Can I yell at the viewers if they copy my question?
Yeah, you can. Because I spent a little bit thinking
about this, and so if you do that, I'll be sad
that I have to think on the fly. You can punch
him. Well, I can't do that. Yeah, with new technology,
you can. You can punch him. At the end of this
episode, I think they're our sponsor. Shit. Sponsored
by OOSooch. What? Your punch is in reality? That
punches you. You wear it. It has haptics and
it can shock you and make you feel bugs and other
sensations. And make me feel good sensations?
No, it doesn't extend to the brain. I think they
have that on their secret part of their website.
What about the nipples? Only paint, Colin. Only
paint. It only allows you to experience things
you could also get by taking too much Benadryl.
Oh god, the hat man. Trying to remember a Hellraiser
quote, but I forgot it. I remember. Well, not
the quote, but I remember. Hey, Brian. Hey, Brian.
Welcome back to all that you know. If you're
hearing this, Brian, it means you made it to
the end of our first season. Congratulations.
Hasn't it been a wild ride, Brian? It sure has,
Colin. Wow, we have so much to talk about. If
you haven't listened to all the episodes, you're
on the wrong one. You may get spoiled on things.
If you like that, if you're a sick freak like
that, then good for you. I won't judge you, except
for the words that sounded really judgmental
that I just said. My name is Colin. I'm here
and I'm awake. You can find me. at my various
Tumblr blogs in the description of this episode,
as well as on my itch .io page, calamity -cascade
.itch .io. Joining me today are Brian. Hello,
I'm Brian, and I play as Hex the Bureaucrat.
Uh, who's next in the order? Ewan. Hi, I am Ewan,
and I played, past tense, as Loyal the Empath.
Shit, he got me. You're really slipping, Brian.
You're off the show. Zach. I'm Zach, and I played
the artist formerly known as Geist, formerly
known as Martyrdom, now known as a pile of atomic
ash. And Adam. Hi, I'm Adam. I played Joseph,
the infiltrator. And you can find me at Ajax
if you want to see my YouTube channel. So that's
there. There you go. What about Studless? Come
on. And Studless and my Lego channel. You can
find me at Studless if you want to see me scream
at you in a garage. That one's great. That one's
fucking great. I recommend it. If you know anything
about Lego or not, just look at it. Fans of all
that you know will instantly love Studless. It's
got all the perfect crossover. Joseph makes a
cameo. It's kind of wild. It's crazy, guys. You
got to check it out. You got to check it out.
That was clickbait. Yeah. But that's okay. We
like clickbait. We do. Before we begin, although
I guess it's all part of the same thing, so I
guess we've already begun. I want to give some
thank yous out. First, a huge thank you to Austin
Ramsey, who made the system we played, Beam Saber.
If you don't know what Beam Saber is, you haven't
been paying attention. It is a great system.
It allowed us to tell the story we wanted, never
got in the way, and it really allowed us to evolve.
You made a very good system, Austin. You should
be very proud of it. Genuinely, very heartwarming.
It really is an honor to have the creator of
the system listen to the show. It's like nature,
right? Symbiosis or something. Yeah, I'm glad.
Thank you. Thank you, Austin. I'm not done with
my thank you yet. I'm sure I'll be revisiting
Beam Saber in the future, and I definitely want
to see what you do next. I've been keeping an
eye on your stuff. I want to see it. I want to
see it. I've been drooling and slobbering. This
is getting weird. Yeah, don't put that in. Keep
that in. I'm not letting you cut that out. Okay.
I'm going to put a link to Austin's itch page,
Tumblr, and Patreon in the show notes if you
want to check out his awesome stuff. Secondly,
of course, I have to thank my players. Adam,
you brought a very... Don't be scared. Come here.
You brought a very strong sense of visual clarity
and story structure to your character. I can
tell you're a movie head. You really got that
sense. I really liked how visual you made scenes.
You really imagined a lot of the stuff with Joseph.
Great character. I love his gravity. I love how
he's a robot. Thank you very much. And he's the
most sexual character. Obviously. You bring in
the money into it. Very interesting concept.
I honestly didn't realize how much I would like
thinking about that side of things, but I think
it really gave everything depth. The corporate
accounts and all that stuff would not have happened
the way it did if not for Hex and how you developed
him. Also, Bippo. We accidentally made a mascot.
Couldn't have done that without. Without you,
my sweet baby boy. No, Bippo, he was improv'd.
Most of the important things in this show is
an accident. Zach, you are the single best character
actor that I've ever worked with. I know worked
with sounds very professional, but you're so
fucking good at emoting. It makes me jealous.
I wish I could do what you did. You really kept
the momentum of the show going as well, which
I appreciate, because whenever there is dead
time and I'm asking people what they're going
to do, you're always pushing it, like, we're
doing this. I'm like, fuck yes, please. Yeah,
that's a thank you from all of us here. From
the bottom of my heart. It's my theater kid background,
my improv team skills. And then Ewan. for portraying
Sunleth so good such an excellent damaged character
got so much more unhinged with each session and
I love how far you pushed it and how many weird
weird things you did where you said can I do
this and I was like oh my god what and you asked
some very out there questions which really increased
the depth of the horror which I'm always here
for I don't think we would have gotten I mean
we wouldn't have gotten all the horror and shit
without you like A lot of the things you did
pushed the show into that dimension, and I like
it so much more because of it. You also did a
lot of art for the show and promotion, and you're
an angel. Thank you so much. You're welcome.
And, of course, you, the listener. Really, I
am desperate for validation. Knowing people were
actually listening, seeing the funny line go
up, it pushed me to focus on the project. I'm
not going to pretend. That I would have put as
much work in if nobody was listening. Because,
I don't know. I'm just like that. Maybe you are
too. Maybe we're brothers. Maybe we're sisters.
Maybe we're in love. I don't know. I've lost
track of my script. Thank you all again. If you
enjoyed the show, please tell your friends. Spread
the word. It means a lot to us. Biggest compliment
you can give us. And every time one of you has
reblogged my little posts, give us a... Put a
big, goofy smile on my face. And big shout -out
to all my real ones on Tumblr .com. Thank you
again. So, anyways, I've been rambling. Let's
get into viewer questions. Like I said, this
is going to be informal, so if any of you here
with me now, physically, virtually, you can cut
in at any time. This is not anything that you
should worry about interrupting. Oh, and also,
if you are listening to this postmortem in the
future after it releases on September 18th, 2024,
you are welcome to still send in questions. I
will answer them. Even if it's the wastelands
and the United States is just like a pile of
dust, I will be in a bunker somewhere and I will
answer your questions. So just know that. Well,
I've seen the bunker. You've seen the bunker.
You know what happens in there. Have you watched
10 Cloverfield Lane? I'd rather be the judge.
You're growing in the barrel, Brian. So the first
question is from Dr. Dill via Gmail. And they
have asked, and I believe this is for everyone.
I can't guarantee that, but I think it is. If
you could go back and change one thing you did,
what would it be? And I think that means in the
show and not in life. So please. When I was four.
Oh, no. For me, personally, if I had to change
one thing, I would redo the first mission. I
think there's another question later on where
I talk about stuff that happened in the first
mission, but I wish the pilot was a little more
engaging instead of something kind of safe where
we didn't know what we were doing. I think it's
inevitable that the first episode will always
be a little bit stiff because everyone is new
to it. But that's my personal feeling. And I'll
pass it off to all of you now. Who wants to go
first? Okay, yeah, let's hear it. I wish that
I had put more weird dolphin culture into Sunlith.
I know I did a good amount, but I feel like it
started out really strong and then kind of in
the middle and somewhere else and then at the
end. I don't think Sunlit was a dolphin anymore,
really. So there's some other kind of culture.
But yeah, I would have put a little bit more
of that in. All right, I can step in. Yeah, please.
I have two. One as a player, and I think one
in the story, kind of that I wish I did more
with Hex. So the first one is as a player. And
so this one kind of goes out to anyone thinking
of using Beam Saber as a system, as a bureaucrat.
I really do wish I used the red tape ability
more. I think the idea of quoting a regulation
to prevent a consequence is very funny. It's
just, in the moment, a little difficult to think
of, but I think that's a fun one. And with Hex,
I do wish I kind of went down the reporter rabbit
hole a little bit more early. I realized I was
kind of scrambling to fill that clock towards
the end, but putting more thought into that story,
I think, was something that, looking back on,
I wish I thought through a little bit more. I
guess I can go next. I feel like, and I mean
this is kind of with the benefit of hindsight,
but I feel like I was very wary about allowing
certain things to happen. I was worried about
putting the crown on early and I was worried
about fragmenting and I wish I would have just
maybe let myself just get thrown into that because
I know now that it would have been interesting
because we talked a little bit about it and we'll
maybe get into it later. It would have been interesting
to see how that would have changed the back half
of the game. And from a more in -character perspective,
I almost wish that... Like, I feel like as a
group, we very much were, like, towing the Peacekeeper
line the whole time, like, hardcore, even when
we went off the grid at the end. And I feel like...
I feel like I generally have a tendency to play
characters who would be like, what, these fucking
aliens want to tell me what to do? Fuck that,
I'm switching teams. And I guess I didn't really
bring a character who could have realistically
done that easily, but I feel like that would
have been a really interesting perspective on
the game to be less patriotic, because really
we were going in hard for our team the whole
time. And it just may have been interesting to
see the other side more. You weren't all in.
We're always in. Thank you, Joseph. I think for
me, maybe. Yeah, I guess I could. I have to like
gameplay wise. I just wish I was like better
at improv, I guess, because like when I like
re listen to scenes, I notice if I'm ever saying
anything cool, it's because I wrote it down like
on a notepad. And then there's a thing on says
like, if this happens, say this line that like
you wrote and thought of, you know, and I'm like,
oh, that sounds cool. But then in a moment, if
something cool happens, Joseph is typically like,
oh, okay. Or like, that's not good. Hmm, bad.
Oh, cool. And all that shit. So I'm like, oh
man, that's not what I really wanted to do, but
it's kind of whatever. I think that just comes
from playing more games, though. And then the
story in -character thing I had is, I did plan
for Joseph to be more like Data from Star Trek,
so I wanted him to like... know everything about
the universe and i kind of dropped the ball on
that like i was hoping for him in my brain when
i started it that he would chime in whenever
anyone brought up any little thing but then i
like i even have like a cheat sheet on my notepad
as well of like this is when this happened on
this date and stuff like that and like i never
pulled any of that in so i wish i did that but
yeah those are my two uh okay that's everyone
thank you um we all have we all have regrets
don't we Oh yeah. Next question is on the blog
from Anonymous. So mysterious. Is there a reason
that Tyrell didn't have Hex interfere with the
final mission? And I guess that's for me. I probably
should have told everyone to specify who it's
for. But that's fine. That's a good question.
I was expecting that, honestly. Well, so okay,
but Tyrell didn't. So like no one expected or
really knew that Geist had some fuck shit going
on. And so if Geist hadn't been able to turn
into a little thingy, I guess which is what it's
canonically called. If Geist hadn't been able
to turn into martyrdom, then everything would
have, even if the thing had fired accidentally
like it did, Tyrell would have succeeded. So
it's kind of just like. Tyrell didn't know. The
whole crown was kind of a blind spot, so that's
why it's like that. At least, I think so. That
was one of my million predictions. I made a lot
of predictions coming up to the end of the game,
and most of them were wrong, but one that was
right is that the crown was really our ace in
the hole, and it was not something that any of
the players knew was even possible. So that made
me feel smart to get one. Go put on the crown,
bro. That's fine. Come on. Oh, yeah. So I forgot.
You mentioned, Zach, about the fragmenting clock.
And I don't have anywhere in the notes referring
to that. So I'm just going to say it. But basically,
if the fragmenting clock had filled up, Geist
just loses control of his body entirely and becomes
the changeling. And there's like one thing, which
kind of happens. when he becomes martyrdom but
it would have been a more intermediate step um
where that's that's like the the final stage
there is no geist there's just just the changeling
i have a question yeah if if that happened as
players would why is that still be like playing
but he's just a robot like just be a giant robot
that's one of my questions because it was it
was a clock i didn't want to introduce a clock
that would kill you so early on So you would
have just turned into a giant robot. That's sick.
Giant robot. I wouldn't have been able to come
to the retreat mission at the end if it had happened.
You could have. It would have just looked really
bad. Changeling in a three -piece suit just walking
around. It's funny because I re -listened to,
I mean, I listened to the whole show front to
back as we got close to the end. And when I first
had the encounter with the salt sand, I assumed
that it had like infected its own consciousness
into my brain. And I like, I talked about it
as if I was sure that's what was happening a
bunch. Like, did you, I mean, you just kind of
like smiled and laughed, I guess, uh, knowing
that I was like kind of so fixated on this incorrect
conclusion. I don't think I really knew for sure
that that wasn't the case until, um, Until I've
met Martyr Dom and I think it was during the
last, not Martyr Dom, Retribution, the last fight
with him, the clock was called Retribution Fragmenting.
Yeah. And then I was like, hmm. A little trick.
A little trick to make you think. Email, email
from Emily who says, I really liked the show
and had two questions. You don't have to answer
both if you don't want to. I'm going to answer
both, Emily. Sorry. Did the people, the first
one is, did the people in Greywood Sands manage
to evacuate before the mercenaries came or were
they affected? And I think that is a mixed bag.
