New campaign, familiar place, new Join the Party! We’re returning to superpower storytelling but this time with a new game system to make it happen. This week is worldbuilding and next week, we get right into the story.
We’re playing Masks for this campaign. And we played a hack of This Is What My Camp Is Like by Eric Silver for the worldbuilding game.
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Cast & Crew
- Game Master, Co-Producer: Eric Silver
- Co-Host, Co-Producer, Sound Designer, Composer: Brandon Grugle
- Co-Host, Co-Producer: Julia Schifini
- Co-Host, Co-Producer: Amanda McLoughlin
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
- Multitude: https://multitude.productions
About Us
Join the Party is an actual play podcast with tangible worlds, genre-pushing storytelling, and collaborators who make each other laugh each week. We welcome everyone to the table, from longtime players to folks who’ve never touched a roleplaying game before. Hop into our current campaign: teenagers dealing with all the drama of a superhero high school! Or marathon our completed stories: Campaign 3 for a pirate story set in a world of plant- and bug-folk the Camp-Paign for a MOTW game set in a weird summer camp, Campaign 2 for a modern superhero game, and Campaign 1 for a high fantasy story. And once a month we release the Afterparty, where we answer your questions about the show and how we play the game. New episodes every Tuesday.
Transcript
Eric: So all of my choices for this campaign revolves around not having to roll dice anymore.
Brandon: Oh.
Eric: So no one yells at me.
Brandon: Hi.
Julia: Hi.
Eric: By no one, I mean, Amanda.
Julia: Okay.
Amanda: When have I yelled at you after you've rolled dice before?
Eric: Brandon cut it all the time Amanda screams.
Brandon: Every time I have to cut out so many screams from each episode.
Julia: Hmm.
Brandon: It's not even like an angry scream, it's just—
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: It's like a reflex, at this point. Amanda just starts screaming like the goat from the Taylor Swift meme.
Eric: Hmm.
Brandon: Every time Eric rolls a die.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: It's like a bird that doesn't know what else to do. It just has to scream.
Amanda: Well, yeah, because whether I want to fuck, whether there's a predator coming, or whether there's, like, new peanuts on the Schifinis back porch. I'm just gonna scream about it. Like, I don't know what else you want me to do.
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Amanda's new thing is relistening to episodes or when she's, like, checking over episodes for release. And what she does is she laughs uncontrollably, tells me something that she did in the past, and said, "What was I thinking?" And then laughs even more.
Eric: Because I'll hear something so banal, or random, or strange that I'll just be like, "What's wrong with me? Like, why— what's wrong me?"
Eric: She said—she's laughing and crying and says, "What's wrong with me?" Continues laughing, crying.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: That's right.
Amanda: Like in the bloopers where I said, "It's imperative monkeys never get simple machines." Like, where did that come from?"
Julia: Where'd that come from?
Amanda: Why was that a concern of mine?
Brandon: Oh, it's the Troy energy flowing through you, the Troy-nergy.
Amanda: That's true.
Julia: Troy-nergy.
Amanda: As of now, I don't know who I'm gonna be in this campaign and what the new energy will be. But, Eric, I'm sorry, I'm— I've conditioned you— or conditioned myself to scream every time you roll dice.
Eric: You've Pavlov dogged yourself—
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: —in that you scream and then give yourself a treat.
Brandon: Hmm.
Julia: Yes. That's what podcasting is.
Brandon: Scream, a little sip of coffee. Scream—
Amanda: Ooh.
Brandon: —a little sip of coffee.
Amanda: You know, I've been working, Brandon on, like, owning and accessing my anger a little bit more.
Brandon: Hmm.
Amanda: And, like, be— getting comfortable with it so that it doesn't, like, overwhelm me and then I act out in bad ways, you know? And so that's great.
Brandon: That's good.
Amanda: Every time I get angry, give myself a little chocolate.
Eric: When Brandon explains sound design to me, he always gives me some Pringles while he's describing it to me.
Brandon: Eric, don't give away my teaching techniques.
Eric: I think more people should learn from it.
Brandon: I put a little Skittle on the correct keyboard shortcuts.
Amanda: That would be so great.
Julia: Wow.
Eric: Teaching techniques, wow. You— we should be teaching high schoolers. Folks, we're playing Masks this campaign.
Amanda: Woo!
Brandon: Woo!
Julia: Hello.
Eric: Campaign Four: Teach the children.
Brandon: :No one else is going to.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: :The people who used to, can't anymore.
Eric: Folks, we're playing Masks. This campaign is going to be longer than the Camp-Paign. It's probably gonna be shorter than two years, but somewhere in between. I'm very excited about this. Masks, I've said on this podcast before, is probably my favorite tabletop RPG.
Brandon: Hmm.
Eric: I've only played it, not recorded before. Shout out to Marquez. Shout out to Megan. If you have not seen or played it before, go buy it. It's really good. It's been out for a long time. It has three expansions from Magpie games. I bought the regular book, the three expansions, and got digital versions of it for $75. Absolutely worth it. Shout out to Magpie games.
Brandon: Oh, you got the physical books with that, too?
Eric: Yeah, baby. Look at it.
Brandon: It was all one package?
Julia: Dang.
Brandon: That's awesome.
Eric: Yeah, all one package.
Brandon: That's a great deal. It was such a such, honestly, a good deal. I feel like Masks is a relatively newer game compared to Monster of the Week, a Powered by the Apocalypse game that we have referred to before, but was made before Brindlewood Bay. I think it's not in that post-modern sort of realm that I was talking about during the One Shot Derby, when we were talking about Brindlewood Bay. But it's like, no, we're really good at this and we are going to tell the story of teenage superheroes. Masks is a game where you have playbooks and moves. You do not roll d20s, you only roll 2d6. I never roll any dice, and you have to be a superhero from the ages of 16 to 20. I love it.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: I love it so much.
Brandon: Hell yeah, dude.
Julia: Hell yeah.
Brandon: I'm ready to have some powers, some awkward powers.
Julia: I'm really excited to return back to superheroes. I'm very excited.
Brandon: Yeah. Yeah.
Amanda: I can't wait. I can't wait. I can't wait.
Eric: Oh, we're going back to superheroes? Well, I guess we should just go back to LakeTown City, huh?
Julia: Huh?
Brandon: Huh? What?
Eric: What?
Brandon: Who?
Amanda: A setting we loved, a setting so nice. We played in it twice. But, Eric, but we already know what happens to Multitool and Volcani and Killanova.
Brandon: Killanova died.
Amanda: And none of them are under the age of 20.
Eric: Well, Killanova died a bunch of times.
Julia: To be fair.
Eric: That's fair. That's fair. I wanted to come back to the world of Campaign Two. I loved LakeTown City so much. Like Julia, I deeply miss superheroes. And I think it's probably Julia and my favorite genre.
Julia: It's up there, for sure.
Eric: It's probably my number one, for sure. And again, similar to when I was excited about Verda Stello because of Andor, I think that the James Gunn-aissance-- and I'm recording this in early 2025, we'll see what
happens.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: But I'm really enjoying what DC is doing right now, and Marvel might not be putting out slop, it turns out. Maybe Captain America with Red Hulk is good. Who knows?
Brandon: I mean, I'm hoping for it.
Julia: I'm excited.
Brandon: But let's see, Eric.
Eric: I'm excited about pushing it in a new direction. I think that trying to explore comics in a new direction has been exciting for me. And we're not just gonna go back to LakeTown City. I don't want to do a 20 years in the future in the same place, sort of thing.
Julia: Rats.
Eric: We're gonna go 90 minutes outside of town—
Julia: What?
Brandon: Oh.
Eric: —and look at the superhero high school that has sprung up in the years after the events of Campaign Two.
Amanda: Yay!
Julia: Yo.
Brandon: Yay. This is Killanova 20 years later.
Brandon (as Killanova): I'm Killanova.
Julia: No.
Eric (as Killanova): I smell like green peppers.
Julia (as Killanova): I'm 40 and I sound like this.
Brandon (as Killanova): Don't smoke, kids.
Eric: Okay. Now, I'm writing down, is Tuna going to be a teacher at the school, gotta write that down.
Julia: Maybe!
Amanda: That makes me so excited.
Julia: January would be a better teacher, just saying.
Eric: We'll see, we'll see, we'll see. I'm not sure how much, like, overt references we're gonna get, because if you didn't listen to Campaign Two, you should listen to this. It doesn't really matter all that much of what's going on, what happened in Campaign Two. You can still listen to this. We're also playing a new game. I'm a little tired of playing Dungeons and Dragons in 2025, certainly. The biggest reason why I want to play Masks, is how much I was thinking about keeping action going in an exciting, cinematic, actual play sort of way with Dungeons and Dragons, and it's just like— it's a war game. Like it's odd— it is still odd to play out so much combat and violence and fighting in theater of the mind of a game that still has its roots so tied to moving little statues across a board, and then rolling dice and figuring out if the numbies go up or go down.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Here's the fun thing about Masks. It's a Powered by the Apocalypse game, which means that it has moves. What moves mean is that we're going— there's a lot more of just doing stuff. The players are just gonna be doing stuff, and I'm gonna be like, "Hey, you should probably do this move to figure out what happens next."
Julia: Hell yeah.
Eric: Instead of reaching into your bag of tricks and trying to pull it out and fool the Dungeon Master.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: So you mean I can't stare at my character sheet until I find the item in my inventory that you forgot I had that might sort of, like, break an encounter?
Eric: Exactly.
Julia: Fair.
Eric: Yeah. Can I read something from the book?
Brandon: Yes.
Amanda: Yes, please.
Julia: Go for it.
Eric: All right. So this is in chapter four the moves and about using moves in play. The most important thing to keep in mind about moves is this, to do it, you do it. Every move has both a mechanical element, rolling the dice and charting the results as a full hit, a partial hit or a miss, so we're rolling 2d6's. A miss is six or less, seven to nine is a partial hit, and 10 or above is a hit. And there's some pluses and minuses to go along with that. And a fictional element, you charge forward and punch someone, or you say something mean and provocative, or what have you. You can't do one without the other. To do it, you do it. No move ever triggers without the associated fictional action. Want to unleash your powers? You have to try something crazy with your abilities. Want to directly engage a threat? You have to throw yourself into the thick of it and start tussling with the enemy. Want to pierce someone's mask? You've got to be watching them for signs of what's hidden beneath. Want to comfort or support them? You actually have to say something comforting or supportive.
Julia: Oh, no. Our actions have consequences.
Brandon: We can just strike that last one from the game. You know, we're not—
Julia: No, we can't.
Eric: No, you gotta be comforting or supportive.
Julia: Brandon doesn't want to comfort anyone.
Eric: Sometimes you'll look at a move and say, "I want to do that thing." You realize that what you really want to happen right now are the mechanical results of that move, so you want to trigger that move. That is awesome. But you don't get to roll, just because you want to roll. You have to take action in the fiction that triggers the move. The thing I love the mo— and now, I'm not reading anymore. The thing I love about Masks is that as superheroes, you can just use your powers. If you have super strength, you can just throw people around. If you want to get in the— if you have fire powers, you can just, like, shoot fire at enemies, and it will happen. There's so much that can get done quickly that I see our episodes having so much action, or so much talking to each other.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: In the best parts of, you know, when I read comics, or when I watch TV shows or, you know, even thinking about the best Marvel movies. You know, we always refer back to the shawarma scene of— in— at the end of Avengers.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: And it's like, well, people just kind of liked it when superheroes were talking to each other.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: And at other times they liked it when they were doing big punches. And I think we're going to be able to, actually, find that balance with this game system that wants you to do that.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: Uh-hmm. I really liked it in the book when it was talking about— because I hadn't really thought about it this way. But it's like the reason that it— they do the moves that way is because in vanilla DND, or regular DND in general, like you sort of look for the move that you're gonna do. Like, I want to do an investigation check, because you sort of know the outcome of what you're achieving.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: But the way they wrote the moves with, like, partial successes and, like, effects, like you can choose from or whatever, it sort of branches the timeline, for lack of a better word, the action space, into a different, unexpected way—
Eric: Hmm.
Brandon: —that you weren't planning to do. Like you didn't have the result already in your brain. So, yeah, that's really exciting to— for me.
Eric: The moves are supposed to tell everyone what happens next. If you don't know what happens next, you should use a move. That's something that they emphasize in the book over and over again. When we're talking about moves, we all have a pool of basic moves we can all do. I read some of them out, directly engage a threat, unleash your powers, defend someone, comfort someone, pierce the mask, which is see the person behind the mask, kind of, like, an emotional plea.
Brandon: Oh, it's not just like stabbing someone behind the mask?
Eric: No.
Julia: True.
Eric: That would be directly engage a threat, Brandon.
Brandon: Oh, okay.
Amanda: When I…
Eric: With your knife hands.
Amanda: When I stab in the face, I really try to go into the eye, which in most—
Brandon: Right.
Amanda: —cases actually won't pierce the mask, because they do have the eye holes available.
Julia: Hmm.
Brandon: True, true. Yeah.
Eric: We also have special moves that are related to your playbook. Your playbook is, like, your character class, but it more has to do with the archetypes that we've seen in superhero stories. I think that the playbooks in Masks are absolutely incredible.
Amanda: Now, Eric, stop me if you heard this before. I want to be a character who was, like, born, I think, on a planet that isn't our own.
Eric: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: And then somehow I sort of like crash landed here, maybe in, I'm just like, throwing this out here, Iowa. And then I am, like, super strong. I am super nice. It's definitely— I'm definitely not a woman. And there is, like, a single substance that can really just, like, fuck up my whole day. What do you think about that?
Brandon: Oh, Amanda, I think you're describing the Marvin the Martian. That's what you're doing.
Julia: Ah.
Amanda: Hmm.
Brandon: Marvin the Martian…
Eric: Marvin the Martian from Looney Tunes?
Brandon: From— yeah.
Julia: No, Martian Manhunter. Martian Manhunter.
Brandon: No, no, Marvin the Martian.
Eric: Marvin the Manhunter.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: Does he move to fictional Chicago and become a journalist? Because that's really what I'm feeling for myself.
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: Hmm.
Brandon: He's not very good. He gets fired a lot, but yeah, he does.
Amanda: Shit.
Eric: Here's a fun tabletop RPG fact that I learned from DC comic book historian Alex Jaffe, the map that we all refer to of the cities of DC, like the fact that Gotham and Metropolis are across the river from each other, and one is in Delaware, and the other one is close to that.
Julia: It's in Jersey, yeah.
Eric: Yeah, it's in Jersey and for somehow, it's across the river. That is from an actual DC tabletop RPG that exists.
Julia: Incredible. So good.
Eric: So funny.
Amanda: Well, I didn't know it's canon.
Julia: It's canon in that tabletop RPG that they produced.
Eric: Yeah. And no one else would made— has made another map. That's just the one everyone uses.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Gotcha.
Julia: It's great. It's a good map, I would say.
Eric: Yeah. To Amanda's point, you can play the superhero you want, but I think it's interesting about leaning on different archetypes, instead of just characters. I mean, Superman is tougher to reach for because he—
Amanda: That would be great name. Thank you.
Eric: Shut up.
Julia: Whoa.
