How did Eric come up with that Entanglement Chart? What flavor of ice cream is Ma’s mech suit? And are Tuna and Sushi friends?! All those answers and more in the Afterparty!
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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 9 and 10! It's the end of our first arc guys congratulations!
[Everyone cheers]
Amanda: How are we all feeling? It’s like a pit stop on our journey. We've pulled off I-90, and we're queuing in front of a KFC combination Quiznos.
[Brandon laughing]
Brandon: What kind of snacks do you guys buy?
Eric: Can we be out of Buc-ee’s? Because that was the—
Amanda: Oh yeah.
Eric: The most wonderful time of my life.
Brandon: Ugh, no.
Eric: Okay Brandon's resentful because this is related to problems he has with his parents, but the rest of us, we all has a great time!
Brandon: It isn’t problems, I just inherently think that anything my mom thinks is cool is probably not cool so I don't know what that tells you.
Amanda: I mean we walked into a rest stop the size of a Walmart and it was extremely exciting, all of us and Eric Schneider and his girlfriend Kelsey in a minivan. It was extraordinary. I got caramel corn that was the best I've had in my life, Eric you have like a pulled pork or brisket sandwich right?
Eric: They just had a brisket station where you could have different types of sandwiches! There was a wall of jerky, Brandon!
Julia: The jerky was very good!
Amanda: Wall of jerky! It was incredible.
Brandon: Oh man.
Julia: The bathrooms are also extremely clean.
Brandon: I will fully admit that the bathrooms are nice yeah.
Amanda: My first thought too when walking into the Buc-ee’s was like “oh wow if I were on the lam, this would be a wonderful place to come and like change my outfit get supplies” like seed some rumors about where I was going, refuel!
Brandon: Amanda if?
[Beat of silence]
Brandon: If you were on the lam?
Eric: Yeah the amount that Amanda talks about heists, I'm worried is just gonna start happening.
Julia: Yeah Amanda’s gonna Gone Girl you one day, it’s gonna be bad.
Amanda: Listen.
Eric: NO!
Amanda: Wow Julia! Alright, there will be full-frontal nudity, I will give myself a haircut.
Eric: Then she goes and kills Neil Patrick Harris.
Julia: Yeah! Spoilers!
[Eric laughing]
Amanda: Guys I like heists for the puzzle of it all, that's why.
[Eric and Brandon laughing]
Brandon: Okay not for the murders sure.
Amanda: Back to the issue at hand! Congrats on the end of the first arc everybody!
Brandon: Yaaay!
Julia: We did it!
Eric: I am so happy we're finally at like the superhero part. Now that you have real names and costumes and everything, I am also— and this was the thing I was really holding for months now because we got so ahead. I think the podcast is very good, and I've always thought that but like ever since episode 9 I'm just like “fuck yeah let's get it all so good!” It's like we've really jumped a level and I'm proud of myself, but I’m also proud of you—
Brandon: Two levels!
Eric: Ugh Brandon.
Julia: Technically!
Amanda: Let's talk about that! Hey Eric, why are we leveling from 3 to 5?
Eric: We did this in the first campaign as well. This is something I took from TAZ, just because they had a very similar number of episodes per arc than we did. Just like every 9 or 10 let's just level them up. This is also something we talked about on previous afterparties. I think I'm gonna level you guys up more because of the development of superheroes as opposed to fantasy heroes. It's like you really get control of your powers and powers progress a lot more like X-Men or you know think about Spider-Man how he went from being just a big doofus 16 year old, to flying around zipping around with Tony Stark technology. So I just feel like it happens a lot faster so the arcs are gonna be a little bit shorter but we're also gonna do leveling up every two like we did last time.
Brandon: I like it.
Amanda: And the other big accomplishment of this arc. like you said Eric, is like we're firmly in the superhero part now. So why don't we talk a little bit about our costume and name inspiration since everybody on the internet is very excited to hear about it!
Eric: Well I now I wanted to say a thing and then I'll get the fuck out of the way I didn't know like that that is what happened I was just like yeah you guys think about it tell me what you want we'll do like a branding session and then Dr. Morrow will bring you a costume and then during play, I was just like oh I need to come up with their costumes but I've only heard about their names and their ideas for their heroes after like 20 minutes. Alright I guess I'll just do that so that all just kind of happened.
Julia: Yeah, I wanna say cause we did a private group chat on Slack to kind of talk about what we wanted to do and like brainstorm and stuff. I had a like almost exact vision of what I wanted Val's name and costume to be, but I know that Amanda and Brandon had a little bit less of an idea than I did. So it was fun to kind of talk things out and figure out like what names worked, and what costumes would be cool and stuff like that.
Brandon: It was a very supportive group chat, it was very nice!
Julia: It was!
Amanda: It was very feedback sandwich method, it was great, and yeah immediately after episode 9 I was I was like “hey guys let's get into a group chat, don't talk to Eric let's go” and then immediately we just brainstormed those things I had a hard time thinking about the name but once that kind of forest ranger inspiration coalesced, it became very clear and I'm super happy with how it worked out, so thanks to both of you for the help of the name! And eric to you for running with my Smokey the bear inspo.
Eric: Smokey the Bear has a really great costume for someone who only wears like three pieces of clothing. They're pretty good, they all work out.
Julia: He's just a forest ranger who's also a bear.
Brandon: It's more than most bears, three pieces of clothing.
Julia: That's true!
Eric: That’s true, Yogi the bear only wears accessories I think.
Brandon: I had even less ideas than Julia and Amanda, like I think I came to both of them like “hey help I don't know what to do” so.
Julia: You had you had great ideas for your names, it was just the costume that was kind of catching you up.
Brandon: That's true yeah, I did have— I'm lucky that physics has weird names for things.
Eric: Shout out to scientists, shout out to ghosts, shout out to space.
Brandon: Shout out to ghosts!
Eric: I think it's worthwhile just to say like what are your names, where did they come from, and what ideas were you pulling from? Just to really nail down and give people the juicy stuff, because you know if I don't know maybe theoretically someone wanted to draw—
Amanda: I don't know, maybe it'd be great, I don't know.
Eric: [Mumbling] a bunch of details or something.
Julia: Yeah so I went with Vulcani because one it was the first name that I thought of and I was like “this is it great” there's a character in the X-Men who's a villain called Vulcan and I like that name but I also obviously didn't want the same name as an X-Men character so Vulcani worked really well because one it's the plural, and therefore it's kind of like gender-neutral in Italian, and I super liked that and vulcano is volcano in Italian so there you go.
Eric: I mean I couldn't tell because you didn't say [in an exaggerated Italian accent] vulcano!
[Brandon laughing]
Julia: [In Italian] Vulcano!
Eric: [In an Italian accent] It’s-a me! Vulcano!
Julia: And then in terms of costume, I knew kind of what I wanted in terms of like there's a couple of different costume characters from like DC and Marvel that I was like, their outfits are just like branded leather jackets basically, so like the redesign of Spider Woman and Batgirl in particular were ones that I was thinking of. And then I was also just thinking about like the casual wear hero in a lot of ways so Evan Peters in the X-Men Days of Future Past I think was a another big one for me, just like silver leather jacket and a t-shirt and silver leather pants, and then in terms of like the spikes that I was thinking of for Val's jacket I really liked the redesign that they did recently for Magic from the X-Men, in terms of just like well one she has a very skimpy outfit, so not quite that but there's just like these big armor pieces that she has on her shoulders that have these huge spikes, and that was kind of the image that I was going for.
