What would have happened if we chose the snowballs over pranks? Are there any parts of Camp Die we wish we explored more? And could Tater Tot speak the whole time?! All that and more on the Afterparty!
Schedule
- December 27: Party Planning bonus episode
- January 3: Oneshot Derby 1
- January 10: Oneshot Derby 2
- January 17: Oneshot Derby 3
- January 24: Oneshot Derby Afterparty
- January 31: Campaign 3 begins!!
Sponsors
- See The Twenty Sided Tavern before Jan 15, 2023 in Chicago. Grab your tickets at broadwayinchicago.com
- Hero Forge, where you can start designing your custom miniature today!
- Twenty Sided Store, our friendly local game store! Use code JTPCAMP online or mention Join the Party in-store for 20% off your first order.
- Birds of Empire, available in your podcast app now.
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, GM: Eric Silver
- Co-Host (Les Proenneke), Co-Producer, Sound Designer, Composer: Brandon Grugle
- Co-Host (Carrie-Ann Price), Co-Producer: Amanda McLoughlin
- Co-Host (Phoebe Cooper), 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: Hey, hi, hello, and welcome campers to the after-party. How are we doing? How are we feeling? Are you ready for school? [sings] As we go on.
Brandon: I want to go baaaack!
Amanda: [sings] We remember.
Brandon: I don't want to go to school!
Eric: I didn't like any of you this whole summer, so it's actually good for me.
[Brandon laughs]
Julia: Nooo.
Amanda: Nooooo.
Eric: But I could write a novel about this in 20 years and not change your names.
Brandon: That seems rude.
Julia: Seems kind of mean.
Eric: Yeah, you know, it's just gonna be like a coming-of-age story, but you are gonna come out looking really bad.
Julia: Eric, did this happen to you and you're just quoting from your life?
Eric: No, that's just like the basis of so—there are so many books within books of this. Like I'm thinking of this is where I leave you—
Brandon: Did you read the famed novel Camp Die by me in third grade, Eric.
Eric: No, Brandon, we—I screamed, and you cut it out. But every episode I screamed, this is fair use. It's not my fault that you cut it out. But it was there in the raw files.
Amanda: Your Honor.
Brandon: No fair use intended
Eric: Judge. Now I’m just a Southern lawyer but I did just say that I did say fair use.
Amanda: Wow.
Eric: It was in the creative commons, your honor.
Brandon: Peck. Peck, peck.
Amanda: No, but really, how are we all feeling about finishing our summer adventure, our first short campaign, our first mini-campaign, the first camp paign, and looking forward to something new? I know I am both bitter—bittersweet. And looking forward to what comes next. I'm—I'm sad to leave camp. But I'm also so freaking excited about campaign three. So it's— it's tough to you know, it's a good balance I think at the end of the day.
Julia: I saw a piece of fan art with the three of us that I shared in the slack chat, and I literally shed a tear looking at it, so I'm a little emotionally devastated.
Brandon: Yeah, it feels like real camp, like it feels like it's because it was short, It was poignant, and, and sad. And now I'm sad, well I don't want to go back because we can't ever recreate it. But I also want to [whispers] live there forever.
Eric: I want to give a special shout-out to the people who responded to Camp Die specifically, I just thought it was nice. There were people who really, really came out and like declare this was their favorite story, specifically, Camp Die on Tumblr who did so much fan arts for this campaign. So I think that's the thing that surprised me the most. Not that I wasn't excited to do it. And obviously, I had my own summer camp feelings that I poured into this thing. But I'm really, really stoked that people responded to it as strongly as they did.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Well, we do have another hour-ish of camp to enjoy together, because there are a ton of questions about the campaign, about these last three episodes in our finale arc in the summer. Eric, do you know that was gonna be the title the whole time? Or do you come to that overtime?
Eric: Oh, the summer?
Amanda: Hmm.
Eric: No, that was the thing at the end. I wasn't really sure how everything would kind of shake out. I kind of had a feeling you would beat Steven at the end, just from the way the Monster of the Week is laid out. I did think someone would die probably during this thing, which I'm very surprised about.
Julia: Which one of us did you think was going to die?
Eric: Well, I mean, it was going to be Les, when he was gonna get stomped on by a just a pile of bones zilla. But then uh—
Brandon: I got lucky buddy.
Eric: I—Bigfoot got in the way but—
Amanda: Yeaah.
Eric: But no, I wasn't sure. I figured someone would die. But yeah, the thing of the end when Steven was defeated and then automatically was the end of summer, that was the—the trigger for me to make this call the summer.
Amanda: Beautiful. Well, lots of questions on how we got there. How we felt and what is coming next. So all that and more todays After Party.
Brandon: Da da da.
Julia: [imitates a movie sound opening] I feel like there should be a music cue there.
Amanda: Thank you.
Brandon: That’s taken care of, yeah. I'll get the s'mores going, and the fire started. And we can slick and kick, we can kick, kick up.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Love it.
Eric: Julia, can you just put like a fireside chat sound below this whole episode?
Julia: Listen, if you want just like nice crackling fire underneath this episode, I'll do it. starting—
Eric: Yeah, dude.
Julia: —now.
[Brandon laughs]
Amanda: Oooh, so cozy.
Eric: Oh wait, Julia, Julia. I have to sneeze. Stop it. I know you can bring it back.
Julia: Okay, great. Got it. Got it.
Amanda: Great. Let's—
Eric: Now double it. And I'll do it backward and see if anyone notices.
Julia: Nope, not doing that part.
Eric: Okay. [laughs]
Julia: We're getting the fire sound. It's gonna be great.
Eric: Oh, it's good. It's good.
Amanda: Amazing. Let's start, fire stoker in charge, Julia Schifini. With some feelings about Phoebe and Charles an AD Z. This question is from Hail Helena, who says Phoebe's major powers, if not from Charles, and what is she, other than cool in a little ragey?
Julia: I think she is cool and a little ragey. I had discussed with Eric when we were first coming up with characters and whatnot. The idea that Phoebe had been experiencing magical stuff before she arrived at camp. Like I had kind of alluded to oh, bad things that happened at that school year. So Phoebe was kind of excited to go back to camp but it was also nervous because weird stuff was happening to her. And also the idea of the bus crash that happened for the cheerleaders that I've been—
Amanda: Oh, yeah.
Julia: —Later on in the season.
Eric: That's right.
Brandon: Forgot about that.
Julia: Yeah, but so I just think Phoebe kind of does have an innate magical ability that she chose to believe was being channeled through the forces of nature because of AD Z, and the learning tool that he chose.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: The educational tool, but I—I do think that she just has like magical ability and is learning to control it, slowly but surely. And this is just the beginning of her magical journey.
Amanda: Totally. Shelby Stud wants to know, what was Charles/ AD Z's motivation for guiding Phoebe? How did Charles speak into her brain? How did AD Z know she had powers in the first place?
Eric: Well, this is an educational process.
Julia: Yeah right.
[Amanda laughs]
Eric: And yes, I also agree from the jump, I knew that Phoebe had, had powers the entire time. I think the idea for this world, whatever we're playing in—something that's not like inherently magical, and a little weird and wild, like we're dealing with, is that it's harder to think that you are a sorcerer than someone who got powers from somewhere. Like a warlock, or whatever we would call that in d&d, or you got powers from interacting with a deity, or a spirit or interacting with an object that has a part of a spirit in it bla bla bla. You're just born with powers that happen a lot less, I think than getting cursed by an object.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: If we're playing in like slipstream or magical realism, or whatever modern context we're trying to talk about. So I think that's what the educational practice, and what we're doing here is that it's easier for Phoebe to understand as a—as a teenager, that she got her powers from the forest, and that there is a guide trying to help her even if it's fake because you know, the education was real.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Absolutely. And I think the whole thing about Charles being like, really casual, is part of the educational process. If Charles and AD Z spoke the same way, let's talk about all the fucking lessons that AD Z tried to impart upon Les, whether or not he decided to listen to them, is up to Brandon. But like, totally different. Absolutely different.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: And Charles was like, really like, I don't know, man, figure it out for yourself a lot. Like you gotta get the magical person to make choices about whether or not they're going to use it for good or evil.
Amanda: It's a manager at work being like, I'm sure you'll make the right decision. And then you're 14 and you're like, huh.
Julia: I also was really thinking about Phoebe's journey as the quintessential, like Joseph Campbell, hero's journey.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: And the idea that you have to find that mentor who eventually leaves you or you are left on your—to your own devices and stuff like that. Also, what was the last part of the question that was posed by the listener?
Amanda: It was, how did AD Z know she had powers in the first place?
Julia: When I saw that question, my immediate thought was like, oh, well, Phoebe's parents called the camp to let them know before.
[Amanda and Brandon laughs]
Eric: A 100% right. A 100%.
Julia: And I hadn't thought about that at all, until I saw that question. I was like, well, obviously, they would notice that was something—that something was weird. They're already sending their daughter to Camp Die, so they probably know what the like, magical, at least have an inkling of like the magical like niss of Camp Die, and then probably called the camp be like, hey, our daughter might be having some like magical awakening. Can you just like, help her out with that? Or keep an eye on her or someone.
Amanda: Program. Yeah.
Eric: Yeah. I'm thinking about all the stuff I did, as a teacher when I was getting my master's in education, and like applying the theory, and then looking at like case studies, and how you do that for like, hero education. Is like, yeah, Julia's studying Joseph Campbell.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Regardless of whether or not that is the right way to teach a hero or a powered person, that is like the established societal understanding of it. So we need to fit that in to make it easier for people to understand. And then like all these case studies, and yeah, there's some vague like pedagogy around that, which I think is totally true, which is why the—the Charles method was, was put in to place.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: Ooh, the Charles method. Good. Sounds good.
Eric: Yeah. Named after Charles Fort, who believe that you should trick children into knowing their thinking their monster.
Julia: Famously so.
Amanda: Father of the Birds posits, a good theory, I think. Is Phoebe the most powered N/PC in the JTPverse? Inherent innates power per pound.
Brandon: Who would win Phoebe versus spell?
Amanda: I mean, Phoebe in 10 years, that's—that's something.
Julia: Yeah, I think the answer to this question is Phoebe because of the rules of Monster of The Week as opposed to all the other universes that we've been in so far. And that's because Monster of The Week's magic system is so fucking loosey-goosey. At the end of the campaign, I said, I take my soul out of my body and I put it into Jennii's body, and Eric's like, sure you do. I could just—like I think it dawned on me in that episode. I'm like, I can just do whatever the fuck I want basically as long as I roll well enough.
Eric: And then you roll a seven, and then I say there's a glitch.
Julia: Oooh. Exactly, but like if I roll well enough, I— could do whatever I want. Magic is real there, and I am not like hemmed in by the rules of the game as much as I am with d&d, with spell slots and specific spells and whatnot.
Eric: I would really love to point towards things that Milo did in campaign two.
Julia: The turkey incident, we need to talk about the turkey incident.
Eric: Yeah, when he made all those turkeys dance, or when he started playing Minecraft with my—with my fight. But no, I think the delta of regular person to character or NPC, I think Phoebe is the highest. But I think that if we really want to—we're having a conversation about two different people in their prime. It's a real Michael Jordan, LeBron James situation.
