Hi guys, it's Steve from the podcast and I just want a minute of
your time before we start the show to tell you about an exciting R rated
comedy fantasy adventure coming your way. It's Lizard versus Wizard in its magic,
flinging, fire breathing Quest for Vengeance. The Last of the Giant Fire Lizards,
written and performed by Christopher John Feveroff, is available on audio now.
The very same Christopher John Faveroff, known as the voice of rickwalteries build a
Vampire. So you know you're in good hands. You can check out a
sample of this brand new adventure at www dot Giant Dashlizards dot com. That's
Giant Dashlizards dot com. If you're looking for some fun, fantasy, chaotic
madness, and we know you are, that's why you're here, then check
out The Last of the Giant Fire Lizards today, available on audiobook and coming
soon on ebook. This is not Dude explained to be a straight from No
p Side colt. Hey everybody, and welcome to Authors and Dragon's Side Quest.
The content that we do when we're not doing the content that you know
us for what we do. I'm Drew Hayes, author of Superpowers, NPCs
for The Vampire Counting among other series. Joining me today I M. Kaplin,
M. K. Gibson, Robert Bevan, Rickwell, Terry and Steve
Weatherall Hello. Hello, Hey, how's everybody doing, Drew? I have
I have missed the way you introduced side questions. It's like a most convoluted
way I can find in the moment. It's like I always think I'm following
along, but then I'm like, oh man, am I am? I
just having a stroke. I've been drinking that heavily sitting today. Jesus,
you know this is the full cast of the Dicey Bastards. Yes, it
was a special kind of side quest that we're going to be doing here and
there because, as you might have noticed on Dicey Bastards, we no longer
take your questions at the end of the episode. That is because we save
them up for these specific question episodes, because we don't give a fuck about
your opinion. Just for the record, especially those of you on Patreon,
Bob does not speak for all of us. Yes, it's because we're savoring
each one. We're taking the time to thoughtfully prepare our answers, thinking about
it, you know, carefully curating, crafting, cultivating, and now is
the time to harvest. They have bloomed, and we shall pluck each question,
stick it in this bouquet and present you a fo oral answer. Tap
straight, no, centerpiece, there we go. Yeah, you really are
built centerpiece. You're really building this up for the for the kind of answers
you're gonna get out of me. I know right now. I don't know
whose job it actually was to collect all the questions for this, but I
know what my habit is. So Rick, what's our first question? All
right? Well, fortunately I was expecting that, so if I have to
do my old role, so do you all right? Well, I got
a good one to start us off. Our friend Zack of all Trades asks
what are you most looking forward to in this new campaign? And my new
campaign? I believe it means dicey bastard. It's not some random one that
it's above a podcast? So when is this going up? By the way,
what are we doing? Is this one coming like a we putting a
three? I think after episode three? Right? I think? So?
Yeah, let's say that if you listen to this, you should have had
like a big run of Dicey bastards, And that's just because we're kind of
trying out new ways of recording. It will settle back into our old routine
soon. But you should have a nice big chunk of dicey best its content
there to get you into the vibe of what it is we are providing.
And speaking of the vibe, I guess what's uh, what's everybody that question
we were asked, just not exactly. We're looking forward to it, but
I'm hoping that we get you know, more lore, accidental lore, and
you know, just that the magic part, the accidents, the best part.
I'm gonna wrape down your nose. I like, oh, I totally
planned this, probably wonder and sticky things and it's all it's all dick jokes,
the totally innocent party, just little things like that that come up for
no good reason. Yeah. I think sometimes the finest moments in the podcast
is when we're actively trying to destroy the podcast and it makes a nice little
running joke. I think we're exposing old predators. Send a predator to catch
a predator. Hearing you say that with that character icon up. For those
who aren't watching our video feed on the YouTube channel, Bob is rocking his
grocer or I see. Also, I want to give special shout out to
Sandy Sandy Butcher's who did the artwork for this, because when she made the
grocer picture, like oh yeah, because she was she did the first one,
it was like almost too charubic and nice, like just a little dirty,
but she got the waxy skin going, like you could feel the sweat
and like the perversion coming off of it. Yeah, and the pleath like
the the the the the vinyl pleather on the hat, like the hot topic
hat. He's wearing a Bondage wizard hat exactly. Yeah, Like, like,
this is not a painting that you want to like, you know,
hang up anywhere in your home that you're ever that you're ever gonna be nude,
that mud the eyes follow you. Yeah. I was gonna say,
if we were doing a horror movie and there was a creepy painting where the
eyes were obviously cut out and following you, we would a absolutely use that
groorcer R and B go back to it later in the movie and have a
dick poking through. I posit this to the group we put we've put it
up like as you can see, like a dicey bastard merch like the shirt
which it's very comfortable and very much enjoy it. Put that Jorcer just let's
just but only hang him in your bathroom some you sit down and he's staring
at you, and I would buy one and hang it up right now.
