Welcome to the One Shot Derby, the character creation competition between three different TTRPGs! After we play all three, You, The People, will vote on the game and setting in which we’ll play a one shot. Finally, we’re starting our own ghostbusting business with Inspectres!
Upcoming Schedule
- January 24: Oneshot Derby Afterparty + Voting Opens
- January 31: Campaign 3 begins!!
Sponsors
- Battling Blades, where you can get 20% off your order at BattlingBlades.com using code JointheParty at check out.
- Brilliant, the best way to learn math, science, and computer science interactively. The first 200 people to visit brilliant.org/jointheparty will get 20% off Brilliant's annual premium subscription.
- Betterhelp, where you can get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/jointheparty
Find Us Online
- website: jointhepartypod.com
- patreon: patreon.com/jointhepartypod
- twitter: twitter.com/jointhepartypod
- facebook: facebook.com/jointhepartypod
- instagram: instagram.com/jointhepartypod
- tumblr: jointhepartypod.tumblr.com
- merch & 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 Editor and Sound Designer: Mischa Stanton
- 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
[theme]
Eric (as Scoot McGarry): Welcome back to the 1948. See it's one year later. It's the Derby's annual One-Shot Derby. I'm Scoot McGarry, thank you for joining me in the moment of silence for my son and father who died at different great wars.
[theme]
Julia: It's your son and your father?
Eric (as Scoot Mcgarry): Jeremy Sr. and Jeremy Jr.
Julia: I really appreciate the lore.
Eric (as Scoot Mcgarry): They died in one of the great war, that of the great war two, electric boogaloo.
Brandon: I'm sorry, I don't mean to cut either you or Julia off, Eric. But this is a moment of silence. So if we could just respect that?
Eric (as Scoot Mcgarry): No, we just came back from the moment of silence.
Julia: Yeaah.
Brandon: Oh, okay.
Eric (as Scoot Mcgarry): Sponsored by Sparky Soda. Sparky, it gets in your blood because of the electrolytes. Now we—we’re now in the third car here on the One-Shot Derby. The first was a Victorian child who coughed a lot. The second was out in the ice, and the Coen brothers were there. But the third is spooky and reality show based. We'll see how this goes for us. Because I'm not here to make friends. I'm here to win.
Amanda: We don’t have televisions, but we know all about them.
Brandon: If only your Dad and son had felt that way during the World War 1 and 2—
Amanda: I know.
Brandon: They would still be here.
Amanda: It would be much more convenient to know about the future of war versus the future of television, but we don't choose our bu— our burdens, you know.
Eric: Brandon, how are men supposed to bond unless going to war and hanging out together? That's true.
Amanda: How is England supposed to produce poetry if it doesn't send consumptive men to colonies to fight wars?
Eric: I need to dri—to drive around in an ambulance so that I can be Hemingway later.
Amanda: Or Queen Elizabeth.
Eric: That's true. [laughs] Is this a game we're starting, Hemingway or Queen Elizabeth?
Brandon: Oh my god, yes.
Amanda: Yeah. Listen, that sounds—that sounds pretty good.
Eric: That's pretty good.
Brandon: Yup. I like that.
Amanda: That's pretty good.
Julia: Someone write it down. Someone write it down.
Amanda: Neither of them liked saying any more than the minimum.
Eric: Their friends died-- people around them died early and they didn't know what to do about it. So they retreated into themselves.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Same.
Brandon: For—for sale. One crown. Never used. Which one is that, Hemingway or the Queen?
Eric: It's pretty good Brandon.
Eric: It's pretty good.
Amanda: Brandon, that's good.
Eric: That wasn't Hemingway or Queen Elizabeth who talked a lot about F.Scott Fitzgerald's Johnson. I can't remember.
Julia: It was the Queen.
Amanda: Was it Hemingway or the Queen who said, what are they doing down there in Cuba? Meh not my problem.
Eric: [laughs] It was both. It was both. I forgot a lot of this.
Brandon: This is some high brow humor, guys.
Eric: Yeah, you're—you're right. High brow stuff. You had to have taken at least one course on books in college to understand these jokes. Or at least watch the Croon.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: That'll do.
Eric: That's fine. Alright. We are here on our third shot of the One-Shot Derby. We're playing Inspectres, which is a 2002 tabletop RPG.
Amanda: Wow.
Julia: A post-911 tabletop RPG. Can x card myself now?
Eric: Homeland Security Inspectres and uh—
Julia: The Freedom of Information Act.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: We'll do that.
Amanda: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Eric: Where we still doing the purple see through electronics or was that—
Julia: Yeah probably.
Amanda: I think that died down a little.
Julia: The atomic purple, yeah.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The iPod, the first generation iPod. Inspectres is a humorous paranormal investigation themed role playing game created by Jared Sorensen and independently published by Memento Mori Theatricks, which is spelled with a c k which is very funny.
Amanda: Ohh.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: The game storyline follows the players working in a supernatural investigation and elimination company. That is from Wikipedia. I just thought it was really fun to read the Wikipedia summary.
Julia: Nice.
Eric: But yeah, Inspectres is fun. Amanda, Julia and I have played this before. I've—I heard it on a Patreon feed episode of Friends at the Table, interested in it. It's very straightforward. Again, the reason why we're saying it's old is like, there was less consideration into what games do, how games do, as we've seen in some games that are—that are being worked on now and one pagers really are kind of get into like, I don't know, like the storytelling elements of tabletop RPGs instead of just like a thing you do in your basement with some pizza and some friends.
Amanda: Yeah. We're in a real renaissance era of RPG's designed to make narrative which I think is pretty dope.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: That's true.
Brandon: More like renaissance playing games.
Eric: Nice.
Amanda: Nice.
Eric: Boticelli was just like I'm a fighter.
Amanda: I think that the Renaissance artists would find current sort of like dice creation, you know art, extremely metal, they would love.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: Like this—this intense version of glassware that you're making.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: I wish I could blow the glass like that.
Amanda: Nothing more Baroque than a glitter die.
Eric: That's true.
Brandon: Needs more nude people on it, put more nudes.
Amanda: We do need more butts in dice. Not dice in butts. That’s a different thing.
Julia: Googling butt dice real quick. Seeing what comes up.
Amanda: No, Julia, Julia. Julia?
Eric: So just to underline the 2002 ness of what we're getting into, I would love to just read the about that was written in the actual game.
Amanda: Oh yeah.
Eric: Inspectres—
Brandon: Oh no, Julia found butt dice.
Julia: I don't want to talk about it.
Eric: Inspectres is a fast, simple and fun game that makes this horror and comedy in a world of startup culture and supernatural fright fests. The setting is loosely defined, allowing you the freedom to fill in the blanks, however you see fit. The mechanics are designed with player control in mind. Remember, 2002, fucking mind blowing, as well as a few bells and whistles to turn the whole player-GM relationship on its head.
Julia: Tight.
Eric: Again, where—
Julia: We love it.
Eric: We are wading into the wildness of it being a collaborative process between the two.
Brandon: I also love the idea that it's about startup culture, because like I think we had two distinct waves of startup culture. And this is on—
Amanda: We did.
Brandon: —the tail end of the internet bubble.
Eric:Yeah, it's like—it's like you have to have a .com in your te— in your company name.
Brandon: Yeah, yeah.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: We're pets.com but also Ghostbusters. They also have a paragraph about inspirations here. Inspectres is loosely based on the films, Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2, which frankly wasn't great. That's in there—
Julia: Woaaah.
Eric: —That's in there. They did not like Ghostbusters 2.
Julia: A bold move.
Amanda: People couldn't tweet Eric, they had to self publish RPGs to share their opinions.
Brandon: Let's say they didn't have an opinion on the future all women Ghostbusters cast, you know.
Eric: I know.
Julia: I sure they do, but it's not in this publication.
Eric: That was that. And reality TV shows which was in quotes, like it was a new thing.
Amanda: Oh shit.
Eric: Like Cops and the Real World. That's what we're pulling from. There is a really interesting mechanic in Inspectres that you can go and do like an interview with a camera to get a bonus or to pull the narrative in the way that you want. Which is really funny.
Brandon: That's so funny.
Amanda: My mind just blown. This is being published like 18 months after the first episode of Survivor and germane to a recent Party Planning episode, about a year after Mulder departed the X Files. So there is—there's just a lot happening for this person and their interests in the year 2001.
Julia: They were upset.
Amanda: They were upset.
Julia: They were like, it's not, it's not the X files without Mulder.
Amanda: Also I do have to inform you guys that ghost.com does go to the aviation photography of Philip McKenna, just a guy's website about his photos of planes.