Greywood Sands, which is the place where you
did that, the Rampart mission, in case you don't
remember, and the psychic communion and all that
good stuff. That was controlled by the peacekeepers.
I think a lot of them evacuated because the pilots
who were there did pull out when the mercenaries
came in. But anyone who was not. on board with
the occupation probably would have stayed and
fought and died. So, you know, that's how that
went. The second question is, is there going
to be another season or is this a standalone?
I will answer that at the end because that's
what it feels appropriate to do what's next at
the end. Thank you, Emily. Thank you. That was
one of my questions, too, about the Greywood
Sands people. It's another one off my list. No,
why is that closing questions? Emily's looking
out. Okay. I'm far away right now, but I'm coming
back. I have more questions. Not that everyone's
here. Mark. My friend Mark. Mark, you know Mark?
No. I know Mark. Mark. Mark got me into board
games in the first place. He's an old friend
of mine. He's been listening and supporting and
being a good guy. Hello, Mark. I'm here. Hello,
Mark. I'm here. Mark says, first off, really
love the show. It was a biweekly highlight for
me, and I loved y 'all's creative energy and
vibe. Second, he said, Hex did nothing wrong.
Which... Yeah! Finally! You know... It's all
in their opinion, right? What does art make you
feel? The questions Mark asked, the first one
is, what other playbooks were the players considering
when making their characters? I can't answer
this one. I'm not a player. You guys are. I actually,
I have an answer for this right away. So at the
time when we made our characters, I don't really
think I was. Looking at any other playbook very
seriously, maybe the Commander one, but I kind
of did that in the last Mecha game. I kind of
took that archetype, so I'm glad that I ended
up going with the Ace. But in hindsight, and
I came to this conclusion maybe like a month
and a half ago, I would have really liked to
play the scientist guy and went really hard in
making crazy sci -fi gadgets and been like a
ziggurat type who's just fucking around with
forces beyond my reckoning to make a cool big
gun. or something. I think that would have been
really fun, and maybe I'll try and repurpose
that archetype for another game. But yeah, that's
my answer. What's your class's name again? In
the rulebook? Yes, that's who I was considering
as well. I forget if this was before or after
I played Armored Core, but I think the archetype
I had was very much an Iguazu type, if you played
that game. So a very whiny, but really good at
piloting type of character who You don't really
like, but you kind of can't help but like what
he does in a frame. He gets his job done. You
know, Hex was very similar to that, but executed
differently. I think, like... I think I was probably
going to do just like a normal soldier. I don't
know what that would have been in the playbook,
but like originally I would have just because
I was like, oh, I'll just be like a normal guy
in the fucking military. But then like Brian
was kind of going that route. But then when I
chose a robot, I immediately wanted to be an
assassin. Like I knew that. So there was no other
question about that. Yeah. One thing that I'll
cut in here regarding Joseph is that so I we
learned this kind of late. But there is, in one
of the expansions for Beam Saber, there is specifically
an AI playbook where you do a lot of cool digital
things, which I kind of wish we drew on, but
by the time we realized it and I looked it all
over, it was kind of hard to pivot. Season two?
Season two, Joseph? And yeah, there is a class
that's just called Soldier. yes yeah i want to
actually give a little counterpoint to that because
one of my favorite things about the show and
about joseph's arc is that like especially by
the end joseph was probably like the one of the
most human of the four members of the squad yes
and i feel like if he had leaned harder into
like the weird things that are possible with
ai affiliate would have shifted the vibe of emergent
personalities in the setting because it's like
you have contrition which is it's like multifaceted
weirdo ai entity thing but then you got joseph
and he just like he is an ai but he kind of just
behaves like a man in ways that i think were
very compelling and i feel like it would have
been it definitely would have felt different
to lose that angle yeah interesting you know
what i like that i really like that you're right
i agree makes a lot of sense Well said, sir.
Ewan? Give us a refresher on all the different
class types real quick. So there was ace, bureaucrat,
empath, envoy, which is like an ambassador, hacker,
which is, you know what a hacker is, infiltrator,
which is Joseph, officer, scout, soldier, and
technician. Yeah, I think I looked over all of
those and only the empath called to me, so I
don't know if I'd play any other one. That doesn't
surprise me at all. What does the technician
do? That's the scientist one? That's the scientist
one, yes. Maybe envoy? I don't know how that
would work in this campaign. Your titular ability,
which is where you can tell if people are lying,
is an envoy ability. And so we ended up dipping
that really early on. Because it's just so good.
I remember when I first played Blades in the
Dark. And I saw that move. I was like, you can
just do that? That's so fun. Is that fair? Is
that right? It's so good. I think. It's great.
I think that, like, the flavor of that ability
as an empath ability, because, like, I feel like
the point with Envoy is that, like, you're so
good at reading people that if somebody tells
you a lie, you can clock it right away. But I
think just literally having, like, a fucking,
like, red light, green light in your brain that,
like, pings off when people say statements to
you, I think, like, it feels completely different
with an empath having it versus, like, a... Because
it's like intuition versus like, this is just
like a physical thing that I know objectively
is true because of my magical powers, you know
what I mean? Yeah. It feels different. I didn't
know that it was not an empath ability until
you said it. I never would have guessed. Okay,
that's everyone. Mark's second question is, when
the court -martial was coming for the Dusklights,
how possible would it have been to convince the
peacekeepers on Terebraea to go rogue? um like
against the the main soul union um and then mark
this is actually this is not part of my answer
this is the rest of his question and he says
it seems from the brief glimpses we get of earth
that they are rather disconnected from the events
on other worlds and i imagine the remaining units
on terra brea might be more loyal to the mission
itself than the government on earth um i think
it could have been possible um i think like using
the in -game mechanics this might be something
that you would have to spend the drive clocks
on is actually like trying to turn uh the peacekeepers
against their government um the a lot of the
the like i think issue is that the whole like
this would be really bad for everyone if if this
deal fell through like if we didn't do the mission
um And a lot of the people who work on Terra
Brea, you don't want to be marked as a traitor
because like there's nowhere to go where it's
going to be easy for you to live as a wanted
criminal. And I'm not sure like a dolphin who
can go into the ocean, which, you know. Hi, fuckers.
But I think it's definitely, it would have been
a possibility. It would have been harder to do.
I think you'd be more likely to like carve out
a small group of people. Get the shovel scum
to come with us or something? Yeah, something
like that. But as far as the players, was that
something you ever considered? Trying to turn
the whole thing around? Not me. Really? I don't
think it would be possible. Yeah, I feel like
Geist probably could have... Like, I feel like
Kilo Germain would be... Well, I mean, and Nyla,
but Nyla was kind of already in. um whereas kilo
wasn't really in i feel like he would have been
the like the first domino we would have had a
knockover because he's a family man right he's
got a lot to lose um and then i feel like things
might snowball from there but i mean like it
just it feels like a losing game because it's
basically what we would have been doing is making
everybody on the peacekeeper's side do the nyla
west edge sacrifice thing In exchange for making
the end stages a little bit easier for us. I
don't think this, and I don't think Geist would
have thought either, that there would really
be much to gain by doing that. X considered it.
His back was to the wall, and if there wasn't
clear line of sight on the Tyrell or Bluth opportunities,
that was in the deck. New idea. Let's just take
over Terra Brea, keep it. and form our new galactic
protectorate over here. They can't arrest me.
Hey, we're emerging personalities in all this.
We're at the top, right? They're at the top.
There you go. Thanks. Contrition can be our colony
AI. Perfect. He'd love that. He'd love to go
back. How does Contrition feel about Dan breaking
incidents? Loves it. Perfect. We'll get along.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, gamers. Great question,
Mark. And thank you, Mark, for the questions.
Those are good questions. Next group of questions
is from Austin. Austin Ramsey. You know Austin.
We just talked about Austin. I'm getting a little
nervous. Austin sent in four questions alongside
a very heartwarming message, which we've posted
on our blog. Austin, thank you again. I am...
I'm really excited to see what you do next. I'm
putting on that voice again. I don't know why
I'm getting so creepy about it. Listen, I like
your work. I like your work. I'm excited to see
what you do next. Austin's first question is,
what rules in the game did you feel helped aid
the story you wanted to tell and why? I will
start since I've had to touch the rules a lot.
Overall, Forged in the Dark, like the dice pool,
partial success with effect. I love that. I think
it's my favorite resolution system right now.
For Beam Saber in particular, I really liked
the rival mechanics. It made inserting Retribution
into the mission really easy without having to
make him the focus of the entire mission. And
I thought that was really fun. I know it's kind
of a meme in the Beam Saber circle, but rival
moves can be made at any time. I kind of wish
I had done that more, like almost to an absurd
degree, like even like I considered at one point
when we were at like the after Retribution had
died, like being that he did make a move outside
of chronological time just to like fully cash
in the can be used at any time thing. But I thought
that, well, I couldn't fit it in, which is the
main thing, because I'm willing to do shit for
a laugh. I really like that. I also think the
vehicle rules are very cool. The buffer between
vehicle and pilot. One of my biggest regrets
about the first episode is that I had people
getting past the frames really easily and getting
right to the pilot, which was not appropriate.
I kind of wish I was more strict about that,
but I did get that way later. Also, the drive
clock mechanic was great. I think that is an
excellent way of representing working on your
own little downtime goals. And I particularly
like how much you have to balance it with like
actually maintaining your body and your frame
and all that stuff. Like you really have to,
unless you're really flush with cash, you kind
of have to sacrifice your own effectiveness in
combat in order to pursue your own goals. And
I like that. That's a great balance. But I'll
turn it over to the players if you have any feelings
on the rules. I do. I have one, actually, and
this is something that impressed me right from
the get -go. I know that you guys are, at least
Colin knows this about me, I love things. I love
RPGs where I can have, like, I can choose from,
like, you know, 30 different pistol variants
that each have slightly different stats and,
like, a story attached to each one, and, like,
I love shit like that, and I feel like one of
the things about the core Forged in the Dark
systems that I don't like is the way that items
especially tend to be a little bit loosey -goosey
but and so i was kind of coming in i was like
you know a mech game is a game about things you
got this huge fucking robot you know and like
all the different pieces and systems and everything
but the vehicle rules specifically the changes
they make like for example you don't completely
reset your vehicle load between missions you
have to pay resources to like take junked gear
off and like the whole package of the vehicle
rules i thought was a really excellent way to
kind of stick with like the core tenants of the
forged in the dark system but give it just a
little more crunch that i think it really needed
um and i just i think that there are fantastic
rules and i think the way that um a bunch of
the different especially the ace special abilities
touch that like there's one i didn't take that
just lets you like jettison vehicle gear to like
pull out new stuff i think that would have been
really cool I'm a big fan of the vehicle rules
in general. I think they're really polished,
and I think they work great. Yeah, I liked how
hard it was to get good dice, and how easy it
was for everything to just go to hell, because
that's what war is. I keep telling myself that
every time that everything just went absolutely
catastrophically wrong, but I'm like, well...
That's beam saber. Yeah. You stole the words
out of my mouth. I couldn't tell how any mission
was going to go. And it was very fun. What was
the resort episode? It's not Greatwood Sand,
is it? I don't remember the name of it. Yes,
but I feel dice rolling was very much a thing
there. Yeah, like partial successes. Like, in
any game. I don't think I can go back to playing
games where there isn't some, like, partial successes.
Like, I can't go back to binary success and fails.
Because it's just, you can get, you can fit so
much in these little complications where it just
keeps things moving and keeps things feeling
desperate. But ultimately, like, you're still
making progress. Do we want to move on? Yeah,
sure. Yeah, that's all covered. The Austin's
second question is what rules got in the way
of telling the story and why? I don't feel anything
got in the way like explicitly. I think mostly
there was a couple of systems that I feel like
we weren't able to utilize effectively. One thing
that I think we all struggled with was with the
belief system. We were cutting loose, I think,
fairly infrequently. And we only rolled over
a belief clock once or twice since everything
kind of moved pretty quickly. And it felt like,
I don't know if you folks felt this way too,
like by the time a new belief was kind of written,
the last one had already kind of been explored
or wasn't relevant anymore. So by the time the
belief clocks filled up, it wasn't really a question
of like, what? question do i want to ask to get
resolved because we kind of already know the
answers here um and i think one confusion we
had was whether we should be kind of rewriting
these older beliefs on the fly so that we had
three relevant beliefs or if we should leave
the kind of already irrelevant beliefs for for
later um and i think that's just kind of how
we approach the game and the pace the only other
thing that comes to mind for me personally is
with entanglements um which i i had a similar
issue when we played blades in the dark um where
someone's saying sometimes an entanglement comes
up and as a gm it's either like disruptive in
a not fun way or it doesn't make a lot of sense
in the the context of the narrative um i think
we especially had a problem with that in this
campaign because Blades in the Dark and Beam
Saber, a lot of the framework is based on having
a lot of factions that you do different work
for and you interact with them a lot. But we
were doing one faction against another, basically
entirely. The Corporate Council was there, but
it was mostly Peacekeepers versus Clusterists.
And so almost immediately, you were rolling on
the worst relationship possible table against
the Clusterists. And I think at one point, right
after... your first encounter with retribution.
I think we rolled the, like you are, your base
is immediately attacked, like start a new mission.