I will. I will tell y'all, I actually do have a piece of
John Luther Davis art hanging in my bathroom. You know, you know,
the last least two A and D cons have featured cardboard cutouts. So if
we if we decided to go back to that and we need a new one,
I think we got a good candidate. I think it would make a
life size cut out of that. It's a sex crime. Yeah, I
might have made myself clear before when I said I'm looking forward to exposing child
predators. I mean I'm looking forward to revealing them for who they are,
not looking forward to child preaditor who are exposing that's probably Worfe clarifying. Thanks
you for clarifying that. You gotta have a mission statement, Georgia. On
the other hand, what we are we'll see, Rick. What are you
looking forward to with the campaign? Ah, I mean what we've already been
doing. I mean, if you've listened to the first the first couple episodes,
you've heard us cracking up, laughing at a lot of a lot of
times. Back to like the hour running time is probably like a good like,
you know, forty five minutes of us just laughing at our own stupid
shit. Yeah, And honestly, that's that's what I look forward to on
for like on recording days. I mean as far as like what our characters
do or what lies ahead kind of kind of kind of go with the flow
there, see what happens, play it in the moment. But I just
I just like the fact that you know, there's just the recordings are so
much fun. Yeah, I get giddy when I think about when it's recording
day. I truly do. I get it. I get really excited because
I mean one as a DM and one as a I mean before as a
fan of the content, before it ever ever came on. I'm looking forward
to, uh uh, you guys fucking up all my plans. I'm looking
forward to, like, no matter what idea I have, you guys are
gonna have a lateral move that I'm not prepared for. And I I can't
wait for that. Because that's that's always a good time. But it's just
it's the happiness because even when we're doing the one on one episodes, nearly
everybody had a good time. And I was saying, you're like, some
of you didn't get a one on one, but it was like it was
just fun. It was just it was fun to see you guys in your
element. Like it just I set up, but here's here's something to do
with it. You guys grab that ball and round with it. So I'm
looking forward to see what you guys do next. That's I'm just excited.
Yeah, it's it's great to have kind of a mission and a direction,
and we've we've tried quite hard to sort of get that going, but the
best part is always when you just completely fucking derail that and you just spend
a good ten to fifteen minutes laughing at the same dick joke that nobody expected
and even though we should expect it by now, and yet it's like I
would like to think that Moog and Joelstra would have some sort of redemptive OC
but how long we were on the other podcast, neither Silas No No Klaus
had any sort of redemptive. Well, because way back when someone had asked
me if there's gonna be consequences in this game, I'm like, I said,
sure, of course, I like consequences, but fun consequences. So
when Rick, when we like, cause I had done the one shot with
Steve and then we did one a two shot with Steve and uh and Bob
was fantastic. But when Rich's I want to open with myself murdering Elves,
I'm like, fantastic, fantastic because dear God like that because I got you
guys, you were down in that you did the thing, took a couple
of days to get there. You were knocked out by Trudy stated of a
couple of days. So for about in that week, so time, that's
a major crossroads in and bed and breakfast. So the big fire in the
sky is going to learn things like so I'm rolling dice on the side,
like how long does it take for the authorities to come a call in?
And I just want to correct Steve Klaus definitely got a redemption arc, not
in the way we expected, but suddenly I'm last game, he's doing like
fifty damage with every hit or it was like, what the fuck happened here.
I don't think Bevin suddenly sorting out his fucking macros or whatever. He's
a rep for class. Imagine that's the one time Class showed up sober to
the fight and considering he forgot all those mac crows when we started it,
Sully bastards. It wasn't even a redemptive OC for Bevin. It was like
we were playing the Murder Brawl and I he Class went to stab somebody,
like, you know, he's distracted. You have to hit all your dice.
He's like, I do, Oh my god, I do. And
it was just like and he was trying to snipe Silas from from the rooftops.
That was fun. It was good. That was a good murder bral.
You can check that back in the archive if you missed it. Indeed,
uh, is it my turn for Hey, go for it, dude.
Okay. So the thing I'm looking forward to, uh honestly getting to
be a player. You know, we I was DM for a long time
and I've gotten to do little bits here and there. But getting to do
a prolonged, long term character something I've looked forward to. And I think
I'm hoping Cobert will be interesting. Because I've I've never really built a utility
character before. Cabert is more focused on like general party help kind of healing
side stuff than direct combat, which will be hopefully interesting, maybe terrible.
We'll find out if he dies. He dies. I tell you what.
