonzo pop right back out with Alonzo, since we know she can bring items with her when traveling, then poof! Alonzo saved with the Council of Bright still trapped.
Eric: What a good idea.
[Eric cackles]
Brandon: But can Oatcake bring people? Oatcake can bring items, but…I don't know about people.
Eric: I don't think Oatcake can bring items, [correcting] can bring people. If you had really tried hard we would have had to roll some really high Animal Handling.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Blink dogs really just control themselves and it's like the idea that a dog, cause the dog can't like carry a person?
Brandon: No, yeah.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah, still when I read that email I thought that's a great idea.
Amanda: I know! And i mean i don't know i guess just like it wouldn't have occurred to me to ask because it seems like such an easy kind of Deus Ex Machina, you know like, get the job done. And Oatcake doesn't always listen. Like I tell her things and I hope for things and I kind of like communicate to Eric when I would like for her to come back if she is blinked away, but it doesn't always happen that way.
Brandon: Yeah, right.
Eric: I was thinking if one of you had Misty Step or another sort of teleportation-esque, or if one of you had used Blink so if we had a wizard, you could have in theory tried to step in. But it is an anti-magic bubble, like that's the whole point it exists.
So…it would have been really difficult to get in there and out because obviously the Council of Bright would have tried that and they failed a bunch of times. Because the idea is like they're kind of just like knocking around in there for a long time.
So, it's…hard, I, I guess, and I said this during the last Afterparty like I really kind of wanted to see what you would do to respond to this situation. And like…we could have had the battle we didn't have to do a House Party. Like we could have had the end of Hunting Party, which would have become just this final fight of like two-three episodes instead. But your choices lead there so like I don't even know.
I really did throw my hands up and say let's see what happens. And the whole thing it was like Harry was there, everyone was there who had stakes and like you could have used them in so many different ways. And, uh…you could have done so many things. You could have just locked them away! Like or you you could have tried to get Alonzo out but instead you decided to do this other plan which I think was the most straightforward, but there were a lot of other like mitigating factors, especially the fact that, Tracey got commanded.
Amanda: Let's zoom outward a little bit and talk about House Party. We have a lot of great questions about that.
So let's talk about the betrayal. So Deadly Nightshade on discord wants to know if there was a plan for the betrayal. If not Brink, then who was the next likely suspect? And Natalie asks if anyone expected Brink’s betrayal. Why did I decide to split the party and did we expect it would be Brinks because Natalie said I was convinced it was going to be Captain Alex.
Eric: Yeah, I had a bunch of notes about who I wanted…so like there were people who were suspicious, out of that like RPG, choose your own party episode.
Amanda: Yeah, Autumn.
Eric: Yeah. Brink and Autumn. And then I also had Captain Alex as the third choice.
Amanda: All my queer icons Eric. How dare you.
[Amanda laighs]
Eric: I…They're all susceptible! I…all of them were susceptible.
Amanda: They were, they were.
Eric: Tammy and Taylor…
Amanda: It couldn’t have been Chad. And Timmy Taylor are kids, so like I get it.
Eric: They could have been susceptible. I think Zubi was not susceptible but they would have…Zubi would have made your life a lot harder from the function of…
Amanda: Yeah. Ive also exhausted all of my Shakespeare quotes, so um…I would have had to study up.
[Eric and Brandon laughing]
Eric: [still laughing] Thank you. Appreciate that, thank you, thank you. But yeah those I had in that order. I Brink first, Autumn second, and Captain Alex third. But like I wouldn't have had more than one person in your party, like that would have been overkill.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: I genuinely didn't know that that was the thing that's happening because when you guys talked about it, I was plugging my ears and singing, and so I only found out about it when I was editing the episode.
Eric: Right, well we did do that because only Inara would have known that there was a breach, which was what Bob the scroll was saying.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: It was like there was a security breach you can't trust somebody.
Brandon: Right.
Eric: Even me, it could be me.
Brandon: Yeah, but Brink didn't really… from my estimation, she didn't really like betray us? She just like fell susceptible to…
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: Well…the will of the
Eric: I think that's what that's what you two obviously came about when you accepted her back, but I can tell you the things that she did to sabotage you.
Brandon: Yes please.
Eric: So the first sabotage was what I just said, was that when she was looking for an alternate entrance she was just like, Mmm, didn't see anything sorry dog.
[Brandon gasps]
Ah, that was that first one when you guys were scoping out the area and she was doing her like look for illusionary stuff, she can see illusionary she would have seen the invisible bridge, but she didn't!
Brandon: The perfect plan! Confusing betrayal with competence.
Eric: Exactly!
[Amanda laughs]
There was a secret garage on the first floor of the mansion which would have given you, Tracey, tons of more batteries and would have given you some more items. That was what it was in the front of the mansion, when she was just like, let's just go downstairs! Let's just go! Let's go downstairs, let's get it over with.
Amanda: Right.
Eric: That's what Captain Alex was saying like, yeah, there's this other room that I just…I can't get into because there's a lock on it.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: And Brink was like, let's not touch it!
So, she was keeping you out of that and then of course everything that happened in the basement. what she pushed Inara into the furnace room and then when she did shatter and brought all these stalagtites on the ceiling down to the bridge. So those were all of her betrayals.
Amanda: I know. I know that it's a thing in D&D not to split the party, but I love splitting the party.
[Amanda laughs]
Brandon: It’s so much fun.
Amanda: I love doing it, it's so much fun to record. It's fun for us as players. Like Brendon was saying, when we don't know what happened like starting out House Party was sooo fucking fun. Like, not knowing until the episode aired what happened! Because we didn't tell each other anything in character about that time.
So, I thought it was great but mostly I was trying to mitigate the risk of people falling into the void, [chuckling] because the rope bridge was sufficiently precarious in the way that you described it, and I just knew that like we have a limited number of people. I know we are gearing up for a big fight, I know everybody's going to be useful to us, and I just couldn't leave that much up to chance.
Eric: What I will say is that Inara did not split the party. Inara was scouting what was next and then she got betrayed.
Amanda: Yeah, I mean, I didn't see that coming. You know…I didn't anticipate anything except the fact that the bridge could break.
Brandon: Which was important. So…did she in your mind, DM, actually betray us? Or did she…was she under the control of the Council?
Eric: I, again this is it's kind of like merky, right? Like she did things that actively hurt you. And now, even if you didn't know it now I'm showing it to you. But like she put everybody in danger, and she was under some sort of miasma from the Council of Bright.
She was possessed, I will say she was possessed.
Brandon: Okay.
Eric: But like betrayal, in some ways means I did it. I did it to ruin you and it was me and I did it, or I did it under duress. And I…I'm sorry, which is what it ended up being here.
Brandon: Okay, yeah well yeah. Cause I was curious about her motivation if she wasn't possessed and why would she do that though?
Eric: Yeah she was possessed.
Brandon: Gotcha.
Eric: She was under the guise as soon as she entered onto the grounds, like he got back in her head. Which I mean, Tracey would know! Like the broken lock of your brain… I kind of thought of it like a locked door.
Amanda: Right.
Eric: It's like as soon as it's broken like it's going to be easier to get broken back into especially from the same people.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: [sighs] Yeah. Eric, in the god showdown were the challenges based on the matchups? Or would the challenges have been the same regardless of who the gods were facing off against? For example would we have had a different challenge if Inara had faced Ze’ol instead of Tracey? And that's from Hannah Claire on Discord.
Eric: I had all of the gods do the thing that they wanted to do the most. Honestly I found that more interesting. I kind of had an idea of who my players would want to match up with, so I kind of like assumed what was going to happen. But if it happened differently, whatever.
So I did I always had…D’var was going to have the creation challenge, but of course Alonzo chose his artistic medium.
Amanda: Yeah!
Eric: You would have chose whatever artistic medium, medium, you would have done. And then, Adamah’s was always going to be a negotiation. And then truly Ze’ol’s was supposed to be a high or a low. Like that was just what it was. So if it wasn't Tracey and there wasn't a vendetta…
Amanda: Fucking Ze’ol’s so annoying.
Eric: It could have just been a trickery thing, and then you would have had to do any sort of trickery or Sleight of Hand or anything to have a higher card than him. That was 100% what it was.
Amanda: God, so annoying. So Ze’ol.
Eric: I cannot fucking believe…the thing was, like, I didn't shuffle it that well because it was a new deck. I like the fact that you guys pulled the same card, that was wild.
Brandon: Yeah, I think it really worked. That was genuine and that really worked for the story I think.
Amanda: Totally. And then for our final House Party question here. Cast from Discord asks, I want to know what all the things in that rhyme mean, some are obvious, but someone mentioned that there were also like seven prophets somewhere? And that didn't come up during the podcast. I'd be really curious to hear a full explanation of everything mentioned in the rhyme.
Eric: So a lot of this stuff that I put in the rhyme, were just like world building things? Like things in which we never touched on so things that were in religious iconography. And it’s like, there's a lot of stuff in here, but you got to pull out the thing that means stuff to you.