Brandon: And big sword.
Julia: Big sword, but Val doesn't have big sword, I give big sword to Moxie instead.
[Brandon laughing]
Brandon: I am looking back at the chat right now and the first thing is Julia's saying “LET’S MAKE SUPERHEROES!” iin all caps and then all caps I said “JULIA HELP.”
[Julia and Brandon laughing]
Amanda: Yeah that's what happened.
Brandon: Yeah I had a couple different names that I was looking at. I was mostly looking for like obviously like spacey sciency things, I was looking at something like Macro Nova or Charmonium, which I think I put in there but it sounds too much like charmander.
Amanda: Yes, Eric would never let it go.
Brandon: Kilonova was cool because one it sounds awesome, but then two it's this like cool physics concept that just sort of was discovered I guess after the gravitational waves discovery where two black holes like circle each other because of their gravitational pull, and then end up combining and making a kilonova which is like this either this big implosion or this big explosion so I thought it was very cool. And then Julia pulled together all the stuff for me costume-wise, that was very cool um like Wiccan which ended up sort of being the inspiration for the costume because it's very cool, and I like it very much.
Julia: It's very spacey and it had the cowl that you were looking for which I thought was like a good combo.
Brandon: Yeah exactly.
Eric: Gotta love a cowl.
Brandon: Gotta love a cowl!
Eric: I want just more cow like if I had a sweatshirt that was a cowl neck that turned into a hood I would wear it every single day.
Julia: That's a legit thing I'm sure we can find one for you.
Eric: I'm sure he does but you know I'm not going— American Eagle doesn't have a 40% off so I can't get it right now.
Julia: Understandable I see.
Amanda: And for me, I didn't have any real ideas on the name I was thinking like the Conservator or like the Ranger and immediately I was like wait well the first thing I don't even know how to pronounce, and the second one is a class so that would be kind of confusing. So Julia had a very good idea about Preserver and also pointed out superhero logistics wise, that the word “the” tends to get dropped so I was thinking of myself less as like a title, and more of a name by dropping the “the”
Brandon: Uh do— do you want to point out the uh the other name that we came up with originally?
Amanda: Yes, and then both Julia and Brandon immediately said I mean Ranger Danger is very good and I was like “guys I'm not calling myself ranger danger”
[Eric laughing]
Brandon: Ranger danger danger ranger!
Julia: Danger ranger ranger danger!
Amanda: It's very good but um yeah I was inspired by forest rangers and that is definitely where my inspo came from, I actually just looked up the mission of the forest service which is in the the US Department of Agriculture and their mission is to “sustain the health diversity and productivity of the nation's forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations” so the government's law institution, but I think that this is a good kind of analog for what Aggie's mission is. And it's not to make the land or the community into any particular vision, it's to preserve choice and stop people who have a singular or monolithic vision for the space that would erase opportunities for others. So to me that was very much. I don't know the good analog for her.
Brandon: Yeah I liked that a lot it's really nice.
Amanda: And since there is a uniform associated with that kind of profession, and and genre I just sort of wanted to make a twist on it so it's a little bit exaggerated, the hat is extremely freaking cool and the colors are yeah like foresty you know green brown stuff like that.
Brandon: Fun fact did you know that forest ranger uniforms are based on Smokey the Bear, and Smokey the Bear it's not in reverse.
Julia: What? No! That— that is not true!
Amanda: Yesterday in Head Heart Gut, Mike told me that Nicholas Cage invented the cobb salad, so I would love a fact check on that.
Eric: I was also there. I don't want to be excluded from this traumatizing event that we both went through.
Amanda: It was a very fun recording.
Julia: Why wouldn't they name it the Cage salad then?
[Brandon and Eric laughing]
Eric: That's also— it was invented in 1937!
Julia: Okay, so it's just a lie. Oh yeah it's just a lie
Brandon: We all know that Nick Cage is ageless so it make sense.
Eric: No he said it got invented in the 80s.
Julia: It's not true!
Amanda: Join the Multicrew and you'll enjoy that for yourself! But wait, what—where did Smokey Bear come from then?
Brandon: Oh I'm just lying. [Eric groans]
Eric: Ohhh god.
Julia: Oh okay.
Amanda: Okay Brandon, twice in two days I've been bamboozled!
[Brandon laughing]
Eric: I just expect this from your characters that are just like “that didn't happen: and I'm like “yes they did now take 20 points of damage” but I can't— I can't damage you in any way, you're just blatantly lying to me in the afternoon.
Julia: Only emotionally.
Brandon: Yeah only emotionally!
Eric: I do say that playing Dr. Morrow hearing Preserver was very funny to me, and she just like looking at it from like a brand perspective, she's like “no, no this works we want it to be a little bit hard to mispronounce for the children, for children's sake!” That was genuine. I thought that was very fun.
Brandon: What would that sound like if children said it Eric?
Eric (as a child): Oh thank you Pwosova here's my kitty cat!
Amanda: So cute!
Julia: Adorable.
Brandon: I love it.
Julia: It's so cute.
Eric (as a child): Thank you for saving me from the robots, I appreciate it.
[Amanda and Brandon laughing]
Julia: We're gonna fight robots in the future, I guess.
Eric: That was Izzy Zephyr, age four.
Julia: Adorable! Bless you Izzy!
Amanda: Adorable.
Eric: Oh my god hearing that for the first time, I really try to put myself in the shoes of Dr. Morrow, just like hearing it from you and then regurgitating what she thinks you want as your costumes. Which was very very fun I really enjoyed that, and there were like four different dm things stacked on top of each other for me, so I had a lot of fun.
Brandon: What did January think of our names and costumes?
Eric (as January): Oh you're all really good, I like how it it took your individuality, and really showed off what you want, and really made it distinct, uh I think is really— I think it's really neat.
Brandon: God what a pure, pure bunny.
Julia: So cute.
Amanda: Love it! Let's stop briefly over in episode 9, if we take our minds back to our encounter with Ma, a couple questions about that someone in the discord named Mayor Dr. Morrow asks “is Ma's mech suit just a giant tub of ice cream, if so what's the flavor?”
Julia: Oooo!
Brandon: Yes, correct.
Julia: I feel like it's gotta be like cotton candy or something like something like that looks disgusting, and also tastes a little bit disgusting.
Brandon: Can I pitch you another idea?
Julia: Go for it.
Brandon: Werther's hard candy.
Julia: Gross, somehow worse than cotton candy.
Eric: Brandon that's just called caramel.
Julia: Oh good call.
Brandon: But it's hard it's hard and crunchy, and you have to unwrap the ice cream.
Julia: Oh yeah there's just big chunks, like there's full Werther’s caramels in there, and because they're cold they make it so much harder.
Amanda: It really extends your eating experience I guess?
Julia: But in a bad way. I was gonna say I think Ben & Jerry's maybe at some point had a oatmeal like chocolate chip, like an oatmeal cookie ice cream. That I thought was a little sweet but I like that idea, and I think a sort of like you know mom's baking inspired flavor would be Ma's favorite.
Julia: Okay.
