Afterparty: Join Forces VII & VIII

How deep does Dr. Morrow’s cabin go? How does Eric hook the rest of the cast? And does January like his job?! All those answers and more in the Afterparty!

Links

Sponsors

- BetterHelp, a secure online counseling service. Get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/jointheparty

- Twenty Sided Store, the best indie game store in Brooklyn. Pick up Masks using code JOINTHEPARTY for 20% off your online or in-store order.

Find Us Online

- website: jointhepartypod.com

- patreon: patreon.com/jointhepartypod

- twitter: twitter.com/jointhepartypod

- facebook: facebook.com/jointhepartypod

- instagram: instagram.com/jointhepartypod

- tumblr: jointhepartypod.tumblr.com

- merch & music: jointhepartypod.com/merch

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 a triple-strength Afterparty! It's not just afterparty for episode 7 and 8, but also for Issue #1 of SLaM.

Julia: Salaam!

[Brandon laughs]

Brandon: JTP XXX!

[Everyone laughing]

Eric: Hold on.

[A beat passes]

Eric: Brandon explain that.

Brandon: So you know like with cartoons where they have like a alcohol bottle that has like three X's on it cause it's triple strength?

Julia: Well that's a much lighter joke.

Brandon: Yeah, it’s nothing nasty—

Amanda: I was going more a “girls girls girls” direction.

[Brandon laughs]

Eric: I'm—I'm recording this completely nude, you're just gonna have to trust me.

Julia: Oh god we have to turn the cameras off.

Eric: Oh turn them back on! I thought that was the point!

Amanda: Why don't we move to a giant rabbit, or a small rabbit? Let's talk about January please!

Eric: A regular-sized rabbit!

Amanda: So smol!

Eric: The snowshoe hare is only fifty centimeters long, so he is only that tall. So he's like a foot and a half, two feet tall. He's just very adorable.

Julia: Adorable!

Brandon: That's still tall enough to like reach doorknobs and stuff right?

Eric: Oh yeah, I mean he can jump as well he's been doing this for a while so he definitely knows how to use his little rabbit paws. His little beans to open doors and stuff yeah of course.

Julia: So cute.

Brandon: Little rabbit beans!

Amanda: So sweet.

Eric: I still remember the first time that I unveiled this to you, and I'm so glad that this happened on microphone because something that I wish happened more was you guys reacting to the wild shit that happens here. Even when I revealed Chad back in campaign one you're like “okay so so what do we do next? How do we get out of the mansion?” and I'm like there is an Ooze talking to you guys!! So I very much appreciate that you're all like “Ex-squeeze me?!”

Julia: Pardon?

Brandon: You've learned that we react best to cute things as opposed to giant oozes, and so now you know how—

Eric: Are you saying that Chad is not cute?

Amanda: I mean I didn't exclaim at just the introduction of another regular human NPC?

Brandon: [Laughing] That's a good point!

Julia: I think part of it too, is like you know this is a very modern campaign, and we're in the real world, and not a fantasy setting. So I expect to come across an Ooze in a fantasy setting, I don't expect to come across a talking rabbit butler in a superhero setting.

[Brandon laughs]

Amanda: True.

Eric: I mean you should—talking rabbit butler. You're just making it sound cool back to me. I'm like man I wish I had a talking rabbit butler that sounds great.

Brandon: Eric, there are two very important questions one, what color suit?

Eric: As I said in the episode January, wears like a blue blue suit.

Brandon: Love it.

Eric: With the gold bow tie and little white rabbit shirt.

Julia: So cute, so cute!

Brandon: Second important question is gold bow tie patterned or just solid gold?

Eric: I think there's like a—

Amanda: Subtle polka dots

Amanda and Brandon: subtle polka dot, subtle polka dot!

Eric: I do like the gold on gold polka dot. I was thinking I guess the word escapes me it's like the the wide checkerboard, it's not a checkerboard—

Amanda: Like a gingham?

Eric: Yeah like maybe—

Amanda: Or plaid?

Eric: Or just like has the paneling in it like it looks like a tile floor, do you know what I'm talking about?

Amanda: Sure like a buffalo check type thing?

Eric: No it's not like a check it's like— this doesn't matter!

[Everyone laughing]

Eric: Basically, there is a subtle pattern on the bowtie.

[Julia laughing]

Brandon: [in an announcer voice] It's up to your imagination which pattern!

Eric: You can get in the comments, and tell me what pattern it is! But no January is fine, everyone don't worry, I was doing a lot of upstate New York research and I actually started looking at the flora and fauna up there. Especially as you know we're gonna be dealing with the different seasons and we've talked about that a little bit and I saw that snowshoe hares are like mildly endangered in upstate New York, and definitely they're one of the animals that changes their fur color depending on what season it is.

So snowshoe hares are brown during the summer and white during the winter for you know camouflage reasons. So I thought it was interesting because you know this is an upstate sort of game and everyone who lives there has been here for a while. I did like the idea that Dr. Morrow takes things into her own hands and be like “what if endangered rabbit butler?”

[Brandon laughs]

Julia: But what if?

Eric: But what if I did that? And now January is a part of her crew. I mean I love January. I think January is incredibly self-aware, and I just had so much fun being January. Also listening back to it and hearing the initial hair joke I made when Amanda said Aggie O'Hare I was just like I'm so glad I prepared. I knew it was going to happen, it was delightful for me.

Brandon: That was very good.

Julia: It was very very good.

Eric: I think all of you have taken a shine to January though I really—

Julia: Oh yes we love January.

Brandon: Yeah if I could play this campaign as January from now on, I would Eric.

[Amanda laughs]

Julia: Backup character.

Brandon: Yeah, Milo on rails the rest of the campaign.

Julia: I meant more like when Milo dies, you know inevitably.

Eric: Well now I have to kill Milo so Brandon can be January. Just to get in my head also for eight as well I think I didn't do a great job setting up the infrastructure of campaign one as a nice place to be. The Speaker was knowledgeable and cold well like hold in a very like ethereal sort of way, and because of like Greg was there and all the people I just really wanted there to be some sort of relationship building here. And Dr. Morrow has followed a similar vein, I think there are large differences between the Speaker and Dr. Morrow as we'll see, and hopefully we'll explore. But I did want to kind of build out the world around her a little bit more so I think that Dez and January mean a lot to me as people for you to bounce off with, and are also like obviously not governmentally and in the in the larger world but like of equal stature and can help you in this hub of using the mansion as a hub and something that you'll end up needing and using and hopefully working with.