Amanda: [laughs] Speaking of which, here is a section of questions that Eric is helpfully titled Big Magic choices, which I thought was really great. This one is from Cheryl RosBack. Did you ever consider having Phoebe just pull Jennii out of Steven, or would that have ended the story too early?
Julia: I did not, because the implication that Eric gave to us about how Steven had entered camp was, Steven, not only like he was embodying Jennii's like campiness, but also the fact that Stephen had all her juices. And so even if I had just pulled the soul out of Steven, Steven still would have had all the juices to being a camper. There's gotta be a juice.
Brandon: Gotta get that juice.
Eric: Now does he have— If Steven still had a face, he would have been fine.
Julia: Okay.
Amanda: I know.
Eric: Yeah, that wouldn't have worked, because the way Monster of the Week, Big Magic. It's like, you got to do a big ritual. And there has to be a big ritual associated with it. Also, like that was what we were doing during the game section. [laughs]
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: So it's like, when Monster of the Week is like, let's see—let's do the task and figure it out. You get to do the task and figure it out. But you get to do it in whatever way you want. So, yeah you have to do this magic ritual,l to figure out whatever you're going to do with Steven.
Julia: It also just wouldn't have felt as narratively fulfilling.
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: That can also be the answer.
Amanda: 100%. Speaking of narrative fulfillment, Allie wants to know, what would have happened if the best friend's rolled too poorly to succeed in the magic to kick Steven out of camp.
Julia: Some of us still had luck points.
Amanda: Oh, yeah. Oh, no. Carrie-Ann was going down, man. No, I would have burned whatever luck points I had left.
Brandon: The end of the campaign ends with Carrie-Ann going to hell.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: I want to put a pin in this because I definitely want to talk about luck points later. Also, do—I want to make sure all of you have your character sheets because I want to talk about luck moves, I'm sure because I just don't have all of them. But I think that that's quite interesting, as we talked about that. I'm gonna go back to what I said before, is that Brandon would have died in real life.
[Brandon and Amanda laughs]
Julia: Brandon, fully dead.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: How do you know I'm not, Ooooh.
Eric: Brandon, you were playing on Shadow Realm rules, did I got to tell you?
Brandon: Oh, no, you didn't—you didn't tell me shit.
Eric: Yeah. Well, you were doing—you were doing the Yu Gi-oh version of Monster of the Week and I forgot to tell you.
Brandon: Oh fuck. It's that why I'm wearing this like golden eye thing.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: [laughs] Yeah.
Julia: You also have an Egyptian pharaoh living inside of you. Is that cool?
Eric: I knew that.
Brandon: That’s tight, Julia. That's tight as hell.
Eric: I knew that. When I met Brandon at insert company here, seven years ago. He kept telling me that I had to go out for some Papyrus. And I'm like, I don't know what's that [laughs]
Julia: I don't know what that means.
Eric: I don't know what that means.
Brandon: Eric, when you go to get your bagel, can I get some Papyrus? [laughs]
Eric: Gauge, can you just grab me a bag of scarabs on the way out?
Julia: They're very crunchy.
Amanda: And dusty.
Eric: I like, how shi—I like how shiny they are.
Amanda: Guh, sand in my tongue. Ugh. Hakuna your po-tatas asks a question that I also want to know. I want to know more about the snowballs.
Eric: Sure. Yeah.
Brandon: Oh I want to know, addition to that, Eric. I was wondering when I was editing because I didn't really think about it in the moment, but I was editing I was like, did Eric just make up the second option? The like, Snowball dance thing, gala banquet thing, as the second option like on the spot?
Eric: No, I had both prepared.
Brandon: Ah, okay.
Eric: I wanted—you know, sometimes I feel like Monster of the Week is a little too hemmed in. Do the thing I tell you, figure out the mystery. Do the thing, especially for a big magic-related mystery like we had. So I wrote down both and I wanted to give you the choice of which one you found more interesting. So I can go yeah, let's talk about the snowballs.
Amanda: Let's do it.
Eric: So the mess hall has to be set up for an end-of-camp banquet with a theme decoration and food. I took that from my camp experiences.
Julia: Of course.
Amanda: Ohh?
Eric: Our oldest age group had to put on like a banquet and decided the theme, has to decide the menu, like does all these decorations. It's a—it's a whole thing.
Amanda: Wait, Eric, we're gonna pull over on a cul de sac right here. What was your theme?
Eric: Oh, from when I was like a camper?
Amanda: Yah.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: I think it was—It might have been either board games or Candyland. I can't remember.
Brandon: That's fine.
Amanda: Great.
Julia: It's adorable.
Eric: But like it's a lot like prom themes, you know.
Amanda: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Eric: They're just kind of like whatever. And then everyone shows up and like the shirts they make for their cabin with all their inside jokes on it, blah, blah, blah. So.
Amanda: What was your role on the planning?
Eric: Oh, I don't remember it, like everyone was on board. And there are a lot of the artists did stuff. We were also—at the end of camp, everyone had to do a lot of stuff at the same time. There was like a real crush at the end, where like, there was a yearbook. And there was like a plaque you made for your cuff for color war that needed to be revealed. Plus banquet and like your—the play was also around the same time, there was a ton to do. So I can't remember what exactly I was involved.
Amanda: Oh, and do you remember—does everybody attend the party, and it's the oldest age group that puts it on?
Eric: It's the banquet for the entire camp.
Julia: Ohhh.
Amanda: Ahhh.
Eric: Like it's the last dinner for camp.
Amanda: And so what was the sickest one you ever attended?
Eric: Oh, man, I can't remember. But they—you could get like food that you wouldn't ordinarily get for meals. Like I remember one time there was like ribs, which was a really, really cool or like, you know, whatever, there was a cool type of meat, it was always a fun thing. And you can—or you could put like, you know, they were really good at lasagna. That was a really big thing at camp. So sometimes people would do lasagna, but it would all be like, vaguely themed. And like the kitchen staff had to order it, like a week or two in advance.
Amanda: Right.
Eric: It's a big deal. It actually like fit into the way the camp ran. So that was—that was real that, that banquet was a thing. But again, like the thing about Big Magic, just to pull it back to Monster of the Week for a second, is like they tell you for big magic, you have to have like a certain number of people, specific stuff or actions and a place. So that's why all these things had like various actions, you had to do three or four steps to go through. And that's like you run around, and you fi—figure out those steps as you do it.
Brandon: Hmm.
Amanda: Yeah. Love it.
Eric: And then the other one, what are the three snowballs which you had to go find. And then you had to get any powerful artifact from camp. That was going to be your dealer's choice that was interested in. Yeah, I had a whole thing about if you assemble the snowman, it might have been like Steven's girlfriend, or sister or something. They would have like, gotten into it, and then she would have pulled Steven out again.
Brandon: Oh shit.
Julia: Oh my god, it would have been a heat miser, snow miser situation. Goddamn it.
Eric: It was Julia, it was.
Brandon: God, that's good. Dammit. Let's wait. Camp redo, let's go back and do it and re-do.
Julia: Yeah, let's just re-do it real quick.
Eric: Yes. So I had both those plans. But you know, whatever. A lot of the stuff you do on the fly anyway, it's like, alright, well, where do you go? What do you do?
Julia: That's true.
Amanda: Incredible. Mischelle Spurgeon wants to know, what's the likelihood that the snowball stacking would have worked?
Eric: It would have worked. [laughs] Cause they were equal. It's not like, oh you fuckers you chose the wrong ritual.
Julia: You mean you didn't want us to fail? You didn’t design it to be a fail only challenge?
Eric: Yeah, I hate all of you. I want a TPK. I really wanted all of you to die, so. But no, I mean, it was fun. I was—I was fine either way. I thought both were—were neat. But there was some stuff that we found during play, during the pranks one that I'm really happy about. And I'm there—the final step of this particular one of getting Jennii kicked out of camp was particularly wonderful, and I'm really happy about that.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: Julia's impersonation of Jennii [laughs] at the end was just chef's kiss good.
Julia: Thank you.
Brandon: No, no better way to end it.
Julia: My favorite part of that scene was the grandma asking, can I speak to Jennii? And Amanda as Carrie-Ann is going no, just as I was saying, yes.
[Amanda laughs]
Brandon: It's so funny.
Julia: Again, that was like the moment where I'm like, I could just do whatever the fuck I want with magic. It's the end of the campaign. Let's go.
Eric: I thought Brandon, I thought you were gonna say that they did an impression of Amanda and Julia did an impression of people who liked to talk on the phone.
Julia: It's a hard one, It's a hard answer.
Eric: Yeah. yeah, yeah, yeah. But yes, I would love to talk more about that. It would be fun.
Amanda: Yes. Let's get into the details of the ritual. Kaz, 3 kobolds in a trench coat, would like to know, how did it feel for the players to wreck the camp with pranks? Carrie-Ann has never been more scandalized in her life.
Julia: Well, Phoebe was very angry, so wrecking the camp with pranks did not impact her as much as it would have if this was like the first episode of the campaign. So—
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: —Yeah.
Amanda: I had the sort of mood or tone in my mind, like, you know, what a movie where, you know, one character like smashes a plate, or a lamp, or something and then everyone's like, yeah, and then takes permission from that first broken thing to be like, Ooh, this is so cathartic. I think that's what I was feeling in the moment, and that's what—it was like the Bonezilla is stomping all around, all these buildings the slides gone and this is gone. You know, there's, there's like huge footprints all over the field. And it's like what's, what's one more thing you know?
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Cause we get to channel it against Steven who is like taking over camp at that moment. Like we're not, you know, we're not fighting in my mind at least Carrie-Ann was not rebelling against the camp itself. It was more against like the director's mismanagement, and Steven as the you know, person who like hijacked the thing she loved.
Julia: Yeah, of course.
Brandon: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Same.
Julia: And it's this idea that a little bit of damage to the camp would help save the camp eventually—
Amanda: Right.
Julia: Was also the logic that was probably going on in most of our heads, I feel like?
Brandon: I don't think none of us, like none of the PCs, felt that anybody else was doing anything to help save the camp.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: So it was like, well, we're the only ones that can do it. So.
Amanda: Yeah, I think for the first time, Carrie-Ann sort of realized that human life was more important than the camp.
Julia: For the first time ever.
Amanda: That—that was really over. That was really a tipping point. It's right there and I can—I can deface a shed or two in order to save these children from heat exhaustion.
Brandon: I also don't think Les believes in authority, man. So like, you know, that's chill.
Amanda: It's okay, we can be different
Eric: Brandon, that’s what you think. What does Les think?
Julia: Les the big ol hippie too though, so it's fine.
Eric: That's a—that's a good point. There was something really funny about you all doing the pranks. Because like, the way I was framing it in my head, I was like, there's a zombie apocalypse happening and you guys are writing fuck on a shed.
Julia: Yeaaaaah.
Eric: So I just thought it was super funny. You know, like that movie Army of the Dead, that came out recently, is like doing other stuff other than surviving during a zombie outbreak is so specific and funny to me. And like, that's what you were all do—that's what you were all doing. And that was the scariest. That was really the scariest thing happening.
Julia: And it is all like, you know, very teen rebellion stuff. It wasn't like we were doing real damage or really terrible things at all. It was just like, I graffitied fuck on a wall. Oh no, the world's gonna end.