So 13 are the languages in our land…I don't know, that’s official languages of the things?
Amanda: Yeah, sure.
Eric: 12 are the numbers on the hour hand. Obviously regularly clocks. 11 are how many fingers Ze’ol has, I just like the idea that Ze’ol has an extra finger.
Amanda: Crazy…
Brandon: I hate that motherfucker so much.
Amanda: I hate it...
Eric: 10 are the bar tricks of pizzazz, which, again…there could have been… in my head there was like a fable of like a bard that performed like wonders and it changed some town or something.
9 are the festivals…
Amanda: You mean Jesus, Eric? Is Jesus a bard?
Eric: Yes Jesus, Jesus is a bard. You hjeard it here first.
[brandon laughing]
Uh, 9 are the festivals libertine. So there was like a nine day festival in the spring of, like…
Amanda: Also, what a good rhyme!
Eric: Party thank you.
Brandon: I know, very good rhyme.
Eric: 8 are the miles of Great Green. There you go.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: 7 are the prophets actual…so this is this is the thing, I think you were talking about. It’s like, I think that they were just like seven prophets throughout the books of the whatever religion it is. I mean, again, you know, you know me…I pull a lot of shit from the Torah, [chuckles] and from like the Jewish faith of all those books.
But like there are a ton of books just like about prophets and like stories that they do so I like the idea that there were just like seven, seven books of the prophets. 6 or the gleaming capitals. So each city state and then Concentra. And then 5 are the items the Bright does fear. So the…
Brandon: Five items?
Amanda: Five items, yeah. 4, the houses of a mouse’s ear. I…whatever.
[everyone laughs heartily]
Eric: 3 are the gods we all pray to. 2 are the light and the dark we knew, there we go. And then 1 is us Concentric and true. So there you go.
Brandon: Yeah!
Amanda: A nice little propaganda rhyme, makes sense.
Eric: It’s not propaganda! It’s like religious chronography pulle together.
Amanda: [fighting playfully] And like nationality and state building!
Brandon: Yeah, yeah! Propaganda.
Eric: Yeah, again from what we talked about it’s like I pulled that from…
Amanda: It’s all about perspective, man.
[Brandon laughed]
Eric: Like we talked about I pulled this from Passover and who knows one song that you do there.
Brandon: Is it the same melody?
Eric: Basically, yes.
Brandon: Cool. I like that.
Eric: So, I love pulling structures from other places and putting it on to our game.
Amanda: Let's move now into some DM specific questions. All of them kind of happened so far, but I'm just cutting off the part where Brandon and I have to say emotional things.
[everyone laughs heartily]
I think Brandon is, uh…on board with yeah?
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: So…Eric, if you could go back in time and change one dice roll on the campaign to success or failure, which would it be and why? I think all of us can do this one though.
Brandon: Yeah, mine's just all the 1s.
[Brandon laughs and Amanda sighs]
Amanda: This is from a wild squirrel, by the way.
Eric: That's great. I want to do like 1s for you. I think that for Brandon, the fact that you had to barter with Adamah one more time, that you couldn't even get your goddamn amazing shot off, that killed me.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: That killed me so much because I'm like, we already set up the batteries but like. I do need this to be an attack roll.
Brandon: I wouldn't change that though, I liked the way it played out. I think it was integral to the way that Tracey's character played out at the end of the story.
Eric: I even think Tracey got what he wanted, even if it's sad for everybody else and that's why I love the epilogue.
Brandon: [defensively] It’s not sad!
Eric: [raising voice] Everyone else thinks it’s sad!
Brandon: We'll talk about this later, but it's not sad!
Amanda: No, let’s do it now! Let's do it.
Brandon: Okay, so, Tracey is a complex character…this is what I love about Tracey and this character: is that I guess in the tradition of a lot of, like, shows like this or podcasts like…all the characters have like nice backstories but the reality is that Tracey is a complex character that makes bad decisions, a lot of time.
And the easy decision for him was to say, well it's easier for me to just scrub the past, then try to like reclaim it and fix it. So like, yeah, he got some advantages and he got some disadvantages from that but like ultimately, like, he didn't necessarily grow as much as you would have hoped he’d grow from this experience?
Eric: Though it's true, it's definitely true.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: I think that makes him more three dimensional. I think it makes him more real. And like I don't think it's sad I think it's like, um…it's only sad if you think that like the way that people have certain personalities and the way they think is sad which is like, no, it's just how they are, you know?
Eric: I would say that it's sad for…as listeners like it put myself in the listener’s shoes and be like, I just went on this entire journey with this Roboboy who I love so much. And at the end all he wants is for no one to remember him…like that is a factor as someone who participates in the story, that’s sad.
And like we did facilitate that and I'm…Tracey did kind of get what they want, but I think cosmically, it's like vacuous, and that's something about you and your choices as a player and Tracey as a person, but I think as the story goes, it's a mind eraser and the eraser of memories and the story that we have all just participated in, like, that's kind of a bummer, the fact that like it's all gone.
Brandon: Sure yeah. Yeah I don’t disagree with that. I don't think though that Tracey's like, ask, like literally has ask was not for people to remember him but his ask wasn't specifically like, I don't want to be remembered his ask was more like, what is the easiest path to like solving the majority of my issues? And that happened to be what the answer was. So it's not like he was like, I don't want to be remembered, thus like, there's a solution. It's like what's the best solution and what's the easiest avenue to get there?
Amanda: Yeah, like, what are you willing to give up?
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: And I actually saw it as a little bit hopeful.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: Where instead of being defined by this thing that happened, which, you know, was traumatic and had a lot to do with Tracey as a warforged and reckoning with like what that meant, the betrayal, all that stuff, you can start fresh. And that might not be everybody's first choice but I think it does invite us to ask really interesting questions about like, what stories are meaningful. What experiences are meaningful for us, and what a like a good or a satisfying outcome means.
Brandon: Exactly, I love that. And I think also as a character, I don't think he realizes at the time but the nice outcome of what he did is that Tracey as a legend becomes a legend.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: And now there's a second warforged out there that exists, and it gets to say like, there's more than one of us.
Amanda: Sure.
Brandon: Acknowledge us as a species, and we'll work towards like repairing this divide that we created. So it's not just like Tracey the hero, and like people celebrating the hero. It's like here's this average warforged, Forge, that we can all acknowledge is a person.
Eric: Yeah. Yeah, I think we alluded to that a little bit in the epilogue, but it is interesting how we went from one warforged in the world to like an invading army of warforged and now we’re back to one, even if it's different though, which I think is interesting.
Brandon: Right. But there’s two. In people’s…
Eric: Consciousness, yeah.
Brandon: And the consciousness, yeah there's two now, and that's important.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: As opposed to one.
Amanda: There's one walking the world but there's two in like, popular imagination.
Eric: Yeah, for sure.
For Inara I would say the dice roll I wish I could change for you, is just like the messiness of the assassination in Pool Party. Like that, it was just a mess.
[Brandon laughing]
Amanda: It was.
Eric: The whole thing was a mess. And like I really…I was like, I really just wanted you to get in there and stab this fucking T-Flay and just get it over with.
[Amadna laughs]
But like there was so much negotiation and messiness and like saving Ev and all that stuff, it just did not go the way because your rolls were kind of bogus.
Amanda: Yeah, yeah, they were. I mean, I…I'm trying to sit here and think of something else. I think I nerfed myself the first time I wanted to flirt with Brinks, and I was like Inara flirts badly.
[Brandon and Eric laugh]
You're like you don't have to say it's bad, you could try! And I was like, I could try!?
Eric: And then you were like, I fall in the pool!
[everyone laughing]
Amanda: So, yeah, maybe, maybe I would have known a little bit better. And listen, i'm sure looking back there's lots of ways…I finally know how to play a rogue now, at the end, but, um..
Brandon: Isn’t that the way it goes?
Amanda: I know, I know and I'm looking forward to applying a lot of those lessons to the next campaign, but um…I really you know, it's so cliche but I wouldn't change a thing.
Brandon: I think the only thing that I would really like to change just as honestly as a fan…I wish I could have gotten Vince to come and eat the Council of Bright.
Amanda: I know.
Eric: I know.
Amanda: That would have been so good.
Eric: We ended up cutting that but Brandon was like, I want to call Vince on the phone!
[Amanda laughs]
And I’m like, are you using this now?!
Brandon: Yeah, the only reason I cut it was…there was a large build-up from the beginning the episode towards the end and it was such an unsatisfying payoff to not have me land that roll that I didn't want the audience to feel like um, unfulfilled so…but yeah I spent like my whole plot was giving him the sending stone so I could call him back at the last battle.
Amanda: I know, I know.
I was hoping you would have called him, that he would have been a part of your party in House Party?
Brandon: I know, I didn't think about it. I wanted it tp be dramatic!