Brandon: Yeah.

Amanda: That makes a lot of sense it's easier to see somebody as a person, and to trust them when you see the people that they trust and vice versa.

Julia: Mhm.

Amanda: Well that is a good lead-in to our other January questions, Joey asks this January know I'll die for him?

[Julia laughs]

Eric: I think he does know.

Amanda: Cotton asks—

Eric (as January): Can you just like not be weird for a second? I know it’s on the Internet, and you're not doing it in front of me but can you just not?

Amanda: Cotton asks what is January's favorite pastime?

Eric: Bocce.

[Brandon laughs}

Julia: That’s adorable!

Amanda: So cute! Pan asks does January like his job, or does he just figure it will be hard to get a job elsewhere? Is January legally a person?

[Everyone oooo’s]

Eric: Can we go back to those other questions like what January's favorite things to do is? Um I think it's complicated. We haven't really explored a lot of what happened and why January is the way that they are. But you know like what I always think that Dr. Morrow when she does something, she thinks that she's doing the best thing possible. Sometimes you look at an animal and you're like “I wish you could just talk to me, and I could give you what you want” I think Dr. Morrow was like “I could do that!” And that's what happened. I think January does feel very close to Dr. Morrow, and I feel like I don't know how the awakening the complications of giving life to a creature, and intelligence to a creature is a little complicated, but I feel like they do have a good relationship, and Dr. Morrow trusts January to be their assistant. And as we know from so many movies, and television shows the assistant is just important as the person that they're working for. So January— it's a real like Alfred situation here, except instead of being British they're uh snowshoe hare Michael Caine— imagine Michael Caine as a rabbit.

Brandon: Yeah that's what I was imagining.

Julia: Great.

Eric: No that's good! That means you were ahead of me, I'm so glad we're synced like that.

Brandon: Okay cool.

Julia: I mean from a mechanics perspective January was what like an animal companion that was awakened?

Eric: Yeah like to really kind of do that yeah.

Brandon: Do they have like— I guess you probably can't tell us this yet, but like I assume they have like stats and stuff?

Eric: Yeah I don't have the stats on hand but they are a full NPC. Like they're not just a rabbit in the way that Tuna’s not just the cat you know.

Julia: Mhm.

Brandon: In the way that I am just a druid.

Eric: Yes, Milo is a druid.

Amanda: Speaking of Batcaves Hamilton Otto would like to know how far down does Dr. Morrow's house go and where is the lab?

Brandon: [chanting] Me too, me too!

Eric: It just goes down forever guys.

Julia: Journey to the Center of the Earth style.

Eric: It just keeps going down, you know.

Amanda: I mean it is located in the mountains, so there is a good you know two thousand feet of elevation under Lake Town City.

Eric: In my head there's like five or six floors, but don't quote me on that, but I mean we did go is like one was the receiving floor, and two is the sleeping quarters, and three is where the study and all that stuff is, and then the kitchen is somewhere in there. You know just use your imagination it's as deep as you want. All the floors are there.

Julia: You mean you're not gonna build us out a detailed blueprint of Dr. Morrow’s house?

Eric: Well then I don't get to ask you all what a random things in Dr. Morrow’s house are.

Julia: True.

Eric: Which was truly my favorite part of episode eight when I'm just like hey what's in the kitchen.

Brandon: Yeah I love that, like is that something you picked up just DMing for a while or something like an idea you picked up from online or something? Like bringing your characters to help build the immediate surroundings like that?

Eric: I'm not really sure where I picked it up. I just kind of liked doing it. There are a lot of things that I feel attached to some characters usually, and I do feel attached of like making sure that the NPC's talk in a way that you all can respond to, which is why some of my favorite episodes are ones where we just kind of talk and we make decisions, more so than actually like having conflicts, but like I can't just populate a room 100% like I do want your input especially because this is a fantastical place. I mean we're talking about a kitchen. The thing that the four of us talk about all the time is food and alcohol, like all the time. The amount of food shows all of us watch the entirety of Food Network so I think like this particularly, I want to know your opinion. I personally don't know the world that your characters are inhibiting, so I want you to tell me what that is because it is just like if you had the opportunity to create the community that you were in, you would do it in your own image so as we come up and as you all do your favorite things, I want to do that. I mean a really good example of that was the bowling place right cause it's like you want Brandon you wanted that and then Milo had a bowling place and I'm like some Brandon what does this look like? That's something that I don't I don't feel like I need to put in there, and I obviously your opinion.

Brandon: Yeah I love it, it's just like a really great DM trick I think to make the players feel like they have a lot of input, and say in the world without necessarily changing the scope of the plot and stuff. It's smart.

Eric: Thanks! I tried.

Amanda: And I think that's a good segue into the way we closed out episode eight with everybody's memories, and I know that was something that a lot of the audience in the discord really enjoyed, and I loved it too as players so Julia, Brandon, how did you guys feel about that? I know that for me being prompted by that question, it just sort of came to me you know like I didn't have to ponder for a long time it felt very easy for me to kind of play out that scenario. But what was it like for you two?

Brandon: I think it's super fun! Yeah again going back to that to what I was just saying, like I really that was all my favorite things that we did in the first season, and I remember specifically when because it was fairly early on the first season when Eric asked us that question that was that was one of the times I was like “oh fuck like you can this is how you can DM?” Like this is what DMing could be? Yeah it's one of my favorite things and especially I really like the sort of like feedback mechanism that we go through with Eric where it's like here's a nugget or especially with me because I'm my one of my like weaker points is coming up with like detailed worlds, I can get sort of like the overarching stuff but like I can feed a little nugget of like oh maybe you know maybe his dad had a conversation when he was a kid and he likes comic books. But then Eric can flush out that little nugget and turn it into something really poignant, and meaningful and I really love that. It’s one of my favorite things to do on the show.

Julia: Yeah I really like being prompted for questions about my character’s past I always feel really nervous about it in the moment because, I feel like on the spot and I'm like “oh what I've suddenly forgotten everything that I've established about this character” but the moment that like you finally get to the point where you can start telling that story, I absolutely love that and I love being prompted to do so.

