Welcome back to the One Shot Derby, the character creation competition between three different TTRPGs! After we play all four(!!) games, The People will vote on the game in which we’ll play out the one shot.
This week, we’re playing The Great Soul Train Robbery by Alexi Sargeant. The entire podcast is a morality play, when you think about it.
Look out for the voting link for the One Shot Derby winner NEXT TUESDAY!
Housekeeping
- LIVE IN PORTLAND, March 23! Get your tickets at jointhepartypod.com/live
Find Us Online
- website: jointhepartypod.com
- patreon: patreon.com/jointhepartypod
- instagram: instagram.com/jointhepartypod
- bluesky: bsky.app/profile/jointhepartypod.com
- twitter: twitter.com/jointhepartypod
- tumblr: jointhepartypod.tumblr.com
- facebook: facebook.com/jointhepartypod
- merch & music: jointhepartypod.com/merch
Cast & Crew
- Game Master, Co-Producer: Eric Silver
- Co-Host, Co-Producer: Brandon Grugle
- Co-Host, Co-Producer: Julia Schifini
- Co-Host, Co-Producer: Amanda McLoughlin
- One Shot Derby edited by: Mischa Stanton
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
- Multitude Podcasts: https://multitude.productions
About Us
Join the Party is an actual play podcast with tangible worlds, genre-pushing storytelling, and collaborators who make each other laugh each week. We welcome everyone to the table, from longtime players to folks who’ve never touched a roleplaying game before. Hop into our current campaign, a pirate story set in a world of plant- and bug-folk, or marathon our completed stories with the Camp-Paign, a MOTW game set in a weird summer camp, Campaign 2 for a modern superhero game, and Campaign 1 for a high fantasy story. And once a month we release the Afterparty, where we answer your questions about the show and how we play the game. New episodes every Tuesday.
Transcript
[theme]
Amanda (as Scout McGarry): Hi, everybody. It's me, Scout McGarry. Great news, an armistice has been reached. It's September 2nd, 1945 and nothing bad will ever happen again. Too bad we had to call this the second world war because there was one before, but certainly, there won't be a third. Hello, It's me, Scout. Welcome to the One Shot Derby.
Brandon: Hi, Scout. Hi, Scout.
Julia: Hi, Scout. How is Gloves doing?
Amanda (as Scout McGarry): Oh, Gloves is doing great. Gonna just figure out her digestive issues. She seems to really like the sort of, like, very hard and knobbly carrots that have not been used for the boys abroad. But now that better carrots are available, I'm feeling great about her future.
Julia: Good. I'm really happy for her.
Eric: Is it gonna be hard when the men take all the meat back? Is that gonna be hard for Gloves?
Amanda (as Scout McGarry): Oh, surely, they won't take our jobs and set back gender and racial relations by several decades. Why would that happen?
Julia: No.
Amanda (as Scout McGarry): And certainly, this is not an excuse to reflect on my role in the world as a broadcaster, and here in the United States of America, and kind of how we impact the world and the world impacts us. And certainly, not to reflect on morality and perhaps visions of heaven and hell, and how I should update it for this, the middle 20th.
Brandon: I also do not like Nazis, Scout. Yay!
Julia: Yay! It's not— that's not a controversial thing to say right now.
Amanda (as Scout McGarry): What an obvious statement. Why would you take up airtime, caller, by calling in and telling me about that?
Julia: Wait, I like that we're all callers on Scout's show.
Eric: Hey, Scout. I want to talk about the Jets.
Amanda (as Scout McGarry): The military jets, even now flying home with our boys from abroad?
Eric: Yeah. Aaron Rodgers is bad.
Amanda (as Scout McGarry): Aaron Rodgers, a wholesome American name. I'm not going to trouble the definition of American, because we're all American. It's all fine.
Brandon: Nobody was immunized in 1945.
Julia: We didn't have a polio vaccine yet.
Eric: It was cool to have an iron lung. I wish I had one.
Amanda (as Scout McGarry): Me, Scout, certainly won't be fired for a man when he gets home from the war.
Eric: This is the third episode of the second annual, quote-unquote, "One Shot Derby", folks.
Julia: It's definitely not annual.
Amanda: It's biannual, every other year.
Brandon: Was it?
Eric: We had to stop because of the war and also because we were doing the Winter Olympics.
Brandon: Hmm.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: On the other year. Well, we do character creation on the odd years, and we do skeleton—
Amanda: Uh-huh.
Eric: —and bobsled on the even years.
Brandon: Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Amanda: Sometimes in whole different countries, by the way, a wild thing about the modern Olympics.
Julia: Camp-Annual, like, because it's every campaign and—
Eric: Oh, I like that.
Julia: —when the campaign ends, we do this.
Brandon: I like that. Yeah, yeah.
Julia: Camp-Annual.
Eric: Campa— it's the Camp-Annuals, the second Camp-Annual One Shot Derby.
Amanda: Oh.
Julia: There we go.
Eric: We're doing an interesting tabletop RPG today, which kind of took us in some interesting directions. We're doing the Great Soul Train Robbery, a game of Desperados robbing the train to hell by Alexi Sargeant.
Brandon: Wee.
Amanda: Yay!
Julia: Yay!
Brandon: Wee
Eric: Woo. Julia, let's start with you, because this all started because you wanted to do a weird West game.
Julia: I really wanted to do a Weird West game.
Eric: Why do you like Weird West?
Julia: I think it's fun and it's also, like, not necessarily super different than what we were doing. I think pirates and cowboys are very similar—
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: —in terms of, like, the genre and the vibe.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Julia: Just one is somewhere really dry and one is somewhere really wet.
Brandon: Oh.
Eric: Yeah. Either you dry the wets or you wet the dries, as a desperado, for sure.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: Has anyone told them that if they just combined forces, they would have a perfectly neutral, balanced time?
Amanda: That doesn't sound like fun.
Julia: Huh. Yeah. And so I really like Weird West in particular, because, as we all know, I love a little paranormal twist on things, and I just think that cowboys are neat.
Eric: And you like weird stuff?
Julia: And I like weird stuff.
Eric: Huh? Weird.
Julia: Those are the two things.
Brandon: Hmm. Weird.
Eric: So I was poking around for some Weird West games that we could do. Some of them are pretty crunchy. I wanted something that was not a one-pager and not like, "Hey, you have to learn all of Savage Worlds first before you can play this game." So I found this game, and it turns out that we know who Alexi Sargeant is, Amanda and I.
Amanda: Yeah, he's the husband of my friend, Leah Libresco, who's my friend Ivan’s friend from way back in the day. We all come from the late aughts, Catholic and atheist, overlapping Venn diagram blogosphere. And now, we're adults with careers, and both of us happen to love games.
Brandon: Is that also Zach Libresco's—
Eric: Yes.
Julia: Yes, that's Zach Libresco's brother-in-law.
Brandon: Brother-in-law?
Amanda: And when Zach Libresco was a person in podcasting, I was like, "I know your sister." It was very strange.
Eric: So I was looking and I was reading this, and I was like, "Wow, there's a lot of talk about allegory and religion in this. And I'm like, "Oh, it's coming from a guy who writes about religion," which is where I know Alexi from. So this is interesting. Let's— I'm gonna read the overview, and I want to have a larger conversation about, like, what tabletop RPGs could do as allegory and religion? So check this out. This is the about the game section, "On the road to hell, there is a railway line, an express train to the infernal city of Dis, crewed by furies and carrying treasure and souls to damnation."
Julia: I want to point out real quick.
Amanda: Not furies.
Julia: Furies, not furies.
Brandon: Furies, yeah.
Eric: Oh, I intentionally tried to not say furies and I said furies.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: I did the same thing when I was reading it.
Amanda: The internet is crewed by furies, so it's a— it's very easy to mix them up.
Eric: For sure. "You're going to rob it—" see, I'm not doing it again. I'm owning my mistake.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: "You're going to rob it. You're a motley crew of Desperados with mixed motives. Will you claim your prize from the train, or will you be overcome, damned or broken by the heist? The Great Soul Train Robbery is a tabletop role-playing game inspired by the works of Hadestown, pretty deadly, and the celestial railroad that will help you tell an allegorical, Weird West story about the crew of Desperados and their attempt to rob the train to hell."
Julia: I will say the first line of the overview is literally a line from Hadestown, so that makes sense.
Brandon: Is it really?
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Julia: Yes.
Eric: Hmm, okay. Well, that makes sense. I was really interested in this because of how it's like— you know, tabletop games are all allegories, right? Because you're using a game system to tell a story that you want to but you want rules, so that you're not just like going around the campfire and making whatever happen, right? The layers of separation of storytelling and gameplay that I see in tabletop RPGs are similar to the layers that it separate, both like the story you're trying to tell or the characters in the story from their archetypes or the moral or the theme you're trying to get across, in a religious way. It's like, how does it feel? It feels better to us as people to take extra steps to get to the thing that we're trying to do, and it's fun to get there when we're playing a tabletop RPG, and that's the difference between reading like a allegory or a story as opposed to getting sermonized.
Julia: Uh- hmm.
