This is not don't expect to be Tonya night, Danny. It's time a
straight from the Tota because you'll find no be sur side coast. Hey,
everybody, welcome to side Quest, the podcast that we do when we're not
doing the podcast that you know we do. I am Drew Hayes back with
my ever confusing intros. Joining me today are Rick Will Terry, M.
K. Gibson and Steve Weatherall. Hello, Hey everybody, Hey everyone,
Today, we've got a couple of topics. Of course, we're gonna be
talking about the upcoming A and D digit Con along with some other con stuff.
You know that because you saw that in the title. But before then,
we're gonna take a little game break. We're gonna gonna talk about what
we've all been uh been playing. I was trying really not to just rip
off the exact wording from how did this get played? But it happened,
and so now we're all going to have to live in that. Uh.
Speaking of games, the reason you're getting double side Quest, or an interlude,
if you will, dear listener, is because the main game is coming
just not quite year, so something to look forward to. Dicey Best,
it's so you might say the main game is edging. It I feel like
that's aimed at me somehow. It's not my fault. I keep reaching out
to folks about information and it's getting pushed back. And you know, Emily's
like, I'll check my set up this weekend, like you aren't. Woman.
I did talk to her, by the way, so I got some
information. This this this is give you's initiation edging. The rest of us
give to the d M chair giving, but not really. You've been running
the game for a while. Edging is fun, but it all just up
at a three pump dump afterwards. So yeah, it feels great, but
it does not last long so well, And I mean, in all in
all fairness, Salty Bastards kind of ended on that anyway, bringing the end
Salty Bastard's energy to this podcast already. Yeah, if you were listening to
the grind finale of Salty Bastards and thought, surely that can't be it.
Surely they didn't just cowardly run away from their responsibilities, well yes they did.
That is the end of the Salty Bastards and it was an entirely fating
ending. But some of the characters will return. I don't know how much
responsibility those characters felt to the Dick building they were told they own. No,
yeah, I mean, I mean you had an entire friggin like you
know, like like you guys were essentially lords of your own manner until you
just burnt it to the goddamn ground. We were lords of our own manner.
But it was horrible. It was that needed to be burnt in the
ground. We looked at it and for once we did the right thing.
It's a horrible, sticky manner. Yeah, not even Ulster felt a lick
of nostalgia walking away from its destruction. You know, So maybe maybe don't
use jewiser and lick in the same sentence. Yeah, good point. We've
already ruined the phrase coming soon. Let's not ruin anymore for ah, that
is true. Well, on the search of D and D style games,
I know that Steve and I have both started playing Balder's Gate three because we
did it on the Brodeo stream a couple of days ago from the point of
when we were recording this. And bring back cat Quest with this new fangled
stuff. I want to see you guys with cat Quest. Now. You
can go watch both of those and see what you like better over our YouTube.
My son likes cat Quest. It is a fun game, it is
I've actually I played that. I've played the duo with my son and we
had a blast doing that. So cat Quest and then Ember Knights have both
been a lot more fun than I thought they'd be. But we're probably going
to spend a few more games in Balder's Gate three because man, that is
a that is a D and D game made into a video game in a
way that I honestly did not think was really possible. So far, it
seems to have been a very a very true to form translation of the D
and D experience. And we haven't been playing that long, but already like,
oh, this is like mechanically, they haven't like chickened out too much.
They've really tried to keep that D and D feel. And I got
to say, I've been putting off download can pull to this gate for a
while now because, as song who's not played the game, like when you
say the D and D feel like, I know how I played D and
D. I know how you all played D and D. I know all.
Can you bring that kind of insanity into that game? Or is it
one of those highfel Newton kind of D and D games. One thousand percent
you can bring that kind of uh insanity. There's we haven't really gotten to
do it too much on the Brodie stream obviously because we just started, and
in my own game, I've been playing a little bit more straightforward, but
there's lots of stories of people just going through and killing questpasi if it.
Characters without issue we already mentioned get played when I accidentally ripped off their catchphrase
earlier, so I'll mention the story of Heather and Campbell has been telling of
where she accidentally slaughtered an entire village in the early part of her playthrough and
spend the next two acts just constantly dealing with the fallout of every time her
character walks into a village or something like it's you, you mon, we
know what you did? See that that gives me hope, because any fans
out there from back in the day, from the old Fable games which I
grew up, I loved I played the ship of those like once you do
a few bad things, the villagers just knew who you were. And I
loved that. The AI and and there knew that knew your bad deeds and
constantly reminded you of that, so that that warms my heart. It is
super reactive. I'm a little I'm a little different, especially when, like
you know, it's a case of leave no survivors. It's like playing Red
Dead Redemption. You'd like, you know, you'd, you'd, I don't
know, find the stage coach in the middle of nowhere, shoot people,
and suddenly you're wanted by the lawn. It's like, who the hell?
Like, who ratted me out? Sorry? This is bullshit, you know,
like, here's the nark quit judging me game. Nobody saw it,
so it doesn't count. I killed the hooker a grand theft dollar. She
didn't see it. There's no witnesses. Ah, I like the grand theft
or you know, forgiveness. It's like you've been arrested. All your horrific
crimes against humanity are now reset and forgiven. It took you five minutes,
but you have It doesn't matter. You spiraled Toyota into a sex worker for
no other reason of a New forty it would look cool, and it did.
I mentioned that before. But years back, there was this Star Trek
Voyager game that gave you like full rain when you were on the ship to
like use weapons and stuff, and the game would end if you killed one
of the mean crew. But essentially it'd be like, Okay, you,
you just vaporized Chacote. We're giving you thirty days in the brig. Okay,
I mean, if it's Neelix today, prom you when it comes time
for you alls game? Do I give you that option? Like can you
steal a carriage, run it through an or an orphanage on fire? But
as long as you drive the carriage into a place and painted a new color,
like all your skins, all your sins are forgiven. Like, oh,
totally different guys, totally different people. Yeah, saying that like we're
not going to try it and find out. Oh, I keep saying a
natural twenty and a natural one of my two favorite things, because both are
gonna be epic no matter how this goes. And I'm all I'm in for
it. I'm kind of a Gibbie. If I want like people berating me
for my horrible deeds, I will just go outside. I don't need that
shit in video games. I have an ex wife, I know the deal.