Eric: I will say after playing for a while, I'm starting to understand the way that all of you like to play and how I get the best stuff out of you. Brandon I just ask you questions outside of the recording session, and then you tell me them and then you forget you did it. I'm surprising you with your own answer.

Julia: I love that.

Brandon: [laughing] That’s real. Memento disease!

Eric: There’s nothing I love more especially because now you're on the west coast, when I have a random thing in the middle of the night it's like an actual fine time to DM you. So it’s midnight my time, it's 9:00 P.M. your time, and it's like “So like what does Milo like to eat in the morning?” and you're like this is this and you just totally forget, and then I'm like oh so you know when you go to a diner, and you order your omelet and you're like “how did you know that?!” I'm like well! With Julia it is just about a lot of prompts, and it's about just putting something in front of you because you always just take the thing in front of you, you can't ignore it and I love that.

Julia: Nope! I just pick impulsive characters which I think is my problem, because I'm not a particularly impulsive person so when my characters are impulsive, it's like I'm living that kind of weird fantasy where it's like “oh what if I did just act on everything and the consequences were only in-game and not in real life!”

Eric: It's so good though because it's always reasonable, I think it’s  very interesting, and then for Amanda I feel like you and I always take a lot of time and talk about your character a lot. I feel like I know the most about Aggie than I do about any of my characters, or Val, or Milo.

Brandon: Or myself!

Eric: Or me! Or Deric, my DMPC. Deric’s been here the whole time you just haven't seen him yet.

Amanda: DMPC is a very good abbreviation.

Brandon: Oh that's very good, I like it a lot.

Eric: That's like bopping around RPG Internet, I did not come up with that. But I feel like I know a ton about Aggie, like I all I know all of your siblings, I know what they do I know their jobs, I know your parents, I probably know how everyone interacts. Yeah I just keep asking you questions and I mean it helps that we live together, so I can just ask you a question and then write it down. But I think it also this is prompting but then you kind of like fanfiction it out, but because it's a DND podcast, you're doing the actual thing. So it's good.

Amanda: I also think Aggie is a way closer to me than Inara was in terms of my biography, and instincts, and stuff. So it's it's very easy for me to think of how she would react, and to give you details on like endless numbers of Irish Catholic siblings, like I got that.

Eric: Oh what are the names of all of your siblings?

Amanda: [without missing a beat] Aggie, Danny, Cassie, Regan, Ryan, Kelly, Quinn.

Brandon: Sorry I think the internet broke up what was it Amanda?

Amanda: Aggie, Danny, Cassie, Regan, Ryan, Kelly, Quinn.

Julia: The emphasis again really really important.

Eric: To that point, I do think that your family is very similar to Aggie’s family so that's incredibly helpful for me playing the siblings.

Amanda: Just leading me to filth in our every interaction.

[Everyone laughing]

Eric: I guess I just know the people in your life who are Aggie’s family so it's just very helpful and very fleshed out so to that end I mean I have a lot to work with honestly, and as much, I actually didn't know that was gonna happen,  and I would love to talk about episode eight a little bit. I had set this up and the entire time, during the first eight nine-ten episodes of this campaign, I was like this is always gonna be the central question here: are they going to be like spies and is it going to be a this type of campaign maybe something more not Suicide Squad necessarily, but something that's like I'm going to keep my superpowers on the low and when I'm called to a mission I'm gonna do it. Much like I guess a spy movie like you're 007, when you're not actually doing the spy stuff, or we're going to have like an actual capital S Marvel superhero campaign, and I was always waiting for this, and I really hope that I didn't push you one way or another, and Dr. Morrow I think is very much like a know-it-all truly, and it's my ability to convey the mechanics of the world and what she wants, and what might happen in one way or another. But I would really love to know like how did that conversation go both when I laid that out in seven and then as we actually did it in eight, and I think that this was very nicely cut down because we talked about— I answered a lot of questions that I had a lot of like things I wanted to tell you that didn't end up in eight, that really kind of cemented what we were going to do.

Julia: Yeah I feel like Brandon can speak more to like the conversation that got cut, versus what actually ended up in the audio, but I think we I think we established on mic pretty well like I mean for me at least, I was I really thought that Val would not be interested whatsoever in the costume superhero thing.

Amanda: Yeah me too, I walked in thinking that I definitely wanted to do the stealth a superhero situation, and just in conversation with Dr. Morrow like I think Brandon made it flow very well, but I felt like in in the session, I was genuinely wrestling with it like genuinely asking those questions.

Brandon: Yeah me too, I actually I didn't cut a whole ton. I cut because there was a lot of us genuinely like thinking silently to ourselves about what we wanted to do, and then there were a lot of just repeated like “hey can you explain the expand on this more on that?” I cut, but the the meat of the thing was still there and I think I tried to give everyone a chunk of statement about like how they were feeling, and how they were feeling about their character. And yeah like I don't think in the moment I quite understood the quite the quandary that was there of like stealth versus non stealth. But there's also the superhero that's like X-Men where it's like just your face in public versus a mask.

Eric: Yes that was really the big question you were all wrestling with I remember because Val said “I don't want someone to think I'm a superhero while walking a dog” and I'm like buck Dr. Morrow was like “put on a mask?” Like what do you mean?

Amanda: And there's a little bit of like superhero universe hand waving in that like I was thinking this as a person, you know as like a six-foot tall burly lady with red hair, how many of those could there be running around Lake Town City but like A: it's a very big city and B: you know we're having— I think it's fair to say, a tiny bit of hand waving in that we as superheroes won't necessarily like need to do a stealth check every time we're outside the house in costume for somebody to tie it back to our real identities.

Eric: Yeah I think that we need that for the genre, I will say that the three of you are decidedly not like public figures, I know that Agee is, but we've established that historic Lake Town is not actually that big or important in the larger scheme of the city. I know Milo is technically a public figure. but like you work at a museum what would people recognize you and put two and two together, and like Val you literally just do odd jobs. So it's I do think that there is an ability — I don't think people would be able to put two and two together, what I was seating and I think was actually really interesting the three the three of you responding to the bank problem was that if you were not covered up, that is a hundred percent what would happen but I think that once you put the persona on top of it it's like we can't do what happened at the bank again, like we're not doing that again the people can just like take a photo, or it's like on a bank security footage, or all of that like we're not doing that again. But how are you gonna do it are you going to literally hide, are you just going to hide your actual self behind a mask?

Julia: Right.

