Where did Multitool come from? How was playing D&D with Brennan Lee Mulligan? And what would you get good at if you have a time loop? All that 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 (Aggie O’Hare), Co-Producer: Amanda McLoughlin
- Co-Host (Val Vesuvio), Co-Producer, Editor: Julia Schifini
- 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
Afterparty: Join the Loop V & VI – Transcription
Amanda: Hey, hi hello and welcome to the Afterparty where all of us are still the people you know and love us to be.
Julia: Mmhmm. [Brandon laughs] Nothing’s changed.
Eric: That feels rude, that feels rude after the last episode and the amount-- and the amount of “whatthefucks” that I got.
Amanda: I thought it changed, but it's still me, I’m still amanda. Multitool is new, but I, Amanda, am Amanda.
Eric: Oh yeah, Amanda has always worn 80s style windbreakers and has a mohawk, obviously.
Amanda: No!
Julia: I like that look.
Brandon: That’d be a dope look.
Julia: I’ve always liked that look, Amanda.
Amanda: Thank you!
Julia: I think we should just go ahead and get that elephant out of the room.
Amanda: Yeah, we’re going to go ahead and put spoiley corner in the front over here, so don’t worry everybody. The things that we are going to cover in the next couple of episodes, and if you have questions, the next afterparty-- stuff like the class and subclass of Multitool, how Aggie changed, is it permanent, who remembers what, how does this touch the story of what’s been told already, timelines, preserver, Sushi, if Teagan is dating Aggie and/or Multitool-- all the things that you guys have asked in spoiley corner, we are definitely going to cover. So don’t worry, we’re going to get there.
Eric: Absolutely, I think it’s really important for you to tell everyone what Pizza’s dog breed is again, and if Pizza and Sushi would hang out.
Amanda: Pizza is like a terrier mix, with, like a wiry coat kinda like Wishbone, with sorta ah, like a mix of lots of different kinds of colors, a cute, ah, a cute rescue.
Julia: Like a Jack-Russel mix?
Amanda: Yeah, exactly.
Julia: Cool.
Eric: Alright well that was the Afterparty, ah, checkout (Amanda and Julia laughs), check out all of our stuff on social media, we’d really appreciate it. Next episode’s coming out in a week. Bye, guys! (Eric laughs)
Amanda: But, lots of people would like to know what happened (Eric laughs), how-- Eric, what were your plans going into this, how you and I, talking about what was going to happen, and Brandon and Julia, what-- what was a surprise to you and when you learned it? So, Eric, how about let's start with going into structuring this encounter. What was the kind of situation with the sea of time? And we’ll get into inspiration, like cool questions like stuff like that. But like, if we got splashed, how did you know what would happen?
Eric: Sure. Here are the mechanics, I just have the notes here. So obviously, on initiative one, you battle against the Seas of Time, that was the group with Bluecheck to steer you back to your original timeline. That was the collective DC of wisdom 55 which was changed, uh, there. Then the Time Shark--
Amanda: (Sings) Time shark,
Amanda and Eric: (Sings) Time Shark. Tt's a defender of the time deep
Eric: Uh, I also love that everyone loves the Time Shark, that makes me feel really good about myself. And the Time Shark blesses you. You're gonna get somewhere five minutes early and that's because of the Time Shark.
Amanda: Is it though? Because the time shark’s dead now.
Eric: Is it dead though?
Brandon: In that timeline.
Eric: Can you really kill-- Can you really-- the time shark has like MMO resurrection.
Amanda: Oh, okay, good.
Eric: So, you have to wait like five minutes and it has like a 10% penalty, but it-- slowly over time, it works its way back and the time shark continues to defend time.
Amanda: I was super worried that we had, like, killed the concept of time, but then there were more immediate things for me to worry about after the fight, so.
(Brandon Laughs)
Eric: You guys definitely pissed off the concept of time.
[Amanda Laughs]
Eric: Which is part of the reason why what happened to Aggie happened to Aggie, but we'll get-- I'll get to that in a second. Um, the Time Shark has advantage on initiative and is never surprised. Also, if you had gotten ahead of the Time Shark in the initiative order, he would have had advantage on all attacks against that creature.
Julia: Oh, that’s neat and terrifying.
Amanda: Wow…
Eric: It was really like-- this probably won't happen, but if you happen to fuck with the Time Shark, the Time shark will fuck with you. Because it has advantage in it already, and it already has plus two to decks. So, it's entirely possible that it would get ahead of you, but that-- that didn't happen, maybe they would-- that's why that was the first thing that happened and got like a-- Aggie got a 20 and the time shark got like a 23. And then on-- Initiative Count 10 was kind of like the trap. You know, you can put stuff in your initiative where something cues like that. And that was the Waves of Time. Basically you just need to hold yourself fast, strength checks, DC-12, you get splashed. Uh, and then something changes in your backstory like what happened to Brandon, when-- uh, where Thornhill became Taffy now. What happened to Aggie the first time-- changing the name of the sister. And what happened to John Paul, why John Paul is super into Beanie Babies.
Julia: I feel like people miss that one, which I really appreciate it.
Eric: Thank you, I was really-- I was really happy with that. Um, and then if the lower DC-- I had written it as DC-6, but then it went higher when the concept of time was pissed at you for killing the Time Shark, then you are hit overboard and then that's when Aggie did the decks check where you kind of like ran--your body was running in the actual seas of time. So, that's mechanically what happened.
Amanda: Did you have a scale of how serious the changes would be?
Eric: I-- in my head there were three. It was one, splash and then two was overboard, but put yourself in quickly or getting splashed multiple times, and then three if you were totally overboard with your whole body submerged-- that would have been a real Achilles situation.
[Julia laughs]
Amanda: Oh my.
Brandon: What would have happened if we did that, do you think? Like what, what's an example?
Eric: Well, let's get to the actual question of what, of what I'm saying. I asked y'all questions that I thought were interesting. So that's why I was like, okay, if Aggie gets splashed, I'm like--I was like, oh, let's change the name of your sibling. I didn't have any of them written out. That was very much on the fly. And it was tailored to each one of you. Brandon, I almost asked you to change the name of someone else. But I wanted to change it, I wanted you to do something different and something that affected, like, the world at large, which is why I thought Thornhill was so funny. Now there's like a different coffee shop, but Thornhill is now so much more-- like Laketown City is now so much more like Atlantic City.
Julia: Nooo
Eric: Like a bustling candy taffy place.
Brandon: What's the, what's the coffee shop that was next door that was owned by the witch person?
Julia: the Java witch?
Eric: The Java witch-- Contra Java--
Brandon: Contra Java! Yeah, that’s where I get my coffee at.
Julia: Yeah, Contra Java’s the big brand. Oh boy.
Eric: Yeah. Now-- now there's no-- there's no Starbucks there anymore. Now it's kind of just like, ah, like lots of very small coffee places, which I found so funny. There’s probably a Dunkin’ now in Laketown City, which there wasn't one before.