Eric: So can I come in and say what really happened, or are we just going to leave it—
Julia: Go ahead, do whatever you want.
Eric: No she's not in a tub ice cream!
[Brandon laughing]
Julia: Ugh, ruining the fantasy.
Eric: Oh my god you're right, an old woman inside of a bio freeze containment chamber turning into a mech wasn't fantastical enough, she needs to be in rocky road. I'm sorry if you can't believe it.
Brandon: If you could up the fantasy, that would be— that'd be great Eric. Too real.
Eric: Oh okay, oh I'm sorry dancing turkeys wasn't enough for you.
Amanda: [Groans] Uuugh gross.
Eric: No so this was inspired from Mr. Freeze obviously Mr. Freeze's wife but I took it in a little bit of a different direction, I always thought that Mr. Freeze— even the Arnold Schwarzenegger version was very focused because he's like “I love this woman, and I'm going to do the thing” which is the only narrative that so many people were able to latch onto for so long. So I thought that it was like very straightforward and he was competent because he was a doctor, and he was a scientist. But I like the idea that a bunch of like teenagers and 20-somethings were trying to do something for their maternal figure, and they— whatever machinations that happen with the people's river they put her in a biocontainment chamber. So it was like someone who was less competent trying to do whatever possible to put Ma in and save her from whatever disease or ailment was was hurting her, so she was like in a kind of classic like freezy chamber or science comic chamber, you know like floating in liquid and all that stuff.
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: Do you think that Mr. Freeze ever gets mad that they don't call him Dr. Freeze?
[Brandon laughing]
Julia: He's got a doctorate he's probably like a medical doctor why not Dr. Freeze?
Brandon: You know that's the real first like jab they can get into him, you know?
Julia: Oh right? It's fucked up!
Eric: You see he sees the papers and he's like “No! I am doctor!!” Amanda: Further, Zack would like to know if this is more of a mech like Dr. Loveless's spider body from one of the greatest movies in the 90s Wild Wild West which I don't understand or the giant killer robot from the Incredibles?
Julia: Oh it's more giant killer robot right? Like Loveless's head is just like smaller, I feel like.
Eric: Yeah it's really weird just having the legs come off which would have been very funny, but no it was really just like arms and legs bursting off of a cylindrical like torso that had Ma in a bio containment chamber in it, and then just like busting out. It was kind of like an alien like the Ripley neck mech suit, it's really just like arms and legs off of a thing, but because she's already contained in there that was something— I don't know if that got explained, but I don't know how much control Ma had over what was happening. Because there was the emergency protocol that was happening of the robot suit like busting out, and it seeming like it was running away even— and she didn't have controls so I think that maybe the mech suit was doing something that was outside of her control.
Brandon: Oh that's that puts a whole new flavor on what we did then.
Amanda: Yeah…
Julia: Yeah can I tell you guys what my plan was— or what Val's plan was to do if Amanda hadn't rolled that nat 20?
Brandon: Yes please!
Amanda: Yeah!
Julia: So I was gonna take the breath weapon gum, and I was going to switch it to acid mode so that it would burn through the glass of the mech container, and pull Ma out.
Amanda: Oh god! I like that.
Eric: Oh god you would have switched it to licorice that would have been terrible.
[Brandon laughing]
Julia: It's awful but useful!
Eric: That would have been terrible, Julia!
Julia: Yeah, it would've been bad.
Eric: I would be like “alright now I need to figure out what it's like for this for this frail, ill woman to be out of her container”
Julia: Who I needed to stop! Brandon was down!
Eric: That's true…
Brandon: Eric does that mean that Ma is like where is she— does that means she's in jail or is that— was she a victim? Like what— what is what's the deal then?
Eric: I mean you don't know.
Julia: Who can say?
Brandon: Who can say? Okay, okay. You don't know.
Eric: It's funny because you asked this question literally in the next episode.
Julia: We didn't get a straight answer.
Brandon: We didn't know at the time that the— or I don't think we assumed that the mech body was doing something that I assumed at least the mech body was doing was controlled by Ma.
Amanda: I mean even if she was fleeing you know to protect herself, I think it sort of gets at the same thing which is like this is unforTunate, she needs help you know, and crimes are driven by unmet needs, and like let's figure out how to how to help them.
Eric: Yeah I mean if you want to follow up on it, you totally can it's just one of those things I guess with stories and is something that we deal in adventure stories and in superhero stories and everything. It's like it's just one thing after another after another it's like once the conflict is resolved do you follow up with that? So if you want to follow up you totally can!
Brandon: No, I mean you know I trust Dr. Morrow right now, we'll see.
Julia: I do have in my notes doc like a list of things that I want to follow up on at some point. Like dangling threads that we never quite put back in.
Amanda: Love it!
Eric: That sounds great, I love that!
Amanda: And to close out episode 9 NiKhol would like to know our thoughts on the Nephew's password.
[Eric laughing]
Amanda: Was the 80085 password something we improvised during gameplay, or did we collectively decide it was going to spell out boobs?I just said it.
Julia: Yeah I mean like that was something that Eric also said in the episode, was that he rolled for it.
Amanda: Yeah!
Julia: Rolled to see if it was boobs!
Brandon: Yeah none of that was edited out.
Eric: I'm glad because I really wanted to be honest about it, and tell people what it's like to be a dm sometimes. Here is the note that I wrote in my document “password one tree branch looks a little out of place, a project on a trunk with a numpad pops up” so I'm just like alright all there is is there is a you need to find the tree that it is, and there will be a numpad I didn't say what it was I didn't figure out what the password would be I didn't do any of that. So when Julia was just like “I bet it’s something stupid, it's probably like boobs or something”
Brandon: Julia said penis.
Julia: No I think I think Amanda said that. I said it's probably ice cream and then Amanda said it's probably like boobs or something, and then I said it's probably penis.
Brandon: It was ice cream flavors and then I and then I was like hey we're dealing with teenagers, and then Amanda was like “oh so boobs” and then Julia was like “oh penis”
Eric: So I rolled which is something that I've learned from dimension 20 that it's like if your players have a really good idea you just gotta like ask the dice if it's a true thing or not. So I rolled and I rolled like a three and I'm just like “you know what guys? It's boobs you nailed it”
[Everyone laughing]
Julia: It's boobs!
Eric: It's boobs!
Amanda: So if we hadn't if you hadn't rolled that badly, what would we have had to do?
Eric: I think there was just some puzzle. I mean it would have been a lot of guess and check. I think you honestly did one of the ways you could have solved this again this is something that dms do all the time is like you put a puzzle quote-unquote puzzle or roadblock in front of your players, and just see what they do, and if they do something interesting it's like yeah you fucking nailed it great job that was really fun and good. So you could have figured out a way to short out the password, you could have brute forced it, you could have used your knowledge of who you were dealing with which is a totally valid way to have played this so honestly I just wanted to see what you all would do. You could have looked for a key again under a rock.
Julia: Dammit,
Amanda: [Laughing] We should always make a note to find fake rocks with keys.
Eric: That was another thing I was thinking about I was like, they probably wrote it on a post-it, and put it somewhere nearby so you totally could have looked for them.
Julia: I gotta keep remembering that you will do that in case we ever get stuck.
[Amanda and Eric laughing]
Eric: I'm just gonna keep putting it in there to see if Val learns at any time like is that this is a rule within the full world.