Eric: Because he embodies so many different things. But if you wanted to be the alien or, like, Superman or Starfire, you could be the outsider, where you pay attention to the differences of an alien coming to the world. If you wanted to talk about how powerful Superman is, and maybe as a teen in Smallville, you didn't know how to control it. You could be the Nova, which is all about being overpowered and not knowing what to do. There's the transformed, if you could turn into a beast, like Beast, and you're dealing with that. That's kind of interesting. There's the protege, where you're explicitly a Robin type character. Especially Robin and the Teen Titans, I think is the—
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: —is one of the reference points for that. There's— any archetype you're looking for, especially because we have three expansions worth of playbooks, I think it's incredible. We reference this in Campaign Two, but the character I made from my Masks game that I brought into the world, who was from Knights Collide, the YA series.
Amanda: Wyvern.
Eric: Wy—
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Oh, yeah, Wyvern. Wyvern was the star who was dealing with fame and social media fame—
Brandon: Hmm.
Eric: —in a playbook, which came from this first expansion.
Amanda: Oh, my God, Eric, were you seeding Campaign Four all the way back in mid-Campaign Two?
Eric: Yes.
Amanda: What can't he do?
Brandon: Is that a foreshadow? Holy shit.
Julia: Foreshadowing. The foreshadow was so long, it casts a shadow on tomorrow.
Brandon: Do you think Wyvern's gonna be in our high school?
Amanda: Maybe he'll— he's an alumni, if this is a few years after Campaign, Two.
Julia: Not if it's 20 years later, yeah.
Brandon: Oh, yeah, Wyvern will be old now.
Julia: He might be a teacher. He might teach gym.
Amanda: That's true.
Eric: I haven't determined how many years it is yet. I just said several at this point.
Julia: Okay.
Eric: It's enough— I felt like it was enough for there to be more superheroes. I think we touched on this when the weirdness of Killanova and of Anubis started to filter into the campaign and I said something about ley lines. But I really agree with it. I always love that explanation for why things increasingly get weirder in superhero stories. It's like once you have weirdness, weirdness attracts weirdness.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: And then the ley lines get all messed up because of it.
Amanda: That also describes my social circle.
Brandon: Are you telling me that when Batman's around, he makes villains because he is around?
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: All right, Commissioner Gordon, ACAB. All right. Hey, can I talk about labels for a second?
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: I wish you would.
Eric: So instead of the ability scores that we have in Durblans and Durblans, we have something called labels, which, because we're teens, it's all about understanding how you feel about yourself in a positive way, and how other people feel about you in a negative way.
Julia: Hmm.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Eric: So we have these things called labels that tells you how your character understands their self-image. These labels shift constantly throughout playing Masks, whether you do it for yourself or you're setting yourself up to be better at doing a move, or someone can shift it for you, either to help you or to hurt you in a very— in a way that only teenagers can do to other teenagers and adults can do to teenagers.
Brandon: I love that this mechanic feels so tied to the age group.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: Because when I read it, I got so excited because, yeah, very rarely at other parts of your adult life does your sense of self change so frequently than when you're that age, like 16 to 20.
Amanda: I also love that it shifts constantly, like you said, Eric, because I know there are so many times we've joked about like, "Oh, man, I wish I took a different feature, or a different, you know, like sub-class."
Brandon: Hmm.
Amanda: And in DND, it is difficult to change fundamental things about your character, unless you are multi-classing, or unless, like you and the GM work about it. And then there needs to be, in my opinion, like, a pretty strong textual reason for that to change. You're sort of— you are what you are when you start a campaign, you just get more of that thing. And so I am so excited in Masks for us to be going through all these changes and for things that happen to affect our characters in material ways. Because I think we're— one thing I love about playing with you both, Julia and Brandon, is that, like, I feel as if we— our characters really change throughout the course of the campaigns. Like they go through experiences, as experiences shape them. It changes how we work together. It changes what our kind of goals and needs are. And I love that we have mechanics to encourage us to do more of that in Campaign Four.
Eric: Let's talk about the labels, folks. The first label is danger. Danger, seeing yourself as threatening, strong, bloody, knuckled, and risky. Other people see you as a danger when they think you should— they should steer clear of you, because you might bring them harm. You see yourself as a danger when you believe you can take down other dangerous threats, and when you think you, yourself, are a threat to other people. That's relevant, because the directly engage a threat move involves rolling plus danger.
Brandon: Hmm.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: I love how much it's like other people seeing you positively, other people seeing you negatively, you seeing yourself positively, you seeing yourself negatively.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: It's so good.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: Freak, seeing yourself as strange, unusual, unique and powerful. Other people see you as a freak when they think you're odd unlike them, something unnatural or outside their understanding. You see yourself as a freak when you accept and own the things you can do that no one else can, and when you think you don't belong with the people and the world around you. You use freak to unleash your powers, where you do something absolutely insane that you wouldn't think you could do with just a regular power set. Unleash your powers is kind of the catch all, "Let's do something absolutely crazy with your superpowers," but we're hopefully going to look towards other places to let you use your superpowers in interesting ways.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah, I think the books have something like, if there's a more specific move to use it for what action you're trying to take, use that one instead of unleash your powers.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: Reminds me of the combo moves we did, like the—
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: —meatloaf sandwich and the steak and eggs at the end of Campaign two.
Brandon: Hell yeah.
Julia: Hell yeah.
Eric: Oh, there are team points. You can use team points to get involved into—
Julia: I'm so excited.
Eric: —and to add plus one to stuff.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Which is very, very cool. I think it's interesting that you shouldn't try to unleash your powers all the time unless you're doing something like reshaping your environment or extending yourself hard. And it's funny how freak is such— something that people put on you. So it's like only if you're not, for example, defending someone else or directly engaging a threat, then you use freak. It's almost like when you are intentionally pushing yourself to the brink, and people expect you to do that in an uncontrolled way, that's people pushing your pre— I love that unleashing your powers as something that you shouldn't pursue is tied to probably the thing that people will make you feel the bad— the worst about.
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: Yeah. Sort of like the Jean Grey— I imagine Jean Grey when I think about that, but—
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Well, because you're too busy not being a savior, Brandon. Savior is the—
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: —third ability, seeing yourself as defending, guarding, protecting and stalwart. Other people see you as a savior when they think of you as noble or self-sacrificing, or a bit overbearing and moralizing. You see yourself as a savior when you think of yourself as a martyr, someone who gladly sacrifices to protect and defend others. You might expect this, but savior is tied to defending someone or something from an immediate threat.
Julia: Gotcha.
Eric: Next, we have superior. I love the difference between savior and superior.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Superior is just like I am the ultimate pinnacle of human evolution.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: A very— which is, of course, a constant conversation when we're talking about superhero media, while savior is like, "No, I'm here to fix everything that humans are doing, and in exchange, you're— you adore me."
Brandon: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
Julia: Fair.
Amanda: And we do.
Eric: Superior, seeing yourself as smart, capable, crafty and quick. Other people see you as superior when they think you're the smartest person in the room, an arrogant and egotistical jerk. You see yourself as superior when you think you're cleverer than everyone else, and when you know exactly what to say to make the people around you do what you want. You use superior to assess the situation, so that is the Powered by the Apocalypse—
Julia: Perception check.
Eric: —perception check. But of course, it's always questions, which I love and you get plus one, if you act on the answers you get from those questions. Superior is also used to provoke someone when you want to get them to do something that they don't want to do.
Amanda: Yum, yum.
Julia: Interesting.
Eric: And finally, there's the mundane, seeing yourself as normal, human, empathetic and understanding. Other people see you as mundane when they think that you're too normal and uninteresting, but also comprehending and sympathetic. You see yourself as mundane when you think you're regular, just a person, not special, and focused on normal human things, like feelings and emotions.
Julia: Fair.
Eric: You use the mundane to pierce the mask when you see the person beneath, and you use mundane to comfort someone.
Amanda: Now, Eric, you mentioned other people's opinions of us mattering. How can other people control our labels?
Eric: Shifting someone's labels is either a positive or negative outcome of when someone does something to you, or you succeed or fail at doing something yourself. If someone wants to make you feel bad, maybe they'll up your freak and lower your superior. If someone is empowering you, then maybe they'll up your savior, so to make you better able to defend someone. It's always in combination of play and mechanics, and that's kind of, like, the mechanical way of expressing that someone is making you— either yourself or someone else is making you feel differently about yourself.
Brandon: Hmm.
Eric: Another thing that we have here is called influence. Basically, the mechanical expression of someone having a power dynamic over you, is you can have influence on someone else, someone else can have influence over you, whether they're PCs or NPCs, and that can get expressed through either bonuses or negatives.
Brandon: My favorite thing, too, about the labels is that they can only go up to, I think, plus three and then minus two.
Eric: Plus three, yeah.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: And if you get a label change, that would require you to go past one of those ceilings or floors. You have a negative consequence necessarily, like—
Eric: Oh, yeah, I got it right here. If you can't go plus ultra, I'm sorry.
Julia: Damn.
Eric: Instead you mark a condition. A condition is another thing— is another negative thing that happens to you, afraid, angry, guilty, hopeless and insecure. They give you negative two to specific basic moves you can do, and you have to do something specific to clear them. Like you need to help someone, you have to do something selfless, or you have to go do something self-destructive to kind of get these conditions off of you. Really mechanicalizing our feelings, which is all we want to do when we're role-playing.
Julia: We love that.
Eric: We love to mechanicalize.
Brandon: Yeah. So if you have, like, plus three in savior, and then you have something that would increase your savior to plus four, you get a condition, which means you might be, like, angry or sad about the increase in savior. You know, it's just like a really fun—
Eric: Oh, I didn't even know you could do— you got a condition if it was— if you got— your head got too big. That is cool.
Brandon: Exactly.
Eric: That's very cool.
Brandon: Yeah, it's like— it's not even necessarily like your head— it can be their head gets too big, but it can also be that, like, your savior complex has gotten so high that, like, now you're insecure about it, or whatever.
Eric: Hmm.
Brandon: I think that's really fun.
Amanda: Because it's up to you what the condition is, right? Like the condition— you take a condition in many cases, and so I love the agency that this gives players to be able to say, "Okay, well, the natural consequence of like this happening to my character over and over again is this thing."
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: And so at least from my experience as a player again at this point, you know, a few years ago, was it felt like I was, I don't know, making a compromise with the text, almost.
Brandon: Hmm.
Amanda: Where I was able to take consequences, but choose how they were played out in a way that gave me a lot of agency.
Brandon: I like the idea of compromising with the text and be like, "Okay, sneak attack will give me plus one, but I don't have to read it."
Eric: I love the damage system in this. When we're talking about conditions, is like, you feel hopeless. Every— you feel afraid, you feel angry, you feel guilty. Too much is happening to you in the middle of a fight, because we're superheroes. It's hard to just keep track of a 1,000 HP that slowly whittling down with every single attack. So instead, when— if a villain gets one over you, you have to take a powerful blow, and there is some really dangerous consequences for being able to tank that powerful blow. It's also in reverse. You roll your 2d6 plus condition— the number of conditions you have marked, and then if you get a 10 or above, really bad stuff happens to you. A seven and nine, middling, bad stuff happens to you. And only on a, quote-unquote, "miss" do you just stand strong and tank the powerful blow.
Brandon: That's fun.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: A real inversion of what we understand good and bad dice rolls to be.
Brandon: As 11, this might be a good time to bring it up that, like, there's not really HP in the game, either. Like it's really totally about storytelling.
Amanda: Yeah. No one is going to be doing death saving rolls, but there are things that happen when you kind of, like, advance and change and get toward the end of your playbook, which I know, Eric, happened to you in our long-running campaign.
Brandon: Oh.
Julia: Ooh.
Eric: Oh, that's right, I got tired of being the star, and I ended up wanting to be— like, join the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. instead.
Julia: Cool.
Eric: And then I was going to roll up a new character before we ended up doing that, which was really fun. Also, it's really easy to give people custom moves too, because of how all you need is fiction trigger and then what happens on a hit, a partial hit or failure.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Eric: The point is, we're going back to teaching you how to play tabletop RPGs again. Learn how to play Masks with all of us.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: We're gonna go over this, especially in the first few episodes of this campaign. But I'm just— I'm excited to go back to superheroes, folks. I really am.
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: Woo.
Amanda: Me too, man. I— how much do you all want the powers to shape the environment to be what we need right now? That feels like a really, really cathartic thing to get into.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Julia: Yes.
Brandon: So I love that— maybe this is just how we play, but, like, especially for AP-recorded medium on a podcast, like, really thinking sort of inverted about like— normally when you want to play a role-playing game, you're like, "Let's go play Dungeons and Dragons." And then you figure out the esthetic of the game, the genre, the—
Eric: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: -- specifics on top of it. But I think it's really fun for us to, this time, be able to be like, "We want to play superheroes. Let's figure out what matches that," and it's Masks.
Eric: A lot more form following function—
Brandon: Yeah, yeah.
Eric: —helping us do it. I'm also really interested to see how long, like, individual conflicts are going to take. Like, I wonder if we're going to be able to just kind of mop up stuff like a— you know, the X-Men: Evolutions cartoon of being like, "This one session is dealing with one villain and we take care of it." Because you can just—
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: —do stuff so much faster.
Julia: True.
Eric: I wonder— yeah, I wonder if, like, we'll get stuff done in like, one, two or three episodes, instead of, you know, every single story being five, six, seven episodes.
Brandon: Eric, may I suggest that every villain in every episode is just Mole Man, just over and over again?
Amanda: Hmm.
Eric: I'll take it—
Julia: Hmm.
Eric: —under consideration.
Brandon: Okay, cool. Thank you.
Julia: Interesting.
Eric: I'm not gonna do it. I mean, achoo.
Julia: Oh. God bless you.
Eric: Amanda, Brandon, Julia.
Julia: Yeah, Eric.
Eric: I'd like to express my affection and my excitement to you in a very specific way that only Eric Silver can do.
Amanda: Oh.
Brandon: Okay.
Eric: Would you like to play a world-building game with me?
Amanda: Yay!
Julia: I would love that.
Brandon: Woo!
Eric: Folks, I'm going back to my bag of tricks. This is a game that I wrote all the way back when we were doing the campaign. You might recognize this game from Three Short Games to Build Stories by Eric Silver, which you can buy at the jointheparty.pod.com/merch store.
Amanda: jointheparty.pod.com/merch?
Brandon: Woo!
Amanda: Only $5 for three PDFs?
Brandon: jointheparty.pod.com/merch.
Eric: You can buy that and other stuff, like world-building stuff for LakeTown City. If you want to go back to LakeTown City or Model Our Nations, which I wrote also.
Julia: Whoa.
Amanda: Guys, if you don't think we're gonna manufacture embroidered patches with the logo of whatever school we build over the next hour—
Brandon: Ooh.
Amanda: —you are— you don't know me because it's happening.
Julia: My dream. My dream.
Brandon: Julia, say it. Say the link.
Julia: I won't do it.
Brandon: Say the link.
Julia: I can't.
Brandon: Say the link.
Julia: I simply can't do it. jointhepartypod.com/merch.
Eric: We're all a family in this company. Yeah!
Brandon: Yay!
Eric: So I was inspired by This Is What My Camp Is Like, which is the game that I wrote for creating Camp Diogenes, which we all did together in beginning of the Camp-Paign. But it's all about, you know, in viewing a small space with a lot of detail in a short amount of time.
