How do you build an obstacle course in D&D? What does Emily want? And can other cats see Tuna?! All those answers and more in the Afterparty!
Thanks to our consultants, Celeste Conowitch and Kevin Snow. Follow them! Hire them! And check out Unwell, the fiction podcast by our friends at Hartlife NFP.
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Cast & Crew
- Dungeon Master, Co-Producer: Eric Silver
- Co-Host (Milo Lane), Co-Producer, Editor, Sound Designer, Composer: Brandon Grugle
- Co-Host (Val Vesuvio), Co-Producer, Editor: Julia Schifini
- Co-Host (Aggie O’Hare), Co-Producer: Amanda McLoughlin
- Multitude: multitude.productions
About Us
Join the Party is a collaborative storytelling and roleplaying podcast, powered by the rules of Dungeons and Dragons. That means a group of friends create a story together, chapter by chapter, that takes us beyond the tabletop to parts unknown. In the first campaign, we explored fantasy adventure, intrigue, magic, and drama. In the newest story, we tackle science, superpowers, a better future, and the responsibility to help others.
Every month, we sit down for the Afterparty, where we break down our game and answer your questions about how to play D&D and other roleplaying games at home. We also have segments at the beginning of each campaign to teach people how to play the game themselves. It’s a party, and you’re invited! Find out more at jointhepartypod.com.
Transcript
Amanda: Hey, hi, hello! And welcome to the Afterparty for episodes three and four! Laketown citaaaaay!
[Collective woo]
Julia: Laketown City!!
Eric: It’s gonna be May!!
[Brandon laughing]
Julia: The joke that will be at the end of the episode.
[Eric laughing]
Amanda: Yes, we’re treating you to listen for the end of the episode cause we’re gonna include some lil’ bloops there.
Julia: Some bloops!
Amanda: Well I have so much to ask and talk about, these were some action packed episodes. Is Emily evil? There’s just a lot to discuss.
Brandon: Yes.
Amanda: So what we’re gonna do is talk first about player questions that we have for each other, for Eric, lil group discussion; and then move onto your questions for each of the episodes and the world and our characters in general. I think spoily corner may come back, what did I call it the first time?
Julia: Yeah that sounds right.
Eric: It was just like the eyes emoji corner or something?
Amanda: Yes, exactly!
Julia: It’s the mmm, I dunno corner.
Eric: Who can really say?
Brandon: Who can really say corner.
Eric: And truly my favorite thing listening back to it was that I was doing it to you three, and also everybody so there’s just layers of eye emoji.
Julia: Layers and layers of eye emojis.
Amanda: Well let’s maybe start with the most eye emoji part of these last two episodes to me Eric why the fuck did Val get hit by an ice cream truck?
[Eric laughing]
Julia: Hey, yeah WHY?! Why would you do me dirty like that?
Amanda: Oh sorry, sorry, Brandon is this the fuck cut of the Afterparty?
Julia: It’s my cut so the fuck stays.
Amanda: OH! It’s Julia’s cut, alright.
[Brandon laughing]
Eric: Listen now that Zach Snyder is releasing the Snyder cut, we have to do the fuck cut.
Julia: Batman says fuck.
Brandon: I wanna say there was someone on Twitter that said “y’all cuss a lot”
Julia: I’m fine with that, I’m fine with that!
Amanda: Welcome to dnd as an adult.
Brandon: And they were a child.
Eric: And then all of the bloodthirsty people in the discord were like “fuck cut!”
Eric and Julia: [Chanting] Fuck cut! Fuck cut! Fuck cut!
Brandon: Exactly.
Amanda: Listen, kids these days they’re on the internet. They have YouTube, they have TikTok some of them live in cities and—
[Eric laughing]
Amanda: They hear these words and it’s up to them and their parents to talk about when it’s appropriate to use them.
Brandon: It’s true, I just wanted to say that we were both right.
Julia: Okay, okay.
Amanda: [laughing] I’ll take it, I’ll take it! Eric, talk about this ice cream truck. Why did it happen and did you intend to end the episode that way, or was this something that came up?
Brandon: Yeah were you just like feeling vindictive at the end like “y’know what would be good for this? Let’s hit Val with an ice cream truck.”
Julia: Mhm, checks out.
Eric: So that point, I will say that this is a different type of game than we played in the first campaign. Like you do need to do more damage when you are having a powered game to illustrate the fact that one, they are human, but two, they are superhuman. So it’s literally two sides of that coin, it’s like Val tried to tackle an ice cream truck, which is something that you would not do as a person, but the fact that Val has a human corporeal form takes that much damage when they do get hit by an ice cream truck I thought was important to do. It’s more like I really like drawing these threads out even though it was more of a quote unquote “fight episode” I really love the obstacle course and I know we’re gonna talk about it but doing it was just really fun because it’s like a character tinged sort of fight or contest that you’re doing it for a reason. But yeah I wanted to pull on the ice cream truck stuff a little bit another like adding a little clue like what is this ice cream stuff? Why does it keep coming up? I don’t know [laughs] we recorded so far in the future. I don’t wanna say anything. But yeah it’s just another I’m throwing another clue on the fire I guess.
Brandon: What did y’all — did you guys have ice cream trucks growing up?
Julia: Yeah! Did you not have ice cream trucks?
Brandon: No I did I just didn’t know, Texas is weird. What did y’all get at the ice cream truck? This is very important to me.
Julia: I would always, so the go-to ice cream truck here on Long Island was Mr. Softy because Mr. Softy did soft serve, and also you could dip the soft serve and also get sprinkles on it, it was very important. Very important.
Amanda: Chocolate dipped, chocolate sprinkle.
Julia: Chocolate dip, chocolate sprinkle. Yeah I would do chocolate dipped rainbow sprinkle, and vanilla ice cream. That was my go-to.
Eric: You gotta get that chipwich bruh.
Amanda: I was just about to say chipwich was my go-to as well.
Julia: I was also a weird child and I liked a snow cone.
Brandon: Yeah snow cone is good. You guys all chose things that didn’t exist in the south so.
[Brandon laughing]
Amanda: What’d you get then?
Eric: It was just a frozen tumbleweed put onto a cone.
Amanda: That rainbow rocket?
Brandon: I didn’t hear about chipwiches until after college, and uh—
Amanda: Oh Brandon.
Brandon: Mr. Softy I learned in college, obviously, or soft serve from a truck. But—
Julia: Poor, poor child, so deprived.
Brandon: I know, but I would get a cartoon ice cream pop thing, like Sonic faces, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle faces.
Julia: And they were always slightly melty and the eyes were off, I love those.
Brandon: Exactly!
Eric: That Spongebob still haunts me.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: You wake up and there’s a frozen Spongebob face looking at you through the darkness.
Brandon: It’s in your bed.
Eric: Yeah!
Amanda: I’m just confused about the order of operations, you have to get the gumball and counter it before the pop is done. So what do you do? Do you just like hold it in your mouth like a chipmunk?
Brandon: I don’t know, Amanda, no one knows!
Amanda: Do you bite it and then spit it out and then litter?
Julia: No I think you just chew it while you eat the ice cream.
Amanda: Oh man I would choke on it in four seconds.
[Amanda laughing]
Eric: I don’t think that they thought about the order of operations, they’re like [grunty voice] UUGH I GOTTA TURN RAPHAEL INTO AN ICE CREAM!
[Brandon laughing]
Julia: That’s how the business meetings went [forced grunt]
Eric: [More grunting in his voice] EEEHHHH WHAT DO WE DO?
Brandon: There was also a lot of grunting.
[Eric laughing]
Amanda: Oh no… Let’s steer our ice cream truck back onto the Afterparty road—
[Julia laughs]
Brandon: Nice.
Amanda: Eric, tell us about this obstacle course!
Eric: You know the obstacle course was actually taken from something we recorded a really long time ago. We were trying to do a podcast bundle with Humble Bundle, do you remember this?