Brandon: Right. I mean Milo could cause you know he was able to not show himself on the tape—

[Eric and Julia laughing]

Brandon: Like he's shown that he's capable of that but for the other two sake, I think it's important to wear masks.

Amanda: Shout out to Pen of Smiting for the incredible art, particularly of the moment where Aggie’s being confronted by the newspaper salesperson, and just like wow I didn't know anything about the city I guess.

Brandon: I've been loving those comics, those cartoons, those drawing  so much!

Julia: They’re so good.

Brandon: They're incredible!

Eric: I think my favorite thing is that they're capturing all of your style so much. I'm like yes that is what Val looks like that is how Aggie dresses, and Mickey yeah Mickey the one who works at Hudson news, in my head is the Hudson news is my favorite NPC, one of my favorites. Just like being able to obviously bust your balls because they have control of bagels and coffee.

Amanda: And we— Eric and I were in in upstate New York last week and we took pictures of all the places that had inspired locations in Laketown City so we took a picture of the actual newsstand where where I get my rolls in coffee when I'm in that town which we can we can post well just slightly edit the picture to display what it really should say on the sign.

Eric: What are you talking about? Lake Town City's real, I saw a street sign and I put it up.

Amanda: Let's check out Instagram @jointhepartypod.

Eric: So I definitely want to know how did you feel— did you feel the weight of this changing? Because I had been anticipating this for so long, were you just making a decision for your character, or did you feel like this was cementing the campaign moving forward?

Julia: So I feel like I knew what I wanted to do going into the session but, I also knew that I would be swayed either way depending on whether or not Val was convinced, and I think at the end of the day that was convinced because Val thought that like “hey I have a gift I have something that's special about me” and being able to show that off, even if it's not being like hey I'm me who is also a superhero is something that I think really convinced them at the end of the day.

Amanda: Yeah I also felt that like I knew the like named superhero route would be more interesting for the podcast, but in setting up the world together we all had very open conversations in our session zeros about the fact that any version of powered people in a modern setting would be interesting to us. So I didn't feel as if like like you would have said if we had to do a certain route or in advance of the podcast we would have all agreed if it had to be named superheroes with personas, or nothing, and that wasn't the case so I felt a lot of freedom to choose what I thought was best for the character. And I didn't expect my mind being changed that way but I think that Dr. Morrow being — how do I put this? Optimistic? And having a lot of resources swayed it, and I don't know I feel like I wanted to make the more interesting choice and for Aggie that was a little out of character but for me that's what I want to do when presented with two equal options you know.

Brandon: Yeah totally the same for me, I think like I did know in the moment that this was sort of like one of the defining moments of the show, so I wanted to make sure we made them as interesting one as a player involved. But I also think like from Milo it was a genuine toss up because he wants to maintain anonymity because he is who he is, he likes you know showing people museum artifacts, but not necessarily being on the cover of People magazine. But at the same time like his heroes are all are on the cover of People magazine, so like I think it was genuinely a toss up for him as a character. So either way we would have gone, it would have been interesting for him as a character.

Eric: That’s true, you did just have your hero ask you if you wanted to put on tights and a cape, so I don't think that Milo was gonna say no at all.

Brandon: Exactly.

Julia: Gotta love the proposal.

Brandon: It's weird that we're married now.

Eric: [Laughing] This goes really nicely it do a new segment I want to introduce it's called: Remember When We Made These Good Jokes?

[Brandon laughing]

Julia: I like this segment, go ahead.

Eric: We’ve recorded so far in advance, and also just like I totally black out when I'm playing Dungeons & Dragons, I do not remember what we do. So listening back to these episodes is actually very funny in the beginning of seven, we talked about Dr. Morrow's memoir, where I do my favorite thing and actually make you name things. So I was like “Hey Brandon what's the name of Dr. Morrow's memoir” I wrote this down you said Tomorrow is Always Just a Day Away: the Life and Times of Dr. Morrow, and we said “what's another way of saying that?” you said “Tomorrow is Just Today But in the Future”

[Everyone laughing]

Eric: Then we also said “Thinking About Tomorrow” and then “2 Morrow” with the twom and then “Days of Future Tomorrow” but that's the graphic novel version.
[Brandon laughs]

Julia: Mhm.

Eric: The other one that Amanda this was so funny in our recurring joke about Star Trek. You guys are Star Trek nerds, but not Dungeons & Dragons nerds. Aggie telling Milo that he's locked in the holodeck and he just needs to chill and wait for things to kinda deal.

[Everyone laughing]

Brandon: So good.

Amanda: Very good, it’s true!

Eric: It’s so funny, in episode eight we then say that canonically Richard Blais lives in Lake Town City.

Amanda: He does! He does, him in Al Gore have dinner parties all the time.

Brandon: That was difficult to cut around like the way we said it up was weird, and but I wanted to make sure so hard that it stayed in there.

Eric: It was around the plasma salamander too - which was very good.  For those of you don't know who he is Richard Blais is like a Food Network Star. He's a very popular chef and he was on Top Chef for a while where he really hated himself, but then he got like a really strong glow up and now he's like very hip and looks incredibly good. Just from like a haircut in some glasses.

Amanda: Just from being rich.

Eric: Yeah and he also his thing is like gastronomy, so he's one of the person who like pours liquid nitrogen—

Julia: The molecular gastronomy stuff.

Eric: Yeah like he's very like molecular gastronomy guy, but he's also like he's like an attractive food scientist.

[Brandon laughing]

Julia: He was so sad on Top Chef all the time, he was so down on himself.

Eric: Amanda and I send this to each other all the time, and we'll tweet this out but there is a moment in Top Chef in the final where he he’s talking to the camera and he's like “immediately when I make things I hate it and I hate everything I do”

Brandon: Wait that’s real?!

Eric: Yeah no it's Antonia Lofaso, who's in the finals with him is just like “what the hell is wrong with you?” and he just like deadpans.

Amanda: Yeah it's like a very sullen screencap and it's it's a little duo that I just have on hand in my favorites album, just for when I need it so we’ll be sure and put that on Twitter.

Brandon: That’s wild.

Eric: And then the final joke I liked how we just talked about Spy Kids a bunch with Dez.

Brandon: Okay I left the Froot Loops joke in there that Amanda made, I don't— what is— I haven't seen Spy Kids is there a Froot Loops reference?