Amanda: Wait, how did we—how did we misspelled fuck? This is an important question. I had in my mind. It—it—to me it was F CU K.
Julia: Oh, I put F—I think in the episode I said F U CC or something like that.
Amanda: Oh, you're right Julia, You're right. You're right. That's much funnier. [laughs]
Julia: Thanks, bud.
Eric: I got distracted and I wrote C twice.
Julia: You’re like, well there's no going back now. I can't make that second C into a K, even though I could.
Amanda: It's so good.
Brandon: Although we did it like—I was gonna say in my head. It's like it's one of those— some of those pranks that like adults look at kids are like, oh, you're so rebellious. Oh, no.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: But then I realized that we did damage and probably break an entire army of waffle irons that would—
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: —be expensive to replace.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: So that's a crime. We did a crime.
Julia: That’s alright.
Amanda: Well that's a good question. Okay, so if, if Springers, armada, and fleet was destroyed, the waffle irons of course. Do they lean into something new? Is everything grilled? Is everything barbecued?
Julia: I don't think Springer knows how to cook on anything else besides waffle irons. So no, I think they just buy them a new fleet of waffle irons.
Amanda: It's possible.
Eric: We're do—we're doing a whole headcanon section at the end of the episode.
Julia: Okay, sorry, sorry.
Amanda: Oh good.
Eric: Look at there. The bocce ball was so funny.
Julia: Oh my gosh.
Eric: Here's what's funny. I didn't have any of this stuff until the previous conversation about Springer does stuff on their day off.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: So so deeply funny. And I'm gonna miss doing that voice.
Julia: That was a good voice.
Amanda: Uhh, such a good voice.
Brandon: You can just use the voice here, do it right now.
Eric: No. Listen on Brandon, this is like James Lipton inside the Actors Studio. I have to like say is Springer there, can I talk to Springer?
Julia: Can they tell us about bocce? No. Okay.
Eric: What does Springer do on their day off? [As Springer] I can't tell you, it's a secret.
Julia: There it is. We got it, we got it out eventually.
Eric: I'll miss doing the— the doing the voice for sure. And yeah, listen, I also put Frankie in there because we hadn't talked to Frankie, in like— in like 16 episodes. Yeah, again, I had zombie apocalypse vibes in my head. So I wanted to have like a person who is really locked down in this way, who like—I don't know who was zombified, who is summer zombified and who wasn't? But like I thought that having someone who was in the beat locker might have been able to, or not have been outside when Steven started doing summer ship.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: Like a real prepper vibe.
Eric and Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Oh, for sure.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: No, it was a really good character choice to have someone do that in a good way to fold in Frankie, who I for one would love to hang out with, just personally in life.
Julia: Also kind of forgot about.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: That's okay.
Brandon: I never forgot about Frankie, Eric.
Eric: Oh, that's also okay. Le's grew out, Le's grew out of needing other people to help him, because he could just run really fast to face the problem.
Julia: And also he have the best friends. So he didn't need the tripperz.
Eric: That's a good point. It's very good point.
Amanda: Very true. Let's circle back to that phone call home and the door protector.
Eric: Yeah, the door protector was funny. I didn't know—the door protector, I kind of threw him, because the thing—the final prank of destroying the office was something I—I thought you were just going to go there, and the fact that Carrie- Ann thought that, that was the valuable thing. The most important place in town made an extra funny—
Amanda: It's not?
Eric: So I had to put like an [laughs] I had to put like an extra thing in there. And it ended up being really good, Les some summed up everything about camp, really succinctly—
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: With the conversation with the door protector. Someone tweeted at me a line I forgot that I said, I learned something once, and then I became a door.
[everyone laughs]
Brandon: That was so funny.
Julia: Never change.
Amanda: The dream.
Julia: Never change.
Brandon: My mother was a revolving door.
Eric: Yeah, exactly. [laughs]. But yeah, how did you all feel about that thing and be— the thing at the enter. Maybe just Brandon, well, Carrie-Ann and Phoebe were losing their shit in the background.
Julia: Absolutely raging in the background. I honestly kind of blacked out during that conversation, because Phoebe was in such a rage.
Brandon: Well in the—in the cartoon version that exists in the femoral version in the sky of this camp, it was—that was one of the funniest scenes to me just—it's always so funny to me, have so much raging in the background while you're doing a serious test?
Eric: Yeah, yeah for sure.
Amanda: Yeah, I'm picturing it in like medium soft focus in the background.
Amanda and Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: In our—in our cinematic lens.
Julia: A little behind-the-curtain stuff. Anytime you heard Phoebe scream, during that scene I fully faced away from the camera, and then fully screamed at my wall.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: That's call fully work, baby.
Julia: Yeaah.
Eric: It's the magic of audio.
Amanda: And I particularly liked the— just the image and how you introduce the door protector, Eric. I feel like it really kind of brought back these motifs of the stone Johnnies, of the stone golem protecting camp, and the wall from the very beginning. So I—I thought it was a really full circle moment, and for Carrie-Ann to, the revisit, sort of the sight of so many previous encounters and that one, traumatic dressing down from the director, and to be able to, you know, make her mark and express some rage. And I'm sure there were times before when she like knocked a stapler slightly, you know, off a desk and like, panicked and put it back without anybody noticing. So for me, that was a fun little character moment.
Brandon: Yeah. I loved it. I'm glad I got your, your moral. Your camp moral.
Eric: Listen. Hey, man. Sometimes you just gotta say it. Yeah, you—you got to say it. You have all types of listeners and readers. It is—sometimes you just gotta lay it out. It's like I put the SparkNotes version of the thing in the podcast, so you would know what happen, which is fine. It's fine. I thought it was—I thought it was a funny thing to say too.
Amanda: It was. Mel118 says, did anyone else yell for Camp Die at the top of their lungs during the ritual?
Eric: I did.
Julia: Yeah, I actually did.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: I did too.
Julia: I think that's more of a question for the audience.
Eric: But now you—hey, everyone, write in and text, one if you want. Ruben Studdard. And two if you want Clay Aiken.
Amanda: Not again. Amazing
Eric: Yeah. But yeah, no, let's talk about the final thing. The final phone call. In my head, there was this like big ethereal phone. That was like bebop boop bop, and it was on speaker as like a big ethereal like, go see office phone. And then—the grandma's voice, Lourdes was coming through the speaker, while like big Steven with his weird face was coming closer, and closer, and closer to the office, and it was getting hotter and hotter, hotter, the longer you had the grandma on the phone call.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: I couldn't stop laughing, and also, I knew the tension kept ratcheting up. It's like I—it's like, I need to make you afraid. But also I gotta do this grandma voice more seriously [laughs]
[Amanda laughs]
Julia: And you can—you can hear our like, confusion for the first like 30 seconds of that phone call. We're all like, who the fu— why is there a phone? Who the fuck is this? What do we have to tell this person in order to like move the plot along? Oh my God, it was so funny.
Amanda: It really, really was.
Brandon: I love the moment where Eric says in the grandma's voice, you called me, and Amanda just snaps into like polite phone mode. [laughs] it's amazing.
Eric: I forget what I said. But I was really trying to tease that you would not know this is the last thing to do. It was like you had to—I don't remember what—I can't remember what I said. But I was really trying to be cloak and dagger about it. I really wanted to surprise you. With the fact, you had to call Jennii's guardian and tell them that Jennii was kicked out of camp.
Brandon: Oh, I mean I had no idea
Julia: Yeah, we were all very confused for a little bit, and then we were just like, oh this is Jennii's grandma. Okay, focus up gang.
Amanda: Yeah, I—I just have to shout out my favorite line from that interaction which is Julia saying, Carrie-Ann, you can't out someone on their grandma for kissing.
Brandon: It was so funny.
Julia: Honestly, my favorite lines are when Carrie-Ann says something and Phoebe's like Carrie-Ann, you can't just do that.
Eric: Ohhh, that was good stuff. But no, it was—it was I—I thought that was real, that was really fun. And then—and then immediately, we just kind of stepped forward. You all stumbled out and it's the last day of camp.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Hmm.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: It was a really wonderful pacing, I think. It felt sufficiently climactic, but also like in a movie where you don't realize that the thing is not like punching the enemy in the face. But you know, like, disconnecting the fuse to the bomb, like it's just— it's a different style of climax, I thought was really awesome.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: And you know, who didn't learn anything? Jennii!
Julia: You know who didn't learn anything? Everyone else at the camp. That was my favorite part, I think of the finale, is this idea that we all just went through like a really like, harrowing, like life-changing event for our three characters. And everyone's like alright, we'll see you next summer. We're like, no, you probably won't.
Eric: We learned too much. Yeah, there was the thing about like, and then everyone's like, not prepared for the last night of camp.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Which is why all of you were able to go to the locks and hang out.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: And that was like what I was thinking is like, like obviously oldest campers would have been there, and done there under the summer ritual, but since no one was prepared for it, and like there was no bonfire, they weren't—they didn't have stacks of paper for you to play mailman which is where you someone delivers nice things to each other, and you write them down on a piece of paper. And like all the end like, end of the summer. Like no one came up with a parody song about their cabin, set to a popular song from 10 years earlier. Like no one was embarrassed, so that's why you will could all go to the locks, say like no one had taken that spot already.
Brandon: [sings] Somebody once told me the best friends gone and stayed together, forever and never apart.
Amanda: [sings] Dougie Juice within the bunk bed, he threw pillows all at my head and we all got chocolate chiiiiiip.
Eric: Well!
Amanda: That's fair use
Eric: [sings] Because cabin six gonna do it to you, because cabin six gonna do it to you.
Julia: Oh my god. I'm not good at coming up with songs, so I'm not even gonna try.
Eric: [sings] Don't believe me, inside joke. Bow! Amanda was the best. Jesus Christ.
Amanda: Oh thank you.
Julia: Yeah, she's very, very good.
Amanda: So let's first start with the NPC wrap-ups. And this you know, in my mind, it's like movie, you know, post-credit montage. A la the fairy decathlon. So there were a lot of questions about Boo, words, and recreation, for example, said, what actually happened to Boo? And Ralts was like, Is Boo okay? Eric, what happened to Boo?
Eric: Julia, what happened to boo?
Julia: Okay, Eric, I—I have a question.
Eric: Sure.
Julia: And I— like I never asked this on mic or even off mic. Is Director Löw's name a reference to someone who's associated with golems?
Eric: Ding, ding, ding, you win.
Julia and Amanda: Yay!
Eric: Rabbi Judah Loew was the original Rabbi who created the golem in the Jewish folklore uh, story.
Amanda: Did mother fucker planned it the whole fucking time.
Eric: Ordinarily, it's spelled L O E W, but there are because it's from like, either Hebrew or Eastern European language spoken by the Jews of the time. It's moved so it's spelling is L O with an umlaut W. So yes with Friday Loẅ problems from the descendants of the rabbi who made the golem in the first place.
Brandon: I legit thought that you—even if this was a reference, that you were just like, you know change the spelling to throw us off the scent, and then you just fuckin love umlaut's because you're Eric Silver. You're Eric umlaut Silver, from what I've heard.
