Afterparty: Hunting Party III

Drawing Finale to life, deciding if Mac is a cat, and describing our favorite drink and bar. This is the Afterparty, where we sit down after every episode to break down our game and answer your questions about how to play at home.


Find Us Online

- website: jointhepartypod.com

- merch: jointhepartypod.com/merch

- 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

- Finale: Sarah Hopkins

- Creative Contributors: Connor McLoughlin, Heddy Hunt, Julia Schifini, Mischa Stanton

- Multitude: multitude.productions


About Us

Join the Party is a collaborative storytelling and roleplaying podcast. That means friends creating 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, welcome to the afterparty with our good good friend Sarah Hopkins!

Sarah: Hey, hi, hello!

Amanda: Well your name is not Finale!

Sarah: No, it’s not.

Amanda: What a good name though!

Sarah: Thank you!

Amanda: Where did that come from, tell us?

Sarah: Do you want me to be honest?

Sarah: So, it’s a name of a tertiary character in the film of Ready: Player One.

Eric: That’s very good, YESSS.

Sarah: Not-She’s not in the book, because she doesn’t matter!

Amanda: That’s really good. Eric and I were on a plane a couple months ago, and-

Sarah: That’s a great plane movie.

Brandon: I watched it on a plane too!

Amanda: We watched the first two-thirds of the movie because then we landed early. And 2 days later when we were back on the flight home, it was not there. So…I don’t know how that ends.

Brandon: So, you didn’t get to see the finale?

Amanda: No

Sarah: Spielberg himself came on the plane himself and yanked it. From the entertainment system.

Amanda: He said you are being too sardonic!

Eric (as Steven Spielberg): [shouting] No, you cannot have this, THIS IS MY MOVIE!

Brandon: I have a very important question. Not to derail this very good conversation.

Eric (as Steven Spielberg: [shouting] I’m Steven Spielberg and this is my movie!

Brandon: Is the bartender a cat?

Eric: The bartender is not a cat

Amanda: Isn’t there a species?

Eric: It’s a tabaxi.

Amanda: What does that mean, is it a cat?

Eric: It’s like a cat person, I mean they literally are a cat person, but they’re not a cat explicitly.

Amanda: In the way that Tracey is not a robot., why would you say that?

[Brandon laughing]

Brandon: Yeah, very similar, definitely.

Eric: Beep, boop, I’m a cat. Robot, meow meow.

Amanda: Okay, I want to know about the most important character in this episode. Sarah, tell us all about Finale, where she comes from, we know her name now, what’s the deal, who are you playing and why?

Sarah: Do you want to hear Finale’s backstory? Or…

Amanda: I would love to hear the process of you and Eric working-

[Sarah & Eric laughing]

Amanda: together. Uh, no, you both started laughing? And Eric almost spit out his orange juice. So, lay it on me.

Eric: So, you might notice that Sarah is on none of the podcasts on Multitude.

Sarah: [laughing] I don’t have a podcast.

Amanda: That’s true.

Brandon: If you listen really closely she is in the background of some of them.

Eric: Yeah, she’s just hanging out in the back as spirit. She’s like, great joke! Good joke Amanda!

Amanda: She’s actually the baseline of the Potterless music, so…

[Brandon & Eric laughing]

Sarah: Yeah.

Eric:  We played a bunch of RPGs with Sarah when we went over to Connor, Amanda’s brother’s house. Amanda and I went to Connor’s house and we played a bunch of RPGs and we, that’s where we met Sarah.

Amanda: Yeah, he’s like can I invite my dope friend Sarah over, and I’m like, YEAH. Immediately we were like, you’re our best friend. That was a few short months ago. But we love playing games with you. We’ve gotten the chance to play Monster Hearts and Quiet Year and a couple others, but this is your first-time meeting Brandon, and it all went so-much-funly, seamlessly-

Sarah: It did go funly.

Amanda: Humorously

Eric:  Sarah just makes interesting choices and makes very good in-world jokes, which is a thing that we [laughing] prize here at Join the Party. And you know, if anyone has not played Monster Hearts before, ya’ll need to. You need to go Brando.

Amanda: Brandon, we keep on inviting you. It’s just 2 hours away. Why don’t you just come?

Sarah: It’s too far away, honestly.

Brandon: It’s far

Sarah: If I lived here, I wouldn’t go there.