Eric: What I said was like, these are people that I came up with who I know are nearby, choose whoever you want.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: I'll come up with the stats, but I was hoping that that's where Vince would have shown up.
Brandon: Yeah…
Eric: I know! I had such…I thought he was gonna show up in Labor Party. I thought he was gonna show up in so many places.
Amanda: [sadly exclaijms] Vince…
Eric: Vince…
Brandon: Vince is a good character.
Eric: What a good boy.
Brandon: He's a good cat boy.
Eric: Good cat…[meows].
Amanda: Speaking of our favorite NPCs, Eric if you could pick one NPC to fully flesh out, start all over, and play as a PC, who would it be and why?
Amanda: Is it our softest lion friend, Vince?
Eric: It might have been Vince. I think Vince needed more shine. I really wanted to do more stuff with Ev. Brandon: Ev was great.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: And just like playing him as like a very acrobatic, like a swashbuckler or a fighter or someone like that, because we never like…he got kidnapped and he really wasn't able to be messed with a little bit.
Amanda: I want to know Greg better!
Eric: Yeah, I mean Greg existed as a foil to what you thought and what the world was. I mean, Greg was a big part of the campaign when you think about it. Even just like… you established immediately what his deal was when Tracey attacked him, and critted on him.
Brandon: Mhm.
Eric: And then from there we had to figure it out. Like the whole, the whole Labor Party arc was about Greg.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Really. So I think that he was just like a moving force in the background, and um, being able to write those letters and be able to use PJ for that was really important for me. And like shout out to friends at the table for like getting me to think about that stuff, but I really like the idea of people writing letters and emails and text messages.
One-way communications are very interesting to me
Amanda: And that question was from Megan, by the way. Here's another from Zach, what were your favorite Concentric city states to create?
Eric: Oh my god, fucking, the whole Bachelorette!
Brandon: What were your favorite ones to say out loud, a bunch?
[Brandon laughs]
Eric: God, if I never have to remember which one is which for the rest of my life…
[Brandon cackles]
I’ll be so happy.
Amanda: Yeah, that was brutal.
Eric: Um, I really liked the idea of the bachelorette tournament, and like the fact that you had to fall through a hole and all of that stuff.
Amanda: So cool, yeah. It was like Alice and Wonderland.
Eric: Yeah, we can talk about that now. It was like the mansion itself and the stadium were like cursed by the Council of Bright. That's where the Council of Bright had it’s fucking like Roman Gladiator champions.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Champion fights. It’s like the stuff in the war and the Council made everyone wear white and like that's everything, everything that was this whole steez as a dictator. So, I think that that was pretty…he was like a Roman Emperor instead of like an autocrat as we know it from like 20th century, history. He was like fucking Nero, or someone stupid like that.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: So a lot of that, that energy and what we ended up using Heddy’s voice in there was like that's residual memories of what the Council of Bright did, and like, his energy was in the mud, which is what the producer was.
Amanda: Right.
Eric: Is like residual energy of these people who were part of his regime and then kept that going.
Brandon: Was that why that mud person was such a prick?
Eric: Yeah, because they wanted their thing to go and like you were a fucking gladiator, and like why are you talking to me like that because you're a gladiator and I’m the proiducer.
Amanda: Gives me very strong sending vibes right there is like magic you create to make servants for the house and over time magic deteriorates and they kind of go through the patterns that they remember from life, or you know their version of life, just kind of like on a loop.
Eric: Yeah. And just like the fact that there was a place where the Council of Bright’s energy and magic still like existed, because remember, the whole point of the bachelor tournament is that you were stuck in there, but there was an entire city everywhere else. That was like what we learned from Noto Odo. So it was like…you guys weren't even in the city! Like you were just in like a fucking mansion, much like you are when you're on a reality show, so I thought that was really important to me.
Brandon: My favorite part about that is what how long we took, I don't think it was on tape, but how long we took in the room, [chuckling] just to like jump down the hole.
Amanda: Yeah, we really thought about that man.
[Brandon laughing]
Speaking of bachelorette party, question again from Megan, at the end of bachelorette party, Chad tells Tracey he knows he isn't a human. And then the next time we see him he's right back to talking about how he is a human! Is this intentional, what's going on there?
Brandon: This is when you go on the IMDB page and you see continuity errors.
Eric: Yeah, right.
[Brandon laughs]
I feel like we're going to get to some of these right now, so I will say this is the long fucking podcast. [laughing] And I do forget about some stuff. But I do have justifications for all these things!
Amanda: Really?! I thought it was Chad having a moment of self-awareness and being like, I recognize that I don't completely fit in and then he kind of goes back to the reality that feels best for him.
Eric: Yes, it was what you just said, and then also I forgot that Chad admitted that and if he was going to go through some sort of journey. But like, the whole point of that interaction, was that Tracey and Chad were othered so incredibly hard by those librarians. And like both of them needed to reckon with it and Chad was like, Oh…you're right. I'm not a human. Like, I even know I'm not stupid. Like, but he wants to be an adventurer, like, obviously that's the whole thing and people indulged it, and then becomes like whether or not he understands his reality or not, like, again, it doesn't really matter. Like, whatever he thinks of himself as compared to like, how people see him. Like, the important thing is that he's a warrior, he's a fighter, and he's a hero.
Brandon: He's our best fighter!
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: Best fighter friend. In Pool Party, the flaming sword disintegrated with Jamie. So what happened to it between then and when they found it again in House Party? Does this mean that Jamie is still around or did it just kind of rematerialize somewhere random? And that's from Janine.
Eric: I forgot that the sword disintegrated.
Amanda: Aw, bud.
Brandon: It was such a major point to the end of that arc!
Eric: I knew that, Jamie did…So here's the thing, Jamie again, is a Revenant, who was put on earth to take down the Blackfish. So, it was important that he faded away, but like that doesn't mean that the sword wasn't put back in other places.
So in my head, it was like the sword reconstituted somewhere on earth, and then the Council of Bright’s forces found it and put it in the mansion. That's like the symbol version of that, but like we can get into some more complicated things about what it means to be a Revenant like if when your thing is done how done are you? How participatory are the gods, do they actually care about what you do on some level? So I think they're like, Jamie was holding it, it got sucked back up to heaven, they’re like, this shouldn't be here and then just respawned Just like respawned the flaming sword back in…in the Concentric states.
Amanda: Back to bachelorette party, Tobias writes, I'm doing an inspirational campaign based on yours and I want to know what all the things could have happened during the minecart roller coaster? What events could have happened and more importantly, where could that ride have let the players go off to, if not an artificer workshop for Tracey?
Eric: Well thank you, Tobias for…I cajoled to you into telling me more about your campaign inspired by us and there's some really really beautiful maps that you made. Like I'm not a map maker at all I don't know anyone who was a map maker, so like you made one for your campaign, which had a lot of my cities in it. Plus like the other stuff that you had, because you were using eber on stuff. So the art, and the map stuff that you gave was like really beautiful.
There was some stuff like about falling rocks and more bats and just other stuff you could have found in a cave, but I think this one came down to where did the minecart go if you have not been fast enough and not be able to control it.
So obviously, you went to the secret warforged room. The other place you could have bashed right into the bachelorette right back into the mansion and just like, had a giant hole, and that would have been a mess.
If you had fallen you would have ended up back in the gladiator space and like the producer would have made you like do a meet and greet immediately…
[Brandon laughs]
Eric: And then do some like really stupid challenges that would have like really sapped a lot of your energy.
Amanda: Aw, damn. I wish.
Brandon: [laughing] See how good your signature is. How good is your cursive.
Eric: There would have been like a drinking game where you participated against each other, it would have been like really stupid, but I did have that, those are possible endings, yeah.
Amanda: Sky, writes via email, love the show. I remember from Pool Party I… Marcus magic person.
Eric: Oh, Marcus magic person.
Brandon: I love Marcus magic person
Amanda: Will he come back and is he secretly the Council of Bright’s right hand man?
Brandon: He's right behind you right now!
Eric: Oh no! He was… Marcus magic person was very much just like a chaotic force. There was a person like that Adventure Time, and I just kind of like the idea there was just like a fucking trickster, who just showed up and like decided tried to con you guys in this stuff and con everyone into stuff.
I had an idea to fold them back in when I kinda like lost them around the way when we got really into Bachelorette and Labor Party, I just forgot to bring them back.
Brandon: More importantly…did you use improv last name or was that actually written down?
Eric: No, I wrote down Marcus Magic Person.
[Brandon and Amanda laugh]
100%.
Amanda: That must have been one of those moments where Eric in the middle of the day just like looked up, cackled to himself, and then just started writing.
Eric: Yeah. 100%.
Amanda: The Wonderful Fish on Discord would like to know how do a Oatcake, Tally and Joe the camel get along? Do they ever have their own adventures or do they just kind of thrust together by the will of the taller ones and begrudgingly make do?