Julia: Hell yeah.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: Before we get into it, I am gonna make sure that I have my school snack of an apple sauce, Goldfish crackers, and water. So I'm gonna come right back.
Brandon: Amanda, you know that we're 16 to 20 and not, like, fifth grade, right?
Eric: Just—
Amanda: I think there's something cathartic about going back to the snacks of your youth.
Brandon: Okay.
Eric: Amanda eats more Goldfish than any six-year-old I've ever seen.
Julia: I was gonna say, if Amanda didn't say goldfish, I would have rioted.
Amanda: Oh, yeah.
Julia: Flip the table.
Amanda: I'm nothing but consistent.
[music]
Amanda: Hey, everybody, it's Amanda. Can you believe this is happening? Campaign Four is finally here, and I am so freaking excited. Oh, my God. This moment of bliss at the top of this midroll is instead of just like a tranquil, calm, I think it's just a moment of enthusiasm. And right now, like the sort of, like, comic book thing over my head to describe how I'm feeling about Campaign Four is "kapow." Hi, welcome to the midroll. We are recording this in advance, because we have just finished our live show in Portland, yay, as of when you are hearing this episode. So if you are one of the many folks who've joined the Patreon in the last week to make sure that you hear the One Shot Derby when it comes out, we will thank you by name next week. I'll tell you, we are making good progress toward our goal of 50 new paid patrons in order to unlock a second One Shot from the One Shot Derby Two, Pantheon. So thank you and keep it coming, folks. We can only make the show because of your support on Patreon. So to get things like access to Discord, the One Shot Derby One Shots, ad-free episodes, and even early access to new episodes a whole day before anybody else, join us at patreon.com/jointhepartypod. Folks, this is the start of a brand-new campaign over at Join the Party. This is the moment to get your friends into the show. If you have been waiting to get someone in your life into Join the Party, if you've made a new friend recently at work or on a dating app or online and you're like, "Hey, seems like you'd be into this cool nerd shit." Send them to jointhepartypod.com right now, today. I would love to get new listeners on board for Campaign Four. I know you know people who are into teenage superhero, comic book realness. I know you know people who are looking for shows that play games that aren't DND. So come on over, get your friends involved, and send them to jointhepartypod.com now. Lots going on from Multitude right now. We are also hard at work, even as we're here doing the most with Campaign Four on season two of Attach Your Resume, the show that Eric and I, with producer Brandon and editor Mischa, launched last year. All about interviewing online creators about how their jobs work and how they got there. So you get to hear personal stories behind seismic events in digital media and learn what concrete steps we can take to build a sustainable media landscape. It's only getting more relevant, folks. So go on ahead and marathon season one of Attach Your Resume. We finished the season with a very fun kind of roundup episode, predicting and talking about trends in podcasting we're noticing in 2025. So if you listen to the midrolls of podcasts, you are gonna enjoy it. So go on ahead and look up Attach Your Resume in your podcast app now and get ready for season two. We are sponsored this week by Factor. 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[music]
Amanda: Now, Brandon, have you taken the opportunity of the break that we just got back from to check with your family group chat about any, like, comic books, zines, short story picture books that you may have drawn in elementary school that could inspire this setting, like we did with Camp Di?
Brandon: Hmm. You know…
Amanda: Like maybe school power or something.
Brandon: You know, I was a very cerebral, serious student as a nine-year-old, so, like, I think I was above the graphic arts, you know?
Amanda: Oh.
Brandon: It was all about the narrative and the pros, you know?
Eric: Damn. Brandon was telling his elementary school classmates to code.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: I wanted to be an academy. That's my only request—
Eric: Sure.
Julia: —with the name, really. I would like it to be an academy.
Eric: Hey, I'll get right out ahead of this as we start to play This Is What My Super School Is Like.
Julia: Woo!
Amanda: Ay.
Eric: You might have noticed we're not asking for the name of the school. Don't try to force it. Let it naturally come up in conversation. If someone says a name and everyone goes, "Ooh." That's probably it. If not—
Julia: Hmm.
Eric: —keep waiting to see if it comes up. Let's try to name the school before the end of the game, but we can do it any time before the first session.
Julia: Cool,
Brandon: Love it.
Eric: Wow. So glad I wrote that in the past. Good job, Eric.
Brandon: Whoa.
Julia: Yeah. Good job, Eric.
Amanda: That's one sentence where it's like if I had to put my life savings, not a lot of money, on the line about whether or not Eric wrote a sentence. Put it all in black, baby. I know it's an Eric Silver sentence.
Julia: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
Brandon: Oh. Eric, do you have a name for yourself in the past? Do you have name? Like, is it like Eric Jr. or something?
Eric: Yeah, that idiot. Okay. The first part of creating our school is establishing tone, the color, texture and setting we want to explore. As a group, we're going to decide on three adjectives that will set the mood. I have a list of some adjectives we can pull from. I updated this from the camp list of adjectives. We got, ageless, buttoned up, overwhelming, orderly, sprawling, uncanny, anachronistic, tense, faded, dangerous, warm, intense, related to tense, bygone, volatile, eclectic, spooky, memorable, loud, vivid, gritty, elegant, remote, chaotic, earnest and factional.
Brandon: Hmm. A lot of good ones in there.
Julia: Is gritty one of the teachers at the school?
Brandon: It's lowercase G, gritty.
Julia: Oh, bummer.
Amanda: Can I say Phantastic with a PH, the Phillie Phanatic is there? Would that be okay?
Eric: No, this is not in Philadelphia. No.
Julia: All right. I think I have the one that I would like to do, personally.
Eric: For sure.
Brandon: Now, yeah, Eric, it does say here that we should pick at least one from the list below, but we can come up with others if we'd like.
Eric: Oh, yeah, come up with some other ones, dawg.
Brandon: Okay. Is that good? Is that what the idiot from the past still thinks?
Eric: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Amanda: What are you thinking, Julia?
Julia: I'm really drawn to eclectic.
Eric: Hmm.
Julia: I really like this idea of like, you probably have a wide variety of superhero superpowers, mundane folks who don't have powers that are working at the school. And I think eclectic is kind of this, like, combined, each classroom is very different, each teacher is very different, each, like, subset of students in the dormitories. I think eclectic really speaks to me as a, like— everything feels personalized and also has the fingerprints of everyone who taught or was taught there in the past.
Eric: Yeah, I like that, too. There was something in the actual book, Masks, in the third expansion, called Unbound, has a what they call the Phoenix Academy, which is the super school. And they have a whole backstory about this whole thing. But basically, like, they had aliens who had debts to the creator of the school, come in and build it. And the aliens were like, "I don't know what humans like." And just threw shit together, and I don't know if we have to necessarily go in that way, but that vibe is so intoxicating to me, and I want to grab the adjective eclectic as well.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: So you're sort of envisioning a very modern school, as opposed to, like, a boarding school situation, you know?
Julia: Yeah, I think I'm picturing that the school itself, like I'm not thinking dark academia for this. I'm thinking more of a— in my mind, it's almost like they get a grant every year and they build a new, like, wing or room or something like that, and it's completely different stylistically than the one that they had made the previous year.
Amanda: I really like that, too, Julia, because, especially, like, several years after the events of Campaign Two, which, again, not important for you guys to— you know, listening out there to catch up on but it is a world where, like, superheroes are known. Superheroes are out there. People know that they're around. They're, like, a part of city life. I bet there is just, like increasing weirdness. And, like, one year, there is a world where you have to learn to deal with, like someone who can manipulate silicone, right? Or, like, someone else who can, I don't know, change the, like, humidity of a room, and that's also important. And they're like, "Oh, shit, we got to, like, build a chamber to do that thing with."
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: And adding on and on and on to this, like, sprawling world, I was drawn to something like maybe factional just because I was trying to get at that same thing of, like, there are so many different ways and modes of instruction and, like, students powers places that I think I'd be happy to take eclectic as that sort of acknowledgement that teaching everyone with every kind of elevated power is going to require the equivalent of, like, a gigantic library of tools.
Julia: Yes.
Brandon: Now, I love this. I am not pushing back against it, but can I pitch you that we make Eric do something that's either anachronistic or buttoned up? Because that would be very funny to see Eric Silver do that.
Eric: That's fine. Well, I want— the— it's not only one person or, like, maybe the headmaster or the principal being buttoned up. It's that there's stuff in here which is very— like it's a prevailing vibe, for sure.
Brandon: Right.
Amanda: How do you feel, Brandon, about something like remote or self-contained, or, like insular? Because I love the idea that we are, you know, 90 minutes outside of the major metropolis of the US, LakeTown City and everything on campus matters so much, because this is like our world for the time that we are there. Something along those lines is a vibe that I'm super drawn to, and something I enjoy in superhero media with, like, boarding academies and, you know, these huge mansions in the middle of nowhere where students can safely, you know, like, detonate a big bomb.
Julia: A big fireball.
Amanda: Yeah. Make fireball.
Brandon: Yeah, I love— I was going back and my— forth in my head on that, unlike the setting, because, like, do I want it to just be— like do we want to just do the X-Men mansion, or do we want it to be— I agree that it should be insular, like every— like it matters so much what happens in that part of town.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: But is it more fun to sort of have it be the cornerstone of a suburb? Like, I don't know.
Julia: Is it a college town or is it not a college town?
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: Those—
Julia: Hmm.
Amanda: Yeah, remote doesn't quite sit for me, because the thing I want to focus on is like, when you're in it, how it feels, which is like—
Brandon: Right.
Amanda: —you know, this is our entire world and it's so important. Almost like— maybe I am being drawn to factional because it's like my allegiance is that, like, I'm a student here—
Brandon: Hmm.
Amanda: —first and foremost, above all else. And it— like it means everything when you get in. I would like to propose a sort of like— I have a geographical vision for how this could look—
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: —in the Masks' Phoenix Academy. The school is set on a remote island, right, in the middle of a lake or an ocean.
Julia: Hmm.
Amanda: So that the students can't hurt others, because there were examples where, you know, the building would burn down. I really like the idea that this school is like Roosevelt Island here in New York City, which is like a little island in the middle of the river that most people just pass over or under on the subway or the tram. And maybe this is like in, you know, a suburb that has a gigantic moat around it. Maybe it's one of those man-made, like, lakes with an island in the middle and, like, a huge bridge, almost like in, you know, Abu Dhabi and other places in the UAE. But I am so taken by the idea that we are, like, sitting on a, you know, a man-made Island looking out over the suburbs, maybe, like, the city skyline in the distant horizon. And just living our entire lives and, like, caring so much about what happens in this school setting here.
Brandon: I like that, yeah.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: I also like the idea that, yeah, that it's man-made because they had to build a, basically a fire barrier just in case.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Well, I'm gonna put a hold on this, because Amanda read ahead in the book—
Brandon: Ah.
Julia: Hmm.
Eric: —just like in school and that is one of the questions is going to be on later.
Brandon: Okay.
Julia: Okay.
Eric: So I want to see if who ends up rolling that one and who gets to make the final decisions on that.
Amanda: Oops, sorry.
Julia: That's fair, that's fair.
Eric: If you, Amanda, if you want the word— if you want the adjective remote, let's grab the adjective remote.
Julia: I like insular better for what you're describing, Amanda.
Brandon: I think insular is good.
Eric: Great. Let's add that.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: And let's do one more adjective so we can get to the clarifying questions.
Julia: Brandon, this one's yours?
Amanda: Yeah. Can you say more about anachronistic, buttoned up? Like, what do you think would be fun about those adjectives?
Brandon: I think that would be in opposition to eclectic, so I was just—
Amanda: Okay.
Brandon: —pitching a second idea.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: The question was, do we want— when Eric is building his high school, is it funnier to ask Eric to, like, make school uniforms and that kind of vibe, or is it funnier to make Eric do his normal wacky stuff?
Eric: You know, they can still be school uniforms, Brandon. Like, anachronistic was interesting of, yeah, a real sort of 1950s, 1960s, 1970s just vibe going on. And, yeah, buttoned up feels more like what people tell me Catholic school was like. So I don't— it's on the table.
Brandon: Hmm.
Eric: And again, this is like, coming down from the— you know, I put buttoned up on here, where I'm like, "This is what is a should be expected of students. Do people do it? Do— how much do people follow it? Do you need to follow it to get advancement as a professional superhero?" I don't know. So if you want to do buttoned up, we can do it.
Brandon: No, I think— what if we— I'm torn between like, something that will, like, add just another element, or something that will, like, unfurl it a little more. Like, spooky would be something out of left field and, like, add something new. But I wonder if, like, overwhelming is the right word and that, like, if this is eclectic and insular overwhelming in the sense that, one, is overwhelming just because, like, there's so many people and it's like, you know, this— it's clique-y and blah, blah, blah. But, like, also, like, academics are exceptionally important here.
Eric: Hmm.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Yeah. I also think that, like, you could come at it from an angle of, like, you know, you grew up with superheroes and now, like, the guy that you saw on TV, very, you know, My Hero Academia is now, like, you're— I keep coming back to gym teacher, because I think it's the funniest job—
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Julia: —at school, but it's like the gym teacher, you know?
Amanda: Oh, yeah.
Julia: And you're like, "It is overwhelming to see you, sir, here teaching me about how to do sit-ups properly."
Brandon: Right, yeah.
Amanda: Yeah. And for students that would otherwise be going to, like, a non-super high school, for this to have been a small or maybe even hidden part of your life, depending on, like, the background and the playbook of the super. And then they come and, like, this is all they're talking about all the time, that is so overwhelming and I'm really drawn to that.
Eric: I think about this when, like, NFL quarterbacks go back and teach high school football when they're high school football coaches.
Julia: Uh-huh.
Eric: And I know it's a little bit— I guess, no, actually, it's the same because of how important high school football is to how much money there now is in college football and then in the NFL. And, like, Michael Vick is your coach.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: He's just absolutely must be mindboggling to a 17-year-old. Even a 17-year-old who has massive scholarships to massive schools, that still must be, in some level, overwhelming.
Julia: Yeah, and the stakes are so high. I like what you were saying, Brandon, like the academic prowess—
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Julia: —is so important to the school that, like—
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Julia: —you know, if you flunk out, you're kind of fucked for the rest of your superheroing career.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Eric: True.
Brandon: Yeah. Yeah. I also— like this is a— I know we're done with the three or, like, this is up to three, but it does orderly also fits well into this idea where I was thinking like it's eclectic, but like, people take it seriously, because like—
Amanda: Hmm.
Brandon: —it is— in order to succeed at it, you have to take it seriously, because otherwise if you don't, then, like, you're going to fail every class and you're going to kick— get kicked out and you won't be a superhero.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: I mean, instead of eclectic, we could have done anachronistic or bygone or nostalgic, or rundown even where it's like, "Oh, we're trying— this is what things should— could be if we all decided it was 1975 again." But instead—
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: —it's just eclectic, is just— is more about the, you know, the surfaces of the outside.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: I do think insular implies a certain level of self-seriousness that—
Julia: Hmm.
Brandon: Hmm.
Amanda: —it sounds like it's getting at what you're describing, Brandon—
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: —of, like, you know, when we are here, it is all about this. All the traditions really matter. My brain is screaming the word Yale at me, because everyone I know who went to Yale, like, cares the most about Yale traditions. And I think that when you are insular, you have to give a ton of importance to that thing.