Brandon: Right, right, right.
Eric: And I just find the tension in that really interesting.
Brandon: Yeah, I love it.
Amanda: That's what I call the Betty Crocker effect. They could just put dehydrated egg in there, and you can add water, but you want to crack an egg to feel like you're baking. And I totally feel the same way, where something will strike me when I come at it a little bit from the side, in the form of a tangent or a metaphor, than it does if you just read some good advice.
Brandon: Also, Betty Crocker is a cheap motherfucker.
Eric: I also saw this on Bluesky that I just wanted to share, which I thought was really funny. It turns out that someone wrote an Adventurer's Guide to the Bible 5e at some point.
Julia: This is so funny. You posted in the channel, and the description from the game is genuinely hilarious.
Brandon: Have you all ever— did y'all ever to have— I know you didn't, Eric, obviously, but it's not called the teen Bible, obviously, but there were, like, RAD Bibles that were, like, more easily readable for—
Amanda: Catholics don't do that, Brandon.
Julia: No. I had a children's Bible, but I didn't have, like, the RAD Bible.
Brandon: Yeah, like the Children's Bible. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Julia: Uh-uh.
Brandon: It— but they're all like— the covers are all, like, full art and, like, really, like, exciting and bold, and I don't know.
Julia: No.
Brandon: That's what I'm imagining when you say adventures.
Julia: No. No.
Eric: Brandon, like most things that come from the mouths of the McElroy brothers, I thought it was a joke, but it turns out it came from their religious upbringing in West Virginia. I did not know the Extreme Teen Bible existed until I dug into it.
Brandon: Well, the Extreme— is the Extreme Teen Bible literally one?
Julia: I think that's the McElroy one.
Eric: That's the one from Adventure Zone balance that—
Brandon: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Eric: —is the only reason why I know it.
Amanda: I want to say, I think it's also really cool that we are reading a game that is an allegory by a person who is deeply religious. Like Alexi is a Catholic artist that means something to him. And instead of kind of talking about how the vestiges or atmosphere of Christianity, specifically Catholicism, and especially by lapsed Catholics, who then become sci-fi writers, of which total respect.
Eric: True. True.
Amanda: There is a whole community of y'all out there. I really, you know, appreciate you.
Eric: Oh, no. I've said before that the person you have to be to enjoy fantasy is a lapsed Catholic.
Amanda: Right.
Eric: I've said that before.
Amanda: But I think it's awesome that we are reading something about, like, a person for whom a religious allegory is a very, like, alive and present part of their daily life. As someone who, myself, went from lapsed Catholic to religious in a different way. I'm Jewish now. Yeah.
Julia: Just in case you didn't know.
Eric: We got them, folks. We got them. Can I read you the section of the Adventurer's Guide to the Bible? Which I find really funny.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Julia: I hoped you would.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: I shared this, but basically, there is a section in the Adventurer's Guide to the Bible 5e where it's okay if Jesus, A, doesn't die or, B, the party kills Jesus.
Amanda: Because that's the point?
Julia: No, no, Jesus has to die.
Eric: No, no, Julia. No, Julia. That's the monk twisting around to write this. Again, I'm also envisioning that a monk, while brewing beer, wrote this at the same time.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Basically— okay. It's called Embracing Destiny. Jesus is going to die.
Julia: First statement, period.
Eric: First sentence. For more on how his death affects the adventure mechanically—
Julia: Mechanically?
Eric: "—see the true atonement box below. The great mistake made by the Magi was their assumption that Jesus needed to be protected. In actuality, the single most important part of Jesus' mission is to die and to die by human hands."
Brandon: Jesus Christ.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: "In the narrative of the gospel, this happens because he's betrayed by Judas and handed over to the high priest of the—" blah, blah blah, blah.
Amanda: Blah, blah blah, blah.
Eric: "Pontius Pilate," blah, blah, blah. "Ideally, these things still play out this way at the table… but…"
Julia: Dot, dot, dot.
Eric: And then there's a whole thing about, "This is a role-playing game. You want them to."
Brandon: That's really funny.
Julia: Wait, I really like this line, if you'll allow me.
Eric: Please.
Julia: Which is, "If your players feel exceptionally driven to alter history, either by protecting Jesus at all costs or by playing a role in bringing about his death themselves, don't panic."
Amanda: And Eric, this is just like going around Bluesky as a thing that people are like, "This exists."
Eric: Someone mentioned it, and it just came into my feed, which I thought was so funny. It's— Jesus dies, but like in the way that they did in the— in Enter the Spider-Verse.
Amanda: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
Eric: Like Jesus will die somehow, but how he does is up to you and how play goes, which is such a funny mashup of, like, tabletop— again, which is why I find the game that we're about to dive into, so interesting, of mashing up the dogma of Christianity with play to find out what happens.
Julia: It's also really Final Destination-y the way they describe it, because I'm like—
Amanda: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was going to say, "This is a real Final Destination situation. I don't want to come across disrespectful."
Julia: No. But it— what it says is like, "Oh, you know, the player's choices might inadvertently or intentionally bring about Jesus' death. Great." In that case, they just replace the role of Judas in the narrative. If the party is obsessed with protecting Jesus from all danger, great, that will just lead to a cool story moment when they finally fail. So it's like—
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: —Jesus has to die no matter what. And then the last paragraph starts with, "And don't be afraid to get creative. Jesus doesn't need to be crucified, as long as he's killed by a conscious choice made by a human being. The prophecy can be fulfilled."
Brandon: He can't just slip on a banana peel.
Julia: No.
Amanda: Again, it's theologically sound and also so funny to put in your rule book.
Julia: So funny to write out.
Eric: When you really start to lay out things about, like, our modern religions, this guy wrote the prophecy can be fulfilled about Jesus.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Not about, like, the aspects of Persephone that we learned about in the last episode.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: No, it's direct.
Eric: Jesus.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Oh, my God.
Brandon: Hey, you know, it's funny that I just learned because you've said this whole thing about being a lapsed Catholic, you know, for role-playing for a long, long time, and that never resonated with me, because obviously I'm not a lapsed Catholic. But I was like, "I must be in the minority." And so I was just Googling to figure out the breakdown of Christian religions, and far and away, it's Protestant— is the— is in the states.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Yes.
Brandon: But I was like—
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: —"Okay, so where does the Catholic stuff come from?" And I found a map, and it's literally just New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts are, like, these three states with Catholics, and everyone else is Protestant.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: And then they— and then they all moved to LA, yeah, Brandon.
Amanda: Or publish TTRPGs from Austin.
Brandon: It's really funny.
Eric: Someone responded to this and said, like, "Oh, it'd be really funny, it'd be really great if this didn't go the way that it wanted to. You flash forward to modern Christianity and you see what symbol they use."
Brandon: That's really funny.
Eric: And I was like, "I don't think you understand what game they're playing here, if you want them to get creative about the symbology of Christianity, from the people who bought The Adventurer's Guide to the Bible 5E."
Amanda: Wait, but it is pretty funny to imagine a two by four going into someone's chest as the symbol.
Julia: Just a stake. Like just getting staked in the heart.
Brandon: Just like a vampire?
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: But since its fifth edition, though, like then the symbol is going to be someone doing fireball.
Julia: Just— it's a person covered in flames, which is a pretty cool symbol for your religion.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: I'm not gonna lie.
Eric: Yeah, if you were in the Game of Thrones.
Juila: I stand by it.
Eric: Brandon, the reason why I say the thing about you got to be a lapsed Catholic to enjoy fantasy is just like— I think it also comes from the amount of, like, actual play I've consumed. So when someone needs to come up with their own story, it's like, "Okay, there's a nice god and there's a mean god, and you talk to the nice god." And I'm like—
Brandon: Right, yeah.
Eric: —"Oh, that's Jesus, right?" And, like, the unknowability is the Holy Spirit. And also, every time someone wants to make a religion, I'm looking at you, Austin Walker, they can't stop making three different aspects at the same time. Even when they—
Brandon: Yeah, yeah.
Eric: —know they're doing it, they do it again and again.
Brandon: Well, I actually— I also thought it was interesting, because the amount that it portrays itself in culture, the lapse-ness of Catholic-ness is so outsized for the amount of Catholics.
Eric: Oh, yeah. For sure.
Brandon: And that just shows you how much guilt and shame Catholicism places upon young children.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: And how influential Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, two specific Catholics who wrote high fantasy—
Eric: True.
Amanda: —have on the modern genre. And actually, Eric, looking at the Great Soul Train Robbery by Alexi, made me think of things like The Great Divorce, which is a non-fiction book by C. S. Lewis, who wrote a lot of theological books about Catholicism, which is one big metaphor about how heaven, hell and purgatory is like a bus, taking you from mortality up into the sky to see what's next. Which is like a beautiful metaphor, but something that is, I'm sure, known by a lot of the audience that Alexi is writing for.
Eric: Hmm.
Brandon: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
Eric: That's interesting. No, I didn't even know that. That's why there's a lion running next to the train the entire time.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: I wonder how many Catholics there were in the UK or Britain at that time. I was curious. I haven't thought about that before.