Amanda: Tim Hortons?
Eric: Yeah! Oh, no, there's a Tim Hortons now, Tim Hortons is definitely there, yes. We've talked-- We've had this conversation. That's why Timbley Tombley’s came out in the first place.
Amanda: Yes, yes.
Eric: That's right. There's a Tim Hortons. Tim Hortons is now the coffee chain in Laketown city. So yeah, I asked you, you all that on the fly. And I changed-- I wanted to change something that was integral to you as a person. I think that's also why I asked that of Brandon, was that Thornhill, obviously, is important to Milo. So that's why I asked you that. And that's why I changed the thing that John Paul was addicted to.
Amanda: Let's play out what happened. So, what you heard on-- in the episode was exactly what happened. And then, when Brandon's music started intensifying, after we all woke up in our beds, and it was May 2nd, we ended that session. And, Eric was like, great. I'm gonna talk to Matt about what happens. Brandon and Julia, what was running through your mind? What were you thinking when that session break happened? Cuz I know what we did. But I don't know what you did.
Julia: I don't know. I was just concerned for you as a person.
Amanda: Yeah [Amanda laughs].
Julia: I wasn't sure if you're going to like, have to reroll your character entirely, or if you were going to like-- I don't know, I thought like Aggie was going to be a completely different person, which we can talk about whether or not that is true or not, I still think like Aggie is still Aggie, but under different circumstances. But, I was worried that Aggie was going to be just like-- I don't even know. I don't even know.
Brandon: Yeah, in contrast, I was just sheer panic.
[Everyone laughs]
Brandon: No, I had no idea it was gonna happen. Like, I knew it was gonna be
something big. Otherwise, Eric would have done it in the moment. So, I didn't know if that meant like-- yeah, a change, a full change of character. I don't know, man, if you would be okay with that kind of thing.
Julia: Yeah,you know what my biggest concern was? I was concerned Aggie wasn't going to be powered anymore.
Amanda: Oh, yeah.
Brandon: Wow.
Amanda: Interesting. That's actually a really good segway, Julia, because that's-- that is exactly what happened. So, we turned off the recording. Normally, we like, you know, take a break, go to the bathroom, get some water, you know, turn off the computer. And instead, Eric and I sat in the studio for like, 15 minutes. Saying— and, as I recall, you said something big has to change about Aggie, what do you think?
Eric: It wasn't even that it was necessarily big, it was like something essential needs to change about Aggie. And it—and it was about the cascading effect of what that means and how it changes your character going from there, it can't be something superficial, like a name. I know, what's in the name, but you know, that changes on a small scale. So, I was like, okay, what about Aggie is different? And how would that precipitate and change in so many things going forward? And I think the first thing that you said was about how Aggie looks at helping others.
Amanda: Yeah. My— my first thought was, what if it was straight? And then I was like, no, that's, I don't want that.
(Everyone laughs)
Amanda: Secondly, what if Aggie was last in the birth order, which I think also would have been interesting.
Julia: Ooooo
Eric: Oh yeah, that would've been fun, yeah.
Amanda: But, I think, mess with the timeline a bit as well. But then the thing that I think we settled on together, Eric, was like, if she had a different power, I think things would shake out very differently, where like, the power that she has, being among healing people and just having like monk-physical abilities plus and healing means that, you know, she's very responsible for everybody around her. But if her power was something more conspicuous, like say, limbs stretching very far,
[Eric laughs]
Amanda: Which is a thing that you can't hide if it's in use, it's the thing that you can't really use on the sly very much. You can sort of like dive for the vase that's falling off the mantelpiece, like, one time with your arm stretching slightly before someone notices.
Eric: Sure.
[Brandon laughs]
Amanda: That, you know, that wouldn't mean that Aggie could be as kind of integrated in daily life in her community as she is. And so, my thinking was, you know, growing up with a power like that, you have to use it in different ways. You, you know, can't just sort of kill people, and they don't really notice. What would change about her profession, about the way she relates to her family, and ultimately about her life now? So that was sort of the essential thing that changed. Where it’s still Aggie, you know, and we'll talk all about kind of how those things play out. But, that was kind of the, the kernel that we settled on.
Eric: Yeah, it was a lot of me pulling it together as many sub classes as possible. And I'm like, hey, do you want to shoot sun bolts? Do you want to, well, lurk in the shadows? Do you want to be like roguish again? And try to figure out all that stuff. And then, I think at one point, I was like, oh, man, what if you were stretchy? Like, what if? Would that be fun for you to be stretchy? And then we pulled out no capes again.
Amanda: Yeah, I really did. And like, emotionally, I have to say that my, I certainly felt trepidation when I failed that check. And, I think-- Julia, as you said—it was like, the most terrible thing in the world is when your GM is like, I'll get back to you. And you're like, No, no, come back to me. But ultimately, I was really excited. I didn't come into the session, like thinking that I would change anything about Aggie, I love her. And, I was very, I don't know, I—I feel sort of confident of my mechanics and what Aggie was doing and getting into, you know, exciting things as we continue to level up. But, then I was like, you know, fuck yeah, dude, like, let me let me throw into a whole new kind of set of powers. And also, I feel like I know her well enough by now that doing that sort of comic book, alternate timeline thing of seeing how mostly the same person with kind of one fundamental thing different would play out is exciting to me, because I'm like, I know who she is. And I know what, you know, is important to her. And what is just like this different flavor of Aggie that's kind of how I view it.
Brandon: That is interesting also, because that affects the team composition, because now Milo is the healer. (laughs)
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: Which means—
Amanda: With your ghost heals.
Brandon: Yeah. Which means like, I think fundamentally how Milo has been already, always been approaching the team as different. So.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Oh, yeah. You've been doing a ton of magic damage now. And I feel like you got to hold at least some—some heals back, huh. I was thinking about this before. But I think the composition of the team makes a little more sense from a superhero perspective, as opposed to a d&d perspective, which, the fantasy idea that there is a cleric walking around, who's going to be able to, with your God powers, make your wounds go away. But like, I think it's superhero-dom, the fact that there is ghost powers, and that it has to go through the ghost world or through a druid lens makes so much more sense because there isn't like a-- there's not a cleric walking around, necessarily. And if there’s the idea that like, ah, there's like a, like a ghostly healer or a time healer—it feels, like, very much more X-Men to me. Or like, a science healer feels so much more X-Men to me.
Brandon: But do you want to get healed by the heals of death?
Julia: No, not particularly--
Brandon: Not particularly, but like, you gotta. I mean, that's so much different than our world. Like, it's so hard to heal—human bodies are incredible, but they still take a very long time to heal. And, the fact that you can reverse any of that I'm like, yeah, I'll do it. I guess it's gonna be really cold and the, the icy hand of death is going to caress my face as it happens.
Amanda: But to return to the process, Eric and I kind of talks about that, sort of changing the power that same day and then over the next couple of days, just thought more about narrowing down different, like, class options or sub class options, before settling on the way of the stretch from no capes, which I'm very, very stoked about. And, The Incredibles is a constant inspiration to me, as a person. But then, we sat down to play the next game, and I think it was like two weeks.