[Brandon laughing]
Amanda: So moving on to episode 10, Joey would like to know Eric about the enemy entanglement chart! Where did this idea come from, and how did you fill it up? All of us were so delighted to play this this session, it was like the most fun I'd ever had playing a game, and I just wanna know everything about the mechanics.
Brandon: I assume you can't share the like leftover ones on the chart?
Eric: Yeah so this is very similar to the way that I do the spirit surge, is that I just swap out the ones that you use with something else or I'm going to keep them because it's someone who you hate a lot and got away, and then it's going to be more powerful the next time you deal with them!
Brandon: Oh good thing that no one failed that on that um…
Julia: On the worst one too Brandon, on the worst one.
[Brandon laughing]
Eric: Oh my god I love this because we've recorded ahead of time and like that has repercussions and I just love it so much. Well I guess this is from exploration of other rpg systems, and things like that I guess I wanted to challenge myself to make an actual table that really works. Sometimes you make a table because you want the randomness of the world to get in there but other times, and I mean even when I made the massive item table I was like yeah I really like some of these items but some of them I don't, and then I would like massage it a little bit to make sure that you got the good items, or not the good items. But this one I'm just like alright I think I'm good enough that at this point, and this is enough set up that we can have villain place and scheme, those were the three columns on the enemy entanglement table, so I made sure to have 10 of each one that I really really liked. And then we did exactly what happened you rolled a d10 three times, and I matched it up and then I needed to come up with a scenario where that would happen. I can tell you some of the places and schemes, I think that's fine, the place I had a hospital which is like a la Joker in the second Batman movie. Armored car in a highway of course which is what ended up happening with Milo, Thornhill coffee shop, the docks, during a hockey game in Thornhill arena that was what Val did.
Julia: Hell yeah!
Eric: Office building downtown, on the skytram that's what happened to Aggie, factory in industry city, SUNY LTC, or Morrow University College, and then Astros I pick a neighborhood.
[Brandon laughing]
Eric: The different schemes I had was just one grab a macguffin, hold it up for money, kidnap an important person that was Al Gore. Just straight up revenge blow it up for chaos ,again very Joker. Uh mlm or marketing scheme—
Amanda: UGH I WANTED THAT ONE.
[Brandon laughing]
Eric: I had I wanted that one I wanted to have like a villan like in a different way like a villain it's not just like holding up a bank it's something else—
Brandon: [With a gruff voice] Buy my candles!
[Everyone laughing]
Eric: Real estate scam similar, steal everything inside, hacking for government secrets that's what happened with the Emperor, and then uh it's just a ruse to fight the hero you kind of just like want to scrap. I really like that and it really pushed me to come up with ideas like why would you do a scheme in a particular place? Which I thought was interesting and why I think Milo's scenario was so interesting, was that it was like alright this guy he's terrible, he can control terracotta warriors, but he's also trying to get government secrets from an armored car, and then what are the repercussions of that if he's defeated, or if he gets away? And that's what happened when channel 7 ½ was on the scene the gov the CIA, or whatever the hell they were came in the government came in and squashed it, and I thought that was just really funny. But now it's like that was such a world building moment it's like now we have the more of the government involved which we've only alluded to a little bit with Hank Lane with Milo's dad but now there's a real presence of people dealing with villains and stuff and like we haven't addressed like why is crime going up like why has this happened? I guess like do super villains meet superheroes like do they just need when one exists the other has to exist in the same way that like if crime happens, someone needs to stop it? So I just thought it would— I just thought it was fun.
Brandon: I love it! It's so smart!
Julia: It was a lot of fun I remember in the episode that I was like I'm very anxious rolling this because I didn't know what to expect and I went first.
Eric: Yeah those were some of my favorites, I really liked all of them, but the Emperor was someone I really wanted you all to meet, who just sucks.
Julia: The worst!
Brandon: Such a bag of trash.
Eric: And then the crime jam was really fun I just imagined like the Harlem Globetrotters— or not in the Harlem Globetrotters, the Washington Generals like the worst ones like them becoming a crime family, and then of course Professor Transform I just loved the idea of someone with like a qualcomm tablet being able to try to change the universe this is also very much like a comic trope with someone with a really really really powerful ability but they get defeated immediately.
Brandon: Yeah!
Eric: I just really love it!
Julia: Yeah I felt so bad I bullied that poor poor man.
Brandon: But you felt bad about it at the moment, so you know.
Julia: Yes I did I was like “oh I push him down, oh no.”
[Everyone laughing]
Eric: Oh man I what I loved about this, I did put different like game constraints on this it's just like it was just supposed to be really quick, so it was a challenge roll. But since Professor Transform had his tablet, he had +5 but then you immediately broke it, and then he had +1 so you beat the tough roll, and then he and then he's just like someone who went to Pratt, you know?
Julia: Just a dude.
Eric: Someone who went to um what's the one in Rhode Island he went to RISD, and that's it.
[Brandon laughing]
Amanda: Incredible man, I could play that table all day long and like to your credit it didn't occur to me that you had to come up with the logic of the scenario, because you just said the items, and then like we were in the scene, and it didn't even occur to me that you had to figure that out. So it felt very seamless from my point of view, and super fun, and I want to play it all the time.
Eric: Well we're going to! We're going to do it every time in between arcs, I mean things happen that don't need massive stories, so it's like if you end up getting a new rival who's to say the Emperor if they escape again like won't be a bigger deal in the story?
Julia: Who's to say speaking of rivals Joey would also like to know why didn't Emily Slaughter give herself a superhero identity? That is a cool name but isn't she worried about the consequences of being a super-powered figure?
Julia: I have a theory and it's that Emily Slaughter, not the not the real good person who makes good dice, but character is a narcissist.
[Eric and Amanda laughing]
Brandon: I don't think that's much of a theory, just more like provable fact.
Julia: Yeah, that's true.
Eric: Yes, I think that she is the type of person who is willing to forgo the regular things of superhero identities and code names, I know she has a really sick name, but is very much like Nick Fury in that way I know he is like a ensconce within SHIELD, and not actually a superhero but it is similar Emma Frost was something that I was pulling from as well. She's just like out there being Emma Frost.
Julia: Tits out, being herself. Eric: [Laughing] I cannot speak to Emily Slaughter in that capacity as well. But in regards to this conference that Tegan reported on Emily really put this stuff together, and she wanted to be the face they can contact her “look me up I'll mess you up with my big sword” you know? It's kind of like a challenge, if you're doing exactly the opposite of conventional wisdom. So that was intentional yes.
Brandon: It is interesting that like it always seems to be the bad guys that can pull off not really having a disguise in the superhero realm.
Julia: Lex Luthor yeah.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: I guess they just don't care, or they are their persona you know?
Amanda: It's a metaphor for wealth, when you have a certain amount you just think you’re untouchable!
Julia: Well we know that Emily has a lot of money for some reason.
Brandon: That's true.
Amanda: Yes we do.
Julia: We don't know why.
Amanda: Well speaking of Tegan, Kim Smith Happy would like to know more about everyone's reaction to the article, “it felt like everyone was just like oh okay, and then carried on with thanksgiving lol”
[Eric laughs]
Brandon: I will say there is some discussion of the article that I pushed to the next episode, so there will be more discussion of the article, um so I don't want to spoil too much but we can give general reactions.