Amanda: Yes, sort of an idea for a can’t do a live show, but maybe we can band together a bunch of people, and split the profits among everybody who was in it.
Eric: Yeah this was like two years ago, before Multitude really started touring. Also I think people really started getting their shit together. Like now there wasn’t a monetization plan for any sort of podcast, so we were trying to get a bunch of dnd shows to come together and maybe some fiction shows to throw some stuff on and we recorded this one shot that was a heist. So this was where I first learned about blades in the dark, and I really tried to use their circle system where you have pieces of pie to represent how things are going. And then it was a heist with a, you know how like at a carnival, it’s not like American Ninja Warrior but at a carnival there’s like these obstacle courses you could just run?
Julia: Yeah the blow up ones!
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah! Like those foam ones, or like they’re blown up and you just run up and run down so yeah there’s this news article I read where someone heisted one of those—
Brandon: WHAT?!
Eric: And I thought it was the single funniest thing— Brandon you’ve recorded this.
Amanda: You played it!
Eric: I don’t know where you went—
Brandon: No I just didn’t hear about the news article thing.
Eric: Yeah, I told you it was based off this news article that someone heisted one of those from a carnival so I’m like that’s the single funniest thing I’ve ever seen, so the fact was you had to get this thing back from some salamanders or lava monsters. Then one of the endings was if you got caught, you had a challenge to go and run this obstacle course. So I had this idea of different challenges to do it, so then I adapted it to this thing. So it was just really fun to be able to do it, now if this became more American Ninja Warrior than carnival obstacle course, which I am very glad for. Because it really kind of stretched so much of what I love about Laketown City in so many directions, you’re in like the hipster area of your city, and then someone throws on a light switch in a warehouse and oh! There’s an American Ninja Warrior set there!
Brandon: If that happened in Bushwick I literally would not be surprised. I would be like yup, that is correct.
Amanda: Everyone’s a drag queen, it’s EDM, and we’re eating LSD popsicles.
Eric: It’s right after the knickerbocker stop.
Brandon: PBR everywhere.
Julia: So many cans of PBR.
Amanda: Incredible.
Eric: There’s a stage on one side and an American Ninja Warrior set on the other side.
Amanda: So did each section of the obstacle course have its own mechanics?
Eric: Yeah! First we can talk about how I did set up different people for all of you to recognize in episode 3. So you remember I made you guys make all of those perception checks? So depending on what you came up with, you were going to see different things. There’s actually a bunch of things you guys didn’t see but one was Shannon Redwine the bully, one was Fritz—
Julia: Is she ever gonna come back? I’m just very curious.
Eric: Who can say? Who even knows?
Julia: Damnit.
Eric: And then Amanda rolled so well that you got both Fritz and the horse in the room. I was just gonna give a bonus to somebody seeing that there was a horse, and then Brandon you just got your interaction with Sour Anthony.
Brandon: The best of all.
Julia: No. Unacceptable.
Eric: My favorite voice of all time.
[Julia and Amanda groan]
Brandon: Okay, actual question. I’ve never watched American Ninja Warrior. Is it just like the same obstacle course that all the contestants compete on?
Julia: Yes, not at the same time though. Each one does a trial run, and then their goal is to get to the end the fastest.
Brandon: Ahhh okay!
Eric: Yeah, it’s like a time trial thing. But it’s also about endurance and upper arm strength, this was like just do it. It was a lot more like Wipeout, or you know like the Japanese inspired games that inspire Wipeout. Just like do it, and see where it goes.
Brandon: Oh so they’re not fighting each other on the course.
Eric: No, not like that usually. So yeah! I had different things for that, then Emily challenged all of you to do this which I just thought, listening back to the end of 3, I forgot how funny it was that Emily just says “go!” and you have to go.
Julia: We all just ran. We just did not want to lose.
Amanda: In episode 4 exactly, I think one of us was like “I don’t even know why I wanna win but I wanna win!”
Brandon: Someone says go, you gotta win!
Eric: For Val it was just like FUCK Sour Anthony!
Julia: Eric, I’m curious is there was a way if there would have been additional people running the course or if that you just planned on these specific people running it. Like was there a way that Shannon Redwine ran the course?
Eric: Oh 100%!
Julia: Okay interesting.
Eric: Just the way that you all interacted with these people, and the fact that you didn’t interact with Shannon, there was another thing you could’ve ran into a friend from high school, or from a job you ran into, and there were some other NPCs just scattered in there. But the fact that you interacted with the people that you interacted with, they were the ones who had a reason to stay like Emily’s speech for everything that it sets up for my world, that it was an exposition speech is not that compelling I don’t think. She’s not an aurator, she’s not fuckin’ like Professor. X being like “the mutants we need to all stand together!” She’s not that!
Brandon: She did have a giant purple sword though.
Eric: She’s like low grade Leslie Knope with a sword, and that’s not inspiring. So the fact that people were leaving was just like, I don’t wanna deal with this, I don’t care, or I don’t want to. Which is kind of what she was talking about.
Amanda: Did you do it that way, or did you roll for Emily’s persuasion or charisma.
Eric: I think I did it that way. I didn’t write anything down for a speech, I was like I’m gonna make up a speech to empower people, and it’s not gonna go well.
[Brandon laughs]
Julia: So if I had spoken to Shannon Redwine she might have run the course?
Eric: Oh yeah, Val talking to their bully would’ve engaged somebody to challenge each other so I can only imagine that Shannon would’ve stayed.
Julia: That’s fair! Now I regret not talking to her.
Eric: I mean would you really have gone up to your bully after not seeing them for ten years.
Julia: No most definitely not. But I would like to have seen where that story thread would have gone.
Brandon: I bet Val would’ve, I mean Val’s like big and bulky and can fight now.
Julia: No but I don’t think so cause I think Val is the kinda person who wouldn’t give someone not worth their time the time of day.
Brandon: That’s true, that’s true.
Amanda: Love it, Val’s truly like my business goals in terms of being like “if you don’t wanna work with me, fuck you.”
[Everyone laughing]
Julia: That’s how I solve problems! I just don’t talk to people I don’t want to talk to.
Brandon: I don’t have problems. I just don’t talk to people, it’s really effective.
Amanda: Eric, any mechanics from the different sections from the obstacle course that you would like to share with us?
Eric: Yeah! The first one was just ripped from American Ninja Warrior, dexterity, acrobatics, jumping from one pad to the other pad and slipping and having to start over. The army crawling, see I totally thought that at least two of you, and at least Aggie was going to make it to the tunnel first just cause I know Aggie has super high dexterity, and then Milo decided to fuck all that up. [laughs] And so—
Amanda: The spirits decided, Milo just intended it.
Eric: Oh I’m sorry it was the spirits!
Brandon: No that was me, it was the player.
Julia: It’s a really Brandon the player did us all a favor in coming to the tunnel.
Eric: Exactly, so two other guys bust out in front, and then they got hit by the sleep spell. Like it was just sleep and I rolled a d8 and they got knocked out.
Julia: It’s very good.
Brandon: Wait eight d8?
Eric: Yeah eight d8, the way that sleep works is that you roll their HP and it’s usually for like you’re fighting goblins and you do it in an area and you go from the person or the creature that has the lowest HP up, so it has to consume their HP for them to fall asleep.
Brandon: Gotcha.
Eric: You roll a certain number of dice and you get like 40 so it’s like you have goblins, and one goblin has like 5 HP but the rest have 10, you knocked out the hurt goblin and then the other goblins that are inside of that number. It’s math.
Brandon: It’s math! [laughs]
Eric: So yeah, I thought that was fun, and like some of them had chunkier HP, like Fritz had a lot of HP and Sour Anthony did not have a lot of HP so them as a combination was really good. And that was done by Enya which Aggie then destroyed.
Julia: Destroyed the Enya, how could you?
Amanda: Can’t abide Enya.
Brandon: Hey Eric, what was Sour Anthony eating?
