Where did Eric get the idea for a kaiju battle and the timer mechanic? How long has that secret code been in the works? And which of the Best Friends is the safe-cracker in our heist crew? All that and more on the Afterparty!
Upcoming Schedule
- November 29: Camp-Paign Episode 18 (Finale I)
- December 6: Camp-Paign Episode 19 (Finale II)
- December 13: Camp-Paign Episode 20 (Finale III)
- December 20: Afterparty at the End of Camp (Eps 18-20)
Sponsors
- Hero Forge, where you can start designing your custom miniature today!
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- Fanroll, home to some of the coolest dice we’ve ever seen. Get 10% off your purchase with code jointheparty at fanrolldice.com
Find Us Online
- website: jointhepartypod.com
- patreon: patreon.com/jointhepartypod
- twitch: twitch.tv/jtpsidequests
- youtube: youtube.com/c/jointhepartypodcast
- twitter: twitter.com/jointhepartypod
- instagram: instagram.com/jointhepartypod
- tumblr: jointhepartypod.tumblr.com
- merch & music: jointhepartypod.com/merch
Cast & Crew
- Co-Host, Co-Producer: Eric Silver
- Co-Host, Co-Producer, Sound Designer, Composer: Brandon Grugle
- Co-Host, Co-Producer: Amanda McLoughlin
- Co-Host, Co-Producer, Editor: Julia Schifini
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
- Multitude: 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 the Camp-Paign, our Monster of the Week story set in a weird and wild summer camp, or marathon our D&D games with Campaign 2 for a modern, sci-fi 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
Amanda: 525,600 hey, hi, hellos, and welcome to the Afterparty baby.
Julia: [sings] The theater kid episode.
Amanda: Cha cha cha.
Eric: [sings in high pitched] 525,000 children are dying!
Amanda: That's right. And uh, Eric, how do you feel about it?
Eric: Unrepentant.
Julia: Good.
[Amanda and Brandon laugh]
Julia: As you should be, sir.
Eric: Uh, apparently everyone thinks I love killing kids and I've been trying to get that across for years.
Julia: I know.
Amanda: But as you say, it is Monster of the Week we said coming in. This is going to be a soft horror game. Hey, it's gotta be horror still, even if we don't have on-screen gory violence.
Julia: That's true.
Eric: Also, nothing's funnier than a cutaway to a cabin getting destroyed by a gout of fire. [laugh]
Brandon: Eric, I'm still laughing about that.
Eric: [laughs] It's so funny. Come on, you remember about the kids before. It's so funny.
Brandon: It is genuinely very funny.
Julia: I was concerned for a second it was Brenda and her friends. But no, we established in the previous episode that they were at the theater set. Everything's fine.
Eric: Right. Exactly. Yes. No, it's a kid— it's a cabin of kids you've never met before that had relationships and memories. That it happens to someone who you didn't talk to.
[Amanda laughs]
Julia: Yeah, but that doesn't matter to me, because I don't know them.
Eric: No, so funny. It really did feel like a gag from Gravity Falls, which is why I wanted to put it in so badly. Also, do you remember the trailer for Campaign Two? I made a 9-11 joke?
Amanda: Yeah.
[Brandon laughs]
Amanda: I do.
Eric: [laughs] So like, I don't know what people are expecting. I just make it funny. Have you been watching the streams where I laugh about Benghazi? Like, come on!
Amanda: [laughs] Her emails.
Julia: We simply can't keep doing this.
[Amanda and Eric laugh]
Amanda: If you're not watching side quests, twitch.tv/jtpsidequests. You got to come on in people. It's—it's truly uh—wonderful. But I want to observe first, that looking back, this was a real one-two punch of hey, great news. It's a musical arc. Bad news. A lot of kids are gonna die. So Eric, tell me about how the idea for this grand battle came to mind. And when you were plotting for all these little reveals of the Stone Johnnies and the code, and the staff lounge and the moose hat.
Julia: I also really—just before you get started, Eric, I really appreciate that you said, yeah, you know, I'll just give him like 20 minutes to half an hour like thinking that they're actually going to do a musical and then bam, Kaiju fight.
[Brandon and Eric Laughs]
Eric: What Brandon, I think once I finished that first act when Claudius got stomped, and we—finally I described the Kaiju, and we were moving to the actual mystery. We started doing the mystery rolls. Brandon was like, wow, bet you didn't think we were gonna do musical stuff for 30 minutes. And I was like, yes, I did.
[Amanda and Brandon laugh]
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: I'm not new. I know you guys.
Brandon: I thought it was supposed to be like an inciting incident, like a teaser called open or it's like, oh, yeah, you hear a noise and a person goes outside and just gets stomped. And like, then titles, you know?
Eric: Yeah, Brandon in real play that takes 30 minutes.
[Brandon laughs]
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: That's what I get for trying to make actual play podcasts and TV fit together. This is how you do it. It just takes 20 minutes instead.
Brandon: Yeah. I would request that when you describe how yo—how you dealt—did all this, how you weaved it together. Uh, If you could just do it in the metaphor of her emails if you could just—
Eric: Alright. So, if [laughs] if the Clintons are like me, it would look good together.
[Brandon laughs]
Julia: Oh, there were just 10 minutes of silence. Huh. Weird.
[Eric and Brandon laugh]
Amanda: Let's bring in a listener question. Kttemp25 says, Eric, what made you want to include a Kaiju fight in the background? It's so insanely cool.
Eric: We've done different types of mysteries so far. And again, this has been us playing the game, right? Like we had straight-up monster mysteries. Like the whole thing with the werewolf and the alicanto. We had ones that were centered around one location, like the woods, or the bouncy castle, but there's one called a phenomenon, which I haven't really been able to like flex out a little bit, which kind of encapsulates, like everything else, when something is happening. Instead of like a monster per se, like you're fighting the monster. Instead of undoing the phenomenon. They do a really, really good job of explaining this in Tomb of Mysteries, they talk about it as a umm, a time bubble. How it's like you need to stop the time bubble.
Brandon: Oh, yeah.
Eric: And it's like you can do whatever you want in the time bubble, the effects—the—of the phenomenon, which is why you ask different questions when you do your sharp moves. You're asking questions about the phenomenon instead of fighting the monster, right? Is not like, well, how do I kill this vampire? It's well what is causing the time bubble and how do I stop it.
Amanda: Right.
Eric: It was so—I wanted to do something that was like that, which is you can't fight the monster. You just need to figure out what's happening while this thing is happening, which and I—I thought of Kaiju stuff, I've been thinking about. I love it. I think it's interesting. I think having this as one of the last episodes definitely the last non-finale mystery, which we've been building to, I just thought would be a lot of fun, as we're all trying to piece these final things together. I thought got—gave you all an opportunity to run around camp, while avoiding danger.
Julia: And we sure did do that, huh?
Eric: Yeah, for sure.
Amanda: And let's talk about the other element of this battle, which I was so excited about from ZRocha to what 1223? Do you have a source of inspiration for the time's event table? You've done this in both campaigns, but this was way more intense. Uh, also some question, what denoted a 5 versus 7 versus 10 minute time?
Eric: Great question. Monster of the Week is really interesting. Because again, I always say, Monster the Week is a 90% good idea, 10%. Mechanics.
Brandon: I love this song.
Eric: And all you do uh we will—is buy—a Vampire Weekend, right?
Julia: Yeah. Same.
Eric: Uh, I saw that when I was at NYU. We were—they were nine people in a dorm room. And the window was open. And Snoop Dogg was there too. It was great.
Julia: And that's why you don't own a house.
Eric: Yeah, that's why I don't go out though. Yeah, exactly.
Julia: Side quests, baby.
Eric: Umm. So it's more about like making mechanics, literal eyes, how it feels to be dealing with the thing. It wasn't just a Kaiju running around. It was a Kaiju battle. So I don't know if you all remember the best movie that came out once COVID began, Godzilla versus King Kong. [laughs]
Brandon: Yeah, dude, it was so good.
Eric: It was good. It was exa—very good and also had podcasts in it. So I liked it even more.
Julia: I didn't fall asleep 45 minutes into that movie. Go on.
Brandon: Juliaaaa.
Eric: It's good for different reasons. It's more about collateral damage. And it was really funny coming up with the wanton destruction move to literalize Wanton Destruction, to literalize causation, things that happen around the destruction that doesn't have anything to do with it. So I thought that that was fun. I thought setting a real timer would make everything good. And then I really wanted to bring it down, and that bring the timer down because the fight was getting more and more intense. And kind of like an earthquake, you know, like, the closer you are to the thing, the more destruction it is. So I was trying to literalize it. It was real-time. So because I couldn't figure out a way to make it like " in-game time ", quote, unquote. And I know we messed with it a little bit because of editing. But it's not even that different. I think everyone felt both the players and the people listening, like the progressing, getting more and more tense, even if it wasn't like, if you've set a timer to it, it wouldn't be 10 minutes, but it would be like 8. But then again, you're listening to us on 1.5 speed, you monsters.