When I ran you guys against the whores, I built them as a roughly
level three rogues so all because I mean, I figured, like these are
working prostitutes, they have to have their way around a knife and in the
good cocksmanship, and so like you guys hooked on a team of like rogues
essentially and did well. So I mean, like you, as long as
I keep it balance, you guys did a really good jobs, so I
would worry too much about it either way. I think it'll be interesting and
unique to play because I've definitely never played a character spect for that before,
so I have after so many years, it's rare I find new builds to
play. Yeah, I got to wop in two games of play before I
took over the Quest for Confidence, so I haven't played a game in like
two and a half years. I've always been the DM, so oh h
yeah, I feel your pain. I want to I want to add to
my answer not only that I'm hoping to learn how to play the game a
little bit better in mechanics and you know, combat and all that, but
also expand my repertoire of dick jokes. That's a real blue color attitude,
you got it. I come to this podcast, I'm gonna actually learn how
to play the game and maybe tell more than free jokes. Well, fuck
you, Captain Ambition. I'll tell you what. You did a great job
in your and you're one on one I thought you did fantastic. Well thanks,
You're welcome. I mean, I think it's like like the views alone,
Like I saw like the views going up on the on the on the
YouTube. My I'm hatty about that, and I was like, but no
you I went back and listened to all of them again just to like get
if you also remember what the fuck I said about lore stuff, so like
I can ready that shit down. But like I listened to all them all
back over you like, and each one of you did a fantastic job in
your respective games. I I mean, I have I am partial to the
to the dream sequence when Bob sent me the dirty pictures and Steve had to
figure out what meant like that was a fun for me that was not planned
until the day of So no, it didn't feel planned. That's all something
like that. Uh yeah, Actually, if you've just landed on the I
guess the first proper episode, it's a bit confusing how we've released his apologies
for that, but yeah, if you skip the one on one stuff,
definitely don't skip it. I listen for it's very fun. All right,
Well, what is the next question? All right, we'll start with with
an easy one here. Our friend Cal asks dinosaurs or kaiju. That's a
tough one. I I lean kaiju. I think it's because they took what
was cool and built on it to make something cooler. And then the longer
we have dinosaurs, the more less cool they become. Because when they were
thunder lizards, it was fantastic. Now that like the extensions, like,
no, they're just big birds. They had feathers and they were colorful.
My love starts to dwindle more and more and more because I don't want to
think about, like, you know, Jurassic Park, that was so cool.
Now imagine Jurassic Chicken, and I'm like, I'm less into that,
you know, But Kaiju, that's inspiration from the thunder Lizards, so I
go Kaiju? Yeah, man, I would. I would so be at
a thunder Chicken. I mean a thunder Chicken movie. That sounds awesome.
Do you eat that KFC thunder Chicken? Oh? Man, that sounds like
the menu to put Popeyes on the map exactly, like, oh, did
you have the Mega leg? It took four of us to eat it.
Man, it was so good chicken. No, now it's about thunder Chicken
pants. That's the thunder Dinosaur sound a lot more delicious. I still want
to do an aa D podcast from dinosaur Land someday. We're not that far
away from it. I think, yeah, you're drew probably your farthest way.
I if y'all put together an episode from dinosaur Land, I would fly
up for that. Steve, if I envisioned myself just walking through that entire
place, just looking like that mammoth. I still love the the YouTube when
Steve put together of the Jurassic Park and then it just cuts to the dinosaur
Land dinosaur. It's like, Oh the wonder, Steve. It's a question
of kaiju or dinosaurs casual a dinosaurs. We're not we're talking sex or violence.
What cool factor? What's your preference? You didn't specify, so rather
fuck would you rather fuck a dinosaur or a Kaiju? A dinosaur? I
went with a cool factor, So touch a megalophobia actually, so anything that's
way fucking bigger than it should be makes me feel a little bit to GOI
so I do like a Kaiju movie. If it's a Kaiju underwater, fuck
that stuff of nightmares. But oh I'm I feel the same way. I
mean I also if Kelp touches my foot while I'm in the ocean, I
get freaked out. So yeah, I'll run on top of the fucking water
like a cartoon. Yeah, like Second Coming of Christ right here, right
now, I would have watched in the war. If it's Kelp or meg
dy can get fucked, yeah, exactly, inky toes or a shark.
I'm out regardless. So it gets worse than that I was. I was
in the water at Seaside one time when it was like suddenly I was surrounded
by jellyfish. Oh, it was just like I need to get the fuck
out of here. Yeah that been me when I was in I swore in
walden pond ones and little fishies ate my toes and I freaked out the pond.
I never I never ever thought about you know, Jesus going yea and
like legs spinning around. That's how the miracle was before because I have it
now either. But the sound effect works for me. Guys, did you
see that guy walk on war see the Son of God? Well no,
you just trodden some kelp. But yeah, Jesus like fuck kelt Man.
So you can tell because he left a little smoke of himself behind. That's
more cartoon than Christ. It was like a castle nets of it in side
of ships water. But see now that's something i'd want. Okay, so
they do like the meg what three four at this point? But like the
guy and Jason Steven travels back to the time with Jesus, Jesus, that's
a meg and they got like Jesus and Jesus state at the final meg.
Actually I think the story of Christ. But it's Jason Stephen. You find
you're gonna stop made meg. I'm the son of Cross. Motherfucker he clips
ship. Yeah. People for the for the Kaiju v. Dinosaur debate,
get me touched on something that I do think gives Kaiju the win, and
that's the Kaiju exist statically. Godzilla is Godzilla. You know, there's different
interpretations per movie, but what he is is pretty consistent, whereas dinosaurs keep
getting retconned by our own understanding of the past and science and and so like
then you get shipped, like when in Jurassic Park, like, well,
obviously we had to splaic shit in to make them look like what we thought
dinosaurs look like. And it's like the deeper you get in on that,
then more it's like, you know what, it's easier to just be like,
yeah, it's a it's a monster. It's a monster from the fucking
bottom of the sea. You don't get to wreck cott it with science.