Eric: It was two weeks, yeah.
Amanda: So, then again, in that episode, when you hear that music start intensifying, and then Eric describes what Aggie does that morning. That was the beginning of Episode 33. And so, we sat down, we played it out-- Brandon and Julia were fantastic, active listeners giving their reactions as you heard, and I felt gleeful being able to surprise people and feel that, you know, that little GM glow that you get when you make your players completely gobsmacked. But yeah, I'll turn it over here. And, Julia and Brandon, you know, what were your, I don’t know, thoughts, reactions? What are you looking forward to doing next?
Julia: You're gonna hear it in the next episode, but we had a lot of questions after you made that reveal. So, I know the audience is probably going to have similar questions to what Brandon and I asked. And, I imagine that it's also going to be in the next episode, so I'm excited for that and for people to get a little bit more of a peek behind the curtain so to speak.
Eric: Julia, we have a phrase for this. It's called, “Who can say?”
Julia: Who can say!
Eric: You can say, who can say.
Julia: I can say “who can say” because I asked those questions. And then, Amanda said—
[Everyone laughs]
Julia: —and then, I'm actually really curious, did you consider a separate class when you were thinking about what to do with Aggie, or were you pretty set on staying a monk?
Amanda: I like monks a lot, but I was definitely open to the idea. I hadn't thought about you know, even taking another level in something in leveling up so far. So, it hasn't really been on my mind, like God, I wish Aggie was this or that. But really, for me, kind of making that decision from a story perspective was the most interesting. And so, the idea of having like, a different, like a more conspicuous power, but otherwise being a very similar person, was what I wanted to kind of search for. And, we will talk about it as well, but having just played a game of SLaM, I was just reading through “No Capes”, and I just, I love those sub-classes so, so much, and I love that we all get to play them in SLaM. So, I was like, what if, what if I could do this every day? And so, that's when the Way of the Stretch felt very good to me. Also, I gotta tell you, I really pictured Aggie doing a sort of like human slingshot maneuver with Val. And that is kind of what, what sold it for me.
Julia: I love that. Thank you for that.
Amanda: Yep.
Brandon: I do have a single question, and it is, why do you hate sushi? And why did you decide to kill them?
Julia: How dare you
[Eric Laughs]
Amanda: Oh, well, that is a good point. And thinking about kind of how to talk about these changes, what to reveal, because we don't want to just say to you, the audience, like Aggie is dead, that there is another superhero here like that—that sucks. So, I wanted to kind of give enough detail that, you know, Eric and I are like leaving you with, like, fascinating morsels and, like, stuff to think about and get excited about versus, you know, being very worried. So, we kind of went back and forth about you know—we had like a T-chart of like, what—what to say—
Eric: We literally had a t-chart of things to say in this episode, of things to say in the next episode.
Brandon: Y’all are such big nerds and I love it.
Julia: Such Nerds.
(Amanda Laughs)
Amanda: We use the whiteboard. It was very fun. So yes, that was just one of the one of the changes where— and again and you'll see a little bit more about Aggie’s new life, but being a cat owner doesn't really suit her job. So, that's why Pizza the dog is a much better fit.
Eric: (singing) Pizza, the dog
Julia: (also singing) pizza the dog.
Eric: I love pizza the dog.
Amanda: And to answer—I think somebody in Discord was like, “Is it just Sushi’s spirit in a dog?” I think that's totally true.
Brandon: I'm excited for Tuna and Pizza to have highjinks, though. That's gonna be fun.
Julia: Incredible.
Amanda: (singing) Tuna and pizza having a blast!
Eric: Yeah, I'm just gonna do a solo, like, two hours, of being like, like “The Adventures of Tuna and Pizza.”
Brandon: It would be like Homeward Bound.
Eric: 100%
Julia: Adorable.
Eric: I think that the fun part about tabletop RPGs is that as a GM, you say, “I have a prompt for you,” and you let the player do it. So, the only thing that I did was, “you should change a fundamental thing of Aggie, and then let's figure out what that is.” And, we came to understand that as changing the subclass, but I didn't make those decisions. I didn't put that on Amanda. I didn't tell Amanda that you had to change your class, that that was mandatory. It was just like, this is what the Seas of Time do, like the—this—what is the—the water, the terrible water in Hades?
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: In the—remember in Hercules, where Hercules goes in the water and all the souls around there? It's kind of like that. That's what I was imagining the Seas of Time. Like, this is what happened. Tell me how Aggie changes. Which is exactly, functionally, how I would have, had I asked all of you questions, sorry that Val was inside of a shark the whole time.
[Amanda laughs]
Julia: I also had advantage on strength check, so I probably wouldn't have failed.
Eric: But they would probably—because you were inside of a shark though. I don't think it was the other thing.
[Brandon laughs]
Julia: I took acid damage instead. That was just as painful.
Eric: Yeah, exactly. So, it was the same thing. It was like setting up a prompt and then Amanda filled it in.
Amanda: Yeah, it's something I really love about this campaign, the way we've all approached it together from the world building episodes is, you know, let's see that the world needs something, or there's a prompt, or there's something I need to fill in. And, you know, what, what do we think should happen? And I—yeah, I definitely would have been pissed if you were like, well, now Aggie is a druid, and I’m just like “what??”
Eric: Yeah, Aggie is a ranger now, fuck you.
Amanda: But instead, you know, I, I got to participate in changing the story in a way that's, like, exciting and meaningful, instead of just like a bomb that was dropped, you know, like on my character sheet. And, yeah, it's very similar to me-- as me saying to you, “Hey, I think my brother is like a very famous painter and like, there's something about you know, like emotions or like truth that he puts into his paintings, run with that.”
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: And, getting to be both surprised, but also having had, you know, a little kernel of inspiration in like stuff that happens in the game and in the podcast.
Eric: Absolutely. It's—it's a two-way street. Then, you give prompts to your players and your players say “What if this happens?” And then you have to backfill the—the game mechanics.
Brandon: Coincidentally, the Sea of Ghost Hands and Hades is what is inside of Milo.
Julia: Oh?
Brandon: That's just all what it looks like up in there.
Eric: I mean, we've literally said that that's true from when Salamoney, he got grabbed by all those hands.
Brandon: Exactly. [Brandon laughs]
Eric: Which is still one of my favorite moments of the whole podcast being like, “Jesus Christ, Mary, and Joseph!”
[Brandon laughs]
Amanda: Well done, you really channeled an Irish grandfather, there.
Eric: An Irish grandfather and Italian street tough, very similar.
Julia: Okay [Julia laughs].
Eric: Two sides of the same coin.
Amanda: PaulaSpelunker in Discord asks Brandon and Julia, if you were to hypothetically be in a situation that I was in what aspects of your character would you change? Are there like classes or subclasses that appeal to you for alternate Val or Milo?
Julia: I have been thinking about this all day.