[Brandon laughs]
Eric: So, you wouldn't be figuring it out anyway. So I'm glad that people felt that.
Brandon: Who is the real Kaiju?
Eric: It's big tech, Brandon, the real Kaiju.
[Brandon laughs]
Eric: Uh, so yeah, I thought that that would be really fun. And I really liked when the alarm would go off. Sometimes I knew it, but sometimes I was even engrossed in it, then it would go ding into the thing. And I thought that was really funny.
Julia: Yeah you could tell how intense it was, because I would yell at the players being like, there is no time for jokes. We just start role-playing, stop!
Eric: Says Julia having a full conversation with a squirrel.
[Julia and Brandon laugh]
Julia: That squirrel gave us valuable information.
Brandon: I love that Eric also just like does not give a fuck. He's just like, let me take a second to think about how I want the scene to go while the timer is still going.
[Amanda laughs]
Eric: That I didn't do. I intentionally paused it. But I—when I was making jokes and characters the timer was going.
[Brandon laughs]
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah. That was the problem. Brandon, do you approach editing differently when there is a real-time element of our gameplay?
Brandon: Not really. I like—I feel like we play differently when there's a real-time element. Like I feel like we do it more streamlined where we you know, we just perform better without having to retake it.
Amanda: Yeah, there's no time.
Brandon: Yeah, exactly. But Eric did you—I was—genuine question. Did you feel like because we kept rolling so well and doing good? That you had to like step up the game in terms of danger and stuff? And that's—is that part of why you decrease the timer? Or was that just already built in?
Eric: No, I—the built-in was decreasing the timer. I didn't want to penalize you for rolling well, that, you know, the dice of the dice. I can't do anything about it. I wasn't like genuinely pissed about it.
Brandon: Oh could not, yeah, yeah.
Eric: I was just like, oh, I want you to see all the moves I had. We didn't even get to do the move that happened when you failed, which is the building that you're in right now is about to be destroyed, get out of there. Which is more I wanted to show all the moves.
Amanda: Moss actually asked, what would you have destroyed if the players hadn't rolled so well during the fight?
Eric: Listen, that stuff was out of my hands. Again, I—it's really good to be-- have your cards on the table when something this dangerous is happening. It's not like I'm doing it to you. So like I didn't even want to necessarily, it was up to y'all. And I think that that's the thing about like this quote-unquote, "success move" the 10 +, was that something is destroyed, but it's not that big of a deal. So you still need to destroy something we've been reveling in for the last 16-17 episodes. So it's like ah, I think it's fine. So I didn't want to destroy anything, necessarily. I can tell you the rest of the people on the D6 table, that you are rolling on for people who are in danger when you rolled 7 and 9, I can tell you that. Yeah.
Julia: Yeah, break our hearts. Go ahead.
Brandon: I mean, we know uh Tater Tot’s on there. So. Yeah.
Julia: Noooo.
Eric: Yeah, it is.
Brandon: I know, I know.
Eric: I said that. On the list, was one Jennii to—well I had—
Julia: If only! If only!
Amanda: Take her. Take her!
Eric: It was Jennii, Jane, and Tater Tot, The Director, Boo, would you roll, a crowd of campers, which I guess to demonstrate that someone else so, then you rolled that one and Dougie Juice.
[Amanda laugh]
Julia: Okay. That's fine.
Amanda: Damn it, we kind of rolled the worst two we could.
Brandon: Yeah we kind of dead, yeah.
Eric: Hey, you avoided Jane and Tater Tot.
Julia: That's true. That's true.
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: The dog didn't die. And that's because we succeeded.
Brandon: If the dog died, I would have stopped the tape, and then like, Eric, are you sure you want to do this?
Amanda: [laughs] Brandon would have printed out and shredded his contract.
Julia: Is it like Jane gets squashed and Tater Tot runs away sad? Because we can handle that.
Eric: Maybe. Here's the funny thing. Because you all succeeded so much in the beginning. By the time you were out doing stuff and being far away from camp, you couldn't save anyone.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: So honestly, it screwed you over in that way, which is why Boo got stomped and those campers got fired in a big gout of flame.
Amanda: It's like dislocating a limb. The more I want to do it once, these are do it again. And I still think Boo is—has simply been squished and the nearest watermelon to him, I just zoop right in there. Pop right in there.
Julia: I am curious—I mean, we did do a very good job succeeding in deciding what was destroyed. Were you guys also struggling to think of things that we were like, that would be okay for us to destroy, like after, like, the second or third time because I was like, I don't like destroying any part of camp?
Brandon: Oh, a 100%, yeah. Trying to think about, like things out in camp that were already dangerous to us.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: I was trying to think of things that were already in camp that were a danger to us, by existing.
Julia: Like the slide.
Amanda: Exactly. I loved that we were all on the same page. Are we gonna choose something, we're like, okay, good, good, good. Yes. This is second on our triage list. Like you can take the new cabin that's new and has shit under it. You can take our cabin, it's just all feathers and chocolate chips. It's fine. Don't worry.
Julia: We know, we know.
Amanda: Well, Les and Phoebe. Let's talk a little bit about your scenes, and also the Director. Porkchop Papi wants to know, why didn't the Director or AD Z tell the kids what Steven was capable of at the beginning.
Brandon: I mean, Eric can attest, but why would you? I mean, like you're—you're trying to direct a summer camp, not scare children.
Julia: Scar children for life.
Brandon: Yeah. [laughs]
Amanda: Right. Yeah. I think we got a really important negative information in there. Where she was like, you know, it's my job to keep you from being responsible. You're not fully responsible yet. And it—and it sucks to be, and so I don't want you to be and why do you keep asking for it?
Eric: Yeah, that's a 100% True. Shouldn't it be enough for the Director and Assistant Director to say, don't talk to Steven, and you don't?
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Like that should be enough?
Brandon: I mean, I disagree. I think that's bad parenting, you know, like, it's bad responsibility. Like, you got to tell kids why, otherwise, you're just going to do what we did. [laughs]
Eric: Well, I mean, the Director did. The Director said Steven is a— it's dying— It's not like go everywhere the light touches. It wasn't like that. It was like Steven is a terrible demon. [laughs] He's a trickster. Don't talk to him. He will convince you to do something bad.
Brandon: I don't—but oh. I'm curious if she said that or not. If he will, like it— because that would have been good. If she said he will convince you to do something bad. But like you tell a kid like he's a terrible trickster demon. He's got—the kid's gonna be like, yeah, I need to make him my best friend.
Julia: It would be like, how can I—you know—what's gonna happen in that sense?
Brandon: I'm not goth for no reason.
Julia: You're like, oh, no, if I talked to Steven, I'll get detention. No, it's like, you'll literally die. I think if they had established what the stakes were, maybe the 13-year-olds would feel less likely to rebel.
Brandon: This is not a critique of you by the way.
Julia: No, no, no. This is a critique of people who don't do that.
Brandon: Yeah. You played that brilliantly.
Eric: Oh yeah. I mean, that's the Director a 100% doesn't do that. They—it shouldn't be enough that like, she's the Director of a weird camp, that you would believe the weird camp person. But yeah, I guess you know, teenagers are gonna teenager
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: But Julia and Brandon, how do you guys approach that conversation, that negotiation? Did it surprise you? How hard it was to get her to answer a straight question?
Julia: I think I literally said in the episode I'm like, why do we ask you questions, and then you just don't answer?
[Eric laughs]
Amanda: Yes.
Julia: Can you give me a straight answer, please? I think Phoebe at that point just wanted to be direct.
Brandon: Yeah, I—the obvious answer is like we're Eric is dancing on a pinhead trying to not you know, unveil things that would ruin the gameplay, but also like in character, I totally bought the motivation that Director was like, I—I think it's selfless and a little bit, maybe a little bit misguided, but—but it comes from the right spot of like, I don't want you to have to be responsible when you're a child for this life and death situation.
Eric: Very much so. Especially, there are two. There are also two extra things here. One, there's absolutely no reason to talk about the secret staff lounge that you two aren't allowed in. Why would they—why would they do that? Why would the Director need to do that? And two, AD Z was in there with the thing that would hurt Phoebe the most. So, I'm especially not going to tell you about that.
Amanda: Oh my god sweet Phoebe, are you okay?
Julia: I think Brandon said in the episode because you couldn't see my face during the recording, but with like, oh my god Julia's face she's so mad.
[Eric, Amanda, and Brandon laugh]
Amanda: Well, actually, before we get to that, Brandon was Les tempted by the Director kind of throwing out there that her either father or grandfather knew Charles Forte?