Eric: I told you, it was Chex Mix, Brandon.
Brandon: Okay…
Eric: I even wrote about it and said it was Chex Mix.
Julia: Do you wanna hear my theory about Sour Anthony?
Amanda: Yes.
Eric: Please.
Julia: So I know that Eric is a fellow watcher of My Hero Academia, and there is a very specific character, minor character, but in one of the character’s classes where he eats sugar and then gets super strong. And I’m picturing Sour Anthony eating snack food and then that allows him to fly. That’s my guess.
Amanda: Cool, I wish that happened to me.
[Everyone laughing]
Eric: Just like housing cookies and then he can fly.
Julia: Yeah! That sounds great!
Brandon: That’s the dream!
Eric: Yeah, you’re right, I’m changing it, it’s cookies. He’s eating cookies Brandon.
Brandon: Okay!
Julia: Great!
Eric (as Sour Anthony): [Kermit voice] Hey man just like these are my chocolate chip cookies, I got these from home so don’t touch them. I made them, and I browned the butter, and I got sugar from out of state, it still has all the molasses in it they’re just mine and I would really hate — can you just step away? I brought them from home.
Brandon: And then he takes the—
Amanda: NO! The Afterparty is my house I don’t have to let this happen!
[Brandon and Eric laughing]
Amanda: Moving on! Any final mechanics please.
Eric: Yeah there was the don’t say anything at all puzzle which you say something nice to the door or you would run into a trap. It was just something that I got from the old, like old Wipeout episodes, either your bust through a door that has a trap in it or you don’t. The floor is an illusion thing which you guys figured out, and then the final thing where you guys needed to do something that was related to your class as you hit the punching bag.
Julia: Ahhhh!
Eric: So Val hit it just like you do a big barbarian punch, Brandon hit it with a spirit surge, and Aggie you just kinda like kicked it but you had to do like a monk thing but you figured it out.
Julia: There we go!
Amanda: Right on.
Brandon: Were there any rejected modules or tasks?
Eric: Yeah the problem I remember running it was I did too many athletic ones, because that is what American Ninja Warrior is. So I’m like you have to run up the warp wall! Then I’m like oh we’re just gonna run athletic checks, like this is not interesting.
[Brandon laughs]
Julia: Val would’ve come in first the entire time.
Eric: But like that’s what we did the first thing was a body thing, then the other things were powered or resistance or arcana, all these different things so that’s what I had to tweak.
Brandon: Smart!
Amanda: Speaking of play-testing, something we meant to discuss last Afterparty is that Eric worked with some consultants in preparing the world, and preparing for episode one. So we just wanted to shout them out and talk a little bit about that experience, so Eric, take it away!
Eric: Absolutely! I just wanted to say that Join the Party is really difficult for me to do on my own and I would not be able to do it, because 1: I need to talk to other people, but 2: my experience as a person and as a game player is not the be-all and end-all. So I really wanna shout out the people I’ve reached out to, so Celeste Conowitch who is from Venture Maidens and is just incredibly talented is now a full-time game person on their own and they do consulting for your tabletop roleplaying game podcast whatever, and you can just hire her she is incredibly talented. And I reached out to Kevin Snow as a sensitivity consultant, and a disability reader, because this was about bodies in so many different ways like these people are being radiated by science which is a thing that happens in real life, and doesn’t give you powers? Since it had to do with people’s bodies like Milo literally has a hole in his body and Val vibrates a lot, so I feel like I needed to talk to someone about what effects this might have on people and being cognizant of not being like “oh hell yeah! These bodies are better!” and the separation between the X-Men-style mutant and the regular human, and how that dichotomy is not real. Also like the effects if there are curses and effects, like quote unquote curses and effects of feedback for being a person who comes from a tradition of radiation. It was something I really wanted to be aware of and now that we really were cognizant of what we were doing for Join the Party I reached out to Celeste and Kevin. You can find them in the links that we put in the episode description, they’re both really great, and I just wanted to shout them out!
Brandon: That’s great! Thank you both!
Amanda: Thank you both! So let’s move now into questions from our wonderful, wonderful audience. Let’s go back to episode three, walk our minds before the obstacle course before all of that, this is from Noelle K. desperately needing to know everything about the Brewpot family please and thank you.
[Brandon laughs]
Eric: Honestly, I should be asking you three because I came up with one guy, then my interns apparently came up with Brewski so please tell me!
Amanda: Listen sometimes if you’re not careful, you devolve into a Long Island lax-bro and that is just what happened to me in that moment.
[Julia and Brandon laughing]
Julia: Yeah I think we talked about this off-mic, but I think I pitched the idea that Brewski had a band that Val has seen live.
[Everyone laughing]
Julia: I can’t remember which band it is but it’s on my list of bands and I just haven’t looked at it in a while but yeah. Brewski is in a band that plays in college towns quite a bit.
Eric: He’s like a senior at SUNY LTC and it’s been like six years and he still hasn’t gotten his physiology degree.
Julia: Oh bud, oh bud.
Eric: No it’s just Mr. Brewpot is so — I love and I’m getting this from nad-pod but like I like putting dads into the podcast. It’s very fun, it’s just a really intense energy you can run at someone with and it’s like if a dad gives you a quest, you have to do it. So that’s how I dealt with Milo like hey your boss who is also your dad in some other way is like here, go do this thing, I’m telling you to go do it. No I just really like it.
Julia: That was one of my favorite scenes in episode three was Brewpot speed walking at Milo and Brandon being like “I speed walk back at him!”
[Everyone laughs]
Julia: Loved that!
Brandon: Just for the audience's sake, he’s not actually my dad.
Julia: Mhm, he’s not!
Eric: No we know who your dad is.
Amanda: But Brandon have Milo and Mr. Brewpot gotten drunk at a holiday party?
Brandon: Absolutely — well Mr. Brewpot thought Milo got drunk but Milo is a very smart employee who just gets his boss drunk and pretends to be as drunk so they can bond and then become the favorite employee.
Julia: Like all employees do.
Amanda: That doesn’t surprise me.
Brandon: Yeah! You gotta stay like one or two drinks behind your boss at the happy hour. That’s just the smart thing to do.
Amanda: Not bad advice.
Eric (as Mr. Brewpot): [In a drunken voice] MILO! If only I can rearrange the alphabet and make it so much easier for people to find all the science! It would be SO much better!
[Everyone laughing]
Eric (as Mr. Brewpot): [With a southern twang] WHY IS G IN THE PLACE THAT IT IS?! It should not be there! I’ll put it at the end!
Brandon: Is he a country lawyer when he gets drunk?
Eric: Yeah oh 100%!
Amanda: Oh that is very good.
Julia: That’s so funny what a weird complaint.
Eric: He went to a college in Charlottesville and that’s why he picked it up, like whenever he gets drunk he gets a southern accent.
Amanda: Amazing. Shel in the discord had a really interesting comment that they were going to ask whether other people were aware of the powered people’s powers, but it seems like episode three did kind of get at that like it’s some awareness and some people do use their powers.
Julia: Well I think that was something that we talked about in the world building was that people know they have powers, but the world at large doesn’t necessarily know that people have powers. That’s why you had that scene with Tegan where they’re interviewing you and trying to get information about the incident.
Amanda: The reason I think Aggie was secretive about that was not because she wants to totally deny the fact that she’s different but the fact that you kind of don’t go outside the family. Like you don’t talk about personal stuff with an outsider no matter how cool their jacket is.
[Brandon laughing]
Julia: Mhm, of course.
Amanda: So that sort of, if I remember correctly that was kind of the framing question that all of us had when we had our initial discussion of what campaign two would look like. You know powers, sort of like in the dichotomy of superhero empowered media. The question is sort of how secret is this? Are you a public superhero so that everybody knows that superheroes exist? Or did you get struck one day with a power and no one else has that or knows about it?