Eric: Fair, so it was great that we could get Sarah in, I literally just asked Sarah, what were you interested in playing? And she came up with this, I guess just fill in the details here.

Sarah:  Okay, Finale’s first incarnation was as a paladin.

Eric: Mm. I remember that.

Brandon: Same!

Sarah: Really?!

Amanda: What?

Brandon: Yeah! You don’t say? Tracey was a paladin.

Sarah: I love paladins, I love being a paladin. In my D&D game in college, my character was a paladin. But you suggested bounty hunter as a background, and I liked that, but I didn’t think that went so well with a paladin. So, I changed her to being a ranger. And I’m an artist, as well as being a writer, so to explore characters, I have to draw them, a lot.

Brandon: That’s awesome, that’s really cool.

Sarah: Thank you!

Amanda: [sarcastically] That certainly didn’t make us more inclined to invite you to Join the Party. Because, we just feel okay about fanart.

Sarah: I’ve been messaging Eric Finale art, since…like September?

Eric: Months ago, yeah.

Brandon: A lot of people get into their characters differently, and I don’t think I’ve met anyone who draws like that.

Sarah: I have to sketch characters.

Brandon: Yeah, that’s really cool.

Eric: I would love to, with your permission, I really want to post some of those sketches.

Sarah: Yeah, go ahead.

Eric: They gave me an idea of what Finale could and couldn’t do. I know what Finale looks like when she’s drunk, I know what she looks like where she’s confident, I know what she looks like when she’s embarrassed. That gives me a lot of context, and I want to put her in a situation where she felt comfortable and then challenged her in that place. The only thing Sarah and I really collaborated on, I’m like Oh, I need to figure out what happens next. I wanted the guild, what was it called again? The faction?

Amanda: It’s called, Safe Haven. Yeah, and then you choose what guild you’re in, minus assassin, and so minus safe haven, I get a skill of my choosing, in this case survival.

Eric: So, we opened up this place, and I kinda wanted Finale to know what was going on, regardless of the giant dog that just came, showed up in the alley.

Amanda: Which I assumed belonged to you when you first showed up at the end of the last episode.

Sarah: [laughing]It’s not my dog!

Amanda: You could just be like, Cute doggo, go run!

Eric: Yeah, I wanted Finale, I mean we talked about this a little bit, but I kinda wanted Finale to deal with problems as they come. Oh, there’s a dog? Let’s throw something! Let’s distract the dog!

Amanda: That sounds like the opposite of anxiety.

Sarah: Yeah [jokingly] What’s that like?

[Amanda & Sarah laughing]

Eric: Listen, it’s a fantasy world, we’re trying to get everyone to fulfill what they want.

Amanda: True, true.

Eric: And then we talked about what this bar might look like. And funniest thing was, we talked about it, and then a minute later, I had the idea of the bar being shittier than the anteroom. And I immediately called Sarah and I’m like, listen to this dumb idea.

Sarah: [laughing] And I was like cool, okay!

Brandon: If any of us were to walk into that bar, we would immediately run away [laughs]. 

Amanda: That’s true. I don’t know, I love dive bars. I want to get into this later, there’s something we need to talk about. But I want to get into, like what our ideal dive bar, or like comfort bar, go-to bar scenario would look like. I’m so curious about this character development through drawing. Do you just, start with your first idea, and kind of, as ideas come to you, see versions of that? Or do you have a process that you tend to go through everybody and say, okay, professional life, home life? I don’t know, different scenarios.

Sarah: It’s just basically you sketch a character, and you’re thinking of the character. But as you see them, you know, you’re able to imagine them in different ways.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: I drew Finale in a lot of armor at first because I thought she was going to be a paladin. Then I would draw her in the clothes she wore on under her armor, and then story ideas will come to you. Suddenly she had this whole past, and she was a functional alcoholic.

Amanda: Oh no.

[Sarah laughing]

Amanda: Uh oh.

Sarah: I’m not following any rules or any checklist. It’s a lot like, you know, when you see concept art for an animated movie, like Ariel was blonde when they first drew her.  And…I like to draw.

[Sarah & Eric laughing]

Brandon: No, it’s super fascinating. I don’t want to speak for Amanda, but I think the way I go about it, I fully flesh out my character and then the very last thing I do is talk about their appearance.

Sarah: Mhm.