Amanda: Excellent.
Julia: So, I’m of two minds when it comes to Val, in the, what fundamentally would I change about Val to like—if they had fallen into the waters of time. One, I think, is like the easy solution, which is Val does not have the fundamental opposition that they have to joining the Mob. And so, I think in that one, I would change to a path of the Zealot barbarian—
Eric: Oh yeah.
Julia: Something like that because I think—
Amanda: Interesting.
Julia: —this idea of, like, someone motivated into rage by purpose would be more up Val's alley. So, that—that's the one option that I have in my head. The other one is just to go like, fully different Val, where Val gets, like, really into the music-punk-rock-metal scene in Little Italy.
Amanda: Oh, hell yeah, dude.
Julia: And, if Eric would allow me to play a bard, maybe I would go that way, who knows.
[Eric and Amanda laugh]
Julia: Or maybe I'd go somewhere like, like heavy metal guitar, but channeling something, like, Storm Harold Barbarian through that.
Eric: I really like that because I wonder, for then—if we're focusing back on Aunt Min asking Val to join the mob, then like, then it's like we are retconning, that choice, or we're splitting it into and now it's like, well, if I wonder if Val had joined the mob if their powers would have changed because of who they were.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: That's so funny, because what we did with Aggie is like, we talked about something that happened when they were—when Aggie was a child. But now we're going to talk about something that we've literally seen from Val, and we would have had to do a lot of parallel universe time splitting and redoing a few-- probably redoing a few scenes, like “previously on—on Joining the Party,” and, like, redoing a bunch of some of the interactions that's happened.
Julia: Yeah, I see it as either a split timeline, in that sense, where Aunt Mid asks, and Val says yes, but I could also see it as a—like, Val was raised by their father instead.
Eric: Sure
Amanda: Yeah
Julia: And so has always been kind of in the—the mob stuff—
Eric: Oh, man
Julia: —instead of making that decision later in life.
Eric: Oh man. That's all-- that's wild, because then maybe we-- that, like, that whole thing then…
Amanda: Maybe Min would have tried to like, tempt you into her own thing.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah, then it would have been—
Amanda: Or, your mom would have tried to pull you out, maybe, or towards something else.
Eric: Yeah. Oh, man, that would have been wild. That's like such a wild thought experiment.
Amanda: Brandon, how about you? How about Milo?
Brandon: That’s a good question, I haven't really thought about this much. Um, but, I think just looking back at the no capes—I think it might have been fun to do like a couple different things. One, I think just, it'd be funny to put Milo in the Mission Control subclass just ‘cause he would be hilarious as a hacker.
[Amanda and Julia laugh]
Julia: Big Nerd.
Brandon: Yeah
Julia: Big vibe.
Brandon: But I think what would have been most interesting for the character is to like, probably take Julia's actual class, the pro hero fighter and like, make Milo actually a, like, a Nathan Fillian type person, like an actually famous sci-fi actor or something—
Amanda: Oooo
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: —and do something in that vein, but I don't know.
Eric: Yeah, I'm wondering—I feel like that would have been a full ass submerge, being like, let's— we're rerolling Milo like Milo doesn't exist. This is a totally different person. Yeah, that would have been wild. It's entirely possible though, because you need to do strength checks. So, the fact that that didn't happen was really interesting. Also, the fact that you guys killed the Time Shark first and angered the essence of time also made that last check much harder. So, I think that was, that was also something dictated by play, which I found—I found really—I found really interesting.
Amanda: (singing) Time shark
Eric: (singing) Time Shark. Don't kill this person's pet.
Amanda: Well, Ev on Instagram, and I think also Brandon asked what would have happened if we fell in the Whirlpool like, what was the deal, and what were the consequences?
Eric: Hey, great question, man.
Julia: We roll new characters, ‘cause we’re all dead now.
Eric: Great fucking question. I honestly was not sure if this would happen. I definitely wanted to make it inevitable. Oh Man, it would have—I would have had to take a second. I knew that something needed to happen but that was like an, oh no. Like, man if the time—that would have been if the Time Shark had swallowed you and then swam away, or if you had fully fallen off the boat and would not have been able to be grabbed. I think either you would have been gone. You would have been totally dead. You would have to just reroll a whole character. Maybe we would have brought them back later.
Julia: Erased from the timeline would have been fun.
Eric: Yeah, maybe you were just totally erased from the timeline. I had a lot of ideas, but I— that was like that—was like on the edge of the bell curve of that happening, and we would have had to see what would happen if it happened.
Amanda: Well, tell us a little more about how you sort of conceptualized this whole setting. Where did the time ocean, the shark, and the Whirlpool come from?
Eric: Yeah. So I think that I wasn't sure how you were going to resolve the time loop thing. So, there are two choices, right? either stop hitting the button on the ED-64, and let it ride. Or, you get stuck in the time loop, and then you got to find your way out. And, then I always had GeeDay, Dez’s dad, open as a time person who was going to be able to help you.
Amanda and Julia: Time consultant!
Eric: Time consultant, yeah. Luckily, here's the other thing-- in that fight with the Emperor on the train, I had a one D-10 chance. I rolled in one D-10, and I think I had like a 20% chance of you guys running into GeeDay. That was like a tease that you only got through chance as well, that GeeDay was fucking around in, in that area, to Val. So, Val knew that there was a time person knocking around and then you put that together, it was Dez’s dad. That's how it all kind of fit together. It was always there, but I definitely wanted you to have to... I didn't-- I don't love the Groundhog's Day way of getting out of time, which is, make Andy McDowell fall in love with you. Like I need to be a better person!
Julia: It’s find true purpose in your life, but yeah
Eric: I saw—ahhh… It’s make Andy McDowell fall in love with you. And I kind of like something closer to what happened in Palm Springs-- spoiler for Palm Springs, go forward 15 seconds. But it's like there's a scientific solution, or there's actual tangible way to get out of time loop. Okay, you can come back now. So, I wanted there to be some actual way through science-- because, you know, science is the way that we processed a lot of things on this campaign-- for us to figure it out. And then, I had-- when I knew you're going to go see GeeDay, I was like-- and you, you all had been talking about the cartridge in the N-64, too. Then I was like, Oh, that's such a good idea. And I thought that he had to, like, go find a CR-TV—an old ass TV—plug the N-64 in, and make it all happen. And, when I was preparing for that episode, I was like, Alright, I wonder how they're getting out. I love ships. I think ships are really fucking interesting. And how unforgiving The sea is and how you're like on wood floating in the water. So—
[Brandon laughs]
Amanda: We—we do own five copies of Moby Dick, in case anyone's wondering.
Eric: So, I, [Eric laughs] I thought that was really interesting. Also, I've been watching a lot of One Piece lately, and I thought that that would work out really well, as well. The precariousness of the sea. And, also someone had noted that, the Wine Dark Sea, I was—I was also thinking about the Classical—capital C, Classical—ideas of ship voyaging, and how dangerous it is, how there's spooky shit happening in there. The thing that I was most proud of, and I was thinking about this was that I really undersold the waves.