Brandon: Yeah I think it’s also interesting to note that we’re living in a town that’s already kind of odd, because the diaphorum you know. So it’s like everyone in the rest of the world has to be like, everything happening in Laketown City is just kind of odd in general.
Eric: Right, it’s like hey I really love going to Atlanta, it also has like all of the nuclear reactors in the United States, like that’s really strange.
Amanda: This is a related question from JamieDWN also in the discord, are there third generation post-event kids, like team JTP’s nieces or nephews or actual children? If so, are they powered? Do the powers dilute over generations etcetera.
Eric: That’s an interesting question…
Julia: I think this is another conversation we had off-mic when we first were coming up with the idea. Didn’t we talk about the powers would get stronger as generations go on? Cause like if you look at Aggie and Val, and I guess to a certain extent Milo—
Brandon: Wow.
Julia: These aren’t like huge incredible superpowers like you see in the comics, we’re very mildly powered people in superhero lore terms. If you look at our parents too, it’s something that’s been brought up on the podcast, our parents just look very good and are very healthy, but that’s it. They don’t have powers.
Amanda: Yeah that was sort of the question around the incident in particular like what would cause people to be powered. We wanted very much to take place in that second generation not the people who are dealing with it for the first time, but once the city is established the diaphragm is established, how do you live a normal life with just this strange addition? So adults who were exposed they have this mild effect of just health and prosperity which is great, but their kids because they were changed on a genetic level versus the parents were already alive and in bodies that had developed, they had a much more intense power. But I don’t know like if two powered people have kids like is it a genetic related thing? Is this a blip and powers fade from here on out you know, I don’t think there’s a canonical answer but it was really interesting.
Eric: I actually didn’t think about this until Jamie brought it up but theoretically you’re all in your late 20’s someone probably had a kid so we don’t know about this baby, or five year old, or ten year old probably. They’re probably out there.
Amanda: More to come!
Brandon: Not one of us three, someone in the city.
Julia: Someone not related to our characters.
Brandon: Yeah!
Eric: There is definitely someone who was from Laketown who is living in Laketown City, who got married at 18 and had a kid at 19 and that child exists.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: I really liked that Julia, I didn’t think about that like on the X-Men Professor X scale. Like yeah there are no omega level powered people at this moment 100%.
Julia: No one is changing around reality like Scarlet Witch or doing Phoenix Force level stuff.
Brandon: YET! JUST WAIT!
Julia: Yet.
Eric: Just dropping an entire tornado on the city yet.
Amanda: But that is the kinda thing that Dr. Morrow would potentially do. So I think what interests me so much about Laketown City is that it’s a mix of the sort of ununderstandable wild superpowery type of powersource and science, and the fact that there is money, industry, and infrastructure to make sweeping airtram innovations is just a really fascinating complement to the existence of mild powers.
Eric: There was an idea that I had in the beginning that was like you have to imagine that someone’s parent walks in on them as they’re shooting fireballs in all directions and they’re just like “Oh! Why don’t you just turn it off? That’s what I do with my radiant smile.” Like mmm, it’s not the same guys!
Julia: Not the same at all!
Brandon: And that child was Mario.
[Everyone laughing]
Julia: He had a flower.
Eric: Yeah that was Mario. I’m adding a fire thrower named Mario now, congratulations.
Julia: He’s from Little Italy, Val knows him.
Amanda: This question came directly from Eric: the music at episode three slaps, discuss?
Eric: Uh not just from me every fucking person was like hey the music ending in episode three fuckin SLAPS.
Brandon: Yeah it was pretty dope track, I’ve been because I’ve been doing Next Stop and other projects along the line, to help JTP get quicker in post I’ve been using a lot of pre-made tracks sort of like a music-supervision style. So I use a lot of stuff from the YouTube music library which is the library that YouTube allows creators to pull from that a lot of it is creative common zero license which means you don’t have to give an attribution, some of it is attributions so make sure if you use that, so make sure you use that. This track was called Nothing Yet by Spaz Cardigan and I don’t really know anything about the musician but I do really like their tracks, I downloaded all of them so I just have them on my computer ready to use. If you remember back in Labor Party, there was a I forget which one, I think it was the pastoral one where there’s like a running the cows or whatever it is?
Amanda and Julia: Mhm
Brandon: There’s a track and it’s got some stomping in it, that’s another Spaz Cardigan track. So yeah, I just really love them and you can find them on the YouTube Music Library if you search for it .
Amanda: And Brandon wrote an illegal amount of music for campaign one, more than a hundred tracks of environmental sounds and also music which you can now buy in our merch store! jointhepartypod.com/merch!
Brandon: That’s why I’m only using premade tracks for this season cause the cops came and said “that’s illegal!”
Amanda: Yes, he’s been banned. Mhm.
Julia: You’ve made TOO much music sir.
Eric: The FBI busted in and was like STOP IT!
Amanda: Moving onto episode four many very good questions, first of all Julia, this one’s from Al parent to two adorable cats in the discord. Julia, how did you bless Brandon’s dice and why?
Julia: Okay we can talk about superstition real quick if you’d like.
Amanda: Yes.
Julia: And Brandon doesn’t believe in dice superstition as far as I’m aware.
Brandon: It’s not a thing! It’s just statistics!
Julia: I think you need to cook your dice, I think it should always be resting on the highest number possible, that is my opinion! Brandon doesn’t really do that though, I just kinda hover my hands over his dice before we start a session. To try to channel some energy into them you know, to kinda give them good vibes.
Brandon: I do appreciate it. Because I think dice don’t matter, but Julia giving my general area and dice good vibes is very nice you know!
Julia: Mhm.
Amanda: And do we do that remotely now?
Julia: I try my best!
Amanda: Gaze upon Brandon and send him good vibes?
Julia: Listen, according to the science of Reiki which is
[a beat passes]
Julia: Wild… You can in fact send Reiki waves across the phone calls and the internet so I will do my best to send you good vibes over these calls.
Brandon: Thank you, I appreciate it.
Julia: You’re welcome!
Amanda: From HamiltonOtto, Eric was the table for Spirit Surge, a static ten possible outcomes as Brandon rolls them or is it the roll shifting as backfill as he lands inexplicably on results all the time?
Brandon: Like do you replace ones that have been used with new ones? Is that what the question is?
Amanda: Right.
Eric: I do replace them. I’ve had to do it a lot more than I thought I would have to.
[Brandon laughing]
Eric: But yeah as soon as they get hit, I switch them out.
Julia: Oh that’s really cool, I didn’t know that! I thought like if Brandon rolls I don’t remember the number, another 4 whatever he’s gonna polymorph again or something like that. That’s very cool to know that they’re switched out.
Eric: Yeah just the way that since it’s a feat and not like a main tenant like a Wild Magic sorcerer I felt like I had a lot more control as the DM. Because Brandon was giving Milo up to the randomization gods and as like a facet of him as a person and whatever his powers do and how out of control they are sometimes I felt like I needed to not press my hand down on the scale but I needed to know what these things are especially cause there is as we’ve seen some sort of entity hid in that portal.
Brandon: I also appreciate that they have more consequences I guess is the word, but like in the Wild Magic table some of them are just like you know fluffy fun stuff. But it does make the game more interesting to be like— even if it’s not terrible, but like you know my legs were frozen. That just makes the game more interesting when there’s a challenge. Just to confirm Eric, there are half good things, and half bad things right?
Eric: Yeah! You got one of the good things—
Julia: The punch!
Eric: Unfortunately it happened now but you got the big hands.
Brandon: Yeah, it’s just confirming.
Eric: Big punchy hands!
Brandon: Just confirming!
Eric: Brandon I promise there are good things, also the polymorph thing wasn’t necessarily bad it’s just that Tuna failed it and Tuna was the closest thing to you.
Brandon: That’s fair, Tuna fails everything.
Eric: [Laughing] Not true! Tuna’s great and I could tell Brandon you wanna shit talk Tuna more?