Brandon: Yeah, I—I think that was actually really I—I took the choice, I thought was funnier. But that—I thought that was brilliant Eric, of like, tempting Les with like, oh, this person might actually have some secrets that I don't know. Because a 100% Les would jump at that opportunity. But I think at the moment because the director was being so cage about other stuff.
Amanda: And you're in front of a girl you like.
Eric: I'm in front of Phoebe.
Julia: Awww.
Brandon: Yeah exactly. I thought it would be funnier to be like, oh, this—[laughs] Les is like, oh, this person's dirty liar now. This person has been blacklisted.
Eric: Sure. And now, you get to learn about it.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: Eric, Porkchop also wanted to know how does Charles Ford's philosophy on monsters differ from the Directors?
Eric: Oh, I don't know. I was teasing Les, I don't know.
[Amanda laughs]
Julia: He would have figured it out eventually.
Eric: I would have figured it out If Les had said yes. Probably something about like living on the land as opposed to observing them, like in a compendium which I feel like is Charles Forte's whole deal.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Like putting and putting that shit into a book.
Brandon: Well, one of my favorite Disney ride. But two, uh yeah, I—we totally like ish— the Director has actual experience with these monsters and Charles Forte, just like saw something out of the corner of his eye once and wrote a book about it.
Eric: Exactly.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah. I feel like it must be like, when I was thinking about this, it was really like 19th-century philosophers sitting in like a hunter's lodge, talking about like different types of philosophy. You know, them fitting together. And that's what I was thinking about in terms of cryptozoology. Dracula's grandfather had those conversations with Charles Forte about monsters.
Brandon: Totally.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: And Julia, before we get to Phoebe's grand disillusionment, that she will be talking about in her diary for decades. Let's figure out how we got there. So Kazy 3 kobolds in a trenchcoat want to know, um how long Eric, did you have the passcode for the rock wall set out? Did you know you'd used that phrase since the bus ride in the beginning? And players, how silly did we feel listening back? [laughs]
Brandon: I felt so stupid.
[Amanda and Brandon laughs]
Julia: I—listening back, I was like, I thought I had it. The first go around. And I did. But I think Eric was waiting for a longer pause, where in my head, I wouldn't—I would die... for Camp Die.
Amanda: I would die. Forgot that again.
Julia: But I didn't like, say that out loud. And so it wasn't a long enough pause for you, Eric. And I think I would have gotten on the first try. But—
Brandon: But Julia, did you, did you just guess that as password, because it would be a good guess. Or did you connect to the symbols to that in your head while you were doing it?
Julia: Well, no, Amanda whispered it on the microphone. I was like that is it, must be it. And then I said it
Eric: Yeah. Amanda got it.
Amanda: I had a lightbulb moment.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: But still—so did Amanda, did you connect it to the symbols? Or it—were you just like, that's a good guess?
Amanda: No, no, I—I suddenly saw the symbols I had written down for weeks in my notebook, and was like, oh, it's I would die for Camp Die. [laughs]
Eric: Hey, just another problem of doing a podcast and you don't have the visual component that like there was a bunch of calculus symbols that went across Amanda's face [laughs]
Amanda: I was that meme lady with the—with the math.
Eric: Yeah, exactly.
Julia: Yeah.
[Brandon laughs]
Eric: Oh, okay. I'm gonna have to make that meme right after this.
Amanda: Thank you!
Eric: Just remind me. But, yes, Julia, you're right. It was the—it was the pause thing which had to be—which had to be a part of it.
Amanda: But Eric, when did you first think about that phrase? Was it since that opening scene on the bus?
Brandon: Mm.
Julia: Hmm.
Eric: No, it wasn't. I really liked the phrase on the bus. I just came up with it. It just came into my head. And I thought it was fun to do as a way to set the scene in that first scene. And as we said, I didn't know necessarily that there was a staff lounge until Les found something, which I'd—I'd said before, but I was like, well, there's—Les can't just get in there. There has to be a thing or it has to be a password. And then I started putting it together. I really did want this to be in the Avery notebook that you got. That was very important to me again, as I said, I had to give you something as doing a reward for interacting with Avery. And not to be weird, like literally, that's good. GMM right? You reward your, your characters and your players for doing an interesting thing.
Amanda: Potentially dangerous and like, you know, going further into the lore, I get it.
Eric: Yeah, especially with Monster of the Week. You have to give something in return for someone making a risk. So that's when I knew that before you went into Avery, I knew that Avery would have this old notebook with that stuff in there. Especially in the notebook as I talked about, like the stuff about monster hunting being like riflemen ship, in old camps, you know.
Julia: The fitness exam or whatever.
Eric: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that, that was something that I, I was really thinking about. So I—I knew it since as I was prepping for Carrie-Ann's interaction with Avery, but not before, but it did. You know, giving yourself presents, give yourself presents as GMs, just lay things out there and see what happens, you know, or like make risks or try to do work ahead of time. And then you're like, oh, that actually works well. And then you can connect the dots. So I didn't know from the jump, but I did have it in my head from the jump, which is almost the same.
[Amanda and Julia giggle]
Amanda: Now Brandon, did you know from when you were 7 or 8 and wrote the Camp Die short story? That one day a thing called podcast would be invented, and this would be a major plot in campaign 2.5
Brandon: I did because I am clairvoyant.
Amanda: Good.
Brandon: So I did have a vision about this.
Julia: Yeah. Arnold Palmer is a self-insert.
Brandon: [laughs] I do also want to quickly defend Eric against Julia's like didn't wait too long. Because if you were to I— just double-check. It's two quarters S right, Eric?
Eric: Yes.
Julia: I'm not a musician, Brandon. Okay? So.
Brandon: If you're going to write this out, it's I would die and that's one AND two.
Eric: Yes.
Brandon: So, one and two. Rest. Rest. One and two. Rest. Rest.
Eric: Yes. Well, because it's called a response. That was the key from the beginning. You were— it was—remember, it was one half of the bus—
Amanda: I would die.
Eric: To the other half of the bus. So yes, Brandon is a 100% correct. And of course, a verbal password would need that. Just as-- It's like capslock on a written—on a written password, right? So yes, Brandon is a 100% correct.
Julia: This is the Spirits theme song Aladdin thing all over again, and I won't have it. I just won’t.
Brandon: You mean the Aladdin theme song?
Julia: Shut up, Brandon!
Amanda: Yes.
Julia: Let's move
[Brandon laughs]
Eric: One hop ahead of the Big Foot.
[Julia and Brandon laugh]
Amanda: I can't unhear it. Okay. Uh, Porkchop also wants to know who created the lounge. What kind of magic is used to protect it?
Julia: Who can say?
Amanda: Who can say?
Eric: Sounds?
Brandon: It's Tater Tot.
Eric: Sounds cool.
Julia: Yeah, it was Tater Tot all along.
Amanda: Tater Tot loves to dig.
[Brandon and Eric laugh]
Amanda: Yeah. Alright. Uh, and while you guys were having a great time figuring out passwords, I was being traumatized in the woods with Jennii, and Steven.
Eric: That sounds like a Bruce Springsteen, lyric.
[Amanda laughs]
Eric: [sings] Traumatized in woods with Jennii.
[Brandon laughs]
Eric: [sings] And, New Jersey's never felt as good as I want to get out of my hometown.
[Brandon laughs]
Julia: Eric, it was great. Incredible.
Eric: Thanks.
Amanda: So I mean, we got obviously a lot of Eric with the fox. Uh flex Katie Mae Amber says, Eric with fox, Steven has to face hate that, but we'll—[laughs]
Eric: I have to include that. [laughs] Someone makes you good.
Amanda: That was good. But before well—you might be wondering how we got to Steven having a face and it begins with, um this is a long, but I think very good question from rationally afraid of the moose, who says I'm suddenly very interested in knowing about Jennii, more specifically, what on Charles's green earth made her think about bargaining with Steven? What did he promise her that was more worthwhile than Conway and her fellow CITs? Is this a question you can even answer or are we locked out of this information, which is a great image? Because the best friends weren't interested in following Jennii's portion of the Camp Die story. Really makes me think about the complexity of even this tiny little camp, which despite its size, we still don't see everything happening unless it crosses the Best Friends paths.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Well said.
Julia: I mean, I think Jennii just wanted two more weeks this summer with their new partner, right? Like they're new to dating. They want to spend more time with Conway. And so two more weeks of summer.
Eric: Yeah, I think that's definitely part of it. Especially the way that you all dealt with the Kelpie situation all the way back in the alley condo epic—mystery.
Brandon: Perfectly.
Eric: Yeah, well, like dramatically, an interesting way.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: I think that is the way. So Conway revealed a secret, but that only engendered the relationship between Conway and Jenii even harder, that like they kept the secret even when it got blown up. It was fine, you know?