Brandon: Were you doting on fish or was that their name in the Discord?
Amanda: Oh that's their name.
Brandon: It's nice, I like that.
Eric: I don't know, I would have to ask you. You…you players know more about these little pets than I do.
Amanda: I think Joe the camel has an entire life at the castle for himself. He has friends, he goes out, he like goes back to town and sees his like buds from the market, and he's just like cosmopolitan camel about town.
Brandon: Yeah, he's on love sacks. Definitely.
Amanda: Yeah, totally. 100%. He’s friends with Nessie.
Brandon: He’s friends with Nessie.
Amanda: Yeah, 100%. But yeah I think he gets along well with Oatcake and Tally and…I don't know do you think that Oatcake could blink into Tally’s briefcase and they can like hang out and play?
Brandon: Yeah, I think Tally does spend most of their time in the bag form, but I think when they're out, I could see Oatcake and Tally playing because I think Oatcake might be the only animal able to play with the crocogator.
Amanda: Yes.
Brandon: Because she could just blink around, you know.
Amanda: And learn to play chess cuz she's super smart and the perfect dog.
Brandon: Yeah!
Eric: People suggested on Discord that we need to do a one shot, as all the animals.
Brandon: Oh, that would be funnn.
Eric: And I was like, that's a really good idea! I kinda want to do it for Austin.
Brandon: I think that'd be fun!
Eric: We have an hour for Austin. I don’t need a full hour but we can get Julia to play one of the people.
Amanda: Well, Tanya did ask if we can ever get more Met Gala/Goat party type stuff and asked if Ga-Ga would be there so…
Eric: Gah-gaaa…
Brandon: Gaga!
Amanda: I think it’s worth talking about.
Eric: We are going to do one shots in January in February, that's what we're going to do in the in between so these one pager, one shots and just like the really silly ones are so much fun. Like the tabletop RPG community is beautiful and amazing, and like I just want to keep doing the stuff. Like I get this stuff from Grant Howlett who made Goat Party, who made Honey Ice, like that guy is a fucking genius just coming up with silly games and putting rules on them.
I really like Dadlands from the McIlroys, they just did with Brandon Lee Morgan as a DM. That's really cool. So that's, I kind of want to do that. So we have opportunities. We're going to do one with a bunch of friends. And then we're going to do another one which I think it just to bring Julia in, so we're going to play some silly stuff.
[brief theme beats]
Amanda: Before we get to our next question we're going to take a quick break to thank the newest patrons who have joined us over on patreon.com/jointhepartypod. Thank you to Danny B., Emily, Catherine, Eric, Tracey, Eugene, Andrew, Samuel, Ben, and Catherine. Thank you so so much for joining. We hope you're enjoying the Discord, the NPC backstories, and all the good bonus materials that you can find on Patreon.
We also would like to shout out a sponsor this week Steadman USA. These are the folks who make really really great quality pop filters, it's like little round things you see in front of microphones that help a ton with the audio production in D&D. We get excited, we yell, we scream, we roll dice, and making that sound exciting but also listenable and not like blowing out your ears or your headphones is really challenging and we rely on equipment like the Steadman pop filters to make sure that that is fairly easy, as easy as it can be. To make sure that we deliver you all audio that feels like you're in the room with us. And Steadmen very kindly provided us some pop filters in our studio build out, which you can read all about on our website. If you would like to check out their audio accessories and materials of all kinds, head to stedmanusa.com. That's stedmanusa.com.
We are also sponsored by Hero Forge! This holiday season I know that I would be extremely excited to get a Hero Forge gift card as a present. So you can send these cards instantly via email or print them to give to somebody on a holiday morning. They can be used to purchase all kinds of minis both digital and physical. So, if you don't know exactly what kind of mini your friend wants or how they would want to design something since, you know, your character so much is in your head and you want to be the person making that in physical form for the first time, a gift card is a really great way to say, Hey, I know you play D&D, I know you're going to enjoy this but also I want to give you some control. So visit heroforge.com to order some minis of your own, or to grab a gift card today.
And we are also sponsored by Lily CBD, which is a CBD company that I use all the time and really genuinely enjoy. Helps with insomnia, and it is used to help people deal with all kinds of things. Both stress, physical pain and other kinds of ways that they might want to use CBD to improve their lives, and really helpfully there are a great educational resources on the lily CBD website. They have a phone line you can call to ask questions figure out what works best for you. And they're also really socially minded, so they give 5% of all sales to organizations focused on social injustice and mental health, including the last prisoner project.
If you don't know a lot about CBD I really encourage you to go check it out just to educate yourself again they have great resources on what it's all about. Why they started this company which has to do with like a really personal story, and also to check out their products. And if you decide it's something useful for you, you can use the code, join the party for 10% off your purchase. And now let's get back to your questions.
[brief theme beats]
Eric: Hey, do you guys want to know the items you guys didn't get?
Brandon: Um, extremely badly.
Eric: Okay, I…this is finally it. These are the items that didn't get used in the Join the Party campaign that I had written down.
Brandon: I just want to think about it because the items that we did get, like, helped characterize our characters so much.
Amanda: SO MUCH! The shadow cloak!
Brandon: I want to imagine what Inara and Tracey would do with some of these different items like how we would develop differently.
Eric: Alright, well let’s see. Here's the general table. This is the one that I made originally when you first went to do Doove and Boosters.
There was one called the hack pack, which looks like a Jansport that may or may not have your initials on it.
[Brandon cackles]
And it can be activated to assist on lock picking or romancey rolls. On romancey rolls, but if you have to say, I'm hacking into the mainframe when you do it.
Amanda: That’s very good.
Eric: There were pixie sticks, which are consumable items that give you a sugar rush that give you a boost your initiative…
[Brandon laughs]
Or your speed by like either a +3 on a roll or +20 on your speed, then you, you might crash if you make a bad roll.
Amanda: But Eric, sugar is poison is a family friendly product.
[Brandon and Eric gaffaw]
Eric: We have escape goat, which was a small figurine of a goat.
Amanda: [excitedly] YES!!!
And you can summon it and it will grow to full size and run away!
Amanda: NOOO, I WANT IT!!!
Brandon: Wait, I…I got that.
Eric: Oh you did get that!
Brandon: WHY DID I NOT USE THAT!?
Eric: I don’t know!
Brandon: Did I forget to write that down?!
Eric: You might’ve…
Brandon: [sadly] Oh no!!!
Eric: And you had advantage at Persuasion and you would blame it on the goat.
Amanda: [distraught] NOOOO!!!
Brandon: OHHH.
Eric: You did get that, you totally forgot about it.
Brandon: OH!! I’m so sorry everyone.
Eric: There are also ones that other people got like the, the manager badge which Greg had, and the bag of bags which Alonzo got which I really loved. I'm glad that we'd use that just for flavor. Oh, there was a branded I…like a Guy Fieti like branded iron skillet…
[Brandon laughs]
Which you could have used and you would’ve gotten like +1 to rolls, you've gotten from there or used it as a 1 d6 weapon. Oh, there was an Easy Bake Oven, [laughs]…
Amanda: Oh my.
Eric: For you to bake good berries basically but there were for cookies.
Brandon: Oh man, Tracey would have loved that. CHEF TRACEY.
Eric: Oh, there was yourself as an action figure, which you could have put yourself in any position, you would have advantages doing that action.
Amanda: That’s cool.
Brandon: That’s cool!
Eric: And then there were fast acting mothballs, which the mothballs turned into moths, and then what it would have obeyed your commands and they were flaming moths so they would have done fire damage.
Brandon: Hey Eric, I don't think that's how mothballs work, [chuckles].
Eric: I know, but it’s a pun Brandon.
[Brandon laughs]
I also had the specific ones that you all had. The Stick of Returning Inara got. I had Sensible and Secret Shoes, which you ended up getting something similar when you got Brink’s shoes. You have the grind machine. There were speaking strips, which were when you could talk to Oatcake.
Amanda: Yeah!
Eric: Which you ended up getting.
Brandon: We didn't use those, did we?
Amanda: No..our bond it just exceeds language, Bradnon.
Brandon: It does.
Eric: There was an elemental salt lamp which you could have gotten.
[Amanda and Brandon chuckle]
Which again, you could have used to light more things up. But if you use it one more than once per month you would have started suffering strange consequences because it was from the plane of water. And there was also abhoreson bell, which you didn't end up using.
[Amanda gasps]
You would have gotten necrotic damage, and if you had used it and rang it like a bell.
Amanda: Dang!
Eric: Oh, there was a barbarian snow globe, which had a little village in a snow globe and if you shook it, and while you were holding it, like everyone around you would have gotten 5 temporary HP points.
Brandon: Oh, that's cool.
Eric: Uh, there was an elemental necklace which you could have changed your melee type. Uh, you had a 1+6 of any other elemental type and you could have chose it.
There's also the thing that we tried to figure out how to put into the campaign and just didn't work. It was the I hate Dylan baseball bat. We talked about this.