See, then I guess I'll take a lateral move, like just like dragon,
that's what I'll take. That over kaiju or dinosaurs. Give me a
dragon. Yeah, they're consistent, right, I thought. I saw a
review once for Pacific Room that said like like this, this is a world
that's like terrifying but also kind of awesome, dude, and that and that's
why I'm like, yeahs as horrific as it would be to be like you
know, look up, you just see this like fifty foot about the stomp
on you, it would still be kind of cool. Specific rim to live
there is one of those movies like I show that to my son when he
was like eleven. He's like, this is the greatest movie I've ever seen.
Like, of course you're eleven, and eleven year old me loves this
movie. So yeah, let's watch it again. Yeah, it's like,
what did we have when his age robot jokes, great, let's not shame
robot Jock. That's the closest I got the Robotech as a child. Okay,
now they tried. They tried, and with the sequel, I say,
yeah, I guess if I'm gonna answer the dinosaur versus cause you question,
anything I can fight with a giant robot is fine. Yep, agreed.
What is our next questions? Our friend Zach Voltride asks, what's something
terrible that you would never actually do, but nevertheless you kind of want to
do anyway. It's like, for example, Din and Dash hmmm, honestly,
a heist, like not to go with the theme of the game.
I've always been one to be part of a heist, but I'm not gonna
steal. I'm not that guy. But it's cool. Well, the question
was what would you dream of doing? And not doing a night would absolutely
steal. So I gotta stick with you know that move Ryuo does where you
grab them by the shirt of the pails, put your foot in their gut,
and then just flip them over. Sometimes I just think, what if
I just did that to something. I've done that in martial arts competition.
No, but I just mean, like you know, you're talking to someone,
you're out in the smoking area, you like yeah, yeah, yeah,
and then you're just like boom, flip him into a wall. I
mean, sim simple to that. One of the things I like best about,
like at least the first couple Assassin's Creed games was just walking through a
crowd and just randomly punching people in the face with impunity and yeah yeah,
I mean we're in the same patre. Yeah, that's just like not this
knife in the back of the neck and they just go limp and just die.
No, just just punching them. Yeah, just like you're like you're
in the supermarket and there's there's just somebody annoying the fuck out of you,
you know, like they refuse to move their their basket out of the way,
lay them out yeah, I give you on that one. It's like
I've also wondered, like, sometimes when I'm driving and there's some guy in
his pickup princess, big ash truck that's never seen a day's worth of work,
and he loves to ride your bumper, and I'm like, how much
insurance do I have? Can I just ram this guy off the road and
not just going If I was rich, If I was just like, I
can afford some kind of weird rich guy goalplate insurance, I would just every
time I drove down a street where everyone's badly parked, I would just dodge
him. That fucker. I'll just buy a new car every week. But
of course a lot of chaos if we're talking about crimes that we are genuinely
the most like tempted. If I were an a moral person, I would
probably commit this pretty readily. God it's both boring and terrible. But mine
would probably be public urination, just because it's such an astic sometimes to go
hunt down a bathroom. Like if I was if I had no moral conscious,
I could just duck behind a wall and take a piss. I can't
tell you the number of times that I've pissed in public, sir, it's
a lot if you'd be denying yourself all these years. This is brilliant.
So this is this is a true story that happened like three weeks ago.
I want to pick up my son at school, and I park I got
there like like I was like seven eight minutes early. I parked us because
he's in a small private school and it's located inside of a business parkway kind
of thing. And I'm sitting there waiting and all of a sudden, my
stomach starts to rumbling and rumbling bad, and I've got nowhere to go.
So I just pulled my car out, go to the end of the buser's
park with the shadowest corner I came. I keep a trashkin in my car,
did my business. But I'm a hovering in the backseat of my car,
just doing what I gotta do, and then nonchalantly driving up to the
edge of the business parkway with the garbage cancer or the big dumpsters, putting
my my my shame bucket into the trash and driving back away BacT like nothing
ever happened the whole time. I'll give me his car. I was once
in Lincoln, which I where I went to Union. So in old town's
like our castle got cathedral, It's got these really steep cobbled streets going down
and I really needed to pissus. There's no way I was going to make
it home. So I ducked into one of these like ancient old alley doorways
and stuff. I'm gonna be safe if I piss here, because I was
really far away from everyone. Everybody else really far away from was downhill,
but quite like a lot downhill. There's no way this is going to be
a problem. I was pissing. I was watching a stream of my piss
go down a hill, cross the road like it was looking for people,
and the character there's this big group by people just having a nice time.