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: This is also a competitive role, right? Like, not everybody is going to get full-time counselor positions, I assume. And probably Jennii wanted to have a moment. Do— enough to be the hero?
Brandon: Yeah. Can I also assume that like, it's a bit of an ultimatum of like, at least in Jennii's fine, maybe? I don't know if it was explicitly by Steven, but like, Jennii was like, okay, well, I want to be the hero of this camp. And it's either the Kaiju destroy the camp or I get two weeks of summer what's the downside? So let's do the deal.
Amanda: Yeah, like a real you know, appeasing the dictator.
Eric: Yes, it would Jennii, yeah. That's exactly what happened. Jennii was like, I'm just going to—in exchange the Bonezilla is gonna stop doing the Bonezilla stuff. And because Steven wants something. He's—Stevens acting out, so I'm going to deal with it. Here's the other thing that I've been seeding, Jennii thinks you three—
Brandon: Watermelon seeding?
Julia: God, Brandon.
Eric: Yes. Jennii thinks you three are doofuses.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: From the way that you've all interacted. Remember all the way that you've been interacting with Jennii, you've—it's really been like, you know that episode of community when all the other kids in the college are like, yeah, the study groups very into themselves.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Yeah, they suck.
Eric: Yeah, it's like, they're very into themselves. Then Jennii is like, these three, just fucking walk around, Carrie-Ann is the teacher's pet of the Director.
Amanda: You're welcome.
Eric: Phoebe is doing some weird shit at all times, what a weirdo. And Les is just like 6'5 standing around and Dougie is not doing anything. Like we have bad Les, we have Dougie who was always sleeping.
Brandon: Bad Les, [laughs].
Julia: Eric there's always a woman character that you put into the thing, that things are characters are doofuses. It's happening time and time again.
Eric: No, I have put in lots of characters who are—who could be allies but instead all three of you are like get fucked. Love my best friend.
Amanda: I was just gonna say like Emily slaughter, you know, we can either make peace with Jennii or not. And we chose to prioritize other things. And you know, I think, I think rationally afraid of the moose puts it really well, that like other stuff is happening and if those plotlines don't intersect with the best friend plotlines, it's not that they're frozen and Amber like waiting for us to shine a light on them. They're still happening, right?
Eric: Yeah. I think we learned this kind of very explicitly over the last few episodes. Like when Jennii saw Phoebe talking to squirrels, and Jennii's like, what are you doing?
[Amanda and Brandon laugh]
Julia: Phoebe's like, you're dating a horse!
[Julia and Brandon laugh]
Eric: And I'm like, and Jennii's like, yeah, in a good way. Clip clop. The way that Jennii's like, Carrie-Ann, you—what are you doing? You don't know what you're doing? either. I need to save the camp, I have to figure it out. But you know, there was only, there were plenty of opportunities to figure out who was going to be the one who betrayed camp on. They have a Steven, it just to me, it felt like it was Jennii from the way that you know, the interactions between the two groups of CITs plus the Director being an absolute mess. Jennii was like, I guess I gotta save the camp.
Julia: Yeah. Uh, just a quick roll call. Who thought their character was going to be the one to betray camp, because I'm raising my hand.
Amanda: I'm raising my hand. That's why Carrie-Ann didn't want to be the leader of the fairies because she thought that any kind of power that she might amass would be used by Steven against the camp.
Brandon: Hmm.
Julia: That's smart. That makes sense.
Brandon: I did not imperfect and tall.
Julia: Yeah, that makes sense.
Brandon: Uh, Eric, I do want to post it also that, it's not that your female characters think that we're doofuses, is that your female characters are doofuses and were normal.
Eric: Interesting. I wonder how that works in terms of relating to others.
Brandon: Because they think we're doofuses, but the reality is that they're just like hotties not at all. So you think they can do everything better. So therefore we're normal. And they're doofuses, you know?
Amanda: Our characters do cause Wanton Destruction wherever we are.
Brandon: Amanda, shut up!
[Amanda laughs]
Eric: And I also don't want to say it's not just female characters, there are plenty of people who might be allies that you—you all decide to rebuff because they do one thing that's weird, so you dunk on them instead?
Julia: I just think that there are some really cool parallels between Emily Slaughter and Jennii. That's all I want to establish.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: Oh, this is a prequel, Julia.
Julia: Oh, that makes sense.
Amanda: Ooohh.
Brandon: Jennii became Emily's Slaughter.
Amanda: This is 10 to 40 years before the introduction of Diaphorum.
[Brandon laughs]
Julia: Either— it's either a prequel or sequel, we'll never know.
[Brandon laughs]
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: Just to put a fine point on it. So Katie asked, what did Jennii think the deal she was getting was? She seemed really surprised that her juices were slurped.
Eric: Yeah, I don't know exactly. Because again, we didn't see it on screen. But I think Julia probably got the closest which is like, stop with the Bonezilla. Two more weeks of summer and then Steven probably said something innocuous that turned into Jennii getting their body slurped.
Brandon: I think it's a metaphor for the persuasive diet industry invading young women's self-perception of themselves.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: Steven really represents you know, fast fat diets.
Julia: Brandon has a lot of feelings about this right now because we just found out that the goop got a podcasting field.
[Amanda laugh]
Brandon: We did, we did.
Julia: That feeling feisty.
Amanda: This is contemporaneous podcasting, baby.
Eric: Oh, I also want to say this only happened because the whistle was gone.
Julia: Right.
Eric: This would have been a different thing if the whistle wasn't slurped up.
Amanda: Well, I am, you know, thirsty for another Watermelon Margarita. So let me just run into the kitchen for another round and I'll be right back.
[theme]
Amanda: Hey, it's Amanda. I am recording this ahead of time, as many of us in the US travel to see family or cook big meals this week. And I gotta say that there is just something special about cranberry sauce that I happen to love. I do a cranberry lime and mezcal cranberry sauce, which is a different flavor profile to the cranberry orange that you normally see. It's very tart. It's so delicious and it is good on pretty much everything. So I recommend remixing a classic this year. Welcome to the mid-roll. You can put a pickled jalapeno on top so good. We have new merch out here for you. We have of course stickers of Grumfungo. These are our favorite AI Pokemon who is grumpy at transphobes because everything from the Grumfungo supports trans rights sticker will benefit trans lifeline. Go to join thepartypod.com/merch or get the link in the episode description or on our socials to buy your Grumfungo sticker now. There is nothing more I want to see than Grumfungo in your local bar bathroom or bulletin board or car or laptop. Listen, buy a three-pack, you're gonna want multiple Grumfungos, trust me. jointhepartypod.com/merch. We are also going to be at PAX unplugged next weekend. This is the premier non-video game gaming convention. It's in Philly this year and we are going to be there, me, Eric, Mischa, and Roux December 2nd through the 4th in Philadelphia, come through. We will have Grumfungo stickers, we'll have a Games and Feelings live show with Eric and Amanda Silver Ling aka Ralts of Join the Party side quest chat, and Jeremy from Pre-Black Halflings. It's going to be an amazing time plus of course a booth with Multitude stuff and stickers and bonuses and all kinds of stuff for you to enjoy. Come through and say hi, if you are in Philadelphia or looking for an excuse to go, it's December 2nd through the fourth in Philly, and check our socials for exactly where we will be. We will thank all of our newest patrons when we get back. Centimorgan you snuck in just under the wire before I left. So thank you for your support. And again just to say your support on Patreon all 600 plus of you, is what allows us to make the show our jobs with no bad Tuesdays. If you can't get enough Join the Party in your life. If you want to support our mission or get more stuff or hang out in our Discord with all the other Join the Party patrons, please do it. You will get to enjoy Party Planning every other week where we play games and give advice and just have a good time with each other. You can get ad-free episodes, bloopers even one on one time with Eric, or the ability to play a one-shot with all four of us. Please come on through patreon.com/jointhepartypod. Seriously I hope, I hope you know that It means a lot to us and this is a great time of year to support an indie creator, to support a small business out here in the digital landscape. Let that business be Join the Party. patreon.com/jointhepartypod. I'm also so excited to tell you that we have a brand new member show here at Multitude. Pale Blue Pod, is an astronomy podcast for people who are overwhelmed by the universe but want to be its friend, astrophysicist Dr. Moiya Mctier of Exolore and comedian Corrine Caputo are demystifying space one topic at a time. They have open eyes, open arms, and open mouths from all the laughter and jaw-dropping that they are doing along the way. By the end of each episode, the cosmos will feel a little less scary and a lot more cool. They have new episodes out every Monday on topics like Pluto and electromagnetism and where planets come from. It is seriously amazing. It's my new favorite podcast and I am so, so honored that we have a new show that's