Brandon: I don’t know, I lived with Tuna in life and in death is even worse so come at me.
[Amanda laughing]
Eric: Oh my god.
Amanda: First the fuck cut, now this Tuna defamation, it’s gonna be rough for you in discord, Brandon.
Julia: I think that HamiltonOtto was also the person on Twitter who asked me why Val hates Sour Anthony so much.
Amanda: Yeah!
Eric: Yeah that’s right.
Julia: You know what? I just kind of leaned into it so far so I went back and I listened to episode three to figure out why I reacted the way I reacted, and it’s cause Val said something about their mom being hot, and then Sour Anthony agreed, and that did not sit well with Val.
[Everyone laughing]
Julia: So fuck Sour Anthony!
Amanda: Aw that’s very good.
[Eric continues laughing]
Brandon: I like that it’s like a thing in Laketown that everyone knows that Val’s mom is the hot, hippy, sculptor—
Julia: She’s a MILF!
Eric: [laughing] Who makes erotic scultptures—
Brandon: Yeah!
Amanda: She definitely made like a sculpture of all nipples that spells out “MILF”
[Brandon starts laughing]
Julia: Yeah! 100%! Should be in the not the MMFFC but the other museum the art museum.
Brandon: Truly a nightmare.
Amanda: Near Ga Ga! Eric how did the conversation between Emily and the people who set up the obstacle course go? This was from Joey but lots of people are very concerned, like who did Emily pay off to get this obstacle course constructed?
Eric: [Laughing] Amanda and I have been watching a lot of incredibly rich people shows recently like Succession and Billions like if you throw enough money at someone, they just do the thing you want them to do.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: So if you’ve got these contractors to set this thing up, maybe it was the American Ninja Warrior people, maybe it was a sort of like obstacle course something else, I don’t know. Like hey here’s some amount of money, build this, and they’re like “okay!” You don’t have to ask them, like they’ll just do it!
Brandon: I mean the production folks from American Ninja warrior have to have some jobs in the off season you know!
[Julia laughs]
Amanda: And there’s this whole cottage industry of American Ninja Warrior training gyms and equipment and people who will like home build the climbing wall or will order it from somewhere so it doesn’t surprise me that either that or a sort of intense crossfit gym lent equipment.
Eric: Yeah you don’t have to be suspicious unless something is actually suspicious like if this is just a job, they’ll just do it.
Julia: Is Emily just super rich though?
Eric: Who can say, Julia.
Julia: Like is the Slaughter — okay alright.
Brandon: Her last name is Slaughter, she definitely kills people.
Eric: Brandon, that’s a real person.
Julia: She can kill people with a sword real good.
Brandon: No the real person doesn’t kill people, just the fiction person does.
[Julia laughs]
Eric: Emily Slaughter Prime is an upstanding citizen.
Julia: Yes will incredible dice making abilities!
Amanda: Well we have a bunch more questions about our world and what’s going to happen next but first I’m gonna have to refill this cookie/chex mix sweet and salty combo bowl! Be right back!
[Transition music]
Hey, it’s Amanda. Now, we joke a lot about cookies and Chex Mix in this Afterparty, but like a lot of people, baking has been a huge part of my life these past few months. And there is no kitchen tool I appreciate more than my digital scale. Baking by volume is SO HARD and MESSY, but baking by weight is EFFORTLESS, I realize this is not news to a lot of you, but it was to me. I LOVE pouring the ingredients directly into my mixing bowl and not dirtying my dry measures! I love pressing reset after adding each ingredient and not having to do math! I love guessing how many chocolate chips make up 200 grams! Welcome to the midroll. How do you like the cupcakes?
Thank you to everyone who has joined our Patreon in the last week: Damian, Matt, Eric, Sam, The Lovely Loveless, Mary, and Dan! And thanks to Taylor and Artimis for upgrading to an Annual plan! This is a new feature on Patreon where you can sign up for a full year of membership for a 16% discount over pledging month to month. We say it every week on the Multitude shows, but we are truly grateful for each and every person who supports us on Patreon. You literally make it possible for this to be our jobs, and we could not do it without you. Whether you’re pledging for yourself or as a gift, whether annual or monthly, know that your support makes all the difference for us at Multitude. To get access to some great bonus content and our Patron-only Discord, join us today for as little as $5 a month at patreon.com/jointhepartypod.
Did you know that Join the Party and a bunch of other Multitude shows have digital merch items for sale? From ringtones to phone backgrounds, there are a ton of items you can get for yourself or a friend. There are bundles from Join the Party, Spirits, Potterless, and NEXT STOP, Multitude’s new audio sitcom. And we’re adding new stuff all the time. So head over to multitude.productions/merch to see the digital and physical items all of our shows have for sale!
Next, I want to recommend a wonderful podcast for you to listen to once you catch up on JTP. Unwell is a critically acclaimed fiction podcast about unusual families of blood and choice in the small town of Mt. Absalom, Ohio. A small town… with a ghost problem. And conspiracies. It’s one of my favorite podcasts with some of my favorite podcast art of all time, and some of my favorite podcasting people of all time, and I know you’ll enjoy it as well. This is truly the perfect time to dive in since we’re in since season two is airing right now. So go to unwellpodcast.com or search for Unwell in your podcast app.
We are sponsored this week by BetterHelp, a secure online counseling service. They connect you with licensed counselors through their secure app, letting you message with your therapist and schedule live phone or video sessions. You can also message your counselor in between sessions if you’re worrying about something or think of a topic you want to cover in your next call. Because BetterHelp wants to help you find the best therapeutic match possible, it’s easy and free to switch counselors if need be. And BetterHelp is also more affordable than traditional counseling, with financial aid also available. You can get 10% off your first month of counseling by signing up at betterhelp.com/jointheparty. That’s better h-e-l-p . com / jointheparty for 10% off your first month. Better h-e-l-p . com / jointheparty.
One of my favorite parts of playing a monk in D&D is problem-solving. Deciding when will be the best time to use my luck points and ki points, managing multiple attacks in the same round, optimizing for close-range versus ranged combat… it forces me to think about probability in a way not many other things do. And today’s sponsor, Brilliant, gives you access to the kind of active learning that I love. They don’t just teach you subjects, but give you a toolkit and a framework to work through novel problems for yourself. It’s not just a module but also the skills to run and play a whole campaign. Their interactive courses cover scientific thinking, math fundamentals, programming, and machine learning, as well as so much more. They know, just like D&D players do, that the best way to develop skills and intuition is by problem-solving. So go to brilliant dot org slash Join The Party to sign up for free. Plus, the first 200 people that go to that link will get 20% off the annual Premium subscription. That’s brilliant dot org slash join the party.
Finally, we are sponsored by Backblaze. They provide unlimited computer backup for Macs and PCs for just $6/month. I have this for all of my computers and it has saved my life more times than I can count. Backblaze runs in the background, backing up your documents, music, photos, videos, drawings, projects—all of your data. And you can restore files anywhere, downloading them on the web or purchasing a restore Hard Drive overnighted to you in the mail. The BackBlaze mobile apps means you can even access or download your files on the go, which I have definitely done while traveling. I can’t tell you how many times BackBlaze has saved me from hard drive failure, crashed projects, even forgetting an important file when I was traveling. And it’s not just me—they’ve restored over 50 billion files for customers, and that’s billion with a b. See for yourself why Backblaze is the easiest and best file backup service by signing up for a fully-featured free trial at backblaze.com/jtp. There’s no credit card required to get 15 days of BackBlaze for free, and see why this is the best $6/month you’ll ever spend. That’s backblaze.com/jtp. Get peace of mind knowing your files are backed up securely in the cloud with BackBlaze.
And now, back to the Afterparty!
[Transition music]
Amanda: I’m back, are you guys enjoying my Rick Martinez browned butter toffee chocolate chip cookies?
Julia: Oh they’re so good.