Amanda: Yeah, you super did.
Eric: When I was listening back to it, I was like, wow, I really just like, “Ahh! There's water! Don't fall off.” And, you all saved the first time. So, I was really happy. I was like, oh, okay, whatever. And then the first time when Aggie got splashed. I'm like, “Hey, Aggie, change the name of a sibling.” And I wanted you to be—it's like, do you latch yourself to the fucking mast so you don't change your life? And none of you did. So, that was kind of why John Paul, Milo, Aggie, deux was vulnerable. And, I thought that was really interesting.
Amanda: So, hang on, if I hadn't broken the N-64, how were you going to end the arc?
Eric: So, the other thing, as I said on a previous Afterparty, was you could have stolen the N-64 from John Paul and never gave it back and like locked it up or tried to take it away. That was one possibility I had in my head. The other one was you would let John Paul play it out, and then fuck ‘em up. Which is why I planned the car shower, encounter—
Julia: The Hummer.
Eric: —with the, with the Hummer, where you could have done that. So, I was very open to whatever you wanted to do with this. You could have let it go over to May 2, and then make sure the N-64 had never been touched ever again. We also didn't touch on whether the N-64 would have been able to deal with that much time passed. N-64, as we now figured out, this is Gutenberg fucking fetishization of 90s and 80s technology—it's still an N-64, this is a very old piece of technology. So, we never even touched whether or not the N-64 was a good piece of time-tech. And the fact that you were able to split it in half—it's very resilient, but you, you fucking spiked it across the Circuit City parking lot—it’s gonna break like, it's definitely—it's not like a Tesseract. This isn't a magical item. It's something that someone hacked together. So, there was a lot of-- all of it was up in the air and the best part about doing this podcast is that I get to go session to session and figure it out depending on, depending on play.
Brandon: Was Time Crisis actually playable on N-64?
Eric: Probably not.
Brandon: Oh, okay.
Amanda: It’s fine, yeah.
Eric: I just had a joke. I just had a joke. I want to say “Probably not, but I didn't check it.” Time Crisis Two—I love Time Crisis Two, but I've only played it on arcades.
Julia: Arcade and PlayStation.
Brandon: PlayStation?
Julia: PlayStation One, two and three. And also iOS, you can play it on your phone.
Eric: It's not-- I don't like the idea of inserting like a fire wire into your phone, which gives you the light gun, and you're shooting at your phone.
Amanda: Well here, why don't you guys download that app, and take a look and see what it's like, while I go grab some snacks in the kitchen.
Brandon: Thanks!
Julia: Cheez-its?
Amanda: Be right back.
[transition noise]
Amanda: Hey, it's Amanda. I find it very soothing to do, like, meal prep and cooking big batches of things in advance so that in-- future me, you know, even when she does not feel like cooking, has something to eat. And, I recently had the wonderful experience of looking in the fridge and thinking that I had finished all of the delicious beef stew that I made and realizing that there was one more pint of stew hiding in the back of the fridge. So, welcome to the Midroll. You made more cups than you thought you did.
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[transition music]
Amanda: Okay, I'm back. And, Cheez-its are not gluten-free, but these ones I found in a dream are.
[laughs]
Amanda: It’s a reference to spirits. Wow.
Eric: This time—this time crisis is actually free to play, and I can only play the first minute of the first level so we're actually not going to fuck with that.
Julia: Booo
Amanda: Damn. Well, a lot of other stuff happened in the Join the Party Extended Universe over the last few weeks. So, guys let's touch a little bit on Join the Loop 5, in Episode 31. Those family conversations, and then we can close out with SLaM.
Eric: Yeah, I want to have a conversation with all you three as both people and characters, about using the time loop to have hard conversations with your family. And, then making them not stick.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Because, that was that was fucking Val with their father, Milo with—with his dad, and then Aggie-- the entire family.
Amanda: My mouth text.
Eric: Yeah, right your mouth text.
[Eric laughs]
Brandon: I don't see any issues with this, Eric, I don't know what you're getting at.
Eric: I just want to know—I—listen, I know I'm being a little silly, and I'm pointing out something that might be a touch obvious, but like, a big part of the theme of this campaign was people in their late 20s/early 30s struggling against things that their parents and older society was not ready to help them with. And I think this is definitely something going forward. I think it's very interesting that we get to use the Time Loop genre to engage with some of that stuff. So, I'd love to know about, like, the choices and if you felt good about what they ended up with. Julia, ah, Julia and Val talking to their dad and—their, their dad and their mom. I forgot about that. And then, all the other stuff I said.
Julia: Yeah, I think for Val, the conversation with their dad was more—in their mind, supposed to be like getting information and trying to figure out what was up.
Eric: Sure.
Julia: The conversation that they had with their mom, I think was a lot more personal. And, I—if Val had to do it again, I think they would make that conversation stick. But, the one with their dad, I think, hurt too much to re-live, and also, didn't give them as much information as they were hoping, so they kind of just...wooooo, zoomed right past that.
Eric: Sure. Sorry that I did that to you.
Julia: No, that's okay. I wanted it.
Eric: And by “sorry”, I mean I'm not that sorry.
Julia: Yeah
Eric: I'm only a little sorry about it.
Amanda: Brandon, how about your ruse? And ensuing honest conversation?
Eric: Oh my God, and the fact that you roll below a DC-5. Holy Shit.
Brandon: That was so funny.
Julia: Incredible. A true Brandon roll.
Brandon: It makes sense, though. I don't think Miles’ dad would be this gullible.
Eric: He isn't. But, at least, but I feel like the DC was lowered so much, because you were like, “Yeah, my son has ghost powers, I gotta meet him where he's at.”
Brandon: No, I think Milo is just like—I don't think he had any, like, you know, grand conspiratorial plans or anything, to like have any information that his dad didn’t know he had, he’s just like, he's just a young guy who like, doesn't know quite how to talk about these very high-level things. Like, when you are best friends with a scientist who created a new element and like, is your boss of your superhero team-- how do you handle that? And, you handle it by not handling it, because it's too difficult to handle. You know?
Eric: Does Dr. Morrow know that Dr. Morrow is Milo's best friend?
Brandon: Yes.
[Amanda and Julia laughs]
Amanda: Are you sure?
Brandon: They have, um. They have best—best friend bracelets.
Amanda: Is it a rubber band, that she forgot to take off?
Eric: I feel like I need a roll on that. [Eric laughs] I feel like I need to roll on that about whether or not that’s true.
Julia: I'm gonna roll a D-20 for you, Eric. Hold on. [rolls] All right, Google said it's a nine.
Eric: Yeah, um, [Eric laughs] Dr. Morrow has other best friends.
Brandon: Wow. Okay.
Julia: January exists. And so does Dez.