[Brandon giggles]
It was a +1 weapon but I ended up giving you the sawbone instead. And then…[chuckling] you have to roll a 1 d10, and if you got a 1, their name would have been Dylan, and then you would have gotten +2 to do damage on them. We couldn't figure out how to put it in because I didn't want you running around asking people names, like I didn't want to like one of our listeners to hear their name and be like, Oh, I'm gonna hit you with a baseball bat!
Brandon: Exactly.
Eric: We didn't want to put that in, but I love that as an item. I just don't know how to put it into a D&D podcast.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: And then let's see, uh I also have some items for Johnny which we ended up doing. There was a candle that never went out even in water. There was historian’s goblet where every time you take an alcoholic drink you would have gotten +1 to History checks, but then you would have, if you kept drinking you would have been + to that, and then you would have had to do Constitution drunk rolls to it.
There was the instant ovation where you opened up…
[Amanda chuckles]
And there would have been a riotous applause which would have helped your Charisma checks.
[Brandon cackles heartily]
And then there was something called the…[trying to contain laughter] gentle person. I remember Colin helped me with some of these. It's called the gentle person’s discretion, where you could have taken a book and put it in this binding, and then you would have closed and then it would have turned into a pocket size book.
Amanda: Cool.
Eric: You could have just slipped it into your pocket.
Brandon: Hm.
Eric: Sometimes you just gotta make up a lot of shit and then see what happens. There's nothing more fun for a DM knowing that some things are not going to get revealed and like that's okay.
Amanda: Well, that reminds me a question that I think Brandon brought up, what's the worst way you were screwed Eric, what's the worst way we screwed you?
[everyone cackles]
Eric: Uh, I think the thing that stands out to me the most was in Pool Party where I set up the giant mistake. And I was like, Alright, you guys are gonna go in and a lot of cool stuffs gonna happen inside because I put a lot of stuff in there that I was excited for you all to interact with and choose. But then Brandon's like I'm going to be batman and going through the back.
Brandon: I wasn’t…[scoffs] yeah you’re right, I was.
[Amanda and Eric laugh heartily]
Eric: You 100% were batman because then you also turned Tally on! Which was fine though because I moved the snail racing to the back.
Brandon: Oh, it was supposed to be in the front?
Eric: I was supposed to be in the cornerbut like I was also fine with it being of the back and then you would have ran into like illegal snail races. So like you ended up doing the thing that I wanted, but I think that that's where my philosophy of DMing really came out. Which was like prep all this stuff and remember it's a hand of cards.
Brandon: Right.
Eric: Like play them however you want according to the situation.
Brandon: Mhm, mhm.
Eric: And like no one needs to know what your map is. Like we're not playing with a board, we're not playing with, it's like this isn't like 4E, like, I can put a door…I can put a room wherever I want. If they want to go in through a window or door, or jump out a window, like I can just rearrange things and that's okay.
Brandon: Yeah, that's cool because I think it also like worked out nicely because it's…it makes sense like logically that that would be in private in the back room, and then also like gave Tracey, a sort of excuse to do some quasi-detective work, some like police work, that he thought he was doing well and was not.
[Brandon chuckles]
Eric: You know, you guys really haven't fucked me all that much honestly like I kinda…
Brandon: Even when I chopped Greg’s leg off?
Eric: That was hard! I was…
[Brandon cackles]
That was like…the stuff in the beginning was like I didn't know how to do it because I was a new DM. But by the end of it I'm just like yeah do whatever you want.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Honestly.
Amanda: Was it okay that I assassinated What's her face?
Eric: Yeah, I assumed you were going to. She was a bad guy.
Amanda: Okay.
Eric: I wanted you to do it but then it got messy, like that was a different thing. I think like when things you hope happen go wrong…
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: And like you still need to get yourself there even if it's messy, like that's the hard part. Like when Tracey fucking biffed his shot Ze’ol that…that was hard to deal with.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: I was like, I want you to do this but like, what are we going to do to get you there?
Brandon: Right.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: And that's something that I actually learned from monster of the week or powered by the apocalypse games, is like a middling success? It's like you do it but something else happens, like it's not as good, you need to give something else up. I think that that's something that I really learned from a lot of stuff happened in Hunting Party. That was hard for me to deal with, like balancing all the new players was tough, and then the stuff in the creative building with…
Brandon: The bear?
Eric: With the bear. That was tough.
Brandon: It was fun.
Amanda: It was so fun!
Brandon: It was really fun, yeah.
Eric: In Hunting Party I really tried to get you guys to go wherever you wanted. And I was like this is a city, you need to figure out what's happening here.
Amanda: Right.
Eric: I can't believe you got the giant Oatcake. I mean that…[guffaws] you…I was so worried about what was going to happen because you guys were so close to finding the mystery, because like none of these people were very convincing and that's fine.
[Amanda giggles]
Like they were idiots, but it's like, it always happens like…you're careening off the road and then you end up doing something which was like, Oh, I know exactly what to do now! And then so that's when the giant Oatcake chase happened.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: Because I'm like you guys kept talking about Oatcake and you got to talking about Oatcake will win and like that's what the fucking Koyoto would do. They would turn Oatcake into a fucking monster. There's always something I can latch on to. It's just like, I get worried when you guys don't know what to do next.
Brandon: Right.
Eric: That's the thing…that's always the the tough thing.
Brandon: That's I think like the really nice thing about when you find a session of people that really work well together. Is like the players and the DM constantly push against each other. And then there's also that level of trust of like well we can sort of, yeah, start to careen off the edge because we know you're going to catch us.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah, it's really nice to be able to find people who can who you can trust that way.
Eric: Mhm.
Amanda: Totally. Are there any story or character details that you wish had been explored more but never came up in the campaign? That's from Race Track Comlin.
Eric: Uh, Chad definitely. I think that what I was trying to do with that was like, where did Chad come from and why? We didn't actually get to explore that. And honestly like at one point I didn't care from how much you liked him as a person. I’m just like, I like that he exists, like being an ooze who thinks he's a human but he kicks ass. Like he might as well just be a fighter, and like, when I accepted that I feel like I kind of let that go about if Chad was tied into the larger story and who created him and why.
Brandon: Yeah, I think with Chad, I think for Tracey we sort of bonded on to each other. I think initially as a player I felt like a, like a little brother trying to tag along.
Eric: Yeah
Brandon: And so I was like reluctant to try and dive into near the end of and I wish…I do wish I sort of had [scoffs] gotten more into Chad because we grew to love him so much.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: So that was the character you intended to be major that was sort of less major than you wished? Eric: No, he had started out by being a joke, like I laughed at myself and thought what if there was just an ooze in this thing?
[Brandon and Amanda laugh]
Everyone in bachelorette party was just like a joke. And I was like, these are all funny people that I hope what happens. The, the doppelganger of Johnny was also another person that I thought was binary but then I realized had like very big like reverberations in the larger world and I'm like, oh no! I need to like figure out who is falling the Undying Light and what that means.
Amanda: Right.
Eric: Honestly like I spent so much time working on PRO/Salmon.
[Amanda chuckles]
That I forgot about everything else.
Amanda: It was great!
Eric: But like the reveal of Salmon, I put so much work into it that I kind of forgot that I need to build that out, so Chad was minor became major, and then I pulled him back a little bit.
Amanda: Yeah, so who else did you intend to be minor that became major? As I might call it the Stoneface effects? Where we jumped out a window and suddenly something had happened.
Eric: Tammy and Taylor, definitely like these are just people I made in the beginning to populate the room. Uh, Greg also, I thought was going to be a lot more minor, or he was either going to be like a lot bigger or a lot smaller and I again he was in the middle.
Definitely Kohl when, when we realize we could pull Julia in more, like Kohl's entire thing and Hunting Party was like a joke because I wanted Julia to have to do wrestling stuff.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: Like I thought that was really funny. I literally thought, Let's talk about Hunting Party for a second. The real build up to that was like there was going to be a wrestling match. And instead, no one wanted to do that and I'm like okay that's fine by me! And then Franny became the big thing.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: So I focused all that energy that I put on the fucking Lighthammer and I put it on Franny instead.
Amanda: Instead, I mean let's not get me wrong, it would have been really fun but I was so scared about Oatcake.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: I just couldn't like get near the match.
Amanda: I mean let's not get me wrong, it would have been really fun but I was so scared about Oatcake.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: I just couldn't like get near the match, at all.
Brandon: Yeah, and I think we were trying as players to like get faster to the solve and seemed like another just like a pathway that would been fun but not toward our goal.
Eric: No, it's good. I mean, it'd all kind of resolved itself anyway because you ended up using like really following the thread instead of following the shiny thing I made you.
[Amanda laughs]
Brandon: Right.
Eric: So I'm happy for that like we talked about it and then Franny's participation in the larger plot, and how she like fucking laid out the fucking history of the world for you was very important.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah I loved, I love the way she did that too.