Julia: Not a ton.
Eric: Well, they invented their own church there, so that's why they don't have a lot of Catholic.
Brandon: What? You could just venture a church?
Eric: If you're the king, my man.
Brandon: What?
Eric: And you want divorces.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: If you're the king or L. Ron Hubbard
Eric: For real, real, real, real.
Julia: If you're the king and the Pope says, "You can't get divorced," and you really want a divorce." You say, "I have a new religion now."
Eric: Oh, right. That's the other thing, that every religion has a pope. That's the other part of Catholic.
Brandon: Hmm. Well, Eric, they have funny hats, so that's just fun.
Amanda: Catholicism is our frilliest Christian denomination outside of Eastern Orthodox. I know, I know, if I'm— I know.
Eric: Well, it's like, "Oh, you know who the enemy is? The evil Pope." It's like, "You're a lapsed Catholic. I know you are."
Julia: Hmm.
Eric: Okay. So let's do the character creation here, because I want to do the Weird West stuff, and we'll all make characters, as we usually do. And someone— one of these characters might die before they get on the train when one of us—
Amanda: Yes.
Eric: —runs the game. But also, a very important part of this game is who the conductor is, and I want to make sure that the four of us come up with that together.
Brandon: Hmm.
Eric: And we can explore the suggestions that Alexi wrote, and Bligh is the kind of— the area that he's coming from, or I'll just tell you right now, he calls Cain, of Cain and Abel, the first Desperado.
Julia: Cool.
Amanda: I mean, yeah.
Eric: I wanted to make fun of it, and I'm like, "No, that's— you're right. For what you're doing, you have achieved it, absolutely."
Brandon: That's so cool.
Amanda: Yeah. That stab of emotion was envy that I didn't say it first, actually.
Julia: Hmm. Uh-hmm.
Amanda: I didn't think about it.
Eric: I didn't know I could just come out and say it. I didn't know I could just do that. All right. So character creation is pretty simple in this one. You choose a class of Desperado, which we're gonna go through, then you're motivated by a nobler motive, but you're also motivated by a baser motive.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: We can roll d6s for this, but I thought we'd just be able to choose them if we were interested.
Brandon: I want to roll—
Julia: I— yeah, I want to roll just to—
Brandon: Well, I think you can choose to roll or not roll, I think that's fair, but I want to roll.
Julia: Yeah. I think it's also cool, because you're rolling three dice at the same time, and then you can select what, like, table you want to apply that dice to, very similar to Fiasco.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: Oh, that's fun. I'm gonna roll for my motives, but I want to choose my class.
Julia: Okay, okay, I'm gonna roll.
Eric: That's fair.
Amanda: I'm gonna roll.
Brandon: Real quick, I just want to show you guys.
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Brandon: I picked out three d6s randomly from my bag, and I got, like, a mama bear, a baby bear, and a father— papa bear.
Amanda: Aw.
Eric: Brandon, it's a 666, watch out.
Julia: Wait, there's actually mechanic for that in this game, too.
Eric: Brandon, it's the mark of the piece, your dice.
Brandon: It's fine. I'm not a lapsed Catholic, it's fine.
Eric: Yep. Okay, let me just read out all of the things on this table. So the classes of Desperado, we have sharpshooter, snake handler, renegade fury, fiddler, tomboy, which I think is just like a woman pretending to be a man, which I find very funny, homestead or widow.
Amanda: Woo!
Eric: Gambler, saw bones, revivalist, cattle rustler, blind drifter, and runaway bride.
Julia: I also want to point out the fact that each of these has a specialty in parentheses. And so, like, for example, the fiddler's specialty is fast-talking/fast-playing and I— I've rolled and I'm kind of— I've already decided what class I want to do based on that.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Julia: And I want to do Runaway Bride because the specialty is promises.
Brandon: Oh.
Eric: Yeah, that's cool.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: Hell yeah.
Brandon: I— that was the one— I— before we got on this call, I— where Julia and I were chatting, and I was like, "There's a lot of Julia coded classes in this game, and so I'm super curious to see which one you choose."
Julia: Was one of them--
Brandon: And one I most thought was like, "If Julia gets this, she's gonna get it." And it was Runaway Bride.
Julia: Fuck yeah, Brandon. You were correct.
Eric: No, wait, I want to clarify, tomboy is just being like a precocious 12-year-old girl.
Amanda: Oh.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Annie Oakley.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, Annie Oakley.
Brandon: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Eric: That's cool. Yeah. How do we want to do this? Do we just want to, like, pick like we all— pick our choices, and then we go around and make the characters?
Julia: Yeah, call them out.
Brandon: I think, Eric, because you had one you wanted, why don't you grab it so we don't accidentally grab— take it from you?
Eric: Oh, I wanted to be the Gambler, because each of these classes has a special item, and I thought the Gambler's was the absolute coolest.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Eric: So I wanted to be the Gambler. My specialty is million to one odds.
Amanda: Hell yeah. I just am going to go ahead, if it's okay with everybody, just, you know, as much as homesteader widow speaks to me, I did not roll a six. I did roll a two, so I am gonna be a snake handler whose specialty—
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: is poison/serpents.
Eric: Cool.
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: Oh, you don't want saw bones, Amanda?
Amanda: You know, been there and done that.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: But I do appreciate that Alexi includes two different tables, so you have two different choices, even if you go strictly by your roll. You'll see soon why I specifically want snake handler.
Julia: Yay.
Brandon: Well, I rolled a six, a six, and a three.
Julia: Ooh.
Brandon: Almost got 666.
Julia: Hmm.
Brandon: But that means I almost certainly am going to have to be the revivalist, because—
Amanda: Hmm.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: —we all here today—
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: —to read the wonderful works of Alexi Sargeant.
Amanda: Yep.
Brandon: And my specialty is sermonizing.
Eric: Hmm.
Julia: There you go.
Amanda: Hell yeah.
Eric: That might be helpful. The— Brandon, I think you just chose the bard.
Brandon: No, the fiddler is the bard.
Julia: No, I think fiddler is the bard.
Eric: Yeah, that's fine. Okay. Fair, fair, fair.
Julia: Different kind of bard.
Eric: All right. I'm gonna roll my dice so that I can figure out my motives.
Julia: Okay. I rolled mine already. Would you like me to go first again?
Amanda: Hell yeah.
Eric: Yeah, sure.
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: My nobler motive, because I— my other two options are a one and a six. I also almost rolled 666, Brandon.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: The mark of the beast. Aaaah!
Julia: I— I'm going to go with love as my nobler motive, which I think is—
Brandon: Aw.
Julia: —the runaway bride, is interesting.
Brandon: Aw.
Amanda: I'd love to go next, because my matching threes that I rolled means that—
Julia: Fuck yeah.
Amanda: —my nobler motive is faith. I believe in my ability to control these snakes, baby, but my baser motive is a death wish. When it goes wrong, it's gonna be really interesting, and I'm excited.
Julia: Oh, that means— sorry, my baser motive is sheer stubbornness.
Brandon: I mean, that also makes sense for your runaway bride.
Julia: I love it.
Eric: I rolled a three and a five, so these are really fun combos, what— it would be prophecy and a death wish.
Julia: I mean, that— those pair real well together.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Or it can be faith and boredom.
Brandon: I like faith and boredom.
Julia: Also pairs really well together.
Eric: I'm gonna do faith and boredom.
Amanda: Nice. Yeah.
Eric: I'm motivated by faith, maybe in myself, probably not religion. And— but I— my baser motive is boredom, which I find very funny.
Amanda: Hell yeah.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: Well, mine are— work again very well with my class, because I got two sixes, which means that my nobler motive is redemption, obviously.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: And my base her motive is also sheer stubbornness, so—
Julia: There we go.
Brandon: —I think that works for a preacher.
Amanda: This character is set up for true Brandon to shine.
Brandon: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, baby. I'm gonna be speaking in tongues by the end of this game.
Amanda: Love it.
Julia: Hell yeah, dawg.
Brandon: Have you all ever been to a church where they speak in tongues? I went once and it's [whistles]—
Amanda: No.
Julia: No.
Eric: Oh, you have? That's crazy.
Brandon: Oh, yeah. I had friends whose parents were Mennonites, and it was something to behold.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Hmm.