[Eric laughs]
Brandon: But yeah, so, I think Milo just took an opportunity that he saw in front of him, because he doesn't necessarily like to think, you know, multiple steps ahead with his family. As opposed to like, you know, his everyday life, where he does try to think ahead, but yeah. I don't think he was thinking too much about it, you know?
Amanda: Well, it was very interesting gameplay, which I appreciated.
Brandon: Well, thank you.
Eric: And then, Amanda, how did you feel about Aggie’s mouth test? And the fact that, that didn't—
Julia: I don't want to use that phrase anymore.
Amanda: Yeah, we used it twice and now it’s been laid to rest.
[Brandon laughs]
Amanda: I think that—I thought that that loop would stick. And, I hoped that it would. But, my main motivation was really like, I think sort of unlike what Val was doing, Aggie just needed to kind of summon up the courage to do it in the first place, and then doing it again, will be easier. Versus probably for Val, it would be more difficult to do that again. So, it was partly to try to sort of persuade John Paul to try a direct communication approach to solving his problems—
Eric: Sure.
Brandon: It worked so well.
Amanda: —as a way of ending the loop. That did not work particularly well. But yeah, I think that just getting the words out for the first time is the hardest part for Aggie in this instance. So, doing it again, going forward would not have been a problem. But now, probably she won't have to, because Aggie’s relationship to her family is a little different.
Eric: True.
Julia: Mmhmm. Avoided by changing your timeline—
Amanda: Haha! You too can avoid hard family conversations by changing your timeline.
[Brandon Laughs]
Eric: Listen, we wouldn't have known that John Paul needed this type of guidance, because letting him walk out and do what he wanted on his own time, I guess, was not the choice they ended up doing, was not the smartest choice. That happened in—in this episode—this episode.
Julia: Oh, Brandon. I was so mad at you in that moment. [ Julia Laughs]
Amanda: Yeah, it was—it was tough.
Brandon: I—okay, genuinely, I don't quite understand. Like, obviously I understand in terms of gameplay. But like, he's an adult, what do—what—what was Milo supposed to do? Like detain him?
Julia: No tell us that he was leaving, and then yes, we would have detained him.
Brandon: But, no, like, I don't think Milo would have gone along with that.
Julia: This is a person who is causing criminal mischief. And, perhaps more than that, is fucking with the timeline, is—is literally like messing with nature and the flow of time itself. So like, letting him just go do a thing seems wild to me. Just letting him, like, go off and be like, “Oh, yeah, I promise I won't do anything.” Even though multiple loops, he has been trying to-- this is a guy who planted a bomb. In a bridge.
Eric: He did plant a bomb.
Julia: He killed a lot of people.
Amanda: It really, it took a lot of effort to get him to stay with us, you know, and like to come willingly with us into maybe try to like, you know, face this thing together. So, that to me-- it felt like a kind of one-time only scenario, which is why Aggie was like, ”Huh,” because we managed to accomplish it.
Brandon: You know, I mean, I understand like the—the—the desire for the other two characters to want to, like at least have an opportunity to persuade him to stay. But like, yeah, I don't think—I mean, like all three of our characters have sort of like ah, erased from their brains the fact that Dr. Morrow does something with the bad guys, you know. So, I don't know. Like I don't—yeah, I don't know if a prison scenario would have been ah—win the move.
Julia: Sure. I don't think I wanted to imprison him, so much as I wanted to keep an eye on him and not just let him wander around unsupervised.
Amanda: Yeah, to like have a conversation before he left. I think that was really it.
Brandon: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Eric: Everyone, also-- you've all made John Paul yours-- to say unsupervised, you all may check yourselves John Paul's supervisors.
Amanda: Yeah
Eric: Like, he had to be watched for those-- for those, ah, particular episodes, because you had no idea what he was going to do. The thing is that he did do what he said he was gonna do, he just wanted to go home and, and pretend that he was the anti-hero that he was. So like, you know, you're both-- you are both right. He did plant a bomb. And, he did try to manipulate protests for his own personal gain. But he also is-- also just loves fucking Funko pops and Beanie— and now, Beanie Babies.
Brandon: Yeah, I think, I don't-- I don't think Milo actually thought of himself as a supervisor, as like-- as opposed to the other two. You know, like, I think Milo is very much-- because he's basically the same age and construction as my other friends, you know?
Eric: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Amanda: Makes sense.
Eric: John Paul is pretty fucking close to a dirt bag Lucas.
[Everyone Laughs]
Brandon: Yeah, exactly.
Eric: Yeah, 100%.
Brandon: I think Milo was just like—I do think Milo handled it well. I think he tried to talk him through it and was like, “Hey, here's the-- here's the situation, can you please not do this?” And, I think also Milo knew that like, one, he has his own free will and also, that he wasn't going to do anything that we hadn't, one, already encountered before or two, like he—he's very simple. He has very simple motivations, you know?
Julia: Yeah, my only issue was, even if he did do things that we had encountered before, I rolled really well in disarming and destroying that bomb and handling the bridge situation.
Brandon: That’s true.
Julia: I might not have done that a second time.
Eric: Extremely true.
Brandon: That’s true.
Eric: I—I want to emphasize how well Julia rolled—
Julia: I rolled really well!
Eric: —on dismantling and saving the bomb.
Julia: I don't know if you would have let me fast forward through that again, just ‘cause I had done it once.
Eric: Well, we also didn't touch on it, but by that point, the N-64 was broken. And, I can just say this now, everything would have reset at midnight, everything would have kept resetting at midnight. So, we didn't end up touching that, and you all didn't have that information. But, I—I knew that and I was like, I wonder what's gonna happen here. I wonder if you're gonna end up running around trying to get kind of John Paul back, because I also remember, I thought, once John Paul was gone, I didn't think you were going to go try to find him. I thought he was just going to be out roaming around, and you were all going to prep and then see what-- see what happened. But, the fact that you got him back meant that he went with you into the TV. So, that was also something I was unprepared for. And, we figured out during play.
Amanda: We have some fun game and character questions and then we'll get into SLaM. So, Aaron says on Insta--not really a question, but I'm pretending that, “I’m Aggie’s new sister.” Thank you, Aaron. Welcome the family. SapphoAndStars asked “Have Aggies parents and Val’s parents met?” Julia, I think they must have crossed paths at certain points. I don't think they're family friends or anything but certainly they're, you know of an age.
Julia: Definitely have met Rosa.
Brandon: I think all of our parents have probably run into each other at some point, right?
Julia: I don't necessarily think people have met or know Marco.
Amanda: Sure.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: But, definitely Val's mom is around and sells her ceramics and pottery at like farmer’s markets and stuff—
Amanda: Oh yeah
Julia: —in Laketown.
Amanda: Totally. Hakuna on Discord asks, “Was Level Up too upset about the breakup to notice January's a rabbit? He didn't react at all.”
[Everyone Laughs]
Eric: Yeah, he was just like, oh man-- Level Up, I think, by this point-- he was like, “Oh man, this might as well happen. Yeah, whatever.”
Amanda: Hapa Haoley asks, “What skill would you try to perfect if you were in a time loop?”