Oh my god, he's seeking piss. This is amazing. This is not
consensual. I got it is the longest piss on the road. It was
the longest piss I'd ever taken. Had I known it's somebody told me.
It's like, yeah, you can piss in the streets, Dave. This
might seem safe, but you're going to do a supernaturally long piss just purely,
it seems because the universe has a sense of humor and it's like that
end of Spider Man two where like he shooses the web to seven save Gwen
Stacey, and the web looks like a hand. Now it's your piss,
and it's looking there's some rich at the bottle that hill? Oh is it
my monical? Do none of you try to like saturate as much of a
wall as you can? Oh? Yeah. I grew up in a small
town, like near a lot of rural stuff, so pissing to me was
like, yeah, you pissing the trees or on a fence post or something
like that. But like once you're in a city, my brain's like,
nope, nope, can't do that. I was. I was in the
doorway Bevan was going to do that without some serious backsplash, I was.
I was getting ready to run. I was like a tenor while I still
in the military. So ten ish years ago, I was going to go
run a five k down in Washington, d C. We're at the starting
line, like way, everybody's starting to like, I've got a piss.
I didn't realize. I thought I had got drink ahead of time, and
we got six ish minutes, so I'd like kind of pulled out of the
crowd and kind of walked down a couple of alleyways and streets. I have
no idea where I'm at. And I find one narrow alley and I look
over and there's another guy then with a tag on his shirt. He looks
at me, look at him like, and we would like just piss.
We're just post both pissing into this narrow atllycause like, it's just what you
do, you know. Okay, Yeah, I don't have anything special,
I guess just property damage to my enemies. Yeah, is this a thing
again? I'm not naming any specifics. That's probably smart. You did what
you already said stuff he would do, Bevin, I wait to take away
that you already have a sort of like Batman vendetta going on, but it's
instead of punching, it's just property. Okay, some artists out there,
I'll give me, give me a picture of Bevin like brooding a batman on
the top of the I'm like just a two story building of a beer waiting
for his moment. So some some artists, you're talking about Bevin, he's
the artist out there, Okay, bloody brilliant Bevan self, portion of yourself
with a beer, brooding like Batman just punched on his porch waiting for his
nag to go inside, think kicking his trash cads over. If we're if
we're talking about crimes, I am one committing a government coup. I want
to overturn this, and I think I can do it. I appreciate that
you think big, Emily, if you've got to do a crime, stale
a fucking country, why not If you gotta do something. It's unfortunately one
of those like oh yeah, it's uh, your eyes might be bigger than
your stomach on that one. But I wish you well. So I love
how like half of us are violent, the other half of us just want
to pee in the street. And Emily want to be doctor Doom. No,
No, that's the thing is if I could have doctor Doom level clout,
you know, right, panitarian dictator, sure, like I got I
got ideas man, So yeah, if I had any level of intelligence,
soul, you know, personal energy, then yeah, if I like a
cult like charisma, that's sure. But no, with friends who questioned my
every decisions. So well, you know when you when you watch a spy
movie, there's always like you know, Matt Damon or something. Always stay
them in the front, front, foreground to be consistent across all spots.
Has been in a James Bond move to go ahead. Yeah well yeah,
and they're always like if they're in a museum or something like that, there's
always like a small Asian woman is an extra walking around in the background,
and you know I could do that. You just want to be in a
movie? Is break by you sneak by you know, unnoticed you can.
That's a busy focusing on Matt Damon exactly exactly. Jatum is kicking ship out
of everybody like he's taking over the world. Just walked into the control room.
She just walked by me. She's doing as much. It wasn't very
good. I think pretty much like season one of Iron Fist. That was
pretty much like a subplot. We're like there was this old Asian woman who
just wound up being like the power behind everything, Madam Gal. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, I'm telling you, I'm just going to get more powerful.
We get older and shorter, shelter of a powerful the shrink more.
Your shoulders are broadening. You have like a cane. You just got to
start working on your cackle. I'm excited about this. Yeah, I am
the strongest smurf rick. What's the next question? All right, so we
only really have I think one from the Facebook. Someone just grab that so
I can close that window. But our friend Kyle asks, what was the
original inspiration behind each of your game characters? Yeah? Simple lack of effort?
Yeah, what was this for all? This was for salty bastards?
Yeah? Yeah, everybody decided, okay, we're gonna we're gonna get fancy
this time. I want everybody to, you know, go to hero Forge
and you know, make your character customize just how it's supposed to look.
And I said, fuck that, I'm making Doors of the Sorcerer. I
drew him in about a minute and a half and I said, all right,
here's my character, and uh yeah, he became an icon disturbingly quickly.
Where did you get what was behind the voice? Did you just want
the worst voice? I guess that's just what I imagine that character, that
character? What does he sound like? And did that correct? Yeah?
I guess Stan was pretty much a Yeah. I liked the idea of Standandy
Liver was just a stupid name. Did you have any other like backup,
like puns or stand and deliver the other thing from the day for moment one
like I no, I came up with Stan Dandy Liver, and I was
absolutely fucking shocked that no one else had done it. So I was like,
Okay, that's mine and yeah, and then so what do you do
with that? England has a lot of history with gentle and highwaymen and Robin
Hood and stuff, and then you've got the kind of Eryl frim Transatlantic accent.
