Nerfing the Undying Light, the ghosts of kills past, and our fixation on pursuing snacks. This is the Afterparty, where we sit down after every episode to break down our game and answer your questions about how to play at home.
Find Us Online
- website: jointhepartypod.com
- patreon: patreon.com/jointhepartypod
- twitter: twitter.com/jointhepartypod
- facebook: facebook.com/jointhepartypod
- instagram: instagram.com/jointhepartypod
- tumblr: jointhepartypod.tumblr.com
- merch: jointhepartypod.com/merch
Cast & Crew
- Dungeon Master: Eric Silver
- TR8c (Tracey): Brandon Grugle
- Inara Harthorn: Amanda McLoughlin
- Johnny B. Goodlight: Michael Fische
- Creative Contributors: Connor McLoughlin, Julia Schifini, Heddy Hunt
- multitude: multitude.productions
TRANSCRIPT
Eric: Oh shit. I could literally have used this table. I have a damage by level and severity table and I was just like pulling shit out of my butt for the boulders and I could have literally just used that.
Amanda: Welcome to the cold open of the afterparty where our DM realizes in his first session using an actual DM screen that it can be sometimes useful.
Eric: It is so helpful this thing is amazing and I just like ignored it and decided to just like make dumb decisions. But it was like 5 times what Tracey got hit with when he got hit with a boulder. So...
Amanda: Jeez Louise. We have been in and out of all kinds of death this episode. I went to some Dumbledore platform nine and three quarters white room. Something happened to Johnny that I don't know anything about. We were in the belly of the whale and then we got rebirthed. What's happening?
Brandon: I really hope the next land we go to is just like candy land, just sunshine
Amanda: I want no water for the next place we go.
Brandon: Now there's going to be a desert
Eric: This was the swimming level and the third level is always the swimming level and now you guys won't have to swim ever.
Amanda: So how do death saves work? I got genuinely worried when Johnny had two hit points left and then you're like oh well there's 12 damage, goodbye and I was like 'Are you killing his character? Like I didn't know what was going on. So, what normally do you do when a person falls below zero points?
Brandon: So, they're called death saving throws. But when you fall below zero you're actually just knocked out, so you're unconscious. So, you have three strikes essentially to come back to consciousness. You're still at zero hit points if you come back to consciousness but you have three chances.
Eric: You're at one when you come back.
Brandon: You're one you're right. So, you roll the 20 if you hit a 10 or above that's a success and you come back to consciousness with one hit point. If you roll below a 10 you get an X and three X's and you're out meaning you’re dead.
Michael: And generally, if this happens during initiative you go 1 and that's your turn. Like that's your entire turn and then what happens to your body afterwards. You know you don't get much of a choice. There are things that you can do to increase your chances. There are things that can decrease your chances. All depends on the DM and the situation I guess. And then what happens after you die is up to how you handle it. Some people are forced by their DM's to tear up their character sheets. Others are given chances by the DM to try to resurrect, my favorite way of resurrection was done by the Penny Arcade crew where they went through a version of hell to try to save one of their fallen companions.
Amanda: Wow.
Michael: Yeah but I think Johnny did a little different.
Eric: Yeah. Michael Fische. So why can the undying light bring Jonathan back to life?
Michael: So, in the Unearthed Arcana when we created Johnny B. Goodlight there is an ability that has been slightly nerfs, made less powerful, and moved to a higher level called Searing Vengeance. It's a radiant energy channel allows you to overcome grievous injuries when you would make a death saving throw you instead spring back to life on your feet with a burst of radiant energy. Immediately stand up, if you want, regain hit points equal to half of your hit point maximum, all hostile creatures within 30 feet of you take 10 plus your charisma mod radiant damage and are blinded.
Eric: That’s insane
Michael: When you use this feature, you can't do it again until you finish a long rest. Just a long rest.
Brandon: That's a nuclear bomb.
Amanda: Woah
Michael: It's ridiculous. And back in the unearthed arcana when this was made, that's not even the most powerful thing you get. They just have it in the wrong order. I think that's a great like level 14 spell or ability
Brandon: early 20 or something almost.