Brandon: True. Yeah.
Amanda: And so I'm very much picking up the same thing of like, "Oh, you don't know the school song? Like, are you kidding me? Like, why are you even here?"
Brandon: I also love the idea— yes. Yes, and I also want to push on, like, academics as opposed to powers like—
Amanda: Hmm.
Julia: Right.
Brandon: —it's sort of, like, assumed that you're here because you have cool powers that are interesting and unique, and you will learn them. But the real thing is, like, you better fucking have a liberal education by the time you'll leave here.
Julia: Yeah, no. It's like, how in X-Men, it'll be like, "Oh, yeah, you know, Wolverine teaches combat and then also philosophy."
Brandon: Yeah, exactly.
Julia: You're like, "That's wild."
Brandon: You owe Wolverine your philosophy essay.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Definitely.
Julia: Now, he's gonna beat the shit out of you during a Danger Room class.
Brandon: Exactly, exactly.
Amanda: "Tell me what Jean-Paul Sartre believed." "What?"
Julia: Stab, stab.
Eric: He's five-foot-three while doing that.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: The original short king, then.
Eric: All right. I want to talk about some big picture ideas, now that we have adjectives. Ordinarily, we come up with it together, but we already have some stuff from Campaign Two that we're going to move forward, but I just want to establish what we're talking about. This school is in the suburbs. I said it has to be at least an hour away from LakeTown City, either by driving or by train. I think that over an hour means that if I don't know— the thing that I imagined— because as someone who grew up close to New York City, it's like if you got— if you had a problem in New York City and you need— and you went with your friends when you were in high school, and then your parents needed to come get you, they were 90 minutes away.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Eric: And that is a scary amount— a long enough distance for it to feel scary.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: You know, and— I mean, listen, people have super speed, people can fly, whatever, but it should still feel far enough away that you can't just— this isn't like— in the new Spider-Man movies, this is like a magnet school in Brooklyn. This needs to be in the suburbs.
Julia: Gotcha.
Brandon: Yeah. Like when I was growing up, I grew up in a suburb of Dallas, and, like, before you could drive and before you were 18, basically, or 21 or whatever it is, like the place you were in an hour outside of the cool stuff, like the stuff—
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: —you actually wanted to go eat and do and drink and hang out, was like, you're everything, because that's all you had. And you couldn't— yeah, you couldn't go explore the music club and stuff, because you either couldn't get there or it was too old for you, or whatever it is, but I like that idea.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: Yeah. Or, like, for Julia and me, it was a, you know, commuter train into New York City that cost, you know, $9 to $15 depending on the time of day—
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: And came once an hour, if you were lucky. So—
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: —it took some planning and some doing to get into the metropolis.
Julia: I also love that, you know, that's the case, and also, we just said it's gonna be on an island, so there's even a secondary layer to that of isolation.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Well, let's talk about that. I had written down that about a third of a student body lives in dorms for various reasons, either they're aliens or they're from a different place, so their family isn't so they stay in dorms or tragedy. And I think two-thirds live with their families nearby, whatever that means. And I mean, we've all— for all of us who've been to American schools, that could be anywhere from next door to 45 minutes or longer, especially if this is a private school and not a public school, I'm sure.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Someone might commute an hour into— from different state to come in.
Brandon: Well, this is a utopia, so all schools are public schools and no one else has to pay tuition, so—
Eric: Shh. Brandon, shh.
Brandon: So I love that idea, but I do wonder with— if that butts up against what we just talked about with insular, because, like— because I figure students would be fighting to be the ones who get to stay on campus.
Eric: Okay.
Julia: I would almost swap the numbers.
Eric: Okay. Let's swap—
Amanda: I would love to swap the proportions.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Let's swap the numbers, then.
Julia: Or even, like, three-quarters and a quarter.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Sure. I love that.
Amanda: I'm down for— yeah. Minimum two-thirds are boarding and then maybe some students that have family nearby can, like, go home on the weekends. I know people who did that when they, you know, went to boarding schools growing up. So—
Eric: Oh, let's do that, then.
Amanda: —I like that.
Eric: So then let's do two-thirds of the student body live full-time in the dorms, while—
Julia: Hmm.
Eric: —one-third—
Brandon: Hmm.
Eric: —live where their families nearby or go home on the weekends.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: And I love the idea that, like, in a lot of colleges, freshmen have to stay on campus regardless, like that's just what we have to do.
Amanda: Ooh, that's nice.
Eric: I like that. That's cool.
Amanda: Yeah. Oh, my God. Imagine the, like, party houses of, like, students getting off-campus housing and, like, a ramshackle Victorian nearby. So good.
Brandon: That'd be cool.
Julia: I love it.
Brandon: I love that.
Eric: Oh, this is something that's important to me. The school was founded in the '90s, so it's been around for a while, but none of our heroes from Campaign Two knew it existed.
Julia: Huh.
Eric: I think that makes sense with the way that the themes we wrestled with in Campaign Two and also, why would Milo's dad, Aggie's mom, or Val's family care about this at all. Is— why would they send them to school? They figured it out just like we figured it out, so they'll figure it out.
Julia: Hmm.
Brandon: Yeah, I'm sure it also wasn't quite the institution that it is now. Like—
Julia: Yeah,
Brandon: Because the Delta stuff happened in the '80s, so like—
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: —it had only been around for five years, maybe 10 years by the time we were adults, you know?
Eric: I also don't even know— you know, when— where something being this far outside of the city, it feels like something you would need to stumble into.
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: Right.
Eric: In some sort of capacity, if you lived in the superhero city already.
Julia: Right.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: And think about the X-Men, how the Academy started with, like, five students.
Eric: Yes. Oh, 100%.
Julia: And, like, it's 20 years later, still only had, like, in the teens.
Eric: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: Oh, and we should say, for anyone who's not— who hasn't listened to Campaign Two, Delta radiation was the thing that sort of gave people superpowers.
Eric: Yeah. There was a mad scientist, Dr. Cassandra Morrow. She tried to invent a new clean power energy source in a small town, she exploded it. Infected everyone with Delta radiation, which was one better than gamma radiation, suck at Dr. Bruce Banner, and it gave people superpowers over time. As generations went by, the— their children and grandchildren had stronger powers, which— and then it kind of came to a head during Campaign Two of having superhero level superpowers, and no one having any guidance of how to deal with that.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: It's like when your grandpa was— you know, played hockey, your dad was good at hockey, and then you have, like, a four-year-old hockey prodigy, and someone in a rink somewhere sits you down and is like, "Ma'am, you're gonna have to move to Canada because your kid is gonna be doing big hockey." Like, we are in the era now of having super-powered people, where, unlike, I think, when our, you know, PCs from Campaign Two were born. It's like, "Oh, my kid is like, you know, aging slowly. Okay." And then, you know, you move on with your life. There are kids and there's infrastructure for like, "Oh, no, your whole life is going to be, like, contextualized and shaped around this, you know, difference that you were born with."
Brandon: You're not a duck, you're a mighty duck.
Amanda: Exactly right.
Eric: Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack.
Julia: Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack.
Eric: All right. Let's talk about clubs and cliques, which is something I got from the Phoenix Academy expansion story in the Masks Unbound Expansion. Two types of teams generally form in the halls of this hero High School. I see what you did there. Official school teams become clubs, while cliques are ad hoc and peer teams. I think that the entire social structure of this school, mostly so you can play the game but also I kind of like this, revolves around institutional superhero teams and friends who hang out with each other and our superhero teams.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Eric: So superhero teams, operating under the full sanction of the academy are known as clubs. Students must have faculty sponsorship to form a club, and the most successful clubs have their own history traditions, including trials for new members. The school stands behind the clubs when their exploits cause property damage or if their reputations are in jeopardy. But the sanctioning also means the clubs have obligations. They must wear approved uniforms, spend time doing public service, periodically act as security, et cetera. Cliques, on the other hand, are a slang term for teams that form out of friend groups, street battles or other ad hoc circumstances. These informal squads don't bother getting official sanction and just hang out and fight crime when they feel like it.
Julia: Hell yeah.
Eric: Most faculty members are suspicious of cliques and are more likely to crack down on their misbehavior. And, of course, there is tension between clubs, cliques, and clubs within each other and cliques within each other.
Brandon: And people who can't make it into either.
Julia: Aw.
Amanda: Aw.
Eric: All right, so Brandon's playing a weird loner for this.
Julia: Yup.
Eric: Brandon is his own clique.
Brandon: No, I was just talking about myself in high school, Eric.
Eric: Oh, you were on the football team and you are weird loner? I can't decide, Brandon.
Julia: Shout out to the Miss Takes, which is an all-girl punk band and super team that they give an example of as a clique.
Eric: It's very funny.
Brandon: Oh, hell yeah, that's great.
Eric: I want to fold that in here. I think it makes everything kind of easier, because Masks revolves around a teen superhero team, so that we can have kind of, like, our base unit and then go from there. You will decide if you want to have a clique or a club team and I think we can just go from there. I'm very excited to peer pressure you in various ways.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah. And finally, I said this before, but this is gonna happen some number of years after Campaign Two, and just the weirdness of the superhero— of having superheroes around, messes with the ley lines. So I think that stuff can just get weirder and weirder. And really, I'm gonna push on the strangeness of this school and all of the different types of superpowers that could be here.
Julia: Cool.
Amanda: Eric, it's been five years in real life since we started Campaign Two, so I would like to propose this happens five years in story after the events of Campaign Two.
Eric: Sounds great. Love it.
Julia: Hmm.
Amanda: So that puts us in— you know, you said that Campaign Two happened in 2020x, maybe it can be in 2030x.
Eric: 20—
Brandon: Oh.
Julia: I like that.
Brandon: I like it.
Eric: Oh.
Julia: I'm into it.
Eric: Oh.
Julia: I'm into it.
Eric: All right, folks, let's answer some questions, yeah?
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: So there are three sets of questions here, the space, the changes, and the stories. We're going to answer four questions from a set of six that we have here. We're each going to roll a d6 to figure out which one we're going to do. Starting with the shortest character/person, we'll go around in a circle, or Julia, you can just decide which order you want us to go in. And we're gonna— everyone gets to contribute to each prompt, but the person who rolled it is going to lock it in.
Brandon: Rude to assume that Julia is the shortest, Eric.
Julia: I mean, in real life, I certainly am. I think my character for this campaign is quite tall, but we'll see what happens.
Eric: Ooh.
Amanda: Julia, I think mine is gonna be pretty short.
Julia: Excellent. I love that we swapped.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Julia: I think I'll go first, Brandon, Amanda, Eric. I think that's a fun order.
Eric: Great.
Brandon: Great.
Amanda: Love it.
Eric: Julia, Brandon—
Julia: Brandom.
Eric: —Amamda.
Brandon: Bramdom? That's what I do— when I do my sex work.
Julia: Shout out. Cool.
Eric: All right, folks. Ama— Julia, the board is open. Roll your d6.
Julia: [dice roll] 2.
Eric: 2. What does the front entrance of the school look like?
Brandon: Ooh.
Amanda: Ooh. What a good question.
Julia: My first thought, it's a scaled down version of that mall that they now have at World Trade One.
Amanda: The Oculus.
Julia: Yes, the Oculus.
Amanda: Oh, like a very modern, like big arches, making kind of like a— almost like a hummingbird nest as you enter.
Brandon: Oh, that's very fancy, Julia.
Eric: So we really want people to get hit in the face when you're in a beautiful institution of learning?
Julia: Yes.
Eric: I find that very funny with eclectic when then all of a sudden, you walk into a room and it just, like, looks like a classroom.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: Well, I mean, you guys have been to hotels where, like, each of the rooms are different inside, but the outside of the hotel—
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: —looks like a hotel. That's kind of what I'm getting of, like, you can open the door and it's like, "Oh, there's a portal to nowhere. Like, this one is full of water."
Julia: "Oh, the interdimensional room." Yeah.
Amanda: Right, exactly, yeah. And I think that's so cool.
Brandon: I think it's also funny to have different— themes of different, like, wings and stuff.
Amanda: Right.
Julia: Yeah. I think the vibe that I'm kind of going for is, like, this is a very— like, I want to go as far away from the, like, hallowed halls of the Xavier Institute for gifted young youths, you know?
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: So not a Victorian mansion, closer to, like, a contemporary, you know— almost like a museum or like a concert hall.
Julia: Yeah. And it's definitely like a new adaptation, too. Like, again, I like this idea, grant every year, different project every year. That's why it's so eclectic.
Eric: They must redo the front, like, every five years, because this is so—
Julia: Probably.
Eric: —modern charter school to me.
Amanda: Yes.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: Speaking of that, Julia, who is the person's name that is the donator of this front entrance hall?
Julia: Oh, God.
Amanda: Is there a rich super who used their powers for the private sector and then said, "Redo the entrance. I want my name on it."?
Julia: It's the PJ Lawbody. And PJ Lawbody is someone who got very rich off of handling legal cases that involve supers.
Brandon: Oh, that's good, Julia.
Amanda: Excellent.
Eric: The PJ Law— this is the P—
Julia: The PJ Lawbody—
Amanda: Atrium.
Julia: —Atrium. That's it.
Eric: I just like calling it atrium in school entrance. It's very funny to me.
Julia: I think atrium works.
Brandon: We don't actually have to call— it doesn't have to be named that. It just has— at least has to have the whole plaque, you know?
Julia: Yeah, of course.
Eric: Oh, no. I— Brandon, I knew exactly what you're talking about. Nothing is funnier to me than college football coaches having their positions have donor names attached to them, and I find that—
Brandon: Exactly.
Eric: —so deeply funny.
Brandon: Yeah, yeah.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: I love that.
Amanda: The Eric L. Silver chair of game design and punching Nazis.
Eric: You gotta make sure that you use 50% on each. Brampton, roll them bones.
Brandon: [dice roll] 5.
Eric: 5. How is the teacher's lounge protected from the students?
Amanda: Oh, good.
Brandon: Ooh, this is good. Okay, so the obvious go-to is like magic— some sort of magical or technological barrier, right? I think that's boring. I think this is such a, like, high-end school that the only protect— like, it's expected that you will respect the teacher's lounge, right?
Eric: Hmm.
Brandon: So I think the only protection there is just a squirt guy who's just like a bodyguard— or like a security guard out there.
Julia: And he just has a squirt gun?
Brandon: Sorry, like, squat, like a small person.
Julia: Oh, okay. I was just picturing a guy with a little squirt gun being like, "No!"
Amanda: Like cats.
Brandon: That could be it, too, Julia. But yeah, I just like, think someone the size and the gruffness of a— of the OG Wolverine like a five— or, like, even like a four-eight Wolverine.
Eric: I love that.
Amanda: Well—
Brandon: And it's just like, "Don't come in here."
Amanda: —Brandon, what if like a— like an ink pack for robbers—
Eric: That's exactly what I was thinking.
Amanda: —they spritz you with, like, a UV or like a temporary die, so everyone's like, "Wow, nerd, tried to break the rules, get into the teacher's lounge. Ugh. Boring."
Brandon: I love it. I love it. Yeah.
Julia: Great.