this amazing to tell you about. So search for Pale Blue Pod in your podcast app now, new episodes every Monday. We are sponsored today by Hero Forge which offers fully customizable tabletop miniatures with dozens of fantasy species and thousands of parts to choose from. They have a very easy-to-use design tool online that helps you build your perfect miniature using a fully 3d in-depth character creator right in your web browser. And I gotta tell you, it's also a great way to start thinking about character options if you're like me and have trouble kind of finding a starting place for a new character. You can just like throw cool accessories in there, companion stuff for your character to hold, hairstyles, and body parts. It is really truly amazing how many options there are and Hero Forge makes it so easy to get that many, to make it real. You can either download a file to 3d print it yourself or get your fully custom miniature including color printing, by the way, shipped to you. They add new content every week sometimes based on your recommendations by the way, so you can ask them for stuff if they don't have it. Go to heroforge.com to start designing today. We are also sponsored by a Twenty-Sided Store in Brooklyn New York. Shop online or in-store for games, puzzles, gaming gear, and swag from Join the Party's friendly local game store. I know I am getting multiple holiday presents at Twenty Sided Store, they're a small business, and they're lovely. Lauren and Luis the Co-owners are absolute dolls and recommended my favorite Chinese restaurant of all time to me which is just down the block in Shanghai, shout out. So if you go into the store in person just mentioned Join the Party for 20% off your first purchase. And if you're buying online they can ship to you, use code JTPCamp all one word for 20% off your first purchase. Whether you are getting gaming accessories or dice or games or just an extra thing to like judge up your table and improve your dice collection or your dice bag or your play mat, we're getting an expansion pack to a game that you love or bring a copy of your favorite game to wherever you are traveling with the holiday season. Check them out. That's twentysidedstore.com use code JTPCamp or mentioned Join the Party in store for 20% off your first purchase. Finally, we're sponsored by Fan Roll Dice, a new dice company, we are so excited to be partnering with, I can't even tell you. Fan Roll is the culmination of almost a decade of Metalic Dice games which recently emerged from its cocoon as the newly formed fan role. They have over 300 items for every type of gamer including trays, towers, and bags. One thing I haven't seen anywhere else that they make is their liquid core elixir dice, which look like an actual sea trapped inside a die. It is so beautiful. They also have something very cool going on right now called misfit metal dice, which is a mystery bag of factory second metal dice. That means that they have slight scratches or cosmetic imperfections but still roll perfectly well, which you can adopt and take home at a discount. They are kindly offering JTP listeners 10% off your purchase at fanrolldice.com with the code Join the Party. That's 10% Off with code Join the Party at fanrolldice.com And now back to the show.
[theme]
Brandon: Amanda, I think you've made these drinks a little strong.
Eric: Well Brandon, you—you insisted on drinking three tiki drinks to quote give the margarita some friends.
[Julia and Amanda laugh]
Julia: That sound like a thing I would do.
[Eric laugh]
Amanda: Alright, Brandon. Here's an Aqua Fresca.
Brandon: Thanks.
Amanda: Lots of electrolytes. Uh, I don't believe in electrolytes it's my—it's my toxic trait. Uh, that's not true. Okay.
[Brandon and Julia laugh]
Amanda: Huh?
Eric: Amanda [laughs] and then Amanda drank more watermelon margaritas because the quote looked lonely in the picture.
Amanda: [high pitch voice] Exactly. Give me just a little bit of a guide there. Okay. We have some excellent what ifs here from the listeners, which isn't exactly spoilery corner but I do think is a good you know, thinking about the future, thinking about what if part, Join the Party presents, what if?
Brandon: What if Camp Zombies?
Julia: Ooohh.
Eric: I don't like the weird animation style that's part of this. We should have paid our animators more.
Amanda: Okay, so here's a question from Kate. How did Conway react to Jennii's decision? Did they know what she was going to do and why? And I'll add on myself, if they knew would they have stopped her?
Eric: In during? I don't know. Maybe we'll find out. I don't even know what to say. It's not even like a who can say, but it's like, we'll see what happens.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: I—I get the feeling that like, this is a little bit of headcanon. But I get the feeling like Jennii's kind of person that was like, that would be sort of headstrong and either intentionally or forgetfully. They just be like, oh, you didn't get my plan. You know, like you didn't Intuit what I was going to do or could I think Conway would have tried to stop? Jennii, right?
Eric: Yeah, I—in my head, the way that I did it, especially from Carrie Ann's reaction, Carrie-Ann getting thrown off by Jennii and Conway. Like Jennii was like, I have the plan to stop Steven, but you have to trust me, and then Conway went [blowing raspberries]. So it's like—
Julia: Clip, clop, clip, clop.
Eric: Clip, clop, clip, clop. So I think that they would probably like that.
Julia: Yeah, that makes sense.
Eric: And like, you know, Conway, I'm sure has full trust in what Jennii says because they're dating. And also, you know, their relationship, Conway yet speaks English. And Jennii is facilitating that, very strongly for them.
Brandon: They were working on that language that, that one horse did where like, it's like one tap for two and like where you do math problems or whatever. Like, yeah, they we're working on that though.
Julia: It was a real Mr. Ed situation.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: In the—in the cartoon, someone's dubbed over Conway with Mr.—Mr. Ed's voice.
Amanda: Incredible.
Eric: Someone gave Conway peanut butter.
[Brandon laughs]
Amanda: They love it. Duran asks, is there anything Steven would have offered to any of the Best Friends to convince one of them to accept the deal?
Eric: You tell me?
Amanda: Yeah. Best friends, what do we think could have been offered to us that would make it work? I think Carrie-Ann would have really thought about the situation if the offer was like, you work with me to preserve camp in some way or I and I like him, period.
Julia: Yeah. I think that makes sense. That feels like a very Carrie-Ann motivation. I think for Phoebe, what I thought from the beginning, and that's why I raised my hand when I was like rollcall that they were going to be the betrayer. I like had kind of convinced myself that Chuck might have been an extension of Steven in some way. And so Chuck being like, well, I need to enter the camp so that you can fulfill your magical destiny, Phoebe would have said yes to that.
Amanda: Wow.
Eric: For sure.
Brandon: I think probably the only thing that would have given Les, it would have been like if either Carrie-Ann or Phoebe had expressed something like, you know, Carrie-Ann wished that she could, I don't know, be at camp all summer or like, fix her home life or something I don't know. And like Phoebe was like, you know, I don't want these powers or whatever. And then Steven offered that to Les so that he could give it to his friends.
Amanda: Aww.
Brandon: But yeah, I don't know what else he could have really offered. Because I feel like a cool bone xylophone?
[Amanda laughs]
Julia: What if? What if he made you into a Bigfoot? Would you be into that?
Brandon: No, that's like, uh—say I'm scared of snakes and someone offered me to become a snake. [laughs] You know?
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: What, if you were like a liaison to the cryptids? And you—you know, we're blessed with all the knowledge, like all the knowledge of the—of the complete version of the book were imparted to you.
Brandon: But I think Les like, I think this is the secret of Les than being a kid. It's like the part of the fun of is it, like not knowing, right? Like, I think that's why he's like, also part of the reason why he sort of spurned the Director's offer of like, she— you know, professes to have the correct knowledge. So she's obviously a—a liar.
[Amanda laughs]
Eric: Yeah, I think the hard part about this for the players, for making the players betray, is you probably would have had to come to me, Eric/ Steven, to say it. It's a very like witch in the woods situation, is that you need to tell the whips the thing you want before you can get that monkey pod around on you, you know. So it's like, I'm not just saying that it couldn't have happened. But I think I would have needed confirmation from that. Because, you know, Steven did try to tempt Carrie-Ann, but then Carrie-Ann was like, [imitates Carrie-Ann] No! So I don't know, I don't know if that even would have come up and play. Unless one of you were stewing in the middle of the night and then called me and I was like, alright, we're doing this.
[Julia laughs]
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: Hit the button.
Eric: Yeah, exactly.
Brandon: That is interesting. Because you do definitely Campaign two. And I—I was thinking of Campaign one too, like you do like to give our villains like, at least on paper, like the fact that they offered the heroes something, like tempt them with something, you know.
Julia: Right.
Eric: Yeah. Like, you know, it's not that fun of a story, if you're just like stomping a bad guy, you know.
Julia: Of course.
Eric: Like, there needs to be something, there has to be something going on.
Brandon: Oh, no, that's a good thing. Yeah, I was just surprised to hear that Steven wouldn't have done it of his own accord..
Eric: For them, I think that there's a correlation between Steven and the Council of Bright, who needed something to come through.
Julia: Right.