Michael: Yeah, I mean I was talking to Eric day one about that ability saying that this needs to be nerf. We both agreed that there needed to be some more lore implications and implications for Jonny
Eric: It was crazy. I mean we saw this thing on like the horizon. And I was like oh this is going to break my game. Cool I can't kill Johnny, that's unfortunate.
Michael: I mean let's be real. I've known about this for a while and I know that Brandon and Amanda have kind of known about it. I've not gone out of my way to try to die in this case, had things got how I wanted it I was the last hit bone whale and that's what would have solved things.
Eric: So, here's how we decided to get around it. Fish and I made an undying light death table. We made a point system for how Johnny dies and then he can use those points to ask something of the Undying Light.
Amanda: And do you get points for like valor or for coolness? What are the points?
Eric: Yeah, he gets like if he dies fighting shadows he gets extra points, if he dies being bad ass and like taking care of other people he gets extra points, if he dies like in a dark room he loses points, if he dies like one after another so like let's say these things happen really soon after another he gets like negative 10 points.
Michael: Yeah like if I were to die next session I wouldn't be able to gain anything from it. And regardless I will be rolling for an affliction of some sort.
Eric: Right. So, like there's also a number of points if he wants to come back with like a penalty or not so Fish and I came up with 20 penalties that he might get when he comes back to life and we already seen...
Amanda: evidently one is a shrink ray.
Eric: Yeah, this one was shrink one foot shorter.
Brandon: are we sure his clothes didn't just get bigger? Is that an affliction?
Eric: That was not one of the ones on the table. No.
Brandon: Is potted plant one though reals? Because that would be exciting as hell.
Eric: Turns into a potted plant.
Michael: No, so a lot of these afflictions that for obvious reasons I'm not going to spell out to you guys, come from just online you can get these tables of wild magic or just random things that happen like thousands of random action stuff. So, Eric and I were going through them and we pulled stuff that we liked and that are flavorfully good with Johnny or canonically like sounds like undying lightish and one of the less related to the Undying Light is a shrink a foot. But you know you roll what you roll and that's what I got.
Eric: I love some of these and we'll see what happens if he dies again. Maybe he'll get worse penalties. We'll see what happens.
Michael: The goal will always be to not die. I think that this has never happened to Johnny before in-universe this has not happened to Johnny before and then in my head canon this has not happened to him before this moment either.
Eric: No absolutely not.
Michael: So, I don't think this is something that he wants to really do again, and I think it's going to be extraordinary circumstances as like jumping in front of a freight train
Brandon: I don't think Johnny would enjoy the process of being bludgeoned to death by damage.
Michael: No. And like yeah, he's still, like this hurt him. And there's punishments and I just, this was a bad time but I'm glad that some good came out of it, is the way I see it.
Eric: I agree. I'm excited.
Brandon: I think this is also a really cool example of playtesting material. The UA stuff is stuff that they put out that's not play tested meaning no one has played it in competition play and they haven't refined it. And what we're doing is like literally live play testing and we fixed a thing that Wizards probably is going to fix in the future.
Eric: Yeah shout out to Dungeons Dragons the game wizards of the coast LCC TM TM TM just hit us up and we will do all of your things for you and you can just like hire us and like give us free stuff and that would be really cool.
Amanda: So midway through this episode I wrote down my list of notes for the after party: shadow cowl is so great and then two exclamation points. Don't think so anymore because I ended up getting poisoned by some kind of sludge. Faced with the first cold blooded kill I ever made and then made translucent. I didn't like any of that.
Eric: How do you feel about that?
Amanda: Don't like it. Pretty disturbed. I mean I just think that this was, I was speechless as a player a little bit and I think Inara really would have been as well, where like for a minute she thinks that, that her kind of relationship to death like she felt secure it. You know she feels justified in that kill. She feels like it allowed the party to do this and to get to where they needed to go and to vanquish the bone whale. But then everything that she thought she knew was completely turned on its head. So, I am shaken.
Michael: I was reminded of the character Legion, also a TV show on FX, where the people in the comic more than in the movie, it's the people he's killed or the people he's witnessed die are in his head vying for control and that's kind of what it felt like had happened was a person that you like set out to kill. So not Geneva which that was an accident.