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Amanda: Hello, it's Amanda, and welcome over here to the midroll where I'm bringing you breaking news. All right, it's me, Amanda, not Scoot, because we are bringing you another episode of the derby. That's right, a bonus episode. You are not just going to get three character creation episodes from various TTRPGs. You are getting four, because in the time from when we started recording the One Shot Derby to now, Eric has written a whole TTRPG about being a true crime podcaster. It is incredibly funny. You are going to love it. Now, if you're a patron, you already previewed this game, because Eric was like, "Oops, I accidentally, a TTRPG." And then we all went through it and gave him ideas and feedback, and feedback, and it was so much fun. And you are going to love how the finished game came out. So get ready for another episode of the One Shot Derby next week, then we are going to start voting with an Afterparty, and then Campaign Four will start on Tuesday, March 25th, 2025. So thank you, and welcome to our newest supporters on Patreon. I hope you enjoyed the Party Planning episode of the true crime podcast game. Welcome Archive 78, Cassandra Martino, Mike Selfridge, Tory, Cat's House Two, and Isaac. If you, too, out there are loving the derby and want to make sure that you and all your friends can listen to the final full episode of the One Shot that you choose, you gotta sign up. Remember, only patrons will hear that final one shot, even though everybody will be able to vote. Join us today at patreon.com/jointhepartypod. And hey, remember, we are going to be live in Portland. Come on out. If you know someone in the Pacific Northwest, please make sure you tell them to check it out. I promise you don't need to know anything about Join the Party or Spirits, which is also performing that night, to have an excellent time. Get your tickets now at jointhepartypod.com/live. That is just over three weeks from now, folks, on March 23rd, 2025. There's so much happening at Multitude these days. I say that every week, and yet it never gets less true. It only gets more true. And I want to tell you about someone I got to hang out with last weekend, Sam Jones, co-host and executive producer of Tiny Matters, along with Deboki Chakravarti. This is Multitude's newest member show. And every single episode, Sam and Deboki take apart complex and contentious topics in science, to rebuild your understanding on topics from deadly diseases to ancient sewers, to forensic toxicology. It's truly incredible. You are going to love this podcast, so please check it out now. This is Tiny Matters. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We are sponsored today by Green Chef, which makes it easy to eat well, with recipes curated for a variety of lifestyles and dietary needs, with pre-made sauces, pre-portioned ingredients, there's less prep and less mess, and more time to savor delicious, affordable, restaurant-quality meals. They work with dietitians to develop recipe options, including fresh organic produce and quality Whole Foods delivered to your door each week. They really help you stay nourished, even on your busiest days, which I definitely struggle with. Breakfast is constantly a challenge for me. I'm typically not hungry for breakfast until I'm already at work, so being able to pop Green Chef breakfasts like their spinach and feta egg bites or their protein packed oatmeal into my work fridge at the start of the week means I don't even have to think about what I'm having for breakfast every day. It's genuinely so helpful. Thrive all year with clean, easy meals from Green Chef. Go to greenchef.com/jointhepartyfree and use code Join the Party Free to get started with free salads for two months plus 50% off your first box. One more time, thrive all year with clean, easy meals from Green Chef. Go to greenchef.com/jointhepartyfree and use code Join the Party Free to get started with free salads for two months, plus 50% off your first box.
[theme]
Eric: So I think what would be fun is if we go over everyone's character together, because you pick your name, and then you pick your special item for each one of these. For example, for the Sharpshooter, there's a d6 table for names like Reeve Bates and Roxy Backfire McDonald. Good job. Good job, Alexi. And then you get to pick your interesting gun, like a double-barreled shotgun nicknamed The Fool, or a Winchester rifle, the same one that killed your grandpappy. So I think it will be fun for us to go around in the order that we've been doing it, and help to put together each other's characters.
Julia: Yeah. I'll go first, then. Can I read the little, like, description?
Eric: Julia, I wish you would. I wish you would.
Julia: Of course. So the Runaway Bride, your runaway bride, your specialty is promises. Did you get cold feet and leave your perspective groom at the altar, or was something waiting for you there that you just knew wasn't him? Why are you still in your dress?
Amanda: Hmm.
Julia: Hmm.
Eric: I do appreciate that those are the only two options for why you would not want to get married.
Julia: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
Eric: It's like, "Sorry, they— that's it. Those are the only two." Either you got nervous and you're gonna come back, or your husband, he's a demon. He's done— been turn into a demon.
Brandon: I mean, aren't all husbands—
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: —Eric? Got 'em.
Julia: Got 'em.
Eric: The studio audience of Jerry Springer just stood up and glance.
Amanda (as Scout): I, for one, have enjoyed when all husbands were off in the war. It's been safe for women. It's gonna keep being good for women, right? Right.
Julia: Now, Scout, are you the runaway Bride?
Brandon: Scout, you should have died in the war, I'm so sorry. Just so you don't have to experience the future, is what I mean.
Julia: Oh, yeah, it's probably for the best. Let me think about the name, because there are some good names here, but I kind of want to do something different, as always.
Amanda: Julia's gonna do something home brewed.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah. I'd be curious if you have something fun for the revivalist as well.
Julia: Oh, I really— I like the name Finchley as a—
Brandon: Finchley.
Julia: —last name.
Brandon: Okay, I like that, too.
Julia: I'm just trying to figure out what the first name should be.
Eric: I like the adverb of Finch, as if like a Finch.
Julia: Yes.
Amanda (as Scout McGarry): Have you consider Scout?
Julia: I was thinking about it, honestly, Scout, you appeared. And I was like, "Oh, Scout, that's—"
Amanda (as Scout McGarry): A boy's name, very in during the war.
Julia: I think it's gonna be Josefina.
Amanda: Hmm, nice.
Brandon: Hmm. Gotcha.
Julia: Josefina Finchley.
Eric: Oh, yeah. You heard about Josie, the Runaway Bride?
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: She thought her husband done got turned into a done demon, and then she got out of there.
Brandon: The best part is when, once this game is over and you're dead, you can be a ghost, a runaway bride ghost.
Amanda: Ideal.
Julia: Uh-hmm. Totally into that, possibly.
Amanda: Classic.
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: And then my accessories are— which I really like the accessories for the Runaway Bride, so I have— number one is something borrowed, a fine lace veil your cousin pawned his gun to get you. Something blue, mama's lapis lazuli bracelet, which she swore wards off the evil eye. Something old, a locket granddad pressed into your hands on his deathbed. Something new, a pair of shiny boots that cost a pretty penny at the big city Cobbler. Number five, a bouquet of prairie thistles chosen for both beauty and prickliness. And six, the wedding rings, kept safe in a silk pouch and still unworn.
Eric: Julia, I would like to cast my lot behind number four, because—
Julia: Okay. Interesting.
Eric: —gosh, darn if this wasn't an allegory, we don't see the shiny boots get scuffed up and stained with demon blood as you change your fate.
Julia: Hmm. Okay. All right. Interesting, interesting. Anyone else have thoughts?
Amanda: The unworn rings are pretty unmatched in terms of symbolic weight for me.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: I can't never say no to a bouquet of prairie thistles.
Julia: Interesting, interesting. My instinct was the something blue, which is the bracelet that wards off the evil eye.
Eric: Yeah, that's a good one.
Julia: Because that's so, mwa, chef's kiss, beautiful.
Brandon: They're all good.
Eric: Here's my— okay. Julia, why did you not get married? I think that will help— maybe that will help you decide.
Julia: Oh, I really like the idea of— one of my favorite concepts is, like, the Weird West warlock pact.
Eric: Hmm.
Julia: Where it's like you sold your soul for something, and you're getting something else in return. And I really like the idea that maybe, like, I made a deal, and the price of that deal was the person at the altar is not who—
Brandon: Hmm.
Julia: —they used to be.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Eric: That's pretty good.
Brandon: That's fun.
Eric: So you're running away because you're like, "Actually, this sucks."
Julia: Yeah, actually, I want to renege on my deal.
Eric: "And whatever's at the end of this trade will definitely help me do that, bye."
Julia: Yes, I think there's, like, a way that I can get back what I promised.
Eric: Oh, then I— then the bracelet definitely makes more sense, because it's like, I always knew I was going to bail. I was gonna do it when the— I guess who would marry you in the way—
Julia: The preacher.
Eric: Yeah, when the preacher. When the—
Brandon: Oh, the reverend?
Eric: I— no, you're right. It would be the reverend. When the reverend— when old Reverend Patrick sneezes really hard, that's when I make my escape. And obviously, I have my— and I always have my bracelet on me.
Julia Yes. I think that's the one to go.
Eric: Like you were inside of your wedding dress, inside of your petticoats. You had, like, three days rations, a revolver, and your neck— and your bracelet.
Brandon: Don't all brides have that?
Julia: I actually— so I like the bracelet, but I'm also thinking now that like the wedding rings unworn, would have been like— when the wedding rings were exchanged, that's when my soul would have been like, you know, taken from me.
Eric: Hmm.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Julia: And so the fact that they are still with me, unworn means I still have a chance of finding the redemption.
Brandon: Hmm.
Eric: I like it.
Brandon: That's fun.
Julia: Cool. I'm gonna do the wedding rings.
Amanda: I also love a A-U-R-A-L, aural component to a haunting and, like, the clinking, the very delicate clinking of the rings in a pouch, is giving me little shivers.
Julia: Hell yeah.
Brandon: You can say aural, right?
Amanda: Well, that sounds like I'm putting on a Texas accent. Aural, aural.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: It does. Aural.
Eric: It doesn't count if it's aural.
Amanda: Oh, no. Eric, have you been watching Landman again?
Eric: I have. Season finale was fine.
Brandon: The other day, Laura and I were talking about the saying, "You get what you get and you don't get upset."
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: And I was like, "It's so weird, because set and get don't rhyme." And she's like, "What are you talking about, Brandon?"
Amanda: "You get what you get."
Brandon: You get what you get and you don't get upset."