Julia: Yeah there's like those creepy things, hold on, I’ll send—

Brandon: I also googled it you couldn't find it in that specific phrasing so.

Amanda: It's called Floop’s Fooglies.

Brandon: What the fuck?

Julia: Hold on Brandon I'm sending it to you right now.

Amanda: Yeah it's the villain in Spy Kids and he like makes people into like candy thumbs they're called Floop’s Fooglies.

Julia: Here it's in the chat now.

Amanda: Oh my god, Julia his name is Fegan Floop.

Julia: Yep, yes he is!

Eric: Is he played by Alan Cumming?

Amanda: Oh sure is!

Julia: Yes he is!

Amanda: Oh I wish I named one of Aggie siblings Fegan now.

Eric: That's very good.

Amanda: Damn!

Eric: I will say Spy Kids has a lot of really strong mediatized, because that's where Danny Trejo premiered the character of Machete.

Julia: Machete yes!

Eric: Which is wild to me.

Brandon: Oh my god this is incredible.

Amanda: 90's kids will know.

Eric: [Laughing] 90’s kids will know Floops Fooglies.

Brandon: Oh no I hate this! Oh no, oh no.

Eric: As Brandon is writhing in horror, I do want to clarify something about Dez, in my head Dez is a black man he's older and he has a gruff voice, but when I said he had really long hair in my head he has like gray dreadlocks that are tied up but it still goes all the way down his back, and to his butt. There was something someone tweeted at me that I did mention he was on a baton scholarship to Grambling. Grambling is a historically black college, with a very good football team, so in my head Dez is a black man. That’s just something I wanted to clarify.

Julia: I would like you to know that Val 100% would have been totally into Dez, hundred percent.

Amanda: Oh yeah,

Julia: Cause like he walked out and Val was like “excellent, you're great. Everything about this”

Amanda: I feel like Aggie doesn't like committing to friendships where you do regular activities but, Aggie with a thousand percent commit to like a regular bar night with Dez.

[Brandon laughs]

Julia: 100%

Branond: So far we have our NPC ranking. First we have January, and then Dez, Dr. Morrow

Julia: Mhm.

Amanda: Yep.

Julia: And then all the way at the bottom Sour Anthony.

Amanda: Oh man now I really want to see Dez and Sour Anthony interact.

Eric: I don't know how it would actually exactly happen. When it does happen I'm gonna be very excited about doing those voices at each other.

Amanda: Incredible, cotton asks in discord what is Dez’s favorite invention that he's made?

Eric: Oh that's a good question, this was around the time that I was watching a lot of Full Metal Alchemist, so I think that Dez worked on their own prosthetic, and the fact that it is very articulated and very strong, and good. Like there's a lot of like pistons, and inner workings, and that thing to make it as fully articulated like who knows if there's other stuff in there. We haven't really talked about it I only saw it as a hand. So I think that Dez is very proud of that. That's probably like mark 5 of Dez's arm.

Brandon: That's cool, that's very cool.

Julia: I love it. Dez is very cool so.

Eric: Oh the person who asked me if January was a chimera like in Full Metal Alchemist, no that’s not what happened that's really messed up. January is a fine and happy rabbit lad! That’s not what happened! So I just wanted to clarify that January's just an awakened rabbit. Nothing terrible and untoward happened!

Julia: Not a chimera!

Amanda: and Thomas the DM on Twitter asks does Dr. Morrow have more animal companions? Is February a giant dove? is October a giant spider who makes all of her clothes? Is December a buff bipedal reindeer who screams in Christmas carols?

[Brandon and Eric laughing]

Juia: December’s my favorite out that list hot damn.

Amanda: Excellent world building.

Eric: October exists none of the other ones exist.

[Brandon laughs]

Julia: Okay.

Amanda: Yeah she she just like casually like seemingly all women in their 50s has an all silk wardrobe.

Julia: Obviously.

Amanda: I look forward to that.

Julia: All muumuus.

Amanda: Oh yeah.

[Transition note]

Hey, it’s Eric. A lot of people are working from home now, and I think the best possible thing that you can remember is that you can take a nap and no one will know. Ordinarily you’d have to get under a desk or your cashier station or something but now you can just nap, and blame it on your internet later and just be like “oh no, sorry my internet was down!” But really, you were snoozing. Welcome to the midroll, just take a nap, just do it.

Thank you to everyone who has joined our Patreon in the last two weeks, thank you for letting Amanda and I go take a vacation it was very nice. It turns out that Lake Town City is real, and thank you to our Patrons : Colin, Bobbi, Victoria, Shea, Chrissy, Jade, Killashandra, Vojta, and Joseph. 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. We’re not like Karamo level famous, 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 a thriving Discord, not to mention a full campaign’s worth of bonus material from Campaign 1, remember when we did all that stuff? With the robot, and the teen with the skateboard? Today is a great day to join us for as little as $5 a month at patreon.com/jointhepartypod, and if you haven’t updated your tiers, we did that a while ago, you might not be getting rewards so make sure to update your tiers!

Hey speaking of other things you may not have heard of that are cool, did you hear that Multitude is hosting a digital live show on July 30? Well, we are, and 25% of all sales will be donated to the Black Lives Matter global network. All of the Multitude hosts will be performing a mix of new segments and old faves, and trust me, this is not something you’ll want to miss. We just ran through a little content rehearsal a day ago and it was really, really sick! So head on over to multitude.productions/digitallive to buy your ticket. And if you can’t make the live stream, you should buy a ticket anyway, because we’ll send you a link to watch the recording afterward. It’s gonna be video on demand! Support a great cause and enjoy our patented podcast variety show at multitude.productions/digitallive

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 that’s a thing that always happens when you’re doing therapy, you’re like “aw man this really tough thing happened to me, but therapy’s days away, what am I supposed to do?” Oh I know! I can send them a little texty-text and add a lil gif so they don’t think it’s that serious, and it’s kind of a joke when you think about it! 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.

Finally, we’re also sponsored this week by Twenty Sided Store. Lots of you have been sharing pics of your hauls from online shopping at Twenty Sided, and we gotta say, they have some amazing dice in stock. If you need dice, and if you don’t need dice, you’re going to want to check out the selection at twentysidedstore.com.  You can use code jointheparty for 20% off your online order. That’s 20% off of more dice! You have no excuse not get to more dice! Go into your little goblin brain that wants shiny rocks and just buy more dice from Twenty Sided Store! You gotta do it. That is twentysidedstore.com

And now, back to the Afterparty

[Transition note]

Amanda: Paul asks in the discord Eric why did you choose to focus on consumable and single-use items this time around as opposed to the longer-term items in the last campaign, and I'll add is that a focus right now, or is that something you want to continue forward in the rest of the arcs?