Brandon: I bet he gets a shit ton of hits.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: He spent a lot of money on that.
Eric: Good for ghosts.com. For the—just to introduce the game a little bit more, the design notes go into the fact that like, although you're solving a mystery, it's very loose, it actually has some like, it seems to be some sort of progenitor to Monster of the Week, where like, you all come up with clues and try to run down the clues. And it's kind of mushy you know, like I don't necessarily need to have the prebuilt track here. It's about you investigating the thing and depending on what your roles are, we figure out one way or another, which is pretty cool. What this game does, is allow the GM to set up events, but then have the players through their characters decide what is really going on. The GM then reacts to the players and what they see as intriguing or exciting elements of the story. Again, pretty radical in 2002.
Amanda: 100%.
Eric: So if we end up playing this game, one of us is going to be the GM, it doesn't necessarily have to be me. So we're all going to create characters, because there's a pretty defined character creation section here. And then after that, we're going to create the company, the ghost busting company that we're all working for.
Amanda: Weee.
Julia: Yeaaah.
Brandon: The ghost master Eric, is that what it's called?
Amanda: Ooh.
Eric: Brandon, hold on, can you just give me a second? I'm gonna look into the game.
Brandon: Yes. Uh-huh. Yes, yes. Uh-huh.
Eric: And that’s what it says. Yeah, it's ghost master.
Brandon: Yes!
Julia: Nice.
Amanda: Tight.
Eric: Yeah. Now—you got it in one. I think the thing that's—that's interesting here is that we're playing a modern world. If we want to play 80's we could, but it is supposed to be like, I don't know, necessarily, like, people in this world dealing with ghost busting. And the, I don't know, slipstream fiction, magical realism of real world plus one weird thing. And the weird thing is the ghosts and the monsters and all that stuff.
Julia: Yeah. I like a modern setting for this, for sure.
Brandon: I think it has to be, unfortunately it has to be 2002 modern.
Julia: No, we simply can't do that.
Amanda: They—they get into technology, which is interesting.
Eric: Yes. Inspectres talks about limiting technology. So you're not just pulling weird shit out of nowhere. So they have some suggested limits which we can say right now. There's Ultra Tech, which means like you are the Men in Black and you have everything that you need. You can have experimental slash fringe, which is Ghostbusters Tech. Which is like you rigged something that may or may not work and is prone to exploding. Standard is anything that you can buy in the 21st century. So obviously, this was written in 2002, but they do say 21st century. Their examples were laptop computers, mobile phones, submachine guns, laser pointers, deep sea diving gear et cetera.
Brandon: Dear Christ.
Julia: I feel so young, yet so old listening to you describe these things.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: This is before the iPhone.
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Amanda: Yeah. It’s amazing.
Eric: It's like you can have a sidekick if you want one. And then of course, simple primitive, you can have like cross-- like real classic Van Helsing style, monster hunting gear. So I feel like I like experimental fringe.
Julia: Yeah, that’s the vibe I was getting.
Eric: And you layer that on top of the standard stuff, but it might be hard to, you know, buy a submachine gun, but maybe you'll have one. I don't know, maybe we can say that like 3D printing is off the table. But it depends, I guess, if we have one, or you want to have one at the franchise.
Julia: Or if we know someone who has one.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: Or if the local library is well funded and they have a 3D printer.
Eric: Who can say, we'll—we'll definitely come up with our setting as we figure that out. If there is a local-- a well source local library nearby.
Brandon: Or maybe it's a 4D printer and we print time.
Eric: Brandon, that might be a little too much. I just—I don't know—
Julia: I don’t know, that’s fringe technology.
Eric: I played the game before. Just—just from my experience. I don't know.
Brandon: Okay. Well it’s a good thing I’m GMing, Eric.
Eric: Oh, you're the ghost master?
Brandon: Yeah.
Eric: Alright, y'all. Let's get started. Let's do some character creation. To make—to make this more even with the other games that we've played. We have not prep this ahead of time, but you can prep this ahead of time. This is more of like a classic character creator, you bring your characters to the session. But we're going to do this on the fly. And maybe some folks have just put it in their brains but didn't like write out the character creation. So the first things first is that everyone comes up with a name and basic personality for your character. This also helps if you come up with a former occupation as well, before they were working for the ghost busting company.
Amanda: First idea, best idea, guys. My character's name is Amelia Ashes.
Julia: Great.
Amanda: And I am a soccer mom, empty nester who is ready to beat down some ghosts, because I have no more PTA parents to win fights against.
Eric: Yeah, dude. There it is.
Amanda: My name is Angela, I have three boys, they're playing professional lacrosse. They're going to go to Yale, Princeton and Brown.
Eric: Hell yeah.
Amanda: Why are you laughing?
Eric: They're already there.
Amanda: Why are you laughing?
Eric: We're not. We're not.
Amanda: Are you not proud of my accomplishments?
Eric: Wait, are you-- Are you Angela's Ashes like the hit book for moms?
Amanda: My name is Amelia.
Eric: Amelia Ashes. You said-- okay.
Amanda: Amelia Ashes.
Julia: You did say Angela, to be fair. But I love it.
Eric: That’s why I was wondering.
Julia: I love it.
Eric: Because that's some good mom shit in there as well.
Amanda: I had to change my name after the book was published. What, are you gonna make a whole big thing about it? You gonna make a whole big thing about it? Half of Staten Island still calls me Angela, is not that enough? Anyways, that’s my character.
Eric: Cool. Alright, wonderful. So.
Brandon: Holy shit. Okay.
Eric: So on the charac—you can write this down like wherever, but there are some like character sheets that are out there. I'll link to them in the episode description. So Amanda has her—Amanda has her name, Amelia Ashes and your background would be former—
Amanda: Soccer mom.
Eric: —former soccer mom.
Amanda: Yes.
Eric: Great. That is important because that will shape some things we're going to do later that are mechanical. But that does not have any mechanical benefit until later. But good—but it's important to write down.
Amanda: We all need a hobby, keep me busy.
Julia: My name is Claire McCloud, and I'm a former production assistant for the Bachelor franchise.
Eric: Hell yeah.
Julia: I was fired because I kind of pointed out how unethical it was to create drama between these people who really do want to find love. And after I was fired, I couldn't afford to live in Los Angeles anymore. So I moved back to my hometown and I really couldn't find a job. So I contacted my aunt, Amelia Ashes, and she got me a job with the agency.
Eric: Nice.
Amanda: Family helps family.
Julia: I hope that's okay, Amanda.
Amanda: Oh, yeah.
Julia: Is that fine?
Amanda: A 100%.
Julia: Okay.
Amanda: 100%.
Brandon: Sorry. What was your first name, Julia?
Julia: Claire McCloud.
Brandon: Claire.
Amanda: Her father's Irish, we don't hold it against her.
Eric: Shout out to Claire.
Julia: No one had dated an Irishman before this.
Amanda: We told her, we warned her.
Julia: When your sister loves a man you—you back her for life.
Amanda: But nobody asked me.
Brandon: Holy shit.
Eric: Hey, what's up? My name is Ben Reeves, but you can just call me Beeves, that's what everyone calls me. It's a combination of my first and last name, Beeves. I used to work at Circuit Mart before this, but they did not like that I put my butt on all of the camera equipment. So.
Brandon: Why'd you do that?
Eric: You got to live out loud, bro.
Julia: Gotta live out loud, bro.
Amanda: May that be your slogan.
Eric: Yeah, got to live out loud.
Amanda: Thank you.
Julia: Gotta live out loud put—put on your character sheet. Gotta live out loud, bro.
Eric: Gotta live out loud, bro. So really glad I get to Ghostbusters. I thought it was neat. Love Luigi's Mansion.
Amanda: Is that your friend?
Eric: Yeah, my rich friend Luigi with a mansion, yeah.
Amanda: Must be nice.
Eric: No. So yeah, I'm Beeves. Beev, Beeves. Do we like the S? No S?
Julia: I think it's Beevez with a Z at the end.
Eric: It could be Beevez with a-- it was 2002. If its 2002, it’s Beevez with a Z at the end.
Julia: Not 2002, the Bachelor franchise doesn't exist in 2002.
Eric: That's fine. It's fun knowing—it's not 2002, I'm just—I'm joking. Yeah.
Amanda: That's our aesthetic. Yeah.
Eric: Yeah. Beevez
Amanda: Incredible.
Brandon: Hello, my name is Gray Dickson. I'm a former circus performer acrobat. The Circus is now closed because of the elephant rights situation.
Amanda: Oh no!