Brandon: That's his power, too. He just has a little finger that he can squirt ink out of.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah. I was very much feeling this as well. I thought that maybe, like, there's a— there was an evil robot who got reprogrammed to be good and has just, like, full CCTV throughout the entire teacher's lounge, and that you can't avoid, and you can't take down. But this is very similar that like—
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: —this person who works at the school and part of their— maybe they're a groundskeeper or something, their other job.
Brandon: I don't want them to ever leave this door, but yes, I understand what you're saying.
Amanda: I think they're a hall monitor based right outside the teacher's lounge.
Julia: Hmm.
Amanda: You know what I mean?
Eric: Yeah, yeah. And—
Amanda: And they're, like, mostly reading a paper, and then without even looking, they just be like—
Eric: I'm already thinking that their superpower just has the ability to track any person's footsteps.
Brandon: Ooh.
Eric: And I think that will— that's kind of what I'm feeling and—
Brandon: That's fine.
Eric: —I can determine that.
Brandon: Let's do that and then has a ink squirt gun.
Eric: And also has an ink squirt gun.
Brandon: I also wanted— I also wanted to have a clipboard that nobody knows what the fuck is on this clipboard.
Amanda: Brandon, I love it.
Julia: Clipboard, in parentheses, (unknown).
Eric: I love this so much of just a four-eight Wolverine style and I'm imagining them as a real like— they used to live in Moose Jaw, Canada—
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: —and none of it. Or in Yellowknife, and they were a noir detective, but now does this.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: 100%.
Eric: I love this so much, it’s so tight.
Brandon: Anytime you ask him why he did it, he's like, "The bennies. The bennies are great."
Amanda: Oh, yeah. Maybe he's, like, secretly married to someone that will later find out who it is at school.
Brandon: Ooh, maybe.
Julia: An extremely cool lady.
Amanda: An extremely cool person, yeah.
Eric: "I got thrown out of windows by femme fatales twice a week. The bennies are better here. I've seen how many times he went to the bathroom today, James."
Julia: Oh, no.
Eric: "Not inside, I tracked you. Don't take that out of context."
Amanda: Love it.
Eric: Amanda.
Amanda: [dice roll] I rolled a 2.
Eric: Let's do— so you can either do one or three, which is, what is the drastic boundary of the school or what building is in an incredibly inconvenient place?
Amanda: Oh.
Eric: And you are already cooking at number one.
Amanda: I don't want to steamroll this question with the thing I supposed earlier, so let me formally choose question number one.
Julia: Okay.
Amanda: And Brandon and Julia, what are your feelings?
Julia: I fucking love the island. I think it's a great idea. I like this idea of someone with, like, Earth-bending powers, like lifting the Earth out of the middle of this lake or something like that.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Julia: To create the island that this stands on.
Brandon: Would you say, Julia, that they unleash their powers?
Julia: Yeah, I would say they definitely did.
Amanda: Ay.
Julia: There's probably a couple of people had to do that. I really like that idea. I also— just to throw other ideas out there, the woods could be like— not the woods, but, like, the sort of, like a woodland area might be fun or it could be both, actually. It could be like a woodland area on an island, too.
Amanda: I'm hoping that this is, like a huge campus, that it's like, you know, five acres or more. And, like, it's possible to get a little bit lost. There are parts of it that are remote.
Brandon: Yeah. Yeah.
Amanda: There are, like, different biomes and stuff and, like, you know, a wooded area, you know, sort of shoreline, et cetera. But I would love to— if you ever driven, like, through the Florida Keys or through some of these—
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: —like man-made cities—
Eric: Oh, hell yeah.
Amanda: —in the Middle East, like the United Arab Emirates. Like coming into Abu Dhabi from the airport, going into Singapore, places like that, where it's like, the only— it's like an archipelago and the only connection—
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: —to the mainland is like a huge, flat road. And I think in our case, there will be pedestrian bridges to things like— you know, if there's like a tram stop or a commuter train station, like, you don't have to have a car, necessarily. But the idea that you can be, like, driving along a road, you turn down, you know, the access road to the school, and then suddenly, like you see it looming in the distance—
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: —as you like drive through this big maw, is something I'm into.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: Now, are the norm— normie houses, are they on the island as well?
Eric: No, I feel like they have to be off the—
Amanda: No.
Eric: I feel like they—
Brandon: Okay.
Eric: —have to be on the other side of the bridge.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: I will also say, as someone who grew up in not the city, five acres is not that big. We should make out much more.
Amanda: Okay. How about— what if the island is, like, two miles wide? Whatever that is in hectares or acres.
Eric: Well, well, well, it seems like it's hard to figure out distances, isn't it, motherfucker?
Julia: Two mile by two mile is 2,560 acres.
Amanda: Like, I think it should take you, like, 45 minutes to walk from one end of the island to the other.
Eric: That sounds great. Love it. I wrote down big enough Island.
Brandon: Big enough, yeah.
Julia: Big enough, big enough.
Brandon: Now, anyone who doesn't work in miles, we don't know how many kilometers that is. Don’t ask us.
Amanda: It's not possible to know, I'm sorry.
Brandon: No one can know.
Amanda: It's not possible.
Eric: I know that I'm, like, two meters tall. That's it.
Brandon: I think I— I thought I weighed two meters. Fuck.
Julia: Fuck.
Eric: The only time I have two meters is when I gotta try not to get a parking ticket, hachacha.
Brandon: Hey, oh, hey, oh. I don't even know what that means.
Eric: Oh, oh. Okay. So, Amanda, I have school on an island. It's big— on a big enough Island and bridges to access it.
Julia: Specifically walking bridges, Amanda?
Amanda: I think walking bridges, plus car, tram, sky tram, or like commuter train bridges. So, like, there are bridges where you can get there via foot, you can get on off the island via, like— I'm just gonna keep saying commuter train, but you know what I mean, like a— you know—
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: —the regional rail, and then one for cars.
Julia: Also the Gothic potential of the bridge being washed out is always so sexy.
Eric: Julia, what are you talking about? I don't know what you mean.
Julia: No, I don't know. I— I've never studied any literary stuff at all.
Eric: It's so easy to get to an island, a school on an island, all the time. What do you mean?
Julia: Yeah. There's definitely no issues, whatsoever.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Achoo.
Julia: Never.
Eric: Okay.
Julia: Achoo. God bless you.
Eric: Sorry, I sneezed. I do like the idea that you gotta, like, eat and live on the island, unless you leave, and then it's a big deal.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: I'm sure that the seniors have— can leave the island, but it's also like— so that you can go to the nearest bad pizza place directly off of the island.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Like, to what end?
Julia: Hmm.
Eric: Like, unless you have super speed, what is really the point here?
Amanda: Like, maybe some cliques, like, move off campus and, you know, they're commuting every day. And it's like, where'd they go? What did they do? That's crazy.
Julia: True.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Julia: True.
Amanda: Eric, it's your turn now.
Eric: [dice roll] I got number 6. How do you get from the dorms to the school? What do you do if you're running late?
Brandon: Hmm.
Eric: I think the dorms need to be far enough away from the school itself. I don't think it's connected.
Julia: Can I share with you a thought that I had earlier?
Eric: Please.
Julia: Looking over the questions. My thought was for number three, what building is an incredibly inconvenient place? My immediate thought was the dorms, and this idea that they're on, like, a secondary, smaller island, that you have to cross the bridge to get to the bigger island.
Amanda: Yes. And then from the—
Eric: Yes.
Amanda: —classroom window, you can be like, "There's Brad."
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: "Brad is, like, running across the pedestrian bridge."
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Yeah, Julia, that's awesome. I think it's very funny, especially because things keep getting built on the island, is that, like, the dorms were originally connected to the original school.
Amanda: Hmm.
Eric: —but once it got too small and they had to build it out, they'd put it in a totally different place.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Which I find very, very funny.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Okay. Here— here's what I'm thinking, it wasn't a second island to begin with, but at some point, the island cracked— the dorms cracked off.
Brandon: Ooh.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: And now, it just kind of it is what it is.
Brandon: Did they crack off because someone was practicing unleashing their powers or was it natural phenomenon?
Julia: Or, like, a super villain attack or something like that?
Eric: I'm going with super villain attack.
Julia: Fuck yeah.
Eric: I think it became an object lesson for students—
Amanda: Hmm.
Eric: —needing to defend themselves and also giving themselves responsibilities immediately of like, "These dorms are great, but also, if you don't go to class, what are you doing here?" It's very easy—
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Eric: I think it's very easy to— like if you cut class, that is probably one of the worst things you can do and it's very easy for you to get kicked out because of that.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: So if you're running late, you have to do anything possible to not be late. Like, the amount that people use their powers to get to class on time, happens so much more than you would think.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Eric: The number of teleportation accidents, the number of magical mishaps, the amount of just scorched earth because a student overslept happens all the time.
Julia: Hell yeah.
Brandon: Love that.
Julia: I love that.
Brandon: Well, I was gonna— this is sort of unrelated, but I was gonna ask, does everyone in our world have a unique power or does everyone ha— can there be duplicates?
Eric: Oh, I assume that there's cliques that are just speedsters.
Julia: Or, like, all the telepaths are besties, because no one can lie to each other.
Brandon: That's fine. That's fine. Okay, cool.
Julia: That's dope.
Amanda: I'm picturing like, scorched bedrock, you know what I mean? Like, maybe—
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: —it's like a little bit above elevation-wise, because the, you know, the land mass got, like, jutted up in that geological event, and then it has its own, like, little moat because the water filled in around the chasm.
Julia: I like that a lot.
Brandon: I still love the idea that the bridge over the moat from the dorm island to the main island is, like, the most beautiful, sort of, like, 17th century European, like, the most beautiful, iconic thing on the island.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Julia: Like some architecture student took care of it.
Amanda: Oh, yeah.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: That's great. Like, a true— like, promenade, like limestone filigree.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: Hmm.
Eric: I'm still laughing at PJ Lawbody. Sorry.
Julia: Thanks.
Eric: All right, let's go to the changes. So we're gonna reset, we're gonna do a new set of six questions. We're gonna do the same order. These are the changes. What's different?
Brandon: Cha-cha-cha-cha-changes.
Eric: Turn and face the strange! We're gonna see what happened this year that's different than last year.
Brandon: Ooh.
Amanda: Julia.
Julia: Okay. [dice roll] I got a one.
Eric: Oh, good.
Brandon: Ooh.
Eric: I wanted this one so badly. Julia, congratulations. Someone in your class has totally new powers. Name three rumors, and it can be one true one and two fake ones, whatever, about how they got them.
Brandon: One rumor is an STD, one rumor is an STD.
Eric: They got an S— they changed their powers because of an STD.
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Eric: That's something that a 17-year-old would say to me, for sure, for sure.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: I was gonna say, I'm gonna gift each a rumor to each of you.
Amanda: Ah.
Julia: The first one that I thought of, though— is everyone familiar with the TV show Misfits?
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: Yes.
Brandon: Yes.
Julia: Okay. So there is a character or a plot arc on that show where there is, like, basically, a power broker, where he could take your powers away and then would sell—
Brandon: Hmm.
Julia: —you a different power.
Brandon: Oh.
Julia: And I think that there is someone on campus who is a power dealer.
Brandon: That's cool. That's a cool power.
Amanda: The rumor is that someone exists who's a power dealer, or the rumor is that this student went to the power dealer and got changed.
Julia: Both.
Eric: I like that. That— that's like if someone on campus has a secondary ability to do this, alongside this. And so change powers from a student who charged them, basically.
Julia: Yes. And I think that it's like the faculty doesn't know about it, and it's like a rumor, and people are, like, trying to investigate whether it's true or not.
Amanda: Cool.
Brandon: Hmm.
Julia: And I think it's an interesting plot point we could build off of.
Eric: That's cool.
Brandon: Cha-cha-changes.
Amanda: Brandon, I'm trying really hard to mash up to cha-cha-changes and Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard, but I haven't been able to figure it out, but we can keep working on that.
Julia: Me, me, me and Julio down by the schoolyard.
Eric: What would the third one be?
Amanda: Sweet. We're going for, like, Delta gonorrhea?
Brandon: The—
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: I think the rumor— because it's gotta be one of the stupid rumors.
Julia: Sure.
Brandon: The rumor is that, like, because they're dumb kids who don't know how dating and sex works. It's like, "Oh, these two people— these two specific people who had these specific powers, they boned and, like, something happened there, guys. I don't know what happened. Is it an STI? I don't know."
Eric: I'm just gonna write sex-related, but that's very funny.
Julia: Cool.
Eric: I like— Brandon, I like that it's not just STD. It's that these two students boned and something happened is really good.
Amanda: I think there should be a rumor that the first time you have sex, your powers might change.
Brandon: Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah.
Eric: Oh, you might swap powers? Yeah, dude.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Oh, at summer— they went to summer camp and they boned. And the first time you have sex, you switch powers.
Amanda: There's a possibility your powers will change. Because I remember—
Julia: Oh, my God.
Amanda: —being a teenager and being, like— assuming that people could just tell by looking at me if I'd had sex or not, which you could, but also, I think it's just like— there's that mystique, and just like a teenage, you know, unsureness about—
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: —crossing that boundary to, like—
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: —some amount of maturity that I just— I'm so entranced by.
Brandon: To be clear, Julia, it is certainly not true.
Amanda: No, I don't think it's true.
Eric: Here's what I would like to propose to Julia. I would like Julia to tell me which of these is real later on.
Julia: Later on. Okay, cool.
Amanda: Oh.
Eric: And the one— so to buttress that, if you'll allow me, I think the last one is parents got them new one because theirs was not good.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Whatever that means, either it's unseemly, either it's not actually good enough to be a superhero. Either the Avengers already have a— someone who could shoot arrows, so you can't do that one.
Amanda: Hmm.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Like whatever the reason, we can figure it out, but I think that that one needs to be on the table.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: It is the Occam's Razor of rumors, and I think that that one should be on the table, either for it being the truth or an obvious thing that someone would just grab.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: How is that the Occam's Razor? Did they pay for new powers? How was—
Eric: Well, what— I think that that's the thing someone would most likely think.
Brandon: Can you even do that? Who knows?
Eric: I mean—
Julia: Who can say?
Eric: I mean, that's— it's the equivalent of this student got a nose job for their sweet 16.
Julia: Right.
Amanda: Yes.
Brandon: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Amanda: Yeah, yeah.
Brandon: exactly.
Eric: And that's why I'm thinking it's the most—
Brandon: I love it.
Eric: —basic.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah, that's great.
Julia: Hmm.
Amanda: Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.
Eric: And also it's both the most basic as the rumor and the most mundane as the reason.
Brandon: Right.
Julia: Sure.
Eric: So if— Julia, you can tell me later which one of these is true, but I would just like to put that one out there.
Julia: Cool.
Brandon: That's really funny.
Amanda: So into it. My face hurts from smiling, guys. This is a good sign for Campaign Four.
Eric: Brampton, it's your turn.
Brandon: STP, sexually transmitted powers. Okay.
Amanda: There he is. That's my man.
Brandon: [dice roll] 6.
Eric: 6. Oh, here we go. Someone donated a lot of money as a grant to build something incredibly specific. What is it?
Brandon: Nice.
Julia: I'm so glad I mentioned grants earlier. I didn't even see that question originally. I was like, "Yeah, there's just tons of grants going into the school."