Amanda: Me too

Brandon: Because appearance doesn’t matter to me, like at all, honestly. It’s about who they are as a person, what they do and who they are. So, like,

Amanda: But of course, appearance has a lot to do with that. It controls how the world sees them.

Brandon: Right, exactly.

Amanda: And it’s another aspect you have to choose, but we just kind of approach it from different angles, which I think is really cool. How in your writing do your writing and drawing intersect and inform each other?

Sarah: Well, it’s a little strange, cause when I was growing up, I just wanted to be a writer, and I drew pictures, but I thought I was really bad at it.

Amanda: Oh no! You have such good drawing now though as an artist!

Sarah: Oh, thank you, now I am! [laughing]

Amanda: Are you saying that practice has something to do with ability?

Sarah: Maybe, I don’t know, probably. I didn’t go to art school, so, when I write, I sometimes sketch characters before I write them, which is helpful, but now since I’m doing a long-form comic, like sketching characters before I introduce them even in my script is really important because I need to know what they look like and how they interact with the world.

Amanda: Tell us about your comic. Plug it! Do it! It’s so goooood.

Sarah: [laughing] My comic is called Principles of Magic. It’s a web comic so you can find it all for free online at principlesofmagic.com. It’s about three 14-year-old girls who have magic powers and they go to a finishing school, that’s all about teaching young women how to suppress their magic.

Amanda: The dream scenario to be 14 with friends and magic. I love it.

[Eric laughing]

Amanda: Eric, tell us a little bit more about the setting. Did you have an idea what plot you wanted to cover in this episode? Or what kind of, I don’t know, long-term reveals you might want to reveal?

[Eric chuckles]

Amanda: Or did you then choose the setting for it? Or vice versa?

Eric: As soon as Sarah and I came up with this bounty hunter bar, I think everything kinda spiraled from there. I had this idea of there being a lot of rumors that you guys could pick up on. You know, but you made these perception checks, so there were only, that’s what you guys picked up on. And I wanted it to be loud and, in a place, where everyone talked to each other loudly because they don’t have anything to hide at a bounty hunter bar. I guess tips, but you can see that everyone kind of pushes each other out of the way to get the jobs, it doesn’t affect them if they talk loudly or softly.

Brandon: So, if we had rolled a Nat 20, would we have gotten different gossip?

Eric: Yeah, it wasn’t like better necessarily. It was better[BS1]  that there were different striations of what they would hear, but like, you got an 8, so you only heard 1 rumor. But Inara and Finale both rolled the same number, so that means they heard 2, but they didn’t hear the same ones. Oh yeah, there are rumors on here that you all didn’t hear. Uh, Which-

Amanda: What are they?!

Eric: I can’t tell you!!

Sarah: I thought you were pointing me toward the midnight man!

Eric: That was an urban legend that everyone had been kicking around for a while. So, I’m interested to see where that goes. But the other, there are a few that you guys didn’t hear.

Brandon: I really love the, I’m just going to brag on Eric for a little bit, the subtle-

Amanda: Honey roast, honey roast!

Eric: GOOBLE GOBBLE GOOBLE GOBBLE.

Brandon: The subtly with which this mechanic came out, where it’s, it like, you gave your players options in-game, without us necessarily even realizing you were giving us options to play, I don’t know, that was just really subtle and unique, and a really fun mechanic.

Amanda: Yeah, I didn’t realize it was like a choice of things to pursue until I was like, wait, one of those sounds like Alonzo! And it’s the feeling of looking around a detective video game and being like, there’s a globe on the table, THERE’S A GLOBE ON THE TABLE. And not realizing it’s a lead you can follow.

Eric: Making a D&D game for a podcast is a lot more like a campaign in a video game or a story in a book than it is like a sandbox. Eric Schneider was just here, in New York City, you know, one of the other dudes in Multitude, we were talking about this, a D&D game is supposed to be boundless, right? You can choose to go wherever you want and fuck up whatever you want and make moves and the world responds. But when that’s done on a podcast, it’s on rails, but only in the way, that like you want the story to go forward. Like I have a responsibility to make events happen, or then this would be a boring podcast. There are plenty of times we could watch Tracey dig a hole for an entire day.

[laughing]

Eric: We could.

Amanda: With his words. In a crowd.

Brandon: Listeners, look out for the next episode.

[everyone laughing]

Brandon: Where Tracey digs a hole.

[Amanda laughing]

Brandon: It’s called holes!