Julia: Cool.
Amanda: Uh yeah I think Aggie was horrified, and frozen, and wanted not to think about it.
Julia: I mean I think it really did impact Aggie more than the rest of us because Aggie was the only person named, and like even like from an aside, Milo and Val weren't mentioned at all. Like the the bank heist wasn't mentioned, none of our do-goodings during the like with Professor Transform, and whatnot uh were mentioned either. So I don't think it really impacted them as muchm but I definitely think it impacted Aggie.
Brandon: Yeah I mean I think it would only impacted us and insofar as like we are attached to Aggie at this point. So like Aggie's you know unmasking could be ours as well.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: But it's also important to note that no one knows that who Milo is, and he's never been seen on camera, or film doing anything suspicious—
Julia: Uhh huh, never. Never ever so. But also didn't mention the Preserver at all either, it just kind of mentions Aggie and the O'Hare family as people.
Amanda: Yeah and I I think Aggie's reaction more specifically was less about like immediate fallout, because I don't even think she's online enough to realize that you know it might be a problem, but more like drawing attention to the fact that her family is different, and kind of tracing all of those connections, that was the scary thing, and also the fact that it may have repercussions for her team. And I think Aggie shares this with me, of taking responsibility for everybody's suffering, and one not wanting to bring any more upon anybody that I care about.
Julia: Bud, no.
Amanda: But we will definitely talk more about the article, and it's fallout don't worry.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: Kim would also like to know: Julia how uncomfortable were the new leather trousers that Val wears? How long did it take to break them in? Was their chafing?
Julia: I think it took the usual amount to break them in, it didn't chafe as bad as you would think because Val is a barbarian so they took half damage.
Brandon: [Laughing] So their skin is much stronger.
Amanda: I'm jealous.
Brandon: Exactly two times as strong.
Eric: You took half piercing damage.
Julia: Yeah!
Amanda: Nice.
Julia: Feels right!
Amanda: Vennik would like to know what kind of gadgets would each of us have on a utility belt!
Julia: Hmm…
Brandon: Shark spray!!
Julia: Like us personally or the characters?
Amanda: The characters, I think and I mean we will talk about more items in the episodes to come, I think some kind of like flashlight that illuminates spells, or illuminates uh spectral figures that would be kind of cool from a forest ranger perspective so, Eric uhh, if you want to uh make some notes that would be great!
Julia: Val just has a shaker of powdered parmesan.
[Brandon and Eric laughing]
Amanda: Incredible.
Eric: That's like the equivalent of being like “yeah I always have pepper in my pocket just in case someone runs up on me I just throw it in their face”
Amanda: Aggies by the way is a multi-tool which she always has on her, like even in the pocket of her robe at home.
Eric: You asked me like in episode 1 or something when we were we were doing this and you were like “can I have a leatherman?”
Amanda: Yeah as an item for Aggie to have a leatherman.
Eric: I'm like yeah, just like make sure like you can't use the corkscrew to like do something wild with it. It's just a corkscrew.
Amanda: Yeah I like made a list of the things, and it is not a powered leatherman it's just like the one that I have here, with like an okay wood file.
Eric: I can't remember if this was Aggie or during a DDR, because it really is one of the same of the thing that you would want or what Aggie would want at this point.
Amanda: I did carry one in a DDR episode but, I also asked that about Aggie, and like making the adventurer pack tools or like the carpenter tools, or whatever into something that she would be carrying day to day.
Brandon: Yeah that's cool. Yeah I think Milo wouldn't want probably like some sort of like phaser or like tricorder situation, um whether it be like so he could like shoot to stun, or like use the tricorder to assess some sort of you know information about the situation.
Amanda: It'd be cool if you could sense the person's lowest modifier score.
Brandon: Oh yeah!
Julia: That would be neat.
Brandon: That's a good idea!
Eric: That's true you all don't need a utility belt because unlike Batman you have actual powers other than being incredibly rich.
Amanda: Ellie Page would like to know to wrap up episode 10, do Sushi and Tuna get along? Are they friends now? I have to know if they talked about sob.
Brandon: I think so, what do you think Amanda?
Amanda: I think Sushi is incredibly blase, and finds Tuna frenetic, and amusing. Which I think is the opposite to how Tuna usually relates to the world, where Tuna's usually lulling on their back being like “I don't care surprise me” but I think the dynamic is reversed, and Tuna finds that disconcerting.
Brandon: I love that! I think um they could have like a cat based like odd couple sitcom you know?
Amanda: Oh sure!
[Eric laughing]
Amanda: Yeah I see that! I love it! I don't have a January here to make me a pina colada, so instead guys I'm going to break into the kitchen to refill our pitcher.
Julia: Thank you!
Amanda: Be right back!
[Transition note]
Amanda: Hey, it’s Amanda. Sometimes when putting away the dishes I feel like an acrobat because I know so perfectly the weight of those plates, and cups, and pots in my hands, and my motions are perfectly calibrated, I hang it without a gesture wastes, I put the plates down without clanking them. And it feels for a moment like I am perfectly in tune with my environment. Welcome to the midroll, I saved your favorite mug for you!
Thank you to those who joined our Patreon last week. Morgane, Paul, Sarah, Rob, and JoeMonokey. We say it every week on the Multitude shows, but we are truly grateful for each and every person who supports us on Patreon. All four of us are full-time podcasters, and that’s due in large part to your support on Patreon. Especially as an independent collective trying to make it in a volatile industry during a volatile time, being able to count on your support on Patreon is absolutely crucial. And as a thank-you we produce a ton of bonus content like bloopers, NPC backstories, and maintain with the help of our mods, a thriving Discord, not to mention a full campaign’s worth of bonus material from Campaign 1. Today is a great day to join us for as little as $5 a month at patreon.com/jointhepartypod.
It’s my favorite time of year, because it is Multitude Survey Season! Once a year we ask you, our audience, a bunch of questions we’ve been wondering about. What kind of ads you like best? What time of day should episodes come out? What kind of merch should we make? (We’re working on the dice, don’t worry!) How are you enjoying our shows? What do you want to see us do next? Your responses truly guide our decision-making, so now is your chance to change the future and tell us what you’re thinking. The survey takes about 10 minutes and can be done on mobile or desktop. Just go to multitude.productions/survey to get started. That’s multitude.productions/survey
We are sponsored this week by WorldAnvil. This is a powerful worldbuilding platform and specialized wiki for all worldbuilders, and also a Campaign Manager for all of us with lots of notes to keep track of. It’s perfect for Writers, Game Masters and Players to track their worldbuilding and characters, and play their games on the platform. GMs can build their lore, maps, stat blocks and timelines, plan sessions and share what they want during sessions. Players can manage their characters, make notes, roll dice, track their journeys and equipment, chat with the party and show off their characters. Subscriptions start at $3 a month and there’s also a free version to try it out! You’re gonna want to check out these tools, they’re truly amazing. Head over to worldanvil.com and use code jointheparty for 10% off all 6 and 12 month memberships.