Eric: That's a good question! This was just the stuff that Dez had on hand and I think this is like to demonstrate that Dr. Morrow's crew could help you out in this particular way so I think that y'all can keep using this, and Dez and keep making them for you, but I would love to make some more stable items in the future. It didn't really come up this really felt like a real origin story sort of thing, in a way that I couldn't really get around and will kick this into high gear when we get to the next arc but really felt like I had to set a lot of stuff up, and be like use these, it is expendable but I will say that there aren’t a lot of resources in terms of consumable items, there's a lot of like “magic items that you're tuned to and it's a curse and you're always with it all the time!” So the fact that you can just like “oh I'm gonna pop this gum and breathe fire or ice” I think is something necessary and maybe can build and kind of the mystique of whatever as we get to what your actual super hero characters are. Really got to build your brand.

Amanda: Sammich239 in the discord asks Brandon as a fellow bowler what is Milo's handicap and what is his personal best?

Brandon: You can't see what I'm clenching my teeth right now.

Julia: Brandon starts googling that.

Eric: [laughing] My favorite thing about Brandon's characters is that he gives them interests that he doesn’t have and then he’s like uhhhhhh?

Julia: When Brandon was still recording in the studio with us I remember looking over and he had just like a bunch of Douglas Adams facts I'm like what? What’re you doing?!

Amanda: Hello fellow kids!

Brandon: Milo's handicap, well as we all know something around 200 is common, so probably like 204.

Amanda: Good lord. Okay I think  it is whatever you need it to be Sammich, I think you are the authority here.

Brandon: I do really like bowling, I just don't know anything about it like as an actual sport.

Julia: Not competitive bowling.

Brandon: Yeah!

Julia: You're not in a league or anything.

Brandon: I wish I was, it would be fun I just would be embarrassed cause I'm so bad.

Eric: My dad was a competitive bowler.

Amanda: What?!

Julia: So was mine.

Eric: There’s nothing to do in Long Island/Erie Pennsylvania what are you supposed to do? So you go bowling.

Brandon: Do you guys think you’re siblings?

Julia: Yeah that'd be weird.

Eric: Listen, everyone in America is related to each other, so it's entirely possible.

Julia: That’s true.

Amanda: Julia, Lada asked on Twitter is there a question that Val would not answer with “fuck you”

Julia: I don't know, fuck you is so versatile, you know? You could say it lovingly, you can say it angrily, any question can be answered with fuck you if you try hard enough.

Amanda: And Iconocat also asked on Twitter if Val is religious. I fell maybe to a priest Val might not say fuck you, but maybe, maybe they would.

Julia: Yeah no, I don't think so you gotta respect the Priesthood. Every time I say that is fucking hilarious.

[Brandon laughs]

Julia: Yeah no I think Val is like a non-practicing Catholic, like someone who is raised in the church and definitely was something that was instilled in them, but Val is not at church every Sunday, probably goes for like the the High Holidays and stuff like that like Christmas Mass at midnight, that kind of thing but definitely not like there every Sunday.

Amanda: Eric, Jennifer asked via email is the Knight of Mirrors an Easter Egg for Don Quixote?

Eric: Yes it is! Good job! Books are good!

Amanda: I actually never read that in the course of my extremely long studies.

Julia: Yeah I was gonna say explain it please.

Eric: Yeah Don Quixote, I mean it's been a long time since I've read it, and I had to do a bunch of research and Wikipedia and shout out to Misha Stanton for reminding me that this existed! Thanks Misha!

Brandon: Misha!

Eric: The Knight of Mirrors, I mean everything in Don Quixote is like a metaphor for something else, so the Knight of Mirrors is like literally an who rides with shiny armor, and it's supposed to be like the armor is a reflection of society. So it's kind of like a person who was like misguided and takes it upon themselves to be the mirror of the evils, and ways and all that stuff so it was a reference to that. I mean what we know of the Knight of Mirrors took it upon himself to be a vigilante, and clean up something, I mean maybe they know more. They were going out there, and riding on their motorcycle, and doing stuff so it's very similar.

Julia: As we like to say: who can say?

Eric: Who can really say?

Amanda: Who can say. Sarah had something to say on Twitter about our sort of headcanon here: “I'm sorry but if you don't think Dr. Morrow doesn't have one of those ice makers that make teeny tiny ice cubes you're wrong”

Julia: Yes correct, correct wait crunchy ice.

Brandon: Wait, oh like crushed ice?

Julia: No crunch ice!

Eric: This is a funny thing I wanted to ask Brandon about so we go to Dr. Morrow's office, and you see the soda machine that gives you like whatever things and and you're like “oh I'm gonna try it I'm gonna get a refreshing cold drink” and then Milo immediately goes “I want a hot drink”

Julia: Yeah what was that a reference to?

Brandon: It's what Captain Picard always orders, and so that's why I what you didn't hear in the in the edit was that I had to do a retake cause I I swapped one of them and I was like “I'm gonna get so much shit for this” I had to retake it make sure I got it right. But Next Gen is the best Star Trek I've been watching Star Trek since I was like four or five, and Next Gen was—

Julia: Aw, hell yeah!

Brandon: I think was the one that was actually airing when we were growing up, that and the one with Janeway and so those are the two I started with and so like Piccard was like my father figure growing up. Cause he was cool and collected, and it's bald, and it was he was a cool guy.

Julia: Love that man.

Eric: This is actually secretly a Star Trek podcast, get used to it.

Amanda: In further worlds building questions AlIie asked via email in LTC with all the teens and kids being affected by the incident, did animals and pets also get affected as well? Is that why Milo can see Tuna and could Monty be a real thing that was caught in the incident?

[Everyone Oooo’s]

Brandon: This is a who can say.

Amanda: My headcanon totally, and that's why when we were talking about monsters in the building the town lore, that really struck me as a thing that could potentially be possible, like one of my touchstone series as a kid was The Simpsons and seeing the three-eyed fish blinking in the and the river always kind of stuck with me.