Eric: 100%. The tags—
Amanda: Entailments.
Eric: —that go on the entailments to build something so specific and weird is—
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: —astronomical.
Brandon: Okay. I'm gonna throw some ideas out. Nobody say anything until the ideas are done.
Eric: Piss, Christ.
Brandon: Fuck, Eric. Okay. So one idea is like some sort of, like, bell tower or something.
Eric: Sure.
Brandon: Obviously, like something that is, like, symbolic and like beautiful. Another idea is, like, something way more practical and usable, like a coffee shop or a pizza place.
Eric: Hmm.
Brandon: Or, like, something that the students would gather at, and it's, you know, PJ Pizza Body's restaurant or whatever. And then, yeah, I was gonna do something like Eric's idea, but not a Christ— Piss Christ, but a sort of a— not a museum, but a wing, I would say, or some sort of hallowed thing where they have artifacts from—
Eric: Ooh.
Brandon: —supers, like real adult supers.
Eric: I was thinking art installation, and I didn't explicitly say this, but this is the new thing for this. This is being revealed this academic year. I don't know if that changes any— like, anything that you're saying is very new.
Julia: Brandon, can I say yes, and?
Brandon: Of course.
Julia: I really like the commissary or, like, restaurant. It makes me feel like college again, where we had like, you know, chain restaurants, but we also had, like, mom and pop shops on campus.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Julia: And I really like the idea of the superhero version of, basically, Guy Fieri opening up a restaurant in his name like in— on the campus somewhere.
Brandon: Guy Fieri, Guy, Guy— okay.
Julia: I think his thing is like food. Like he can, like, bring food to life, or maybe, like, his food gives other people buffs or something to that effect.
Amanda: Ooh.
Brandon: Is his name just Bam?
Julia: Could be.
Brandon: Bam.
Amanda: Is it like an agua powder, charcoal latte situation where, like, the intention imbues the food and then, you know, you can, like, impart that to the people who eat it?
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: So he— maybe he makes like concentration study treats during, you know, like, midterm and final season, and maybe there is, like, you know, frolic responsibly treats for, like, school dances and stuff.
Julia: I think that's really cute. I like that a lot.
Brandon: Okay, that's cute, but Eric and Amanda, what idea of the three do you like?
Eric: I'm— the food one is interesting. I don't know if it's as nice as all of you are saying, because to— the food one is the one that colors outside of the lines of the question. But I think it's the most on point because it's— I donated a money-making entity onto your school grounds.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: It feels very specific to me. This is like when—
Brandon: I think it's free. I think it's like—
Eric: Oh, you think it's free?
Julia: I think it's included in tuition.
Brandon: I think it has to be more like a coffee shop, but it's like a— it's like a thing where students can gather and have a little social, like a third space. You know, Eric, why we don't have third spaces anymore?
Eric: No, I do.
Julia: Hmm.
Amanda: Maybe the endowment was to make, like, a pavilion or something, or a food court, or just like a coffee hut. In Lake Placid, there is, like, a coffee hut that's, like, entirely round. And many businesses have gone out of it and, like all of them have had to figure out why they're in a round building, because the building is just round. So, like, yarn in the round, I guess. Anyway, and then, because he built the structure, he's also like, "By the way, I— you know, I'll take a 10-year lease on operating a business here."
Brandon: That's just the concept. I'm not trying to push for that, Eric. I was just saying.
Eric: I like artifacts. I think artifacts is great.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: It feels so unnecessary. It feels so dangerous to just have it there.
Brandon: Hmm.
Eric: It's like, "No, I want this here. I just want to— you got to do it. I'm going to give you $100 million and you got to use $50 million of it to build this. You just have to."
Brandon: Yeah, he had a vault full of, like, thrown-off—
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: —items from villains and supers and heroes where, like, you know, I gotta put my collection somewhere.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: Might as well be my alma mater, you know?
Eric: That's the one that— I think that's the one that's the most that feels the spirit of the question to me.
Amanda: I really like that one for another reason, which is that it's some kind of interfacing between the current adult, working superhero world—
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: —and LakeTown City specifically, where, like, maybe there's a part time curator that comes in, like, a few hours a month to, you know, curate the exhibition and makes too much money. Maybe it is, like, this donor just, like, giving new problems to the school constantly. Like people—
Eric: That's how it feels to me.
Amanda: People donate archives when they, like, don't want to house things anymore, and like, make it the institution's problem to deal with. And I think that's so cool, and something that could have a lot of, like, plot, you know, hooks for our characters.
Eric: Like the number of times that— I can see every social studies teacher or art history teacher or superhero studies teacher, now having to do the equivalent of, "Let your students loose in a museum, but without the field trip-ness of it." Like imagine you had to do that on campus, that feels so oppressive and mandatory that I— which is why I like it so much.
Julia: Can I pitch you on the name of either the person who donated this stuff or the person who's now in charge of it?
Brandon: Please, yes.
Eric: Is it also PJ Lawbody?
Julia: No, it's not. It's the Registar
Brandon: Ooh.
Eric: Oh, that's good.
Amanda: Hey.
Julia: Like instead of the registrar.
Amanda: Excellent.
Brandon: I love all this. I think that's the one I want to go with, even though Eric wrote it before I got to choose.
Eric: I though you chose it
Brandon: No, that's fine. I'm teasing you.
Eric: You butthole.
Brandon: I'm teasing you.
Eric: Sorry, I just know how to read your mind, Brandon.
Amanda: Eric, do you have sex for the first time? Is that what happened?
Julia: Damn. Called out by your wife.
Brandon: I think that's the one I want to go with. I think the vibe I want to go is not quite like true museum quality, but more— like you might find at Yale, those sort of trophy cases.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: So sort of, like cheap, thin— it's not cheap, I guess, but like thinner glass and, like, there's like, kind of aging, yellowy photos behind them of, like, the heroes, especially if they're alumni, they're there. But I think, yeah, it's a mix of villain stuff and superhero stuff, too.
Eric: Feels very "I'm going to put a gallery in this derelict restaurant space" vibes.
Brandon: Well, I want it to be less a gallery and more a— because the intention of the Registar was to, like, inspire the youth to greatness, you know? But it ends up really just being like a way to show off their alumni and then the cool things. Like, there's— they don't want to be alumni, right? But, like, I think the ones that are up in front are, like, alumni and their artifacts and, like, their blue ribbons and that, you know, that kind of bullshit.
Amanda: Like, the trophy hallway in a high school that cares a lot about sports.
Julia: Yes.
Brandon: Yes, thank you.
Julia: The Hall of Heroes.
Brandon: A little bit nicer than that, obviously, but that's the—
Amanda: Some high schools have very nice trophy halls.
Julia: Hmm.
Eric: Amanda, it's your turn.
Amanda: Wee. [dice roll]
Julia: Wee.
Amanda: I rolled a 3.
Eric: A 3.
Julia: Oof.
Eric: A teacher got fired late last year.
Brandon: Oh, no.
Eric: What did they do? What have you heard about the new hire?
Amanda: Oh, this is so good.
Eric: In my head when I wrote this, I'm like, they got fired in April and then the principal had to take over the class for the last two months.
Julia: Oof.
Brandon: Of course.
Eric: So I think that it's— this definitely sat for a little while and the new hire is only now getting dealt with.
Amanda: My first instinct is that there is some kind of, like, intellectual property patent theft that a—
Brandon: That's your first thought, Amanda?
Julia: First thought, best thought, Brandon.
Eric: What does that mean?
Amanda: It's not all boob jokes. Sometimes it's IP law.
Julia: Amanda, I know exactly what you're going for. Go on.
Amanda: Thank you, Julia. Maybe this is a bisexual thing.
Brandon: It's not a critique. I just think that that's the funniest thing to be— your first thought's not like crime or sex, it's IP theft.
Amanda: Well, I do think it's interesting that maybe a teacher of chemistry or physics, or software engineering, something like that, was using school resources and student ideas to—
Brandon: Ooh.
Eric: Wow.
Amanda: —make a patent or private technology that they were trying to commercialize, and they got caught, and they got kicked out.
Brandon: I like that.
Julia: I thought you were gonna say something along the lines of, "That teacher who's a super." But I like yours, maybe as a mundane instead kind of thing, but like a super who is basically stealing, like, a South Korean super's identity and try to pass it off as their own here in the States.
Eric: Oh, that's awesome.
Amanda: Oh, that's also very cool, but not what I was going for at all.
Julia: Cool, cool, cool, cool.
Eric: There's also an episode of White Collar where there's a professor of criminology that chooses three students to help him do heists.
Julia: Cool.
Eric: I thought this feels very similar.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: It's like, "Oh, hey, you want to just, like, help me make this doomsday device for fun?"
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: "For students."
Julia: Yeah. I like that.
Brandon: Yeah. This— and this is a normal person, right? Like, not a powered person?
Amanda: I think it's a mundane, yeah, a mundane teacher and then was like, "Oh, I mean, access to all these students. Like, of course I would, you know, take these findings and make money off it."
Brandon: Yeah. That's a very tasty treat to try to not pull off the apple, you know?
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: Off— the apple of the tree is what I was trying to say.
Amanda: You know?
Julia: Right.
Eric: Okay. So this was a tech or science teacher. What have you heard about the new hire?
Amanda: What do you guys think? Any ideas?
Julia: Just a robot.
Brandon: I was gonna say, first thought was very hairy.
Julia: Very hairy robot.
Eric: Okay. One of two choices here, either it's reformed evil robot—
Amanda: Uh-huh.
Eric: —or it's caveman un-iced and they Flowers for Algernon on to him.
Brandon: Holy shit.
Julia: I was gonna combine Brandon and I's and say—
Eric: Hairy robot.
Julia: —that it looks like it's just a guy, but the rumor is he's a cyborg.
Brandon: Oh, that's fun, too.
Eric: Hmm.
Julia: Or an Android.
Brandon: Yeah, because I was gonna ask Amanda, what's the rumor?
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: I want to know what the rumor is about. I want to know what the student rumor is, for why the person got fired.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: And then also, yeah, what the rumor is for the new hire.
Amanda: I'm sorry, Brandon, I can't think about that right now, because I'm only thinking about this teacher being like, her suit, very handsome, but very boring. And everyone's like, "There has to be more going on." And so they think that he's either a robot or he is, like, you know--
Brandon: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Amanda: —like, an updated, exactly like ancient person, maybe an alien in an excellent human suit.
Eric: I like that.
Julia: We've never seen him eat or drink.
Amanda: Yes.
Julia: He has to be a robot.
Amanda: His scruff is so handsome and the same length all the time. How does he do it?
Brandon: Hmm. I love that.
Julia: Hairy and beautiful.
Amanda: Right? I'm almost imagining Glen Powell, but with, like, Wolverine kind of chest hair.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: Of just, like, so handsome and nothing behind the eyes. And either, it could be a very prudent decision for the school, because it's just like a boring rule follower who's, like, should be a teacher in this program, who's the opposite of the guy before, or there is truly some unearthed depths.
Eric: This is so funny.
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: This is the real, like— the second in command of the camp is a werewolf situation all over again.
Amanda: Yeah, yeah.
Brandon: You could— we could just say it. Y'all—, we're just describing me, I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Julia: Yeah, that's it.
Brandon: Yeah, yeah.
Julia: We've never seen you eat or drink, Brandon.
Amanda: True. We've never seen his legs.
Brandon: Never see that— never see me wear pants. Should we also decide what the rumor is that why the first teacher got fired?
Amanda: Thank you. Yeah, I keep losing it.
Eric: Well, I mean, you don't have to, too. Like, this was— this could just be— everyone knows what happened.
Amanda: Oh, you know what? I think maybe the rumor is that this teacher tried to, like, start a company with a student, or tried to, like, hire or poach a student away. Like, I'm sure that happens all the time. And it was a little bit more complicated than that, but the students want to think that's a possibility. I think especially underclassmen being like, "Oh, my God."
Brandon: Hmm.
Amanda: Like, at the end of senior year, it's like the students who, you know, start college earlier, like go on a gap year. They're like, "Oh, my God."
Brandon: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
Amand: "You know, what happened?"
Brandon: I like that. That's fun, because it's sort of a game of telephone, too.
Julia: I also really like the idea of something like completely ludicrous like, "The doomsday device is still somewhere in the school and we don't know where it is."
Amanda: Uh-hmm. He was working on the secret project. They couldn't find it, and so it's somewhere, but they kicked him out.
Brandon: Oh. What if the seniors are the people that tell the freshmen that this happens and there is a doomsday device somewhere still in the school.
Julia: Got to find it.
Brandon: Just to fuck with them.
Amanda: That's good. Then, yeah—
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: —the teacher was doing some kind of secret project and got fired for some reason, and the stuff is still somewhere. Like the school had to board it up or, you know, back fill it with concrete.
Brandon: That's funny.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: It's so funny the way—
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: The doomsday device is still at the school is so funny.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Julia: Thank you.
Eric: God, I love that. Okay, I'm gonna roll.
Brandon: Oh, but Eric, if you don't put a previously frozen caveman into this game somehow, I will throw my desk out the window.
Eric: I'll figure it out.
Amanda: Gotta happen.
Eric: I'll figure it out. [dice roll] All right. That's a 5 for me. Two students got into a massive fight last year that altered the landscape. What changed? What do they have to do to repay the school? Oh, boy, I don't know. I— the first thing that comes to my mind is two students with electricity powers shorted out the entire school, and now they have to be the IT department, and they work under the noir short guy.
Amanda: It's pretty good.
Julia: I love that. That's pretty good.
Eric: This sucks. You're in— you two are incredibly powerful and you have to be IT.
Julia: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
Amanda: They're replacing, like, each outlet, one by one, with, like, super grounded outlets.
Eric: Yeah, a 100%.
Brandon: I love that a lot. Can I pitch you that these two students were, like— not jilted, but jilted couple, like a fighting couple?
Eric: A 100%. Yeah, for sure.
Amanda: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Julia: Yeah. I like that. Always good.
Amanda: Their love his electric.
Brandon: Their love is electric.
Julia: Boogie-woogie-woogie.
Amanda: I'm obsessed with this.
Brandon: I love the idea they have to go through the— retrofit the entire building with super grounding to make sure—
Amanda: Yeah. I think about that— I— whenever I'm in, like, a doctor's office or a library where, like, each cord and each monitor and each mouse is like a barcode for the department to track. I'm just like, "Who—
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: "—had to fucking number the outlet covers of every single outlet in the Mount Sinai Hospital System?" Like, that is crazy.
Brandon: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
Amanda: A super grounded outlet is grounded with, like, a wire to the Earth clay, silicone.
Brandon: Oh.
Amanda: And a little magic.
Brandon: A little magic.
Julia: Just a little.
Eric: This is gonna be really funny, because I find it kind of interesting that they had to do a rush job before the end of school to get it going, and now they're going to be opening up different places in the school throughout the whole thing. That could be fun. Like—
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Eric: —you know, maybe it start— the school starts out by only being at one-third or one-half capacity.
Amanda: Ooh.
Eric: And we slowly spin up as the school as it goes on.
Brandon: That's fine.
Amanda: Love it.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: Eric, I must implore upon you, though, that the short detective is not a groundskeeper, because he never leaves that door.
Amanda: He's a hall monitor, but they all roll up to, like, the facilities manager, whoever that is.