We are sponsored this week by Hero Forge. Talking about showing off your character, Hero Forge is the place to make fully customizable tabletop miniatures, you can choose between every variation you can think of: the base for your mini, their hair color, the kind of hair they have, the style of hair, piercings, things that they’re holding in their hands, you can now change their posture, the movement their hands as well! It’s truly, truly amazing, and they even add new things every single week. You can add dice to your order, that’s pretty dangerous, even choose animal familiars and mounts, if you like me like to add animals to your campaign. So go on over to HeroForge.com to start designing your custom miniature today, and watch out you are going to get absolutely enthralled by the 3D model maker there, it is very very cool. That is heroforge.com.
Finally, 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. I had one today at 10:00 A.M. which I normally would not be able to do with an in-person therapist because A) that’s not possible right now, and B) getting anywhere and building time to my day to leave, go to therapy, and come back. It takes hours, and that’s not always practical to fit into your day. But with BetterHelp I can have therapy in my living room, or in a private room in my office and that is so flexible. They even let you switch counselors if need be. They don’t charge you. It's easy, it’s free. BetterHelp is also more affordable than traditional counseling, with financial aid also available. I’ve had a great experience, and if you want to try BetterHelp for yourself, 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.
And now, back to the show!
[Transition note]
Amanda: Alright returning we have a new uh picture of of pina coladas here for us all to share in the virtual space, World Anvil who knew we could share a drinks?
Julia: There you go!
[Brandon laughing]
Eric: Oh no I finished mine it's all ice!
Julia: Awww.
Eirc: Awww no.
Brandon: I'm tipsy on a Thursday morning.
[Eric and Julia laugh]
Amanda: Well Chrissy Mack would love to know what kind of cocktail decorations and garnishes does January put on those frozen pina coladas?
[Brandon repeatedly mhm’s]
Eric: Julia's gonna give a real answer, but what I'm gonna say is just like really really large slices of pineapple.
Brandon: Good choice.
Julia: I like that actually, I think that's a better answer than mine which is in Japan as like little snack things. They will sometimes slice apples to look like rabbits, and that's what I pictured it being on the glass.
Brandon: Oohhhh, that’s so cute!
Eric: Perfect pineapple rabbits! Perfect!
Julia: Pineapple rabbits I love it!
Eric: We've already established that January is incredibly dexterous when it comes to uh crafts because of his calligraphy, so truly sky's the limit.
Brandon: Maybe he has like um like cherry nose or cherry hat?
Julia: Adorable very cute! Cherry nose is I think the way to go yeah.
Amanda: Alara would like to know for the players do we ever make decisions that go against what we think our character would actually do, because it makes the story more interesting? That's really— that's a really good question.
Julia: I genuinely try to always do the thing that I feel like Val would do in the moment, like I think that in particular shined when I rolled that very low perception check and then chased after the teens through the woods.
Amanda: Yeah!
Julia: But I always try to do the thing that I think Val would do rather than being like “how do I solve this puzzle best?”
Brandon: Yeah I agree, I think it's actually sort of the opposite like I always try to do what Milo would do, or what any character I'm playing would do, and it's more on the character design side, where I try to design a character that is either something in line with something I would do or like purposely not what I would do. So I can have fun with that and that usually ends up being the thing that does make the story more interesting anyway.
Amanda: Yeah me too I tried to design the character I know I've said before, uh like different to Inara, just for sort of interest and like me growing as a player. But I also thought it would be useful to have a character in terms of like party composition and storyline who is really committed to the way things are because many plots in superhero media and also in D&D, is about people trying to bring about change and I thought that would be kind of a good tension um to negotiate.
Brandon: Yeah I think like real people in real life like try to solve problems honestly and quickly and efficiently and with the least amount of harm, whereas like characters in D&D in order to make interesting characters need to have some sort of personality flaw right? Or like something that drives them or whatever it is so they make mistakes more than like a normal human might.
Amanda: Anthony over on the patreon would like to know Eric you sometimes ask your players for info and direction in your stories, how do you give them what they want but also keep the surprises coming?
Eric: Ah that's a really good question, I think I keep the surprises, and I let them do everything else. Like there are as I've explained I think on specific episodes like when I asked about rooms in Dr. Morrow's secret cabin in the woods, it's like I would love it if you could help me populate the world so I will let you there's also when you make perception checks or inside checks I have a lot of information that I want to tell you, but if you were doing this in real life, I want you to ask me a question that I will then answer truthfully. Because you rolled well on a perception or an insider investigation. So it's not just like what hey what's in the room? It's like I'm looking for secrets, I'm looking for clues, I'm looking for footsteps, or it's like how is this person dealing with this situation. Is a question better than lying? So I want to hear that so that I can populate the thing that you want or looking for that's about driving the plot forward. The other stuff is that everything about a world so much happens that you as a person don't know about, and when that's revealed to you is a surprise, and realizing so much about dungeons and dragons is cause and effect. It's like I do this thing, and then these are the consequences so I do this thing and these are the consequences, all that stuff is really happening outside of the world I don't think dungeon dragons does a very good job as a game system about explaining that, but in Blades in the Dark which is about heists which you all check out it's an incredibly good RPG. They have like a circle system where when you want to do a project, or where someone off screen is doing a project, you divide a circle into a certain number of of pieces, and then if over time or because of actions that triggers those pieces to get filled in, and then when that whole circle is filled in then the thing happens. But you can be doing something that you don't know is related to the circles off-screen, it's like oh I do all these things but you're actually secretly furthering this cabal that wanted you to steal this thing to fight this person to cause a lot of chaos. So that's something I'm really trying to keep in mind although I don't have these these Blades in the Dark circles, it is stuff they think about in between episodes like alright this happened so I wonder if there are people off screen that are thinking about this stuff or people on screen who are doing stuff y'all don't see, because we spend so much time one-on-one with the characters, which is why I like doing one-on-one scenes and individual stuff where y'all and go explore the thing that you want to go explore. Like what is happening off screen so that I can surprise them later.
Amanda: My favorite part about that mechanic is that the circles advance with time, and if you don't stop somebody, or like try to arrest their project the project inches toward being done. So I had that in mind just knowing about Blades in the Dark, as we were talking about the Nephews at first because I was like even if they're not heisting another bank this episode they are working on something, and that is what I think drove me and drove Aggie to you know. Like dampness in your ceiling—
[Eric and Brandon laughing]
Amanda: It's advancing if you don't see it you gotta you— gotta get to it, you gotta address it you gotta find it a better place to live uh before it it caves in your bathroom.
Eric: Actually that's an incredible point, now that we've wrapped up what the Nephews are doing right now. I feel like I can kind of reveal some stuff that you did that changed the course of what the Nephews were doing you foiled the Nephews in various places. So remember that initially the bank thing happened they tried to steal that sign, which was important to them but also they were trying to steal other stuff to fund the cash, which you now realize might have had something to do with keeping Ma in bio freeze-stasis right? The other thing when you and Emily Slaughter were deciding what you were going to do if you were going to watch the jail, or stake out in historic Laketown, they were trying to break the other Nephews out of jail so then that would have been two different diverging paths you would have tried to catch them while they were doing it, and then there would have been a big chase scene. Or you caught them like you did the secret spy thing which is hit them while they were away, and hit their home base and because you scrambled out of that stuff and let the mountain lobster out of the garage, that also changed some stuff.
Amanda: My bad, my bad.
Julia: I got to— sorry that's one more thing I have to add to my list of things we haven't followed up on yet.