Eric (as Sour Anthony): [With his mouth full] I put them all in my mouth
Amanda: Nooo Sour Anthony you’re not invited!
Eric: Oh okay.
Amanda: Not gonna lie to you guys, lot of question about Tuna physics.
[Brandon and Eric laugh]
Amanda: Malace in the discord would like to know, can Val see Tuna all the time now? Did Val see Tuna because they were carrying Milo? Can Aggie see Tuna? Just can someone give Tuna scritches.
Julia: I feel like the answer to these questions are revealed later, so can we add them to the “hmm! I don’t know!” section?
Eric, Amanda, and Julia together: Who can say?
Eric: Look Tuna physics are complicated, don’t worry about it guys!
Brandon: I don’t even know if I’m quite clear on who can see Tuna and why, I mean—
Amanda: I think we decided that once Tuna reveals themself to somebody, like lets themself be seen then that person can see them forever, right?
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: But I don’t think Tuna revealed themselves so there’s something extra.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Maybe because you were in a sandwich?
Julia: Yeah I think it was because of the contact that I was able to see Tuna.
Eric: Yeah that was the context of why Val could see Tuna. I will say later, just deal with it because it gets complicated!
Julia: Yep!
Brandon: Well everything surrounding Tuna is just mystery upon lies, upon mysteries, I’m used to it folks, strap in!
[Eric laughs]
Julia: So needy your animal familiar.
Brandon: They’re a dick!
Amanda: Vennik would like to know how does Tuna feel about regular cats? And will Tuna and Sushi (Aggie’s cat) ever meet?
[Brandon laughs]
Eric: Well first off you need to write that fanfic where Tuna and Sushi interact. That’s out of my hands, I don’t know what I’m supposed too tell you.
Amanda: We don’t know Sushi very well yet.
Julia: I feel like cats can see ghost cats, that’s why cats stare at walls and stuff, they can see other cats!
Amanda: Oh, yeah.
Eric: Cats looking at other cats, but they’re spirits.
Julia: I think cats are just looking at ghosts all the time.
Brandon: Yeah, that’s a thing. Cats and dogs can see otherworldly spirits.
Julia: Yeah!
Amanda: In certain folklore it is!
Eric: I had a cat in my mid-twenties his name was Samspon and my roommates named Sampson with a p, because I was not there to spell-check it.
[Brandon laughs]
Eric: And Sampson would just look in corners and just look up and like chirp minimally.
Amanda: Aww!
Eric: Like bah bah bah bah! And I’m like huh, what’re you lookin’ at bud! And Sampson he just had an eye of his own so I think cats can see ghosts.
Brandon: Sampson would transform into a giant monster!
Eric: No! Sampson was just a cat. You don’t need to improve to make a cat even more creepy, they just do it.
Amanda: And how does Tuna feel about other you know mere mortal cats walking around?
Eric: I think fine? I mean no more than other cats, like I’m not improving upon, I’m just taking the general idea of a cat.
Amanda: Cats are ready-made for dnd.
Eric: Exactly, like I didn’t do much to Tuna, Tuna is just a cat.
Brandon: Tuna was just a cat that died and now is stuck to Milo and it’s a horror show for both of them. They’re just a cat!
Eric: No Tuna loves it, Tuna loves you so much—
Brandon: Tuna does not like me, Tuna likes my dad.
Eric: Tuna loves the fact that Tuna still gets to bother you.
Brandon: Yeah, that’s what Tuna likes.
Eric: It’s great!
Amanda: This is from OutOfCoalText on Twitter: Will all of Milo’s spells eventually go ghost? Will entangle become grasping ghostly hands is wall of thorns, wall of mildly disgruntled ex NFL stars?
Brandon: Uh second question, YES. Now it is canon.
Eric: The first one is literally canon, we do that later, I think that we’ve really been working on this circle of spirits a lot and we do flavor it later as we get further.
Brandon: Yeah agreed, I think the thing too about Milo is like it’s not strictly — it’s like powered by ghosts and spirits but like it is a manifestation of those individual ghosts and spirit powers that they had or have. So like when he did entangle and it was a grasping vine, cause one of the spirits might have had the ability to do plant tricks—
Eric: [laughing] Plant tricks,
Julia: Ah yes, plant tricks.
Amanda: Guys I thought I didn’t share that secret tumblr name with you why would you out me like that?
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: AmandaPlantTricks.tumblr.com
Amanda: [Jokingly upset] Aww no.
Brandon: But I think as Milo we’ll see but as Milo gets more and more control over his powers I think he’s able to like hone the spirits as opposed as to just like channel the spirits individual willpower you know.
Eric: You know what’s funny? Cause like that’s true for Milo but also from a dnd perspective it’s like you know I would like to reskin these to make it more ghostly, like yeah let’s do that. It fits the subclass we came up with a lot more so, the way that the druid — I’ve been thinking about this so much — the way druids draw their power from the environment and the way Milo draws is power is from this realm that he has a portal, so like you are literally a ghost druid. So your spells would be ghostly.
Brandon: Exactly. There are spells that are already flavored like pass without a trace as a shadow in the game already in canon in dnd, and we added some flavor to thunderwave in of it is like a Pikachu power but there’s some ghostly whispers at the end of it so we’ll continue to sort of go that direction. And shillelagh is just a silly power so we’ll keep flavoring that.
[Julia laughing]
Amanda: Speaking of the end of the episode, I just saw this from Julia, not this Julia—
Julia: Not me!
Amanda: Different Julia, on Twitter: what would’ve happened if only part of the squad finished the parkour?
Eric: Oh that’s a good question! I did have a situation laid out for that, I didn’t think I would resolve it on this episode because we don’t know what Emily is actually planning here. But like yeah, it was entirely possible for all three of you to not do this. To not have it done, honestly thought that Aggie was not gonna get it.
Amanda: Aha! I’m a monk!
[Julia and Brandon laugh]
Eric: You did it.
Julia: It was a big reason why I picked up Milo and carried him along cause I was like I don’t want to be on a team with Sour Anthony but at the same time out of character I was like I wanna make sure that Brandon gets on the squad. I hope he doesn’t fall behind!
Brandon: Thanks! Julia the real person is so kind to me, and Val is also real kind to me.
Julia: You’re just better than Sour Anthony so Val was like yes!
[Brandon laughs]
Julia: You’re a nerd but I appreciate you.
Eric: That’s totally fair, hey I have a question! Why did Milo give up the 10k for the key?
Brandon: It’s not as nefarious or weird I think as people might imagine it. Well one, as a player it’s just more interesting to have things like items over cash, but two as in character Milo has a good job that he likes. So he’s not hurting for cash you know? And Milo as a person is just his whole this is that he’s intensely driven by curiosity. That’s why he’s in science to begin with, that’s why he has a degree in that. So that’s why he would rather have the key to figure out the secrets surrounding the key and more about himself and these spirits first of all and 30% of it to the government for taxes so you know $7,700—
Eric: Wait why would you given cash given by a person to you and give it to a tax — you’re gonna declare a secret mission amount of money?
Julia: It’s income tax.
Brandon: Yeah when it’s over $5,000 and then you get audited like you’re getting screwed man.
Amanda: Just declare a lottery winning and other miscellaneous income!
Eric: [Laughing] I don’t think —
Brandon: If Milo gets audited he’s not going to jail!
[Amanda laughs]
Julia: Val’s just like
Julia (as Val): I’ll set you up with a good lawyer! He’s gotten a lot of people out of from under the IRS’ eyes so…
Eric: There’s an old saying that we have, it’s not the crime, it’s the taxes. We make sure that we got our accounts.
Julia: Tax evasion is a main reason people went away during prohibition! It wasn’t that they were breaking the prohibition law, it was that they were done up by the fact that they weren’t declaring their income.
Brandon: Yeah so if Milo’s gonna be a vigilante he’s not gonna also do tax fraud! So you know, $7,000 is gonna buy him a nice clunker of a car kinda thing.