Brandon: Oh man, that's a—that's a great question.
Amanda: Mine would be like a series of crafts, like knitting, then crochet, then needlepoint, then like regular sewing.
Brandon: Ah, such a good question.
Amanda: I think Eric, you would definitely, like, become... very niche speed runner in various videogames.
Eric: Yeah, that'd be fun. I feel like I would get really—I would get really good at the stuff that I'm already doing. Because, I feel like I'm just running out of time to do as much shit as I want to. It's like working on, like, specific, like, creative skills. This is the thing that always makes me want to get like an MFA, is like, oh yeah, I can get like an MFA, in like game design and get really good at that. And like, sharpen my tools, but like, yeah, then I'll be like, 36 in debt. So, I can't do that. So like, working on that. And just getting like a block of time to figure that shit out would be great.
Amanda: I think, both Julia and Brandon, I could see you both like cooking through an entire cookbook, Julie and Julia style.
Julia: Yeah, I could do that.
Brandon: I just do that in my normal life, so…
Amanda: That's fair. That's fair.
Julia: I think I'd want to learn, like, an instrument. Like, I've always wanted to learn bass. That'd be fun.
Brandon: Yeah, that's true.
Eric: What I love about all these things, is that when we come out of the time loop, we're gonna be like, “When did you learn how to play bass?” And it’s like, “Oh, I've always knew how to play bass, blah blah blah blah blah, forever, or whatever.”
Brandon: I think, I would... Jesus, I guess I'm the most greedy out of all, so I guess I would really learn how to like, fin—like, financial shit?
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: Like, I would learn how to—I, I know, it's like, pretty much impossible to beat, like, you know, um, index funds kind of thing. But like, I would learn how to make money passively.
Amanda: Fascinating.
Eric: At least for—I mean, the thing that John Paul did, this was at the peak of GameStop, AMC bullshit that's happening on the internet. So, I was thinking about that a lot. I was like, man, it's just gambling. And, if you know what's gonna happen, you just put all your money on black, but you already know it's gonna be black, right? So, like, sports betting or stock market stuff. At the same time of, like, improving myself. It's like, I want to make sure that shit’s entered before I leave the time lips. I 100% agree with Brandon.
Brandon: But you got to be careful, because if you just do one giant bet on a thing, you're going to look suspicious as fuck. And, you're going to get investigated--
Julia: They really don't care. Also, it's one day. So you don't know how it'll kind of play out over the next few weeks or so, you know?
Eric: Well, if it's a bet, I think it's going to be like one interaction, right is like I'm going to put a bunch of money, a bunch of money on that. Or like, a bunch of small ones all at the same time. I mean, look, people still believe luck, and I think that the stock market is less regulated and everything.
Brandon: That's true.
Amanda: And finally, Bray asks, “I know that we have talked about Stuart's flavors, but we also mentioned Ben and Jerry's, and I must ask what is each character's favorite Ben and Jerry's flavor?”
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Amanda: This is an Aggie and Amanda are a circle situation...mint chocolate cookie.
Eric: Good choice.
Julia: I need to pull up the list of Ben and Jerry's. Because, I know what my personal one is, which is Chubby Hubby--delicious. But, I don't know what Val’s would be.
Brandon: I don't think Milo has any ill will towards any flavor of ice cream on the... God’s green earth.
[Laughs]
Julia: Fair.
Amanda: Fair
Brandon: But, I did recently have one of the—it's brand new, I think—it's like, the topped flavors—
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: —and it has fucking like magic shell chocolate thing on the top—
Amanda: Oh yeah.
Brandon: That you put your spoon into, and it's so fucking good.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: I want to give a special shout out to the froyo ones from Ben and Jerry's—
Amanda: Phish Food froyo is so good.
Eric: I'm not talking about like the Moo-tastic, or whatever the fuck—the, the Ben and Jerry's is trying to get on the…
Amanda: The Halo Top?
Eric: Oh, the halo top-steez, I'm not talking about that. But like, I've been getting the Froyo Half-Baked, they sell it at our bodega. I want to give a special shout out to that. It's really, really good. And, like, sometimes I don't want to eat ice cream. I like yogurt. I think frozen yogurt is great. And, I'm—I'm all about that ship.
Julia: I think Val would be like a Gimme S’more or the Campfire Trail Mix. That’s very Val.
Amanda: Love that. Well, sticking with our Upstate New York theme, it is time of course to turn to SLaM—
Eric: Ahh!
Amanda: —our third SLaM episode installment, 24-27 of the SLaM comic?
Eric: Number 27 in SLaM Comics
Amanda: There you go.
Eric: Third SLaM episode.
Amanda: So guys, how do we feel about this? Every time we do it, I'm just amazed at--Julia--by how good your role playing is as Moxie. And Brandon, I think you make very, very good like-- what feels like a diversion, but is a world building opportunity? Interactions with NPCs that we meet?
Eric: The fact that it's such, like, a comic book trope, and I'm doing this to myself because it's—it's a—it's an offshoot. But like, giving you time powers is so goddamn dangerous to me as a DM.
[Everyone laughing]
Brandon: Yeah. Specifically, me, that was a silly choice that you made.
Eric: Well, I also appreciate this, because now I want to fix some of the game mechanics of your character. And, you know, listen, you got to play test your shit, so.
Brandon: That's true, that's true.
Julia: It's important.
Eric: I can't believe that Brennan played with us. That's—it was so much—it was just so much fun.
Julia: I have not re-listened to the episode because I'm so nervous to hear my interactions with Brennan Lee Mulligan.
Eric: Mhm.
Julia: I was like, did I embarrass myself? I hope not.
Amanda: It was great. No, it was great, don't worry.
Brandon: It was so funny how much everyone was like—like, at this point, we're all very relaxed together when we play, you know, but like, everyone was very much like at the top of their game, like, on the edge of their seat waiting. But, I was impressed that like—I didn't think it was the moment because, it just—it just worked and flowed. But like, I didn't realize how just incredibly fluidly he slotted into this game—
Eric: Mhmm
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: That he had no idea what was happening. Like it was a one shot. Like, yeah, it was just incredibly impressive listening back to it.
Amanda: It felt like he was always in that world. And that we knew that character very well. But Eric, what was your preparation like with him?