And it, it could have been cool to do, but I
couldn't like narratively. It felt like it would
have just been like kicking you while you're
down. It's like exhausting. And also like having
the base attacked so soon in the story, like.
that's like something you do in like the end
game right where it's like oh your base is under
attack by the enemy defend your puppies um but
uh i i couldn't make it make it fix and i think
that really isn't a problem with the game as
much as how we were doing the faction side stuff
um so ultimately i don't really think anything
got in the way which is good because like that
that's that's a pet peeve of mine is when you
you want to do something but you can't because
of a system. But that never came up for us, I
don't think. But I'm happy to hear if any of
you had any feelings on that. I would definitely
agree with, and because that had occurred to
me too, I had the same thought. And I think that
like rolling entanglements before the downtime
sessions was a good way to kind of at least give
yourself the lead time you need to come up with
something. But it's just, I think. The core conceit
of this game is a little bit different than what
Beam Saber was designed for, so I feel like a
little bit of friction like that is definitely
kind of inevitable, and I think it wasn't really
a problem at all. I can't think of any rules
that actively got in the way. I have one thing
that I think I kind of just wanted to talk to
Austin about in the hopes that he would... hear
it there was one thing that i always kind of
wondered about and it's one of the xp triggers
and it is if you are caused difficulty by your
frames quirks um and i don't know because i was
thinking about it while i was driving around
because that's usually when i listen to the podcast
is what i'm driving and i was like so how you
know how is that supposed to look and this might
just be like me missing something in the rulebook
but is it like is it a matter of like am i supposed
to invoke my own quirks to be like hey well like
what if like this is causing me problems here
and is the intention for it to like cause me
to make a bad call or should I like volunteer
to have like one fewer die or less effect on
something or like I just I don't understand how
that's ever going to happen or is it just a matter
of like you know when I fail a roll do I use
one of my quirks as like an explanation for why
it happened because like the way you're supposed
to design them is to make them be something that
could be beneficial or could be like a drawback
Um, so I was just a little bit unclear on how
that was supposed to work. But again, it's like
we, I don't think we were getting too little
XP. I don't think it's something that caused
us really any difficulty or gotten in the way.
It's just something that I was curious about.
And if any of you have any insight as to that,
I would love to hear it. given you the chance
to say oh the quirk that's in the way and that's
why this consequence happens like i think we
we had a quirk thing happen i think once or twice
with with joseph's frame being spiky where joseph
wanted to like pick up hex but i was like okay
well your frame is spiky so if you mess this
up you're gonna be in trouble and so that that
was an example okay yeah um spiky is very easy
to work with um so like i was like well you're
spiky so like that that's obvious um and i think
yeah i think that's my my view is it's something
that if we had just kept it in mind more um it
would have come up but i think we just kind of
we were running a little too fast to utilize
it so you think it's like that actually makes
a lot of sense like it's more to like inform
the stakes so it's like because of this work
this thing might happen if you fuck this up yeah
it's not like it's not like things happen in
my opinion. I don't think things happen because
you have a negative quirk. It's that when bad
things happen, you can draw on that negative
quirk, and the XP rewards you for drawing on
it. Okay, yeah, I get that. Because that's how
some other games that use negative tags work.
Anyone else have any feelings on that? On me?
I definitely agree on the beliefs one. Yeah.
Otherwise, no. Two. Oh, this is three. I have
my list strong. This is Austin's third question.
How much of the behind -the -scenes mechanics
did you use? Stuff like NPC squad goals, region
ratings, special rules, and faction relationships.
In theory, we used all of them. I have a big
spreadsheet with all the factions, squads, and
their goals. They ticked up during the course
of missions. I think at one point, the Peacekeeper
goal was increase union hold in River Valley.
That ticked over, and everyone got bonus supplies.
um we had region ratings there were special rules
prepped they didn't end up coming up uh caldera
lake for example which is where all the rich
people live had this elite security team that
could show up but that never ended up uh coming
up the megafauna though did which was one of
the regional rules there so there's big fucking
things in the water um and you don't want to
be mean to them i mean you befriended them which
is even better we flipped um uh I don't think
any of you can comment on that question, so I'll
move on. Wait, let me double check something.
Yeah, yeah, okay. I'm happy with that. Three,
were there any... Wait. Four. Did I count wrong?
Four. It was your fourth question that you're...
Four, yeah. Okay, okay. Thank you. Were there
any game systems you wanted to engage with but
didn't? Why? Personally, and Zach kind of mentioned
this, I wanted to see more of these alternate
downtime actions, like manufacturing new items,
collecting supplies from the locals, and schmoozing
with factions. I really like the crafting rules
for custom items. They're very neat. I think
the reason we didn't end up doing those just
came to how much pressure there was on time.
If people weren't repairing themselves because
Retribution tore them apart, they were trying
to do their drive clocks. Or training so that
they could get a little stronger. I think if
we were running something longer, it would have
come up more. Or we had the characters who were
more interested in that. Like, you kind of had
a manufacturer in Ziggurat. She was kind of like
the NPC inventor. But that's what I was thinking
of when I thought of these mechanics that we
wouldn't use as much. Yeah, I mean, I kind of
already touched on that with my... I wouldn't
call it a regret, but my feeling about how I
could have played the technician and built gadgets
and didn't. I think that's probably the big one.
I feel like, again, this is just kind of another
limitation of the core conceit of the game, but
Beam Saber has so many upgrades for your base
that involve doing stuff there. So like, you
know, there's like the tunnels that we talked
about maybe taking that make you better at sneaking
on your own base. And like, you know, there's
like a lounge that makes you better at consorting
there or whatever. I feel like in a different
sort of game, having your base be kind of a more...
I'm not going to say that the base wasn't like
a living part of the game, but it's like... Because
we were based in, like, the main Peacekeeper
base on Terra Brea, things happening there, like,
if there's, like, a fight there, that's a huge
fucking deal and something that, like, every
squad should be concerned with. I feel like that's
just kind of a limitation of what we went with,
that we didn't get to engage with those more,
but that, I mean, they seem cool. Yeah. I feel
that. I feel that. Next question from Austin
is, most Beam Saber campaigns eventually hit
the topic of leaving their patron faction. You
sort of did towards the end, but was there any
discussion of switching to the Clusterist Corporate
Council or going fully independent? I will let
you answer most of this, but I will say, when
this first started, I did think that you turning
over to the Clusterist was likely. But as more
bad blood kind of grew, it seemed less and less
likely. And I also think, as a GM, I think...
if I had put more uncertainty on like Nyla's
predictions about what happens if the Uro pull
out, it might've been more likely. Um, it wasn't,
that's not a certain thing. That's like a prediction,
right? Like sometimes people say things and they
tell you the worst case scenario and it's not
exactly that. And I have like, there was a B
ending I had written, um, where it's, It's kind
of like that. It's bad, but it's really not as
bad as you thought. And maybe it wasn't worth
it to do the things you did for how bad it is.
But I'll turn it over to you. Did you ever think
about switching factions? As a player, I definitely
thought about it. See, that's the problem. I
kind of... poisoned it maybe for the whole team
by bringing a guy to the table who was like berserker
hatred of clusterism because of what he had suffered
even though it was kind of his own fault um and
i feel like if i had maybe if i made my science
man uh or my officer man things would have gone
differently because like at the end and i think
even geist maybe felt this at the end it's like
What the fuck are we doing here? We're doing
this to appease some fucking aliens who can't
give us a straight answer about anything. Why
don't we just tell them to fuck off? I think
ultimately the thing that stayed Geist's hand
there was how sound Nyla seemed in her... She
had strong convictions, at least before she kind
of broke. And so I feel like I can take some
of the blame as to why that wasn't really a possibility.
Because Geist really didn't... He didn't like...
The Clusterist, obviously. He didn't like the
Corporate Council. He really hated Bluth, even
when he was our bank roller, because he just
didn't respect him. So yeah, I would say that
for my part, I would have loved to, and I think
it would have really been cool if we had gone
Clusterist and flipped the whole thing around.
But yeah, I don't know. I think after the fallout
of the damn incident, Hex knew, yeah, he's not
going to be with the Peacekeepers after this.
That definitely felt like a point of no return.
Yeah. Can we imagine, like, hey, Clusteris, can
we just committed an awful war crime and killed
hundreds of thousands of your people? Can we
join your team? Alright. I mean, his own team
wasn't willing to look out for him. There you
go. I don't think Joseph was ever going to change.
I think he just thought everyone hated him in
any fashion that no one wanted him. I don't even
think he cared about the peacekeepers that much.
Honestly, he kind of just switched to contrition
at the end. He was just doing his job. And when
he found his out, he was going to take it. So
I think that's what he was thinking. Fellow job
doer. Jobber. As a character, Sameth never wanted
to join the Clusterists. He just felt pity for
them. He just wanted everybody to stop fighting
so he could go home. She felt like he was in
his place as a gear, turning, and he did not
have a way to stop it, so he kept turning. I
feel like that's kind of an understated part
of Loyal's character that I really grew to like
as of listening to it, is how much he's empathetic
and he wants to do good, but ultimately one of
the core tenets of his character is how loyal
he is and he's like he's in this role and he's
doing this job and it seems like it never really
occurred to him that he could not be following
orders and doing what the peacekeepers tell him
to and i i thought that was really fascinating
with the other parts of his character i really
i really liked it yeah how do you get more of
a sense of independence when you're following
orders from the species that essentially created
your mind and they are your gods Similar context
to Joseph, if you think about it. That's how
it goes. I think Joseph was a little farther
along in the revolt section, though. I thought
it was very funny. I think it was before the
whole dam breaking thing, where Geist is talking
to Loyal and being like, I'm going to make sure
that not too many people die. It's like... where
it's gonna be okay we're gonna we're gonna get
through this and then like 30 minutes later like
uh fuck that people die and like it's just on
the ship afterwards and it's like uh yeah sorry
the tone really well i loved the first episode
honestly Geist really did not intend to break
the dam. And if he had had any control over that
situation, because I think when the dam broke,
we were kind of far away from each other. Maybe
I don't think there was Hayes fields. So I don't
know. Yeah. And I mean, like Geist isn't really
officially the leader. So I don't think he could
have. He was focusing on his own shit. So he
wouldn't have been like, hey, stop trying to
blow the dam up. So I think that. He maybe carried
some of the guilt for that, not because he cared
about the people who died, but because he did
promise Loyal that he wouldn't destroy the dam.
I mean, he didn't, but it still happened. Yeah,
I thought that was a really good... That was
just good. That was a good mission. Alright.
I think that's everyone. I think we've gotten
through that. So, Austin's question has some
sub -questions. which is that there are four
unofficial requirements for a Beam Saber campaign.
The first is doing a false flag operation, which
we checked off multiple times. Second, asking,
are we the baddies? Which was a mixed bag. I
think any time you asked it, it immediately was
followed with a justification. It was asked.
It was asked. And then the third is that the
officer is a bastard. We didn't have an officer,
but Geist was kind of the field commander and
especially at the beginning did fit the bill.
And later on, it kind of became Hex. It became
the bastard? Yeah, it was not so much an officer,
but it was like, we're doing this. This is the
mission. This is what we're here to do. there's
no other option we're doing it uh yeah no chance
no time for apologies anymore once hex got his
arm blown off he became evil basically punish
venom hex yeah basically i just i want to say
because i don't know if i'll get another chance
to i love and i'm not going to say that you invented
it but like the idea of like accountant core
as like a badass military yeah like the fucking
his gun that says a mount do on the slide and
like that bit where tyrell says that like he's
like a modern day warrior monk because he's like
a bureaucrat and a numbers guy but also like
a fighter i thought it's just so fucking cool
i really love it i hope it sticks around somehow
it's so fun character i like the boring i like
the boring parts of work They're the most insidious
in a lot of ways. And then this is Austin's very
last question. Which one of you is low -key horny
for Lady Elrith or the setting equivalent? Which
I need to contextualize. Lady Elrith is a pilot
from the Beam Saber core setting who is essentially
like a virtue, if you think about it. Like a
one -man squad. forced to be contended with.
I don't think we got enough of the particular
virtues to get to the horny stage with them.
That's just me. Yeah, you know, I ship Geist's
retribution. Like, in the world, divorced from
what we saw on camera directly, I think a lot
of people want to fuck Pogo Lear, who's Doody's
pilot, because he is a huge media personality,
and he's hot. I imagined him as being quite handsome.
I don't know if we covered it. No, we didn't.
I should have done an intro with him, really,
before he got blown up. I would have been cool.
I would have loved to hear his demeanor. He's
a cool guy. He's cool. He gets a spinoff novel
where it's like, oh, wow, they really didn't
use this character at all. But I'll pass it off
to the players. Who do you want to fuck? Geist,
you can say you're a dead wife if you want. No.
Oh, easy out. Come on. Mike says Geist's dead
wife. It's Geist's dead wife. I think my second
ship for Geist would definitely be Ziggurat,
his evil wife who hates him, but thinks he's
a fascinating subject. I don't know if I ship
Geist with anyone else. I think the nature of...
His question specifically, I don't know, we don't
really, I get Faith was kind of a one -man army,
too, even though he didn't really get any screen
time until, like, the epilogue. Yeah, I feel
like that question specifically is tricky for
our game, because we don't really have anybody
that powerful that we saw be that powerful. But
yeah, I think for Geist, probably would have
been Ziggurat. I mean, Retribution's the easy
answer. Because, you know, they could, like,
look angrily at each other and get really close
and then start making out. Actually, Geist doesn't
have a mouth, so he literally can't. I don't
know, I'm not gonna think too hard about it.