Amanda: No it was, it was necessary. It felt like, like Oh thank god some answers, but not in a way that took out agency...
Brandon: Right.
Amanda: ...or that felt like a, like, like a hand of the DM coming into like push us.
Eric: The thing that I was really worried about was like, I really wanted to make sure with Brandon it was okay that you were going to get kidnapped. And then, which I asked you about like is it okay if you get separated and you were like yeah fine whatever and then how worried you and Sarah were about TR8C being gone and having to find him.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: You also rolled very very well for your fucking not getting confused about the road so you did actually figure out how to get in there which was pretty cool.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: But I think that like the fact that Franny was fascinated with TR8C as like a fact of it because she's like, Oh, I remember warlords and now there is one, and be like, No, actually, we're good friends and I'm scared of you, but TR8C was like I'm scared of you and the fact that their relationship was so head butting until you understood who Franny was and that took so long.
[Brandon and Amanda giggle]
Eric: Cause she funcking, she fucking kidnapped TR8C!
Brandon: She kidnapped me, yeah.
Amanda: Inexplicable, yeah.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: And something else you talked about throughout the campaign is trusting NPCs
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: So for me it felt so gratifying that frannie is someone who after that skepticism, you know, it was finally like okay we can trust you. And by the time we got to the beginning of House Party, being able to put together with you, Eric and talking about like Inara leading resistance movements and really relying on people like, even though one of those ended up having consequences of, you know, Brink being compromised in a way that we didn't understand it still felt like really gratifying, not to just be the solo adventurer like busting into someone's town, and, you know, fucking shit up and then leaving. But being able to like put all these relationships to use it was really gratifying.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: The thing that I didn't realize when we started Join the Party, because like Brandon and I had this terrible fucking job where no one trusted us with our skills, because they thought they knew better because they were ostensibly in more power because they were like our managers or whatever, and like that is how so many of the NPC's in the beginning of the game started, it was like "you have to trust me because I am important" and it just like they never helped you at all. Even Maxamillion like the first person you met yeah it was just like "I need you to help me because I'm a prince right" and it's just like okay I guess we're going to do that because it's a job and like a job is a job, but then like I regret not giving you more people to trust, because then it became like a thing that you couldn't trust people. So what I try to give you Franny, who still kidn-, and it seems sketchy but she's not, and like I really needed to earn your trust and like it took a really long time. So like, that's something I'm very excited about the next campaign is like giving a more balanced about trustworthy people and untrustworthy people...
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: ...so like if someone slips on you or surprises you, it will actually be a surprise.
Brandon: I think it's fun to that like in this campaign specifically, yeah, that that we were sort of undressing because it, it did play out in the room like in the literal like...
Amanda: Yeah
Brandon: ...obviously we trust you as a person, but like, No, you had you did have to earn my trust for Franny when you played Franny like we are how you felt exactly Amanda but like giving her the items was like, oooh this is gonna bite us in the ass!
Amanda: It was really...
Eric: That was the whole thing, you guys were trying to copy things and give her fakes.
Amanda: Oh yeah!
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: Like I forgot about that.
Amanda: Yeah, like someone on survivor making a fake idol. I was just like I didn't want to give her the real thing.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: I mean this was even from the beginning with Ev. Obviously, there were good people and bad people in the city guard and you had, Ev had to prove himself to you that like he was trustworthy and he needed to like make an acrobatics roll with like 30...
Brandon: Yeah
Eric: ... to do that, like he needed to... what did he do? He ran off the shore and jumped into a boat that was like 50 feet away.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: Like that's what he had to do to get TR8C to trust him. And even then, we had the entire like that was probably one of our tensest moments in the whole goddamn show was the boat thing where fucking...
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: ...where everyone tried to drown each other, and like that was just a lot like "Who do you trust and who don't you trust".
Brandon: Yeah, I think you're right about it. Like I think what the difference is that like yeah we were introduced to people who were in power or not, quasi like victims of things, and then eventually like the people that we became trustworthy, were the people that were clearly the showcase and they were also victims of the either the council, or whatever it was and I think our characters sort of like vibed with that, you know, like we understood where you're coming from at the end of that day.
Eric: I think understanding the speaker is probably how it happened. It was like first she was like a government official...
Amanda: Yeah
Eric: ...and then you realize like she's literally trying to hold everything together by herself. And like I got into this in the NPC stories of but like she was divinely created by Adamah as her middle manager to like make sure everything happens okay with the larger council, the actual council, not the asshole council. To like make sure that everything's okay and everything runs like so she's literally trying to hold everything together. Just because she's a godly deity but she's only one being, and she's like you guys are such idiots but like I do need your help. So Inara is like "Can I have some bagels", and she's like yeah sure have some bagels,
Amanda: Yeah, speaking of which Lexi asks: are there any NPC who as they developed you felt you learn from or were able to grow alongside of
Eric: Oh the speaker, 100%, when she finally went with you all in labor party
Amanda: Yeah, that was very important is a turning point for us to.
Eric: Yeah, it was like she can kick ass she has gauntlets. She's only done magic a little bit she did that, uhhh, that really really like level nine, uhhh
Brandon: AOE attack and the, like, great
Eric: The one the pacifism one where she made everyone just like fucking stop
Brandon: Right
Eric: Like you forgot that she has skills and she's like, really, really powerful. So like she could like she could kick ass she was able to take care of herself and like she was locked in battle with Ze'ol cosmically, like, in her brain for that entire fucking campaign.
Amanda: The whole thing, yeah.
Eric: The entire arc.
Brandon: Yeah
Eric: So it's like you forget how powerful she is and then when she needs help, she really needs help. And like that was really important to me.
Brandon: Guys Ze'ol.
[everyone laughs]
Eric: The god, Ze'ol was also a turning point for me that like I can make whoever I want.
Brandon: Yeah, and it's a Z, E, apostrophe, O, L for everybody out there.
Eric: It's true.
Amanda: Just so you know.
Eric: I should release like a spelling guide, all the proper spellings are in all of our transcripts,
Amanda: Yeah
Eric: If you want to know.
Amanda: But like, I don't know, you wouldn't know that from just like asking it on twitter.
Eric: Yeah D'var is D, apostrophe, V, A, R. And then Adamah is A, D, A, M, A, H.
Brandon: I've been spelling D'var wrong in all of my sessions
[everyone laughs]
Eric: That's fine.
Amanda: Tanya asks if we could change anything about how we played our character or the campaign in general, what would it be. And then similarly Phoebe asked if there's anything we wish we did differently in building our characters specifically.
Brandon: That's a good one. Yeah, yeah so um the like characterization side like the personality side I don't think I would change like, like a big swath of Tracey's personality. But I do think I would play him slightly less, less laissez-fair, a little bit you know.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: Tracey just sort of like, not did what he want, like he did follow a moral compass but sort of just like it wasn't always, like, with the group, with the game, with the plot.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: I do like that in in his character a little bit but I woulda reeled it back, like 30%, maybe.
Eric: I think that if I'd known more about what Tracey wanted
Brandon: Yeah
Eric: I think I could have given it yeah more and then we could have really ran at it because I had to really hammer it home in Bachelorette Party
Brandon: Right.
Eric: Which I'm happy about. But it's like it took a little a real long time before we actually got what Tracey wanted, which was like figure out where the fuck hecame from.
Brandon: Yeah, I don't think I knew that either you know when we started so like I don't know how I would have played that
Amanda: Yeah
Eric: Yeah
Brandon: And I think in terms of like actual stat character sheet. Barbarians suck i hate Barbarians.
[everyone laughs]
Brandon: I don't like physical fighters there for me like they're not super fun.
Amanda: I never would have guessed that I think you did a great job.
Brandon: Thank you. This is the first time I played a physical class I've always played magic users. And I think there's also like some a lot of downsides to like distance fighters. They're also kind of boring in some places but yeah like I just felt a lot of times in combat, which was nice to have to think this way, but I had to think really creatively to be interesting on microphone.
Eric: Sure.
Brandon: And that was a struggle. So I would have maybe either multi class earlier or thought of maybe like a slightly more physical and magical class and like re-skinned it, but I don't know.
Amanda: Yeah, I think my major mistake was having Eric make my character sheet for me. You offered early on and we were all working full time and had like spending our entire weekends doing all this prep so I was like, yeah, I'm probably gonna mess it up like make it for me. But I think that going through that process myself and risking like annoying you and my colleagues by like asking him a million questions would have been better for me to just understand the fundamentals and feel more like I can choose, I can min max, like, I wasn't thinking strategically because I hadn't played d&d before about like what skills would be most useful to me going forward. So I was just like, let's make a well rounded character, which is nice and that's the style of someplace some people enjoy. But moving into a related question about what we're going to bring into the next campaign in our next character building process.