Eric: So you you all did all these things that now. You defeated a lot of them the Knight of Mirrors brought in the guy who was supposedly at the top below Ma. The one who was trying to run Va lover with an ice cream truck.
Julia: Asshole.
Eric: So they were really depleted so when you went in and broke into the secret secret home base, there were only like three guys down there because the rest of them were in jail! So a lot of things that you did were stymying the Nephews but if you had done different things or not done them as well, their clock would have been a lot farther there, would have maybe there would have been a lot more people in the secret base, maybe they would have had a weapon, or they would have been a lot more put together, they would have had a lot more ice cream trucks like that was another thing I was trying to push. That like there were ice cream trucks roaming around that could have hurt you in different ways because they knew that you were trying to fuck with their shit. So like there was a lot of things that you could have done but because you kept rolling so well, and because I kept rolling like dog shit was that you really had one over on the Nephews and this is how it kind of shook out, and you were able to spend a lot of time with Dr. Morrow that their plot and scheme and whatever they're doing with the people's river, and whatever happened with Ma only went as far as what happened.
Brandon: Nice!
Julia: Well it's good to know we made our lives easier by doing well!
Brandon: Yeah!
Eric: Now I wouldn't have told you that but now that the threads are put together it's like you all did a very good job!
Brandon: We are good superheroes is what I’m hearing!
Eric: I mean Val knocked over an ice cream truck like they—
Julia: They! Did!
Eric: They were— they also I don't think that they were very aware of the powered element because the Nephews are kind of just like they were a lot more on them if you're on a scale of super villain to like crime boss they're a lot more on the crime side, they just had some like super some super science tech.
Julia: That we don't know where it came from.
Amanda: And it's funny like all of these episodes for the most part were recorded before quarantine, I think the last handful were the first ones that we had recorded remotely, and even in that time you know our attitudes toward the police, and toward crime are so different, and I feel like now redoing the beginning of that arc you know it would— like my instincts would be different. And it would be more asking like what is— what is wrong that you are doing this unless you know let's you know figure out a way to like change your behavior.
Eric: Yeah definitely about my view of the use of police and media, I just think it's an interesting— they were a really easy stand-in for government, because there were people out there which is absolutely the way that the police are and for very bad reasons that are hurting people are not actually the people's actual interests. But the tension between, I was really caught up in like police procedurals and superhero media that is just like yeah Jim Gordon's theremand he's like the regular human side to the superhero side. And it's like that's just not fucking what it is and I saw Officer Roper just kind of has a bumbling incompetent cop, which comes up so much like in Brooklyn 99 that's what Jake Peralta is but now it would have been something totally different and I don't think Aggie wouldn't have gone to Officer Roper for help and Officer Roper if you did would probably would have been like “fuck it, deal with it yourself.” So that wouldn't have even happened.
Amanda: We got an email full of very good questions from Megan, so let's have a little Megan corner.
Eric: We can spread them out like they're sprinkles, use them like sprinkles! You can’t just dump all of the sprinkles all at once.
Julia: You can though and then it's delicious.
Amanda: Let's uh let's sprinkle these jim-jams over the ice cream sundae. Brandon, Eric and Julia can the three of you name Aggie siblings as fast as possible?
[Eric laughing]
Julia: No!
Brandon: I can't wait—
Julia: Hold on I'm going to try.
Brandon: Okay.
Julia: Do you want to go first Brandon?
Amanda: You can do it at the same time.
Eric: Can we do this collaboratively?
Julia: Okay so it's Aggie first,
Eric: And then Danny,
Julia: Danny.
Brandon: Aggie, Danny, Cassie, Callie,
Julia: Kelly, no Kelly.
Brandon: Kelly, Quinn
Julia: Regan, Ryan, Quinn.
Eric: Regan, Ry— no Regan, Ryan, Kelly, Quinn is how it is.
Julia: Regan, Ryan, Kelly, Quinn. Okay.
Amanda: There you go, want to put them all together?
Eric: Aggie, Danny,
Julia: Cassie,
Eric: Kelly, Cassie?
Julia: No Cassie, Reagan, Cassie,
Eric: Reagan, Ryan, Kelly, Quinn.
Julia: Reagan, Ryan, Kelly, Quinn.
Eric: Oh okay yes.
Amanda: Ryan and Regan are twins so I flip them sometimes but yes you got them all. Good job!
Julia: Okay great! Good job!
Eric: It was a group— it was a group project!
[Brandon laughs]Amanda: Like families! This one isn't a Megan question, but I think it is in spirit um Ella would like to know if each of the players would transplant their campaign one pc into Lake Town City, uh what kind of role in the story could they play? And Eric the for the NPC of your choosing.
Brandon: Uh I think Tracey would freak the hell out of everyone out, so.
Julia: Really in our very technologically advanced city?
Brandon: I think it would be bad.
Amanda: I think Tracey would be January's pal and they would pal around.
Brandon: Definitely.
Eric: Tracey would be something that Dr. Morrow invented, 100%.
Brandon: I think so yeah.
Eric: An anxious robot? Yeah! 100% that fits in our world very well!
Amanda: I think Inara would be a student at GAGA, and get very interested in the docks and what is going on over there, shout out to the mushroom syndicate mentioned in the world building episodes, um and uh and and get her nose into trouble down there.
Julia: I feel like Kohl would be a low level Morrowcorp employee.
Amanda: Ooo yeah!
Julia: Who also runs a wrestling promotion like a small indie one on the side.
Eric: I love that. We have established that there is roller derby in Lake Town City so I feel like Kohl would scrap in there.
Julia: Oh yeah for sure.
Eric: Um here's the thing I think I'm bringing some really similar Stoneface energy like split in between January and Sour Anthony.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: It's like two NPCs need to do the power of one powerful NPC, so those two it's like if you smoosh January and Sour Anthony together you get Stoneface.
Julia: I think that's uh that's really hurting Stoneface in a lot of ways associating him with Sour Anthony.
[Brandon laughs]
Amanda: Stoneface is like Sour Anthony's uncle and he's like “he'll grew into himself”
Eric: This is like— it's a real dark spider like a real Spider-Man Venom situation like January is all the good parts of Stoneface and Sour Anthony is all the bad parts of Stoneface.
Julia: Okay that's fair.
Amanda: To close out our Megan corner of this episode, is the Crime Jam family related to Jim from Jim Jams? I also have the best idea for a treat in like Lake Town City ready? Jim Jam Tim Tams. That's a Megan original that's tm Megan.
Julia: Jim jam Timbly tomblies.
Brandon: Yes! That’s I was gonna say too!
Amanda: Yeah, yeah.
Brandon: Jimmbily Jomblies!
Julia: Jimbily Jombilies!
Amanda: It was— it was Jim's effort at rebranding but they didn't really take off.
Julia: They tasted bad, no one wants a licorice flavored doughnut hole.
Eric: Oh god.
Brandon: That's true!
Eric: Yeah but it does acid damage so it's fine!
Julia (as Val): Yeah but to your stomach!
[Brandon laughing]
Amanda: Oh no!
Eric: Uuugh!
Amanda: Alright is everybody ready for a spoily corner?
Julia: [Singing] Spoily corner! Who can say?
Brandon: [Laughing] That's so good!
Eric: Do do do!
Amanda: Alright from Joey what or who is the people's river, and then four eyes emojis.
Julia: Who can say? I wish I knew!