Guess he'll have to put his mouth somewhere else.
This is my favorite question. This is good. I
feel like Joseph and Loyal had some sexual tension
with the tattoo thing. Sorry, I'll step back.
Yeah, go ahead. Press him against the wall, something
happened there, and then... The heart's broke.
Something happened there. You missed your shot,
dolphin. Sorry. Exactly. Whitecliff, 1000%. Oh,
yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Epilogue, I'm wooing
her in the in -between missions. That's my plan.
Hex? I guess Tyrell, if anyone, but not really.
They're a colleague. You don't know. Anything
can happen. Hex is a firm believer in that. That's
how you get ahead in the organization. This is
business. Hex let's his work do the talking.
Okay, I think that's everyone. Thank you. Sunleth
would date Ziggurat, but would never ever ask
her out. Oh, wow. I don't know if Sunleth is
her type. No, I don't think he knows, and that's
why he would never say anything. Maybe try anything
once, you know? Ziggurat's curious. She is more
squid -like than most humans. Dolphins love squid.
We can make it work. We've all played Mass Effect.
Do you think love can bloom on the battlefield?
Okay. Thank you, Austin, for your questions.
That was a lot of fun. I like answering questions.
We should just answer questions. We shouldn't
even play games anymore. I just realized that
this was all just a giant, beautiful, playtest
for Austin. He can just listen to and hear how
his systems are working. I hope it was of use.
I love Beam Saber. I love it a lot more than
I thought I would when we first started playing
too. Just getting into it and it works. It works
really well. Okay, so why don't we move on to
player questions. We've gone through all the
viewer questions we received and thank you. For
all of you who submitted your questions, you're
real ones. Ride or die. You know, you're gonna
be... I don't know where I'm going with this.
Somewhere dark. You're gonna be here when we
make it big. Yeah. You're gonna be on the council,
and you'll be holding the guns, and our enemies
will fall. Anyways. Player questions. We've all
made some questions for each other because we're
a small show. We don't have enough people to
ask us questions to do an entire show of it.
But I'm excited to hear what your questions are.
I have questions for everyone. I have questions
for individuals. I can start if you want, or
you can start. I kind of want to hear from you
more than I want to hear from me. I'm done talking
for months. I have a quick, funny starter question.
If we want to go for it, please. Maybe then we
just go like around and everyone gives a question.
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Colin, my question is
for you. Did you ever plan on us facing an Uro
in combat? And how would that go down? Okay.
So yes. And so, okay. So this is kind of looking
behind the curtain too much. I want to do it
anyway, because I have no restraint. When I first
outlined the campaign stuff, I intended for how
this campaign ended to be. not the middle but
like three quarters of the way where you have
like an whole epilogue arc where you are trying
to if you wanted to get revenge on the euro directly
for the shit they did or or even going after
tyrol um if things had not turned out the way
they did with hex um and uh basically it would
have been with you getting owned a very very
uh they're because they're very advanced they're
advanced they don't have any weapons so they
wouldn't kill you because they're against that
you would just be like i don't know i imagine
you like approaching a ship and you just kind
of get frozen in a fucking stasis field um and
they just kind of like waddle away really slowly
um i'm curious so what like what if like if we
encountered an uro alone like an alien in hand
are we winning easily Are we, like, ripping that
thing apart? Or can that thing fight back? Is
this thing, like, a Hanar? No. So, like, Uro
without any of its, like, technology, which would
be impossible to find, but maybe, I don't know.
Yeah, you can turn that thing to pulp instantly.
They're just floating orbs. They're floating
orbs of skin. Perfect. You know, they rely on
the technology they've created to do anything.
But fighting them without that would be hard.
Like the parachute guy you fought in the... Corporate
Council missions. Alright, that's my question.
That was a good one. My list of questions is
basically just like a series of pointed interrogation
questions for Colin. I'm going to have my pound
of flesh. I don't even fully expect you to be
able to answer all of these because I know that...
I can bullshit. I can bullshit so well. Alright,
I'll just start at the top of my list. Why did
the whole squad feel things when Loyal was talking
to the teleporter piece? Geist felt hot, Hex
felt free, or no. Hex felt powerful, and Joseph
felt free. You called it when you did your re
-listen, but that was the future. That was specifically
where I thought your characters were ending up.
It felt pretty inevitable at this point, so you
felt hot because you burned up in the atmosphere.
Joseph felt free because he literally became
free. And Hex felt powerful because, well, Hex
got powerful. He got a big corporate job really
affecting the world on a macro level. And Loyal
didn't feel anything because he was too busy
getting his eyes spidered, psychically. Yeah,
that's what I felt. Eye spider. A new emotion.
I think that whole thing kind of, hopefully,
kind of gave context of how more advanced species
like the Uro their technology is inherently like
a psychic thing. Like they are, they're linked.
And when you, when you, it's like if you go to
a nuclear reactor and you get exposed to radiation,
it's really bad for you. But if you go to a Uro
teleporter piece and break it apart, you end
up like loyal where you see the fabric of the
universe and understand that you are inherently
doomed forever, which might be worse. But yeah,
it was the future. You got it. I got it. I guess
it's kind of fun. It's cheeky, but this one's
for Geist. Be honest. Did you ever see an ending
to this where Geist makes out alive? I actually
did. I didn't really plan his arc out, but probably
for the last quarter of the game, Geist really
he wasn't trying to die anymore and if he hadn't
had to put the crown on like he didn't put the
crown on because he wanted to he didn't want
to die anymore and so if if he and I actually
think I mentioned this to Colin when I was talking
to him about it if he had but not had to put
the crown on, he probably would have just been
like this weird robot specter haunting Terra
Brea during the mercenary occupation and probably
showing up and trying to stop some of the worst
of the atrocities or something. I think, yeah,
I think there definitely was an ending where
he didn't die, but it kind of, Contrition made
that not possible with his little shenanigans,
his messing around. I like the idea of the ghost
of Terebraea. That's pretty sick. Yeah, it was
a cool idea. I think it would have been cool,
but it just was not meant to be. That hat was
too cool. It was. I couldn't resist. I have a
question for each player character, and then
I think one or two for Colin. Anyways, I'll go
off of Geist, because I think my question goes
well with this. Did Geist feel betrayed by Loyal
asking him to kill himself right after he'd convinced
him to live? Yes. Absolutely. That was, I think,
because this is kind of, it's funny because we
talked about the problems we had with the belief
clock system, but like by total coincidence,
that scene on Caldera Lake, you remember that
with the boat? Yeah. That was kind of where Loyal
laid everything out. And that also happened to
be the one where our connection clock reset from
three to one. And yeah, I think Geist, Felt extremely
betrayed because he thought he felt like loyal
was his like best friend on the squad And then
it was just like yeah, you have to kill yourself
Yeah, I think guys felt extremely betrayed and
I feel like that probably colored the way that
God Geist felt about Loyal into the end. I wouldn't
say he got over it, but I think he realized that
Loyal, he didn't really take it quite as personally
because Loyal was very clearly going through
some shit. But I don't think he ever really fully
understood either because I don't think the whole
Maze Mourner situation was ever made clear to
him. I liked Geist keeping Loyal kind of close
after that. Okay, next question is for Joseph.
What was Joseph's initial inspiration for the
chess piece? I know that appeared really early
on as like a little Easter egg. Why a chess piece?
I honestly can't remember when I'm thinking that
far back. I know it was in our initial little
vignette with Gopher. It showed up there. I don't
know if I asked you, Colin, if there was supposed
to be chess or was he working on a chess board
or something in that vignette? You were in like
a game room. Yeah. And you were, no, Joseph was
working on either a chess board or some other
game to make it so that a certain side always
lost or something. Yeah, it was like a virtual
chess table, I think. Yeah. It was like a digital
chess table thing and he was just like trying
to fuck with it. Oh, yeah. I thought it was a
reference. There was a big conversation there
that we had where Joseph was saying that like...
Like, if we just take out the king quickly, then
all the pawns survive. Like, don't you notice
that? I was always trying to convince Gopher.
But then, like, five episodes went by and I realized,
like, I never brought up the chest thing again.
So I'm like, oh, fuck, I should bring that up
again. Because that was, like, weird that he
just said that in the beginning and, like, nothing
else happened. So then I brought it back again
when he was leaving his apartment by, like, taking
the chest piece and throwing it against the wall.
And then I just kept using it. I was like, I
got to tie this chess metaphor anymore because
I had such a big conversation about it at the
start. It feels a little weird. All the best
things happen. I have a question. This is for
everyone. How did your characters differ in how
they ended up versus how they started? I don't
think I did a good job driving it home enough.
but i think hex's original purpose of avenging
his brother i uh not of detail was added there
but that really was his purpose and towards the
end it was more purposeless just looking out
for himself is kind of how i view the transformation
of his character over the course of the campaign
when it all meant nothing really All I was going
to say was that one thing that we talked about
on Discord that I thought was really funny was
what Colin said about how Geist is the only character
in the squad who became less evil rather than
more evil. Yeah. I mean, Geist completely flipped.
He flipped his motivations. He flipped what he
was willing to do. I think. realizing what Amity
Clay's final words were really cemented in his
mind that like, I don't want clusterists to die
specifically. Whereas like at the beginning of
the game, he never would have sacrificed himself
to, you know, save them, even though he was also
saving the peacekeepers, but like, yeah. So I
think, I think his whole perspective shifted
completely and it was very fun to play out. Hmm.
I think, uh, for Joseph, his, his plan, which
was just make everyone okay with, class for immersion
personalities that always stuck that never changed
but originally I think like my plan for Joseph
was that like he would find any source of class
for AI and then he would take control over it
and he would be the ones making decisions but
I think when he met contrition he realized like
I can't beat this like I am truly the pawn I
just need to follow orders because like if I
try to fight this I am like a little I'm dead
I'm a piece of dust so that's how he changed
Yeah. The chess metaphor I thought was really
satisfying in that way. Yeah, absolutely. It
felt very natural, because there's no way you
could have known what was going to happen when
you fucked with that table at the beginning,
but then it tied together really well at the
end. Yeah. Contrition was not planned. There
are a lot of things that was not planned in this
campaign. I think, though, if you look at the
most iconic things that we have now, it was either
accidental or it just came up just naturally.
I think contrition was an entanglement that we
rolled. It was something else, and then I switched
it around. I was like, well, what if this thing
shows up? That could be cool for Joseph, and
then it rapidly became another thing. What the
fuck would sacrifice have been? I can't think
of that. Sorry. Yeah. I will say something that
I was going to do that I'm glad I didn't was
originally at the end when you're asking, like,
what is everyone doing? Like, like when they're
leaving and stuff, I was going to have Joseph
send Whitecliffe a chess box. But when she opened
it up, there was going to be one queen at the
bottom that was covered in like hundreds of pawns
as like a warning. But then, like, I'm glad I
didn't do that because that's immediately what
we would have talked about when we met each other
later. And I liked how it went. But that was
like originally my plan. Okay, whose turn is
it? Who started? Was it Hex? I think it's Brian.
I don't know. I honestly lost the order at this
point. Anyone say a question? I'll go, and then
we can do Zach and Brian. Okay. My question is
for you, Brian. My question is, Hex is purposely
average. If Hex died and you had to take over
as a new character, how would you change them
up? I actually thought about this because I don't
know if I trauma'd out in a very early mission.
But I was very close to taking the AWOL consequence.
I don't know if that's the right term, but...
That's the overindulging from the cut loose.
Right. Yes, yes. Well, when that happened. And
then I wanted to go down a different route with
that other character. I think they would have
been that other pilot character I described.
Oh, interesting. So, an ace who's really good
at fighting, but kind of lame elsewhere. Would
you change them personality -wise? Like, would
you try to do something different there? No,
I kind of like the idea of the by -the -book
character. Gotcha. Nice. Alright. I can take
the next one. Sure. Alright. For Joseph, did
Joseph ever consider telling Hex that he's the
one who triggered that bomb? Or did you as a
player ever consider that? That's something I
was always curious about. It felt like it would
be a fun, spicy thing to draw. Oh, the bomb that
took his arm. That took his arm. Yeah. Do you
remember, Colin, when I told you I have quotes
written down for if any character tried to fight
and kill me? That's when I was going to reveal
it to you. And I even wrote above it, this might
be too cruel for the quote. That's good. I guess
I'll tell you that later if you want to get into
that. That only would have come out if Joseph
wanted to be mean. You should say it now. This
is the last recording. Pull it up. Pull up the
doc. So I have quotes. I have rogue quotes. If
they have a chance to leave, if not, you must
fight. That's what I told myself. And I also
said these would only work if they don't interrupt
you, which they will. For the players. In tabletops,
you get narration time. It's a guaranteed right.
You need a monologue, man. Yeah, so for Hex,
it's two parts. The arm thing was the second
more cooler part. But I'll tell you the first
one, which was if Hex decided to come and kill
me, I would have said out of everyone, I couldn't
be more disappointed in you, Harold. You were
so rigid and dutiful, even with the damn you
went above and beyond. But there is no corporate
reward for killing me. It would be emotional.
And isn't that what we have in common? We don't
act on our feelings. And if you step out of line,
I will have to remind you of that painfully.
And I doubt you'd leave things half finished,
Harold. So I promise I wouldn't do the same.