Amanda: Yeah
Michael: but was a confirmed kill. But Cali who you did murder like in your head and it kind of felt like she was kind of in control of your body or it seemed that way
Amanda: and handicapped me by you know making my kind of feet and hands the things I needed to swim and to save you ineffective.
Michael: This is a potentially, not great thing if it keeps happening for someone who's supposed to be an assassin.
Amanda: Yeah, I mean even though I became corporeal again it really felt to me like: you think you're in charge, not the case. Like maybe she could have kept control and made Johnny drown or something, but it just felt like a little bit of a power move meant to shake me up which it did.
Brandon: We also got to see another realm like another plane.
Amanda: Yes
Brandon: which is interesting. I don't think any of us have seen that plane before. So...
Michael: Well, two planes
Amanda: right, Johnny's and mine.
Brandon: Oh yeah two planes.
Eric: Two planes?!
Michael: I mean my thoughts, ignoring that, my thoughts that is like it seems like with Inara's it's like kind of more the plane of like, it's more inner. And like more about her and where she's at. This is all just I’m guessing.
Brandon: Conjecture
Amanda: I mean Cali said: 'I'm here with you.' So, whether it's something that's tethered to the river because like, we're probably swimming where Cali's body died, like right in the middle of the river. And so, I don't know if it's tied to that and her spirit hasn't moved on or whatever the mechanic is or if it's something personal and it's truly just a projection or part of Inara's consciousness. Don't know.
Michael: Versus we know, in D&D in general you have the conception of a physical world and then on different sides of it, the Fey, the celestial, the infernal, the others that I can't remember. And then there's other Demi world or Demi planes. And then if you pull away way back there's just positive and negative.
Eric: If it helps here, I like to think that there are really only five planes in this world. We have the one we're on, we have the realm of Adamah, of creation. We have the one of death which is Zeol, and then we have this one that Jonny has been unearthing which is the positive and negative planes. I gotta say though, I mean this is the things that you guys have discovered and what you know in religion. If we get to like more multiverse biz like that stuff that you get from like straight D&D. But I am trying to think of like what we are playing with in this world that I've homebrewed and I can't hold on to that many elemental planes all at the same time.
Michael: Oh sure. I'm trying to suss it out myself as a player trying to understand the world that my character lives in.
Amanda: It's just exciting like I've spoken before about how some of my favorite moments in gameplay are when the camera pans back. Like going back to our second episode where at the very end you sort of pan up and see that the star winked out and that this is so much bigger than a wedding and so much bigger than a single groom. And I felt that today as well, which is like life and death do not mean when I thought that they mean and maybe this is more taken for granted for people who played D&D before. But for me like I assume that the bounds of the world match up with the one that I live in until told otherwise. And this was a major camera panning back. Things are much bigger more complicated than you thought they were.
Michael: I will tell you that of all the things that happened in the episode in terms of like shock for me the number one was going to be and still is Tracey deciding to chop off the chain.
Eric: Yeah. That goop was coming up towards you. And now you know the bad stuff that might have happened, you would have been like venom Tracey, you would like, open your maw and there were even big Spiderman teeth in there.
Brandon: Yeah, I think I actually did sit here for a good couple of minutes trying to decide what to do because I didn't want to do that. That item has been super super useful for me so far.
Eric: Oh yeah you use it at least like once every two sessions
Brandon: I know it's great. And without it honestly Tracey is a little like hamstringed like I don't know how helpful he can be. I mean he can swing a cool big axe and that's about it
Amanda: Rage button is still pretty good.
Brandon: Yeah, he's got an alligator too I guess.
Amanda: Tracey you have value beyond the mechanics you bring to our team.
Brandon: Yeah, he can read books
Eric: He can't get poisoned.
Michael: I'm going to cry
Brandon: Yeah that was actually the other thing I was gonna talk about.
Amanda: Thanks for playing with me in the space Michael
Brandon: So, the water didn't affect me, and the piranhas didn't affect me but they seemed to affect other people so what was the deal?