So I was just thinking of that. Then it kind of turned into
a bad Matt Berry impression. And then I thought, you know what if
he was just kind of somebody who used to be like that but with shit,
which would you know, kind of forgive me and role playing for him
being shit? So you know what if he was just old and past it
and used to be one of those heroes from our past. And yeah,
I thought that was a good comedic premise, a good excuse for a stupid
act and a stpid name. Love it. I was just say Claudia came
from the Jans obviously, but she was supposed to be a foil for Klaus.
Claudia Klaus and everybody else was doing the opposite, you know, like
the opposite of Silas was this light, very happy cheers and I was like,
nope, he hates Klaus, probably more than Klaus. So I'll make
a a similar character who's maybe a long long lost twin. I'm really a
foil for class. She is a massively indifferent well she's also, but she's
also very like everything she rolls she does well at. So there's that.
Yeah, he's actually surprisingly good at everything she does. So she's just as
indifferent to the bigger picture as Klaus is, but much more competent and rolling.
Except for she has she has died four or five times already. Yeah,
she's good at dying. Like a while back, I was I was
talking about making like, you know, basically a high a super high charisma
fighter that like couldn't fight for shit, but everything was just persuasion. And
originally Moog started off as him, and he was basically going to be this
this total pacifist that came from this family of like horrific violent murderers. And
the more I thought about it, I was like, the horrific violent murderers
sound like they're more fun to play than this character I'm coming up with.
So that's that's what I was like, I started doing that and then I
was Then I was like, yeah, but like it makes like he was
gonna go down the same route as Hilda, basically an elf that was raised
by orcs. And I was like, and then it just I was in
the shower one day and it just hit me. I was like, no,
no, He's like reincarnation is is a spell that like I've used for
years and it always has these fucked up effects making it alive, building a
yeah. Yeah. I was like, what if this was a fucked up
reincarnation and suddenly and he's in the body of the thing he hates the most.
That was one of the fun things. When we were reaching the end
of the Quest for Confidence and You've got your wish, I'm like, man,
I know that we'll be working on some arts soon, so he better
make a choice of making it right, because it's like you're commissioning art pieces
for the next campaign, so motherfucker, you better make make a decision and
stick with it. So well for for fortunately, you made that that princess
and like you know, for Royal Family really annoying, and move was just
like, you know, I probably could wish for something good now just kill
them. And I don't have a character, so fuck me. Uh so
I have I have nothing to add to this conversation. Well that's depressing,
it is, well for end the next question on a downer. No,
actually, well the thing is like, Okay, the NPCs, I like,
I have always liked the idea of like because a lot of these NPCs
are characters I've always wanted to play like I wanted to make a a one
of those basically go boom mag those special Yeah, a bunch of horse but
yeah, I always want to do Willie Pete, the the the fire made
Specialists, because they have a one ability where it's like they can cast like
basically protect like can do a fireball and stand in the middle of it and
take no damage. And they can actually pick a certain number of people and
the more the biggerup they open level so they he can just fireball like the
same spot over and over so the party takes no damage and just nuke everything.
And so I like this idea of like this old retired drunk dwarf who
was like that, And then Trudy good Night was I loved that idea that
that grandma who has seen some shit like that grandma that you're afraid of,
like you're to this day that they're one grandma. You're afraid of her right
hand because she knows she can knock you the fuck out. Because I grew
up with some old ladies like that in my time, so I wanted like
some retired adventuring lady who's just like and itwhere between fifty seven and sixty two,
kind of leathery in but she can just say so when she got the
punch move in the face, it made me so happy, you know,
just like connect to the ones I'm like and I just hit him with the
ring of the ram after that, because like again I get to like play
these NPC characters because the idea of a content of a character named Trudy good
Night, I just she's just a bare knuckle old broad who's like bring it,
you know, and I love that. So see here, you know,
a couple of authorish questions our friend Blick's asks, not counting initial releases.
Do you feel books in a series sell better once the series is completed,
so let you know in another fifteen or twenty years. Yeah, I
will say that from in my experience, at least with me. Once a
book hits like two or three in a series, and people see that there
is a series, they're more active pick up book one or two, knowing
that if something is ongoing. Because standalone books have been back was with my
old publisher, like, they're still beloved in some circles, but it feels
like everybody just does. Nobody wants that anymore. They don't want to stand
alone book. They want a series because they want to die like Netflix syndrome.
They want they want to binge stuff, not just one book and move
on. So that is in a way cool and way it kind of sucks.
So unless you're like way more clever, you can write a series of
standalone novels like you know, like an old timeying detective kind of thing.