I can spare you because of your help. So if I
were you, I'd start running now and never look
back. That's what I was going to say. If you
decided to continue fighting me and I was trying
to be mean, I would say, you're welcome, by the
way, for that new arm. I could have stopped them,
but I didn't because I knew you'd understand
the risks as well. And here you are throwing
it all away. But this time there won't be anything
left to replace. Sorry about Glint. Ooh, I want
to see this episode. I want to see this episode.
That would have been very mean. I have ones for
Geist and Sunlift, too, if we want to do those.
Sure. We're on it. Geist, get ready. For Geist,
this is if we were on the hangar. I would have
said, how fast are you, Garrett? Do your legs
give you any additional speed? I don't mean on
your frame. I mean on your body. In your frame,
you are a formidable adversary, but on your feet,
I'm not sure you can do more than any of us.
See, I primarily worked on my feet. For years,
they had me hurt people. Civilians, militia,
soldiers. I was very, very good at my job. I
can give you a head start, but I doubt it would
make much of a difference. Because out here,
you're the weakest member of the team. He's not
wrong. Oh my god. And then finally, for the dolphin.
I said, when you asked me to remove those tattoos,
did you really think it was an act of compassion?
I touched your skin, Sunliff. I logged all that
data through my fingertips. I know the correct
pinpoints, the exact pressure to push into your
already bruised skull. But I don't have to lift
a hand, do I? Because I can just crack your pod
and watch you choke to death. I warn you, out
of everyone around me, you would be the easiest
to kill and the first. Damn, man, that's fucked
up. I love my skin. This is great. rude there
you go those were my contrition says you have
to kill them and then i would have like given
you this quote and then if you're like i'm still
gonna kill you then then we would have fought
you know what in hindsight i think white cliff
was right we can't trust these ai no no it's
all cool i mean i didn't say i'm a nice guy it
was theoretical bro yeah it's theoretical you
know uh those are my quotes uh okay uh you and
zach I have a question. I think I know the answer
to it, but I'm kind of excited to ask it anyways.
This is a throwback. I mentioned it before, but
it's to an old entanglement. Do you guys remember
the strange man in black who showed up? The bald
guy who was fucking weird? I really, really liked
that encounter. So I think it was either said
or implied that he was with the Soul Union's
completely black uh like off the books psychic
division um and so my question is was that guy
ever going to be anything other than a one -off
character made to fill a need in the mechanics
and if not and if the soul union psychic division
was there on terra brea what the fuck were they
doing did they know that martyrdom was messing
around or were they intentionally just watching
it happen i think i can't tell you I knew that
was going to fucking happen. But I will tell
you this much, is that there is a reason that
the bald guy came for Sunlith, specifically.
Yes. Because they knew something was wrong with
Sunlith, especially in regards to martyrdom.
You got them the fuck off. I think if you had
pursuit, if you like... with all the shit with
martyrdom if you were like fuck how do we stop
this and you tried to pursue them then he might
have shown up again and maybe you had an option
for like getting out of the uh the shit you were
in uh with martyrdom um but i if yeah i can't
tell you more because i think it would be something
i'd want to explore in a future campaign okay
i'm satisfied with that answer uh And two quick
questions. So my last one for Hex, where is Bippo's
favorite spot to be scratched? That's a really
good question. This unfortunately warrants a
question to call it. Does Bippo have ears? That's
your choice. It's your life. It has to be something
gross and weird. I think Bippo's favorite scratch
spot is near his... There's, like, excrement
pores, like, on its head. You know, depending
on what gene therapy pill is given to Bippo on
that day, but I think that's Bippo's favorite
spot. That's great. That's horrible. My last
question is the call -in question, but we'll...
We'll do another circle. If each character had
a theme song, What would it be? I briefed you
on this one because I don't want you all off
to scramble. Someone want to start? I wrote a
bunch of stuff for this stuff too, so I'll go
last for something. I thought, I searched and
searched, I wanted something meaningful and I
couldn't find anything better than one of my
favorite songs previous to the campaign, Turbo
Killer by Carpenter Brute. It's fucking intense
and hard like everything Geist ever did, but
it's got a little bit of a mystic edge to it
with the chanting and everything. So that would
probably be his theme song, but then for another
one that kind of encapsulates the other side
of his life, I went with Something I Can Never
Have by Nine Inch Nails. Ooh, I like that. A
little more moody. Hex would be... it's hip to
be square by huey lewis in the news you know
their early work was a little too new way for
his taste but when this came out in 83 they really
came into their own i think this is their undisputed
masterpiece it's a song so catchy most people
don't listen to the lyrics but they should because
it's not just about the pleasures of conformity
and the importance of trends it's a personal
statement hey guys thank you Okay, I'll go quickly.
Sunliths is... I have like a couple here in this
play, but the best one for his ending character
is The Sound of Water from the Outer Wilds Echoes
of the Eye soundtrack. Yeah. Hell yeah. Fuck
yeah. Play, if you're listening to this and you
haven't played Outer Wilds, you should. Yo, DLC
essential. Alright, Adam, it's time. Time to
shine. This is what I wrote right before I went
to bed. My song is chorus from Justice's 2016
album, Woman. Yeah. It is a techno -electronic
song, so I felt like I needed to explain myself
a little bit because I'm not trying to be too
easy. But I wrote that song. Have you heard that
song, Colin, by the way? Yeah, I've heard all
of Justice's songs. It's a very good song. But
anyways, we start with an obvious echoing pulse,
a synthesized discharge like an artificial heartbeat.
which is why I think it represents Joseph That's
great. I love that. That's beautiful. Yeah. And
then heavy metal from that album is his Dark
Souls boss theme. Breed is Quo by Daft Punk is
his ending theme. That's what I decided. I love
it. Fun facts. I think I may have made a post
about this at some point. So another Justice
song, Presence by Justice. Ooh, yeah. So way
back in 2016, when I first thought of the beginning
of this campaign, is that I am the... the climax
where the tungsten rod gets fired i imagined
to the song presence by justice and i i tried
to fucking license that song from justice to
use in our finale uh but one they never got back
to me justice has a horrible licensing uh pipeline
i have no idea how to do it uh and uh two at
the point we were especially because like I don't
know. It felt more appropriate to do the ending,
the opening theme at that point. Just for a lot
of reasons. And also because what I imagined,
which is that the tungsten rod actually makes
contact, doesn't happen. Which I'll go on a small
tangent. That is what I imagined the ending would
always be. I did not imagine a world where that
didn't happen because I was like, well, this
is in place. This is going to fire. Unless they
really put in the effort. to to stop it with
the reporter stuff which i i intentionally didn't
push it that hard we're just like well you know
sometimes it's like that like you get a weird
tip and you have to prioritize other things and
you don't know that the end of this weird tip
is something that could save a lot of people
because we accidentally introduced martyrdom
with some failed roles uh because everything
turned out the way it did you in a lot of ways
you you changed fate even on like a meta level
where it's like You stopped something that I
thought was inevitable, which is why I love actually
playing RPGs. Because that's the shit that's
good. Not when things go to plan, it's when they
don't. That's my little thing. That's my little
aside. One of my questions is kind of attached
to that, so I think I might ask it here. If we
had, because I know you mentioned that big final
set piece. was something that you had envisioned
when you came up with this campaign. Would it
have changed if we had gone Clusterist, or would
the weapon still have fired, and would we be
culpable for it? I think if you had changed sides,
it would have still happened. Maybe you would
have been, like... I mean, if I had to choose
right now, I didn't prep it, because obviously
it didn't happen, but I would probably want that
set piece to be there, but I think maybe you
would be defending it. Like, you would be, what,
the love letter. And like those, like you would
be up there, you'd be defending it. You might
not know, like if I'm imagining it now, you would
have been sent up, like you need to defend this
defense platform, but not knowing what the plan
was. But like, this is me speaking as the ultimate
Pierce Sunspire apologist. I think his plan was
good. Like, obviously having someone who just
lost their sister, bad call. Pierce, you should
have noticed that. But, like, the ultimatum of
you either surrender or you die, like, you have
no method of stopping this. It's good. Like,
if Geist didn't have the crown and Gren didn't
shoot it, the Peacekeepers would have surrendered.
I have it written. So, yeah, I think, man, it
would have been cool. Yeah, yeah. Poor, I feel
like Pierce got done dirty. You guys should have
stopped Spud from killing him. Yeah. Maybe Spud,
you know, got good. That's what he needed. I
think it's really, really, it's almost indicative
of like, just like a lot of how we played, where
Geist always was giving the orders, right? And
he was the de facto leader. And then in that
moment where Geist isn't there, no one's adjusted
to it yet. And Spud is asking for orders and
everyone's like, well, Geist will tell. Geist
will tell Spud what to do, but he's not there.
He's just not there anymore, and I like that
a lot. Yeah, I mean, it was good, and it was
very thematic, but I feel like Pierce was such
a mysterious character for the whole campaign,
because there was an intro from him or two, and
we knew that he was this big shot who completely
fucking switched sides, and then he just gets
fucking erased. I think it was good for Spud's
character especially with his little killing
spree there at the end yeah Spud I love Spud
he's like so chill and like he seems like a good
guy to hang out with but he's like he's so fucking
mean he's evil he loves killing like as much
as he likes weed and that's saying something
and that's saying something And that kind of
just came out of nowhere. But I like Spud. I
was supposed to hate Spud. That was like my thing.
I don't know if you remember at the start. I
do. When we were choosing who we liked and didn't
like. I didn't like Spud because like I thought
he was the guy coming in to help us when we didn't
need any help. But then he defended me against
robo bigotry. And he defended me like. Way harder
than I thought he needed to. He fucking hates
Clusterists. Yeah, he was like, I'll kill them
for you, man. I'll fucking rip you to shreds.
And I'm like, whoa, whoa, thank you. Give me
an excuse. The idea that, like, especially, like,
in the party after the Clearwater Crater incident,
it kind of came off as just, like, you want to
hate him, but he's so fucking cool that you just
literally can't. There's nothing to be done.
It's like, I guess we're friends now. Fucking
bastard. That was a very fun little moment. Alright,
who's got a question? One last one. I got one
for Loyal. I got a bunch. Mine's just quick.
Did you ever consider having Loyal eventually
go try to pursue Maze after everything? I was
surprised that Loyal just let it stand. I think
after how much effort he put into just getting
her off the planet, he had no plans after that.
That was the extent of his rope. Damn. Which
is why he ends up in the ocean afterwards. It's
like, okay, I got her away from the front line.
That's it. I'm done with everything. Goodbye.
F. I have another one that I'm kind of interested
to hear the answer to, but again, I think it
might be one that you can't answer. Why did the
martyrdom entity seem to actually care about
the death and destruction it was preventing?
If I recall correctly, we got like a lie check
on that, and even though it wasn't really a human,
it seemed like what it was saying was true. Was
that just manipulation to try and make Loyal
think that he was doing the right thing? There
is a... There's a line somewhere. I think maybe
in, in the right before you blow up Geist where
when you understand everything, or maybe it was
in the forest, I forget when it was, but it's
that martyrdom's whole thing is that the, the
power it gets from your sacrifice is equivalent
to what you're protecting. So the reason it cares
about all the death is because That's where the
value is. Preventing that death is the cash for
martyrdom in this case. Okay, okay. Or at least
that's the implication. That's fucking awesome.
I love that. So, like, that's the reason, like,
if you think about, like, martyrdom was killed
before, like, back in the city, like, during
the first invasion. And the reason it was kind
of a pushover is that it wasn't, like, there
wasn't that much on the line in that moment.
Right. Like it was also stretched out. It was
like it was a battle. But you saved literally
millions of people with a single action. And
that's fucking efficient. That's like a guaranteed
lottery ticket for. Yeah. So that's why the psychic
entities are very complicated. But but that that's
that's the easy answer I can give you. Cool.
OK. Yeah. I'm satisfied with that. I got a call
in question. hmm colin a culture is its food
if there was one recipe you could replicate or
invent for irl consumption what would it be oh
god okay this is hard for a number of reasons
um but all right so this didn't come up but terra
brea is terraformed um at least their area on
the city is um they probably have cows uh but
like the farther out parts like the lake Oh,
fuck. I guess I could use normal ingredients,
too. I don't have to get too alien with it. What's
going on on Terabraya? What's the food? Bippo
burgers. No, don't do that. I don't want a Bippo
burger. They're self -replicating. I think I
lean towards sushi, just because Loyal was such
a big part of it, and Luigi was a big sushi guy,
as it turned out. That's true. Probably. So like
some fish, some like alien fish, I think. Um,
and I think something that in the city specifically
integrates like military rations, um, like, like
what if it's like wrapped in like, instead of
like nice cooked rice, it's some sort of fucking
like ration pack that a lot of the soldiers get,
um, where they're like just making a lot of bullshit,
kind of like a, kind of like a spam Musabi. Oh,
yeah. Musubi? Musubi, yes. Where it's like the
Terabrea take on it, where you're combining something
that is kind of like a ration, kind of mass -produced,
but you're also combining a local ingredient
as well. Like a seaweed. Tortilla hand rolls.
That's my answer. Now you have to make that in
real life. You know that, right? And feed it
to all of us. I don't know what the fuck is in
it, because it was kind of just a one -off joke,
but I want to try a new -fashioned whatever that
is. Whatever a Terabrayan new -fashioned is.