Brandon: But that's fine. I coincidentally also live in LA now. But you know, I—you know, who knows how long I can afford it there. So, yeah, that's what I did. That's what I do. I'm glad to have this new job. I'm excited to get started. Hopefully, my, you know, flying Acrobat skills will have some relevance to ghosts. I hear they can float, so you know, that'd be great.
Eric: That's important because elephants never forget. So they'll remember that you stood up for them, at The Gates of Hell.
Brandon: Well— [laughs]
Julia: As we all know, there's an elephant at the Gate of Hell that tells you whether you can go to heaven or go to hell, so.
Eric: Yeah, I mean, there's—there's the elephant devil. There's the bird devil.
Amanda: Oh.
Eric: Human devil. It's like none of you went to church.
Amanda: Beevez, what religion are you?
Eric: Just gotta live out loud, man.
Amanda: Oh.
Eric: The moment.
Amanda: Sure.
Brandon: I make sure. I write down gotta live out loud, bro.
Eric: My religion is the moment, the Church of the Moment.
Amanda: Very good.
Eric: Also Presbyterian.
Julia: I was gonna say, that’s the Catholic Church on the other side of town. Our Lady of Perpetual Moments.
Brandon: I was genuinely thinking about doing a former preacher. So I'm glad that you-- I didn’t.
Amanda (as Amelia Ashes): Um Gray, do you still have all your little tights and things, are you gonna be wearing those at work?
Brandon (as Gray Dickson): Um, why do you ask? Is I guess is a better question?
Amanda (as Amelia Ashes): I'm much curious about the um—the dress code.
Julia (as Claire McCloud): And Amelia, I think this might count as sexual harassment. I just want to like, I just want to preempt this before it goes further.
Amanda (as Amelia Ashes): Uh, God. Just like the PTA. Fine, fine. I'll sit over here.
Julia: Also I want to retract all my statements. We can take place in 2002, The Bachelor premiered in March 25 2002.
Eric: Good.
Amanda: What—what a foment of culture.
Eric: We'll do—we'll make it squishy. We'll make it squishy like we did with the campaign. Anytime, anytime after 911 is fine.
Amanda: Yup, this is a post-911 campaign. Pre iPhone post 911.
Eric: Yeah, exactly.
Julia: That's fine. I’ll allow it.
Amanda: Okay.
Eric: Oh, no. It's funny. Wonderful. Okay. Also, there's nothing funnier to me, Brandon, than, what was his name? What was your character name?
Julia: Gray Dickson. It’s just Dick Grayson.
Brandon: Gray Dickson, come on.
Eric: Oh, Gray Dickson, of course. That like he has an apartment in LA he's still paying for, but it's somewhere else as well. Like he's in this town.
Brandon: Well, yeah. I mean, yeah, I don't know where we are. But--
Eric: Yeah. But the certain--
Julia: Oh I—I specifically said in mine that I had to move back from LA to my hometown.
Amanda: I mean, we could live in like Pasadena or somewhere like fairly close, which is very funny.
Julia: Sure.
Brandon: Yeah, I mean, the circus definitely was headquartered in LA and then it fell apart. So I like landed in LA, but this is the only job I could get. So like recent transplant to Nowheresville, Iowa or wherever the fuck we are.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Sure.
Julia: Love it.
Eric: I just thought—I thought the circus like dropped you off here, like guys, the elephants, they destroyed all of our wagons. So figure out your own—
Julia: We're done.
Eric: —the Greyhound buses is that way.
Amanda: I do just want to point out that pre iPhone post 911 does make the initialism PIPNE So do with that what you will.
Julia: Well now, it's— it's solidified it, it’s set in stone.
Eric: Amanda just invented a genre. It's gonna show up on Tumblr and Ao3 immediately. Oh my God.
Amanda: PIPNE fashion. The next on Tiktok.
Brandon: Incredible.
Eric: Perfect. Alright, wonderful. So we all have our folks wri—we all have our names and backgrounds. So we're gonna go to the next step, which is our agent skills. There are four basic skills in Inspectres. There's academics, which academics is the skill you'll use when researching information, coming up with theories, remembering facts and figures, and both identifying and solving problems. There's athletics. If academics represents your character's brains, brawn is measured by athletics. Anything physical is covered by athletics. Firing weapons is also covered by this skill.
Amanda: Nice.
Julia: Okay.
Eric: There's technology. The exception to the rule about firearms is that if it's a whacked out scientific device. That is in the text. In this case, you'll use the third skill technology which is used to operate, repair or build equipment. Technology is also used whenever you want to buy or have access to equipment, anything from a computer to a shark cage. And finally, the fourth is contact, contact is your character's ability to talk to people, normal people, potential clients, anxious investors, bored housewives, litigious lawyers, nosy reporters, irate police officers, annoying kids, and obsequious politicians. It also represents your character's list of contacts. Which is important. So we all have nine skill dice that we're going to assign to each character’s skills. Just so everyone knows the way that you roll for stuff in Inspectres, is that you have a certain number of dice, you roll them, and then you choose the highest number which corresponds to like the skill roll table. One is terrible. The GM treats it as a terrible mishap. Two is bad, the GM decides the outcome but the player can suggest negative effects. Three is not great, GM describes failure but player adds minor positive effect. Four is fair, player describes mostly successful, but humorous or bad effect as well. Five is good, where the player describes the result. And six is amazing, which you get to describe the result as well. So the players have quite a lot of time to describe what goes on.
Julia: Nice, nice.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: Right on.
Julia: Love it.
Amanda: I feel like playing Monster of the Week has really helped my brain understand RPG mechanics, that would have confused me before we did the camp-paign.
Brandon: That's fair.
Eric: Absolutely. So we're going to keep that stuff in mind. Let's assign our dice to various places.
Julia: I have mine ready to go if you want me to share mine.
Eric: Please. The only thing to remember, Ghoulia, is that you cannot go over four dice in—you have to assign at least one dice to each skill and you cannot go above four dice.
Julia: Gotcha. So for Claire McCloud, I am going to give her a three in academics because I feel like she is very much a researcher and problem solver because she comes from this kind of Hollywood production background, right? I'm going to give her a one in athletics because I don't think she has a lot of time to go to the gym because of her job. I'm gonna give her two in technology, because I think that she is probably like fairly proficient with the technology that she's familiar with and can figure out stuff, but it's not necessarily an expert in that regard. And then I'm going to give her a three in contact because she's very good at schmoozing being a person from Hollywood.
Amanda: Love it.
Eric: Hell yeah.
Amanda: Amelia is going to have the most dice, we're gonna do four in contact because having a network, talking to people schmoozing. Yeah, making—making enemies and dealing with those enemies is—is her main skill. We're gonna do two each in technology and athletics. I think she's really good at driving, and also—
Julia: Oh yeah.
Amanda: —raising three teenage boys, knowing about their XBoxes, and their Playstations and their you know, SNES's and all of this bullshit. Figuring out what's porn and what's games.
Eric: If I can—if I can give you a suggestion Amanda—
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: —my mom called any game system the crap box, so you can have that down.
Amanda (as Amelia Ashes): Put down the crap box and do your math. You’re never gonna get into Yale like that.
Eric (as Amelia's son): Your—mom I can do it because I'm great at lacrosse. Fuck.
Amanda: Thank you so much Eric, taken. And then my remaining one isn't academics because her—hers is a practical skill set and not necessarily academics.
Julia: I also really like the idea that she is fairly good in athletics because she raised three rowdy boys.
Amanda: Oh, yeah, lacrosse players, Julia.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: You won't believe the number of broken windows she avoided.
Brandon: I think this one's gonna be pretty obvious for Gray Dickson here, but athletics four, obviously.
Julia: Natch.
Brandon: And I don't think he has much skills and the other ones unfortunately, but I think contact is gonna be my third or second one with three, because of his circus contacts. You know, lots of people with weird skills.
Eric: Sure.
Brandon: You know, and he meet—he has met lots of people so he knows how to talk to people. And then I think both a one in academics and tech because I don't think I probably graduated high school, probably was home schooled. And you know, unless you count ropes and pulleys, and you know, that kind of tech then, the tech is one as well.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: Make sense. Checks out.
Eric: That's fair. Okay, I'm gonna do me. I want to balance everything. I guess I want to balance everything.
Julia: Beevez.
Eric: I also want to say that Beevez I've changed his—the place where he used to work. It is now called Sprockets ‘n Stuff.
Amanda: Oh, that's Eric, that's—
Julia: Yep.
Amanda: —that is better than Circuit Mart, but I thought you couldn't top Circuit Mart, so that's really good.