Eric: And in a D&D game, he could totally do that, and I would not stop him. But, it’s like we want to move things forward, so I want this to feel very much like a point-and-click detective game where you guys are running this down. I wanted to change what we were doing after Labor Party. It was like the control that you guys had with how you did the labors and in what order, but the labors were going to get done. I wanted to see how you achieve them. Right now, anything could happen. I mean, you dealt with Kohl and she has a match tomorrow You can still try to figure out who the midnight man is. And you can also

Amanda: You could break into Radioshack. You can do that.

Eric: Yeah, Electroshack is still over there.

Amanda: Oh, I’m so sorry, TM TM TM.

Eric: TM TM TM Electroshack. Or you guys could just, nurse Kohl back to health. You guys have all of these choices. And I want you to-

Amanda: We can go on a walking tour of the historic district.

Eric: [laughing] Historic Infropolis.

Brandon: Hand-thrown pottery

[Ouhhs & Awws]

Amanda: We can take a cooking class.

Brandon: We can take a knife skills class.

Amanda: More to the point, more to the point.

Sarah: [laughing] Yeah that actually might help.

[Sarah & Amanda laughing]

Eric: I don’t know what’s going to happen next, I need to ask you 3 what you want to do in the next episode.

Sarah: I want to find the midnight man.

Eric: Yeah, you can find the midnight man.

Sarah: I want to fight him too!

Eric: You wanna, cause he’s a perv!

[Sarah laughing]

Eric: I love that. It’s funny, also, having a new player, because there is this tension of, I know things as a NPC that I want heard, but I also want her to fill in, I’m giving agency to a NPC and turning them into a PC-

Sarah: Right.

Eric: Which is exciting. And you named the guy Gerald, which I knew you knew his name, Finale knew his name, And I wanted you to say more stuff about the midnight man. Like I was really excited about that.

Amanda: It’s a way for you as a DM to get information into the game that is normally not available to you.

Eric: Yeah.

Amanda: You know, you don’t have to say it with your own mouth or in your voice through an NPC’s voice. You can kind of seed the reveal, or give someone else the agency to figure out when a piece of information is going to come out or not, and I imagine that must be exciting. After normally, it’s you, or you text one of us players something TO say something that the others don’t know.

Eric: Amanda and Brandon have done that to some extent, but it was more like this is the tension that I had with Julia and Kohl eventually. All the way back, Kohl was just a NPC, but now we have the opportunity to really explore and let other people into the story, which I’m more than happy about.

Brandon: Yeah, I’m really fucking excited to see what happens.

[Brandon & Eric laughing]

Brandon: Oh Sarah, we can say fuck on this one.

Sarah: FUCK.

[laughing continues]

Amanda: YASSS.

Sarah: BASTARD.

[laughing continues]

Sarah: ASS.

[one last chuckle]

Amanda: Alright, so, you walk into a bar. What do you order, as you and as your character?

Brandon: What kind of bar? Are we talking cocktail bar, are we talking beer bar, talkin like-?

Amanda: Bar of your dreams. Describe the bar, describe the drink.

Eric: I like this question.

Amanda: Brandon and Tracey.

Brandon: Well see, I think the thing is Amanda, you have the same life goal as me, and that’s like, to open a bar, as I am old enough to do.

Amanda: I sure would, I sure would. Julie Speeny and I want to co-own and open a bookstore/cheese café/bar where: walk into the bookstore and a portrait of Teddy Roosevelt forging a river on a moose, AMAZING. You pull down a biography of him from the bookshelf. A door swings open. Oh! It’s a speakeasy called Bullmoose party!

Sarah: Awww, how cute!

[garbled noises]

Sarah: That’s what this Arc is called right?

[garbled noises continue and everyone’s laughing]

Eric: Wait, did I ever tell you what the name of the Arc was called?

Sarah: No

Eric: The Arc is called Hunting Party.

Sarah: Oh, cool

Amanda: Pretty close, pretty close. Anyway-

Eric: So not bad.

Amanda: Yes, Brandon, I very much would. Tell me all about yours.

Brandon: Yes. I want to keep it low key. Dim lights-

Amanda: Yep, love it.

Brandon: Hardwoods-

Amanda: Love it, easy to clean.

Brandon: Leathers

Eric: No rules

[someone shushes]

Brandon: No rules, just right. Definitely not a speakeasy and something that is welcoming. So really really high in cocktails but in a really comfortable, but nice environment.