It's it's yeah, it seems like the more books there are, the more
app they are to sell. So right, yeah, I mean I have
a couple couple finished series, and I'll say I think while series are ongoing
they sell the strongest. But once the series is completed, you have a
very long tail there where you can sell it as a completed series. So
even if it's no longer like necessarily like hot on the charts, it's still
kind of a it's still kind of bringing in sales, and once you get
people into like the first one or two books, you know they're pretty much
going to like, you know, make it through most of them. Yeah,
pros and cons, there is. I think I've noticed a big drop
off from book one to book two, Like you'll lose a lot like people
who won't go through the series. So if you are invested in a series
as an author, you kind of have to finish it. Yep, while
you're still like I lost those people from book one, Now I got to
start a new series or whatever. Yeah, and I've fell into that trap
a couple of times. Average it's fifty percent. You know, if you
can retain above fifty percent, like you've got a strong series, your book,
let's say one hundred sell the next book will be fifty and twenty five
and then twenty so it uh yeah, it's you keep your loyal core.
So unless it just sells like hotcakes or your last name is Dennerman, then
yeah. Yeah, but once they get past that second book, you got
like a usually got like something like a ninety percent, right, the numbers
actually ten to bounce back up after that so yeah, all right, our
friend can't asks what makes you not want to write? And how do you
attempt to overcome it? Then coverage on my books? Yeah, that's what
all comes down to, absolutely books not selling. Yeah yeah, I mean
I like writing, but writing is a creative outlet I have it. It's
not only the only creative outlet I have. If I write a book and
not enough people buy it to immediately cover the cost of the out fuck kind
of work that goes into making a book and editing it and getting a cover
done, then it does. It discourages me from writing another book immediately,
particularly if I'm doing other stuff that is a just as satisfying creatively and be
paying me. So you know, I have a shit going on all of
a sudden, Me finishing a book doesn't really uh seem that urgent, which
might seem insulting to my readers, but apparently I don't have enough readers to
insult, so the creative energy doesn't even come into it for me. It's
more putting food on the table, right Yeah, I mean me, I
am. I'm a creature. I'm a creature of habit. You know.
I like to start, I like to might do my all my work days
the same way. You know my web's like that that would drive me nuts.
I'm like, yeah, but it works for me. So like I
like to start off my day like you know, if I'm not if I
like to be writing by about nine nine a m. And if I'm doing
that that my day is going to be decent. If I have to start
later, it screws up my day. Like I was telling I was telling
people the other earlier. Actually at the beginning of this week, I was
like, I go shopping on I go food shopping on Fridays, and because
that takes up my entire morning, I know I'm not getting any writing done
when I get home. So I'll get home, I'll put the groceries away,
and I'll do some marketing and I'll do some other stuff because at that
point it's ruined for me and there really is no getting getting past that.
But outside of that, I don't really get writer's block so much as I
get writer's malaise, where there are some days I just don't want to and
honestly, there are some days I just have to accept that, like there
is no forcing it. It's like the words are not going to come buying
something else to do. I feel like eighty percent of the world at large
are reasons why I might not write. Yeah, reading the news is never
never or day job or you know, not in a sleep or anything.
I'm like Rick. After when I get home from taking the kid to school,
I usually sit down about nine thirty to start writing, and then I
try to work for the next two hours before then I chunk up my day.
Then that's when i'll like do some housework or I'll work out, or
honestly, if it's drizzly, I'll take a nap because I just can.
And then I'll get back up and finish THISUF I'm meant to do and then
try to write little bit more. Family comes home, we're all my I'm
an only job, and I watch some o chid my son's an only child.
We all go to our separate corners that evening. I'll watch them a
little bit of television, and then I'll try to sit down again sometime around
like eight at night and try to write for the next hour or two,
you know, just sometimes in the evening time, like I'll just jop down
a few ideas and like and then like sometimes it takes off, so I
try to get in like four to six hours of writing a day, and
if I can manage to actually squeeze in a solid three, I call that
a win. So oh nice. Yeah again, like saying about creative energy,
if you've got a day job, if you've got family you want to
keep up with, if you've got, in my case, the secondary job,
which is making sure this podcast is a qualitative of product as it can
be. Subscribe to Patreon. Now he needs your money. You start to
uh, I don't know. And also there's a trap where for me,
it's kind of about making people laugh. So if I say something funny on
Facebook and fifty people give it a like, I'm like, eh, I've
done my bit for the day. There you go, peasants, there's your
joke. Yeah, it scratches the creative itch, which is, you know,
it's fucking worthless scene what everyone just scrolls through endless, fucking pointless content.
So it's probably stopping me from doing something a bit more worthwhile. But
bucket, if it's just scratching an itch and I ain't gonna get paid anyway,
why wouldn't I. The one thing that helps me is like I like
to try to write I Samuel Wright. So I've got a main project and
then the I can't beat my head against this wall anymore, so I need
to move off to something else. So something there's different, totally a different
project or something. It's like I'll go write a few chapters on that because
that feels like, okay, brain, you take care of this main problem
over here, while I just go do a dick joke over on this side
or this other side project. So I'm usually writing, like in a seventy
thirty kind of like seven percent effort onto this main project, and then when
I need a break, I go work thirty percent on this other smaller project,
and that that helps me maintain my sanity. And so I'm not just
losing the will to write. Because when I used to have my day job,
I was as a contractor, I was a technical writer, so I'd
write, you know, all day in tech based reports and then come home
and then try to read creatively. I'm like, I don't care anymore.