Eric: I hopped the line, so I can go next, which is where I inserted myself.
Julia: That's fine. Go for it.
Eric: The Gambler, "I know when to hold them and I know when to fold them. I know when to walk away and know when to run. You never count your money when you're sitting at the table." No, I'm reading the lyrics to the song of The Gambler, Hold on.
Brandon: Yeah. I don't think that's what it says.
Julia: I think that was just it.
Eric: "You're a gambler. Your specialty is million to one odds. Are you addicted to risky bets, or could you quit anytime you want? What's the most profitable gamble you've ever made?"
Julia: Ooh.
Eric: The most profitable gamble I've ever made was getting a ticket on this train.
Brandon: Ooh.
Amanda: Ooh.
Eric: I think if with the three of you, especially with the Runaway Bride, which I feel like, is the way that this allegory is going—
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: —it's like, "No, I want to be there. I like it. I wanted— I won the ticket off of Beazazel, who came into the saloon that I make my time at."
Brandon: Hell yeah, dude.
Amanda: Amazing.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: I love that.
Julia: Is this feeling very Agatha All Along now? Which is interesting.
Eric: Oh, I didn't— well, I didn't watch it.
Julia: Honestly, don't need to be a Marvel fan to enjoy that.
Eric: So I'm— yeah, I'm definitely addicted to risky bets. That's why I'm bored all the time. That's why I do it.
Brandon: Oh, yeah.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: Smart.
Eric: The Wild West and the Weird West, it sucks. It sucks. You get dysentery all the time. There's nowhere, clean the poop. So what am I gonna do until I die at 27? I'm going to win as much money as possible, or at least lose it and win it back, because that's even more exciting.
Amanda: Well, Eric, when you point it out that way, like it does make a lot of sense that if you have such faith in your own abilities, it's fucking boring to win over and over and over again.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: I know, it's really trouble. It's a problem I have all the time—
Amanda: Hmm.
Brandon: —and I've never been able to express it.
Amanda: Uh-hmm. Fair.
Brandon: Until now.
Eric: Brandon, I didn't want to say anything, but I think that the 666 you had in your dice is burned into your hand now. It's smoking.
Brandon: Oh, shit. Oops. Oh, well.
Julia: Hello.
Eric: So, yeah, I would go faith in myself, because in the Weird West here, I like the idea that just like demons are vibing and I'm better at cards than they are, even if they have— and I can— I'd beat angels, I'd beat demons. They just need to be better on the river. That's all I'm saying.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: Get on your level.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: They're all suckers to me. Ain't no— it ain't matter for angels or demons. They're all suckers to me. They're all marks. They're all marks to me.
Eric: The aces I have are really great, that's my special item.
Amanda: Ooh.
Eric: There's the ace of spades, which is razor-edged. The ace of hearts marked with a kiss. Ace of diamonds, gold-coated. Ace of clubs, far heavier than you'd expect. I'm not gonna do that. I win on my own odds. I don't have to cheat. The ace of stars, entrancingly shiny, and ace of needles always points towards your prize.
Julia: That's cool as fuck.
Eric: I'm gonna do the ace of needles.
Amanda: Yeah!
Brandon: Absolutely!
Eric: Yeah. And I think that this is similar for the Runaway Bride, where Alexi has found that there are lots of groups of four, but you're on a d6 table.
Amanda: Hmm.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: So what do you do? You do the group of four, and then five and six are weird, right?
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Or are related, but stranger. So ace of needles is like, "Yeah, a fortune teller woman gave me this card and I— because I beat her at a game of Go Fish. And so now I have it, and it always tells me what to do. Love it. Don't need you, god. I'm fine."
Julia: Do you have a name for the character?
Eric: Yeah, I'm gonna go with number one here. Alexi, I know— I spend too much time coming up with names. I'm gonna use one that someone else wrote for me.
Julia: That's fair.
Eric: I'm doing number one Chancellor Chance Mahoney.
Julia: Chance Mahoney is a very fun name.
Eric: Chance Mahoney at your service, and I— my hat tumbles down my arm and I grab it, and then I tumble it back.
Julia: Cool.
Amanda: One neighborhood of Boston has more robberies per capita than any other in the world. This is the town. "Hey, Cha— get Chance Mahoney down here. He's a great safe cracker."
Eric: Yeah, Chase Mahoney, big hat. I bet my hat is a weird color, too. I bet it's green. I want my hat to be green.
Amanda: Ooh.
Julia: Ooh. Like a forest green?
Eric: Forest Green, yeah.
Julia: Or a lime green.
Eric: A lime green hat.
Julia: You did say green.
Eric: I want a forest green hat. I think I keep the ace of needles in it.
Julia: Hmm.
Eric: Which points my direction.
Julia: I was gonna say.
Eric: And I set up in my— in the saloon, the White Rabbit and the Black Rabbit. There— it's named both.
Julia: Hell yeah.
Brandon: I love it.
Eric: And, yeah, folks keep walking in and I keep taking their money. So— and the biggest—
Brandon: Hell yeah.
Eric: —gamble I ever made, I wagered my life for the ticket on the Train to Hell and some might say I lost, but I think I won.
Brandon: I'm the revivalist. It says, "You're a revivalist. Your specialty is sermonizing. Are you a true believer? Or did your faith dry up along the way? How'd you discover your talent for working a crowd?" Good questions.
Julia: What do you think? Are you a true believer, Brandon?
Brandon: I'm definitely a true believer.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: I think I'm full-on like— it doesn't have to be Christian necessarily, but like, you know, the tent preacher vibe.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: Where, you know, it's just— so happens I have someone who's a snake handler around, so that's good for me.
Amanda: That's true.
Brandon: For the ones who are not aware, they— snake biting was a thing in religious tent circles.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Yeah, like Britney Spears, we know.
Brandon: Did Britney Spears do that?
Eric: Britney Spears, notoriously, at the MTV Music Awards, danced with a snake.
Brandon: Oh, right.
Julia: Yes. A boa constrictor.
Brandon: Yes. All right. Well, I was thinking about my name, and I was Googling some, like, you know, religious names.
Julia: They list several like— there's a father, there's a sister, there's an apostle.
Brandon: Yes.
Eric: I love this.
Julia: There's a padre, reverend, preacher.
Brandon: Yes. So I'll give you the names, because they're pretty fun, but I'm gonna come up my own. So the names are Father Maurice Moody Lancaster, Sister Maria Rihanna, Apostle Jordan River Rutledge, Padre Juan Garcia, Reverend Blair Haggerty, and Preacher Marguerite Moss.
Eric: Hmm.
Julia: All right, Brandon, if you pick the title you want, I do have a really good one.
Brandon: Okay, great. Well, I'm definitely gonna go reverend, and everyone must say— must pronounce it reverend from now on.
Julia: Reverend.
Eric: Reverend.
Brandon: I'm Reverend.
Julia: How about the Reverend Rutledge Graves?
Brandon: Ooh, that's good.
Amanda: That's great.
Brandon: Yeah. That's much better than mine. I was gonna just do like three crazy Christian names back-to-back.
Julia: Nah.
Brandon: Like Reverend Judah Ezekiel Ishmael.
Julia: Ezekiel Graves is cool too, though.
Brandon: Ooh.
Eric: I was gonna try to put the word Spears in there, but Julia came up with a good one already.
Brandon: No, I like Rutledge.
Julia: Okay.
Brandon: So yeah, Reverend Rutledge Graves.
Julia: Cool.
Eric: Reverend Rutledge.
Brandon: Please say my full name.
Julia: The Reverend—
Brandon: Thank you.
Julia: —Rutledge Graves.
Brandon: Thank you. Thank you.
Eric: Reverend, Dr. Rutledge Graves.
Julia: The Honorable Reverend Rutledge Graves.
Brandon: I'm only a doctor and a judge if you're nasty. Relics, so the options they gave are grandpappy's hip flask, now full of holy water.
Julia: Cool.
Brandon: A family bible, Cousin Imogen's mad prophecies scrolled in the margins.
Julia: Yo, that's cool as fuck.
Eric: Oh, Cousin Imogen.
Brandon: A bright feather plucked by your old teacher from the messenger who brought the new mission.
Julia: Hmm.
Brandon: A fragment of the founder's skull collected after the explosion.
Eric: Oh.
Amanda: Oh, just a relic.
Julia: Yo.
Amanda: A real— a capital relic.
Brandon: Uh-hmm. Just an actual Catholic relic, yeah.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: Uncle Aaron's top hat through which he could view the world of spirits.
Julia: That's crazy.
Brandon: Shout out Mormons.
Eric: God, looking through the hat is really good, though.
Brandon: Yeah. I mean, that's what Justice Smith just straight up did. Aunt Lucia's pet raven, who now repeats her gnomic utterances.
Amanda: Ooh.
Julia: Also very cool.
Eric: What I like about number four, specifically, fragment of the founder skull, because this is also a pretty— this is based on the honey heist system, which we've also seen with Lasers & Feelings, where you have two stats, lover and sinner, which both begin at three, and then you roll a d6, and whether you're trying to beat it or go above it or below it, right?