Julia: The audience can see that I've been dancing for the past five minutes.
Amanda: Yay!
Julia: Hell yeah. Yeah, so like I—that's why I assumed that AD Z was a golem the entire time, especially when the giant stone Johnnie appeared. And now that Boo is embodying a little clay body, he's a little golem.
Eric: Yeah. So yeah, let me spell it out for the—for you if you need it. So I didn't know this was going to happen. Someone and I'm not pointing fingers, but someone pulled Boo's soul out of his body.
Julia: I don't recall that.
Eric: I don't—I don't know.
Julia: I don't remember that happening.
Eric: So now Boo could do that. I seeded that by Boo being able to astral project himself.
Amanda: Yup.
Eric: Into the candy storage and pull some out. So I tease that, and that had happened. Carrie-Ann had other shit on her mind, she decided to ignore it. Fine.
Amanda: Fair.
Eric: Then that became Boo have that during the Bonezilla, stone Johnnie fight. Boo was crushed by the Bonezilla, and his soul was just out there vibin like a little Casper.
Julia: Cool. Love that.
Eric: He did not—Director Loẅ remember only called Carrie-Ann on the phone, and are over—over a walkie-talkie.
Amanda: Oh yeah.
Eric: So you could have tried to find Director Loẅ. She was barricaded in her residence with trying to figure this out for Boo. That's what—that's what was happening at this time. So that scene that we got in the wrap-up, was the final thing now that camp was over. Director Loẅ was being a mom again, packing Boo's stuff up, and then needed to have a vessel for Boo's soul that hang out in, which was what was happening.
Brandon: And Boo got wings.
Eric: Yeah and Boo have been [As boo] I'm a bird.
Amanda: Friday should have been a little nicer to Carrie-Ann, maybe she would have checked down on her.
Julia: Maybe.
Eric: Director Loẅ did not want you to checking on her.
Amanda: No, I know.
Eric: That was intentional. That was intentional. So no, Director Loẅ was dealing with it. So that's why Director Loẅ was being very evasive, at the end of the stuff.
Amanda: Eric, if you planned this in 2017 when you came on Spirits to talk about the golem, you need to tell us.
Eric: No, golems are tight. But I keep putting them in shit.
Julia: Yeaaah.
Eric: No, that's just—that's just why I don't.
Brandon: We all know that Eric doesn't write anything down.
Julia: Yeah. Famously. Never prepared for any session ever.
Eric: It's all off the top of my dome, which is just as-- which is just as powerful, if not more powerful than me writing something down. That makes me more talented. I heard I'm the best GM in podcasting, and everyone's talking about it.
Brandon: You do have the mug that says that
Amanda: Eric Do you have one clay tablet, that you keep inscribing your episode notes in over, and over? And then a golem of a DM takes over your—
Eric: Holy shit.
Amanda: —microphone and then at the end of the day, you wipe it clean and apply. There's no record.
Julia: That explains so much.
Eric: My lore is telling me to neither confirm or deny.
Amanda: Ah, okay.
Eric: My lawyer is also telling me I'm the best GM in podcasts.
Amanda: Oh well, must be true.
Eric: And all my players who've been playing with me for five-plus years must agree with me. I assume.
Brandon: We all just did it.
Amanda: 100%.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: 100%.
Eric: Can I hear a—like a—a full sentence so I can clip it out later? Like [laughs]
Amanda: Eric! Excuse me, Peter Parker, dollar slice. Eric Silver is the greatest DM in podcasting.
Eric: Oh, thank you, you Benedict Cumberbatch.
Julia: It sounds like an AI just said it.
Brandon: I'll clip it and put it on the soundboard for your—
Eric: Great. Thank you.
Amanda: Thank you.
Eric: So Benedict Cumberbatch thinks I’m the best GM in podcasting.
Amanda: Hail Helena would like to know, is there anything that didn't wrap up the way you planned? I mean, most of this. I didn't plan.
Brandon: Yeah, I didn't think I had a plan. You know, mostly just like, don't let the camp disintegrate into pieces. I did think that Crudo Anaconda was going to become my stepdad. But—
Julia: Ahhhh.
Brandon: Interesting.
Julia: Maybe he will. Were your parents divorced, Les?
Brandon: Uh who knows? Probably. It's America.
Julia: Sure.
Amanda: I think in the back of my mind, I sort of assumed that there'll be a moment that all of the other CITs get together and put aside their differences, and unite for camp. Instead, Jennii made a deal with the devil and died. And then Phoebe used her flesh, as a flesh puppet to tell her grandma she got kicked out of camp for Saran wrapping toilets. So that didn't go how I planned, but it was much better than teenagers put aside their differences to unite for a common cause.
Julia: Man sometimes it's better not to have a plan. That's what I think.
Amanda: It is. It is
Brandon: We really should have known about Jennii's selfishness ahead of time, because Jennii does have two I's in her name.
Amanda: That's true.
Eric: Two N's and two I's.
Brandon: Well, the ends don't matter as much, but you know.
Julia: That she's so selfish, she puts I in her name twice.
Brandon: Yeah, there's no I in team, but there are two I's in Jennii.
Eric: But ther—there's multiple I's and N's in individual, is that something?
[Amanda and Brandon laughs]
Julia: Got them.
Eric: Yep, Brandon fucking take it. Get—get fucking fucked. I came up with a different word that has I in it.
Brandon: Get good at words, nerd.
Amanda: But most importantly, for me, at least is the final reveal, Eric's final mic drop. The final je ne sais quoi, Samuel L. Jackson in the credits of a movie don't expect him to be in, was Tater Tot talking. So lots of people want to know, what's the deal? What the fuck? And was Tater Tot able to speak the whole time?
[Eric laughs]
Amanda: Eric, uhh.
Julia: I was ready to murder that dog. Eric, you were like Tater Tot walks into the field and starts talking, and I was like, alright, well how can I kill a dog in the final moments of our campaign?
[Amanda and Brandon laughs]
Eric: Yeah, Tater Tot could talk the whole time. It just never came up. I thought it would ta— I thought it would come up. And I want to talk about this later. But there were a lot of mysteries I thought of doing, that we didn't do. And Jane was missing or something, could have been a mystery would have done, and Tater Tot would have talked to you about it or something.
Amanda: Wait, if we had just asked Tater Tot a question, like who's a good boy, would he—he have said me?
Eric: Tater Tot could have expressed things to you non verbally, and understood what you were saying—
Amanda: That's true.
Eric: In a lassy sort of way.
Amanda: Yeah, the cover.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: There you go.
Amanda: Fair.
Eric: But yeah, Tater Tot could talk the whole time.
Amanda: Incredible.
Brandon: Bastard.
Julia: God dammit.
Eric: I knew it from the first episode—
Julia: GOD DAMN IT!
Eric: I knew the whole time.
Julia: God damn.
Amanda: Alright. Well, as Eric rubs his hands together satisfied so well, that we can toast a marshmallow on them.
Eric: I know, the friction so hot.
Amanda: I'm going to run into the kitchen and refill our s'mores supplies.
Julia: Let's go.
Amanda: Be right back.
[theme]
Eric: Hey, it's Eric. [sings] Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road, [mumbles]. I can't believe another campaign is done. Being able to start and finish something in the middle of this year, and like have it completed, and feel like it was one little package, has been really wonderful. Being able to do this show for so many years has been really wonderful. I am incredibly excited for this stuff coming in campaign three. I hope you are too. Thank you to all of you. Welcome to the mid roll. Thanks for staying along on the ride. Thank you to patron Dan, who recently upgraded tiers from $5 to $8 annual pledge. So smart. You get those ad free episodes. Now did you all know that you can get a discount when you sign up for an annual pledge. To great last minute. No shipping required gift, It's all I'm saying. All I'm saying. patreon.com/jointhepartypod. You let us do all of this. We are so thankful to every single one of you patreon.com/jointhepartypod. Join the nicest place on the internet. This week at Multitude, I think you should check out the wonderful podcast Spirits. You might have heard of Amanda, you might have heard of Julia, but have you heard of them talking about mythology together? I don't know. Spirits is a history and comedy podcast focused on everything folklore, mythology, and the cult told through the lens of feminism, queerness, and modern adulthood. Every week pathology buff Julia, and her childhood best friend Amanda get together to learn a different story from mythology and folklore over drinks. Don't be that person who only knows things about mythology from Hades and God of War. You can't just wait for video games to come out, learn with your own brain. Start listening at any of the 300 episodes they have. There's so many to enjoy and you might need it over the fallow period in between Christmas and New Year's. You just start listening, dive in at spiritspodcast.com or search for Spirits wherever you download your podcasts. We are sponsored this week by The Twenty-Sided Tavern. The newest interactive theatrical adventure experience is Twenty Sided Tavern. Inspired by dungeons, dragons, and so much more. This live theater experience has had sold-out engagements in Pittsburgh, New York, and Edinburgh. And now they are in Chicago through January 15th. Only at the Broadway Playhouse at Watertown place. A unique journey that's never the same quest twice due to audience participation and interaction. It's a different ending every single time. You also get to use your mobile phone during the show to make selections, competing games, solve riddles and puzzles, and determine the hero's fate. The Chicago Tribune says it's a new family friendly franchise that celebrates fantasy gaming, the audience is a total blast, clearly authentic and fun. For show times and tickets, visit broadwayinchicago.com and look for Twenty Sided Tavern. We are also sponsored today by Hero Forge, which offers fully customizable tabletop minis, with dozens of fantasy species and 1000s of parts to choose from. The easy to use design tool lets you build the perfect mini online using a fully 3d in depth character creator right in your web browser. Truly, you can spend hours just on the online component. These custom minis come in a variety of materials including new and improved color printed options. But they don't have every single head, arm, leg, or face part just yet, but you can suggest it. Go to heroforge.com/suggest. They welcome all new parts submissions through that survey, and they want to hear what you have to say. So go to heroforge.com to start designing your custom miniatures today. And check back often. New content is added every week. I have not looked at the website since the last time we did the ads. I checked it this morning. There's some new incredibly wild shit there, and it's based off of the things that people have suggested. Incredible. Shout out to Hero Forge, shout out to the mini you want to see. We also sponsored by Twenty-Sided Store in Brooklyn, New York. I've missed saying that. Shop online or in store for games, puzzles, gaming gear, and swag from Join the Party's friendly local game store. Co-owners and co-founders Lauren and Luis were the first people to ever support Join the Party when we launched. We talked about it over soup dumplings, it was a good time, I miss it. And it means the world for them to come back as sponsors on the show. Use Code JTPCAMP, all one word. That is JTPCAMP for 20% off your first purchase in store or online. That is JTPCAMP in-store in Williamsburg Brooklyn, or at twentysidedstore.com for 20% off your first purchase. And finally, we are sponsored by Birds of Empire. Birds of Empire is a new cinematic audio event mixed in innovative spatial audio with Dolby Atmos, with immersive Sonic worlds created by the sound editor and sound designer from such films as Tenet And Dunkirk. That's wild. Go talk to Brandon if you want to know why is Dolby Atmos is so wild. Thousand of years after the fall of civilization, the Earth has reclaimed the cities and glories in the modern world, humanity has returned to a way of life, more closely resembling civilizations of the ancient past, the bears, the rams, the birds, and the wolves. Book One, the Dawn Age serves as an introduction to each of the four young people from the tribes. As we tried the rise of the first empire of the New World. Follow and listen to Birds of Empire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening right now. And now, back to the show.