Eric: Yeah, so working with someone who's played tabletop RPG games for his entire life, makes it pretty simple and special and fun. So I had a conversation with Brennan before—I also want to say, and I feel like, if Brennan is listening to this, he'd be like, “oh, gosh, no, you all were great. I still had a great time.” Brennan is such a wonderful ambassador for the game. And, I know that he goes out of his way to guest on a lot of stuff. And, I feel like he's just like, “this is how the game should be played. And just I'm here to facilitate that.” And I really appreciate him taking the time to do this. And like I wanted to give him time to be a player. But it turns out he's been a player this entire time. Shout out to the new Dimension 20, I'm so fucking excited for that. It's gonna be great. So, I had a conversation with him just being like, “Hey, this is what I want to do. I want to have this vacation style episode. It's in upstate New York.” Brennan is also from upstate New York. So, I knew he would be 100% on there. When I said that I put out a call for who wanted to do an Upstate New York game, and he busted down my door, I was only a little bit kidding. I want to do this. And I was like, “yeah, this is what it is.” And he's like, “Okay, well, I'm gonna pitch characters to you, so that you know where I'm coming from.” I'm like, “Yeah, that would be great. I want you to live in the town, if you're like a hometown superhero.” And like, he brought a lot of the things that he believes obviously, he's like, you know, the living outside and you become so liberal, you come all the way back around thing that he brought a lot of his own experience. He said it was like being a guest on a D&D podcast is like being a DMPC that the DM does not control. And I thought that was really kind of him to do, and he was—he was 100% game. And, I've been trying really hard, I—that was like, in my slew of running a lot of one shots—to like—you need to get a one shot in and out. You're like, we're gonna do this, we're gonna have some fun, it gets resolved, and we pull back. And I wanted to make sure to recognize everyone's time, because we had to set everything up, as we did. And as I put words in Brennan's mouth, it was like I wanted to make sure to take—take really careful play with that.
Julia: I want to know what other characters he pitched to you, besides Dan Mills.
Eric: There was like a water-based guy. Like if it was—this—he was most—more revolving around the Falls of Chunky Falls. He was going to be more water-based, but I think that we ended up pulling away from that, just being like a woodland kind of dude.
Amanda: Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Brandon, did you have to cut a lot of us laughing as Brennon talked? Because that's what I recall from that experience.
Brandon: No, I think as Brennan does this professionally, he was also very good at waiting his turn to talk and not interrupt and stuff.
Amanda: And how did it feel for you to DM, Eric, and for us to play? I was definitely-- I was a little bit nervous just because it's you know, a person I watch on—on my OTT television device—
Eric: Right
Amanda: --like running d&d games. Um, but as soon as we were in the story, everything just gelled really well, which I think is a testament to you, you know, you designing the game well, and Brennon knowing where to fit and kind of how to, you know, interact without like taking over and this being our third SLaM as well it wasn't like our first you know, rodeo these characters.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: I've been trying to figure out a way to get more guests on, to Join the Party, and I'm just so happy we have three players going through a whole campaign that, like—I don't necessarily want to add people to that. But, getting people to come in through SLaM, I think, is the way to do it. And, I'm feeling really good about that. So that was really fun. Yeah, Brennon is like my DM role model. He's like, “Add the stuff on Dimension-20—”
Amanda: Is he—is your ROLL model?
Brandon: Nice.
Eric: My little—my roll model, yeah.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: He's the DM I love the most, like Griffin taught me how to play games but Brennon has pushed my—my understanding of what—what tabletop RPG’s can do to a whole new level and it was really fun being able to do it. I hope you had a good time. And, I want—I want to hang out in person when we can. He's—he is a really good dude. I was very nervous. Yes, I was.
Julia: I think we were all nervous.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: It was also very apparent like as soon as we started playing, I'm like, “Oh, no, Moxie is just the complete opposite of Dan Mills, and this is going to be a problem.”
Amanda: It was fabulous.
Eric: The thing that I wanted to shout out, the thing with Moxie wearing high heels the entire time.
Julia: He rolled a Nat-1, it was perfect.
Eric: It was so funny. It was incredible—
Amanda: So good.
Eric: It was just incredible. Also, it didn't help-- it didn't help that you guys thrashed my goddamn fight so quickly. And, you figured out that the bridge had a belly, and that was just-- that was all very funny. Listen, I like that. I like people--- I like shit getting thrashed in one shots. I don't want to kill you in a one shot, what are we doing? So that was just-- I really enjoyed all of that. And being able to bring in some Robert Moses shit was always is always a good thing.
Julia: Classic.
Amanda: New York referentialism represent!
Eric: The state villain is Robert Moses.
Amanda: Quite true.
[Everyone laughs]
Amanda: And finally, Andy Noel asked on Insta, “How can we get more SLaM?”
Eric: Great question. You go—you tweet… [Eric laughs] I, listen—I'm not kidding. Go tell HeroForge that you want more SLaM. We've only been able to do SLaM because HeroForge was the full sponsor of all of it, and we love them, they've been incredibly kind to us. And, we have a bunch of minis of the people love—ah, the robot devil and all of your characters. So, tell them that you really enjoy it, keep listening, and hopefully they'll keep sponsoring it.
Amanda: Yeah, they've been really, really fun to work with, and really kind, and I'm like, “Hey, can we—can we do more SLaMs?” And they're like, “Sure.” So, telling them that you really enjoy this-- the episode, in a nice way, is very useful, and telling us, as well, we appreciate it. We're, you know, trying a bunch of stuff. We were accidently a weekly podcast for several months. And, we're—you know—we're trying to give you good stuff that you enjoy. So, we so appreciate everybody, you know, reaching out with questions, who were—for the Afterparty episodes and reactions, and our discord on release day is like my favorite part of the internet because everybody's kind of going through the episodes and talking to us and talking to each other. So, you know, hearing what you think and what you like is really, really useful.
Julia: Yeah!
Eric: That is @HeroForgeMinis on Twitter—
Julia: All one word.
Eric: All one word!
Brandon: You should—you should email them.
Eric: You should send them an email!
Amanda: Email them, yeah.
Brandon: Emailing will get closer to the people with the moneys I think, actually.
Amanda: Well, spoiley corner will return in the next Afterparty, because many of your questions will be answered in Episode 33.
Julia: So many.
Amanda: Ah, but for now, I think that’s all, everybody.
Eric: Oh, yeah, keep telling me “What the fuck.” Yeah, it's delicious. I love it. It—it fuels me.
Amanda: It sustains you.
Julia: Num, num, num, num, num.
Eric: Yeah, num, num, num, num. It's like—someone said it was like Frannie drinking the undying light.
[Everyone laughs]
Brandon: Yes.
Eric: That's what it's like. It literally fuels me, if I don't get a “What the fuck,” ah, or that I've traumatized you for this D&D game, I can't live and can't function, so I very much need you to do it.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: I carry it around in a little sippy cup, just—or in a little to-go cup like frannie does.
Amanda: Adorable.
Brandon: I love that. Alright, bye guys!
Julia: Later!
Eric: Bye!
Amanda: May your rolls turn ever upward.
[transition music]
Amanda: Was there like a—an iconic dog that looked like that? Like a Jack Russel?
Brandon: Yeah, Wishbone’s a Jack Russell.
Julia: Wishbone’s a Jack Russell. You’re good.
Amanda: Was he wirey, or was he, like, soft coated?
Julia and Brandon: No, he was wirey.
Julia: I feel like? I never pet wishbone, so I don’t know.
Amanda: Okay
Eric: [Eric laughing] Except for that time I was invited onto the set of Wishbone, I actually have never touched Wishbone.
Transcript by Sarah Patt