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: And it's either like— either it happens or it doesn't, or it's mixed. And I find so interesting that, like, you're supposed to use these specialties we all have to, like, bump up a roll you have. But even if you fail, it's like, "Well, if you use a fragment of the founder's head and it's divine, that would help you, right? But if you lose, then it's just some dude's brain." And I love figuring that out during play, if you just have some person's piece of their skull.
Brandon: I hate to disappoint you, Eric, but I'm not going to choose the skull.
Eric: Sorry, too busy making content. I don't care.
Julia: I— can I do my pitch for you, Brandon?
Brandon: Yes, please.
Julia: I think the family Bible with the mad prophecy scrolled in the margins is extremely fun because you can just, during gameplay, make up a mad prophecy that then comes to reality.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Julia: And that feels like a very branded type of gameplay to me.
Amanda: I also most liked the mad cousin scrambling as the— myself, mad cousin.
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: Well, Uncle Aaron's top hat was definitely—
Eric: Hmm.
Brandon: —in consideration because that's—
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: —utterly insane. No offense.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: But I am definitely gonna go with a family Bible cousin Imogen's mad prophecies—
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: —skull in the margins, that was, what, obviously stuck out to me. And yeah, I think I'm excited to make up some shit. Especially like from— the idea of someone interpreting and prophesizing based off the Book of Revelations is utterly fucking insane to me.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: That sounds fun.
Eric: Amanda, you've been listening to that mixtape a lot lately.
Amanda: Yeah. No, I love it.
Eric: You know, Good Kid, Mad Prophecies.
Julia: I was like, "What is the joke here? Did I miss it completely?"
Eric: Amanda's really been getting into Kendrick lately, so—
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: And she's been scrolling mad prophecies in the margins.
Amanda: Mustard! I've been yelling Mustard from the other room a lot. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Eric: She has been doing that. See, you saw how it didn't faze me.
Brandon: Julia, do you think that occasionally Eric is like, "Hey, Amanda, like, what do you want on your burger?" And from across the room, she's just, "Mustard!"
Eric: And I'm like, "Oh, Mustard on the beat, hoe. Got it. Yeah, for sure."
Amanda: Uh-hmm. Thank you. Thank you.
Julia: I'm also going to combine it with a thing from Hot Frosty, which was that one guy's line read of, "Turkey!" So Eric goes, "Amanda, what kind of sandwich do you want?" "Turkey." "Okay. What kind of condiment do you want on it?" "Mustard."
Amanda: This is an incredible joke for all the overlapping fans of Hot Frosty and GNX. We exist. We exist.
Brandon: I think that's just a circle, it's a 100%.
Julia: It's a circle.
Eric: It's probably everyone who listens to our respective podcast here.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Who are both up on the current releases from hip-hop and Hallmark.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: Listen. Okay.
Julia: Oh, Amanda, I can't wait to hear about your snake lady.
Amanda: All right. So my page reads, "You're a snake handler. Your specialty is poisons and serpents. Are you a religious leader or did you travel as a salesperson of dubious concoctions? How do you command the snakes?"
Julia: Okay, okay.
Amanda: I feel very strongly that my origin is 100% as a peddler of bullshit medicines.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: Like fake oil, like patent medicine, sort of like sideshow, you know, era.
Eric: Do you directly jump off of your wagon onto the train?
Amanda: Almost certainly, yes. Love that. I do, however, have a strong faith in my ability to command the snakes, and I think I do that by giving them little belly rubs and bringing them very tasty rodents and treats.
Brandon: Aw.
Amanda: They're well-fed. They are not trying to, like, be aggressive, because they're— they have plenty to eat. And I think I, you know, stroke their bellies and back in the day, would make some tinctures with a drop of poison and venom here and there, but mostly, I hang out with my snakes and look scary.
Eric: I love how your choice here was actually, "No, he's just my good pet."
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: As opposed to, "I command them through hypnosis."
Julia: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
Amanda: Absolutely. Well, the thing that's most interesting to me here are the different kinds of snakes that I can have, which are my items.
Brandon: Hmm.
Amanda: So I want to read through all of them because they're all very good.
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: First is the Black Rattler, whose sound is almost as deadly as its sting. Second, the Golden Bellied Cottonmouth, whose bite fills victims with insatiable greed.
Brandon: Ooh.
Julia: Yo, that's cool as fuck.
Amanda: The Acheronian Diamondback, whose venom recalls a person's greatest sorrows.
Julia: Now, we're just getting into the Greek mythology stuff here.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Eric: I do love the idea that this snake like bites a rodent and then it's like, "I miss my wife," and then dies.
Brandon: "My credit debt, it's too big."
Amanda: All right. Four is the Stygian Viper whose tooth inflames hatred and aggression. Five is the Cocitian, Cocitian?
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: I don't know. I was gonna say Cocitian.
Eric: That's what I was gonna say, yeah.
Amanda: The Cocitian Constrictor, whose embrace smothers all feelings but remorse. And then six, which is my frontrunner, the Lethean copperhead whose toxin cures ill memories.
Julia: That's kind of cool.
Brandon: You're going real soft belly snake handler in this situation, huh?
Amanda: Well, I really like the idea of almost in a like, dream eater, like legacy of opium—
Brandon: In a Gengar way?
Amanda: —situation. No.
Eric: More like Drowsee, Brandon.
Amanda: That people are addicted to the tinctures because they do alleviate bad memories.
Brandon: Hmm.
Amanda: And I am a sucker for, like, sci-fi and fantasy that takes the idea that, you know, we should never suffer, remember suffering, perceive suffering, and like takes it to its natural conclusion, which is, you know, that is a part of life and you must embrace it, in my opinion.
Brandon: I love that.
Julia: Amanda, can I pitch you on a name?
Amanda: Yes.
Julia: Sylvia Sazerac.
Amanda: That's really good.
Brandon: Really good.
Amanda: My only— I did have a last name in mind, but we're—
Julia: Okay.
Amanda: —as always, Julia, on the same wavelength, because my name is going to be Syl Sisyphus
Julia: Fuck yeah.
Brandon: Ooh.
Amanda: Dr. Syl Sisyphus.
Brandon: I like it. I like it.
Julia: Ooh. I love when we're a doctor.
Eric: Yeah, you gotta be a doctor.
Brandon: Now, was that first thought, best thought or—
Amanda: Sisyphus was the first thought, but I am taking S-Y-L, Syl from Julia's Sylvia.
Brandon: I love it.
Julia: Hell, yeah.
Eric: So the last thing we're going to do is we're going to figure out some more stuff about the train. I had talked about who the conductor was, but there's some other things here that we can figure out. One of which is why all of you are— why you all want to be on the train, because the train has a prize. That's the whole reason why there is a train to hell. The train to hell is bringing something from somewhere back to hell.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: And it's also got train cars. So if you want an appendix filled with train cars, like me, you should buy this game.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: This is a real Snowpiercer situation.
Amanda: I hope not.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: It has a destination, Brandon. We're landing.
Eric: Well, what I want to figure out before we're done as well, is why all of us are on the train?
Amanda: Cool.
Julia: Right.
Eric: I had— because I had read ahead, I had known that, and I wanted to build that into my characters. Like I'm here because I'm bored. I want to see what's ha— I want to see what's there.
Amanda: Right. Got it.
Eric: But I would love to figure out why the three of you are willingly on this train. I think we touched on it a little bit with Julia's.
Julia: Yeah, I think it's— I made a bad deal and I'm trying to get out of my contract.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: And maybe, like, there's a physical copy of my contract somewhere on the train that I can destroy.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: Well, that brings up the question of the prize. Yeah, is the prize the same thing that we're all going after or does it have to be— or does it— can it be like a rumor of something else that we're attracted to, you know?
Julia: Actually, the prizes that are listed on the table might be a good inspiration for your characters to, like, want to hopefully get.
Eric: The reason why I was wondering— because also, I've been thinking about the Extreme Teen Bible and Adventure Zone Balance, but this is very similar to the suffering game arc, where it's like, you get the thing you want the most in the world based— because some— this thing there will give it to you. And I—
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: —didn't know if it's like— because I like the prizes that are on this list, like the biggest gold bullion score in history, or a soul, or a song so pure the devil wouldn't let humanity have it. Those are all—
Julia: Cool.
Eric: —great and things anyone would want. But also it's like, if you're talking to the, quote-unquote, "conductor," they'd make whatever you wanted happen.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: Especially for me, because I just want whatever.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: The conductor would help Julia's bride get out of her contract, but I didn't know what the revivalist and the snake handler wanted.
Julia: Yeah. There is one—
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: —based on yours, Amanda, there is one on the prizes table that I think is very good, which is a prickly pear cactus whose fruit cures any illness.
Amanda: Yeah, I think Syl's snakes are getting old, and she can tell that they are eating less. They are basking in the sun and napping more. She's been on the grind for many years, and she needs something else after this runs out. So she—
Julia: Aw.
Amanda: —is looking for a source of poison, or, you know, antidote, whatever she happens across first. But either that, or I was thinking she could even be, like, gifted by the devil with the ability to, like, secrete her own poison, would be very cool.