Eric: Sure, so when I was doing this I was looking up a bunch of different ways that people have rendered the Bake-kujira, which we've talked about before. This Japanese bone ghost whale, how they rendered it in D&D. And you know, we have like the ghost fish and the ghost birds and it has this wail and it has all the stuff. Wail, W-A-I-L for the whale, W-H-A-L-E. Nice wordplay!
Amanda: Nice homophone
Eric: homophones. And this one that I saw was like, we had these like bone piranhas that were like always swimming through the river, but I thought this one had like an aura of disgusting around it like these dead rotting fish.
Amanda: I thought that they were fresher, like they had just been transformed from normal fish into undead fish and until the flesh fell off of them and it became the more kind of sanitized skeleton cartoon style fish that I had pictured. I felt like this was like the source
Michael: so, it feels like that black sludgy water is like the birthing grounds of the undead fish. ugh this is gross.
Amanda: That’s what I assumed
Eric: I mean this is supposed to be grosser and nastier, like there was a lot of necrotic biz going on. It’s just gross. So, what this one that I found they had an aura for you to be sickened and sickened is a condition from 4th edition which they don't have anymore. I don't know exactly what it is because I keep trying to use it and then I realize that it doesn't exist. But it's like you just get sick and I think you do damage and like you might vomit and you might lose actions and stuff. So, I changed that to you being poisoned like really really sick enough that you're like you feel so disgusting that you get disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks. But I like that it's this idea of wisdom. It's like you see this horrible thing in front of you and you like need to get enough inside of your mind to like, keep yourself from vomiting.
Amanda: Yeah. Like inner strength. I think that's really really cool sort of mind over matter taken to an extreme
Michael: yeah mental instead of the like more regular poisons would be a constitution because you're against a physical thing but it's more like the thought when you see someone else puke you're mentally trying to prevent yourself from puking because you know you might be sickened by that
Eric: exactly
Amanda: Or like are you rattled or not
Michael: yeah
Eric: Yeah
Brandon: I'm rattled.
Eric: Well the thing is, is that even though I changed this thing, Tracey can't be poisoned. So, like this condition doesn't happen to robots. It's exactly what I said, it was like, what do you have to vomit? You can't actually eat food. we have made so many jokes about this. Like what would you do?
Brandon: Yeah, specifically it's living constructs. So, there's actually a lot of monsters as well that can't be poisoned or status change like that. Also, though I think another condition just from my honed D&D player skills happen in this episode too. When Alonzo was seen to be frightened. Is that the case?
Eric: Yeah frightened is a really cool one as well. A frightened creature has disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls while the source of its fear is within sight line and the creature, so the one that is frightened, that would be Alonzo, can't willingly move closer to the source of its fear.
Amanda: Wow
Michael: That's interesting.
Brandon: And then he dealt a final blow, what a comeback.
Eric: Listen we didn't even get to do a really cool thing that I really wanted to do.
Michael: So, I'm assuming that my death was not the puzzle solved mechanic that you wanted for this.
Eric: No, I mean you saw what had happened. Who knows what would have happened if the bone whale hit the side of the cavern again. Who would have known what had happened if you had let it live for another while longer? I mean I have actions that I didn't get to use. It also has some legendary actions which I only got to use once which was the frightening wail. Listen you guys activated the big trap. That was the big puzzle. The whole thing is like if someone actually lived here and wanted to protect themselves how they do it, it's kind of like you're putting a key in a lock or setting an alarm but to a giant that would be like picking up a statue.
Amanda: I pictured one of those bookcases where you pull a book and then it swings open. That was kind of the triggering a tripwire type mechanic. Like that is how I was picturing it. And you know I sat here at the table and looked at Fish and Brandon and said like should I do this or not? But at a certain point we were moving so fast that I think Inara's calculus would have been, ok even though we were almost hit by the first two of these traps that we set off, it cannot hurt us more than it can help us, like we were so at a disadvantage and we were so unsure of where we're going. That having someone else up in this mix probably will help.
Michael: I just really appreciate that as a group we're very food motivated like we will follow anything or do anything or act...