Julia: You said sprockets, and my brain filled the rest in it was in my head, Sprockets ‘n Sproings, and I know sproings isn't a word but it's a fun onomatopeia sounds, so.
Eric: Now I'm changing it to Sprockets ‘n Sproings, Julia nailed it.
Julia: Ooohh.
Brandon: Now--
Julia: Thanks, bud.
Brandon: Can I also yes, and this was definitely the time where we had like things like Toys R Us and whatever R, whatever can it be Sprockets R Sproings [laughs]
Eric: Brandon, it's called Sprockets R Sproings, you nailed it.
Julia: You could also save the R for whatever our franchise business name is.
Eric: Well that one we needed that, that one we needed .com on it so—
Julia: Oh yes.
Eric: —we already have that. Okay.
Amanda: Listen in my head where ghosts.com but I'm—I'm open to collaborate it.
Eric: No, I do like ghosts.com.
Julia: That's why you googled that earlier to make sure it wasn’t porn. I see you now.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Um I feel like, I feel like Ben Reeves is really min maxed.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: So I think that I'm min maxed in technology four, academics three, athletics one, contacts one.
Amanda: Nice.
Eric: So that although Ben Re— although Beevez is an affable fella from just living in the moment, I don't think it works for him well at all. And although on the opposite of Claire, although he might be like, I don't know, regular man height. Regular man body, just it’s all pudding in there. There's—
Julia: Sure is.
Eric: —there's just absolutely no, absolutely no muscle mass at all to speak of.
Julia: Love that for you.
Brandon: Did—did Beevez just bring like—what is the name of the, the pudding cups to work everyday for lunch?
Julia: Snack pack.
Brandon: Snack packs. Thank you.
Eric: Yeah, snack packs yeah, absolutely. Like never eaten a vegetable before. Although it doesn't show, maybe it doesn't show as much outward—outwardly. I'm sure that he has a little belly poking out of his like, of his large graphic tee, that he got from bustedtees.com. Like there's no ability to move his body in any sort of way. Like no, no acrobatics, nor athletics, if you know what I'm saying.
Julia: Gotchu.
Brandon: Now, how many times that he gets scammed while ordering online in 2002, before he actually got the tee?
Eric: Well, Brandon, here's the thing, zero because he has a four in technology.
Julia: Yeah. He can see a scam a mile away.
Amanda: You basically had to be a hacker to use the internet in 2002.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: That's true.
Eric: Yeah. And he basically used it just to play like 2003 Flash games, but he really didn't knew how to do it. He knows what to do at a like at a terminal that just has the green, the green uh—
Amanda: Yes.
Eric: —green stuff. Because he worked at Sprockets ‘n Sproings and you needed to know that they had a really in depth like intranet system. That was because the person who created Sprockets ‘n Sproings was like one of the people who was that like the NSA, or NASA, or the CIA who had the internet before everyone else in the 70s.
Amanda: Okay, now I'm imagining that perhaps Circuit Mart had to rebrand as Sprockets and Stuff, then Sprockets ‘n Sproings, then Sprockets R Sproings as like increasing sort of corporate entities to avoid bankruptcy, or insider trading allegations. And so it makes complete sense why you, you had to leave, where they're like, we're just—we're gonna have to fire you, but you're gonna be laid off soon afterward.
Eric: I like that a lot. I feel like that's like the joke from 30 Rock how NBC-- NBC is like entertainment, is owned by GE, but above that it's owned by a wig company.
Julia and Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah. Yeah. But I—I do have a three in academics because I'm good at researching by using computers. I don't know a lot of things. But I certainly know where to find them out. And I think that's—
Amanda: That's a good skill.
Eric: —where it comes from academics.
Brandon: Now, is Beevez favorite website that he plays Flash games on called Old Skies?
Eric: Yes Brandon, yes it is. [laughs]
Brandon: There you go.
Eric: I got you. I got you.
Brandon: Thank you. Thank you.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: Okay, I got the joke, took me a second.
Eric: Yeah it is.
Julia: I was like new what? NewGrounds. Got it.
Brandon: Everyone who is our listener is not going to get even the new gro—the old—the newgrounds reference. So that joke is not going to work.
Amanda: Starting with moi.
Eric: Brandon, It's also fine. I wanted to say there's a bunch of games about beating up Osama Bin Laden. But that’s not making it into the cut either.
[theme]
Eric (as Scoot Mcgarry): Onto the next step, but first, the mid roll.
[theme]
Amanda: Hey, it's Amanda, remembering the kayfabe of the midroll how I was packing last time. Now Eric and I are in Seattle. Actually, as you listen to this, we are staying with Brandon, and the coffee ghosts Lauren at their house, and also seeing some babies. A friend of the show Jeff and his new babies over in Portland. So we are very stoked to be here and to be seeing everybody. But that also means that I'm recording this in advance. So we will thank all of our new patrons next week. But in the meantime, did you know you can get a discount when you sign up for an annual pledge over on Patreon. If you want to get your name in the queue for Eric to say thank you to next week. Sign up for Patreon, now makes a great start to your new year and ours over at patreon.com/jointhepartypod. This week at Multitude we would love if you checked out Queer Movie Podcast. This is a queer movie watch party hosted by Rowan Ellis and Jazza John, join them as they research and rate their way through the Queer Film canon one genre at a time. And they are often doing movies that you might be hearing about on social media, like out In the culture. They are talking about stuff that is relevant. And now for queer folks, and I love that I can watch a movie or see the discourse and then check in to see what Rowan and Jazza's take is. From romcoms to slashers, contemporary art house cinema, to black and white classics. They are a celebration of all things queer on the silver screen. So search for Queer Movie Podcast in your podcast app now. They have new episodes every other Thursday. We are sponsored once more by Battling Blades. They design and sell high quality swords, axes, machetes, and knives, striving to design and create products with the highest quality metals, bone, wood and leather. And I gotta tell you, I am using my mezzaluna, my pizza cutter, I used it on just bread, I use it on a piece of salami, I use it on an apple. I am so excited to fully feel like a, I don't know some kind of warrior or maybe d&d character, RPG character while just cutting my, you know, everyday stuff. It is a true pleasure and Eric has been brandishing his axe to make a point from time to time. It's incredible. I know Julia has been enjoying her sword and Brandon, his pizza cutter as well. But Battling Blades makes much more than axes and swords. They also have armor shields, knives, helmets, all kinds of stuff to help you get into character, or decorate your walls or just feel like a badass. For 20% off your Battling Blades order, go to battlingblades.com and enter code, Join the Party at checkout. Once again, for 20% off your Battling Blades order, go to battlingblades.com and enter code Join the Party at checkout. And thank you once more for sponsoring the show. We are also sponsored today by Brilliant. So okay, come on this journey with me. Let's say you're a new ghost hunter. And you really want to impress your bosses because you can't afford to lose this job, not after what you said on the set of The Bachelor. So you go to brilliant.org, the best way to learn math, science and computer science interactively. They have thousands of lessons with new ones added each month. And for example, again here in the fiction in the example, you can learn about quantum objects, which sounds made up but it's real. It's actually a lesson in the science learning path on Brilliant, and not just a thing that you say in ghost hunting businesses. And if you took it, you could be a person who knows what the word quantum actually means. That would definitely impress your bosses and help you keep your new job. So to get started for free, visit brilliant.org/jointheparty or click the link in the description. The first 200 of you will get 20% off Brilliants annual premium subscription, at brilliant.org/jointheparty. Finally, the show is sponsored by BetterHelp. And I need help to keep my mental health functioning. It's a thing that I wish I'd heard more when I was younger. And the thing I have to remind myself from time to time to be honest. I need to make sure that I am checking in with myself and treating myself well, and keeping my body feeling good. And one of the things I do to keep my mind right is I have therapy every week, where I talk about stuff I'm worried about, what's going on with me. Getting help and outside perspective on the issues and challenges in my life. And just having a sounding board to help me make sure that I am taking care of myself and showing up in my other relationships the way I want to. And for a long time I could not find a therapist near me even though I live in New York City, that took my insurance was accepting new patients and could see people at a time of day that I was able to see them. Not to mention wasn't like two hours away by train. So I use BetterHelp, they're convenient, flexible, affordable and entirely online. So if like me you have run into trouble finding therapy near you, give BetterHelp a try. If you want to live a more empowered life, therapy can help get you there. Visit betterhelp.com/jointheparty today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHELP.com/jointheparty. And now back to the Derby.
[theme]
Eric: So now that we—we have this, we're gonna go right to our talents, which are talent is something that you get to assign to yourself, that will give you a plus one die using it. Use something that's kind of a—a jumping off point of your background. Here's some examples. Computers, car mechanic, football player, Star Trek geek, Don Juan, ninja training, librarian. botany.