[theme]
Amanda: Alright, people, we're back. We got chocolate, we got Kit-Kats, we got two kinds of marshmallows, got graham crackers and we got Oreo.
Eric: What are the two kinds of marshmallows?
Amanda: Handmade and store bought?
Eric: Oh, nice.
Brandon: Shit. That’s some good fucking s’mores stuff.
Amanda: It’s different experiences.
Brandon: Real quick poll. How do you say the word s'mores? Do you say sa mores? Or do you say smores?
Amanda: Smores.
Julia: Smores.
Eric: Oh, yeah, the latter, smores.
Brandon: Okay, cool.
Julia: Who say Samores?
Brandon: Well, who do you think, Julia? The person that says ca shoe.
[Amanda laughs]
Eric: We cannot use Lauren.
Amanda: We can't exploit Lauren for content like this.
Julia: I—Lauren has a fascinating just like way of pronouncing so many words.
Amanda: Incredible.
Julia: Impeccable.
Eric: I can't tell if Lauren is a time traveler from the 17th century.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Or the 24th century, but it's heavily three centuries away.
Amanda: Three centuries and with plus or minus three centuries.
Eric: Plus and minus three centuries. Yeah.
Amanda: Alright, folks, let's talk now about the campaign as a whole, some podcast stuff, and head cannons. So many delicious questions to get to. So first, a lot of people asked are there places, parts of the story, things from the world-building game, NPCs that we wish we explored more.
Julia: I wish I'd spent more time with Springer, I really laid the foundation for Phoebe to be like the cooks assistant, and then we only use it like once, maybe twice.
Amanda: Importantly, though, like it was an important thing.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: But yeah, that—that would have been really fun.
Julia: Though I did like just being able to randomly say, I have a knife and everyone goes, aaah.
Amanda: We did. We did.
Brandon: It's because of your fucking face you made every time you did it, Julia.
Eric: It's like that one vine with a kid running around with a knife.
Julia: What do you got there? A knife. Nooo!
Eric: Yeah and that's Jul—that's Julia.
Julia: It's Phoebe the whole time.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: I do wish, it's maybe for you Brandon, but I—I at least wish that we got to hang out with more of the tripperz or hang out with Frankie more.
Brandon: You stole it, you bastard.
Amanda: Tell me about the—tell me about the specialties of the tripperz that you um— that you and Eric talked about before the game?
Brandon: Yeah, so, Eric, correct me again, if I'm wrong because I forgot whether or not I wrote down the final ones or my ideal ones.
Eric: Ah, yeah, yeah.
Brandon: But, what I have on my sheet is we had a caver, like a spelunker person. We had a diver, which I believe was—
Eric: That was Frankie, yeah.
Brandon: —Frankie. And then we had like a boatman/rafter or like someone who did canoes and stuff. A photographer and a botanist.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: Hmm.
Eric: Those were yeah, those were the ones that Les could have went to if you had something specific. But yeah, you could have I guess, like, there are plenty of situations maybe if you need it, it's just like, I don't know, I'm not—I'm not thinking of that stuff. It's hard, like, regardless of character sheets it's like, either you play to the character sheet, or you don't play to the character sheet. And both are intentional. Both not in a good way. It's like, you just gotta see if it has—you just gotta like, see if it happens or not. And it just uh—this is the way it took out.
Brandon: Yeah, like I think this was obviously made. That the searcher playbook was made for more of a like, what do they call it X Files, the lone—the lone gunman, It was the lone gunman, you're supposed to like text them or email them or something, you know, get a response back, but we weren't doing that in terms of our tech. And I think like, you know, the best friend sort of like subbed in for that. I think it would have been—would have been like feeling like a deus ex machina kind of thing, if we went to the chairperson the whole time.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: So I'm glad we didn't do it. But yeah, it would have been fun to just like, see what NPCs Eric came up with.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: Eric, reall quick. Can you give me a button to this smpc?
Julia: I was just about to ask for the botanist, so.
Brandon: What do they sound like?
Julia: Sea brain.
Eric: Hey, Les. If you take two steps to your left, and one to your right, you'll be standing directly on top of the deadliest dandelion that's ever happened.
Brandon: Okay, so do that. Thanks.
Eric: No, don't do that.
Amanda: Too late.
Eric: Les, you’re dead unless we get you to a hospital in twelve hours. I’m Ira Glass.
Brandon: I was thinking Cameron. Is that a Cameron?
Eric: That could be Cameron. They could be—I—that would work for any gender. I think that would be nice. Brandon, do you remember what I did an Ira Glass impression out of nowhere that I didn't know I had.
Julia: Hey, real proud of you, guy.
Amanda: I didn't even laugh at it because I was like, yeah, yeah, that is Ira Glass. Like I just [laughs]
Eric: Oh, no, the one—I did this on the stream that Brandon and I were on a while ago, and I'm like, I didn't know I had this and Brandon is like, you surprise me all the time.
Brandon: It was the uh—the mystery science 3000 stream.
Julia: Uh, Rifftrax.
Eric: Yes, the Rifftrax one that was fun. I want to go back. That shit was so much fun. Yeah.
Amanda: I wish that we got the chance to meet people from the camp, for wayward boys across the lake.
Eric: Oh, yes!
Brandon: Oh, yeah.
Amanda: I know.
Julia: I forgot about wolf hill
Eric: Wolf—wolf hill.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Yes. It was the ROTC Camp.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: And I know that our whole thing is like playing in one place. And it's all about camp and the camps walls, are like literally, metaphorically really important. But I loved encountering the brothers Boudreau. And just like anytime the walls of camp were breached, whether it's Crudo Anaconda coming in, or if there's something like just beyond the wall, you know, not just Steven but something, like if the alicanto was running or the whistle was there, something like that. I feel like Carrie-Ann would ju—vault that wall and run in like with—with no persuasion. So the idea of the boundaries of Camp being a little more porous, I think would certainly have come up in a longer form in campaign. But that's, that's the only thing where I was like, I was thinking we're all building that I really did wish we got to encourage like the co-camp, you know, regatta or dance or something. At the end of the summer.
Julia: Yeah. I wish I had had more non-camp adults for Phoebe to absolutely roast. Maybe next time.
Brandon: Along the same lines, I would love to see—I don't like— like I'm not like, bummed that we didn't do it. But cause like we had tons of fun mechanics stuff, but I would love to see an Eric's mechanic version of like a flashlight tag in a Camp color war thing.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: I'd love to see what that would look like. That'd be fun.
Julia: Oh, we could have done like a game of the how doth the little crocodile. Which I only like vaguely referenced in the killing of Frederick the frog.
Eric: Yeah, I was trying to figure out what to—how to do that one because you flush that out so much in the world-building. Brandon, when you—it was a read that part of the Jabberwocky too. That was part of it. And I'm just like, I don't know what to do here. Yeah, it would have been like no, I—see the here's the thing. These are like episodes of TV in my head. These are like episodes of Gravity Fall. So like, yeah, if we had another season, I could do it. And I— if it was color war, it would have been like color war or other would have been the power would have taken out at camp, and the whole thing would have been in the darkness. And there probably would have been like a really scary monster that would have been involved. And that's what the flashlight was for. Then there would have been like darkness mechanics probably what it would have been. As you tried to turn the lights back on at camp, so that color war can be finished.
Amanda: Uh, so cool.
Julia: In there would have been a giant crocodile.
Eric: Yeah it would have been the Jabberwocky.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: The Jabberwocky was there.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: You at your home, and your home games do that.
Amanda: There you go.
Eric: Yeah, truly, I mean listen, once you— with Monster of the Week, once you have the settings set up, you can do anything. And it's just like whether or not you and—we end up doing that. And I want to like play more, like nothing—nothing to do with Steven episodes, you know, like just doing these Monster of the Week episodes.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: As they are, are just like, yeah, let's do these things that are just, we play for three hours and there you go.
Amanda: Basically everything we did in the woods, I would want to go back to, like negotiating the kind of relationship between the fae and the camp hanging out with Avery more, I think it'd be really fun that was in the same episode, but like checking in on Mavis Beacon. All—all of these things, I think are so—are so fascinating. And, and even to like one of my favorite episodes was oh, yeah, you know, there's something happening under the new cabin, and we have to figure it out. And I—I just— I loved like dropping in, meeting those girls, meeting Brenda—
Eric: Shout out to Brenda, my girl.
Amanda: And just seeing like that, that reveal of a trapdoor opens and we have to go in.
Brandon: Sorry, I don't mean to, to question you, Amanda. But I don't mean—who is Mavis Beacon?What? I don't know.
Amanda: She teaches typing.
Brandon: Oh, oh, Mavis Beacon who teaches typing.
Amanda: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Julia: It makes sense. Makes sense.
Amanda: Yeah. No, my—my bad, right, that's on me.
Eric: Yeah, no, no, I know you all nailed a lot of stuff. Again, I have a lot of ideas that we could have done, that I—I wanted to do. And—
Brandon: Tell us those ideas.
Eric: Sure. Yeah. I mean, maybe--
Brandon: Tell us those ideas!
Eric: We'll end up doing and maybe I'll—I'll twist them. I had one about the Art Barn. I had set that one up in a previous John Bonez Bones announcement, that the Art Barn was there because like in my camp, the art area was multi-tiered. So there would have been something going on at the Art Barn, that like we could—we could have had like, there were some like paint monsters or art stuff going on in there. Yeah, the one about Wolf Hall. We—there are so many different episodes. We could have done that. It could have been a dance and someone is dangerous. It could have been like inter-camp, you could have went there. Or it would have been—they would have been like a cra—we didn't do a lake but they would have been like nearby. There was also in my camp, there was a like a nature reserve nearby or maybe it was just like a park. But you know, we were out in the woods. So I guess you wouldn't call it a park. But there was just like rolling hills. And if you walked all the way down there, there was a waterfall. And that was like being outside of camp, but only in an area we were outside of camp, couldn't know that, we couldn't go into the booth rose place, we could have went into town, which was another thing we could have done. There is a town called Bracebridge. That was really close to my camp. That was like 15 minutes away. But 10 If you were speeding, and that could have been part of it. Like going, there getting something you need to come back with a car. So we could do it on a driving thing. Yeah, there's a lot of ideas. I'm just—listen, I missed bit balling this, I know exactly how they could have gone. If I just put the mechanic—these are the ideas. So it's like, I don't even—there's a lot of stuff. And if I went back to the world-building game, I'm glad I did as much as possible. But I think the two that we suggested about Wolf Hill, and the flashlight tag were probably two that I—or color war in general, that's when those are two I just could not get done because we spent the time in the woods, instead of doing some of this stuff, which isn't bad, but we didn't need to finish up what the fuck was going on with Greenbrook, which I'm really stoked on. So we had to like, deal with that stuff instead of, because I really wanted to keep this to 20 episodes.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: I love the idea. Now in my head of doing an art barn monster, were like the paint, like a portrait of Dorian Gray thing where they like steals your soul or something you know.
Julia: Oooh fun.