Julia: It’ll pay your rent for a couple of months!
Eric: Yeah! $10,000 is a lot of money!
Brandon: Yeah like rent for a couple months or uncover secrets of inside spirits for a lifetime! You know?
Eric: That’s true. That’s a good point, don’t worry I’m sure that Emily is just gonna pocket that ten k and be like alright that’s fine.
Julia: No skin off her nose.
Amanda: Related question from Magdelena on Twitter: at this point in the campaign how well do you feel like you know your characters? And for Eric the NPCs is there every motivation in reaction like 100% clear to you or do they still sometimes surprise you?
Julia: Yeah I think it’s really interesting because the more we’ve played recently, the more polite Val has seemed to me—
[Brandon and Eric laughing]
Julia: In certain situations, and like it can be an aggressive polite but I think Val is more respectful than I gave them credit for early on. And I’m curious for people to see that and see the reveal but yeah they’re definitely surprising me in that sense.
Eric: I think it’s just Val interacting with strangers honestly. Like Val comes off as very hard-edged to strangers but you meet Val once and dog don’t worry, they’re cool, it’s fine!
[Brandon laughs]
Brandon: I feel like there’s still a lot of room here for surprise, I think even into episode nine yeah, I mean anything can happen. I think this sort of core person of who Milo is and I would bet he rest of your characters we sort of formed when we were forming our characters in the beginning but like yeah I think Julia you said last ep you know you found out in the fact that Val went to college and got a communications degree you know. So yeah I think those things will still be there and surprise us as we go.
Julia: Mhm.
Amanda: I’m sort of the opposite as said last time, which is I feel like I know how Aggie reacts and the choices she makes but it’s sort of discovering who she is and what motivates her apart from the basic things I know already. It’s still happening as of episode nine I do feel a little more confident, I don’t have to ask myself what would Aggie do, I sort of am able to act in the moment but I feel like I still have a lot to learn about her which is a really fun place to be you know, only a few months into a campaign.
Eric: I feel similarly for the NPC’s cause like you gotta give people one motivation and one personality trait and then you go, but I’m still introducing a lot of people right now. So once I get to live in them a little longer, that would be nice and I feel like they’ll get fleshed out.
Amanda: Pizza related question from Jasmine in the discord: if the characters went to the pizza joint Val works in, what kind of pizza toppings would they ask for?
Julia: Mmmm. So Val does like a meat lovers with extra meatballs when they’re ordering from Dominick’s, but I think if Val is making pizza themself in their apartment, it is thinly sliced pepperoni that’s cooked so much that it curls at the edges and then a drizzle of honey on top.
Brandon: Hot honey or just regular?
Julia: Hot honey if they have it, but if you’re using spicy enough pepperoni I don’t think you need the hot honey necessarily.
Brandon: That’s fair, that’s fair. I discovered calabrian chilis that I added to my pizza, shit’s so good.
Julia: Very good!
Amanda: I think Aggie enjoys straight up cheese or a white pizza if she’s frisky.
Julia: Oooo.
[Brandon laughs]
Julia (as Val): A regular slice you can get it for a dollah!
Eric: In my head at Dominick’s it takes like 25 years for a new topping to be added to the menu.
Amanda: Yeah they have to like redo the handwritten signs.
Eric: Yeah exactly so I feel like it’s a strong movement like it was like
Eric (as Dom 1): MY FAMILY DIDN’T COME OVER FROM SICILY SO THAT YOU CAN PUT MEAT ON THIS PIZZA, THAT’S JUST NOT HOW IT WORKS!
Eric: And then like 25 years later, Dom 4 was like
Eric (as Dom 4): YOU’RE NOT GONNA ADD ANYTHING GREEN ON MY PIZZA! MY GREAT GRANDFATHER DIDN’T COME OVER FROM SICILY TO DO THAT!
Julia: Unless it’s basil!
Eric: Yeah exactly. So I feel like they only at Dominick’s is regular, pepperoni, and green pepper, and they’re just now experimenting with meatball, like meatball happened very recently.
Julia: Meatball and sausage got added at the same time.
Amanda: And mountain lobster, of course.
Eric: Mountain lobster of course.
Julia: Since the beginning!
Eric: That’s the part on it’s own, a part on it’s own.
Amanda: So to close out before our spoily corner, we have a few questions about the podcast making process which I’m always very excited to see and to answer! AkaAS in the discord asked how many episodes we’ve recorded in person versus remote.
Julia: Seven? Did we do seven episodes before we got stuck in our houses?
Brandon: Six or seven I think.
Julia: So yeah we recorded at least two maybe three remotely for everyone.
Amanda: Yes Brandon moved a few episodes in so we were able to record four in person, all together. Then the next couple Julia was in the studio with me and Eric and Brandon was remote; and then we took a little break and recently have started back up again. After the show came out we wanted to just like see how it was like and how you guys enjoyed it so then we’ve been recording recently all remote. Which is different but I think we all know each other well enough and we have the foundation of recording the world building and the first few episodes all together, and now I feel like it’s not a thing, we’re just playing the game.
Julia: Yeah! Absolutely.
Brandon: I think definitely cause we all know each other so well and we have played games, and recorded together that it just feels natural. Like we know when you know Julia’s gonna have a joke or something you know?
Julia: Thanks!
Eric: That’s true, I’ve really needed to prime myself before Julia winds up and does a joke. I do think it’s to our benefit that we do a podcast like I — shout out to all my streamer friends out there doing remotely and figured out, like Celeste is incredibly good at this and you have like the background and everyone has their little box. But like for podcasting it’s very nice for editing it feels like everyone is in the same room, and we all have the same microphones, so we all sound the same! So that’s very helpful.
Amanda: Icoocat from Twitter asks what we do to create the feeling of a real-world city, and how does living in New York City affect our playing LTC. I felt self-conscious during the world building episodes that we made so many references to New York, because I’m sure that like everyone who lives outside of it is like “ugh enough with the New York! With the TV and movies guh!” But that is the context that all of us share, and it was a really helpful analogue for oh we need the equivalent for this kind of neighborhood, or you know the experiences we’ve had in living in New York but also various cities, yes you have the downtown that’s empty on the weekends and blah blah blah.
Brandon: Yes and in the edit, Amanda too I agree with that sentiment so I try to keep it to the general stuff that we said so I think that was hopefully helpful.
Julia: And I think that even if we do include a lot of New York inspired stuff, Laketown City is canonically very close to New York so you see a lot of bleedthrough in cultures there. A lot of New Yorkers probably moved to Laketown City as it was growing, so you’re gonna see reflections like that in the city. It’s not like Boston, where Boston is it’s own city because it was founded before New York was and it’s not gonna have the same traditions and the same culture but because Laketown City is a new city it is going to be very much inspired by the people that move to it.
Eric: Yeah a hundred percent, also the fact that it is in Upstate New York and the relationship between Upstate New York and Downstate New York and New York City and Long Island is very fraught and weird. You can totally see what’s happening during all the quarantine news. Like the relationship between Governor Cuomo and our Mayor de Blasio, it’s really weird. The fact that LTC is up near Montreal and Vermont is a really big part of its nature and the fact that there is the tension between that city and New York City. And the fact that they’re connected by a high speed rail. Like there’s a literal port that takes these people, Tegan lives in New York City, like there are people around here all the time. We can’t ignore the presence of New Yorkers and New York City, it’s something that you can’t look away. Also as this thing grows, we are interacting with the environment and like seasons and nature of Upstate New York which we — I’m not gonna pull that crumb. You know if this was set in Washington we’d have the same conflict between Seattle and Portland, if we set it in Virginia we’d have the same issues with Baltimore and DC! Region is very important in what Laketown City is. They way that these arcs are gonna get set up is right now we’re in fall and we’re gonna go onto these other seasons! Hey winter in Upstate New York has a lot of fuckin’ snow.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: So get ready for some snow in the next arc.