Julia: Can I go ahead and make my talent schmoozer?
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: I like that.
Brandon: Love it.
Amanda: I think mine should be driving. I think that getting—getting three boys to lacrosse practice when they're perhaps unbelted and I can dodge through traffic would be very helpful.
Eric: Now actually, I'm gonna push back on both of you—
Amanda: Oh really?
Eric: —because I want you to open it up a little bit more, that you can apply this to various things if the GM allows you to. So I feel like you might be harming yourself in, because again, Julia you—Claire's already expressed this with high contact. And Amelia has already expressed this with the driving athletic stuff, right? So make sure-- broaden it out a little bit more so you can apply it to more things.
Amanda: Oh, sure.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: How about—can mine be like spidey senses, like mom's spidey senses? Like mom has like eyes in the back of her head and can like catch a sippy cup that's going off the counter, or is that too broad?
Eric: No, I think that's fine. I think mom's senses is good.
Julia: Can—can mine be quote “I lived in LA.”?
Eric: Yeah, yeah that's good.
Amanda: Incredible.
Eric: They are ba—you know where bad tacos are everywhere.
Julia: Or it's just like, in my mind, it was like, I have had experience outside of this small town. And I'm very like, worldly because of it.
Eric: Yeah, no, that's good. I like that.
Amanda: That's incredible.
Eric: I like that.
Julia: And it's just a lot of like, me name dropping celebrities when I'm telling stories or trying to convince people of stuff.
Eric: Yeah, no, I think that's good.
Amanda: Yeah. Or like that watch is too expensive for that, man. How do you know that, I lived in LA.
Julia: Perfect.
Eric: Some of these can also be very straightforward. Like Brandon, if you just want to be like circus performer, I think that works.
Brandon: Well, I already have a four in athletics so like, I think—
Eric: Right, but you wouldn't say Acrobat, but circus can apply to any of your stuff if it's circus based.
Brandon: Oh, gotcha.
Eric: So you're gonna say circus performer if you want to.
Brandon: Well, I was gonna say like, fearless naivet—naivety—naivete, naivete. I don't— I don't know how to say that well, because I was homeschooled and anyone who's ever known, anyone who's homeschooled. They just have no fear and are always optimistic about everything.
Eric: Sure. No, I like I like that.
Amanda: Has never been bullied.
Brandon: I've never been bullied. Yeah, exactly.
Julia: Must be nice.
Amanda: Oh, Gray.
Eric: You gotta—you gotta be bullied a little bit so you know what bullying is.
Amanda: Guys, It's really important that we never tell Gray that his last name might need— lead to some rude nicknames. Okay?
Julia: You can't say the word dick around him.
Brandon: Let’s hope I never meet your kids.
Amanda: Protect him.
Julia: Yes.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: Cover his ears like a little infant.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: I'm gonna say for mine, Julia, you really inspired me. I'm gonna say retail for mine.
Amanda and Julia: Yay.
Eric: My skill is I was a retail worker. So I know how things work in any, in retail experiences, dealing with irate customers. I think I've got a bo—maybe I can get a bonus to that. So I'll—
Amanda: Hell yeah.
Eric: So I'll do retail worker for that.
Julia: Incredible.
Amanda: That's awesome.
Eric: Hell yeah, dude. I—wonderful. Well that, we just did our character creation, which is awesome.
Julia: Woo.
Eric: But now, much like in Sex and the City, where New York was a character and an Entourage where vomiting and being an asshole was a character, we have to create our franchise, which is our char—another character in this story.
Amanda: I appreciate the thruline here that the creator of Entourage is from America. I'm just gonna, it's gonna keep sitting it sitting with that sitting in that.
Eric: Alright, so we can figure this out in a bunch of different ways. But they basically give you a lot of questions that you, you kind of just come up with at your table. So I'm going to read all of them. And then maybe we will just bounce around and see what we figure out. I don't know if you've ever done this before on this podcast, so this might be hard for us. Okay, so remember, we're coming up with like a franchise. They—they highlight this a lot. How big is your franchise? How long have you been in operation? Are you the main office? An established franchise? A startup? Where's your franchise located? How many people work there? Who runs the show? A board of directors? Investors? What does it look like? Blah, blah, blah. So I think that we should start by coming up with big picture stuff. And then we can kind of zoom in on some other things. Because as we come up with specific details about the office, we're all going to have to do technology roles to figure out how good the thing in the office is going to be.
Julia: Incredible. In my mind, I am picturing like a mom and pop shop, like a generations owned, like ghost busting company.
Eric: Yeah, I like that a lot.
Julia: Because I think that's really funny, that it's just like, especially in like the early 2000s where there's a lot of—there's a lot of like media getting really upset about the like the disappearing of the mom and pop shop, and like big companies coming in and like you know, getting rid of them and out competing them.
Brandon: Yeah, that's actually funny because I was going to offer the—the other side of that, which was the—
Amanda: Me too. Yeah.
Brandon: —the corporation coming into the [laughs] the nameless, faceless corporate entity.
Amanda: Yeah, I—I was thinking I think— I think both are really interesting, but it sounds like we're all kind of like taking random jobs, versus like somebody handing over like a beloved family business or franchise. I'm totally open to both, but I do kind of love the idea that ghosts.com is turning, you know, the pesky sort— like, like a cleaning business that is trying to you know, franchise all over the country. They are, you know, opening up kind of a new field office, in a—in a new location. Maybe a corporate office, bought out mom and pop, and those people get to retire. And now you know, we're sort of transforming the existing operation into a franchisee.
Brandon: Yeah, cause I like the idea that we're all sort of like, what's the job that no one wants to take? Like, you know, big cat wrangling like, cool job but no—but it's scary and you're probably gonna get hurt. And so like it's very hard, like it's pretty easy to get the job because they'll pretty much take anyone because no one applies to it. But—
Eric: Something we haven't done before is like our characters being motivated by the fact that someone will yell at them. And I think that we all need this job because we—whether we have no experience in the past for Dick Grayson.
Brandon: Gray Dickson, Eric.
Eric: I know I was joking. For a former Acrobat and for a former homemaker or we need this job, like, we're have to move back to a hometown or something happened at Sprockets R Us. I think that might be, that might be an interesting thing that we haven't messed with before. Because of like the ownership, I feel like we've had of stuff in campaign two.
Amanda: Claire can also be really, really optimistic and like really want to make meaning and we're all like, okay, this is a job.
Julia: Like Claire's like I left a job that I thought was really important. And like I only raised my concerns because I could see the like, potential of it. And now I—I really want to apply that to, to here to now.
Brandon: Now I want to make ghosts kiss.
Julia: If those ghosts want to find love, then they can find love, you know.
Eric: But real love, not like love we—we edited together.
Brandon: An eternal love.
Eric: Here's my thought, okay. I think we can combine this. What if this is a franchise that bought the mom and pop shop, but our boss is the old couple who owned the place first, like they need to golden parachute themselves. But they have to stay on for like two or three years before they can leave.
Amanda: Locally owned franchise, that makes sense to me.
Brandon: Sounds good to me.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: Yeah. Yeah.
Amanda: That's their retirement plan. And Claire maybe thinks that she's going to be like the next generation, and like, put her portrait up alongside the portraits of the mom and pop. And I think Amelia would say, listen, if you're not scamming your bosses, they're scamming you. Okay?
Julia: But what if I want to be the boss?
Eric: That's why I only take poops at work.
Amanda: You know what? As long as we have different bathrooms I'm cool with that.
Brandon: It was better working with elephants.
Eric: Here's the thing, I also don't forget. [laughs] Okay, I think we've—we've we've hit on a number of things here, which we definitely need. So we are a owned franchise that has been turned over to ghosts. I think I like ghosts.com. Are we going with ghost.com?
Julia: Yes, yes, fine. That's great.
Amanda: That's the thing I said. So tell me if you think otherwise.
Julia: Should it be like-- because this is early 2000s, should it be like ghost.net? Or something like that? Or should we just be ghosts.com
Amanda: ghost.net is good because we catch the ghost.
Eric: That's true.
Julia: Ooh in a net.
Brandon: Oh, ghost net. Oh, ghost net. Yes.
Julia:Great. Love it.
Eric: Ghost net is good. Um, who runs the show, it's a board of directors from the actual-- from the franchisee of ghost net.
Amanda: Okay, um, quick point of reference, Ghost Net is the name given by researchers at the information warfare monitor to a large-scale cyber spying operation discovered in March 2009. Do you want to be ghost.net?