Eric: That was the— that was the thing. With Gutenberg, he was biding his time. And that was different.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: And he was just waiting to hit you. That was the deal with the— with these like, more spookier games when your enemy is like a big evil. That's not there now, is that you got to be led him. So you have to be led in both of these situations, you have to be led in.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: That's why Steven was explicitly a trickster in this way. But of course, this was only laid on harder when the fact, when the whistle is gone. And all you have to do is what—I need to trick one child and I'm in.
Amanda: Abbey asks, would Steven have killed Carrie-Anne if she'd accepted the deal?
Eric: Yeah, you would have been killed.
Amanda: Probably right.
Eric: Yeah, for sure.
Amanda: Yeah. I have to assume.
Julia: Yeah?
Brandon: Oh the diet industry's hits again.
[Julia laughs]
Eric: It's a representation for those weird shakes, that does make you poop.
Amanda: Yeah.
[Brandon laughs]
Amanda: And J Factorial wants to know, was Steven breaking into camp always part of the plan? It feels like it was.
Eric: Yeah, he needed to get in the—it was—it was it wouldn't—
Amanda: You give as a wall. You give us a skeleton outside the wall with sunglasses, even watermelons. It's gonna happen.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: There is a version of the story that where it's very Les Miserable, where like, we— you know, barricade the wall and, you know, throw shoes at Steven or something, yeah.
[Julia laughs]
Eric: I think of the whistle wasn't gone. Yeah, for sure. It might have been a base building sort of, or a siege sort of thing instead. Yeah. A 100%.
Brandon: Yeah, Les Mis, Eric.
Eric: Steven did the bone—Steven did the Bonezilla thing as a distraction, right?
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: So it's like that was what happened here. So instead, it would have been like Steven made a rush and you're trying to use the whistle as much as possible to push them back. Totally different situation. You're—you're definitely right.
Amanda: Watermelon 24601
[Brandon and Julia laughs]
Brandon: I stole a watermelon of round-- [laughs]
Eric: [sings] Can you hear the camper sing, singing the song of little kids? If the summer never ends, I don't have to go to school again.
Brandon: [sings] Empty cabins at empty fields.
Amanda: I just have to say I Googled—
Eric: [sings] Master of the bunk.
[Brandon and Amanda laugh]
Julia: Oh my gosh.
Amanda: That was what Dougie Juice was doing when we were working.
Eric: [sings] Let me stay asleep for now. Yeah, for sure.
[Brandon laughs]
Julia: I don't know Les Mis well enough to participate. I’m sorry.
Eric: I'm so sorry.
Amanda: Julia, me neither so I googled Les Mis bread number, and Google didn't tell me what it was. I had a total like six results. It was terrible.
Eric: [sings] Green is the color of our shirt.
[Brandon laughs]
Eric: [sings] Gold, it's a sticker I got an art.
Amanda: Alright let's move into some questions about the game, about our characters at the pod.
Eric: I didn't know I knew that much Les Mis. [laughs]
Amanda: Good job, honey. I'm very surprised. Alright, Paul asked the question on everybody's minds. Destruction of camp aside, would either Bonezilla or Stone Johnnie eventually win the fight if left alone for long enough? Bonus question. How would Kaiju Monty from the end of campaign two, fair in this fight?
Brandon: Oh, through a Kaiju battle?
Eric: Yeah, that would have been wild.
Amanda: Yeah, throw us all in there. Why not?
[Brandon laughs]
Eric: [sighs] I think—it would have been Stone Johnnie and Monty defeating the Bonezilla together for sure.
Julia: Because as we know, Monty was corrupted. And that's the only reason we had to fight him.
Eric: Exactly.
Amanda: Yeah. And I think—I think mountain lobsters are basically as old as dinosaurs. So it—Bonezilla can't pull that on this.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: That's true.
Brandon: Are you thinking because of the power differential or like the strength of will or everything?
Eric: There was an opportunity, I think if you wanted to, to make like a big distraction to help stone Johnnie against the Bonezilla. But you ended up not doing it because it would have been very— it would have been really hard and very scary and dangerous.
Julia: And none of us have good, tough.
Eric: Way out. So I was like, I envisioned like if someone stole the golf cart, and there were fireworks in it, and that went off or something to like give a momentary edge for the stone Johnnie, to do like a stone cold stunner [laughs] attacks Bonezilla. And maybe that's what it's like totally cha—change the tide. But something I wanted to keep going was that, it was supposed to be a stalemate. And it was more about the destruction than one winning.
Julia: Yeah, we really didn't use that golf cart as much as we should have this campaign.
Brandon: Yeah. No kidding.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: I did do that. Eric, I sent fairies in to distract them. Come on.
Eric: You did. And it was so funny. [laughs]
Amanda: I had real images of the—the Rugrats going to Las Vegas montage with vacation, All I Ever Wanted, vacation have to get away.
[Brandon laughs]
Eric: With the fairies coming into camp?
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah. I mean, it was—that was so funny. It was just the fairies, distracting everyone and then taking kids' names. It was so funny.
[Julia and Brandon laugh]
Amanda: TJ says, players, there were obviously some visceral reactions going on during Boo and the Kingfisher cabin moments. How hard was it to continue role-playing knowing the full stakes?
Brandon: Well, my visceral reaction was, goddamn this is funny. So y'all institution talk.
[Eric and Brandon laugh]
Julia: I mean, I think that raising the stakes makes you more committed to solving the problem. So like we were having visceral reactions, because yeah, we're watching characters that we loved, you know, get endangered. But I don't think it was a bad thing. Our visceral reaction, one is to feed Eric with what the fox. And two, to make sure that like, you all know, oh, this is bad.
Eric: Yeah, that's something honestly that I'm excited that we're doing more. I think that, as we were trying to make good products, sometimes we're like, in it and we're not immu— emoting as people participating in a good—in a game that's fun. So I'm definitely enjoying that more. Because you know, you gotta get another microphone so people know that we're doing it.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: We all did a lot of raising our hands this campaign and we—we've gotten better.
Brandon: Uh, excuse me Amanda, Y'all did a lot of raising your hands.
Amanda: Well In the inner— in this uh arc, Eric said to Brandon, you're raising your hand.
Brandon: That's true. You're right, you're right, you're right.
Amanda: And I was like, haha. But no, it's—I mean, the—the gasp, you hear me gasp when Jennii accepts Steven's deal and promptly dies is a 100% genuine. Like I— I tried to tamp my down because Eric and I are in the same physical room. And if I say something silly when he's actually talking, he has to retake his line.
[Eric laughs]
Amanda: So, you know I uh, I got to try but like a good god, I couldn't hold it in.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: I care about these kids.
Julia: Damn.
Amanda: And this fictional camp.
Eric: They're good kids, Brent.
Brandon: I don't really care about the ones in the cabin. I didn't—I hadn't seen them. So. Okay.
[Eric laughs]
Julia: Hmm. Brandon.
Eric: [sings in high-pitched voice] I don't want to wait for our lives to be over. [Imitates fireball]
[Brandon laughs]
Amanda: And somewhere for the third hour in a row. The—the Kingfishers are singing as we go on, we remember. J Factorial says, obviously we've seen campers meet unfortunate ends before such as with the gelatinous cube, Boo's soul ripping, and whatever happened with Avery. And it's making me realize the body count of this short season is very high. Is there a reason behind this upping of the stakes beyond its Monster of the Week, and the tone needs a shift as a result? I think you've touched on this a little bit Eric, but I'd love to hear it. what you have to say.
Julia: It's Monster of the Week, baby.
Amanda: Monster of the Week.
Eric: Yeah, like Amanda said it's soft horror, so more of random people we've never met have died. Also, some people have noted that at some points I said no one has ever died at the camp, but this was after, the counselors were dead inside of Chadwick. Um, yeah, no one knows about them, they just think that they peaced and they got on their boyfriend's motorcycles and left.
Amanda: Incredible.
Brandon: Also it's literally called Camp Die, y'all. What did you think was gonna happen?
Julia: It's literally called Camp Diogenes, Brandon, actually. [giggles]
Brandon: I'm sorry, Julia, I know the source material better than you do so if you could just--
Eric: Wow.
Amanda: In 1998, Brandon foretold.
[Brandon laughs]
Amanda: And the second question from J, If the Best Friend run a heist, what roles in the typical heist crew would they have?
Brandon: I—these questions are so fun, and I always forget what the fuck the roles are at heist crew [laughs]
Amanda: So I think that Les would be the safecracker.
Eric: A 100%.
Amanda: I think you need—you need strength but also a certain you know, panache. And that's often the—the most like mysterious, I think the role of somebody who you really want to get to know and like, I think that's really Les.
Eric: I also think and I also want to say this is different than explosive expert, but the safecracker also doubles as like, the person who could do weird things with their body.
Amanda: Yes.