Brandon: Ummm can you specify?
Michael: Johnny is very food motivated
Eric: I would like to be excluded from his narrative
Michael: Is Inara food motivated? I think she is a little
Amanda: Oh 100% I think Tracey...
Brandon: He just wants to join with the group, so he would be cool. So, he likes food too.
Amanda: I think he also wants what's due to him, like us not being taken care of, us being locked up really set you off you know like there are ways in which our sort of physical needs as non-living constructs are compatible with like your moral drive.
Brandon: Yeah for sure for sure.
Michael: Basically, give our group a hint of food and we will go in that direction even if it's into a volcano.
Amanda: Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day.
Michael: I'm right here
Brandon: There's some lox in the top of this cave.
Amanda: Teach a man how to fish and he will blow up a bonefish, bone whale
Eric: Also, sorry that Alonzo stole your kill.
Michael: I wanted that final shot
Amanda: I wanted that final shot.
Michael: It would have been so cinematic
Amanda: I wanted to explode it from within. I wanted to explode it with my two daggers from inside it's stomach in a flaming raging poisoning sort of doom behind me.
Eric: That would have happened.
Brandon: I just wanted to do anything right.
All: Womp Womp
Eric: We got some questions. These two are from twitter. The first one is from Matt Lewinski.
Brandon: Hi Matt
Amanda: Hi Matt.
Michael: Hi Matt. I don't know matt.
Amanda: Hi matt!
Michael: Oh! Hi Matt!
Eric: What's the best winter setting for D&D?
Amanda: Narnia.
Eric: Oooh hot damn
Amanda: Anyone else have a lesbian awakening when the queen came across like giving candy to her consort and wearing furs? Just me?
Brandon: I can't say that I did.
Eric: I can't say that either
Brandon: I appreciate and support that
Eric: Because Turkish delight are disgusting
Michael: I've had Turkish delights. I would not betray my entire family for Turkish Delights
Amanda: No, me neither.
Michael: That is a copy of a joke from Comedy Bang Bang, so sorry
Brandon: Scott Auckerman get on our podcast.
Amanda: Me neither but I would for that woman and I would eat whatever dumb candy she fed to me, so I don't know just that image of going through the wardrobe from a boring house to Narnia like has never left me and I would love to live in that kind of eternal winter trying to rediscover summer trying to topple the Winter Queen like all that kind of stuff. I just find it so fascinating
Michael: and you'll help to find Jesus.
Amanda: (groan)
Michael: Jesus
Eric: thanks Aslan the lion Jesus.
Amanda: Maybe that was a foundational text of my transition from Catholicism to not-Catholicism because I was able to transfer all my Jesus feelings onto a lion and then from there dissipate them into the world.
Brandon: You can get rid of a lion easy.
Michael: They do. And then he comes back because he's Jesus! Spoilers for that book.
Eric: I was going to say just like, going on a mountain and doing snowboarding but yours was a much better answer. This one is from Lloyd. What kind of character would your character's roll if they were going to start their own D&D Campaign?
Brandon: Tortle.
Amanda: Yeah you would
Eric: For sure for sure you would
Brandon: Wait, could he play a snail? Can Tracey play a snail? Is that a playable race?
Eric: No!
Michael: We'll make a homebrew for you.
Brandon: Cool.
Michael: Johnny would play himself.
Eric: Johnny would absolutely play himself
Michael: Yes absolutely... when I saw this question and I was like, I know the answer to this. He would just play himself.
Brandon: You know what he would do is, he would have one of those personal mirrors. And like any time, he was like, oh what would Johnny do in the situation he would just look in the mirror and study it and then describe it.
Michael: Hey Eric can I get a mirror for Johnny?
Eric: Bring your own mirror.
Amanda: How about you paste some like mirrored paper into the inside of your player's guide, the inside cover.
Michael: Johnny does this
Amanda: And open it up. Yeah. I think Inara would roll up some kind of like damsel in distress just for fun and like make her attractive and damsel-y and just put on a voice and like really revel in that just being very different to herself, that would be fun.
Eric: That's interesting
Michael: What would Alonzo or Stoneface do?