Julia: Yes. ghost.net.
Amanda: ghost.net
Eric: Can you tell me more about this?
Brandon: Yeah. What?
Amanda: Yeah. Apparently, a hacking operation based in China infiltrated high value political, economic and media locations in 103 countries, including computer systems from embassies, government offices, and the Dalai Lama's Tibetan exile centers.
Julia: What?!
Brandon: That's wild. I like the idea that when it's like no one's quite sure how to say it. And like, because when we write it out in like, early 2000s fashion, it's like ghosts. And then there's like a, like an actual dot—
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: —in like parentheses or something. You know, like illustrated (.) net?
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Brandon: Some people call it ghost net. Some people call it ghost.net. The website is literally ghost.net. But is that just like the end of it, you know what I mean?
Eric and Julia: Yes.
Eric: It's like if the Ghostbusters, no ghosts symbol was the dot in—
Amanda: Yes.
Eric: Was the period in ghost.net.
Brandon: Exactly.
Eric: So no one knows if it's aesthetic or not. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Amanda: That's very good and very early 2000s.
Julia: I love it.
Amanda: We also don't have to include that the thing. I said. I don't think it's like a hu—it's not like, you know, the Pentagon Papers, but a big one.
Julia: That's true.
Brandon: I want to call our company the Pentagon Papers.
Eric: I want to call our company, Edward Snowden, is that okay?
Amanda: Enron! Valdez oil spill!
Eric: Oh my god. Okay. Well, here's a good question. Let's figure out the setting now. I think that this might be interesting that we can be in a small city. Because again, this is like, if—if ghosts.net was expanding, I feel like maybe we're franchise number five. I'm thinking about like when you look at a restaurant website, and it's like, let's say that they started in New York, right? It's like, oh, we have one in Queens, we have one in Brooklyn and in Long Beach and Miami. And I feel like that's what— that's what four and five usually are.
Brandon: Can I pitch you the like, more fast food experiment type, where it's like, yeah, our corpor—we're like New York, Brooklyn, whatever. And then like it's like Akron, Ohio as like a test market.
Eric: Sure. Oh, Brandon, can we fucking be a not real small city in the Midwest, please?
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: Springfield, Ohio.
Eric: Is that real? Is that a real one?
Amanda: Well, the Simpsons town was Springfield, but there's like 20 Springfield's in the US.
Brandon: Right.
Amanda: They just never talked about the state. So we can just be Springfield, Midwest.
Julia: Yeah. They also famously when the Simpsons movie came out, they had a competition to see which Springfield in the country they would like premiere the movie at.
Brandon: Oh, I didn't know that. That's fun.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Right. Cute.
Eric: We can be Springfield. I just wanted to be like one of those scary places that's like noun city, like—
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: —corn city or maize city or like car, or you know what I'm talking about?
Brandon: Yeah, got it.
Julia: To be fair, we did do that before.
Eric: Oh, shit. We did do that. Nevermind.
Amanda: Blightville. Blightville.
Brandon: Oh, Blightville, oohh.
Julia: Oh Blightville.
Brandon: That's interesting. I like that.
Julia: Keeping in mind also, Blighton is kind of fun.
Brandon: Blighton, also good.
Amanda: Blighton, is extremely good.
Brandon: I like that a lot.
Eric: Blighton-on-Thames.
Amanda: Eric, that's our sister city in England.
Eric: Oh, sorry. That's from the first game. I'm sorry.
Amanda: This is Blighton, Illinois.
Eric: Okay. No, I like Blighton. I think Blighton's great.
Brandon: I mean, it's got to be Ohio, though right?
Julia: I love it.
Eric: Cool.
Julia: Yeah.
Brandon: Blighton, Ohio, that just sounds right.
Amanda: I'm—I'm cool with Ohio.
Julia: Or like Iowa.
Amanda: Blighton, Ohio. Not the one with all the river fires. That one's Cleveland.
Julia: That's Cleveland.
Eric: There could still be river fires, it's just from Ghosts.
Julia: Our river is full of ghosts.
Eric: From ghosts. Are we the only—this is interesting. Are we the only ghost hunting franchise in the area? Are there competitors?
Julia: No. Again, I think it was a mom and pop that was absorbed by the competitors. So they—if there were competitors, it was because they were run out of town.
Eric: Got it, our competitors are our bosses inside the house. Yes. Okay. I think that's great. I'm going to roll. I'm gonna roll because I forgot, because I'm looking at the— I'm looking at the stuff here. It says that you should roll technology, whenever you mention a detail, like equipment stuff, or a posh office, and I am rolling for staff. Because I think I'm rolling for our bosses.
Brandon: Okay.
Eric: So I have four technology. So the way that you do this is that everyone, whenever you give an idea, you have to roll for technology, so that we spread the wealth, Right? So I'm going to do this one. I'm going to do this one for our staff. [dice roll] Hell yeah. Alright. I got a 6.
Julia: Yeaaah.
Eric: They are amazing. I don't think—I think they're very nice. And grandparently, but they do—are not helpful.
Brandon: Oh, yeah.
Eric: Like they—they will sit there and they don't want to move because they're obstinate and they are getting bought out and they're just riding this out. They're probably playing bingo, and watching daytime TV the entire time, which is fine, because then, then maybe something on Maury will help us with our case. But I think they're—I think they're very nice. And they like all of us equally. And they dote on us quite a lot. And they make our lunches.
Julia: That's very sweet.
Amanda: Cute.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: Like they just bag lunch everyday for us. That's adorable.
Brandon: That's incredible.
Julia: I love that.
Eric: Yeah. So that—my highest one on that was six. I got a three, a four, four and a six. But remember, we're taking the highest so I got a six.
Amanda: I think Julia should roll for the office itself, since it used to be the mom and pop.
Eric: Yeah, we can do that as well, for like the building—for the building itself.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah. So Julia, you're using Claire's technology dice. How many are you rolling?
Julia: Uh, that means I roll two.
Eric: Wonderful.
Julia: Alright. Ooh, that's—remind me I take the higher of the two or—
Eric: You take the higher, yeah.
Julia: Well, I rolled a 6.
Eric and Amanda: Yay.
Eric: That's amazing.
Julia: I rolled a 5 and a 6, by the way.
Eric: Hell yeah. Why is it amazing Julia?
Julia: Like it is historic in the way where it's very well preserved, but not terrible and like drafty, and the plumbing doesn't work, you know, so it feels very like small town homey vibe. But at the same time it's been updated and well maintained because again these people like really cared about their business as a mom and pop shop.
Amanda: Radiant floors. Let's be nice.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Alright. Well, let's keep going into that. Let's talk about our—what our franchise looks like, what amenities does it feature. So it's a nice old building, but what else we got?
Amanda: I would love to roll for a company vehicle. I really love the idea of like a souped up soccer mom minivan, and I'd love to roll and see what the vehicle is like.
Eric: Yeah, sure.
Amanda: Alright, my highest is a 4, so that's fair. Mostly successful with humorous or bad effect too.
Eric: Bless, that's all you want from a vehicle, yeah?
Amanda and Julia: Yeah.
Eric: You want goo—you want good with humorous effect.
Julia: Can I float a suggestion to you?
Amanda: Oh, yeah.
Julia: It is absolutely just a Yukon.
Amanda: Yeah, yeah. Like, like a Yukon, a slightly nicer than average minivan style thing. But I think maybe the humorous flaw is that it always smells like a different, like child's snack food. So sometimes it smells like Go Gurt, sometimes it smells like fruit roll up. Sometimes it smells like Dunkaroos.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: And that's not always great.
Eric: Does it still—it still does after—now that your kids are grown and gone? Oh, is it?—
Amanda: IfI tell you--
Eric: Or is it haunted by the ghosts of snacks passed?
Amanda: If I tell you the number of times, I find fucking gushers under my, my seats, my boys are a senior, a junior and a sophomore in college.
Julia: Why are they eating so many gushers?
Amanda: How are the gushers still in there?
Brandon: You can tell that none of us have had kids, because we think that the snacks go away once the kids grow up. That doesn't happen.
Amanda: There’s sand in there from Daytona Beach in 1997. Runs great, not necessarily a souped up right.
Julia: Slightly sticky everywhere.
Eric: Sticky, sticky and smells. So I hope we don't deal with a werewolf or someone who could smell then, that might be bad. Yeah. Anyone else with amenities, or maybe some gear we have access to? We didn't say Ghostbustery, but I wonder if there's something specific.
Brandon: I mean, it's 2002. So I am imagining sort of like a laser, laser tag pack. You know?
Eric: Sure.
Julia: Yes. 100%.