Brandon: I love that.

Eric: This is related to something Hamilton Otto asked in the discord, are there other people that are affected by the Delta radiation that weren't contained maybe people who've been hiking or some other passers through or people on their first or last vacation that were in part of the quarantine. So yeah I mean my touchstone for this particular incident was the first episode of Static Shock, the TV show where there's just like that big chemical explosion and then whoever was there got hit and then got powers from it. So I think that we don't necessarily know who has powers, and who don't because of how murky it is of parentage, and who was around. So I think to all of this end we don't necessarily know what the effect of Delta radiation is so all of these things are still on the table, what I can say is who can say it is something I've been thinking about.

Julia: Cool. Cool, cool, cool.

Amanda: Astha asked Golden Knight, Knight of Mirror any relation? Is there some kind of secret knights of the round table hero force coming up?

Julia: Ooh!

Brandon: Who can say!

Everyone: Who can say!

Eric: I think it is something to think about that people who see themselves as superheroes also see themselves as Knights and righting wrongs and running around. So that's what I was thinking, but I also was thinking about hockey teams so yeah. That was on me, I came up with that. I really wanted to fill that in for for Milo's history check on that and that did come from the top of my head. But it was something that to that end. We also don't know if the Golden Knight had powers because everything that I said there was mechanical, that they had like rocket boots and stuff so that's kind of up in the air.

Brandon: That was one of my favorite moments because one, because Eric totally improvised that, and then Julia and I, actually back and forth about the hockey team was it makes me laugh every time I hear it.

Julia: They named him what?!

Eric: They named him after a different hockey team in a different place that doesn't make any sense!

Brandon: Your delivery on the why Julia was just like ugh, perfection.

Amanda: Speaking of kind of process in improvisation, Kalista asks in the discord: Eric how do you create landscapes of improv scenes that you hadn't thought about or planned and for players? Where do your jokes come from?

Brandon: Well when I was growing up I had two siblings that were very mean, and I was the youngest I had to learn how to defend myself via jokes.

[Everyone laughing]

Julia: Mine's also a defense mechanism yoo!

Eric: Yo mine’s also defense mechanism yo!

Amanda: Me too! I cover up all my insecurities of humor!

Eric: Is that the answer y’all wanted to see?

Julia: I just learned to say funny things I dunno.

Eric: Here's a weird thing of how I see my creative process especially in the way that the world is terrible, and we're all kind of like in our own little bubbles here. When I play dungeon dragons, and also when we do a lot of like creative just like I do building of stuff whether it's like podcasts, or whatever I feel like my brain is like an engine, and I just kind of like turn it on, and then it just like starts the making of things you know? It's like this is the makeamatron, and it makes things and like a—

Brandon: That’s your new nickname Dr. Makeamatron.

Eric: Thank you. And I turn it on and it's just like the way that my brain functions, and then after I'm done I need to like go lay down, like in front of an air conditioning.

[Brandon laughing]

Eric: Like it's really that's just truly how I see my brain and how I create and make things. So it's just something that's embedded in me, I've always liked telling stories and I've gotten really aware especially from watching and listening to a lot of D&D media, and just like the way that people improvisationally create worlds. I'm just like alright gotta throw in details and then everything kind of builds on top of each other. Everything for my improv of D&D is just cause and effect, it's like if this happens then this has to happen, and then this has to happen, like these things need to exist whether we're talking about a fight, or a room, or a city, or the laws of physics, or the the story building laws that we have in place.

Brandon: Yeah my favorite— well one you could definitely see Eric go into Dr. Makeamatron mode which is just fun and interesting.

Eric: First of all it's makeamatron 3000 please.

Brandon: Sorry, Dr. Makeamatron 3000.

Julia: Of course.

Brandon: And like the thing that really impresses me most just to like brag on Eric for a little bit: is t's so incredibly difficult to improvise where what you're improvising is the perfect balance of like detailed, and specific, but those detail specifics have relevance to the larger world, or to the larger plot, or to the larger idea. Like I can only improv like huge overarching things, and some people can only improv details, and when you just have details it just like is like random, and random humor is not always funny, but Eric has this really innate ability just to like pull specific details that then have meaning to the larger whole which is very impressive.

Eric: Oh thank you I appreciate that. I think the best thing to know about Dungeons & Dragons and DMing and this kind of creative work that we do is just like knowing what your strengths are, and leaning in it so as long as you all don't get bored of me coming up with worlds, and you talking to characters and stuff like maybe I don't have the greatest accents, and voices but like I will be able to create people for you to talk to in front of you, so I just really try to lean into that.

Brandon:  Dez's character voice by the way was new and really really interesting and engaging.

Amanda: Yeah me too! That's actually a good segue we could probably do a full after-party about SLaM, and I hope this is not our last visit to this universe because it was so much fun but how do you—

Eric: The good LBB!

Julia: Good ol’ Lagoon Burrough Burg!

Amanda: How did you go about world building for a one-shot versus for our campaign, just in brief kind of how was your prep different?

Eric: Honestly I left a lot up to you guys I think it was really really fun for me to just ask you all questions, and I'm like for a one-shot it doesn't matter like I don't feel as tied to it so I'm just like hey what does your office look like what does the city look like well how do you interact with each other. It was just like us messing around and having a good time, so the fact that I get to ask y'all questions, I mean the fact that the office was on top of a sushi place was incredibly funny and—

Brandon: Amanda that was perfect.

Amanda: Thank you.

Eric: And just like and then the you're the secretary which tied into the ending it's like when you give me those details that I don't have to do it, and then I can slot them in to the thing that I already want to happen, because of the one shot it's just like okay let's meet the characters, let's do some challenges let's take them to a different place, and then I knew that the twist at the end was going to happen. So I'm just like boom boom boom, and then we can have fun world building together. I mean DMing when you do it like this it's just asking questions, and you ask questions, and then you have to roll with it, and we're all very funny, and creative so it all kind of worked out.

Amanda: Cool and the only spoiler corners for this episode are whether Tegan/January/Dez are the Knight of Mirrors. So all we can say is who can say?

Julia: Who can say?

Brandon: If January is the Knight of Mirrors, I'm going to die.

Eric: I will say to this end the next episodes like nine going forward, are some of my favorite episodes and sessions on the Dragons I've ever played. This is what we were talking about nine going forward and then the one shot, I'm was so proud of me and all of us. Like this it's gonna be hot shit, I'm so fucking excited.