Brandon: I must implore, what I'm trying to get at is you can add some characters here if you want to, but the man who's a source detective is a security guard for the teachers' lounge.
Eric: Fine. But I need him to be— I— groundskeeper feels like a man— like—
Julia: I think we're looking for caretaker, not groundskeeper.
Eric: Caretaker. Thank you. I'm looking for head of grounds.
Brandon: and that's a new character, because this man never leaves the door.
Eric: No, he can— Brandon, he can be there and also be head of grounds.
Julia: Maybe he has the power of astral projection, so he can astral project into other places on the ground.
Brandon: Oh, shit.
Eric: That's what I'm thinking, yeah. That's what I'm thinking.
Brandon: Julia.
Eric: He can track people's souls as he goes through.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: Multiple Man, he has multiple— there's multiple men. There's multiple of him.
Amanda: One of him always outside the teachers' lounge. One of them always—
Julia: Wait— yes.
Amanda: —at the computer lab.
Julia: I think he's Multiple Man, yeah, for sure.
Brandon: I think both, Eric. I think he has both powers.
Amanda: Great.
Eric: I'm not giving him multiple— I like— I'm gonna go with astral— I like astral projection.
Brandon: Okay. That's great.
Julia: Okay. All right.
Eric: Instead of tracking footprints, he tracks your soul as it moves through you.
Brandon: Ooh.
Eric: You can't disguise it.
Julia: He can see them. He's always constantly aware of all of the souls—
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: —within like a five-mile radius.
Eric: Brandon, I'm fine with him never moving. I just think he's also the head of grounds. That's it.
Amanda: He's in that chair at all times, and also saying, "Work a little faster."
Julia: Great. Love it.
Eric: All right. Last set here, these are the stories. Let's put some legends into our school. Julia, go ahead.
Julia: [dice roll] I got 2.
Eric: 2. A teacher used to be a big time villain. What class do they teach?
Brandon: Ooh.
Eric: Are they reformed or are they held by other means? Who hasn't forgiven them?
Brandon: Ooh, that's a good one.
Julia: Man, that's good.
Amanda: God. Who wrote this game and can I buy it at jointhepartypod.com/merch?
Brandon: jointhepartypod.com/merch?
Eric: Yes, you can. I wrote it.
Julia: I'm trying to think what the funniest class a super villain can teach is.
Brandon: Ethics?
Julia: I was gonna say, is it business ethics?
Eric: Like in Happy Gilmore, Julia?
Amanda: Or personal branding? You know that's gonna be a class.
Julia: I think it's business ethics.
Amanda: Great.
Julia: Because I think that's really fucking funny. I think it's like business, but they, like, specialize in ethics of business, because that's what they were not doing correctly back in the day.
Amanda: Great. Imagine having to teach a class of like, "The way I fucked up in the past."
Brandon: Yeah, right?
Amanda: But it's every year.
Julia: Yeah. And he's like, "And I know from experience, you can't do insider trading."
Brandon: "This is a crime."
Amanda: It's a real Scared Straight situation. Yeah.
Julia: I think— are they reformed or are they held by other means? So I really like this idea that is introduced in Masks that, like, several teachers are, like, working off their time from the super villain prison by working at the school. And I think this person is, like, so close to being finished. Like, so close to being done.
Brandon: I love that.
Julia: Like, this is maybe their last year before they've done their time, you know?
Amanda: Are they keeping their nose clean or do we not know?
Julia: I mean, as far as the government that holds the super villains are aware, they have been keeping their nose clean.
Eric: No, I like that. I— the— what I said— what I was thinking here was, are they a reformed super villain, or are they still a villain and have some sort of reason to hold them there? So I like that. It's like, who knows if they're keeping their nose clean? It doesn't matter.
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: They have a collar around their neck that will explode.
Julia: As far as the parole board is concerned, you know?
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Julia, I had something so funny. What if this is Henry Ford that got brought forward in time?
Brandon: What is up with— what if it's Henry Ford who was frozen in ice?
Eric: No, no, no, no, no. He got moved forward in time and—
Amanda: He's like, "I only paid my employees a lot as a function of the skilled labor markets, not because that was a nice person, but I should have."
Brandon: I don't love having an anti-semite in the school, personally.
Eric: That's what the collar that explodes does, Brandon.
Julia: I think that's very funny.
Eric: Or it's Walt Disney if you wanted.
Julia: I'm— no. I'm picturing like a very, like, classy business lady.
Eric: Okay.
Brandon: Oh.
Julia: You know, like someone who was, like, doing boardroom meetings and then also, like, was blowing up said boardrooms when things didn't go her way.
Eric: Oh, sure.
Julia: You know that one scene in the original Spider-Man where Green Goblin is testing his stuff on himself, and then he's like, "Fuck all you, investors," and kills everyone?
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Julia: That's the vibe I'm going for.
Eric: Okay. No, I like a Green Goblin— business lady but Green Goblin-esque. I like that.
Julia: Yes.
Brandon: That's fun.
Amanda: Negotiations can go too far.
Julia: I think that's true.
Brandon: No, I think we touched on this, but like, does this super villain prison sort of have a reform program? Like—
Julia: Yes.
Brandon: —are they— okay.
Julia: I think they send people to the school to teach in order to get time off of their sentence.
Eric: Okay.
Brandon: Oh, cool. Okay.
Julia: And this person is so close to finishing out their sentence because they've been teaching there for, like, a decade.
Brandon: Yeah, cool.
Eric: Okay. So a super villain goes back in time and gives Walt Disney a shrink ray. And in the alternate universe, Walt Disney uses that to monopolize all of the money and then America is the empire of Florida, and the Big Epcot dome is over everything. And then, because of the collapsing of the time streams, they defeat that Walt Disney and then that Walt Disney is sent through a portal, and now has to teach business of ethics.
Brandon: And then we'll truly be living off the land.
Julia: Hey, man, you get to make every other villain in this story. Every single goddamn one.
Eric: No, I like yours. I just had that— I was like—
Julia: Okay. I know.
Eric: —that's much better than the Henry Ford I came up with.
Brandon: I thought you were just describing America in 2025.
Amanda: Same.
Julia: Yeah, yeah.
Eric: Yeah, it's the alternate version but if Walt Disney was teaching business of ethics at the school.
Amanda: Monsanto.
Eric: All right, Brandon, go ahead.
Julia: Oh, wait, I didn't answer the last question of this--
Eric: Oh, sorry, sorry.
Julia: —which is, who hasn't forgiven them? I think— ooh, I really like this idea that maybe another teacher who is also a, like, villain going through reform, used to be this person's partner.
Brandon: Ooh.
Julia: And in order to lessen her sentence, she turned that partner in.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: She a narc?
Julia: She narc.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: Oh, man.
Amanda: Love it.
Julia: I have to think of a good business lady name. Amanda, business words.
Brandon: Synergy, circle back.
Amanda: Merger, horizontal, merge.
Brandon: Vertical.
Amanda: SWAT analysis, that's something.
Eric: Misappropriation.
Julia: Yeah, there it is. There it is. Write it down. Put it in there.
Brandon: Fuck off.
Eric: Thank— no, I won't.
Julia: That was really good, but it's mis, it's M— it's M-S.
Amanda: Oh. Oh, yeah.
Julia: Of course. Can't tell if she's married or not.
Eric: No, you don't want to know.
Amanda: It's not for you to know.
Julia: All right, I'm good. Brandon, go.
Eric: Frampton, Peter Frampton.
Brandon: [dice roll] 4.
Eric: There's a student job that everyone wants. What is it and why is it so coveted? Or there's an incredibly underrated student job. Why does no one want it? What is the incredible secret benefit?
Brandon: Ooh. Ooh.
Julia: That's really good.
Eric: All right, yeah, these are— because I'm really good at this.
Brandon: Ooh. Ooh. Ooh.
Eric: So I think this must be something related to the club system, how clubs and by— in good standing get assigned different roles. Like I mentioned that sometimes they do security for the school, but also they probably do the equivalent of, you know, running notes for the office sort of things. But there also might be, you know, jobs that are given to students of scholarship or something.
Brandon: I have an idea, I have an idea. And I— if you have ideas, please, shout them out. But for an underrated student job, possibility could be like, it has to deal with trash somehow, but like— you know, like groundskeeping round or whatever it is.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: But that gets you access to the teachers' lounge and/or teachers' offices and you get to look at their trash.
Eric: Hmm.
Brandon: So it's like, a nice benefit of, like, maybe you get some insider formation, maybe you get some blackmail stuff, maybe you find a special item here or there in the trash.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: That's good. I like that. Is it like a— is it like assistant janitor or is it the beautification team—
Julia: Committee, yeah.
Eric: So, yeah, the beautification committee, which seems lame.
Brandon: I think it's more similar to that one, yeah.
Eric: Okay, cool.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: All right.
Julia: It's just not cool. It's not a cool job to have.
Eric: No, I like that a lot. I think the—
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Beautification committee involves all manner of picking up trash.
Brandon: Right.
Eric: So it's also like getting access to places that you shouldn't, being outside and— inside and outside access to me.
Brandon: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
Amanda: Maybe you could drive a golf cart if you're really lucky.
Julia: Cool.
Amanda: That was my first thought, was—
Julia: There's a hover cart.
Amanda: Yeah, a little hover cart.
Brandon: Hover cart. Hover cart.
Amanda: Little hover cart, you can—
Julia: I think it's cooler when it hovers.
Amanda: Exactly.
Eric: I love that it's just like a— it's like a doll— like a really big dolly, but it hovers.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: So it doesn't go fast. It's just cool that it overs.
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: Right. Or you can ride it like a skateboard.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah, exactly.
Amanda: Ooh, love it.
Julia: Write that down.
Eric: It's for nerds and weird, but you can look in trash and get access to outside and inside restricted areas.
Brandon: So I think access is like the word there, because you have access to restricted areas, access to thrown away items and stuff, but also you get access to maybe teachers and—
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: —like, headmaster when other students don't as well.
Amanda: Totally.
Eric: Yeah, because you're doing this off hours. You're supposed to—
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: It also— you know, it also sucks because you're at school late, taking out the trash.
Brandon: Right. Exactly, yeah.
Amanda: You have a cover to be in any room.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: You can go into, like the, you know, the locker rooms. You— otherwise, you wouldn't be able to go to the teacher bathroom, like all those places.
Brandon: Right.
Amanda: I use the staff room copier as part of the theater program, and it was always so illicit to, like, go in the staff room and use their good copier and have an excuse to be there.
Julia: True facts.
Amanda: Whenever I want it.
Brandon: Wow.
Eric: You know, you guys were using power tools, so I feel like it's all kind of a wash.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah, it was more fun to use the $5,000 copier.
Julia: Disagree. 15-year-old boys using a power saw is always gonna be more fun.
Eric: That sounds very fun. Amampta—
Amanda: Me.
Eric: —it's your last roll.
Amanda: Okay. [dice roll] Rolled a 3.
Eric: 3. Oh, God.
Brandon: Oh, good.
Eric: Mwa. The school has a rival. What is it? Where is it? How are the opposite of a core value of the school?
Amanda: Ooh.
Eric: I want to pose something that I had a thought of at some point. I just want it to not be another superhero school.
Brandon: Right.
Eric: I think it should be another school of weirdness.
Brandon: Ooh.
Eric: If I could put that restriction, it could be the CIA's school for fun, loving and patriotic children. It can be a school for witches. It can be— they're all beasts. It— but it can't be another superhero school.
Julia: What if it's just a Catholic school in the area?
Eric: They're all vampires or they're just Catholics?
Brandon: I mean, same thing, Eric. Got 'em.
Eric: Hey, Bran—
Julia: I do love a Catholic witch.
Amanda: That's very good.
Julia: Like the craft, but it's the whole school.
Eric: Yeah. That— yeah, I'm just— I would love to put the restriction of this is not another superhero school.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Okay. A few possibilities I'm seeing here.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: There is absolutely— it is simply a highly academically competitive Catholic school where, like, students get into Ivy League universities and, like, it's, you know, it's real career prep. The second idea was the first one that happened in my head, is this a, like, a military prep academy? And—
Brandon: Oh.
Amanda: —maybe there is, like— you know, how folks could take, like, ROTC to, like, enter the military in a, you know, advanced— like, in an officer position. Maybe this is toward, like, intelligence and their rivals, because this is the government's answer to the privatized and self-regulated, like, superhero world of like, you could— I'm trying to picture a person deciding between one or the other, and the people who are like, "I'm gonna do this under, like, the law and order of the government."
Brandon: Hmm.
Amanda: Would definitely not go to our super school.
Brandon: A civil war situation.
Amanda: Exactly. And then my third idea was just— y'all ever have like BOCES 4-H Practical Outdoor School?
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: Like the technical farm extension school of, like, practical animal husbandry and agriculture skills.
Brandon: That sounds really funny. Why are they rivals?
Amanda: Because— I don't know. There's some kind of, like, State Fair where you have, like, big pumpkins versus, like, super pumpkins and they're like— it's not even real.
Brandon: That's really cute. I like that. That's fun.
Amanda: I don't have a strong feeling here, so I would be— I'd be happy to go with someone else's idea.
Brandon: Well, I think the military prep school is the most straight like— fits the lock the best, right? The key that fits lock the best.
Julia: I don't hate the Dark Academia Catholic school, though.
Brandon: I don't hate that.
Eric: I kind of love Catholic school—
Amanda: Let's do it.
Eric: —that's also with— that also does magic. It's kind of funny.
Julia: Yeah. Yeah.
Brandon: What if it's a Catholic school that is— maybe not even has to be Catholic, but like some sort of religious school that is steeped in mysticism, and we're unsure whether or not they have magic or not.
Amanda: I love that.
Brandon: And that's sort of like the rivalry of, like, they don't want us to know what their actual capabilities are.
Eric: Hmm.
Brandon: You know what I'm saying?
Julia: It's like— it's very secret. It's like kind of implied that there's something supernatural going on, but we can't get any confirmation about it.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: It's like almost a coven, you know, or something like that.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: It's like an Anglican friends Academy or— you know? Or, like, a very specific, like, following the teachings of a, like, St. Francis of Assisi or somebody. Like, in the way that— what is it called when it's a Catholic college?
Julia: Or, like, a Jesuit college?
Amanda: Exactly. Like, not even explicitly religious, but, like, we follow these thinkers. Like, maybe it's like Aristotelian or, like, Platonic with a capital P or something like that. It doesn't even necessarily need to be religious.
Brandon: Now, can I also pitch you? Here's another idea out of left field, a school totally focused on athletics, because they believe that the human form can be just as powerful and—
Julia: As supers.
Brandon: Super, as the supers.
Eric: Oh, I kind of like that. That's cool.
Julia: And then there's a big scandal later on, that one of their players is actually a super but they're just playing it kind of low-key.
Brandon: Ooh.
Julia: Like all of Aggie's siblings.
Amanda: I like it.
Eric: Well, yeah, which one do you want?
Amanda: Oh, no.
Julia: Oh, no. I have to choose.
Amanda: I think the tension of non-superpower to mundane humans, concentrating and organizing and developing, probably weapons technology is very cool. Like, some kind of veering into the scary direction of, like, human strength coalition, you know, school.
Brandon: Well, is that military prep or are you imagining athletics?