I went to a restaurant and they had something
called the new -fashioned. It's such a low -hanging
fruit pun, I'm not at all surprised that somebody
has already done it. But yeah, it's probably
something silly. It's like a white whiskey somehow,
instead of a brown whiskey. Alec, will you describe
Tyrell's drinks? Yeah, Tyrell... The gin. The
gin, blood orange gin. Classy lady. She's a very
classy lady. She's also a psychopath in her own
way, but that's why I love her. I love her, how
fucking unhinged she is. A lot of psychopath
baddies in this campaign, I gotta say. We got
Ziggurat, we got Tyrell, we got... I guess you
could make an argument for Nyla. It's almost
as if they're drawn to war. I don't know if you
know this, Zach. I don't know if I told you,
but the name Nyla is stolen from... Not stolen,
but the very first campaign we ever did, Adam
was there, Brian was there. Their handler was
called Nyla. And so I just thought it'd be funny
to do a throwback where your handler is once
again Nyla for the first thing we put out publicly.
That's fun. I like that. I like that they even
seem like original, Nyla. Yeah, there's a lot
of things that, like, a lot of things I do that's
for your benefit. Like, Dead Man's Whelp, which
is a card game that exists in our fucking fantasy
universe. Just, like, mentioning them. Little
treats. I have a related question, actually,
that I think goes along with that. Was the old
king... From like the weird final crown getting
segment. Was he some kind of reference to a previous
Colin game character? He was. I thought he might
have been. But there was. A while ago, Zach,
you were in we were in a campaign where you had
to like go inside of a play and take up the role
of like this king character who has to go to
this doomed expedition. And I was reminded a
lot of that when I was writing the forest thing.
I fucking love that segment. It was so fun. Dope.
I always... Not always, but I really tend to,
at a certain point in a campaign, there's always
one fucking weird episode where I just do not
use any rules, and it's just like... I call it
a Mindscape episode. It's just like, reality
is completely whatever you want it to be. Just
do what you want. We're not going to roll any
dice. Let's just make a funny story. Are you
struggling feebly? I love to struggle feebly,
and it never mattered either. I love how I feel
like I'm sure that this has been done before,
but the idea of like a game where you just always
succeed at the thing you're good at with no ambiguity
seems like it would be like a fun. challenge
to play and run both because like the way that
they interplayed it's just like the assassin
can kill people he can just do it the mystic
can do these things you know the advisor just
knows everything it was it was kind of just fun
on its own merits i think as the guy who couldn't
do anything there are tons of games uh like that
um this is gonna call follow which you probably
don't remember because it was a really small
thing a long time ago adam and brian but we played
follow um for like a prequel to one of our campaigns
where we did like some adventure where you had
to fight some demon guy but you basically just
everyone decides whether or not it succeeds or
fails like no matter what you do like you don't
roll any dice you're just like well i think this
would succeed and then you like say succeed or
fail and then there's like a table for like what
the outcome is um i like that shit i like that
cooperative storytelling type games I have a
question for Joseph. Lay it on me, brother. What's
your favorite thing about playing a robot? You
know I love my robots. I know you love your robots.
Even I don't know why I love robots, but they're
just cool. They're just cool. What's my favorite
thing about playing a robot? Man. I don't know.
Why do I fucking like robots? I gotta figure
this out for myself. I mean, I liked it in this
campaign. Because you put a lot of thought into
immersion personalities. I wasn't just like a
guy in a suit. It was like there was so much
backstory that I was excited to explore. That
was almost worried to explore because I was like,
oh, fuck, am I going to get some of this wrong?
But I really had a good time. I liked how much
the world was against Joseph. That is like what
made him the most interesting to me or. Made
him the most exciting to play, because I always
knew he had a vendetta against anyone he was
talking to. Because in the back of their mind,
they didn't like him. So maybe I'd say that,
honestly. I liked how robots were presented in
the world that you made. And that was my favorite
part. Thank you. I've got some rapid -fire ones.
I've got like 15 to 12 questions left. Man, you're
on fire. I want to do my last one. Do it. Martyrdom
has a royalty aspect to it with the king system.
What is that all about? None of the other virtues
had this one. I think I asked you this question
in real life. Martyrdom is more special than
everyone else, I feel like. I don't want to get
into the entire metaphysical stuff. One, because
it is intentionally very vague. Because, yeah.
I think all the virtues have their own thing
that they're about. Martyrdom is all about the
sacrifice, like the thorny crown. I don't even
know that I have the idea. It's symbolic. I think...
honestly honest to god i think i just named it
that because i was like what do we want to call
this like half dead thing that people are trying
to bring back and i was like i like thinking
of cool names that's like half the fun i make
everything around the cool names and it was like
yeah um the king the king returneth like that's
that's fun tkr it's a good abbreviation um and
that that's where it started and then like the
the the squad fracture who was under martyrdom
they had their own crown, like, motifs going
on, too. And then, as... Martyrdom wasn't supposed
to be a big part of this campaign at all. It
was not my intent, but after you rolled bad and
things got kind of wacky, then they kind of developed,
and I just kind of went from there. Nice. Thanks.
I thought, like, Martyrdom... Was there ever,
like, a world where, like... not Whistler's zeal,
but, like, Retribution, the entity, had, like,
more say because, like, it really, like, it allowed
Whistler to do all the crazy shit that he was
doing, but, like, it never, like, seemed to,
like, speak. It didn't seem like it was really
there at the end when Whistler was stuck in his
little projection statue thing. I didn't really
feel like Retribution was there. Had it, like,
abandoned him because he had failed so thoroughly?
yes a lot of ways yes where like he was not doing
a good job you kicked his ass in a lot of ways
um and like the the things that are powering
the virtues they're not like the entirety of
whatever these entities are whatever you want
to call them it's just like a little fraction
a little finger they dip in um and it's just
ultimately what they get out of it and there's
like a moment in when you confronted retribution
where like you can kind of feel that retribution
entity wash over you briefly kind of like looking
for purchase. Um, and it gets like literally
scared away by martyrdom. Um, he's mine. Yeah.
Like, like, uh, like, uh, a predator being scared
by a much larger predator where it's like, okay,
like this is not, uh, we're not going to fight
about this. I'm just going to back. I like that.
It's like these large, large predators out in
the air. My chaos comes better. Yeah, basically.
So, yeah, I think so, and there's, like, a kind
of a question of, like, why didn't, like, Doody
just do X, Y, or Z if, you know, Geist can blow
up an entire thingy? And it's just, like, there's
different levels of power. It also is to serve
the narrative, you know? Yeah, I get that. I
feel like, Retribution never really won a fight
against Geist. Even the very first one when I
was already trauma'd out at the start of the
fight, Geist got his fucking pound of flesh in
that first one. I feel like it was interesting
when he switched to stop trying to fight Geist
and just started trying to kill his friends at
the dam. But yeah, he really just... Retribution
could not pull... He had a really sad arc. The
only real drop he got on you was that first mission
where he almost killed Loyal. And then after
that, it was progressively more and more desperate
as you guys got stronger, which I like. Yeah,
it was fun. I got a why is that question? Sure.
Yo, guess what? Geist is forced to challenge
and defeat Joseph in hand -to -hand combat. He
can pick one other person to aid him, excluding
Mahogany Cola, ziggurat white cliff or any player
who does he choose and why oh fuck that's a really
good question um so this is like a no no frames
no frames you are both on in your bodies you're
not killing him but you gotta you gotta like
get him to submit joseph okay in a 2v1 i mean
fuck that's a really good question i feel like
um a realistic answer would probably be spud
because spud's a pretty good fighter and um they
get along really well if i could just like pick
anybody um fuck i don't know we don't really
know many people who are formidable hand -to
-hand combatants so maybe like if i could just
like if i can just like use cheat codes to pick
any character from the roster i might go with
somebody like Like the fucking corporate council
head of security lady that we killed with a railgun
just because she seemed pretty badass and physically
imposing and huge. That works for me. I like
that. It was a good idea you didn't try to assassinate
her. That was funny. I have a question for everyone.
Which is, if your character had to pilot a virtue,
either one that exists already, or one that you
make up, like, for example, wrath or something,
I don't know, what would that virtue be? Oh,
this is easy. Loyalty. The greed one? I mean,
Joseph. I guess you could do greed. If you wanted
to be a virtue, sure. Yeah. I feel like loyalty
is a duty. I feel like loyal would be an excellent
duty. Yeah, I think so, too. Do you have that
picture that we can look at? Oh, shit. I know
what you're talking about. Oh, like the funky
psychic one? You can also make one up if you
want, but let me put the picture up if you want
it. Just a list of virtues. I was trying to remember.
Oh, yeah. Okay. Oh, but only good virtues. Retribution,
love, attachment, martyrdom. Shame. Duty, shame.
Did shame die offscreen? Shame died before the
start of the campaign. That's right. Yeah, I
did know that one. And then sacrifice, the controversial
eighth virtue. Wait, sacrifice is the one I killed,
right? Am I wrong? Okay, that's the one I want
to be. I want to be that one. Absolutely. I don't
think Joseph would ever sacrifice himself. Joseph
seemed like he had a pretty strong... Sense of
self -preservation. It was just his killing abilities
that I like. I can kill someone for 50 meters.
His little pinpoint, like, I shoot a pencil at
you and you die. I like that. Joseph would be
the virtue of violence. That's what I'm making
up. I feel like at the start... uh geist definitely
would have been retribution because that was
really all he wanted was revenge in fact when
we first started this and i was my character
i was just like i want him to be on a revenge
quest somebody he cared about died and then colin
you were like okay well who do you want that
guy to be and i was like i had seen this picture
and i was like well what if it was retribution
wouldn't that be wouldn't that be ironic if he
wanted revenge on the personification of revenge
and uh so i feel like he definitely he was retribution
at the beginning in a lot of ways um But in the
end, I don't know. I guess it would have to be
Martyrdom. I don't know. That was kind of his
arc, was going from Retribution to Martyrdom
in a lot of ways. Alright. Well, thank you. Thank
you, gamers. Go. Go for it. I have like a, this
is kind of a higher level question. What was
the inspiration or design decision behind having
Hayes Fields be so ubiquitous that every single
frame has one no questions asked rather than
like a specialized piece of jamming technology?
Um, it's Gundam. Gundam has the Minkowski particles,
which are basically the justification, which
honestly for such an old show. Shout out to Gundam
for having a justification for why people are
in mechs. You know, like you didn't have to do
that, but you did. So it's basically the same
reason. Like, why would you get close? Why aren't
people using drones or like long range weapons
to fight? And it's like, well, because you can't
tell what's going on in long range. And it's
a good abbreviation. I'm all about abbreviations.
Did you start with the word haze and you were
like, okay, we need an H and an A? Yes, yes.
Absolutely. If I ever have an abbreviation like
that, I worked backwards. Hex? If Hex had a real
world job, what would it be and what company
would he work for? Is something boring in any
company? He's shown he doesn't have loyalty,
so at this point, probably just something boring.
Some sort of analyst, I don't know. Analyst at
Retheon? Yeah, why not? Andro? I think that's
the newest one. Gotta always be on the freshest
shit. Shout out to them, you know, their drones.
I got a loyal question. Yes? What would Loyal
look like if he was human? Ooh. Gotta make a
gajinka of this. I don't know if I pronounced
that correctly at all. I know exactly what you
mean. Did you ever consider it? I guess. No.
Nerdy white boy. Nerdy white boy. Yeah. That's
it. Came from money. Has big fucking round glasses.
Like. I don't know, curly red hair or something
like that. Thin frame. Easily snappable frame.
Something like that. But so empathetic. I got
one for you, Colin, if you want. Excluding an
RPG, FPS, or strategy, what type of game would
you be interested in seeing spawn from the setting?
FPS, RPG, or strategy? Excluding those. You cannot
pick those. Fuck you. RPG, FPS, or strategy.
That's all the games I like, Adam. Sorry, pal.
You gotta pick something else. Armored Core.
Platformer. I mean, Armored Core, I guess you
didn't get rid of action games, Brian. I mean,
Adam. That's true. That's true. Like, that's
the easy answer, right? It's like, Armored Core.
um where a lot of the the story stuff is happening
kind of off to the side um i think i was if i
was being really ballsy about it just being like
kind of a dick i would choose like a almost walking
stimulator -esque narrative story where you you
get to see the mechs and you get like vague notions
of like they are doing cool things but you don't
get to do them uh maybe you play a fucking gopher
and you're walking around the hangar the whole
time. And maybe you get taunted with like, oh,
you're going to the next mission. It's like,
oh, actually, sorry. You can't. Aw, too bad.
A mechanic sim. It's like Papers, Please. It's
like you watch them file out and you see what
happens out there and then they come back. Yeah,
exactly. Your face up to the window. Exactly.
That's my answer. I like that question. That's
a good question. Here's one. Why is it called
Contrition? Does that name mean anything? Yes.
Okay, I realize after the fact that that sounds
a lot like a virtue. That wasn't really intentional.
I hadn't thought about it. That was my follow
-up, actually. But I kind of like that it's ambiguous.
But contrition is a type of divine guilt, almost.
And when I imagine contrition, I imagine this
AI that is doing... doing some really awful things
for what it believes to ultimately be the betterment
of um its people and the world in general um
so it's like a self -made name it's like this
it's calling itself its most strong emotion or
feeling or at least it wants you to think that
yeah i remember i can't remember if i said this
on like recording or not but one of my initial
theories was that like clusterous hate this is
before we knew what the virtues were i kind of
assumed that they were still somehow inherent
to clusterism at the time and i thought that
like contrition was like a virtue that like was
it was an ai but like the clusterism abhors ai
so it's like what it was contrite about was its
own existence it's like guilty for existing but
i mean obviously that i had a lot of theories
Okay, that's a good answer. I think that's my
last question that I had in my big old list.