Eric: Like in Ocean's 11, it was the Contortionist who got into the—in the—
Amanda: Bell cart.
Eric: Yeah, the bell cart. So I think that like, you know if Les needed to, alright, there's a 15-foot moat, and someone needs to clear it. And Les is like, I got it [laughs] and does that, it's like working out the same.
Amanda: Sure. I mean, Phoebe feels like a hacker to me. What do you think Julia?
Julia: I was gonna say hacker or explosions expert for sure.
Amanda: I think explosions was pretty computers. And the hacker is posting computer explosives. Julia: Sure, sure, that makes sense.
Amanda: I think Carrie would think that she is the face, but they will just mostly find a way for her to like have as little impact as possible. And as little umm, to be as small of a liability as possible to the result.
Julia: I think Carrie-Ann is the face, but Carrie-Ann is the face in the way that Carrie-Ann could just bulldoze her way through situations, rather than schmooze her way through situations.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah. She thinks she's being really slick, and they're like, you're not being slick, but it is working.
Julia: Yeah.
[Amanda and Brandon laugh]
Brandon: Is Carrie-Ann the Brad Pitt in the corner just eating chips? Is that what's happening?
Eric: Yes, I was gonna say Carrie Ann's either George Clooney, who organizes but doesn't really do that much. Or Brad Pitt, who's more of a hindrance than anything. But, yes to be what I asked to be involved.
Amanda: No, no, no. Carrie-Ann is Matt Damon and has to like really fancies herself sophisticated, but has to kind of learn her lessons and then show up in a small way in the third movie.
Brandon: I'm sorry, was Matt Damon the face in a movie with Brad Pitt and George Clooney?
Amanda: That was the joke, is he—he was like he—very clearly uhh not up to snuff. But he really wanted to be. He's also an extremely, like nerdy and eager student. So there are some parallels there.
Brandon: That's funny.
Julia: I was gonna say, Carrie-Ann is specifically Matt Damon, but in Ocean's 13 with the nose.
Amanda: Yeah. Exactly, Julia.
Eric: The nose plays, Julia. The nose plays!
Amanda: Look what I tell you. Alright. Tattooed N Tall says uh Eric, are you able to actually physically feel all the people cursing your name on these episodes?
[Brandon laughs]
Brandon: Yeah. Keep doing it, man. Please, please. I need it. Mmm, mmm, It's in the smoothie. That's also gonna get me slim for the summer.
[Brandon and Amanda laugh]
Julia: It's mostly going to make you poop.
Eric: Now I just got a poop on my ball—my waterway.
Brandon: God damn diet industry. [shouts] Get out of here, diet industry!
Eric: [Imitates Diet Industry] Okay, I can see you later. Hey, oh, you—you lose 10 pounds in two weeks?
Julia: [shouts] NO!
Brandon: [shouts] Shut up! Get out!
Amanda: That's a really good voice for me to recast all those spam texts I get. I like that.
Eric: Oh, hey well, say what's up?
[Brandon laughs]
Amanda: Allie says, did you have separate recording sessions for these episodes? Or did you just break it up for podcast purposes?
Eric: Yes, we record all the mysteries all the way through. That's how Monster of the Week works. It feels like you got to like solve the mystery, and play it out. So we've been dividing these into separate episodes. It's been interesting. I mean, I do like recording games and playing games for like three hours at a time. So it's been fun. I'm not sure what we're gonna do when we record Campaign Three, but like we could keep doing it. Its just something that I'm gonna have to get keep in my head, that like, you know, I—I treating it like it's one session or two separate sessions, and making sure everything has highs and lows. Because you know, for some of these episode, I've—I've been worried that like Episode One is the setup. And Episode Two is the payoff. But that's kind of just how Monster of the Week games go. So I just want to make sure that I do it if we end up like recording uh chunks at a time.
Brandon: I also haven't gotten as like, exhausted as I thought I would. On like a two to three hour session, which I normally do in playing like—
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: Regular old in-person D&D, you know?
Amanda: Definitely. I think there are fewer mechanics and less kind of optimization that we have to do. But also just the—the structure of the game really works like we are— we do not sort of have to like a dip in and out of the story. And this is like episodes, you know, 6th and 7th and have like a 10-episode arc. I don't know. It just—it's felt really natural. And I have really enjoyed the cliffhanger moments that in some cases, Eric kind of identifies in the session, and in some cases Brandon chooses in the edit. It's been really fun to see and I don't know it feels like people have things to talk about, even if we get more questions at the end of a mystery than we do midway through.
Julia: That's true.
Amanda: McKay asks, we've never had a romance between player characters before on Join the Party. So how did you guys talk about developing and playing the crush between Phoebe and Les?
Eric: I don't know. We've ever seen them kiss, so I don't know.
Brandon: Yeah, that's not romance, what are you talking about?
Amanda: You're still plausible deniability.
Julia: Alright, I'm gonna legit answer this question once and for all.
[Brandon and Eric Laughs]
Amanda: Yes.
Julia: So the—I think the origins of this was when we announced to the campaign during a live stream, I think. Brandon said something to the effect of, well, you know, Eric, if you're not going to allow us to romance NPCs, we'll just have to romance ourselves.
Brandon: No. He—I said if you're not going to give ME any romance.
Julia: Right.
Brandon: Because he never has.
Julia: Right.
Eric: And then I did. And then— the entire camping classes, Les is hot.
Julia: There you go.
Brandon: But the—the—the origin of that was because I was trying to flirt with Shadow Gal Wendy.
Amanda: Yes. Yeah.
Brandon: In campaign two.
Amanda: You rolled so badly, Milo.
[Eric and Amanda laughs]
Julia: You give yourself disadvantaged by being like, I'm double fisting grasshoppers.
Amanda: Yes!
[Brandon laughs]
Eric: Yeah [laughs]
[Amanda laughs]
Julia: It might have been Cosmos, but whatever.
Brandon: No grasshoppers is funnier.
Eric: And then—and then Brandon is like, why would you do this to me? You're like, you walk to the mo—you walked up to the most anxious person in the room. And you are three drinks in?
Brandon: I think Eric just doesn't want to flirt with me. So I was like, you know who flirt with me, [Julia laughs]
Julia: And I was like, yeah, I guess.
Brandon: I didn't do that.
Amanda: That's true. I guess my characters have had irresistible NPCs in campaigns one and two.
Julia: That's true.
Eric: I gave you a deep friendship with Lucas, if you didn't want to kiss Lucas, I don't know what to tell you.
Brandon: I'm just teasing you. Actually—some of my favorite stuff in media is like deep, platonic male friendships anyway. So.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: And in terms of like how we had the discussion, Brandon was very upfront and was like, I want to maybe progress, the friendship and like the kind of weird tension between Phoebe and Les a bit more. Are you cool with that? I want to make sure. Which is great communication at any table before you start doing stuff like that. So good job, Brandon. And also like, a recommendation for people who might be doing player-character romances at their own tables.
Brandon: I think we also I forgo—might have been Amanda— it doesn't really matter who it was. But we decided as a group like we stopped the line at any sort of like actual kissing.
Julia: Yeah. Which I don't even remember if—we—it— I don't remember that conversation. But I also just thought it was very funny for us to be like, we're only going to hold hands.
Brandon: A 100% it is funnier. But yeah, I—you want to make sure not just the two people are comfortable, but also like the whole group is comfortable.
Julia: Right.
Amanda: I remember that being part of our discussions are sort of like pre-episode zero discussions about Monster Of The Week of like, what's the tone? How do we depict it? What level of like violence do we want to depict, like we were thinking about, you know, achieving the right tone? And one of the aspects we touched on is, you know, these are teenagers. And we didn't talk about how often we're going to discuss periods, but like, I'm glad that happened.
[Brandon and Julia laugh]
Amanda: But we did. I think that was when we said like, yeah, and like if— if they flirt with each other, you know, we'll—we'll kind of enact only up to a certain line.
Julia: Right.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: Speaking of discussions of kissing, Ryann Marelle says, are you sad the end is so near on the campaign? Would you ever consider doing this style again?
Julia: I love the campaign.
Amanda: I love the campaign.
Julia: If we came back at some point, that'd be great.
Amanda: I feel like, I personally have really smoked into the filter on this campaign, like I have— I have like, not been afraid to use my luck points. I have not been afraid to like, you know, make strong decisions to sort of like do it for the story, knowing that it was limited. And like all the other campaigns are as well. But we didn't set out in advance in campaign two, how many episodes it would be, for example, like a vague idea. But this—this has, I felt given me permission to like make strong character choices in a way that I'm really enjoying. And I will definitely miss it. And I will you know remember Camp Die fondly and wear my hat and like have the sticker here on my laptop. But I—I'm excited for what's next.
Julia: Oh yeah.