Eric: Mhmmmm
Amanda: I'm min-maxing the fuck out of my character, and similarly like watching dimension 20 really hammers home to me how different it is to fight on a board, and with minis, and rogues in particular, so much has to do with the physical proximity in the fight your positioning who is within range.
Eric: Yeah
Amanda: When sneak attack happens. Are you undercover? And that stuff that I feel like now I understand and if we were playing a home campaign with a board I think rogues are so cool and I would love to do like a very physical, like really in there, figure out by proximity all the ways that I can, like, really like eke out all my damage that I can do, but it was for flavor and for character, interesting, to have that assassin angle and I liked the guild. I liked, getting to know that, particularly for Inara as a character that like fundamentally wanted to like find belonging. Having that guild was a cool way to start. And then, of course, ended up finding that like with my own party, but it was not a strategic choice.
Eric: I will say that we started Join the Party, right when Dungeons and Dragons started making better sub classes for all the classes.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah
Eric: So it's like, there were so many rogue sub classes
Amanda: That was the best one available to me.
Eric: There were so many rogue sub classes they came out like six months after we started Join the Party that Inara should have been. Like the Inquisitor
Amanda: Yeah
Eric: Would have been a great one for her. Like the mastermind which have been another one, or just like, there would have been so many other ones. There's also really interesting barbarians now.
Amanda: Yeah
Eric: So like that would have also been a really interesting thing.
Brandon: Yeah
Eric: Making Tracey more elemental like maybe he would have been like an elemental barbarian of the undying light if he's powered by all that stuff. I don't know, we could have, we could have figured that out in so many different ways, which wasn't the thing that happened with Johnny, like, the undying light or like the the light Warlock was like this cleric like ass terrible class. And we're like, yeah, we're going to use the old one.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: It was like so much better.
Brandon: Yeah. I think it's gonna be interesting, going into a new season because I intentionally have never played min maxed, because I think it is more fun for me to play a more well rounded character because I want to fail, as evidenced by the fact that I fail a lot.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: But this, going into campaign two, I am going to min max and are done before and I'm, I'm excited to see how that...
Eric: It's gonna be so great
Brandon: ...dynamic pieces together.
Eric: Especially if we're in a modern campaign we're really, I'm really going to push you you're gonna have to do a lot of stuff.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Like all humans have to do everything. Like imagine if you had really high dex and really low strength in real life, like what are you going to do, not carry your groceries.
[everyone laughs]
Eric: You know? I think that I'm really excited about some of this stuff that you're just gonna have to confront from doing regular shit.
Brandon: Episode one carry some groceries.
Eric: It's like what you're not going to help your friend, like, move, like, you're not gonna carry a box. Even constitution like you're going to walk into a subway car and be like, Oh, I'm just not going to get on this at all because it smells bad, like what do you? No, I still have to go to the place where I have to go. So, that's gonna be fun.
Amanda: I'm really excited about that. Also for the the social perspective, you know, like Inara was very disconnected by choice from the settings that we were in and our adventuring party does what adventuring parties do, which is like go to a bunch of new places where we don't know anybody. So I'm excited to try and build infrastructure around meeting people and having relationships with people that come back again and again.
Brandon: Yeah, same for Tracey too.
Eric: That was another thing that I wish I'd fleshed out the bombalades were supposed to be like a mail service sort of thing but then I realized they were way more interesting as being like oatcakes pets.
[everyone laughs]
Eric: So I kind of like left I kind of just like stuck them in Fedopolis and it didn't spread. Well I guess that's originally why I made them.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: So that they could be like giant hummingbirds that took your mail places.
Brandon: That's what I assumed it was, yeah.
Eric: But like you guys didn't really use it which is fine because he mean you know letters are letters, but, you know, because I'm glad that we can just do a straight up modern thing that I could like just not worry about the fantasy implications of all this, I'm like, yeah text each other. I don't give a shit.
Brandon: Sure.
Eric: That's how communication works. Like, people still miscommunicate things, even though we have computers that can contact anyone in the world
Brandon: True.
Amanda: Lexi coming through with another emotional question: what would you say you'll take with you from playing these characters, not just as a DND player but as a person, I think the same for Eric from DM'ing a campaign.
Eric: Oof.
Eric: "In the arms of", I'm just gonna sing this while you guys answer. "Far away"
Amanda: Despite her name I am not related to Sarah McLaughlin and I cannot get us permission...
Eric: "IN THE ARMMMMS OF"
Brandon: For me I think like, I think this might, I think, bounce off, maybe y'alls two answers to like I think we all learned a lot about collaboration, and using the strengths and weaknesses within recording but also within like workplace and how we creatively collaborate on things, and really like, yeah, like min maxing our skills there. I think conflict resolution we learned a lot of, and like how to do that really effectively. I think communication among three like really got effective as we went along, I don't know I think like, I think we all grew as collaborators significantly because of this campaign specifically. I think that has allowed us to work more efficiently on other projects.
Amanda: Yeah, I mean the whole kind of concept of multitude came out of making join the party and running it and being like, you know, we can have a perspective we can choose a way that we want to approach these things we don't just want to make a DND show we want to make one, the way that we want to make it and make something that is inclusive, inviting critical, like taking an interesting take on a medium, exploring, and celebrating genre while still you know like adding to it. So that was significant just in terms of, like, personal history for the last three years like my life is so different from when I first like hung the Join the Party concept art that Allison gave us in my cubicle at my marketing job. And my colleagues were like "what's that" and I'm like well, there's this thing called podcasts and, you know, very different. But for Inara, like looking back a lot of Inara's journey mirrored my own in ways that are frankly a little bit embarrassing because I didn't really see them coming. Looking for belonging, trying to figure out how my skills can best serve those around me, trying to get meaning not just from like the work I do but their relationships that I make, there's really a lot there.
Brandon: Yeah, actually going off that too, something I really liked with playing with TR8C, that I'm not sure I'll play with future characters I don't know but not, none of us did but not playing with romantic love but really playing with these different kinds of love that I experienced in my life of like, whether it's friendships, or something that's not really quantifiable and everyday life. And like we haven't touched Tracey's like sexuality or the way he experiences romance but like exploring the ways that he really truly deeply cares for people that are different than friendship and interesting in different ways. I really like that kind of characterization and I personally as a person love seeing that in media. Where it's like siblings or family or like something, like, greater than friends but not romantic and like yeah I don't know I really love seeing that.
Eric: I think we're going to be able to pull on that in the next season a lot more because the one thing that I wish that we had more was like people you already cared about before the adventure started.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Like just people who cared about you and wanted wanted the best for you. And like were rooting for you and wanted to help. And like you had to find those people eventually and I think that we can pull on that when it looks like, you're a person and like you have relationships, before shit pops off anything that we can do a lot more of them the next one. Let's see stuff that I learned. Oh man, this was like the creative project I was working on for so long that like I wanted to happen. And it did.
Brandon: Knowing that we can do something. Is really important.
Eric: Exactly. Yeah, I was doing, doing it and I was like, Oh, now I can do it and then like, eventually we start I started Horse and now I'm like, I and Eric Schnyder, put everything together for Head Heart Gut and now we have these two big projects through multitude which are happening on are gonna pop off next year and I'm like, Join the Party was a big fucking undertaking I'm like, Oh, I can do this, I can do other shit. That is very gratifying.
Amanda: It's also very terrifying and relaxing at the same time to show up to a session knowing that it's a podcast that like all three of our names are on that we all co host together, and I have no idea what's happening in the plot that week.
[everyone laughs]
Amanda: Like it has never struck me as a thing to be scared of because I just so trust what you're bringing to the table and the world are making and the fact that if I have a question like Brandon can help me and like if I don't know what to do, and someone else in the party can. It's just like a very, to your point, Brandon like a real endorsement of collaboration.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: And the same with like all these projects we're working on like the Spirits as well as this similar way where I just show up and I don't know what's happening and I trust my collaborators to like captain the ship toward the finish line or whatever you want to call it.
Brandon: And that's like, really difficult. At least for me speaking as a person like who is a control freak and who likes to have their fingers in every pie like, this is truly...
Eric: Gross, take your fingers out of pies. Don't do that.
Amanda: Cross-contaminate.
Brandon: No, pie is delicious. But this is truly like...
Eric: Don't finger the pies!
Amanda: Oh no.
Brandon: No, bad!
[Eric chortles]
Brandon: This is the only like collaborative group professionally that I've worked in that I genuinely do feel like, it's still difficult but like, I can be like okay no I do need to like hands off and like, back off and it'll be fine it's gonna be better than what I could have possibly done.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Another thing that's changed from the beginning of during the party is that like I have more people and Dungeons and Dragons content that I look to as being good and reference points and like I when I look at them I like these DM's are so good, but like, they need their players to respond. Because if not, it's just like a storybook like it's nothing. I think that it's a relationship between the DM and the players that make it happen. It's like the push and the pull and like wanting them to do stuff, so I was like I present the situation but like you guys still need to react to it. And that's, I realized has been the most important thing about it is like I will give you and I will come up with everything like here's the world, but like, you need to interact with it and then I need to, and then I need to make the things that were filled in that don't exist, like that's important.