Wow, really? I got a lot more. I want to hear
all of Adam's questions. Oh, I have one more
question. Maybe ask somebody else. Okay, does
anyone else have more questions? No, I'm good.
Okay, Jesus. Let's do it. Let's get into the
fun ones then. We're getting into the fun ones.
Although it did not happen at any point in the
story. Did you ever anticipate having a sex scene
with one of the players where you had to act
as the other NPC? Me? You. Did you think, like,
I might have to have sex with this character
if they romantically pursue this person? It could
happen. Okay. I don't like sex scenes. I was
going to come out and say it. I don't like them.
I don't particularly enjoy them. We've had them
in the past, in our past ones. But it's like,
I don't really like role -playing romance. I
don't think I'm very good at it. I also don't
think the story had room for it. Sure. I get
that. Could anyone realistically have fucked
besides Hex? What do you mean besides Hex? Well,
because Joseph is a robot. Yeah. I feel like
Geist doesn't have a penis. I don't know. I thought
about it a little bit. I put some thought into
whether or not Geist had his genitals. I guess
Loyal does, but he's a dolphin, so it's complicated.
I don't know. There's other dolphins. Yeah, that's
true. Dolphins and humans are biocompatible.
The question was, did you anticipate it? Did
you think it might happen? Was there any NPC
where it was like, oh yeah, Hex is definitely
going to want to... That's what I wanted to know.
No, not in this campaign, because everything
was just so fucked up. There was no room for
it. I'm a fan of Milk Cake and Joseph, personally,
because that's weird. I don't even know how that
works. But no, not really. I didn't think it
was that likely. The only thing, before we started,
I consider that someone might choose to have
literally a family on Terra Brea. Which I think
would have been kind of fun. In which case, I
would have had to have been your wife or husband.
You and I. Missed opportunity. Let's be domestic.
Let's have a vignette of us at home. The kids
are away. You hear about that dam? Yeah, that's
weird. But yeah. Kind of. And also no. Okay.
That's mine. Okay, you want to get another one?
Yeah, let's do it. This is... Okay, this might
not be a question because the robotic narcotics
that Joseph was offered, was that specifically
like a robo thing, like a chip that he put in
his brain? Remember when he's at Gold House?
It's some like... Or was it like a fluid? It's...
I'm actually like a magnet. Yeah, that's what
I was going to say. My question was, if this
was consumed by a human, what would they feel?
Probably nothing. Probably nothing. Okay. Yeah.
It's just like a magnet that fucks up your, your,
your CPU makes it skip beats or whatever. Um,
okay. That milk cake designed. Sure. Uh, I have
questions for, you never smoked. I never did.
Why would I, why would I, I got a job to do.
All right. I got questions for other people.
Unless you want to start asking questions. I'll
ask one. Um, What would it have taken for Geist
to leave the conflict? We kind of talked about
this. Like, leave as in, like, leave it undone?
Like, just, like, get the fuck out? Leaving the
conflict undone, I think that if Amity came back
somehow, or if some psychic entity that very
convincingly appeared to be her came back and
was like, we can leave, we should leave, that
might do it. But even then, it wouldn't be a
sure thing because he's kind of all fucked up.
I don't know if there really is anything. Honestly,
I don't think he would ever leave it undone at
any like for different reasons at various parts
of the campaign. But he always had a reason to
stick it out for sure, I think. Sure. I'll ask
one more player question. So like single player
question, which is for Loyal. You probably ran
the most contrary to the group's goals. Sometimes
it kind of felt like Loyal was on the cusp of
trying to push back against the Dusklight's disregard
for life. What would it have taken to get Loyal
to take action there? Did he ever get close?
Take action against us killing people? Yeah,
like push against the squad. Yeah, I feel like
he learned pretty early on in just becoming a
pilot that... It was impossible with the type
of war they were fighting or just as everything
got worse And you just it's just survival out
there so I don't know I mean we got to the point
of the dam which Was the point where he had to
ask himself like this is a point of no return.
Do I keep going or am I done here? And that was
the point where he was like, okay, I'm just going
to keep going no matter what. So there is no
point, I don't think, where he would push back,
even though that's what he wanted the entire
time. Cool. I got a loyal question. Quick one.
Did you ever consider a different mobility option
before the Exopod? Ooh. Yeah, there's like a
lot of different depictions of cetacean mobility
devices in sci -fi. Some that look like just
a guy. Some that aren't realistic. They're just
like a bunch of arms and there's nothing covering
the dolphin body. But I don't know. I wanted
something that would have a free range of motion
more than trying to make him move like a human
or something else. He's just floating, and then
he interacts with the world through various things.
Yeah, I was surprised you kept him floating,
like, in water. I thought for sure, like, when
you first brought up dolphins, that it would
be, like, loyals in a mech, and he has something
that just lets him breathe in the atmosphere,
you know? That was my theory. Dolphins breathe
air. Right. He breathes the oxygenated water.
Not the most pleasant thing to do, but he does
it. They're fish -like, I know. It's confusing.
Fish like freaks. Okay. That's mine. Sure. I
have one question left. So we talked about what
would have happened if Geist had fragmented earlier.
What would have happened if he put on the crown
the first time it was offered to him? Would it
just kind of lay dormant? Or would he have gotten
some new moves? Or what would have happened?
Because he had the opportunity to put it on pretty
early. I think it would be a more gradual thing
where you don't get... all of it right up front
there was a tough point where when you fretting
sacrifice where you were considering trying to
command uh martyrdom to give you some power yeah
right away um this is me being a negligent gm
but i didn't really prep you putting it on early
very much um Just because I thought it's not
very desirable until you know everything going
on. Yeah. I think martyrdom definitely would
have intervened, and I think there is a world
where you do successfully tell martyrdom to fucking
put up during the sacrifice fight, and you actually
play as the virtue martyrdom up until the end.
That would have been cool. What would Geist have
been like if that happened? Would Geist have
been able to get out of his mech and go to briefings
and shit? Do we not know? I guess it's like maybe
we just can never know because it didn't happen.
I think it would have been very different overall.
I think you'd be playing a very different character.
I think also I would have left a lot of it up
to you because you're going to be playing that
character. We can decide what that is. But I
think it would necessitate definitely playing
Geist differently both physically and emotionally
because you are now interlinked with this thing.
I thought all my questions answered. I have a
question for everyone. It's kind of similar to
previous questions we've had, but did you have
any other character concepts you were considering
before the campaign, like a completely different
character than who you ended up playing? I was
originally going to maybe do Zag again from the
40k thing that we did. A character like that,
because I figured that character... would be
fun again. I always imagine, that's why I said
a general soldier, I'm like, okay, this would
probably be just a guy with a chip on his shoulder
that would be very concerned about the things
going on, but he would still be loyal. But that
was all I was really thinking before the robot.
Yeah, I didn't. I honed in real fast, I think,
on mine. I didn't have anything concrete that
wasn't at least in essence Geist. Same here.
Or dolphin. I just wanted to be a dolphin. That
was it. Yeah, I don't want to retread ground
here. It was out of this sort of pilot, but I
did like the idea of exploring the more boring
parts of war. And that won it. Very sick. Is
that everyone's questions? I have a lot more.
I mean, do it. Okay, alright. Which one of our
decisions would have been the biggest shake -up
if it went the other way? Narratively, if you
hadn't stopped the tungsten rod, that would have
been big. How the way the story goes, I don't
think that would have been likely for Geist,
but I can see a world where Geist thinks in some
way that all this manipulation is worth... like
of these these psychic things is worth standing
up against even at a high cost because that is
in a lot of ways that is the premise of like
the soul union's presence on this planet which
is that you are fighting this force uh to avoid
greater costs down the line i mean sorry that's
the clustrous whole thing yeah i was gonna say
that would feel so hypocritical um where it's
like you are you are you understand that there's
a price to pay but it is uh a greater price will
be paid down the line if you don't fight now.
Gotcha. Also, I think if someone had left at
any point, like if someone, like a character
was just like, you know, I'm done. Like I floated
to, I think Hex, like, is there a reason you
actually want to go to the last mission? Because
like, you know, I can see a world where you don't.
I could have been happening earlier for some
of you, but I'm glad it didn't happen because
that makes running things very hard. I have another
question that kind of goes along with that sort
of which operation was a struggle with how much
we changed it for you and which operation went
smoother than you could have possibly expected.
Oh, God, let me pull up, pull up my list. Because
the first operation was the biggest struggle
for me, but not because anything weird happened.
It's just because I wasn't ready for it as much
as I thought I should be. The martyrdom stuff
for old machines, I did not expect martyrdom
to show up. It was like a little thing to note
at the very bottom of my document. It was like,
if loyal to some psychic stuff, maybe the body
does something, question mark. Like, I did not
expect that to happen really at all. I kind of
just went with it, and I'm glad I did. In terms
of going extremely smoothly, I think that...
Fuck, was Rampart four parts? Wow, Jesus. Rampart
was big. Rampart went longer than I thought it
would, but it went pretty smoothly, and I was
surprised by how, even though it was long, how
much it seemed to be kind of fun for everyone.
Also... I think in terms of the smoothest one,
I know I've basically talked about half our missions
now. Corporate restructuring where you assassinated
those people. I was really unsure of that one
going into it, but everyone had a lot of fun
and I'm really glad it turned out well. Yeah,
that was my favorite mission, I think. Just the
little sandbox. I love the sandboxes when they
go well because it's a lot of fun to play with
all the little parts. Yeah. I got two more Joseph
questions and then we can end on two Colin questions.
Does that sound good? Sure. So Joseph question
one, could Joseph have consumed? I think his
name crows spores. Is that possible? Joseph could
not. I think there is a biological thing. It's
not like a psychic thing where there might be
like a workaround. I did consider that someone
might consume them. But like. In terms of people
most likely to do it, it would be Geist. And
Geist already had like 10 things going on. And
so it would be like, well, Geist is a mushroom
person now and Geist is wearing the crown and
Geist is his frame now. So I'm glad he didn't.
Ultimately, it would have been another big character
changing moment. I'm sure, you know, it would
have been funny. What would have happened if
Loyal did it? It would have worked with loyal
because the mushroom dolphin, the vested are
called are compatible with like most species.
That's how they do it. They're all over the place.
Did you plan for Joseph to use his favor against
sacrifice slash? Did you realistically see us
surviving that encounter without it? I thought
it was very likely you would. That's why I wrote
all that stuff about it happening. You could
have gotten away. I would say I, if I'm being
honest, I didn't want you to get away because
I wanted to incentivize you to use that move
or for, and also I didn't think you guys had
been scared enough lately. It was a scary episode.
Like I, you had never gone up against a virtue
by yourself except for retribution. And I wanted
you to be scared. I wanted you to be scared.
And there wasn't even any psychic shit going
on, which I wanted to kind of drive home. Like
why it's kind of scary. for AIs to be used for
combat, uh, when they're unlocked, so to speak.
Um, but... No, sorry, go ahead. I was just gonna
say that I think his design was really smart
for that, because, like, the idea that, like,
to kill somebody, you don't need a huge fucking
gun, you need a really, really small gun, and
then you just shoot them in the heart or the
brain, and then, like, what if you could do that,
like, a hundred times or however many laser drones
he had, and you could coordinate them all autonomously
all at once, like, that... That is really fucking
scary. And, like, as soon as it started happening,
I was like, we're so fucking dead. There's just
no way. I think... Is there, like, any world
where, like, we could have beat him in a conventional
fight just by getting, like, maybe, like, a critical
success on a survey to find out where the core
was and then hitting it? Yeah, I mean, it had
a clock. It had a clock. It was very strong.
You could have run away as well. You know, you
would have had to do really good. to beat it.
I think it would have been a hard fight. I definitely
would not have been pulling my punches on any
consequences you get. But, like, a lot of the
core design around sacrifice was, like, what
is the ideal thing for this AI to do where it's,
like, you can't just have it, like, be there
and, like, it stands in front of you and does
shit. It has to fight, like, the smartest way
it can. And also, from a game design perspective,
I know you guys are really good at battling in
your frames. And if you can roll that right away,
your chances of failing are much lower. It's
like that Gundam question that you talked about.
It's like, why not just fight from far away?
Yeah, exactly. So I just wanted to hit you in
your weaker skills. I think you did a really
good job of hyping him up with throws. That was
very scary. I know I didn't clock right away
that it was Sacrifice, like, the thing with the
flares. I think I mentioned that I thought it
was, like, Pierce or something, but, like, when
Crow was, like, all those, like, we knew he was
good, but all those other times, he was just
fucking with us. Like, he wasn't even trying,
and, like, this fight, it wasn't even close.
It was very ominous, and then as soon as the
fight started, I was like, oh, fuck, we're dead.
Very good. Alright, final two. When you learned
the creator of the game we are running was watching
the show, did you change any of your original
plans? Parentheses, be honest. Loyal can tell
if you lie, you know. Let me think. Honestly,
you're putting me in a very vulnerable position.
You can cut this one out. But like, I mean, yeah,
you know, it's. So it kind of goes back to that
question of if you know people are watching,
right? Yeah. If we failed to launch, as many
podcasts do, and we had zero listeners, or one
or two, I probably would have tried a lot less.