Amanda: Not to tease y'all too much. But like, I'm so fucking pumped for Campaign three. So it's a bittersweet thing for me to say goodbye. But I am, you know, encouraged knowing how stoked I am to get into the next world.
Brandon: I think it's a major mark of the quality and the fun that we've had with Season Two. And this one of like, at the end of both of them, we were like, oh, yeah, we go back into this place. And whether or not that's true, you know, six weeks a year later, actually, but like, the desire to not want to leave the setting is like something that's pretty you like unique and rare. I think in D&D, so it's very good. And I yeah, I would say I would go back to the camp, but you know, I think it might be one of those things. Like when you graduate, eighth grade, you're like, I don't want to leave this group of people and then you get to college, and like, I would never go back to eighth grade, college is fucking awesome.
Eric: Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, I like the places. It's a conversation I think about like, how we would fit it in. You know, it's like, I don't want to do necessarily like a whole long thing and like Tom city again, but we could I mean, if we wanted to if we ended up playing like, maybe a short game of masks or something set in Lake Town city, If you're gonna have to do something else, you know?
Brandon: You have to be something yeah. Like we'd have to have a good reason and a good like a hook to get back into it, you know?
Eric: Yeah. I don't know if you three would be playing the same characters again, you know. Especially because Amanda's character no longer exists in Lake Town City.
Julia: [sighs]
Amanda: [laughs] It was ambiguous, Eric. People can choose their endings.
Eric: That's my headcanon, it's my headcanon.
Amanda: Why don't you tell us what's coming up?
Eric: Right. So remember, we only have three more episodes left on Monster Of the Week. We have the finale one, finale two, and finale three happening on November 29th, December 6th, and December 13th. And then we have our final After Party coming out on December 20th. Make sure to get all of your questions in on like December 13th, 14th, and 15th. Because we're going to record it then.
Brandon: It's a holiday gift to us. Give us those questions.
Eric: As good questions, and we're going to be done and we can finally answer all of like the overarching camp paign questions. And then we're going to talk about what we're gonna do afterward during that episode as well. We're gonna take off the last Tuesday and put something in there. And then we're going to come back whored in 2023.
Brandon: Gonna be something still in your feed right?
Eric: Yes.
Amanda: We'll do a bonus drop of a very tasty Party Planning episode here in the—in the feed for you, the last Tuesday of the year. And then we're getting right into more and more in January. There are no bad Tuesdays guys, not one ever.
Julia: Never.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: Well, there might be bad Tuesdays but not when you're considering uh this, this media franchise, where none of us.
Julia: Yes, we won't be providing the bad Tuesday for you.
Amanda: If what makes a Tuesday bad, is no Join the Party. There will never be a bad
Eric: It might not be your day, your week, your month, or even your year.
[Brandon and Amanda laugh]
Eric: But we'll be there for you [laughs] I'll do that.
Brandon: [sings] Empty RSS feeds on empty Iphones.
Julia: Oh my God.
Eric: No, I made—that Brandon, good reference. I was making a FRIENDS reference, but I’m into it.
Brandon: I know. Gonna call back, Eric.
Eric: Oh, there it is. That's what it is. I—I used all of my—most of my stuff.
Julia: But to tie—
Eric: [sings] I dream the dream of pods gone by. There it is.
Julia: You can’t say, I used all my stuff, and then launch into another one.
Amanda: I'm amaze.
Eric: I thought of a new one, Julia.
Amanda: When did you even see Les Mis?
Eric: I've seen Les Mis a bunch of times.
Amanda: Oh wow.
Eric: And the movie.
Amanda: That's a lot. Alright, well to tide us all over. I know Eric has been sustained with his what the fox, but we—we need a little bit of who can say to get us to the next few days. So here we go to close out in spoily corner. From Morgan.
Eric: Oh, wait, we didn't touch on this. Julia, how betrayed were you by me? [laughs]
Julia: Fucking terribly.
Amanda: Oh my god. That's right I never talked about it, I’m so sorry.
Julia: We'll talk about this on the next episode, a little more bad.
Amanda: Yeah, is Phoebe okay?
Brandon: Did you really not know? Did you not have a hint?
Julia: NO!
Brandon: Oh, I thought you sort of had figured it out.
Julia: No, not at all.
Amanda: Listening back hearing that Charles was not present for Phoebe to like, perceive that I was thinking oh shit, that's so sinister. But I had no idea. I was shocked.
Julia: Yeah, again, I thought that Charles might have been related to Steven in some ways. So I was concerned.
Amanda: Phoebe, colon, concerned.
Brandon: Yup
Julia: And extremely angry.
Eric: That one part when you were asking me where the staff lounge was and the director was like, I'm not gonna tell you, was me like, oh, she's gonna find out, fuck, fuck, fuck. So I like that was a really important for me that like you had to just figure it out on your own.
Julia: Yeah, yeah.
Amanda: Alright, let's get into our spoily corner. So Ricky says, are Les and Phoebe gonna kiss. Who can say?
Julia: Who can say?
[Brandon chuckles]
Eric: It is so much more fun. It's so much funnier to me talking about making out.
[Brandon and Julia laugh]
Julia: Yeah. Totally. Remember you saying, kissing is a power move?
Eric: Yeah.
[Brandon laughs]
Amanda: It's In the notebook baby, It's in the notebook. Duran says, will the Puzzle Cleric make a return, he was hilarious, and the bouncy castle has been my favorite mystery.
Julia: Who can saaay?
Eric: Who can say?
Amanda: Who can say?
Brandon: We'll make a cameo for like 30 seconds in season three though, in Campaign three, so watch out for that.
Julia: Interesting. Interesting.
Eric: Jesus Christ. He's gonna show up in the umm in a mid-credit scene.
Amanda: Good.
Brandon: The Puzzle Cleric will return.
Amanda: [laughs] Morgan says, is AD Z and his magic item buffet controlling any of the other NPCs we've seen? Is he Maevis Beacon? Oooh, who can say?
Brandon: Who can say?
Eric: No. I can't say— I will say Mavis Beacon was glamoured by the fairies.
Amanda: Got it.
Eric: So Mavis Beacon was a real person whose mind was wiped by Greenbrook unfortunately, but I don't—I can't say about anybody else.
Brandon: When her mind was wiped, did she forget how to teach typing or was that something that she learned after the fact.
Amanda: It’s muscle memory. It's the whole thing.
Eric: No. it's the core it's like when you have amne—when a character has amnesia, but it's like I'm so good at this one thing.
Brandon: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Eric: And It's teaching typing.
Amanda: Yeah, I don't know my name, but I can play the violin.
[Brandon laughs]
Eric: I put the student's fingers on the home—on the home bar.
Amanda: Yeah, my pinkies are on the A and the L, and okay. And finally, from Dominique will Carrie-Ann be blamed by the Director for Boo's soul detaching from his body?
Julia: Who can say?
Amanda: Oh guys [sighs]
Eric: Nothing's funnier to me than Phoebe doing it, and then Carrie-Ann getting blamed.
[Eric and Julia laugh]
Brandon: Now here's my question, as a parent if you got your kid replaced with a watermelon, I'm your kid, you don't have to feed them anymore, they don't need exercise, they don't have to go to the doctor. Pretty sweet deal.
Eric: That feels like Les is saying that to the Director.
[Eric and Brandon laugh]
Amanda: Would Boo's biological father, the Puzzle Cleric have something to say about that?
Eric: Maybe.
Julia: Who can say?
Brandon: He's an absent father so who could say?
Eric: That's why he's traveling the world getting artifacts.
Julia: Being a colonizer.
Eric: Being a colonizer. Hey, just like Indiana Jones Julia, chew on that.
Julia: I'm fine. I understand the problems with the Indiana Jones franchise, I don’t have to chew on it. I just think Harrison Ford's hot, what do you want from me?
Amanda: That's true, that's true. Alight, folks. We will see you next week with the first of our three-part finale. And until then.
Brandon: Bye guys.
Julia: Later.
Eric: I forget what I say.
Amanda: You say goodbye, Eric. All you say every time is goodbye.
Eric: I've been thinking about Les Mis too much. You know, I'm stuck on that.
Amanda: [laughs] You can say, Au Revoir.
Eric: Oh, okay. Au Revoir.
[Amanda and Eric laugh]
Amanda: May your rolls turn ever upward.
[theme]
Amanda: I have a ton more.
Eric: Wait. Can I say, can I—I said slurped again. [laughs] Can I say something else?
Julia: No. You have to keep slurped in.
Brandon: No.
Amanda: No.
Eric: Oh, no.
Amanda: I have—
Julia: I'll just edit it, so you say slurped every time.
Eric: That's fine.
Julia: There'll be a slurped cut.
Eric: No, not the slurped cut.
Amanda: Oh, not the slurped cut.