Amanda: I'm imagining the athletics-focused one.
Julia: Oh, okay.
Brandon: Well, I love the idea of it's just physical. Like it's just— and obviously, it's your choice, but like, I love the idea that it's all physicality. Like, it's bringing the human form to its most excellence, you know?
Amanda: Like in this trench bowl, like track and field.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: It's like old school.
Julia: Though, I do also like— it's like they're trying to recruit, like, geniuses who are not, like, super-powered super geniuses. You know what I mean?
Eric: I think— I wonder if we should just combine a few of these—
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Just combining one of the original thoughts, is that this is an exceptional school for exceptional humans who don't have— are not irradiated by any sort of Delta stuff or don't have super powers.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: They can be for anything, and they do go off to Ivy League schools and all this stuff. And there's plenty of human exceptionalism for everyone.
Amanda: Yeah, yeah. Can we call it, like, the School of Human Potential, something like that?
Julia: Ooh.
Brandon: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: For some, it's academic. For some, it's athletic. For some, it's— you know, maybe like engineering and trying to have, you know, a, like, scientific patent factory.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: But I— I'm very into that as, like, a tension we can explore.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah, I like that, because, yeah, then we could have, like, a— you know, could be like a debate club with superhero— super smart debaters versus regular, yeah.
Eric: Yeah. I was trying to think of, like, what would the spooky occult school compete with the superhero school with? Like, what would they do? But I like this a lot.
Amanda: I mean, imagine the headlines, right? If, like, a student from the School of Human Potential beat a super at a foot race, like that would be incredible.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Right, yeah. That would be huge.
Brandon: And I'm sure it happens, too.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: I think they're actually best friends with the Catholic vampires, actually.
Eric: Catholic vampires.
Amanda: I do want spooky Anglican friends school to be a thing.
Eric: Oh, you know what I want?
Amanda: What?
Eric: You know, they're— it's actually from far away. They're— maybe they're— you know, I don't know, maybe a Crescent City, New Orleans, sort of thing. And there's Sookie.
Julia: Jeeze.
Brandon: I don't even— I know that's from True Blood because of what was said. I don't know what the fuck that could possibly be in that show. What does that even—
Eric: Sookie.
Brandon: What is—
Eric: Sookie.
Julia: Sookie is the main character of the show.
Brandon: That's a name?
Amanda: That's a name. That's a name.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Her name is Sookie Stackhouse.
Amanda: The name is wild.
Brandon: Sookie.
Amanda: The way they say it is wild. Eric's impression is accurate.
Eric: No, Amanda, I know it from you doing it first, so thank you very much.
Julia: Also they married in real life.
Amanda: Sorry, Eric watched 20 years of True Blood-- 20 seasons of True Blood.
Eric: I watched two seasons and I'm like, "All right, I got it." Okay.
Brandon: They’re vampires, they fucked. They're Louisiana. We get it.
Eric: All right. I rolled a 6. I heard someone got their parents/mentor to call the school and change their grades. Why did the student need the good grade/grades? Why does the adult have sway at the school?
Julia: Hmm.
Brandon: Hmm. Fun one.
Eric: I had a bunch of different ideas when I was writing this, because it's either— you know, failing student is easy, but it could also be valedictorian who needs one grade changed. It could be the fact that they cut class the entire year and then just kind of change their transcript to just be C's instead. I had a lot of different ways to— I— when I was thinking of this question, I could have taken it a bunch of different ways.
Julia: I had a thought—
Eric: Okay.
Julia: —where maybe the, like, top three students or something like that, end up getting recruited right out of school—
Eric: Hmm,
Julia: —by, like, the three most famous or biggest heroes that are currently supering, right?
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: And this person was part of a legacy of supers, and so they had to change their grade down one, so that they would be fourth, so that their— they could continue working with their own supers, rather than having to be recruited by the top three.
Eric: Oh, that's good, Julia.
Amanda: Oh, yeah.
Eric: Yeah. No, I like that, that all of a sudden this valedictorian got, like, failed—
Julia: Gym.
Eric: —creative writing and just—
Julia: Just keep coming back around to gym.
Eric: —and they just ru— and it ruined their thing. I love that.
Amanda: Was that with the student's consent? Like, do you think the student was trying to get outside the legacy or did it—
Julia: Oh, I really like that.
Amanda: Right?
Julia: It was not with their consent, Amanda.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: I think that's actually really interesting. They were like, "Oh, finally, like, I won't be, like, in the shadow of my mom, who's an incredible super, but that's all the people think about when they look at me."
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Julia: And was, like, really excited to be number one or number two, and then instead, get stuck again with their family or their mentor.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: Can I also pitch? I think this goes along with this idea that maybe we don't have grades in the sense of what we normally think of, maybe—
Julia: Just rankings?
Brandon: Yeah, it's rankings, and maybe it's a— like at the end of each semester or trimester or every quarter, whatever it is, like the staff get together— some quorum of the staff get together to rank the students and then have a different ranking every year.
Eric: I really love that from the spin-off of The Boys.
Brandon: Generation—
Julia: Yeah, it was like—
Eric: Gen V.
Brandon: Gen V, yeah.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Then where they just had a ranking system, I really like that.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: I think having a ranking system is good. I think this also might lead to why we have clubs and cliques—
Brandon: Hmm.
Eric: —is that it's easier to get ranked higher if you're in a club.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: So it— and it's about being a part of a team, but then standing out at the team at the same time. There's a lot of conflicting ideas happening at the same time, and there's no help. A big thing that I thought was really interesting in the Phoenix Academy was this idea of hard lessons, where teachers don't really intersect in con— in problems that students are having. They have to learn it the hard way, which I think—
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Eric: —is reinforced by our lateness policy. So it's like, "Yeah, man, whatever happens, and we're just gonna say whether or not you did a good job or not."
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: "Like, we'll rank you, but you gotta figure it out."
Brandon: And I think that gives us a lot of leeway for what this question is getting at, which was adults who can have sways at school and also give the teachers a much easier time kicking students out for bad behavior, or, quote-unquote, "bad grades," you know? So we have more— yeah, more room to play with, like, politics and stuff like that.
Amanda: Imagine if, like, a student in a clique gets ranked high. It's like, "Damn, not even— you know, couldn't even avoid it on the ranking."
Brandon: Well, the clique can also sabotage the clubs, you know?
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Oh, a 100%. I like that a lot. That's awesome. I— yeah, the leg— so the valedictorian is a legacy—
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: —and was— it— something— ended up being like auto drafted by the government, or by a superhero team, or just like has their pick of anything they want to do. There might be also— maybe there's, like a priority system based on your ranking of what the school can do to give you what you want.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: I think every year, at the beginning of the school year, they announced the like, three, you know, job offers that are available for— or, like, training or fellowship, like, whatever you want to call it, you know, year-long experiences at the end of the year, to, like, keep students plugged in, to keep them competing, and to, like, have a carrot at the end of senior.
Julia: Very My Hero Academia.
Brandon: I was gonna suggest fellowships. Like at the end of every year, three adult supers—
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: —take the top three under their wing.
Amanda: One's Dr. Morrow. One is like, you know, somebody incredibly massive from the last couple of years and one is, yeah, like a research grant or an incredible company.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: There's something so powerful for students who don't want what everyone else wants, so there— then the rankings don't matter. Like, if you're an alien—
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Eric: —you're just kind of vibing, keeping it tight until you can go back to your planet.
Brandon: Right.
Eric: Or if you're a student who wants something very weird, like you're gonna go look for El Dorado, you're not competing against anyone else, so it doesn't matter what your ranking is.
Brandon: Well, I think there's also a pressure, because, like, the kids who'd get the top three and go under fellowship are forever attached to their fellowship.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: But, like, if you want to be an individual superstar superhero, you can't be one of the top three. You have to break out on your own.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: Or maybe you believe so much in yourself that you can eclipse that person. Like, you know, it's the equivalent—
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: —of, like, being and being hired as, like, the junior coach to, like, a superstar coach, and be like, "I'm gonna show him up so hard they replace him with me."
Brandon: Well, I love that— I was trying to play because I love this idea— or I hate this idea, but there was an idea in NYU that if you were in the Clive Davis school for music, if you graduated, you failed.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Oh, yeah, right.
Amanda: That's very, like, Stanford-coded.
Brandon: Yeah. So this idea that, like, yeah, if you— if you're in the top three and you get a fellowship, maybe you— yeah, you didn't do it right or whatever.
Amanda: Square, boring.
Eric: It's something—
Brandon: Yeah, square, boring. Yeah.
Eric: —a little— your life is pat— yeah, your life is pretty pat.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: And bored, yeah. And yeah, you'll be a superhero, but, like, you kind of got the leg up, didn't you?
Eric: Yeah, there has to be— yeah. If you want to be in the top three, if you want to be, like, the CEO of The Avengers, whatever that means.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: In a very sort of, like, The Boys Vaught sort of way.
Brandon: Or you should want a guaranteed, you know, path to superstardom—
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: —but—
Julia: Hmm.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: But then you're a superstar like— I don't know. Like Katy Perry is a superstar.
Brandon: Yeah, exactly.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: Damn.
Eric: Like, you're gonna be— you're the host of American Idol for 10 years.
Brandon: "You're manufactured, man."
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: I like that. No, it's good. That gives me a lot to think about. I'm gonna have to lay that stuff out.
Amanda: Love it.
Julia: Speaking of things to think about, I've got two thoughts on a name.
Eric: Okay.
Julia: One was— because Brandon kept saying fellowship a bunch of times, I was thinking of, like, other types of like, words that kind of represent that. And remember, I really want academy to be the signatory on this.
Eric: Hmm.
Julia: I really like the Coterie Academy.
Brandon: What is a coterie?
Julia: A coterie is like a community, like a group of people. Basically—
Brandon: Oh.
Julia: —like with shared interests and stuff like that.
Brandon: Okay.
Julia: And then the other one is Stones Edge Academy or Stone Edge Academy, because I like the idea of the, like, the island coming out of—
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Julia: —the lake and it being, like, harsh stone.
Eric: Hmm.
Brandon: Hmm.
Eric: Stone edge is getting closer. We might just need to sound cool as hell.
Amanda: Like— yeah, like Lakes' End or Lands' End, or— that's already a brand. You know, like—
Eric: LL Bean Academy.
Amanda: No.
Brandon: Patagonia Academy.
Eric: REI, The School.
Amanda: Like, Stone's End or something, you know?
Brandon: Well, what'd— what— you said Lakes Edge. That's nice.
Eric: Lakes Edge is good.
Julia: I'm just— I'm— I was trying to get— go opposite of Lake because we already had Lake Town City.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: Oh, right. Yeah.
Amanda: Julia, that's how I got to Lands' End.
Julia: There we go. There we go.
Amanda: Let's think about it.
Eric: Listen, we don't have to come up with a name now. I think—
Amanda: What if we reveal it next week in episode one?
Brandon: Ooh.
Julia: Hmm.
Eric: I think it can come up in episode one.
Brandon: Ooh.
Eric: It's totally fine. I like it. All right. Let's review what we have so far. Our school— our super school is overwhelming, eclectic, and insular. It is in the suburbs, at least an hour away from LakeTown City. Two-thirds of the student body live full-time in the dorms, while one-third live with their families nearby or go home on the weekends. The drastic body of the school is that it's on an island, where it's very difficult to get to, only by bridges. The front entrance of the school, it looks very big and modern, like the Oculus, and it is the PJ Lawbody Atrium and school entrance. The teachers' lounge is protected by a squat person who can astral project and track where your souls go. And there's no reason to try to sneak in, because he'll find you.
Brandon: Right.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Julia: He'll know.
Brandon: He has a clipboard.
Eric: And how do you get to the dorms from the school? What do you do if you're running late? You're kind of screwed because the dorms are on a smaller second island. They cracked off during a villain attack. So it's an object lesson for you not to cut class and get to classes on time.
Amanda: You better befriend a teleporter, man.
Eric: You better, truly.
Brandon: Oh, man, they must be so popular, the teleporters.
Julia: Hmm.
Eric: Oh, you know it.
Amanda: I would sell insurance, I would sell insurance as a teleporter and I'm like, "Once per semester—"
Brandon: Smart.
Amanda: "—you can press this button and summon me. Or if I had super speed maybe, I, like, get to you, pick you up, take you to class, but you have to pay, you know, $500."
Eric: Someone got new powers, maybe because they changed powers with those— with a broker on campus. Maybe it was sex-related, because the first time I have— you have sex, you probably switch powers with the person, and maybe their parents got them new powers because their parent— their powers weren't good and Julia is going to tell me which one of these actually happened.
Julia: Cool.
Brandon: A teacher got fired late last year because they were using school resources and students' ideas to profit from a company. They were also— might have been making a doomsday device, and the doomsday device might be somewhere in the school. The new science teacher is hairy and beautiful, and something must be going on.
Julia: Never seen them drink, never seen them eat.
Amanda: Never seen them drink or eat. And they are so boring and yet so beautiful that something must be going on.
Julia: Has to be an Android.
Brandon: The doomsday device is probably in the freshman dorms.
Eric: Probably, yeah.
Julia: Who can say?
Brandon: Good luck sleeping.
Eric: Two electricity students who dated, had— got a big fight and shorted out the power to the entire island, and now they are forced all year to be IT and redo the outlets, and they work under the short detective who tracks your soul.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: The Registar donated some archival powerful items in a gallery on campus, and they're just there. Oops.
Brandon: Oops.
Julia: Uh-oh.
Eric: The business of ethics woman is Miss Appropriation, who was—
Julia: So good.
Eric: —a big villain in the '90s. She's working off her time at the super villain prison, and she's so close, but there's another teacher who's also a reformed villain who got narc on by Miss Appropriation, and they hate each other.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: The school has a rival, which is the School for Human Potential, which pushes humans to the best of their abilities without superpowers. And they do a lot of competing against each other in athletics, in speech and debate, in just having people go to good colleges, et cetera.
Brandon: Trivia.
Eric: Oh, there's definitely trivia as well, Brandon. The student job that's super underrated is the Beautification Committee. It seems like it sucks because all you do is pick up trash, and it's for nerds, but actually, it's really helpful, because you have a ton of access to places you shouldn't be and teachers at weird hours.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Eric: And finally, the running valedictorian is no longer in the running for valedictorian because they, quote-unquote, "failed creative writing." They were a sidekick of a powerful superhero in town, and now they have to be their legacy, instead of getting whatever they get in the big rankings.
Brandon: Hell yeah, dude.
Julia: Hmm. I love it. Wow.
Brandon: I'm excited. This is gonna be fun.
Julia: It's gonna be so good.
Eric: I think it's sick. I'm excited to, like, codify a lot of this stuff. I am also really excited for your characters. I'm really excited to play Masks.
Julia: Yay.
Eric: It's gonna be fun, folks.
Brandon: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Amanda: Campaign Four, baby.
Julia: Yay.
Amanda: Can't wait.
Julia: Oh, no, there's a dinosaur.
Eric: And you know what, Methuselah? The caveman who got melted out of ice and got Flowered for Algrenon and is now very smart and teaches social studies, he always says.
Brandon: Ooga booga.
Eric: I mean, study hard, do good work. Be exceptional.
Julia: Aw.
Amanda: I love him.