Brandon: Like maybe it is laser base. And you know, it's the standardized ghost hunting gear that comes down from corporate.
Eric: Oh, true. I like that. Yeah.
Brandon: I don't know what it does exactly though.
Eric: It can just be like, maybe it zaps and holds, like you wanted to hold it in and you got to trap it with like a different thing. Because lasers-- I'm really, I'm really getting into the laser tag thing. So it's like, you got to hold the thing and then you got to put a trap under it.
Julia: Yeah, like a tractor beam. And then the trap is a separate entity. Yeah.
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: That's cool. I like it.
Eric: Yeah. Brampton will you roll technology for the stuff that corporate gave us?
Brandon: Sure. I have one.
Eric: That's what happens baby.
Brandon: [dice roll] Four, not bad.
Eric: Good. So it's good but it has a negative humor and humorous effect.
Brandon: I think it makes a sou—a funny noise when you shoot it.
Julia: Yeah like [turkey noise]
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Alright, let's all go around, let's all go around and make a suggestion for the funny noise.
Brandon: Okay, mine is SLORP.
Amanda: Mine is [high pitch sound]
Eric: Dang that's what I was gonna do. Shit. Okay.
Amanda: Really?
Eric: I'm gonna do a high pitch one. It goes Ohga chaka, ohga chaka, ohga, ohga chaka.
Julia: And it just gets stuck in our head you know.
Eric: [high pitch] [sings] I can't stop this feeling.
Julia: And then we get sued.
Eric: That's fair.
Brandon: So is Julia's right?
Julia: [Turkey noise]
Eric: Either Julia or Amanda's, I think high pitched, high pitch is where it's at. Yeah.
Brandon: I just want to make Julia do that.
Amanda: I like Julia's ululating. How do you say that word? You know like—
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Amanda: I'd like Julia's noise the best personally.
Julia: People can't see me, but it's a finger in front of my mouth. And it wiggles—
Amanda: Like an inchworm.
Eric: It’s a high turkey.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah.
Brandon: It’s a high turkey, that’s what it is, 100%.
Amanda: It's like a goblin. Yes.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: Exactly. Little turkey. I was gonna suggest Brandon that they're obnoxiously branded with ghosts.net. Like, neon green, or whatever our color is or neon yellow.
Brandon: Well that’s a given, yeah yeah yeah.
Amanda: Okay. Okay.
Eric: Like the Go Daddy signage for so long. It was on everything. Yeah.
Amanda: Exactly right.
Eric: Absolutely.
Julia: Man, go, daddy. That was the thing, huh?
Eric: I would love to make a suggestion. And anyone could roll on this, because I don't even know if this is technology necessarily. But I like the idea that before corporate came in, the main thing that helped out the former mom and pop shop, was that they had like an ancient artifact that helped them with stuff, that like has like a piece of a god in it.
Amanda: Eric, I think you have to roll on that.
Eric: I know. But like, I don't know if it's technology necessarily. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know if that's a four, if I'd be rolling four dice for that.
Julia: Hold on, I—I'm trying to like, sus out what I think this should be. And I feel like it's like an old rune stone, like one of those big ones that you would find in like Ireland in the middle of the moors, or something like that.
Eric: Yeah, it's the—it's the Rosetta-- it's a Rosetta Stone. It's somewhere in between Rosetta— a Rosetta Stone and Olmec from Legends of the Hidden Temple.
Julia: Yes. Yeah.
Eric: Like he's there, and he can tell—he like they could tell whatever it was in the Runestone can tell you stuff. And it's fine about it because—
Julia: Definitely like a fae creature that was trapped in a stone, and now he like gives you advice.
Eric: Yeah. I don't know if it's like a fairy or a—
Amanda: I just think--
Eric: Alright, omniscient. That's what I'm trying to figure out, is like, is it a—is it just a sprite, who's just as lost as you are? Or this is like, omniscient. A piece of an omniscient thing.
Julia: Oh I'm getting real, like mirror, mirror on the wall vibes. That make sense?
Amanda: Yeah. What if—what if you Beevez, what if you rigged up like a terminal where the spirit can type to us?
Eric: Oh, it's ghost writer. Fuck yeah dude.
Julia: Yeaaah.
Eric: Literally about to say that Amanda.
Amanda: Really?
Brandon: Yeah.
Amanda: Nice.
Eric: Hell yeah. Okay, then, uh, yeah, I'm gonna roll four and see how it—how it—how it do. [dice roll] Alright, hey, I only rolled a four with my four dice.
Amanda: Not bad.
Julia: Wow.
Eric: So another fair, it's mostly successful—
Julia: Dang.
Eric: —but has humorous or bad effect as well.
Julia: Wait, um. Can I suggest something very quickly?
Eric: Please, please.
Julia: I like the idea that we all have like work issued sidekicks, or like beepers or whatever. And like every once in a while, he'll just—the like, spirit will just like message us being like, hey, I just wanted to chat. Like, do you have information for me about the case? Like no, it's just, how was your weekend?
Eric: Alright. So typos and lonely?
Julia: Yes.
Eric: Yeah, I like that. I think that that’s very funny.
Julia: Needy, it's very needy.
Eric: It's very nee—it's very needy. [laughs]
Julia: It's like emotionally needy.
Amanda: Eric, what is this pal’s name?
Eric: Oh, man, I gotta figure, we're gonna have to figure that out. I think that's up to whoever—this is—this is a treat for any GM—whoev— which was gonna GM, is gets to name and inform this, this NPC.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Now I also love that we have sidekicks, Julia. We definitely need to have sidekicks.
Brandon: Oh, 100%.
Amanda: Hell yeah.
Eric: All of you who don't know what that is, go look it up. It was the pinnacle of te—it was the pinnacle of technology. I wish I had one right now. I would trade in all iPhones I've ever had, and being able to access the internet if I could have a sidekick keyboard under my big clubby thumbs.
Amanda: That is making me think about one of these questions is around the amenities that our franchise has. And I wonder if we do have some kind of like database or repository of knowledge that the mom and pop owners have assembled over the years? Any ideas around that?
Eric: Yeah, I like that. Can it not be on a computer, can—do we have to use like a Dewey Decimal System filing cabinet to figure it out?
Julia: I was about to suggest, I think that's Claire's mission to digitize this archive.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Whenever we—whenever Claire's not on screen, she's scanning—
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: —documents.
Amanda: You know how in like general stores, they had big like feed containers where you could get feed for animals or like flour or whatever. I'm imagining they're just some-- there are probably some like 14 by 14 inch, just like big old drawers that like fold diagonally outward. I'm picturing that there is like a huge cabinet of them across one whole wall. And it's labeled things like green, sticky, gross, smelly, and Claire walks in like, I can't cross reference any of this.
Julia: Can we—can we—maybe I don't know like, join together sticky and oozy, is that okay like—
Amanda: And then like knitting needles clacking, the grandmas like, they're different, you'll learn.
Julia: They seem like they're the same.
Amanda: Now when you're getting out of your wool coat. Alright, let me—let me roll that for how—how good this database is.
Julia: I feel like we've already—
Amanda: I just got four, so I think we describe exactly what it is.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Oh that's it.
Julia: We already kind of like you gave ourselves some--
Amanda: Extensive but badly organized.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: I think that we have a lot of de—we have a lot of details. I like this, if anyone else wants to add any before we move on.
Brandon: Did we want to do the one about the specialty, or do we want to just sort of have a overarching we do everything?
Julia: I mean I think our specialty is ghosts because our company is called ghosts.net, but it's not like we can't handle vampires, demons or cryptozoology.
Brandon: Right. That’s our slogan.
Eric: I figured that we weren't specialized because there was only one in the city, so that's why—
Amanda: All purpose? Yeah.
Eric: —that's why I didn't think that yeah.
Amanda: I think it's worth clarifying that we—we can be like an all purpose you know solution. Even if corporate—
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: —wants to push us a little more toward ghosts.
Eric: Yeah. Corporate has a mandate to do ghosts only and we—we do everything. That's kinda funny actually. That was very fun.
Julia: Yeah, they really want us to start charging extra for anything that isn't ghost, as like a specialty. But we're like, ehh, you know, old man McHiggins he's had demons in his barn for years. And you know, he's a lifelong client.
Brandon: Yeah, corporate is like, well, if it's not a ghost, we have to like buy garlic or like Bibles. Like there's extra things that we have to do and so I need you to pay for 100% for that.
Eric: There is a goo surcharge, there is a an embalming surcharge.
Julia: Don't even get me started on the extra for possession.