Brandon: Ooh, that'd be cool.
Julia: That's wild.
Eric: That would be sick.
Julia: I thought you were gonna be like, "For the souls of my snakes, I am on this train."
Amanda: No. I think she is, like, being idolatrous about herself. Like she believes in herself as a curer for people, and someone who is like, you know, ailing— fixing all that ails them, and, like, giving them some peace in this, like, fucked up world. And so she very much wants to have her own power.
Brandon: Makes sense. Yeah. And I think for me, it's gonna be pretty easy and pretty simple. Like he thinks that he's going to save— in the biblical sense, in the religious sense, save the people of the train.
Amanda: Hmm.
Eric: Hmm. You're just going to fuck shit up, for sure.
Brandon: Not fuck shit up. Save people, Eric. Save people from their demonous, sinful ways on this journey.
Eric: Brandon, it's the Weird West. You're gonna fuck shit up no matter what you do.
Amanda: Well, you're going down—
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Amanda: —to save the train of, you know, lost souls or die trying.
Brandon: Right.
Amanda: Like that makes a ton of sense for your character.
Brandon: Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
Julia: I just want to shout out one of the things on the prize list, which is six pairs of contraband angel wings.
Eric: I think it's very funny.
Julia: Extremely funny.
Brandon: Along those lines of the six pairs of contraband angel wings, like, I'm sure the conductor can also give me some kind of tools to help save the masses as well.
Eric: Sure, sure.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: It's like, once you own the conductor, they'll do what you want, because you're such a power for good— that you're good— it'd be like, "Change your ways," and they'll go, "Okay."
Julia: Okay.
Brandon: Yeah, right. Yeah.
Eric: So I want to roll on the tables for the train runs through, and the train—
Julia: Okay.
Eric: —runs on because they're sick. So I want to see what we get.
Brandon: Cool.
Julia: Cool.
Eric: And then, because I want to— and we're going to come up with our own train conductor, maybe one that's not on the table. So—
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: —to really—
Brandon: Cool.
Eric: —hit our allegory home, so I want to roll on these.
Julia: Can I read out the train runs through options for us?
Eric: Sure.
Julia: We have the high water line, the burnt over lands, the primrose path, the fallen city, the pit, and the frozen over lands.
Amanda: Love a pit.
Julia: Love a pit. I also like the burnt over lands because that's just so religious scholar-y.
Eric: Well, congratulations, Julia. We got it, too. The burnt over lands again.
Amanda: Yay.
Julia: Yay.
Eric: Again, this is so fu— this is so Weird West, but it's like, we're getting on in town or near town, and I think I get on at the train station, but I could see the— you three all getting on at a weird time.
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Eric: But, like, right before it becomes immediately, like lava and magma burnt over lands.
Julia: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
Brandon: Is that what it is? It's not like— does burnt overland mean like a city that's sort of like decrepit and burnt, or does it mean, like, lava and— like, what does that mean exactly?
Eric: Whatever you want. This is what I thought it was.
Brandon: Oh, okay.
Julia: I mean, I was picturing it as like fields that had burned, rather than it being like volcanic, personally.
Brandon: Hmm.
Julia: But like— okay.
Eric: Maybe— oh, I— that makes more sense if it's burnt fields, huh?
Julia: Yeah. It also would be wild if we all saw different things. You know, because—
Brandon: Oh.
Julia: —we're all experiencing—
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Julia: —you know, the afterlife differently.
Brandon: That's fun.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: I like that.
Amanda: We all end up on the same train, but we board from different stations.
Brandon: Yeah. So I do see civilization burned down—
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: —because obviously, that makes sense.
Amanda: Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: And I'm like, "Cool, volcano. Let me take out my giant camera."
Julia: Flash.
Eric: It's as big as my head. Click.
Brandon: Just hold still, volcano.
Amanda: Stay still.
Eric: Hold on. I've— stay still for two minutes. And then the train runs on. We have blood and billows forth deep red smoke, bones, and billows forth dusty gray clouds, nightmares and billows forth screams of terror.
Julia: Cool. Cool.
Eric: Good intentions, all right, and billows forth sweet smelling poison, lucre and billows forth, acrid green mist and hearts that have turned to stone, and billows forth thunder and lightning.
Brandon: I think good intentions meaning like, hell is paved—
Eric: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Brandon: With good-- no, it’s like a bad thing.
Julia: The path of hell is paved with good intentions.
Eric: Oh, you didn't notice that from me saying, "All right."?
Brandon: Oh, I thought you were acknowledging that like, "Oh, we went from bad, bad to, like, suddenly good. I see what you're saying.
Eric: Oh, no, no, no. I'm like, "I got— okay. I understand what you're saying." Anyone feel strongly about one or you want me to roll?
Julia: I really like the last one, but I don't feel strongly enough to make you not roll.
Amanda: Let's see what fate agrees.
Eric: I got three nightmares.
Julia: Nightmares!
Amanda: Yay!
Julia: Fun.
Amanda: Classic.
Eric: Sick. Okay. So let's go down to conductor. The conductor is waiting at the front of the train for a climactic confrontation. So the conductor is interesting. There's two d6 tables, so we got 12 dudes here. And there's a real balance of baddies from the Bible and, "Oh, I've read a lot of Dungeons and Dragons monster manuals, respectfully."
Brandon: Hmm. Uh-hmm.
Amanda: Doesn't it feel good to be at the intersection of someone else's interests and they write the thing that's like, "I get all these references."? I'm just— I'm thriving here. This is great.
Eric: I was also thinking, I watched a little bit of True Blood. I got really into True Blood in the beginning of this year, and I, like— in season two, the big bad was a, like, a cup bearer of Dionysus. Like they weren't Dionysus. And it's similar to Brindlewood Bay, how it's like aspects of Persephone. Like we're two levels down from actual gods and one level down from actual, like, demigods and deities.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: These are just like baddies, or high-level baddies that make humans life miserable. And I thought that was really interesting in comparison to some of these conductors, because, like, number one, what are the deadly sins? Pick any deadly sin, and we got a humanization of them.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: The second one, one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, pick one of four. Bring them together. Number three, the arch fiend of Hooks. I've seen that in the monster manual. Absolutely.
Julia: Isn't that like just the main character from Hellraiser? Isn't that like a different name for the Hellraiser guy?
Eric: Oh, probably, yeah.
Brandon: Probably.
Julia: There's a lot of hooks in that movie.
Eric: Number four feels very allegorical, the souls of three famed criminals, monstrously fused.
Julia: Cool.
Eric: I think it's kind of cool.
Amanda: Oh, that's very good.
Brandon: What if— it's like Jesse and James— like a couple— a famous couple and then a third person—
Julia: Jesse James and Meowth
Amanda: Meowth in the middle.
Eric: It's Bonnie, Clyde and Al Capone. Someone whose life you took wielding a gun called Recompense.
Julia: Cool.
Eric: That's a good one. I wonder if there's also like— if only one person makes it to the end of the train, that might work.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: That's really fun. I like that one.
Eric: The devil could be there, just ready to make a deal, hanging out.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Julia: Cool.
Eric: He's a real boots on the ground type boss, gets his hands dirty.
Amanda: The devil is always undercover bossing.
Julia: True. It's actually true.
Eric: The devil is the undercover boss. The devil is from—
Brandon: The devil is the undercover boss.
Eric: Brandon, you said that like Jerry Jones. Like you own the Cowboys and you said that.
Brandon: Yeah.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: You mean a sideshow preacher?
Eric: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I do, I do. Jerry Jones was a guest star on Landman, and he was pretty good.
Brandon: That's embarrassing.
Amanda: He acted? Well…
Brandon: That's embarrassing.
Eric: He delivered those cue cards well, for sure. He definitely did. Okay. The beginning of the next d6 table, there's Minos, hanging judge of the dead. There's the—
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: —great red dragon of Revelation. Let's match the two together.
Julia: Sure.
Brandon: Which I'm convinced is a reference to Hannibal, but continue.
Eric: It may— might be.
Julia: Cool.
Eric: There's Cain, the first Desperado. The false god—
Julia: Cool.
Eric: —of slaughter, has had a golden cow skull. Again, let's match these—
Julia: Kind of dope, honestly.
Eric: —two babies up. There's the vulture king and Old Lady Knight, mother of affliction. I don't think she should be the train conductor. I feel like she's Baba Yagaing somewhere else, but I see what she— where Alexi is going.
Julia: Well, instead of the mortar and pestle, she is flying through hell on a train.
Eric: Ah.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Julia: I'm into it. I'm into it.
Eric: I want to— yeah, but she's like a passenger. She's just vibing.
Julia: Oh, Okay. Okay.
Eric: I've spent so much time with witches, Julia. I'm like, "Leave them alone! Baba Rutabaga is fun at parties."
Julia: That's true.
Amanda: He already has a job.
Eric: So do any of these speak to us or do we want to have another type of conductor of the train to hell?