Amanda: The better your art, yeah, the less verve you have.
Eric: That’s cool.
Julia: My immediate thought was collage monster.
Amanda: Mine was glittered. It is a monster.
Julia: Glitter is a monster. You got it.
Eric: We could have done another thing with Jane. As I said, I think Jane kind of fade into the background. Once you all were kind of like self-assured like you didn't Jane—need Jane to be your boss, and we could have done a Tater Tot thing. But I like the reveal as we did it.
Brandon: I mean, his leg did turn into a K.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: I believe it was the letter.
Eric: Yes, that was the letter.
Julia: He was having a rough go of it this summer.
Brandon: So.
Amanda: We've all broken a bone in the first week of the season, or the year and so just really.
Eric: What I really wanted to do, that we didn't get to do was going to be one where you went out of camp with the tripperz. It would have been in the really in the woods, doing some shit with the canoe and we would have done that stuff. But again, I like to be in the camp so much. I didn't want to leave.
Amanda: Oh, yeah. Here's a question from Kkbug02. What was one thing your character did this campaign that surprised you?
Brandon: I mean, have a crush. I wasn't expecting that to happen. Yeah, so, that's my answer.
Amanda: I think for Carrie-Ann, it would be breaking rules. I sort of expected her to unfailingly follow direction from the director. And I think it was a really interesting part of her journey, and interesting for me to play, to realize that the adults in your life don't always give you good guidance, or to stop unquestioningly following it.
Eric: And it was baked into your—your playbook to with this act.
Amanda: Yeah. It was.
Julia: I think Phoebe's rage was a really big one that surprised me at the end. And it was a lot to do with the reveal that you provided me, Eric, that gave me that space to play in it. But when I was building Phoebe as a character, I picked the spooky because I was like, oh, there's going to be a dark side element to this, but it's going to be an outside force that's influencing Phoebe, rather than it just being Phoebe herself. And that was like—
Amanda: Right.
Julia: —a really surprising and interesting turn in playing the character.
Eric: Yeah, I want to talk about that really quickly. There was such a choice from Julia, not to talk specifically about what AD Z did with Charles that I thought was really interesting of you to swapping over, and taking—you taking over for the stone Johnnie. And like also, I want to say how like karmically and magically difficult that would have been to take over for us the stone Johnnie and run that for a little while. You never confronted AD Z about why he did Charles's stuff. And I thought that was really interesting. And that's why Phoebe was just fucking pissed.
Julia: Yeah. Yeah. The only thing Phoebe said to him was, I know what you did. That was the only confrontation that like occurred during that scene.
Brandon: I did relay to AD Z that you call them a motherfucker.
Julia: Correct.
Eric: That's fair. That's fair. Hey, Brandon, why was AD Z's eyes so yellow, and his teeth so sharp?
Brandon: Well I heard he needed to go to the hospital. Sounds like he was having jaundice issues or something.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, he really needed to get checked out.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: He put it off for the entire summer because he said he had the responsibility to kids, but he really needs to go to a doctor.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: This question is from TJ, rolls Nat 20s for hugs. For players, how did it feel using luck so freely, knowing this was the last session? And Eric did you feel that the players were abusing the luck system at any point?
Eric: Automatically, I want to say no to abuse, that's in the game. You got—you use them if you got them.
Amanda: Yeah powerful. Yeah.
Eric: So like, if the game gives it to you, I can't stop you. It's like taking away a sneak attack from a row. Like what—then let's play a different game that doesn't have it, you know?
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: So you had it, you all decided not to use quite a lot of it? You want to use it, and sudden you were allowed to do it at the end, that's just how it do.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah, I feel like I use it pretty liberally throughout the campaign itself. And each time was prepared to face the consequences because Carrie-Ann truly thought that her actions were better for camp than the karmic balance would be bad for camp, you know?
Brandon: Yeah, I think there’s something maybe it's just me, in my head, but there's something inherent in like luck. And like, sort of along the same lines, like inspiration die, like where they're, like rare and you don't want to waste them kind of thing. So like, I just inherently don't feel like I want to use them. But I've also learned that if I got too close to the Doom, I knew Eric would fuck me massively.
Eric: That's the game man, I'm following what's written down on the paper. But no, I would have came down, it's come down so hard on y'all. If you had gotten that close. Two things I want to address. One was, you all didn't use your luck unless you failed. None of you use luck on rolls that were midway. And I think that's an interesting idea about like, how we're, you know, enjoying the game, enjoying the subtleties and the grades of these rolls. But that's also probably why y'all had so many at the end.
Amanda: It's true.
Eric: And also, I want to talk about all of your luck moves. Like the thing to remember is that you can just use luck and get a thing, something happens to you. And what's interesting about all of your different playbooks is that sometimes it's positive, but sometimes it's negative about all of your luck moves. And I would just wanted to touch on those before we leave Monster of the Week by the wayside. Because it was very important to the story, that when Brandon used the luck point.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: Well, I think it's maybe I'm wrong, because I don't remember y’alls luck moves, but I think it's ambiguous on purpose. Whether or not it can be negative or positive for the GM.
Eric: Some of them were explicitly bad.
Amanda: Mine is very bad. So the Initiate’s is when you spend a point of luck, something goes wrong for your sect, an ill advised project or disastrous operation.
Eric: Let's remember, Carrie-Ann use the luck point. And the alicanto ate the whistle, was one of their reactions to that.
Julia: Yep.
Amanda: Wink.
Julia: Mine was like really more of a character influence choice, because when I mark off luck points, your dark sides needs get nastier. And as we later discovered, my dark side is just me and my magic, and not that outside force, which is what Phoebe thought originally. And so it was just like, I have to play Phoebe darker. What was yours, Brandon?
Brandon: Mine was when I spend a point of luck. Your first encounter comes up in play, it can be a flashback, a new occurrence or related event. So it's very open-ended.
Eric: Um yes.
Brandon: On mine, at least.
Eric: Yours was like ambiguous. It was odd. It was like, what am I going to do? We're going to have you flashback to a traumatic moment. And then, but you just did something good. Like I wasn't sure how to do it other than having big foot jump out and save you.
Brandon: Yeah, well, that's the first encounter too. They're all positive things like you can play them negative, but they all give you bonuses, like good bonuses on the play sheet. So like, yeah, yeah, it's I can imagine it'd be tough for the GM. Typically though.
Eric: It is important to point out that Brandon's playbook, the searcher was from tomb of mysteries. So I wonder if that's like a choice to balance out, to have something more ambiguous. Or maybe like I was thinking about this. I wonder if the searcher had like worse stats just for like being a, like a milky boy who was inside all the time, instead of like someone out there. I wonder if that's why you could use luck more liberally for good shit to happen to you. Or that's why you had more like resources instead of skills or abilities.
Brandon: I do think Les was lactose intolerant, unfortunately, so.
Julia: He's milky and skinned. But not in tum. I really like the idea of, if you're playing the searcher character, and this doesn't have to apply to like you, Brandon, or like what you were doing with Les, but the searcher character first encounter, like you just start seeing Big Foot more in the distan— like the impending doom of Big Foots gonna get you. Seems like a great way of reading those luck rolls.
Amanda: No. And I think really, that's—that's a really useful lens, because it seems like the playbook sort of has an inherent tension if you want to lean into it, but between your origin story and like what's out there. And so I think it's easy for, you know, a s—a molder character to get, you know, obsessed by their own past and not necessarily the breadth of things in front of them.
Brandon: Yeah, totally.
Eric: Yeah. There were a few different ways that Julia, I wish I had known your thinking before, because for me it was like--
Julia: Sorry bud, I just thought of it now.
Eric: Bigfoot showed up and he's a carnivore.
Amanda: Well, we do have a question specifically about Bigfoot in a minute. But first, sticking with luck points, Jaya asked, what would have happened if any of the characters got to doomed on the luck scale? I assumed it was different for each of them because they all have different luck moves. But then the four harmed Carrie-Ann was a hard move that could have been taken on anyone.
Eric: Yeah, I think I just would have ramped up the shit where the hard moves, I would have done the more often, I would have made them really dangerous. Because you know, you can just do like an eight-harm move. You can just do it.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: And it’s not out--
Brandon: He did try to kill me, literally.
Eric: I mean. Listen, a giant, a giant dinosaur wanted to step on your face, like I don't know, man, but like you can just do that and it's not like, it's not weird. It's not like DM says rocks fall, you all die. In Monster of the Week, if the Doom is on the horizon, you got to bring the Doom.
Amanda: That's fair.
Eric: So I don't—I don't even think it's like mean, as me as the—as the runner of this game to do that, like I got to follow what the game wants me to do.
Amanda: That's a powerful tool, and it has powerful consequences.
Brandon: I'm just curious when we started because I didn't know the mechanics, obviously the rules. Like in my head, I was thinking doomed like, I'm going to guys, I'm going to do a Supernatural.
Eric: Oh here we go.
Julia: Uh-oh. Oh no.
Amanda: Thank you. Thank you.
Eric: The key is like, Brandon is about to do a backflip standing up.
Brandon: Like, when Dean goes to hell like I— like because he's doomed like his soul is already sold. I forget why but, you know, like that kind of doomed as opposed to like, you get hurt more in real life. But we don't really die or anything. So yeah, I don't know.
Julia: I think for Phoebe, if Phoebe had hit doomed, I would have just discussed with you Eric, like having her go full evil.
Eric: Sure.
Julia: And then like, just be irredeemable in that way. And that would have been the quote-unquote, “end of the character”
Eric: Yeah. I'd have to look at the book of what doomed is supposed to mean. But I think it just means like playing harder and faster with your, with your PCs.
Brandon: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sure that's right. I just— that was what I was thinking in my head.
Eric: I—it's hard. It's hard. It's like—when you get to a point where your GM needs to, like, kill you. We—they just— it's never fun. Like, what are we—what are we doing here? If I—I you all came to my house, I bought pizza. And then I'm like, alright. And now you die. Great session, everybody. I'm so glad we had a good time. He's like, it—
Brandon: As you're finishing the pizza by yourself.
Eric: Yeah. Right. It's like the—the tension of that is hard. But you know, that's why you only do it after you, the player uses all of your luck points. The it's like a—it's the karmic balance that needs to be paid, I guess.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: I actually, I just found the section four running out of luck. Would you like me to read it?
Eric: Please.
Julia: Luck scores are another measure of the stories progress, luck will gradually get used as you play. If a hunter is getting to the end of their luck, that's the sign that their story needs to end. If not, they'll be killed by a monster sooner or later, either because they can no longer reduce the harm they suffer or because of a hard move, you make against them. So I think it's basically just like, you're going to die. We just don't know how or when.
Eric: That's kind of interesting. Yeah, there's like—Monster of the Week really wants you to stop playing after like 12 sessions.
Julia: Or at least start up with a new character after a while.
Brandon: Or they can get like resurrected somehow or something, you know.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: All these like tropes of these kinds of shows involve that stuff.
Eric: Brandon is there is there a show that has like 5000 seasons that, that you could refer that you're referencing?
Brandon: Huhhh. Scrubs?
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: Yeah that was it. That's why we did the musical episode.
Eric: Shit, Julia I was literally about to fucking say that, goddamn it.