I wouldn't have put so much work into the editing
and all that stuff. And I think I would probably
be a lot more casual on mic. Um, like a little
more, you know, I slip into some raunchiness
sometimes. Um, I probably would have been a little
more, more of that. Uh, but like when there are
people listening and you feel like, you know,
people are liking what we're doing. I feel like
I want to put in more effort. I want to like
think more clearly through these things. Like
in our previous campaigns, a lot of the time
I wouldn't really prep much of anything. And
like, if we have a plot hole, like chances are
you won't notice. Like I get it. um you know
you can kind of just like oh we're just here
to have fun like whatever and i can just like
retcon but when people are listening there's
there's more knowing that the creator of the
game is listening and knowing that other people
are listening i put in a lot more effort and
i thought a lot more about what i was putting
in um and uh i was less likely to put a joke
in uh where where before i i might have i guess
would be the answer that's cool good answer And
then my final question, which I think is a good
ending one. Can you give an estimate of how many
pages of material you did not use in this campaign?
Oh, that is a good question. I need to remember
how many pages I wrote. I think I posted it somewhere.
OK, I can't find it anyways. I think in terms
of most of the stuff I didn't use at all was
that alternate ending that I wrote, which is,
I think, 10 pages. outside of that i tried to
keep it pretty tight because i've been really
busy outside of the podcast lately too and uh
i really can't afford to have a bunch of extraneous
shit i was reading through some of my old campaign
notes um for like our older campaigns that we
did and i wrote so much stuff that like that
like had a five percent chance of a player ever
touching um and it's kind of it's kind of like
but it's also kind of sad because I just liked
exploring it and I had really had time for it
back in the day, but less so now. Now I got to
be more efficient. For a typical operation, if
you wrote 20, would you be using 10 of those
pages? Was it like 50 -50? For a typical operation,
I typically use 90 % of what I wrote. So the
strategy I go with now, especially with a game
like this game, is that you can't actually prep
a shit ton for the actual operation itself. Like,
I can prep a lot before the operation. Like,
what's going on in the base, like, the plane
ride over, those narrative scenes I can prep
for. And, like, that's where you get most of
the lost stuff. But once you get to the operation,
I have, like, maybe a page of notes on, like,
what is here, what consequences might occur.
And, you know, if I don't have to use that, I'm
only missing out on, like, a couple sentences.
So I was very efficient. Gotcha. Cool. That is
all my I have like questions for players, but
I don't even think they're good questions. So
I think we can call it there. All right. I have
a couple things I want to mention. A couple things
I want to mention, which I just little little
things. I originally had planned a talk show
episode where I know where the squad would be
interviewed about the conflict before things
broke bad because the dusk lights. it's like
a really funny angle is that you're actually
an extremely diverse squad in the context of
the soul union you have a dolphin a robot and
a disabled veteran uh and like that's that's
what you want from as the soul union to pull
up on screen to justify your conflict it's like
you want Oh, we've got everyone like we're going
to appeal to like the dolphins. We're going to
appeal to the emerging personality people and
the veterans like, oh, bring them up on stage.
We're into a talk show about the conflict and
like the good fight you're doing and all that
stuff. But obviously that wouldn't have been
appropriate as things developed. So that didn't
happen. But it is it was very funny thing to
think about. That's good. I thought that. Joseph
and Geist were going to have more stuff about
them both basically having the same origin with
Amity. And that didn't shake out that way, which
is very funny. It's like your stepson is in your
squad and you just don't talk about it at all
ever. I feel like I had that in my beliefs, but
it seemed like something that Joseph didn't care
about at all. Like he didn't seem at all concerned
with where he came from or his origin. Yeah,
I think it would have been. Honestly, insulting
for him to admit it. That is just like, by the
way, you are just a robot that someone made and
that's who you are, you know, and I don't think
he ever wanted to really confront that. But I
was wondering if I always thought that that was
going to happen, like at the end, even at the
start, that somehow you were going to make that
show up. And then like that might lead to a confrontation
between me and Geist, like even to maybe a fight.
Yeah, I like that you put the flowers on her
grave in the little minescape. thing yeah that
was a good touch i feel like maybe the only way
i could have seen it happening even if it didn't
as if just like in a cut loose downtime when
geist would be just really hammered and get all
sad out of nowhere and ask if he remembered her
at all yeah i feel like i didn't explore like
we talked a little bit about geist's nightmares
and like how his brain is a constant nightmare
torment zone but like we never i never really
explored his grief much i thought about it i
thought about the idea that like he had been
like recording like basically like diaries to
her because it was like something that his shrink
told him to do when he first tried to get one
and like maybe we could use one as like an episode
intro i was going to pitch that to you as an
idea but i just kind of never put it together
I guess that falls into the regrets of things
I never explored with my character question from
hours ago. There's only so much room. We made
a lot of NPCs that never got touched in that
first episode. I noticed that. The anti -war
guy, Loyal's artist rival. When we made it, I
thought it might come up, but in retrospect,
it's just dwarfed by all the shit that went on.
Yeah, it was full. It never felt like we were
lacking for something to fucking talk about.
Where are we going to slip that in? Oh, I thought
of another question, actually. And this is maybe
another one that you can't answer for maintaining
some secrets about the setting. But was my theory
about Joseph gaining sentience because of the
proximity of aura psychic technology correct?
My idea being that. like joseph's genesis was
unusual because he came from what like a class
two or something and that usually doesn't ever
happen but like retribution was there killing
amity and that was kind of like when he was born
is that why it happened or am i not cleared for
that intel you're not cleared for that intel
but that was a very good theory um it's yeah
i can't tell you i'm sorry uh i don't know that
it'll ever come up Ask me in five years. That's
my answer for you. I can see that being annoying
in a lot of ways. I don't really have a great
reason for withholding this information, but
it just doesn't feel like it needs to be said
right now. Some mysteries are better left as
mysteries anyways, so you don't have to sell
me too hard on the idea. One thing I wanted to
mention that we... I don't think we mentioned
on mic ever because it got cut out. But Glass
New Lane and Gold House were not planned at all.
I mean, like many things, they weren't. But it
was a misunderstanding where Adam thought that
the guy inside the server room who turned out
to be Glass New Lane was part of the staff of
the refinery and not a clusterist. So when Joseph
was really friendly with him and let him off
the hook. I was, I guess this is a good example
of like, of like things going way differently
than I thought. I was like, wait, what's going
on? Why is Joseph being so chill with this guy?
This is weird. And then after it was done, I
was like, why didn't this clusterist hate Joseph?
That's like a big part of their ideals. I need
to figure out what the fuck this is. So then
I ended up creating Goldhouse kind of all around
this. kind of misunderstanding, and I love Gold
House. Which is, it's why I love RPGs, baby.
So fun. I don't think I knew that, or if I was
told, I pressed it out of my brain, because I
remember in that moment thinking it was really
weird that, like, because I didn't say anything,
but I'm like, why isn't Joseph, why did she just
fucking slap this guy? I feel like Colin had
something there, like, oh, this was somehow.
It's so fun. Yeah, I forget how that scene went
down, but from what I remember, I, like, fell
down and like introduced myself. You dropped
in and you're like, Hey, what's up? Yeah. Okay.
And then that was the thing in my brain where
I'm like, you know what? I'll try this. If, if
he immediately tries to kill me, I can handle
him, but let's just see what happens. And then
when he was nice, I'm like, okay, this is probably
just a guy who's like, works here. I'm not going
to go. I think gold house is really cool. I didn't
know that that was one of those things you threw
together. Gold house is a really fun little part
of the conflict. Yeah. It's. I love how much
shit came up that just was completely unintended
fucking martyrdom. I can't even believe that
that was not a larger part of it in retrospect.
That ended up being basically the fulcrum around
which the story was spinning. It kind of goes
back to the core tenets of running a good RPG
is don't have everything laid out you can have
like where you want to push towards and you can
have right you start but then like you will find
a lot of shit along the way and that gives players
a lot of agency and like makes them feel like
they're actually affecting the world which i
i want i want you guys to feel like you can change
things i think i have a good gm2 i have one more
question that just occurred to me do you feel
like you did loyal dirty by forcing him to basically
just like in that last drive clock thing loyal
got real fucked up like not just having to cause
the death of reggie the dolphin but just like
killing all these other random people in the
car chase like it just it felt like just he got
what he wanted but he got fucking hammered to
pieces and like all of his lofty ideals of not
wanting to kill people completely like strewn
apart i'm not i guess but I liked it. I thought
it was a wonderful part of the game, but did
it feel at any point like you were being mean?
Yes. I can't forget if I talked about this off
mic or not, but when I wrote that vignette, I
was in a rush. I wrote the front half of it,
and I forgot that if things got bad, getting
out would be a whole thing. We were there. Things
had gone bad. In a real way, I wanted there to
be a confrontation with Reggie of some sort,
but then things got really bad. And I was like,
well, you got to get out. And it wouldn't be
honest narratively if you just got out. And so,
yeah, I screwed over Loyal. A lot of the vignette
stuff is like not part of Beam Saber at all.
And a lot of you guys got fucked up in your vignettes.
Yeah. Hex got his arm blown off and lost. Got
a trauma, basically with no real opportunity
for counterplay. But it was cool. Yes, it is.
That kind of goes back to trusting each other
to do things. Trust your GM that he will hurt
you, but it will ultimately not ruin your character.
I think Loyal had a lot of shit tough. Oh yeah.
Loyal's choices were tough, but he saved Maze.
That is not something I would ever have fucked
with, and that is ultimately what the drive was
about. Yes. And also, having Reggie die in exchange
for Maze's life, mwah, chef's kiss. Beautiful.
I have a little tiny question that just popped
into my mind, kind of on that, is, Colin, do
you have, or can you think of any moment within
the campaign that you're like, where a piece
of dramatic irony came into play that you were
very proud of pulling off. Kind of like me or
the lady who I was killing, twisting my arm from
like the fake thing that I showed. Something
like that. Is there anything that you're like,
oh man, I can't wait to use this. Yes, I'm very
proud of, as soon as you did the fake training
of those people, I was like, holy shit, I can
use this. This is absolutely going to come up.
I didn't know how yet, but like, I was like,
oh God, this is it. This is the thing. There's
that. There's bringing Reggie back from fucking
episode one. Very good. Just like out of nowhere.
Um, guys talking about martyrdom, uh, saying
like, well, what do you think was going to happen?
His name is martyrdom. Yeah. That was planned.
That was like, so it's just, it's just the magic
things, things come up. Um, yeah. I think those
are the main ones I think of. Gotcha. So I guess
we can start wrapping up now. I don't want it
to be over. I'm just like, think of more questions
so we can drag this final episode out even longer.
So Emily asked what's next for us. Thank you,
Emily. So we are going to do another season of
the show. I plan to. Um, I'm, I get, I was supposed
to say I'm very excited to announce that, but
like, you know, everyone, uh, I mean, I am very
excited to do it. I'm, I'm fucking stressed out
as, as hell to do something. Um, but I'm, I'm
really excited. We're going to get switch off
sci -fi. Uh, if that's your thing, don't worry.
It's going to come back. Um, I, I, you guys know,
cause we've done this. Off mic. I love sci -fi
and I love fantasy and I love intermingling the
two a lot. So for the next one, we're going to
go to this different setting and a different
system. And we're going to play the award -winning
RPG Heart the City Beneath by Rowan, Rook, and
Deckard. And it's going to be a story about a
hole in a world called the City of Glass, which
is this twisted extra -dimensional labyrinth
created by unknown forces. A place that kind
of promises anything you could want. Riches,
fame, power. You know, it calls to like desperate
people. People who have no options left. To people
with impossible problems needing impossible solutions.
It is, I guess you could call it a fantasy. Fantasy
horror type thing. That's what the heart system
is. It's a very weird system. If any of you have
read it. So I hope you'll join us for that. The
demons, fallen gods, shapeshifters from the moon,
giant robot crabs, and... I'm looking for doing
something new. Going to a world that doesn't
have email in it. It's going to be a big change
for all of us, I think. Free us from emails,
please. It's so funny how much happened over
email in our current game. Our current world.
It's just so realistic. You really do just get
those emails sometimes. I'm looking forward to
this next season. Heart is a game that I've been
keeping my eye on it for a while it is a fucking
beautiful game artistically and it's so fucking
weird um so i'm really excited to see what we
get up to uh in terms of when you can expect
that we're gonna do a break because i think we
all want a little brief break um but you can
expect a trailer i guess a teaser trailer whatever
you want to call it to hit sometimes in january
and then after that uh we're gonna resume our
bi -weekly release schedule about that same time
too uh so i look forward to seeing you all there
when that happens uh in the meantime i'm going
to be just promoting the show you can expect
some art and stuff like that uh and maybe i will
try to advertise on a platform besides tumblr
.com who can say um but not happening um but
until then um Have fun out there. Thanks for
listening, everyone. Thank you, guys. We love
you. Thanks for running the game, Colin. Incredible
first effort. We're all very proud of you for
doing this. We all knew you were going to kick
some ass. Thanks for including us. It was great.
Thanks, Dad. Now get started on Season 2. Back
to the mines. into the hole and it's sealing
it up behind him yeah so justin has a dick right
any breeze well there's a typewriter in there
what else does he need a bowl of water all right
see you in january everyone bye bye unless i
die