I do actually want to clarify one thing with Gibbee when you mentioned loving
the Fable games, you know you mean one and two, right, Yes,
okay, yeah, yeah, I think we all everyone on the internet
has generally agreed with the same consensus that I felt playing that game to sheer
disappointment of what the fuck is this horseshit? With Fable three April three,
felt like the B team was writing. It's kind of like, kind of
like how I felt about Borderlands three and like in the exact same way,
meaning it plays better, it's more beautiful, it's well better done, but
the be squad took over the writing and it is nowhere near as good as
one and two. In Fable two, like I actually was playing a villain,
I was playing a villain villain. I mean, I was evil from
day one, but I got a chance to get back with the girl.
From the first act. I'm like, oh, I'm going to redeem myself.
I bought a house by a lake. I was walking her to the
house, like settled down for like, I'm going to be a good guy.
Now, I'm going to change my ways. A balvoine comes out of
nowhere and kills this character, but she wasn't meant to die because the game
glitched and she just floated into mid air and a death animation. I just
stood there and stared at her for a while, and then I just had
the Emperor Palpatine spoke to me during that time, and I took a dark
turn, my friends, I laid way to the fucking countryside. After that,
I I met. I tried to be good. I wanted to be
good. I tried to turn it from my dark ways, and the universe
said fuck them all and let it burn, and I did. Oh I
twenty years later, I still read this as clear as day. You gotta
love Balder's Gate three. But yes, so what are so obviously Rick and
Gibby are not playing that one yet? What are y'all currently enjoying your gaming
time? On? Rick? What are you playing? So? I'm not,
I mean, I'm not playing anything any like quote quote real games right
now because the last real game I played, and it was a choice between
Boulder's Gate three and Starfield, and I forgot to play Starfield first, except
spoiler alert, the way Starfield ends just pissed me off so much that was
at that point it was just like, okay, I'm video gamed out now,
I need to take a break. Like, and it's not even that.
The way the game ends, the way the game like, it gives
you a choice between continuing versus starting a new game. It's very unclear.
So if you choose this one choice, essentially you start a new game and
you lose every fucking thing you have accomplished except as not really clear. Like
you know, up front, it was like, okay, you know,
all right, let me take this choice. Wait, we're almost should go?
Where did this ship? I just spent hours fucking customizing go and yeah,
that was kind of a big, a big fuck you. So I've
actually just been in my spare time just playing a few mobile games, mostly
just puzzle shit, just to uh, to kill the time, toilet time.
I had a similar but opposite experience with Tears of the Kingdom, which
was addictive as fuck and you just wanted to stay in the world and immerse
yourself. But it was a story and you could finish it, and the
ending was good and the ending was satisfying. But once you finished it,
you were like, I don't want to play this game anymore. I did,
and I just been having so much fun just wandering around building death machines
to torture goblins. For a long time, there was a whole like stuff
that needed to be resolved. I fuck you, I'm busy that I'm having
too much fun here cooking a meal and also a goblin. And then but
then, oh but it wasn't good enough for your salty bastards. Oh.
I was playing a different character. This is Link. He's a he's a
total sociopath. But but yeah, as soon as you finish, you're like,
wow, that was really great and it resolved everything. What a wonderful
tale. And now I can't just wander around murdering people anymore. I haven't
touched the game since. The ending was good enough to ruin the game for
me, but in a very different way. I put that ending off so
long. I did every shrine and got like the fancy armor thing. I
wasn't even trying for it. I just was like, I gotta go do
this first. I gotta go do this first. And finally I was like,
fuck, I'm running. I'm always completionist in this fucking game, just
because I don't want it to end. That's the mark of a good game.
Yeah, like I did that would go the Shshima and it was just
like, let me let me do every side quest to maagine because I'm having
so much fun with this game, and I know when it's over, it's
just gonna be like, well, you can wander to land and kill random
thieves and I'm like, yeah, but why see for me? My big
addiction is like because friend of the podcast and obviously friends of our art world,
Sandy Butcher's, she and I are destiny to addicts. We met at
an author's Facebook group, but we bonded because we played the same video game.
We joined the same online clan together, we played together for years.
We just played together again last night. We love this game, but unfortunately
Bungee's in a creative drought right now and the next big expansion was pushed back
six months, so we're the entire community is dying and we're trying like hell
to keep finding something to love about this game. We keep coming back to
it. It's to the point where, like, I play a lot of
PvP that she does not, but like, I'm trying to get better and
compete against like fourteen year old children with like better reflexes in Twitter, Like
I'm forty eight, but I'm doing my best to try to like work my
way up the PvP of ranks because it's all I got left right now.
But I love this world. I love when science and space magic come together.
I love like That's why I love Star Wars. I don't want hard
sci fi. I want science fantasy, and that's exactly what this game is.
And it does everything I want from a narrative standpoint, except for tele
acoaching story. But I love this game, and I am I'm a I'm
a slave, and I'm hopelessly addicted to it. I try other games,
I mean whenever, Like I have got the PlayStation version of game Pass,
so games come all the time free. So I get like like the last
far Cry, you know, I was playing the shit out of that,
And then because I love an open world game, we have infinite amount of
things to do, and then I get really bored about the thirtieth hour in
like I can't keep going anymore. It never fails, I think, I
mean, I think Bolder's Gate Free is my future, to possibly a worrying
degree, but I would like to think that one day I will return to
Tears of the Kingdom and just play from each corner of the map to each
corner, and map no teleporting dressed only in underpants and the tingle hat.