Amanda: So here's our Bigfoot question. Paul asks, Eric, you talked it before about how Jennii saw the best friends as kind of incompetent, and how that informed her decision to take matters into her own hands with Steven. I can ask about any number of NPCs here, but I'm fascinated by Bigfoot's perspective. How much of this was he even aware of? Was he actively trying to help Les, or was he just doing his own thing and sometimes just thinking, Oh, hey, there's that tall kid again? Good question.
Julia: God, I hope it's the latter.
Brandon: Or, or let me posit this.
Amanda: What if?
Brandon: Was Bigfoot just Les from the future, well, he's gone out to live in the woods for a long time.
Eric: I thought Arnold Palmer was Les from the future.
Brandon: Who can say?
Julia: That’s canon.
Amanda: Or the past? Huh?
Eric: In my head, it was the latter. Yeah, Bigfoot just kept showing up. I think this also has to do with like this interesting, this monster hunting idea that we, we've toyed with, with the various people who've talked to Les about monsterology and cryptozoology as, like, a realm of study is like, they're just hanging out and we're trying to make sense of in our human brains, you know, like, we can't—there's only so much we can do.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: So I think that, that Bigfoot just so happened to keep showing up, or it wasn't maybe— it's not even the same Bigfoot. Maybe there's multiple Sasquatch's like—
Amanda: We don't know.
Eric: —We don't know. And we also don't know how far away necessarily Les's first encounter was to camp. Like he was just in the woods, you know, so I—I'd like to think it was random.
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: God, I hope so.
Amanda: And our final question about camp and about the story from Sarah, Purple People Eater. How many campers do you think die every summer? Do they have a necromancer on call?
Julia: I mean, they do mention a necromancer on call right, Eric? Like, we'll just contact our necromancer. It's fine. Like we'll—we'll get the kids back in their body.
Amanda: Yeah, it's like Crudo's new girlfriend.
Eric: Oh yeah.
Julia: Oh my God. Yes. And she is hot and goth and he doesn't deserve her. Yeah. 100%
Amanda: Yeah. Or just full corporate look, and she's like, I provide necromancy consulting services. I have a business.
Eric: I'm writing that down.
Julia: I think you need to change your season three character really quick and just do that. That's incredible.
Eric: Man. That's really good. I like that.
Amanda: Any thoughts?
Eric: No, I just meant I wanted to just be hand-wavy. I thought it was funny that kids kept dying and no one had any explanation for it. So I just kind of wanted to hand wave it away and whatever you think, like Amanda's head cannon is very good, I might use that.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: And that's what I'm gonna start believing but, it's whatever—whatever you think.
Brandon: I liked both the idea that at the end of the summer, the parents come to retrieve their children. And Director Loẅ either hands them a dry bag of skin. Or like a golem that like can't move but has their persons, their kids soul inside of it.
Eric: Yeah. Is that you can go to our—you can go to our soul removal guy. Go worry, great rates just down the road.
Amanda: He has a referral.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: Speaking of headcanon this is the section I am most excited to talk about in this AP. Katja asks, is there a chance we'll return to Camp Die at some point?
Eric: I'm shrug-- I’m shrugging.
Julia: Who can say I would like to, but I also know that like some of us feel like the stories of these characters have been concluded. So I don't want to be like we have to come back.
Brandon: Yeah, I think as a player, I—yeah, I think it'd be fun to come back. But like as a storyteller, it's like you always want to leave it on this perfect note that we've achieved, where it's like you want more, but like you feel satisfied. So I—I don't think it would be as satisfying for you the listener if we did return.
Julia: I'm just grabbing hands because when I fall in love with the character, I'm just like, give me more, I want more interaction.
Brandon: Well, that doesn't mean we couldn't play another setting as adult versions of these, or like teen, or like true teen versions of these characters.
Julia: Oh my god, the summer before college as Phoebe, Les, and Carrie-Ann would be adorable.
Amanda: That'd be really fun. I've also been thinking since we ended campaign two, about you, know, going back to Lake-town city in some way. So I think for me at least, doors, not closed. But I would want to do it like a little to the left, a little tangential time-shifted, you know, a different perspective. Something like that.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah, same.
Eric: I don't know. I—it's an interesting question. There were something about this where I really wanted to keep it to 20 episodes, and doing something that was—like the fact that we ended campaign two in the middle of this year, and then we just filled the rest out with the camp paign. I kind of liked that, like it was nice doing a shorter thing and you know, making new characters and then living in them and then being able to make more characters. I think it's just keeping it fresh and fun. So you know, it's—It depends what—what game we want to play what stories we want to tell. I don't know. I feel all this stuff is somewhere. I don't— I don't know the answer.
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Sometimes that is the answer. Dominic_wiki asks, what will Crudo say about Boo's state?
Eric: Write that fanfic and then send it to me.
Amanda: That's true. You can do whatever you want.
Eric: That's my answer to ev—to the majority of these questions.
Amanda: Similarly, from Mystery Dork, do you believe the best friends created their own camp later in life? What kind of Camp did they create? Sounds like a great headcanon you should explore in fanfic.
Brandon: Well, Julia said fucking no, there's only one camp so I guess not.
Julia: No, I—I shook my head. Meaning like I don't think these kids want to be associated with any sort of Camp anymore.
Brandon: No, you said that in the episode two, Julia.
Julia: Oh did I? Well, fuck me.
Amanda: Kazy asked, did Carrie-Ann lose her luster for camp after that summer? Or did it reaffirm her love of Camp Die? I—That's a great question. I'm not positive. I think she is more committed than ever to the idea that she specifically is the only person who can realize Camp Die's true potential and vision, and—and safeguarded against poor management. So that's my first instinct, but you know, just my headcanon.
Julia: I love that for her.
Brandon: I'm also not sure that she's wrong about that at this point. Like I think if, if Carrie-Ann, assuming the lessons that Carrie-Ann learn this summer stick, you know coming back later to like run the camp. I think it would probably be a better camp.
Amanda: Well, in terms of Carrie-Ann's future managerial problems. Michelle Spurgeon would like to know, what kind of trouble do you see the fairies causing, now that they have been invited in by Les?
Brandon: I don't think any–any.
Amanda: I don't think of any folktale, Julia, you're the expert here. So you tell me, in any folktale does inviting fae, influence on your mortal realm/life lead to any, any kind of conflict?
Julia: Oh, no, not at all. You're, you're probably fine. And like worst-case scenario, you could just like, revoke their permission to come into the camp with a ritual or something. I don't know.
Eric: What are you guys talking about? The Fae are so destructive and dangerous.
Julia: What?!
Eric: Do you listen? Do you even listen to Spirits podcast?
Julia: No.
Brandon: Eric, I'm the president of the fairies. It doesn't matter.
Eric: No, you're like, you're like the Doug Flutie. You're like the starting quarterback of the fairies.
Julia: LeBron James of the fairies.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, you're on cereal boxes. Well, that's it.
Amanda: You also love Sprite Cranberry.
Eric: Let's just—good reference, good reference.
Amanda: Thank you. They have a winter blend by the way of sprite cranberry, and I'm like do I want the sprite?
Eric: Try it. Try it.
Brandon: Oops all fairies, there it is.
Julia: It's all fairies.
Brandon: You get it?
Julia: Yes.
Eric: We're like oops no names.
Amanda: Yeah. What they don't tell you about sprite, is that this hidden ingredient is fairy poop.
Julia: Huh. Gross.
Eric: Hmm. Real.
Brandon: I—I kind of figured.
Amanda: Cat owl dolls, wants to know, what happens to the health and safety inspectors who come to Camp Die.
Eric: That's another good one. That's a good one.
Brandon: Here's genuinely my headcanon Right? Like, I don't want to put this down in canon at all, because I don't think it's as fun. But like in my head like if we exploded the picture out, like I think this is a like fairly monster-heavy world, where like people have magic and like the parents send these kids to Camp Die because maybe it's like, a secret that all these kids but like, you know, I think the parents know and the parents know what to expect, and like I—I think that's, that's why this camp exists. I don't know. I think it's— it's bigger. I think it's bigger!
Eric: Yeah. I—
Amanda: Like kids in high school are nonchalantly like, yeah, yeah. Then come back.
Eric: Yeah, we could go in one of two directions I think. Either it's an outlier or it's one of a series of camps that deal with monsters and stuff because you know, we touched on that with the— with the manual having like compulsory monster hunting in there, like rifle rake. I did just have another idea of a mystery where you discovered Diogenes, who never—who was still alive, but he sucks.
Julia: Yeaaah.
Amanda: Oh no.
Eric: So you need to keep him away from everyone else. It'd be a real caper.
Julia: That's very funny.
Amanda: That is really good.
Brandon: What happened to Avery, Eric? Just chillin?
Eric: Avery is down there. Yeah.
Julia: Yeah. They're fine.
Eric: I see. Yeah. I said Dave reaches down there in the—in the NPC wrap up. That there was a—Avery now has some new lacrosse equipment.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: True.
Amanda: Shelby Stud wants to know, what happened to the barbecue brothers, the brothers Boudreau. Did they ever get the statue of their grandpappy back?
Julia: No, the alicanto ate it.
Amanda: Did they make a new statue out of like, cheese curds or something? And now it's like freeze-dried in their display, in their store?
Julia: Yeah, like they make butter sculptures.
Brandon: The butter sculpture.
Julia: Thank you, Brandon butter sculpture.
Amanda: Is that what happened?
Eric: I—who could say? I don't know.
Julia: Butter is as good as gold.
Amanda: Dominique asks, will there be a way to put Boo's soul into a human body?
Eric: Great question. It's called Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood.
Amanda: Rikyjana, what do you think the best friends will study after high school? Will they end up in college?
Julia: Huh.
Brandon: I mean, yes for Les.
Amanda: Organization Change Management.
Julia: Yeah, that makes sense.
Eric: So you got a certification for like nonprofit which doesn't mean anything.
Amanda: Yeah. Like how to run—how to run camps and like recreational organizations.
Julia: Love that for you.
Brandon: Yeah. I think Les would go into sort of like wildlife management. You know, like that kind of thing where you end up like as a director of a national park or something.
Amanda: Yeah, it's like any creative writing degree at NYU like nominally it's an English everyone knows it's in writing. It's—it's like that, but instead of studying cryptozoology, you study wildlife management, and then you go poink.
Julia: I know how to track bears and other things.
Amanda: How about you Phoebe, any thoughts?
Brandon: Yeah, what's Phoebe doing?
Julia: Oh, English Major. 100%.
Eric: She's one of the Seven Sisters. It's called book smarts.
Amanda: Cute.
Julia: Yep, yep.
Amanda: Late Salmon asks, will the best friend stay friends if they don't go back to camp?
Julia: We're best friends forever.
Amanda: We're best friends for life. Alright folks, couple more. This is from Isabel, what's a question about Camp Die you or the PCs have unanswered that you wanted to know? And I think Cat owl dolls, asked my question which is, will Les and Big Foot ever be reunited?
Brandon: They do get married actually. Down the line.
Julia: Oh, that makes sense. I like that. And Phoebe the like ordained minister for their wedding.
Eric: That's like all that fan art of like Bowser and Luigi as a couple.
Amanda: Yup, yup.