Eric: I think both Alonzo and Stoneface would try to be the DM. I can see both of them doing it for absolutely different reasons. Stoneface would be like, hey I've got so many good voices don't you want to hear all the different voices I have?
Amanda: You just heard five of them and they were all different voices!
Eric: I just did 5 right in front of you. Didn't you hear how there were all different? It's like someone doing a one man show where it's just all the same voice.
Brandon: you know would be unbearable? that game.
Michael: But our characters would play that, what they would also do is there are like really bad D&D groups. It happens sometimes especially when randos meet to play. Just go through the one game and find a new group, that would be Alonzo's game we would meet once, and we would hate it and we would leave.
Amanda: Would Greg play?
Eric: Yeah
Michael: No, Greg would be the mom bringing the snacks.
Eric: No, I think Greg would play and then Alonzo would feel like he had to make concessions to Greg.
Amanda: Yeah, I think Greg would try to like worked out marital disputes in the game, you know
Michael: I figured out who's bringing the snacks, it’s the Speaker. The Speaker is bringing bagels!
Eric: The Speaker is everyone's mom.
Brandon: Evan
Amanda: And in my in my head when we reconcile with Tombjorn, he would also bring snacks to our games on the picnics of the banks of the river.
Eric: All right I got one last one this is from Lucille. How deliberate are you guys with your character dynamics while you guys have overall group dynamic, something that I've been noticing more as the game progresses is how the characters interpersonal relationships have been developing alongside it. For instance, Johnny and Tracey have been traveling together for a while but something that became evident in the last episode is that Johnny and Inara aren't exactly as idealistic as Tracey is and they're more willing to get their hands dirty and murder people if it happens. Was this premeditated or did this really just happen on accident?
Brandon: Calling it like she sees it y’all.
Amanda: It really just happened. We saw what was happening. Fish kind of teed up Inara's kill by saying that you started to walk, Fish toward the hut like walk up the dock. Like you did it without me asking and I knew what, what I had to do and I don't know for me I don't know I think Inara like has trusted you and has gone all in and knows that Tracey is somebody who is to be managed but that if she disagrees with something Johnny wants to do she'll tell him and do something different but that's not the kind of straightforward way that they have to deal with Tracey.
Brandon: I don't appreciate being managed.
Eric: I kind of see it though, not like a childish way but in a way when you have someone who has very strong opinions and has unshakeable opinions. It’s like and then you have like a group that like only brings like ideas to them when you think that you know what they're going to say.
Amanda: It's like adding fish sauce to a dish, like you don't just like open the fish sauce for any old thing you have to be like, 'am I ready to reckon with fish sauce in this moment?'
Brandon: Canon, Tracey is fish sauce.
Michael: I actually see it differently Eric. I see Johnny's relationship with Tracey as I've been traveling with him for a while. I care about him. I know this will bother him. I'm not going to include him in this because I want him to... Tracey is on his own journey of discovery of who he is. I have my own thing. I've been around the block. Johnny is [this many] age.
Amanda: Because it keeps changing
Michael: but he's old, so he's been around the block. He knows that he's there's no like a righteous path for everything. And you know if Tracey wants to live the way he wants to live Johnny's not going to stop it. But sometimes people's gotta dies. So, he's going to give a nod to Inara and walk away.
Amanda: Yeah. And I think Inara, something that I very much identify with is when I was you know a kind of late teenager. I thought, man I figured it all out. Everyone is so dumb. I figured it out. This is how life, you know this is how it should be. This is the right politic. This is the right religion opinion. You know like I have figured it out and everybody is just unenlightened and just doesn't know. And luckily, it's an opinion I grew out of. But I think Inara is kind of at that point where she's like, you know murder is a tool you can just do it, or this is clearly the bad guy like why are people not listening to me? And so, she'll kind of take a pragmatic approach over like squishy sense of justice approach.
Michael: I will say Johnny is not that enthused about murdering. He's just like OK, we tried with the light.
Amanda: But just in terms of like you can kind of decide what the appropriate times to like loop Tracey in are and are not. But for Inara it's like just cut to the feeling, like just cut to what you have to do and if you're able to do that like go on a private walk and get an assassin not and not tell you guys about it. Like why would she introduce variables to the equation if she didn't have to.