That's my ambition. See I did that with skyrimare Yeah, I did that
with Skyrim. They say I would like go to one corner of the map
and like, I'm going to walk from here to there and see what happens
along the way. And I love that. I was gonna do a play
through a replay of Skyrim because we had wound up getting to like the Sony
I guess the uh, the Sony VR version, except it was so fucking
terrible the controls. I was just like, no, the conict that just
the controls of the of the old Sony VR system was just so terrible of
okay, let me teleport here, let me do that. It was it
just took a fun game and just made it work. I think I'll never
play Skyrim because I was always disappointed it wasn't a pornos sett in an aeroplane
from that Drew. That's a good we talk about authors and dragons that so
yeah, yeah, so Bevan's whacking it at home, you know, Okay,
yeah, so uh for once, no one's gonna have to covertly crank
it on a delta flight. Uh, to somewhere in the country because if
you have not gotten the news, Uh, our convention this year will be
all digital, more internet for everybody. Yeah, we're doing it to be
accessible so everybody can attend. And also because holy shit, uh, convention
spaces have shot up in costs uh post COVID to the point where let's just
say that we would not have been comfortable charging what it would have been required
to break even for a weekend with us stupid assholes. M true, which
I guess portrays that we have a moral core, which means we should probably
get out of the podcasting game. But we're here for now and we're going
to see it through for at least another year. No, a moral just
not non capitalistic, like I don't want to charge. I mean I will,
I will, damn your soul, but I don't want to take too
much money it away from you to do it. So yeah, yeah,
we're monsors are not monsters Jesus. So for our con this year, we're
gonna guess kind of shoot the ship. We're starting the planning this far out,
which is definitely either way. We always do things. We're certainly getting
going months in advance on all our projects, tinkering behind the scenes, getting
perfected. You know, you just you just don't normally see it, but
this is definitely the norm. So I thought we would talk about maybe some
of the cons that we have done with some best practices or cons that we're
looking forward to, and see if there's any ideas that we can be inspired
by, if you will, Gibbey, you said you did a con recently,
right, Yeah, man, that was a bad one. It was
like, here's the thing that con is so bad that you can go onto
TikTok and find like, I'm not gonna out the guy who did it.
He's got enough shit on his plate. I'm not gonna because it was a
situation where it was a convention I was on in Pennsylvania. I got contacted
by the person putting it on. And they've done a lot of these cons
with different names over the years, and I did one of one for this
gentleman a couple of years ago said Hey, you're gonna come out and be
a vendor, said fantastic. I showed up on Friday, only to find
out the people who showed up on Thursday they overbooked vendors, They overbooked everybody
there was the spaces that you paid for, not the spaces that you've got.
It turned it to become a first come, first serve. I luckily,
luckily got a space in a hallway. That's it. One of the
guests who's like the body double four, like Darth Vader, and he was
also if you ever saw Guardians of the Galaxy, he's the blig blue alien
that stole Peter Quill's headphone and walk and that that actor was there, but
they put him in a space that no one could find and so he's not
making sales, he's not making sign he's not doing autocraption like that because they
hid him away. So damn bad uh vendors were so bad like that,
people recorded like a lot of all put it up on TikTok so you can
find it. It's all informations out there anybody. It was so bad,
like there were no best practice of that. I broke even and I walked
the fuck away. That's it. I made my table feedback, I made
my hotel room back, I paid for my meals, and I just drove
the fuck home because it was it sounds like you showed up and they handed
you like a silver mask and said hide behind this mirror. Well, like,
well, Willy Wonka over here, like you know, gives a speech
if Willy Wonka like bent over bent the oop olopa was over and made you
watch you know and like it. Just that's that's what this con was like.
It was cool now the people, the vendors were cool. The people
were cool. Unfortunate the staff putting it on. Uh, they were doing
the best because the person in charge couldn't pull their head on their ass,
so teach theirrone, not outing them by name. I just will never work
with them again. Ever. That does sound bad, but Rick does raise
a good point of Willie's chocolate experience, which I think we'll probably go down
in history is the worst convention in history. After you guys mentioned that I
went down that rabbit hole on YouTube it oh my god, which inspiring because
the guy who did it is an absolute fraudster and not a very good one,
like comically badster. But the peoples up to the guy who did fire.
Yeah. I don't know if you guys watched SpongeBob or not or have
ever watched it, but there's it's like a real life version of this episode
where SpongeBob's cheap boss Mister Crabs essentially builds a playground for kids out of garbage.
That's pretty much it. But there's a silver lining to that. And
everybody's probably seen the sad oplumpa screenshot of this woman dressed as in a pulp
just looks like she wants to die. It turns out those actors are actually
really nice, hard working act is, and they're putting on this kind of
mini horror experience with the characters from that con because there's no way this guy
has copyright because he's dodgey as fun. So all those actors are now kind
of getting work as these weird, kind of alternate universe Willy Walker characters.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that guy can't copyright Roald Dolls Willy Walker. You
can't just wish dot com a famous author and say it's yours. It's not
gonna happen. There's a few books based on that one. Yeah, true,
fair enough actually, Ah, but I know one thing we'll definitely have
at Digitcon is a Dicey Bastards game. And if you're wondering what the fuck
is Dicey Bastards, a get on our social media we've we've been putting shit
out there. There's there's a lot of cool ship there, and b well,
why don't we ask M K. Gibson about that one? I don't
fucking know. I keep trying to figure it out. Okay, so many
months ago, well, I was talking to Steve and Bob, and Steve
says, I'm supposed to run the next game and I'm having run the next
main game. I'm like, oh it sucks, man, good luck?
He said, can you do it? I'm like, you fuck? But
I mean I immediately jumped on it. So I started spitballing ideas and things
like that, talking to the players who wanted to play, and we came
up with a concept for the same A and D that you love, the
same dick jokes, same everything, but told in a slightly different way,
a few bells and whistles, few a little bit more heist kind of feel
to it. What if you got a crew together, there are a bunch
of a bunch of aholes. What they have to do some more thefts and
heights and do all these things before the other standard fantasy adventures start to begin.