Julia: I think I would have wanted to know more about like the—we did a little wave handy around it, but like the cult that was the order of Diogenes before the camp was found us.
Eric: Oh, yeah, for sure.
Amanda: Totally.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: That's like season the enemy of season three.
JULIA: Yeah.
Amanda: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Julia: 100%.
Brandon: I don't know. I feel pretty satisfied. I think you know, I would love to always want to see more fun monsters, but you know, nothing specific.
Eric: Yeah, I mean, I keep thinking this like a television show. You know, it's like either you leave it at the season finale, you figure out what's going to be the next season you know.
Brandon: Right.
Eric: So I don't know. I don't know we would have—we would have figured it out.
Amanda: And finally, an important question from Ralts. If Tater Tot could talk all along. How about pizza the dog?
Eric: No, pizza can't talk. Pizza can't talk.
Amanda: Pizza just the dog, Ralt.
Julia: Pizza is just a sweet rescue boy.
Brandon: Or who knows? Maybe in a couple of years when we do growing up, college, best friends going to the Gaga in Lake-town City.
Eric: Jesus.
Amanda: It's true.
Julia: Oh God, so many layers.
Brandon: It's the MCU baby.
Amanda: It could be it could be 30 years before or after the discovery of diafra. We don't know.
Julia: We don't know.
Eric: Wild oh my God.
Julia: Who can say?
Brandon: Maybe Le—maybe the best friends of the parents of Aggie and the crew.
Amanda: Oh no, it's one of them Milo's mom.
Eric: Whaaat?
Amanda: Alright guys, let's—let's stop this train of thought it's getting too metaphysical from the up in here. Let's finish with a few questions about the podcast and then talk about, darat, darat da, what's next.
Brandon: Yay.
Eric: Yay.
Amanda: Kazy asks Brandon, did this season present any interesting audio challenges different to previous campaigns?
Brandon: Uh, I wouldn't say anything different. I did like self impose a set of like music tracks, I could choose from. Because I wanted to keep it sort of tonally consistent. But other than that, I think just making Eric do funny folder for me, it was always fun.
Julia: Nice.
Eric: Yeah, I've been leaning into that a lot more.
Amanda: Eric, I'll extend this to planning, unlike all of our other campaigns where we played like each play session translated to one episode. In this case, we played a whole mystery, which was two or in the finales case, three episodes in one session. So how did that affect your planning? And what did you like or not like about that versus d&d planning?
Eric: Yeah, I was always worried that episode one was not as good as episode two like all the cool stuff was in the second episode because the first episode was set up. Like, obviously, let's take the—-the Crudo Anaconda one, right? He's like, you guys roasted him for like 30 minutes. And I'm not gonna stop you. That's very funny. But then it felt like that whole episode was just roasting. And then we move on, there is a thing in dungeons and daddies, where they call it like, a one-foot episode because they only ended up like one-foot out the door from the beginning of the end. And like, they have that issue a lot. I don't think we have that issue quite as much. But then again, like the wave of this got split, it felt like all the action was in episode two, which is I mean, that's just how Monster of the Week works.
Brandon: I mean, that's how bunch of like TV works frequently to us, too parted, you know.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Right. But uh, you know, it's like, these are supposed to be single episodes of Monster of the Week, you know, so but it's like, just the way that we're like, that's, that's how actual play podcasting works, you know.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: So I'm going to be glad that we can go back to maybe one episode at a time, just so I have a better gauge of this stuff. But then again, we're gonna figure out a recording schedule for campaign three, and just figure out what, what the deal is.
Amanda: Yeah, TBD?
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: Paul wants to know from all of us, what you like about Monster of the Week compared to other systems you've played. I can start because I've said versions of this in previous after-parties. But I love that rolling badly, was just as interesting and gave me just as much agency as rolling well, and it's something I'm going to really take into our next campaign, is being a little bit less afraid of trying things if I might not succeed, or thinking about problems and situations a little more creatively, where even a partial or mixed success is narratively interesting. Like, a lot of it is just me holding myself back, and not going for stuff unless I'm pretty sure I can succeed. That's what my control freak brain really enjoyed playing among for that reason because key points really let you kind of like optimize when you go for something, and when you don't. But I'm going to try to have a more scattershot approach to the action I take next. Next campaign.
Julia: Yeah, I agree with that. I was gonna say the same thing, like the—having mixed successes is, is a lot of fun. And I think I—I don't know how you're feeling Eric, but I think it would be fun to in campaign three, like, if you're within one to two dice points of the target, then like, you get some kind of mixed success or whatever it is, but, yeah, I like that, that mechanic a lot.
Eric: I think I'm gonna bring that in aesthetically, or just like in my vibes as well, for that, I'm not gonna put any sort of mechanical stuff around it. But I have been thinking a lot about like, what does it mean to fail? What does it mean to kind of succeed and it's just—listen, this is—they pretend like there's a structure here, but it's really like, it happens but only a little bit and I got to do that in dungeons & dragons anyway. So maybe I'll keep like one in my brain. I won't do something that mechanically in that rigid but I—I definitely want to bring that, that vibe into our dice rolls. If, if we ended up playing a D-20 system in the future.
Brandon: Oh, oh, oh.
Eric: Oh.
Julia: I think for me, I— I've said multiple times I really liked kind of held loosey-goosey the rules were for Monster of the Week, especially when it came to the magic system. And I could just be like, I take my soul out of my body and I put it in Jennii's skin sack, and we could just do that as long as I rolled well enough and that is very cool to me.
Amanda: Hell yeah.
Brandon: I also like the experience tracker in monster of the week versus d&d.
Amanda: Right.
Brandon: Like the—-whenever you fail, you get a checkbox, and then you get to like because no one ever plays the point system really, unless you're like, really hardcore Dnd-ier
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: And so it ends up just being--
Amanda: At least not in podcasting.
Brandon: Yeah you level up.
Julia: Milestone.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: Hey, Brandon, if you want to tell me when you level up. Just let—just let me know.
Brandon: Oh Eric, I’m level 20.
Julia: You're like, Eric I actually think I leveled up now so.
Eric: Oh, wait, oh, that's why I don't tell—let you choose what level you are.
Amanda: Eric, I'm starting at level blue eyes white dragon. Does that work for you?
Eric: I'm starting at level exodia. And [mumbles] No, I—I really like the leveling-up mechanics as well. It really takes a lot of pressure off of the DM to like, be in control of everything, gives it—it's. That shouldn't be what it is. And you want to give him the facilities that.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Hell yeah. And finally from I am Noah Schmidtke, Eric, when can I go to camp for real?
Eric: They have these great things called summer camps. And you can go and you can work there and donate your time. And I'm sure that as an adult, you can do that and have meaningful relationships with the campers and your fellow staff. You can just do it. And I'm sure a lot of you did that too. I poured a lot of m—my feelings and memories of Camp into this. That I haven't really been able to interact with in quite a long time. So I'm really happy about it. But you can—I'm sure you have that yourself or you can find that for yourself. And whatever you did over the summer.
Julia: Ohh.
Amanda: Ohh.
Eric: This is me. It's called art. It's fucking called Art.
Amanda: What sound sentimental and silly. I don't know.
Eric: Yeah, that's why I'm giving all of my DMing off to an AI after this.
Julia: Nooooo. It can't do hands. It can't do hands. It's just stealing, it's bad. AnYway.
Amanda: Alright, people, listeners players, loved ones friends, and family. I don't know where I'm going with this. Governor. I am really excited for what's happening next in Join The Party. I am the governor of fun. That's my new title, no I don’t know.
Eric: I like governor of fun.
Julia: No, you're the governor of fun now, Amanda.
Amanda: Great.
Julia: Print out those business cards.
Amanda: Yes. Cabinet, thank you for assembling. Here's what's happening next on Join The Party. So we are next Tuesday going to do a little bonus ep, we're gonna do a full drop of a Party Planning episode, so that non-patrons can enjoy all of the goodness we've been doing over on Party Planning as well. Because it'll be that netherworld between winter holidays and the New Year. Then in January, Eric, do you like a guest or like a character, like a voice who could sort of to introduce us to what we're doing for January?
Eric: I'm Scoot McGarry and this is the Oneshot Derby.
Amanda: What's that Scoot?
Julia: Whoa.
Eric: Well the year of 1942. And we're sponsored by chocolate that probably is mostly acid.
Julia: Okay.
Amanda: Certainly during rationing.
Eric: Yeah. We're rationing. The boys oversee being the chocolate, and we're doing the Oneshot Derby I can't do this voice and deliver details at the same time. Amanda, take it away.
Amanda: So Scoot, thank you so much for that introduction. So in the Oneshot Derby, we are going to play character creation sessions for three different game systems. We're going to make full characters explore our worlds, names, voices, the whole shebang for three different, and when I say different, I mean very wildly, totally, and like mechanically different kinds of games. And then let you our listeners vote on which game we play a full one shot of for our patrons. Sound fun?
Julia: Hell yeah, hell yeah, hell yeah.
Brandon: I'm in.
Amanda: I am so excited. So the first three weeks, the new year, we're gonna drop those three, one-shot character creation sessions, we're going to finish up with an after party all about these games, these worlds, these characters. I just—I can't pick a favorite because all of us have come up with incredible characters for these Derby episodes. And then we'll have a public poll where everybody can vote on which one they love the most. But you got to become a patron to listen to the full thing.
Eric: We also all made characters. I also made a characters.
Amanda: Yes. We've 16 characters for you to fall in love with in January. I'm so excited. And then mark your calendars people. Tuesday, January 31st, 2023. A special fifth Tuesday of the month. Remember no more bad Tuesdays, it would have been two bad Tuesdays in January—
Julia: Whoah.
Amanda: —if, if we hadn't gotten gone correct in 2022.
Brandon: January is bad. Geez.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: We are going to begin campaign three.
Eric: Can we say do we want to say what game system we’re playing?
Julia: Yes, tell all the people.
Amanda: Tell the people Eric. Tell the people, tell people give them a clue.
Eric: We are—I'm just gonna say we are returning to Dungeons and Dragons, though, We're doing quite a lot of work to bring the game into the year of our Lord 2023, to play a specific story, and make up for some shortfalls and do some very interesting stuff. That's what I can say to that.
Amanda: Oh guys, I'm so excited. It's going to be so much fun. I'm so excited for the derby. I'm excited for you all to hear it, so you won't be missing the Tuesday people, and no more bad Tuesday's here. So we will see you next week with a Party Planning drop. We'll see you in January with the Oneshot Derby. And then January 31. Campaign three begins.
[everyone weees]
Eric: I feel like we need to throw something into some fire, right?
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Like I'm trying to think of how to—how to end this.
Brandon: Eric, stop lighting the studio on fire. I've asked you so many times.
Eric: No, I don't like authority.
Julia: But remember there's a crackling noise underneath this entire episode.
Eric: That's right. And Julia speed it up. And then we get really loud.
Julia: Nothing happens.
Eric: Okay.
Amanda: Alright, everybody. Much love, hope you enjoyed camp, and we'll see you next time.
Brandon: Bye guys.
Julia: Later.
Eric: Byee!
Amanda: May your rolls, trend ever upward.
Transcriptionist: Kristianne
Editor: KM