Amanda: Wow, it’s like Join the Party in the way that everyone from beginners to can enjoy

Brandon: And I would sit down personally and get, that’s a good question. It depends on my mood. But definitely my go to is like, a really good old fashioned.

Amanda: Yep.

Brandon: And then Tracey would get, what’s the most impressive drink?

Amanda: Impressive?

Brandon:  Long Island iced tea for sure. [laughs]

[Sarah laughing]

Amanda: Okay, good. Nice.

Amanda: I think Inara would appreciate the vibe of a Tiki bar. But like a trashy Tiki bar. Where the straws-

Brandon: Is there any other kind?

Amanda: Are pretty old. I guess there could be an upscale Tiki bar, like an ironic Tiki Bar

Sarah: Well, yeah, like Trader Sam’s at Disney, they are trying to do the Tiki Bar, but like clean.

Brandon: That’s true, yeah.

[Eric laughing]

Amanda: Y’know, I haven’t been to Disney since I’ve been over 21 and I have to remedy that.

Brandon: Did you know, Trader Sam’s is the only bar in Disney World that’s classified as an attraction?

Sarah: I didn’t know that!

Amanda: But I think Inara would like to order a Zombie. Or some kind of like electric-green cocktail. She’d enjoy like, chartreuse, woodsy flavors. All that kind of stuff.

Eric: Yeah, that’s good.

Amanda: For Amanda, I’d like to walk into, like a settled-in Victorian parlor. Y’know lots of big arm chairs, fires, dark mahogany, again not too dressed up. I could go in my jeans and read a book and not be bothered. But, very much feeling like a living room that’s been there in a Victorian house for a long time.  And probably, I’ve been very into Mezcal recently. But my go-to is some kind of cidery, I had a pear old fashioned the other day.

[everyone makes yummy sounds]

Amanda: Yeah, or a very smoky, smoked whiskey drink.

Eric: Yeah.

Brandon: You could do Maraschino liquor with an old-fashioned?

Amanda: Yeah, I have those Lucado cherries in my fridge. It’s the one, like fancy food I buy.

Eric: Sarah?

Sarah: I like a rum and coke.

Amanda: Nice, good.

Sarah: Cause like, it’s partly I love the delicious heart-killing Coco-Cola-

[Eric laughing]

Brandon: It really cleans your engines.

Sarah: [laughing] I’m squeaky clean! But also, it’s like a drink that I can remember. I’m like, oh god! When I’m on the spot, and go, rum and coke, please?

Amanda: I have a game plan before I walk into a place.

Sarah: It’s too much, it’s too much man

Amanda: How about Finale?

Sarah: Oh, Finale likes vodka on the rocks. This is like-

Amanda: Oh, good. That was like the fundamental- Does the environment matter, or just like the divier the better?

Sarah: She likes dive bars, but I think she’d also really like a bar in a ski lodge.

[mumble sounds of approval]

Brandon: Ski Lodge bars are good because you’ve been exercising all day so you forget how dehydrated you are. And then you have one drink and you’re gone.

Amanda: There are so many things that I didn’t realize as a kid had alcohol involved that I have to do. Like for the first time, when I was like 23, my parents deemed to serve me alcohol at family functions, I was 23, for the record. I was like, oh my god, this is how adults do it, WOW. Drink responsibly, but also, I want to drink while doing all of the activities I used to do. Like skiing.

Brandon: Don’t drink in the hot-tub

Sarah: Don’t drunk ski.

Amanda: Not while skiing, afterword. Afterword. Drinking in a spa? Oh my god, so much better than normal spa. Love it.

Amanda: Eric, NPC of your choosing.

Eric: K. Um.

Amanda: Does Mac drink?

Eric: No, I don’t think Mac does.

Sarah: Yeah is he sober?

Eric: Yeah, he feels very straightedge right now. Like he’s come all the way back around, and now he’s Henry Rollins.

[Amanda & Sarah laughing]

Brandon: Just milk from a saucer?