And it started to steam roll and steam roll and steamroll so we worked
on a whole new way of presenting this. You'll see what's it's coming out.
You saw some of the experimentations in the last Salty Basterds game with some
more of the more of the art based images for the art from our players.
Uh. For those of seeing it on the discord, obviously you saw
the awesome opening that Steve put together, like that, the music that thanks
to Stone Stone Cold Ian, Uh, the video we worked done by mister
Weatherill. It's like, I'm stoked where this project's gonna go. And hopefully
I'm not hyping it too much. Can it just turns into a ship show?
But damn it, we're gonna do it no matter. Why No,
Yeah, do that? That's funny. If we can, if we can
Willie's chunk late experience, this will be I mean, I'd also like to
say, if you're holding out hope that this won't be a ship show,
I would highly recommend you align your expectation. Here's part of me is hoping
for like you know, like like like like a like a like a poop
voyoor as opposed to a ship show. Like it's still gonna be ship but
let's class this ship up a little bit. Okay, I'll just point out
if you're not on, if you're not on the discord, you should get
your ass on the discord because they've seen the trailer that Steve put together using
Sandy Butcher's artwork and like as as fabulous as the you guys no doubt remember
the original A and D podcast opening. Uh, this this just feels like
on a whole different level. I will also tack on trick. If you
want to know how to join that A indeed discord, you need to go
to patron dot com slash Authors and Dragons where you can sign up and get
access to our discord. No, it's I've I've had a lot of fun
putting this together, a lot of cool ideas, uh, brainstorm some ideas
with some of the players are what they want and they don't want and what
they want to feel and do is it's it's kind of It's been a really
big creative focus for me and I'm really I'm really enjoying the work. So
thanks for giving me the opportunity to run this. Hopefully I don't fuck it
up too bad. I'll just leave that to you. I'll act like I
was in charge of the whole time, and I'll just pass the blame on
to you guys when things go wrong. So all right, you definitely got
the DM spirit. Yeah, oh man, if Bevin was here, he'd
be listening to you being all enthusiastic about it and figuring, yeah, how
can I fuck this up? Forgive me? Well? Here, here,
here, here's the here's the fun thing. So so yeah, So Drew
had to deal with, like you know, with with Silas fucking ship up
every time you turn around. Rick had to deal with metallic exam like,
you know, just going out of his way to like you know, to
cause cast you with absolute efficacy. So it's funny you mentioned that because I
got which podcast? But someone says, like, you know exactly, I
fucked over Drew. Drew fucked me over. Baby? Have you pissed off
Drew? Is it gonna come for you? Or maybe maybe you've earned like
a couple of months of good graces before he decides to like fuck with your
ship. I'm like bring it, like, like I don't care if everything
implodes, like because it's it's your world. I just I just help you
roll the dice and guide you to the next next insane adventures in your world.
If you want to burn it down, go ahead. You know,
Metallica had a reason for everything. Oh I am not I am not arguing
with that, Ted Bundy, Yeah, he was a god. I mean
you can't apply a standard morality to that. Whether he was right or not.
Maybe one day we'll find out. I don't know if that ever actually
came up with gay, but yeah, Metallicazam believed he was the god of
the Warforged was too afraid to try and converse with Yeah. I got the
impression that like whenever the party took a long rest, they just like left
Metallicazam off in a corner and didn't speak to him at all. Well,
the funny thing is that I don't believe war Forged sleep. So I love
the idea of everybody resting and then anytime you wake up. I was just
sitting there staring and everybody just wipes up like a oh, just goes into
like a low power mode like bender just watch it kill all humans kill.
And I just realized, like when I ran the Murder Brawl for everybody,
that like that one shot that turned into three three adventures of like when you
guys were just have that Free for All murder thing. Everyone who played in
that is playing in The Dicey Bastards, so I have played with everybody,
so that actually works out true. Yeah, yeah, because like because that's
where we discovered, like Emily has u that uh pyromania, so like,
oh yes, great, well, yeah, Emily's got the dark side.
Yeah, she's she's creative. I believe the only character from the Murder Brawl
crossing over is Claudia, so that should be fun. Yeah, I played
with all the same players, but the only character, yeah, Emily from
the Murder Brawl is coming back over, so like, yeah, Claudia,
I'd be fine. All right, we always need a demolitions expert. You
always need a demolitions expert. In fact, I think I will start her
with several packs of dynamite. So just went on like I think it was
that was that Disney movie the The Atlantis with a frenchy guy who's like it
blows shit up like that. I want that, but with the Claudia's bare
hat. So I'm sure she'll surprise us explosively. Always. Yeah, I
feel like there's no greater hook for come check out the first episode. Then
I'm starting Emily off with Dynamite. Well, okay, I will say this
for the fans. We've got some cool things playing. We're planning a game
zero in, a game zero point five before technically before game one starts,
but there was they'll all come out like you're regularly scheduled, Like we're building
a little bit of a story here, so you gotta stick with us,
and this will be this will be fun. I've worked with some sea on
a few things behind the behind the scenes of what how I want some of
these things to go. I mean, these are just some rough ideas however
the players take and how the players take them. But I see some really
fun dumb ship coming coming our way. So yeah, that's pretty much a
given. If after seven years we stopped doing fun dumb ship, I don't
know what's gone wrong with that, And I will you know, hold you
entirely responsible. Authors and Dragons of the High Brow Edition. No, no,
I mean, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna make you like like because
we were all while we were talking around about the Crow. I'm not gonna
make them look like Not every character is gonna be young and hip and look
like a SoundCloud rap artist. With face tattoos or anything like that. No,
no, this will be middle aged man dumb idea of fun. So
it'll be a lot mostly bloodless kind of fun. Exactly. Fuck you,
gen z uh So we were starting off talking about best practices. Sorry,
oh no, no, I I three to you for the plot. I
was rooting this background because I thought of a good first best practice. It's
not one that I could necessarily see being applicable to the digiticon, but you
know what, I think it's a cool one to toss out because I'd love
to see more cons do it. Honestly, it's uh oh man, we
always call it rt D. It's a romance one I went to with Matt
Dineman last year in Denver convention. I need to look up the actual name
of it. Yeah, that's the one you said. Everybody the am we
were talking about, like, yeah, like romance to dick romancing the deck
created a whole new genre. Well, I'm going back there this year,
but the readers take Denver there it is going to Colorado. Yeah, yeah,
it's up in Denver. But one of the things they did that I
thought was really cool was the people who attended. One of the things they
got was this autograph book, and within the autograph book was the names of
all of the authors who had booths there, guests, vendors, et cetera.