Amanda: I can't wait, I can't wait!

Brandon: Same.

Amanda: And yeah I'm so glad that we get the chance to do these afterparties much closer to their release date instead of recording them like right after the session, because we are probably three or four sessions ahead of what's airing at this point. So it's exciting for us that we know what's happening and to be able to put them out, but that also allows us to address more contemporaneous you know events, and things that are going on in the broader kind of RPG community. It's definitely been an eventful few weeks so we wanted to make sure just kind of touch on that because this afterparty isn't just about our show but it's about the environment that our show takes place in.

Eric: Yeah so you might have seen a little while ago that we made a statement from the Join the Party Twitter and Instagram about our relationship to Dungeons & Dragons and the company Wizards of the Coast that publishes and it kind of runs the official Dungeons & Dragons, like they're the people who makes the Monster Manual, and the DM’s guide and also all of like the campaign modules you might see out there. Recently they've kind of to say it lightly been stepping in it and have been doing a lot of stuff that have been really anathema to the work that we do here in Multitude. The way that we conduct ourselves like on a personal level, but also in society which is a big deal and a something that we need to do more than ever just the way the 2020 has been shaking out. To this this point Wizards the Coasts been doing a lot of things have really been bothering me personally, and I just wanted to quickly touch on a lot of this stuff, and like all this stuff has happened since the beginning of June, you saw that a lot of places were making statements when the George Floyd protests were beginning to demonstrate their support of Black Lives Matter. But a lot of places a lot of companies didn't mention black people at all, didn't mention the protests, and Wizards of the Coast was one of them. The protest happened that weekend, and they didn't make a statement until June 1st that was that Wednesday, nowhere in there where black people mentioned, the company talks about donating to black centric charities, but doesn't say how much, or why, and doesn't talk about police brutality, or George Floyd at all. Two weeks later they talked about steps they were going to make for diversity in Dungeons & Dragons. One of which is like the fantasy racism that we always talk about how like orcs and drow just because they're dark-skinned encoded like that in fantasy they're automatically bad, they were said they were going to take steps to doing that it felt like a lot of too little too late sort of things. And then some other stuff started piling on for example in the DM’s Guild, which is kind of like a marketplace that they run where people who aren't working for Wizards of the coast can sell stuff, they removed an adventure called Curse of Hearts which was kind of like sexually explicit but had monsters then were like definitely obviously queer coded, and Wizards of the Coast removed it. Just saying that like because of the sexuality of that, but of course there's a lot of stuff in Dungeons & Dragons in general that are also sexual but are heterosexual coded who's like we you can see this harpy has like the curve of boobs, and shows skin. So it's like are they selectively putting out the things that they think are sexually explicit or not?

Amanda: But they also decided to do that and not remove obviously racist material that others were selling, and that they themselves still publish.

Eric: Right we just tied to another thing which is they have a lot of legacy content you can still buy online, one of which was Oriental Adventures, which was as you might have guessed some Asian pastiche stuff put together by white people, although there is now a statement that they added on it didn't really tell people that it was happening kind of like the “well this is from a different time, this doesn't reflect how we feel now” they're still selling it, and they're still gonna take your money from doing it, and then notedly Orion Black also known as Dungeon Commander who made the game Plot Armor which we played in between the two campaigns. Orion Black worked for them, and had an incredibly terrible experience as a black person being a part of Wizards of the Coast. We’ll link to their statement, but there was a lot of just like things that I wouldn't be able to— no one should be able to deal with during their working time there. And then Wizards of the Coast tweeted out an apology to them, and never reached out to them, which was a whole other thing and like super messy. So there's the way that the company Wizards of the Coast is running their their business, and how many missteps they've been doing since just in June— only six weeks ago has really been frustrating, and is not something that we try to do in our own game, in the way then we conduct ourselves. Wizards of the Coast is not Dungeons & Dragons, I don't think about Wizards of the Coast a lot when I run our own games, we don't use the modules, and like yeah we use the Monster Manual sometimes, and things are straight. But like a company does not run the game that we run, and I think it was important for us not to condone the things out there and not recommend, and continually plug the stuff that Wizards of the Coast makes. It was a really important issue to me and I know that we're still gonna play Dungeons & Dragons, because this is our game, we just started this story and we want to teach people how to play this game. But I don't feel like I can be a party to promoting Wizards of the Coast material on Join the Party, after all these things they've done. Because this isn't just one, it was important for me to lay all this out these are like five or six things in a row that were reprehensible, and I can't get my head around why this is happening.

Amanda: Yeah it's it's important to recognize that the the game is not just limited to like the canon, and to the publisher, and everybody listening here knows that games are made at the table, not in the publishing house. And so it's important to us to continue to take cues from the black, and brown, indigenous, POC players in the broader tabletop, and D&D community, because we are playing this game because we love and we believe in the community and we know that the community is holding each other to a higher standard than clearly the like guidance from the top. So you know companies put out statements cause they're afraid of what people will say if they don't, and putting out inadequate statements that don't actually say anything is not an answer. That's why it's important for us to address this and to as a broader D&D podcasting community continue to hold Wizards accountable for the work that they still need to do which is massive. And for anybody who wants to learn more and to get some kind of recommended follows of black people in the DND community who are doing great reporting and leadership on these issues, we have a list in the description of this afterparty, so please give them a follow, and go ahead and support with your money through patronage, and through purchases the art and the game design that these folks are doing.

Eric: And in the Asian community they really put themselves out and were exposed to a lot of the worst parts in the table top and DND community and we’re pointing to them as well.

Brandon: Yeah, go buy Plot Armor as an example. Eric did a one-shot of it. It was an amazing RPG.

Eric: Orion is so talented, and if you’re losing them, and treating them this poorly, then I don’t know what you’re doing. Like you obviously have all of your priorities fucked up.

Amanda: Well that is all for us in today’s afterparty. We look forward to bringing another one to you next month for the next two episodes of this campaign and please go ahead and click those links and follow those artists in the description. That is how we make the gaming community better, and more resilient which is through supporting with our dollars people’s who’s work we want to see continue.

Eric: Absolutely, and for sure, these next episodes I’m very excited for!

Julia: So stoked.

Amanda: We’ll see you then!

Brandon: Bye guys!

Julia: Later!

[Theme music]