Eric: Alright, so then we're gonna do the final mechanical thing, which is franchise dice, which means like the company can give you dice as well. Ordinarily, you start out with like 5 to 10 dice, but I think that this isn't, this is so basic, we start with five dice, because it's like we're getting too taken over with new management. And we can assign that franchise dice to different cards. We have a library card, a gym card and a credit card, which can give us bonuses to academics, athletics, and technology roles.
Brandon: Oh fun.
Julia: That's cool.
Amanda: Nice.
Eric: Yeah. So does anyone want to assign this to various places, like what do you think that this, that we have here that might help us out?
Amanda: Well, I think at least one, one or two in technology will be really helpful. And we may need to access corporate if there is like a kind of problem that we haven't come across before, but then maybe we don't, because they'll know that we're doing things that aren't just ghosts.
Julia: You're like, so there's this ghost who's been sucking people's blood. How do you—does that, okay? Can we use the corporate card?
Amanda: That's pretty good.
Eric: Pleaseee.
Julia: Pleasee.
Amanda: Do you want to come to Blighton and see it for yourself? You can.
Eric: Oh, no, I gotta take two flights and a puddle jumper just to get there.
Julia: And a bus.
Eric: You got to take a shuttle to get the flight. I'm trying to see if like if you don't use it you lose it, if you put it on cards, then I don't think so.
Amanda: Yeah, they do say the card dice are non transferable. Once you place them, you can't switch them, but.
Eric: Okay, wonderful. So you don't leave—if you don't use it, you don't lose it. So I think that's fine.
Julia: Okay.
Eric: But—
Julia: So we'll just hold on to them.
Eric: Yeah.
Amanda: We can do this if we ended up playing too.
Eric: Yeah. But yeah, we will discu—let's discuss this if we end up playing this one. But there will be cards that we can—we can touch on. And we also can give ourselves job titles. But it seems like we're all just plebes working under man—working under management, working under a shadowy board of directors, who is the real CEO of ghosts.net
Brandon: Well, what's the like—
Eric: What is our job title though?
Brandon: I was gonna say what's the kitschy like early 2000s, entry level job title for this corporation.
Amanda: Like ghost associate or something?
Julia and Brandon: Ghost associate.
Julia: Is so funny. Yes. I was also going to say containment associate, is like a very formal job title for—
Amanda: Containment specialist.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah.
Eric: Containment specialist is good.
Amanda: I like that.
Brandon: What—ghost blaster.
Julia: Also good, Brandon.
Amanda: No Brandon, VP of blasting is something you have to work your way up to.
Eric: That's at the home office level.
Amanda: The corporate level. A whole different—a whole different salary cap.
Julia: The bennies though. [whispers] The bennies.
Eric: [whispers] Yeah. The bennies are good. Yeah, let’s--
Amanda: I'm into containment specialist.
Eric: Let's do containment specialist, we're all that. We can also have like the things we have to do around the office like if—
Amanda: Yes.
Eric: If Amelia is the wheel man, we can all have our various things that we do.
Julia: Nice.
Amanda: Oh that’s fun.
Eric: But we can—they can be an informal unless we all want to fight over. They make a big deal about fighting over who gets to be CEO in this, but I think that if we're— if we're corp—if we're working under a corporate structure, then we don't have that.
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Hell yeah. Alright. I think that's it. I think we got everything. Let's recap our characters and franchise and see if this one bears out, if the people—if the will of the people want us to continue.
Amanda: Amelia Ashes is a former soccer mom, new empty nester, my boys are at Yale, Princeton, and Brown, thank you for asking. And my talent is mom's spidey senses. If you make a sippy cup spill, if you try to sneak vodka out of my house, or if you try to bring a girl to the basement and I’m there, I'm gonna know.
Julia: That’s so funny. Claire McCloud is a former production assistant for the Bachelor, the first season of The Bachelor I should say. And I used to live in LA, but now I've moved home and gotten a job with my aunt, Amelia Ashes.
Amanda: Love you, Claire.
Julia: Love you auntie.
Amanda: Hate your Dad.
Eric: Love you Clai—Love you, Claire. Hate your dad.
Julia: Yes. It’s fine.
Eric: [laughs] That’s pretty good.
Julia: He's kind of a dick. It's alright.
Eric: What's up cats and kittens. I'm Ben Reeves—
Julia: Jesus Christ.
Eric: AKA Beevez, that's what everyone calls me. It's a combination of Ben and Reeves. I used to work at Sprockets R Sproings, but they kick me out for living out loud, too much, living too loud. And you know, I have a lot of experience in retail. So I'm ready for anything.
Brandon: Hey, Beevez, are you a rapper? Would you say?
Eric: Listen, I gotta put out my first mixtape. I'm more—I'm more of a DJ you can— I'll show you my Fruity Loops after this.
Julia: That makes a lot of sense.
Brandon: Hello, I'm Gray Dickson. I'm a former circus performer. I was an Acrobat before I lost my job because of the whole elephant scandal, you know. Wasn't involved, but I did, I do miss them. And yeah, I lived in LA for a second. But now I've moved to this, it's called Bright-- Brightsvilton? Bright-- Brightownsville?
Eric: No, this is Blighton we’re the, we’re the capital of spooky water creatures in Ohio.
Brandon: Oh, okay. Cool. Yeah.
Amanda: Also just don't buy the beef. It's just a bad idea.
Eric: We're the—were the Mad Cow Disease capital of Ohio.
Amanda: Yeah. They took that off the signs, but we still know.
Julia: Yeah, we haven't been able to shake that legacy.
Brandon: But I'm excited to bring my optimism and you know, acrobatic abilities to the team. Thanks for hiring me.
Amanda: We are a locally owned franchise, a mom and pop that was bought out by ghost.net. It's up for debate whether you pronounce the dot, where the former owners who are sweet kind of doting grandparents still oversee things, but don't have a lot of involvement in our day to day except making us a nutritious and delicious lunch.
Julia: There's always apple slices, it's kind of great.
Amanda: We are franchise number five. We were the competitors in this area to the invaders of ghost.net, but they bought us out instead. We have great staff, the former owners who are still involved. Our building is amazing. It's historic and yet updated, well preserved. Our vehicle could be better it's—it's fine. It runs well enough, but smells of a random snack every time and occasionally just like a lacrosse stick, a ball, you know a hairpin will just fall out, or sticky when the button when you are, when you're sitting down in the bench seats. And our equipment includes laser tools to trap ghosts, but make a funny noise like a tiny turkey.
Julia: [Turkey noise]
Amanda: Thank you. We do have access to a local spirit who we can communicate with which is great but does make a lot of typos in his beeps and is really lonely. We also have a catalog of knowledge from previous missions but it is a paper system that is badly organized in giant kind of feed containers in this former general form.
Eric: In feed containers. [laughs]
Amanda: Yeah. And we are all purpose ghost solving solutions for the people of Blighton, but unfortunately corporate does want us to move more toward the you know specialized and higher earning ghost exterminations specifically.
Eric: I'm thinking about the first time the we hear a radio ad for ghosts.net. On like the local new—of a local morning show, it's at like 5:30.
Amanda: Yep.
Eric (as Beevez): Hi, I'm Beevez, and if you need ghosts out of your house, us. Alright, support your local businesses, this is Goaty and the French.
Amanda: Oh.
Julia: Great.
Eric: Oh, oui oui.
Julia: Oh, oui oui! We’ve really been including a lot of weird French accents in our work lately and I appreciate and love that.
Eric: Hey, Julia we all got to gro—we all got to stretch, we all got to grow. Okay, so next week, we are doing an after party talking about all three settings and characters and games that we are playing, and we are going to have a poll up when that episode comes out next Tuesday for y'all to vote on which one shot we are going to do. Is it going to be tiny Victorian children trying to write—trying to write books in the modified version of Battle of the Bronte's that I mashed with Clear Eyes Full Hearts. Is it going to be the Coen Brothers movie out on the ice when we play Fiasco? A lot of penguin, did a lot of penguin stuff.
Julia: A lot of penguin drama.
Eric: There's a lot of Penguin drama. Or is it going to be Inspectres with ghosts.net and the lovable Midwesterners that we have here. It's up for you to decide next Tuesday.
Julia: Ooooh.
[theme]
Eric (as Scoot Mcgarry): And here, it’s Scoot McGarry signing off. I don't have anything else to say. I'll see you next week. Same bad time. I miss my father and son.
Amanda: Oh no.
Julia: Oh boy. Oh boy.
Eric (as Scoot Mcgarry): Are we still rolling? [cries] Oh, the red light means it's still on. I mean, support your troops.
Transcriptionist: K.A. Benganio
Editor: KM