Brandon: Who. Can. Say.
Amanda: I would love to know but I can't because—
Brandon: It's just a river.
Eric: What— okay here's— this is I would love to ask you this question, so that I know what you know about the people's river, what do you know about the people's river right now?
Julia: They have technologically advanced like weaponry, and stuff that it they have been supplying to the Nephews.
Brandon: Yeah I'm assuming based on world building episode that they are the sort of like environmentalists eco-terrorism group but I don't—
Julia: Like the mushroom syndicate people?
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: Maybe.
Amanda: That's all we got.
Eric: Cool. No good that's— that's what I was hoping, this is wonderful!
Amanda: I feel like I failed a quiz somehow.
Julia: Hate that, I don't like it one bit.
Eric: Who can say really?
Julia: Who can say.
Eric: Did you all see the graphic I made for myself?
Everyone: Yes.
Eric: I'm like “I make graphics for all my friends I want to make one for myself!”
[Brandon laughs]
Amanda: Blake Brinkley asks how much of a heel turn can we expect from Slaughter? She has not sat right with me since she fan splained Milo's collector's item to him.
Brandon: [Laughing] Fan-splained.
Julia: I am suspicious of Emily Slaughter 100% so suspicious!
Brandon: I've never heard fansplain before, and that's very good!
Amanda: It's very demonstrative.
Eric: Now Julia are you mad that she was written up in an article, and you weren't?
Julia: No, Val doesn’t give a fuck!
[Everyone laughs]
Amanda: Marmooo19 Caitlyn asks what were the other options on the spirit search table for when Brandon rolled and Milo ended up on fire, what was the option that was most hilarious for Eric to come up with?
Julia: [Whispering] Who can say?
Brandon: Who can say.
Julia: Is it a who can say?
Eric: That is who can say! The spirit surge, like I said like the spirit surge, I refresh so I can't tell you because it might come up.
Brandon: Oh a note on that by the way we did not miss a couple spirit surges in the like vignettes, they just like—they're vignettes.
Julia: They didn't count.
Brandon: We don't do that, uh if I ever miss one it's probably just because I edited out on accident or some reason, but we are very diligent I promise.
Eric: That's fine yes! I was thinking about that I'm like I wouldn't have done a spirit surge in a vignette because sometimes they don't match up.
Amanda: And like time passes and it could have you know happened—
Julia: You could have spirit surged off-screen.
Amanda: Yeah!
Eric: You're not gonna spirit surge every time, that might be interest— oh that's actually very interesting about okay. I'll think about it never mind.
[Amanda and Julia laugh]
Amanda: And finally from SmokingMusket on Twitter: convince me that the voice that talked Milo isn't the Council of Bright breaking through the multiverse. Hint you can't.
[Brandon and Julia laugh]
Amanda: Who could say!
Brandon: Um, I think I could say! It's not that.
Julia: Alright that's fair!
Eric: Who can say, really?
Amanda: Who can say?!
Eric: Who can say! It is funny that you've given me two opportunities with your PCs to have them have direct links to a great and powerful unknown. I find that very funny.
Brandon: I don't think— I don't like this is not like a critique this is just a statement that I didn't think about, like I was not thinking about that at all I was not thinking of like a deity for Milo or anything. So it's interesting that you went that way.
Eric: Not even a deity, it's more like it's more just like we've established ghosts exist so—
Julia: Hmmm.
Eric: We need to reckon with that you know?
Julia: Listen I'm not saying warlock Milo shouldn't be a thing, but I'm also not saying it should be a thing.
Brandon: Milo's just a druid so—
Julia: Okay… Okay.
Eric: Don't worry Julia's already sent me—
Julia: Ideas for multi-class!
Eric: And I've already given her a bananas one and she's like “oh yeah I really love it how in superhero stories like when something gets taken away from the hero their like powers change and then become really like more powerful” and I'm like huh!
[Amanda and Brandon laughing]
Eric: It’s not coming away from them now huh…
Julia: That's not what I said!
[Eric laughing]
Julia: I said I agreed that if there was going to be a change of some sort, that is the only reason that Val would probably multi-class is because it would be in reaction to a major emotional thing.
Amanda: I'm hearing that that is an option for the dm now.
[Eric cackling]
Julia: It was an option for the dm to begin with!
Amanda: Yeah I just I'll never get over Eric asking me at like midnight one night “hey uh which sibling is Aggie closest to?” and I was like NOO.
[Eric and Brandon laughing]
Julia: What was the answer Amanda?
Amanda: You'll see! Who can say okay?
[Brandon laughs]
Eric: Now that you know that you level up twice after every arc if you do want to multi-class, I would say think about it and it needs to make narrative sense, however feel free to pull from the shit that happens in the arc and then use that as justification. Like it because this is an experience it's a milestone version of leveling up, but now you know the milestone always happens, so it's not just like oh you leveled up congratulations! So feel free if you do want a multi-class or you do want to change something like you want to change your subclass or something or you want to change your class altogether, use the down time to do that 100%!
Amanda: Fascinating! Well everybody thanks for joining me here on a very rainy Thursday morning for this Afterparty, and everyone listening thank you for your great questions for your engagement, for your fan art of our superhero personas, and costumes I just putting it into the universe! Yeah you know!
Brandon: Thank you for hosting us with all the pina coladas, Amanda, was very delightful!
Amanda: No problem I have to find out what to do with this frozen drink maker now!
Julia: Ooo make more frozen drinks!
Eric: Now Amanda uh would you say that we are the single most popular podcast in the entire world right now?
Amanda: Uh… No.
Eric: Well I think that would be a really good opportunity for people to tell people to listen to Join the Party.
Amanda: That’s so true!!
Eric: Share with your friends!
Amanda: Yeah! The end of the first arc is a wonderful time to get someone else into the show!
Eric: I know that we're like the fifth most popular podcast in the entire world!
Brandon: There's still ways to go up!
Eric: We’ll get up there, but seriously the best way for the Join the Party family and fandom to grow, is by you sharing the podcast with people you know. So we think we're really neat, and we know you think we're really neat, but please tell a friend, tell your game person you play games with, tell your cousin who just recently got into dungeon and dragons now that they're in college this would be a great time to do it because we have 10 hot fire episodes and we promise 9 and 10 are very good!
Julia: Pew pew pew!
Brandon: Tell your sentient rabbits.
Amanda: And you don't even know what's happening in the next arc, like this is—
Julia: I’m so excited!!!
Amanda: This is bordering on rude, but it's very good, I'm very excited!
Julia: It’s very good!
Amanda: Alright everybody! Thanks again for listening!
Brandon: Bye!
Julia: Later!
Eric: You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. Unless you bring me a pina colada, and then it's fine actually pina coladas are made with the devil's fruit! Coconut is nasty, no one should ever drink coconut or eat coconut ever!
Brandon: Cutting you off.
Amanda: We like a daiquiri, we like a marg—
Eric: If god wanted us to eat coconut why—
[Theme music]
Julia: Uh sorry guys jake has called me like three times in a row, I'm just gonna give him a call back sorry.
[Beat of silence]
Julia: Hold on I have to go pull dough out of the fridge
[Everyone laughing]
Amanda: For a calzone?
Julia: Yes for a calzone!
[Everyone cheering]
Eric: I want a calzone so bad!