So they would they took the book, the books around. Oh and
there was I think like a raffle or a prize for everybody who got the
books signed by every author. And so what it did was it really encouraged
everybody to stop by every single booth and you know, talk long enough to
get a signature. And you know, yeah, I was really blown away
by like that is such a good idea, smart idea, A way to
sign everybody's screen at once. There we go. That's yeah. It had
naturally kind of encourage that growth that you you know, we've run cont we've
run it. We ran an indy kind of person for several years. We've
seen that there is often a tendency to cluster around the names that might be
a little more well known and kind of leave other people not given a chance
to tell you what their wares are. And I thought that was just a
great way that made everybody happy. The readers got something, and then there
was a prize waiting for them. The vendors felt, you know, a
greater degree of engagement from the audience. You know, even if they didn't
buy anything, you had a chance, like someone was there, someone was
talking to you. You can't ask for more than that. Yeah, that
that is a really good idea, and that's brilliant actually out and I mean,
yeah, we should definitely steal it. Absolutely. So if you're out
there running a con or anything, just know that as a vendor, I
fucking loved that and I would love to see it in more of them.
And I'm going back to Rome to readers take Denver twenty twenty four and partially
because I loved the way they treated their guests and vendors with like that.
Currently, all my cons are like, can I get there in twelve hours
of driving? That's my uh, twelve hours or less? Can I get
their driving? Because I hate flying. I don't mind flying, I just
hate shipping things and flying there and the cost cost cost costs. Because I
like it, it's it's it's until I have a higher level name, it
is not worth. It's not not that it's worth my time. I love
the fans, I love people, but I you got to take how many
tax sits you can? So tell me about it currently Icon Drive to America.
So I don't really have a choice. You gotta believe in yourself,
Steve. I've seen shitty Chitty Bang Bang. I know there's a way,
like not not not to suck our own dicks here. But you know,
for the conventions I've got I've gone to, I mean, I like a
lot of the mistakes they've made. I think we've fixed for like, you
know, for the in person a and dcons Like, I just love the
whole concept of like, well, our quiet rooms, our game rooms have
been great, but I also love that camaraderie, of which is going to
be hard to do in a digital thing. But that of that if you
see somebody there, like you know, who kind of looks by themselves,
assuming it's not kidnapping, go and grab them and drag them into the action,
you know, make them part of part of it, you know.
And that's actually a really good point, Rick, I think that's something that
we could replicate to a degree for the digitcon. Now, this wouldn't necessarily
be the same experience for people who watched on YouTube, but what we could
do is organize some set gaming times on our discord so we can play you
know, we've done a lot of board games, even I did a whole
Brodeo board game month a few years back. So we could do games with
the with the patrons on the discord, and then that could be something we
streamed out to the YouTube audience. So in a way we can kind of
keep our gaming space that we know people really liked and enjoyed. And you
know, obviously we couldn't do that with the YouTube audience. We can share
the results and if you want to play along, we're giving you plenty of
notice of where to be. Well, we could attempt something with a YouTube
live where like okay, so for example, we've done our choose your own
shingles, that might not be the worst idea to put out to a YouTube
live and you know, obviously there's a little bit of a delay there,
but be like, okay, choose which one we go with or so which
the story ideas true? Yeah, a bit of interactivity on that. We
could do that streaming. As long as I don't have to figure out the
tech aspects of it, I'm fine with that. Basically be Brodeo, but
we're not playing a game. We're just chat and shit. Oh and see
how smoothly does brodeo go week to week? Oh, now that you mention
it, Yeah, we would do that for what four years in econ The
practice I enjoyed, Like when you guys have intentional downtime, like the main
cast is not on a stage or anything like that, it is like for
this next forty minutes or an hour block, it's like just mingle and it
helps it. It helps the vendors, but also helps the fans just hang
out with their fans because like they're not compelled to like go run to the
next thing and under the next thing. They have time to just like meet
and mingle kind of thing. So any digiticon kind of thing like this next
hour will be like, hey, talk amongst yourselves, but like anyone of
us canna hop in there, just be in the conversation, but we're not
there to quote entertain ill just just just to pull it back to the video
that video idea YouTube YouTube live might be a little bit iffy, but TikTok
live actually works, assuming TikTok still around. But TikTok Live, especially bringing
in multiple people works pretty darn well. So that I mean, we have
a presence on TikTok uh you know both and D and I know at least
I do. That might be that might be something there to just drag people
in and be like, hey guys, we're doing this. You know,
anybody can join and the comment and live feature there I think works considerably better
than YouTube live. So just something that consider And an additional alternative would be
Twitch because you can SI a lot of these things can simon stream to Twitch
as well, and the latency between live and Twitch is like a couple of
seconds. Because Twitch exists for gaming spaces and so they have a much they
have a much better latency speed and a lot of other places, you know,
so running games and doing like that so that people could see and hey,
you know, if they want to donate it when they like they like,
hey, here's a dollar to blow somebody up, like cast a fireball
on somebody. Fantastic. That kind of stuff is always it's always fun.