Eric: Well, he’s not a cat, so…

Amanda: He’s from a tanker Brandon

Eric: [laughing] Yeah, it’s milk in a mug. For me, I really like non-traditional cocktails. So, using things that are not necessarily liquor to put into cocktails, to accentuate them. I really like beer cocktails, I really like cocktails that have cold brew in them, and I really like, I don’t not like fruity cocktails necessarily, but cocktails that have fruit in them. Putting food into drinks. For Thanksgiving, we’re recording this before Thanksgiving, but I’ve been convincing everyone in my family and they won’t take me up on it. A cocktail that involves both stouts and cold brew is the perfect thing to drink before Thanksgiving dinner. If it’s beer, it needs to be large-

Amanda: Brandon is suspicious but his head is nodding…

Eric: It needs to be large so you can nurse it for a little while, and it needs to be hearty so, it’s the stout, but the cold brew suppresses your appetite AND keeps you awake so you don’t get too snug and fall asleep on the couch.

Brandon: I do like the cold brew thought process, that’s smart.

Eric: I really think you can combine the 2, if you got like a milk stout and added it, or a nitro milk stout

Brandon: It would be delicious. It would be really heavy, so-

Amanda: Fill your tumm.

Brandon: Where’d all the pie go Eric?!

Amanda: So, it’s a snack.

Eric: But people snack, no, that’s what I’m saying. People snack before Thanksgiving, before the dinner. And that’s the problem. You are feeding yourself, it’s a liquid snack, and also, you’re suppressing the rest of your hunger with the coffee. And then you add like bitters, and garnish. And stuff.

Sarah: What’s your thought on like a Blood Mary, but with a whole cheeseburger on it?

[everyone laughing]

Eric: [laughing] Oh absolutely, I follow like 5 Instagram accounts of just that. I’m convinced that a Bloody Maria is infinitely better than a Bloody Mary.

Sarah: What’s a Bloody Maria?

Eric: You use tequila instead of vodka.

Sarah: Yummm.

Eric: And actually, the brightness of the tequila, even if you use like dece tequila, it really punches it up.

Amanda: That Eric, for decent.

Eric: But then like, you add bacon, you add like a hamburger, you add a ton of pickles so you can snack on it and it gets in the stuff. I’m ALL ABOUT IT.

Brandon: In food there’s a trend where, like everything should be on a single plate, where it’s like layers, where you have your chicken on top of your starch. Everything should be intertwined and ready to eat together. You just want that with food, but liquid. Like you want your meals to be ONE.

Sarah: Eric, did you hear about soup?

[laughing]

Eric: I do love soup. I love myself a good soup. I want you to know.

Amanda: I think that it’s that you don’t want to stop eating just because you’re drinking.

Eric: Yeah, just fuck me up.

[Brandon laughing]

Eric: I want you to know that I had, I don’t want to pivot away from talking about food, because I could do that all year, but I want to talk about my other obsession, which is telling you all the dumb shit I did for preparing for this game. But I came up with rules for 4 bar games that Finale could do for the challenge for Casey.

Brandon: What were they?

Amanda: Tell us them.

Eric: Drink the drink was one I came up with. I’m actually really happy that you did it. Seeing if this thing would function. Snail racing. Which is something that Tracey did back in Pool Party, in the back of the giant mistake.

Brandon: I’m sorry, Tracey did not participate.

Eric: You participated-

Brandon: Oh, wait I did do that-

Eric: You participated, but you decided to be Batman and to scare everybody with your crocodile.

Brandon: It’s like the cop that goes undercover. He’s not really doing-

Sarah: Right.

Eric: And you’re like, I’M A COP, HERE’S MY ALLIGATOR. If I’m a cop, I can’t tell you.

[Amanda laughing]

Brandon: What were the other ones?

Eric: I had an arm wrestling one, which would have had, just a straight up strength check. I knew that Finale was pretty strong, so I wanted to see what would happen.

Sarah: I wanted to pick that one, because I know that I would win. [laughs]

Eric: Yeah, there’s a lot more that would go with that one, do a dungeons and dragon’s arm-wrestling contest, like 2 strength check opposed to-

Sarah: I have the strength of like, 20.

Eric: Finale is a beefy boi. [spells it out] B. O. I. BOI and then I had, this is like a standard that I’ve seen floating around, the D&D internet. Which is like a drunken knife throwing game.

Amanda: Wow, that sounds dangerous.

Eric: So, you throw knives at a target and you start with a relatively low AC, and then you take a drink, and then every drink you do, the AC goes up, you eventually do constitutes and saving throws to not vom everywhere. The first person to miss, or the first person to pass out. Is, loses.

Amanda: Man, I wish I knew D&D in college. That would have been a good pairing.