Brandon: A lot of them speak to me, but I think I would love to hear any pitches. But yeah, to me, it's like Cain, the first Desperado is cool as fuck.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: Someone wielding a gun named Recompense is always good.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Brandon: Those are the ones that stick out to me, I think, but—
Julia: I'm drawn to the devil ready to make a deal, only because it's so classic.
Brandon: Hmm.
Julia: But I'm also like— I'm not picturing, you know, red devil, horns, cloven foot devil. I'm picturing like, handsome man in suit devil.
Eric: Hmm.
Brandon: Oh, I was picturing the robot devil from Futurama, so—
Amanda: Hmm.
Julia: Oh, of course, naturally.
Amanda: I have been watching Deal or No Deal Island, and this is relevant, because on Deal or No Deal Island—
Brandon: Is— you're gonna put Howie Mandel up there?
Amanda: No.
Eric: Howie Mandel was in season one, Brandon. In season two— Joe Manganiello.
Julia: It's Joe Manganiello. Who's the lady banker, Amanda.
Amanda: We don't know yet as of the time of this recording. It's a mystery lady.
Julia: It's a mystery lady?
Amanda: Yes. Some people think it'll be Meghan Markle. It's definitely not Meghan Markle. She was a briefcase model on Deal or No Deal. Anyway, doesn't matter.
Brandon: Was she really?
Amanda: Yes, she was. It doesn't matter.
Brandon: Oh, that's funny.
Amanda: I am bringing this up because I'm obsessed with the idea of a himbo intermediary who has a cell phone or a radio connection to the devil and will present the deal that you're bringing. So I would like—
Brandon: Hmm.
Amanda: —to put my kind of chip on, like, the devil's intermediary.
Brandon: Hmm.
Amanda: A very, you know, middle management representative of the devil who is perhaps the quartermaster or the lawyer, or the, you know, the minion here to take our deal or not.
Brandon: That's fun.
Julia: I'm into it.
Brandon: Can I pitch one of the seven deadly sins, lust? It's just an orgy, an Eyes Wide Shut situation.
Eric: You walk inside of the engine room.
Amanda: There’s just fucking.
Eric: There's a really hot boiler in the corner, and they need to avoid it.
Amanda: It's a recipe for birds in bad places.
Eric: Julia, help me out with this.
Julia: What up?
Eric: Is there an ancient group of people that the people in the Wild West would be obsessed with? Like, have we already passed the classics obsession with, like, Greeks and Romans and stuff, or was it somebody else?
Julia: No, we're still writing the thick of that, probably.
Eric: Okay.
Brandon: But I like that idea.
Julia: Because, like, at this point, it's the Victorian era still, basically.
Eric: Right. Okay. So—
Julia: And we loved the classics.
Eric: —I think it should be— I don't know who it is yet, but come with me with this full sentence, Plato, the devil secretary, or it could be, like, Hannibal, the devil secretary. Like someone from the Classic period.
Julia: It's Virgil.
Eric: Oh, of course.
Julia: It's Virgil, because Virgil's the guide in Dante's Inferno.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: Hmm.
Eric: That makes sense.
Amanda: Yep, yep.
Eric: The guy who writes fan fiction about— or the guy who is in fan fiction about the devil, is definitely the devil's secretary.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: Is it just Dante? Is Dante the devil's secretary?
Julia: No, because he ends up getting to heaven.
Amanda: Too Italian.
Brandon: Oh, okay. Well, who's—
Julia: Too Italian?
Brandon: Too Italian?
Julia: Hey.
Amanda: For the Weird West.
Eric: Or like, you know, like— or, who would they believe is in— like, this person also needs to be in hell. Is it like Alexander the Great, the devil's secretary?
Julia: Yeah, it's Virgil.
Amanda: One of Hannibal's elephants. We've nailed it. It's an elephant wearing a train conductor cap.
Brandon: Or, like, Genghis Khan or something?
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: Hmm.
Brandon: Is that what you're going for?
Eric: If I was the type of DM who could do this, I would be like, "Genghis Khan is the devil's secretary, and then now has, like, a super posh British accent."
Julia: I think you'd have to be like Brutus, then. You know what I mean?
Eric: I was thinking— if I— yeah, again, I was like— I was thinking about a— an emperor could work, too.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah. Let's do that. Let's do Brutus.
Eric: I like Brutus, because, also, like, you know, because we're doing this in 2025, and I think the easy thing would be like, "Elon Musk is there as the conductor of the train." But I like— we're gesturing towards that by using a Caesar.
Brandon: Can I put you instead, guys, Cain, the first Desperado?
Amanda: Cain is great.
Julia: I don't hate Cain, the first Desperado.
Amanda: I'm all in for that.
Julia: I really do like it.
Brandon: It's so good. It's so cool.
Julia: Yeah, because he's been around for a while.
Eric: Here's my question, does the fact that we are Desperados, and Cain is the first Desperado, does that mean that it's like, in the way that they do in Heat, we're not so different you and I?
Amanda: No, I think Cain, like, tried a robbery, failed, and this is his punishment forever.
Julia: Right.
Brandon Oh, that's fun.
Julia: I also think that there's something really interesting about that, because it seems like we're on this train to hell, and it's still so, like, fucking low level.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah, for sure.
Julia: You know, like, think of like, all the robberies that actual Desperados and actual, like, cowboys and bandits would do during the Wild West period. They were small potatoes, you know?
Amanda: Uh-hmm.
Julia: They're not robbing the Federal Reserve. They're robbing, like, the, like, town bars, you know, single safe.
Eric: Right.
Brandon: Uh-hmm.
Julia: So I like that it's Cain, because, like, in the grand Catholic scheme of things, it's so small potatoes.
Amanda: It's like, if Cain didn't even make it in and is here, what the fuck is beyond that?
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: I even like Cain's— I know we can't do this technically, but I even just like the idea of Cain separated from religion, of just like the man who first did a murder—
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: —is, like, that's cool as fuck.
Julia: That is.
Eric: Yeah, no, that's pretty cool. Yeah, it's probably Cain the first Desperado, huh?
Amanda: Yay!
Julia: All right, good.
Eric: Wearing a gray hat.
Amanda: Yeah, yeah.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: It's not white. It's not black.
Julia: A tiny splatter of blood on the hat.
Eric: Yeah, you know it.
Brandon: The body of his brother, like, attached to his leg or something, just smells like—
Julia: Just smells burnt meat, yeah.
Eric: Or like— or a finger on a necklace, honestly.
Brandon: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Amanda: Aaah.
Julia: Hmm.
Amanda: It's good.
Julia: Aaah.
Brandon: Aaah.
Eric: Okay, I like it. Let's get on this hell train, folks.
Brandon: Okay.
Julia: All right.
Amanda: Choo-choo.
Brandon: All aboard. Tickets, please. Tickets, please. Amanda, where's your ticket?
Eric: You have to pay in cash right now, and everyone's looking at you on the train.
Julia: And it's $10 more because you're buying on the train.
Amanda: No, it's my real nightmare! No!
Eric: Okay. So this is our third game choice for the One Shot Derby, but wait, a new challenger emerges.
Amanda: What?
Julia: Whoa.
Eric: We're doing four games. We're doing four games.
Brandon: What?
Eric: We're doing four games. I'll just admit it. I ended up writing a game, so I'm submitting my own stock car into the One Shot Derby.
Julia: Yurr.
Amanda: Eric, we demanded the chance to play it because it's so fun. That's what happened.
Julia: Uh-hmm. I said, "I want four games now, please, sir."
Brandon: If you're a patron and listener— an avid listener of Party Planning, you already know the score here, you know?
Amanda: Uh-huh.
Julia: Uh-hmm.
Eric: So here's how we're gonna do this next week. We're going to do the mysterious fourth game that I wrote. Once that episode comes out, in the link, in that episode's episode description, there will be a place for people to vote. You can vote on which game you want us to do a full One Shot of. That will continue when we do an Afterparty, discussing all four of the games that we did. And also you can submit questions and everything. The voting will be open a few days after that second episode, the Afterparty episode is out as well. So everyone can get all caught up, and you can all vote on which game we want to do. And it's important that you vote for all of them, because we do ranked choice voting.
Amanda: Exactly.
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: You can choose your first, second, third, and fourth favorite game. So listen to them all, think about it, and you'll have at least 10 days to vote.
Eric: Okay.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Until then, you can't vote yet. You can't vote yet because we have an episode next week.
Julia: No, because we have to play the fourth game for you.
Amanda: Skreee!
Brandon: But Eric, I'm getting so many texts that say Ruben Studdard.
Eric: Brandon, stop voting Ruben Studdard as your favorite game.
Amanda: Shit. Who have I been texting Clay Aiken every day to since 2004?
Eric: The game next week is Fantasia Barrino.
Julia: Ooh.
Brandon: Oh, we got a new joke entrant coming in.
Eric: Yeah, here it is. Well, I hope Scoot McGarry is gonna have— gotta be able to cope with post-war life in the next episode.
Amanda (as Scout McGarry): We'll see what happens. Gotta check it out, folks, and stay tuned for the One Shot Derby with me Scout McGarry, 1945, and things are only getting better from here.
Julia: God, I hope.
[theme]