Brandon: I have two notes. I do think it's interesting, I think we haven't touched on it that when in the beginning we were recording we were deliberate in our dynamics. We talked extensively about like backstories and how connections and how that worked.
Amanda: Yeah
Brandon: But I think as we've gotten more comfortable each other in person and in the game we have basically like relied on each other to allow character moments to happen without like prejudgments or worrying about tape, kind of situation. Like there has been multiple times where Tracey does something stupid or ridiculous, but I know that it's the right moment for Tracey. But you guys, as people, are like oh no what the fuck. But like you let it happen because you know there's some like mechanism behind it. Two, I also think it's interesting as characters that yes Tracey is childlike and wondrous, but I think he's just as
Michael: can he spell? Does he know the alphabet?
Brandon: He can spell. I think he's just as like scheme-y for lack of a better word, like he didn't tell you about the book.
Amanda: He's not simplistic
Brandon: he's not simplistic, he knows what he's doing. I think he's more trusting and I think people take advantage of the trust that he allows. But he's not naive.
Michael: I don't think we've called him naive.
Brandon: I think you did.
Michael: With this situation?
Amanda: I think his optimism renders into childlike. That's how it comes off.
Brandon: I think it's pragmatic optimism. I don't even think it's like a world view it's just like
Amanda: yeah no. I mean just to say it's not that he like doesn't know stuff or doesn't consider the full picture. But I think his sense of justice and his resolve are unrealistic for most people. And so that comes off as just being kind of otherworldly, childlike, untouched, and untainted by the like realities of the world.
Brandon: Right. And that also doesn't mean that like if eventually, I don't know if it will happen or not, but if eventually that lie is found out it doesn't mean he's going to like forgive and forget. It doesn't mean that that dynamic is not going to change. It doesn't mean that relationships aren't going to be weathered.
Michael: Sure. I mean at least thinking Johnny, is like he's not going to stand in a burning building and litigate someone's murder. Like we're just going to go, and I don't... You know if this comes back to bite the group OK. But I feel like Johnny trusts that this fib, which we technically what we said...
Brandon: It was a lie
Amanda: The letter of the law...
Michael: The letter of the law
Amanda and Michael: The letter of it is right.
Brandon: You lied
Michael: The the letter of it is right, so Johnny has no qualms saying that that's what happened when it was in pursuit of a greater goal and he believes that Tracey may be frustrated with him, he may be mad at him for a few days, but it will blow over because that's how Johnny is.
Brandon: I agree 100 percent. I believe that that is the truth that Johnny is living. I think that's wrong for Tracey which I think...
Michael: Which is why we didn't tell you.
Brandon: Right. Which I think is that Johnny has not discovered yet.
Amanda: Yeah and what I'll also say is the three or the four of us met as a group a year ago and we started recording the show eight months ago. And so, I think as our friendship has developed exactly as you said Brandon we can do more of like following the truth of our characters without premeditating what exactly it means or why exactly things are happening. And I think we're getting at the deeper truth of the person's nuanced decisions instead of the kind of archetypes of like, the childlike robot, the preacher Grandpa and the impulsive teen.
Brandon: Exactly. Yeah.
Michael: I would never lie to Stoneface though or Ella.
Brandon: I thought you're going to say me as Brandon as a person and I was feeling really good about it.
Michael: No no.
Brandon: That's fine.
Eric: It's almost like characters who don't get along all the time create conflict and therefore good stories.
Brandon: I don't... Is this a moral
Amanda: What are you talking about?
Eric: You guys are buttholes.
Amanda: Well thank you again to all of you who submitted questions for this afterparty. You can do so on Twitter on Facebook on Instagram on Tumblr we're @Jointhepartypod in all the places you can e-mail us if you want: hello@jointhepartypod.com Questions either for this or for Master/Dungeon Master on our episodes. You can join our Patreon. Keep the party going all the time by participating in our patron only Discord which is just like the purest finest place on the Internet. And until then we will see you guys in two weeks with a new episode!