I mean, I'm not looking for the money, but like they have,
there's a level of engagement, like the Twitch audience has can can talk almost
real time with the cast members. I have seen that when we do certain
games for Brodio, there is an option to activate like a Twitch integration for
some of them, So I do know that there is like that high level
of potential interactivity. Yeah, I mean, speaking of again, I think
like doing a digital con. The great thing about A and dcon is it
is a small con for people who are all there for the same reason,
and we bring guests in, but everybody's kind of on the same page and
there's a lot of face to face time, and that's what I think is
great about it. So I kind of replicator and the Digiti Con. Something
we do in the Discord every month, and yes I am plucking thereon again,
is a hangout. We just generally play jackbox games or broken picture phone
or some kind of game where Bevin can draw a horrible picture that will keep
you up at nights and gift, Yeah, Gift and his curse. Yeah
that's true. Yeah, that wouldn't be difficult to stream, So maybe kind
of like just a check box or gaming hangout in the vein of what we
already doing every month anyway, But we could just stream that to YouTube.
If you're in the Patreon, you don't have the delay. If you're on
the YouTube, I guess you just gotta to work a little bit harder.
Oh my God, you know, I don't want to volunteer somebody for something.
But you're talking about Bob drawing, and like, you know, like
what are am using? Parks and other places have they always have those places
you can sit down and have somebody draw a caricature of you. Yeah,
and we should just have Bob Caricature hour. We should just do an hour
of like a Bob Russ show. But it's ben. I could see Bev
sitting down all right, So what are your hobbies, Karate? I'm drawing
you sucking your own dick? What are your hobbies? You like flowers?
I'm drawing you sucking your own dick? Well, the flowering your hand?
You like sucking your own dick, don't you. I think PBS has missed
an opportunity that it could be a weekly show with speaking of Bevin sucking his
own dick. If you have not seen the episode, okay, fans out
there, go back and watch the one we did where we did the art
of Authors and Dragons and we sat down with a lot of Bob's art and
had a blast doing a little retrospective all over all the artists. But Bob
was there to critique his own art. And it was fantastic, So check
that one out. You know we've mentioned we started this talking about video games.
We've brought up Brodeo a couple of times. I think that feels like
a pretty natural thing to have into the A and D digit Con. Is
not just me and Steve per Se, but all of us streaming a game
I think would be a pretty fun one. I know we've we've had a
lot of fun with Stumble guys. The problem there is it is still kind
of a all for one thing, but it is very entertaining. We could
do something like Fortnite, which I believe is free to play, keeping it
keeping it low cost for everybody, and we could all squat up as whatever
action options there are, depending on how many people we have. I know
Steve and I have absolutely loved the fucking Ninja Turtles game, and uh we
will play the ship out of that with some people. Again. Yeah,
kind of a brodeo bro a Prodeo special. That's a good that's a good
attraction I think for the Digi Coon. Yeah, it's that's that's one that
you know, we get to have a bigger cast that makes it special and
more event worthy. It's a Didgikon might just morph into you know a few
of us playing boulders Gate free for four? Ye yeah? Are they doing
the street stream of Nope? No, they just are not. Are they
just pissing in bottles, slap on some depends and just go to town.
You know, Smacky the Bear's hit level ten and uh drew his ten energy
drinks teap wondering if you Smacky the Bears go check out that brodio you two?
And like Sandy, who's like she cheats on destiny for with that damn
game boulders Gate three, and she's constantly come over to the dark side,
come to the dark side, like damn it, I have I might have
to do this now all right? We might have Gibbey on for the next
Rodeo game. There, yeah, slowly poisoning the rest of the cast,
stealing their free time like vampires. I need another game to play and ignore
my wife and son. So you know, I need I need something new.
You know? That actually brings up another good point that I I was
going to raise is we know what that Gibbe's dicey Bastard's game? What other
potential you know? Small one off? I'm gonna say everyone is John,
because that's sort of the example that we all know, but not necessarily that
one. You know, what sort of those games have we thought of and
enjoyed throughout the years that might be fun to bring back for a digicon.
I would love to say Inspectors, because I think it's really cool. But
I also just fundamentally don't think we really understood the mechanics. I don't have
faith in us to get it right again. But we had fun. We
had fun. We had fun. I think we left a lot on the
table. The more like I think a lot of those games would pretty much
relied on, like you know, Ben, kind of leading us through,
like by the hand. Oh absolutely. I think I accidentally made my character
psychologically invincible, but that worked out okay. And I should point out these
questions, dear listener, are not rhetorical. If you'd like to suggest something,
please do so in the comments. Please do d ms wherever you may
follow us. Please do join the Patreon and give us your money so you
can talk to us more directly. Yeah, you do the work, listener.
I'm a tired man. You don't don't don't make us guess at these
things. Yeah, you've seen. You've seen what I assume normal people like.
It's never correct. Get involved, please do. But yeah, Inspector
is a good one. Everyone is. John is always a nice, fast
paced and some's choose your own shingles. That's kind of Everyone just gets to
be as unpleasant as possible. That's always a nice one. Well of them
are fun and disturbing. Everyone is John, the one I played up on
that stage with you that one time. It was you, me and Ben.
On one side, it was Scott Burtness and the two of the two
of the females girls who played who were in the Shingles movie. On the
other side, it was No that was that was that was choose your own
shingles. Yeah, that would have been choose your own shingles, because that
that sounds like too big of a cast for everybody. Everyone is Everyone is
John is the one where you are each like I think it's compulsions in John's
head and you're constantly battling for control. I think I still get a little
bit of sass for my tooth obsessed guy I played in that one who was
trying to touch, lick and steal teeth in that order. There's different tiers
of obsession and so yeah, so every you're just basically playing this guy who
is not having a great day. I believe Rake still gets a little bit
full out for his decision. Oh my god, yes, which that that
is the only time I think the Andy Andy listeners basically looked and said,
no, he's gone too far. Remind everybody what that was, Rick,
he might have had as intentions towards dogs. Oh god, I definitely did
not remember that. I think you blocked that one out. It's a new
addition to the never killed a dog rule. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah. I mean water isn't called the shape of Wolfer. Yeah, as
Rick's dog in the background shows its, buttole so yeah, it's just oh
wow, you were kidding. It was here's the there's certain time Kis is
on your side. And that was one of them saying this is normally i'd
cut this out as kind of like not audio relevant, but you should go
to the YouTube and zoom in on it. He is not not U.