Brandon: I’ll get my boots!
Amanda: Aggie’s up at 3:30 plowing it’s not a fun time for her.
[Eric laughing]
Julia: Val has a shoveling business. Val’s just all about the side hustle.
Brandon: Milo has never shoveled his driveway once.
Amanda: The people mover really jimmed up in the snow.
Eric: So jimmed up.
Amanda: Vennik asks if we ever get so into character or so into the story that when arguments or awkward situations happen in game they spill into real life? If so, how do you handle it? And if not, how do you prevent it? It’s a good question.
Julia: I don’t think we’ve had one yet that I was mad at any of you out of character to be fair. I did look at Brandon during episode four and was like what are you doing? Why are you trying to mess with us?
Brandon: I’m used to that
Eric: You know guys it’s the spirits, not Brandon.
Julia: I was like this is getting really weirdly competitive guys, and we know we all have to be in the same team after right?
[Brandon and Amanda laughing]
Eric: This happened a bunch in the first campaign cause this was when we were first starting it. I think we talked about it a little before but spoilers for campaign one, when TR8C nearly killed Greg when he first met him that was like a big deal. I did not know how to deal with it, and I had to like stop and figure it out before Greg died. But you know we’ve been doing this for a while and a lot of it is like in the game I think that this is like a city game and the consequences are more real. Like we are people with lives and can’t just like do whatever because it’s easier to envision the consequences and repercussions of that which is why I’m excited to play this game in the way that it moves around. We’re in a lot of introductory stuff, and as we get farther I’m sure things will happen, so we’ll see.
Amanda: We also all know and trust each other and know that ultimately we want to make a great podcast with a story that we all care about and let our individual players and characters make choices that are authentic to them like it never would occur to me to question the fact that anyone’s trying to fuck up the podcast or like you know mess up the story or make life difficult for another character, that I think that trust if built over time.
Julia: And I think that we had a great discussion before we started the first actual play session where we had a conversation about trusting the characters and trusting the NPCs and being sure that Eric and also the other players at the table are going to put us in the place that we need to be. And by trusting each other and trusting the players, nothing bad is gonna happen in that sense. Like no one is going to try and fuck anyone else over.
Brandon: Yeah I think that’s a tough lesson for me specifically, and I think a lot of newbie dnd players is like getting rid of that suspicious of the DM and just letting them sort of put the pieces in place that they need to and understanding that they’re in the same team as you. I think I still struggle with that sometimes cause I’m a suspicious competitive person. But I think that’s something that’s difficult to figure out and I think that there’s also this balance that you have to strike if you’re going to be sort of chaotic in the way that Milo is with the randomness, you can’t be so random that it destroys anything in the world or with the other players or for the DM. There’s a really tight line of where that’s appropriate and how it can affect the story.
Eric: Or even just light being aware of it and being that kind of chaotic person and like knowing that you might get hit with a consequence or a punishment, not from the DM but from the world.
Brandon: Yeah that’s the point, I am never gonna get mad at Eric for turning Tuna into a panther you know? I know going in that that’s a possibility and if that’s gonna happen I’m just gonna have to deal with it.
Eric: I will say also and maybe this is like the advent of dnd content and how this has grown so much, but like it really is like TV and movies. Like if I emotionally devastate you, I just gave you a real good scene. Like don’t you always want the death scene the hard scene as an actor? Like you want your character to do weird and fun and hard and emotional shit? Like that’s how I’m really seeing it and I’m gonna throw obstacles in front of you so that you have fun. Creative actor fun with it.
Amanda: Yeah I felt that way when I told you about Aggie’s siblings, because I was like here are a lot of ways to devastate my character and I’m just gonna give them to you to have fun with because I trust what you’re doing and I also unlike my nature that wants no conflict and do a jigsaw puzzle in candlelight —
Eric: Can confirm.
Amanda: Having conflict in the game is what makes it interesting and having things to overcome. And now, spoily corner.
Eric: [In a singsong melody] Spoily corner, we can’t tell you yet!
Brandon: Who can say!
Amanda: Oooo, I like it! Joey: is Emily a Hexblade Warrior?
Everyone: Mmmmm who can say!
Amanda: I don’t know!
Eric: I will say, and this is going to be an answer that is going to give you more questions—
Amanda: YES!
Eric: Remember with NPCs and she is not an enemy but remember that I pull from all of the places, I don’t just pull from the Player’s Handbook, I pull from the Monster Manual, and all of the monsters. I can just make a stat block of one and they’re not directly related to the class. So you know that I love using that NPC like class guide that I found a while ago but like I have all of the Monster Manual and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and all of these things I can pull from. So Emily may be a Hexblade Warlock but it may not be a class. Just to give you a heads up.
Amanda: Hmm possibilities! From OH! The whole Discord: Who is Emily and what does she really want?
[Eric laughs]
Julia: Hmmmm!!
Eric: Alright seriously she is a really neat lady, and she’s nice! There you go. Aw I spoiled the campaign.
Julia: She’s got so much capital and no one knows why!
Brandon: DRUGS!
Amanda: Who was driving the ice cream truck, why did they want to run Val and Aggie over? Where are they going?
Julia: HMMMM!!
Brandon: Hmmm who can say!
Amanda: Who can say?
Eric: Who can really say? I do love that and I didn’t talk about this, but the fact that Val punched an ice cream truck is so Val.
Amanda and Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Like this is how I do it, it’s my investigation roll! Punch an ice cream truck.
Julia: Yeah, obviously! Well if I put it out of commission I can then investigate it better.
[Brandon laughs]
Amanda: Or yeah, Aggie thought was like there’s only a few auto body shops in town, if an ice cream truck shows up a dent one we’re gonna know which one it was.
Eric: I also like how people are just shipping everyone with everyone now, in the discord it’s just ship city. It’s like fuckin’ Athens up in this piece.
Brandon: TUNA WITH MILO, TUNA WITH VAL, TUNA WITH AGGIE!
Julia: Oh gross…
Eric: Fritz and Emily, Fritz and Aggie, Aggie and Tegan, Tegan and Tuna? What?!
Amanda: That means we’re real property.
Eric: Yeah exactly!
Julia: Someone said Val and Fritz, and I was like did they even interact?! At all?
[Eric laughs]
Brandon: I don’t think they did.
Amanda: Aggie very much wants to hang out with Fritz and brood over a beer, they’re just companions and I think that would be really fun.
Julia: Maybe you can call him next time during our next short rest.
Brandon: He’s shady, I don’t trust him.
Amanda: I’ll try.
Julia: I don’t not trust him, it’s like celebrities don’t wanna get recognized and he’s kind of a celebrity.
Brandon: Yeah but he didn’t use any of his powers, so what is his power? Why is he hiding?
Julia: That’s true, we did not see his power.
Amanda: Who can say?
Brandon: Who can say.
Amanda: Who can say! Thank you for joining us for another Afterparty, we love watching you live tweet, and live blog in the discord episodes as they come out. It really makes our day and our week so we will see you in one week, with the next episode of Join the Party. Bye guys!
Julia: Later!
Brandon: Byee!!
Eric: You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.
[Outro music]
Amanda: Ooo all in sync.
Julia: Sexy in sync!
Amanda: Backstreet’s back, alright.
Brandon: Is there any other kind Julia?
Julia: Uhh… The boy band. Also sexy though so.
Brandon: Exactly!
Julia: Here we are.
Eric: [Dramatically singing] Everybody
Julia and Eric: [Singing] Yeaaah!
Eric: I know that sounded sick. I just wanted to be part of it because I wasn’t involved.
[Brandon laughs]
Julia: Fair enough!
Brandon: It’s on brand though.
Eric: Thank you
Julia: *NSYNC It’s —
Amanda: Hey, hi, he—
Julia: gonna be maay! Sorry, Amanda, go ahead start the Afterparty.
[Eric laughing]
Julia: It’s all staying in now! In the cut.