Amanda: Yeah, that's something I really missed in the years between going to college and starting this project. Where, Eric, I don't know if you know this but I did theater once upon a time.
Eric: Oh my god, when did you do theater?
Amanda: In Middle and High School.
Eric: Oh, that's a weird you've never talked about that,
Amanda: And I get so much.
[Eric guffaws]
Amanda: I got so much satisfaction from, again, as a person who was definitely a control freak and wanted like a perfectionist and I thought that things could not get done well unless I was part of them, and it was a really like humbling and good lesson from, you know, 12 to 18 to spend like all day every day doing something where I can only control so much and the final product is something that I ultimately don't have control over. And I really missed that in the time in between. So having this creative project, taking in so much more RPG media, making so many friends in the RPG community, among the Join the Party community, like just getting through everybody who spends all this time doing this, like vulnerable, and exciting, and like weird project of doing D&D is amazing and it's something that like I get it now, you know I get it like people have campaigns that last 30 years. I feel closer to my brother because it's such an important part of his life and it's just, I so value being a part of this community and an observer of this community. And then, to conclude from aka eight s in Discord: What are you most proud of as a player or character for the campaign as a whole?
Eric: Oh, man. I think I am most proud of how I've grown as a dungeon master over time. I think that I always had kind of some raw skills to be able to make it good from the jump and I'm glad that I got that shot like I've learned so much and the stuff that I'm coming up with for the next season, are like so fucking, like I'm not trying to say they're like "oh it's so sophisticated" but like, I'm pulling a lot of stuff from a lot of different places and like, I think it's going to really hold up and I think it's going to make everyone happier. Both the players and the listeners, and also myself just like making it really deep. So like I'm really proud of some of the stuff that I came up with throughout dm'ing that like were planned and then went off, even if they were hard. Even if they didn't go off without a hitch I was like yeah like, no, this was really fun and this everyone had a good time doing it. Like I said, like when I was in House Party and I knew what the map was going to be, I knew where they were going to be, they could go in any direction that they wanted to, I felt very like free that everyone was just going to do what they were going to do, and I felt secure in what was going to happen next. And I'm like, I can do it, you know. The only thing that a DM needs is like one person that they can be like, am I doing this right, am I using this mechanic correctly before I put it in front of my players, and like, hopefully you can get a yes but sometimes you don't because there isn't another person who knows the same like arcane fucking piece of knowledge from a different RPG system that you're grafting onto your thing, like you just don't have that so you just gotta hope that you're using it correctly and it works out okay. And like I think that I've gotten to the place where that's happening so I'm very happy with that.
Brandon: That's great. I think for me the thing that I am most proud of is the way that I balance both fun game play and like pure like character use with like emotional stakes and relationships, something I haven't done before in D&D I really just like, I don't know, it's like a name and like a, like a skin suit and then like I'm going to shoot spells.
Eric: Gross.
Amanda: Isn't that just life, man?
Brandon: Yeah, I think the way that Tracey developed and the way that I was able to sort of like make his relationships with everyone complex and nuanced in a way that I really like and make him well rounded the way that he doesn't make good decisions, even in the end, you know or, it makes really either selfish on one way or non selfish decisions depending on how you look at it, like I think that's, that's where the real heart of D&D is for me is like, yeah, we are. There's like cool spells but that's like the that's the icing on the like cake that is sustaining underneath you know.
Amanda: I'm proud of how I've leveled up as a player, and it's a thing that I find really, really hard and I spent probably the first two years of the show feeling like a guilty, bad player. every time I sat down to start recording, but I, you know, persisted and like it matters to me. And I think that's a lot to the credit of like my fellow players for making that really fun and making me feel like I could do something even though I felt like I wasn't good at it yet, and for Eric's world being something where I knew that I could ask the question, try something, you know, silly, do you like the, quote unquote, wrong choice, and it would still not be fatal for the show and taking all those lessons into a new campaign like I feel way more secure and way more, like, I have opinions that can help the show be better, and that that is great, not to mention like we put out, you know, 57 episodes plus epilogue and after parties of a show that is really fucking hard to make that we are all really proud of that we balanced with like multiple day jobs, changes in jobs, changes in personnel, changes in scheduling, like, so many things happening behind the scenes starting a company at the same time and still being able to put the show out is a really hard thing, and it's something that I think all of us have been able to only put up things that we're proud of. And that is really, really hard and rare.
Eric: Definitely, speaking, I have one last question.
Amanda: Yeah!
Eric: Speaking of things that we're proud of at the end. Brandon your fucking music during the same, so many people asked where they can get the stuff from House Party.
Brandon: Thank you,
Eric: Where is it?
Brandon: Eventually, when I have the time, which will probably in January, I'll compile all the stuff that I have used for the season and put them all into one album. Right now there's two albums on my band camp which is brandongrugle.bandcamp.com
Amanda: It's in the description of every dang episode people, gotta scroll down a little bit. It's right there!
Eric: Every dang episode.
Amanda: Every dang episode.
Brandon: And it's pay what you want, so obviously pay what you want, but I think, yeah, this last arc of House Party was fun because I sort of like made it slightly more cinematic in a way that I really enjoyed. But I did reuse some tracks, especially, I don't know if any astute listeners will will notice but I did use some like fun tracks that harken back to the first, like, themes of the characters so like, when the light hands came out in the final fight, I use some Johnny themes. I used like Inara themes on on her moment like the end of the, one of the episodes and with like the resolution of one of Tracey's themes. So that's been really fun to do, to play with.
Eric: And then that slowed down Join the Party theme song that ruined everybody.
Amanda: Brutal. Brutal.
Brandon: Yeah, the minor theme, the minor turn at the beginning of it.
Eric: Terrible you're a bad person.
Amanda: People love a minor key.
Brandon: They do.
Eric: They're horny for minor keys,
Brandon: But thank you, it's, I'm not, I'm not super like confident in my composing skills and it's not very complex at all, but it's been really fun to be able to have an excuse to like play with music for the past like three years so it's been fun.
Amanda: Yeah, and it's in the description of this gang episode, too. As is the link to buy the Labor Party module that are put together it's on our merch store where you can get your pins of all the characters and all that good stuff.
Brandon: You have to play that module, it's so good
Amanda: It's so fun.
Eric: It's wild. Some of that shit's wild.
Brandon: One shots that are intertwined with each other it's fucking brilliant
Amanda: And the PDF is so pretty.
Eric: Truth. All right, well I'm immediately gonna delete all the names of the fucking city states for my brain. Right now I'm done, bee boop.
Amanda: Well, we're going to fill it with some very exciting new stuff, because we are again putting out a bonus episode in both January and February around the middle of the month. That's the only thing we'll be charging you for on Patreon in those two months so it is a great time to join if, you know, being budget conscious after the holidays, you want to join the discord chat with people read all the old NPC backstories you have like, 57, 8, 9 episodes worth of bonus content to enjoy, and then starting in March, we will be releasing weekly building the campaign, like origin episodes, building up to our first episode of season two.
Eric: Yeah. And then once we get going, it's going to be two episodes, bi weekly, and then we're going to have the big after party episodes once a month.
Amanda: Exactly. So every single month you're going to get two episodes at least sometimes there'll be five Tuesdays in a month, so maybe we'll get three, and then at least one after party,
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: It's gonna be great.
Brandon: I'm excited.
Eric: Skeep skurp.
Amanda: Oh, it's gonna be so much fun.
Eric: I know.
Amanda: Julia will be here! It's gonna be great. Oh, I can't wait but listen help us, it's it's terrifying to take a break is terrifying to start something new, so anything that all of you can continue to do to help convince people to listen to Join the Party, convince them to binge the first season, it's all at jointhepartypod.com/start. That's the page where we have like our origin episodes, and where all the arcs are listed, all of the beginner episodes to teach people how to play D&D. We want to make sure that we hit the ground running for season two because seriously people the best is yet to come.
Brandon: This is the time to binge season one. If you're a person that waits for like all the Netflix shows, too, episodes to come out to binge the series.
Amanda: Congratulations!
Brandon: You did it, you made IT.
Amanda: Now's the time.
Eric: Tell those people because they're definitely without listening to this episode. So tell them to go back and listen to everything.
Amanda: Maybe they are listening in the future and they have finished doing that and then it's like wow, you did it, you did it.
Brandon: You did it, welcome you did it! Wow.
Eric: Wowee.
Amanda: Wow. Here's an item. What is it? Gotta unwrap it to find out.
Eric: That's true. I cast identify.
Amanda: Alright everybody, thanks for listening.
Brandon: Byeeeeee
Eric: You don't have to go home but you can't stay here, come back in March.
Amanda: Wooooooh
Eric: Skreeeeeeee
[Join the Party theme plays]