Sit down. Hey, I'm proud of this, all right. I like
it constantly. I shined it up just for you. This is my moment,
Rick, you sit down, shut up, dog. Fucker, this
is my time. Oh so it sounds like probably a shingles or what everyone
is John, I probably will review the catalog and see if any any jump
out at us. I'm sure at some point in the course of it we
will sneak in a jack box. We love doing those for hangouts. Those
are very fun for the community because you know, the problem with trying to
do a game with a lot of people is usually the people have to buy
the game, and that's just sort of an assach all around. But credit
to everyone is jack You can run those with just one person paying the costs,
so they are very handy for a group dynamic game. Yeah, most
of them have up to eight to twelve players, which is useful. And
if you don't get and you can still be in the audience, so you
can still be part of the part of the fun. I'm not gonna lie.
I've been enjoying running on some of the side quests, doing the trivia
challenges for some of our some of our some of our our main cast and
watching them stumble fumble their way through these questions has been It's fun for me
to watch them because I I get why Alex tra Beck always had a smarmy
look on his face because he knew the answers, like you fucking createns,
Like, oh my god, you didn't know the answer to this that I
looked up a new ten minutes ago, and I've been with the answers.
Someone's a fucking more. That's why I am the game show host and you're
to play all my times as a chow growing up, Like I hated alex
tra Beck God rest is dead soul, but like I you smarty son of
a bit, You're just so condescending. But now that I have that power
to say that M. K. Gibson's opinions did not reflect off I am
not trying to bite off that hate mail. Oh god, like what your
what that your Beck family is coming out? Like, oh, Canada's Canada's
coming for you, Drew. Another game we've had fun with the past is
is one of the well, let's just say the cards against you a mandit's
homages, Yeah, the old bad cards. We get some surprising contenders in
that everybody brings their worst self to the table. That's what I enjoy about
that game. Well, I think that's where we first learned that like you
know that that you don't want to pissed off Emily. Yeah. Yeah,
family's cut docs. She she, she will leave you bleeding in the ditch.
You know What's similar structurally, but it kind of has a different twist
that I've loved. Actually got to do this at the last live game was
Red Flags. If we can find a digital version of that. Red Flags
is sort of a it's a dating game style oh okay one where the way
we've always played it is we do it like you're on a game show where
one person, the judge, is the contestant who is getting WU pitched at
them. Uh, and the other people around are your three or four contestants,
usually three. And so how red Flags works is you draw I think
you're supposed to draw two white flags in one red flag, but again,
my friends and I've always played it two red flags and one white flag because
flaws are more fun than features. So red flags are our negative traits like
has a million teeth or sounds exactly like your mother, and then white flags
are like positive features like is a billionaire or yeah, I think has a
has a working spaceship is one of them. So and then you you know,
rather than just being like a quick turn of phrase, like you have
to you are. The way we do it is you have to role play
that character, so you know, you're that contestant, that person who grew
up with the specific collection of features. The contestant can ask questions or just
kind of roll through and then at the end they pick who it is.
I like that when it's a little more role play than Cards against Humanity,
And I don't know, I feel like the having to put your own spe
in on it adds a bit of fun. That sounds good. Yeah,
yeah, that's fantastic. I like those kind of card argument games. We
have one around our house and when we're we have friends over and we've been
drinking, we break out one. I don't know, you guys have played
it right called super fights. It's another one of those fantastic super fights if
you haven't played it, Like, you get a character card and you get
a power card and then you like, so you are uh uh Stalin with
noodle fingers versus Michael Jackson with living hair, who wins this fight? And
you just argue and then the group has it aside who wins the fight?
You know, and it comes out to how well you can argue and think
outside the box, and especially if you role play the character, it's a
lot of fun. So we have one here we like. It's called Poetry
for Neanderthals, and it's kind of like it's kind of like a pictionary game
where you're trying to like or get somebody to to guess a word or a
phrase, except you can only use in order in order to get them to
guess this. You can only give them hints that are one syllable, and
if you use more than one syllable there's an inflatable violence and being in articulate.
It sounds like a very cool we game family violence for the whole family.
I'm okay. I would say all these sound great. And something we
did our last live com which I thought was really cool, is we really
made space for gaming, not just like his a gaming area, but we
like scheduled games with all of the cast to make sure that everybody was kind
of trying something new. I bought my hero Quest Vintage hero questset out,
but you know, Bevan was playing, shit was that game? What's that
game that pretends to be communists but it's secretly horrible sellers? Like a tan
that's the one. Yeah, Yeah, there was a really cool vibe,
and obviously that's quite hard to replicate digitally unless there's a cool digital version of
that Shiit online. We even had somebody trying out a new game our last
con. We should really check in what those guys say how to do?
Oh if you're talking about Andrel and Aaron Lanowitz. Yeah, their game,
Uh funck what do they call it? It's like slaughter fuck damn it.
I Dinnim and I kept trying to pitch call it no, no, no,
it was like it's like it's it was a murder game, like it's
only one survival, But Didnim and I kept trying to pitch them just call
it peril because you have to. You're cost of getting in and out of
peril. It was an argument game. And the reason I bring it up
because Denniman was really good and every time he played this game he won.
Then I played him and I beat him, and I've retired ever since.
So, Matt Diniman, you are you've never beaten me. I want you
to know that I'm still better than you in this game. But no,
Andrel and Aaron are like really cool fans. There are cool people, and
they brought that amazing game, and I hope they have they'd bring it back
because I can't wait to play that again. I hopefully they got a digital
version by now. He might have to off them. Did you come Yeah,
if you're listening, present the yoanking opportunities, I'm just glad you said
yoinking, not yank king. Well, there's plenty of opportunities. Steve Khan
twenty twenty four. He got his inspiration from tubing con. Speaking of cons,
what is every guy coming up? Anything on the horizon that it's like
in near future? Any big ones and the small ones. I've got readers
take Denver in April, and then I have Dragon Con in August. Fantastic.