Brandon: Eric, if we want to play Drink that Drink at home.

[Sarah laughing]

Brandon: Can we do that?

Eric:  Well first, you need to find a wizard to conjure your illusion.

Sarah: You have to get, like, a hologram.

[Brandon laughing]

Eric: Yeah, just hologram. But yeah, I can release the rules, I have this kinda barebones version, But I will type it up, if you want to play Drink the Drink as part of your bar, please feel free to do so in your game.

Brandon: What If we put 5 mugs out and covered them with coasters, so you don’t know which one has the liquid in it?

Amanda: You’d have to pull up Far-o, Which condensation is forming at an atypical rate to the others?

Eric: Honestly, that’s kinda what I wanted to happen in this game.

Sarah: The fact that I picked number 4, like, I’m so proud.

Amanda: YEAHHHH.

Eric: I will say, I wrote down number 4 and I was sure to stick to it. But I can’t believe you pulled it out, honestly.

Sarah: [laughing] it was really bad!

Eric: I had some idea of what would happen if Casey won. I think that like, you guys probably would have done it anyway. Regardless.

Sarah: Yeah.

Eric: I’m very happy you won, I’ll say so.

Sarah: Yeah, me too.

Amanda: Winning feels good.

Sarah: Winning does feel good.

Eric: Finale needed a win. [laughing] I had a feeling that Finale, had not, it had been a rough patch for her.

Sarah: She’s been through some stuff.

Amanda: Well Sarah, besides principlesofmagic.com, Where can people find you and follow your work and see your drawings of our beautiful bounty BOI online?

Sarah: Well, I’m most active on Twitter. So that’s @sarahmhop

Amanda: Yayyy-

Eric: I’ve heard of that.

Amanda: Pod listeners love Twitter!

Brandon: They over-index on usage

Sarah: That’s true. I’m so happy that I got to be on a podcast.

Amanda: Oh man, you’re so good at it, you’re such a good role player, I love playing with you. Thank you for coming on the show.

Eric: Oh, don’t worry, Finale will be back. We’ve locked Sarah in and now she’s not able to leave. She has to stay in the studio.

Brandon: We’re not going to work for another week, but you’ll be locked in the spare room.

Sarah: Alright, that’s fine, I guess.

Amanda: There is a cute dog though.

Eric: It’s true, it’s just you and Filo.

Amanda: Beautiful, but it’s so nice to have folks playing with us and to have the new energy and perspective of you know, different characters that our characters can interact with it’s a really interesting, y’know, Brandon and I have, you know, made more significant eye contact in terms of what are we going to do It’s like taking a new car on a new kinda road, or trying a new recipe in a different kitchen, y’know. It’s nice. Thank you for driving in.

Sarah: Thank you for having me.

Amanda: And we’ll see you next time!

Eric: No come back, you forgot your character sheet!

Sarah: [in distance] Bye!

Eric: No, Sarah’s running away! Sarah come back!

[everyone laughing heartily]

Eric: Turning my key

[Eric making car sounds]

Amanda: Jingle, jingle, jingle.

Eric: This is 104.3

[more laughing]

Brandon: …stupid.

Amanda: Alright, well, thanks again for joining us for this afterparty. It’s like we said earlier, exciting to have new people in the studio, but also y’know it’s something new. So, we appreciate your attention and your love and your questions. And… that is going to do it for this week. So, please tell us what you thought, if you are a patreon supporter, you know, of course, that you have that story spoilers discord channel where you can talk about this episode and this Afterparty. And the Afterparty questions channel, where you can leave us questions, and those will go first on our list for Afterparties to come. We are also at jointhepartypod on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. All 3 places are great ways to keep the party going outside of the episode release days. And see photos of Sarah’s drawings, and tweets about all kinds of good things and memes, and nice doggo photos, whatever you might be looking for, I’m sure we have it for you.

Finally, the very best way to support the show, is to get a friend into it. Think of a friend right now, who would appreciate these jokes who would appreciate a bad-ass half-orc-bounty hunter or would like to listen to what weird drinks our characters would order. And text them the link to jointhepartypod.com/start. That has links to our beginner episodes, to our recaps, or to places where you can stream every single dang one of these episodes, Afterparties, and punchbowls. Alright, I think that’s it for us. Uh, in the meantime, have a good couple weeks.

Eric: See you later. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

[theme music]