Never been there. It is a lot, Yeah, that's what I've
heard. Yeah, Jesus, it's a lot. It's very it's very cool,
it's very fun. If crowds are not your thing, packs some noise
canceling headphones, and a lot of edibles, because holy shit, man,
it is it is a scene I usually get when it's a lot of people.
I gotta eventually find a time to just kind of slip away and just
kind of get my own space, because yeah, I love people, love
talking. But that comes the point I'm burnout. I need to find a
whole. I'm the only chut. For fuck's sake, I can't deal with
brothers and sisters. I need I need a little Heidi hole for a while.
So sure that's what a shadow of conn is for Ricky. Any cons
coming up, nah, I mean nothing, nothing, nothing substantial and taking
a break this year just to like, you know, keep keep costs down.
I'm keeping an eye out for any local cons. Like last summer there
were at least three cryptid cons in my area that I found out about a
week up beforehand. But the problem with these crypted cons is they're not like
They're not like like a dragon con or so where they like they showed they
every every year at the same time, it's like they kind of just happened.
And if you're not like you know, and if you're not in like
I guess, uh, their circle, you don't hear about it. So
I'm just keeping my ear to like you know, to the grindstone, and
uh, you know, if I hear of those with enough notice to actually
get books, I want to do some of those because you know, you
know, I got cryptid books and that's awesome. Yep, now I've got
Uh. There's this one con I used to go to when I first started
my publishing when I was under a different publishers down in Virginia, now in
Williamsburg area, and it's moved to norfolkl and Raven Con and I did that
a couple of years and I loved it. Then covid Hit obviously bounced around.
So I applied the previous year and I got I got the I'm sorry,
we love to but we're full. I applied for this year. Sorry,
but we're full. Like sign up a bitch, and Hartness is like,
dude, just he So our friend John Hartes is like just coming to
my table. As long as you sing for your supper, I'll give you
a space. You know. I'm like, dude, I appreciate that,
thank you very much. So John's awesome. And then I'm also going to
be a guest down at Con Carolinas this year, so I think that's in
late I think it's in June or July. I did double checked the date
usually usually like end of May, as it major, it's the end of
beginning of June, because once April to May, then then once the next
month made of June Con Carolina, So uh, for those of us,
for I saw the discords for some of the A and D folks out there,
it's kind of a mini A and D meet up because I know it's
gonna be John h ri E Carr Emily, I think Missy mass is gonna
be there. I'm gonna be there. I'm not sure if anybody else is,
but I know some of the people who live in the local area are
supposed to show up to turn into like like an ad hoc hang out with
some old A and D folks while we take one around this con, so
be sure to come out. Well yeah, I mean North Con Carolinas was
effectively kind of I guess the first the first test of an in D con
because they were the first con that basically said, Okay, you guys can
have space to do your game. Yeah, and they never stopped regretting it
and then at nearly electrocuted everyone John September for Capclave and Rockville, Maryland,
where dinnim is supposed to be out as well, So we're just gonna like,
uh, just beat them up and maybe take them to dinner on that
for that one as well. So yeah, it be fun. Yeah,
I mean, I think I know more about what's going on with conventions in
America because of just the way I've landed with things than I do in my
own backyard. That's something I've decided I should probably rectify because I'm probably missing
a love opportunity. I figured out recently. There's a couple of best selling
authors in Corby. There's like entire writing groups. There's a lot of shit
going on that I have paid no attention to at all. Nicky Peacock Envy
Peacock doing currently very well in crime and murder books. Check her out.
She's a Corby girl. So yeah, I should really, I should really
start paying attention, really, dude. There's several in Maryland, Like in
Baltimore there's like Balta Cohn and the Baltimore City Comic Con, and then there's
a couple down in DC every year. But it's kind of like you gotta
wait for someone to die to get table space because as soon as like that
that CON's over, they've already applied for the following year. So you've got
to like it's wait for the good apartment. You got to go murder somebody
to get that table space an excellent speaking of crime books like Waiting to Happen.
It's murder, she wrote, but she's the one murdering everyone. Yeah,
don't steal my idea into that fucking I'm still waiting for Dragon writers with
perms, buddy, Yeah, don't steal out either. This way, I
come on with the podcast. I have great ideas. I do nothing about
it. I get offended when they steal it from me. That's I mean,
no, not for a few years now. Oh. Actually, I
have one more feature. I wanted to say that I'm going to throw this
out and kind of ask the audience. So it's a good one for us
to end on. For those of you who were at the last Live A
and D con, I got to roll out a new segment, a trivia
contest. And one of the boons of the way that that one happens to
work is it can be done remotely. We did it in a big ass
room. Everybody got to play on their phone, so it was I thought
it was a lot of fun. It was a way for anybody who wanted
to participate to participate. There are ways to do it with larger scale crowds
and stuff. So if you were there and you had fun and want to
participate, or if that's something that you're going to be at A and dcon
and you like the idea of let us know in the comments or the discord,
because I'm obviously not going to put together an entire trivia game if people
don't want to play it, I guess to do I make you play?
Yeah, Jimmy already did that. I didn't want to play the fucking trivia
game. I hate trivia, and I'm going there twice. You'll be on
the third one yet too, so I know you're just consistently losing it trivia.
So along with feedback on that, be sure to let us know what
features you have enjoyed, what you might want to see on a digital con,
that sort of thing. As always, we throw these for you,
so we absolutely take your feedback into account. Uh, but that will be
something we read in the future. For now, we're gonna see you on
the next iteration of side Quest or whatever program we pop up on next.
Until then, Bye Bye, Bye. Authors and Dragons. Brought to you
under Creative Commons license, meaning you are free to share this material so long
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