I am the same. And then the dragon flew over the wizard and the
dick hit him on the face. I don't care. So yeah, yeah,
the funny thing was my last job. Like they knew I was.
I was a novel writer and the like you know I was, And whenever
like there would be marketing copy they would look at I'd be like, you
won't want me to take a shot at it, and they would be like,
no, we have other people to do that, you know. Okay.
When people ask me for writing advice, especially people on my team of
technical right at work, I always say, be careful about monetizing your hobbies
because it can ruin a lot of your creative drive. It takes a lot
of the fun out of it. Are you talking to a corporate content creator
here? So I can definitely attest to that. Yeah, I worked for
I mean I worked for an online game company for about a year before they
went under. And you know, the old is true. Being a game
tester is boring as fucked because like they would, they would grab the entire
company and be like, Okay, it's a testing day. And when you're
paying, when you're being paid to play games, you're not there to have
fun. You were there to test specific scenarios. I'm over and over and
over again, and that is just tedious torture. Well, this turned out
to be a question. I'll tell you what if you're out there and you
want to write your book and put into a by all means do it is.
It'll be great, it'll be cathartic, it'll be fun for you.
But it's not single or far. I don't know self published or traditional published.
Who doesn't have to work like fuck to make it happen. I also
said this is the fund one for all the perspective writers out there. Once
you get your first book out, it's like it's like your first kid.
Anybody who anybody's a parent will know this. But once you get your second
book, you kick it. No one gives a shit. It's just like
we had another kid. Hey cool, and my good friends. I'll go
to visit them. I'm going I don't believe you're going to sing to my
apart. They're not going to ask me about my books. They don't care
anymore. They they patted me on the head years ago. Now it's just
like, hey, give me and that's it, like I asked it,
and I want to talk about but no, no one cares. So if
you have to love what you do, so yeah, yeah, the most
fun you're going to have if you're if you're starting hunting the novel writing.
The most fun you're gonna have are when nobody gives a shit about your books
because you're writing them for you. Way ahead. Once people do give a
shit about them and you're writing them for them, then it becomes work very
much. So especially like, oh, it would be great if this happened
to this character to do this, and this character should do this, and
why doesn't this character do this? Or that you get a weird fan and
like says, hey, why is what happens in the pock ups in Canada?
I don't know. I don't live in Canada. I didn't set it
there. I didn't think about it. But now I got to think about
what happened to Canada. I don't know. What do you think? Are
you kidding? I love those questions because they forced me to They forced me
to think. And usually I'll come up with some ship on the fly and
make it sound like I know what I'm talking. Now I feel like such
a exactly now, I feel like I douche because I didn't think of it
to begin with. I'm like, I gotta sound creative, so damn.
I'm hoping that I'll have eventually have a big enough fan base by the time
I get to the later books in this series, and I'll come up with
these theories, and I was like, I'll just pick the best one.
Georgia R. Martin, that motherfucker. Yeah, Cooper was a paladin all
along. If you could pick any vacation and cost, time transportation was not
an issue. Where would you go and what would you do? It's time
travel, one armtion. You know what they're going to do. What everybody
fucking says Japan sounds nice. But you know what, I have a one
of my favorite movies. It's called In Bruges, and it's all about these
guys who are sent to Bruges and they fucking hate it. And he just
doesn't want to be in Bruges anymore. But I'd really like to go to
Bruges. I don't know where it is. What is I don't either.
I just know this guy fucking hates it. Republic maybe man, because that's
Colin Ferrell and uh let me check. Yeah. No, it's a great
cast. It's a wonderful movie. It's in my top five. But they
don't like Bruce. I like Bruce. I'm going to go there. I'm
going to go up those steps. Have a heart attack, maybe die anywhere.
Let me see, that's what else go They can think of something off
the top of their head that they all we want to do Because I loved
I like staycations, a lot, beach food, fishing on like the beach.
I don't like the beach the fun doesn't like a beach. I don't
because I grew up. I crisp when I'm even near a sixty watt bulb?
Are you out of your fucking mind? Every time you go to every
time you go to the beach, it smells like because okay, here's the
thing. Rick and I are both East Coast people, so East coast beaches
are disgusting. They are, at least in our at least in the mid
Atlantic East Coast. There the water is green, the people are disgusting,
and everything smells of lotion and and and and sweat and balls and ass at
all times the beaches are it's it's hot and miserable. And then you get
you gotta deal with beach people, people who like live there all the time,
and where flip flops everywhere and terry cloth. It sucks, and like
you want to read, but you're at the beach, but you're hot,
you can't really read, you swim and it's green waters disgusting, and there's
some medical waste. It's no beaches blow full stop, all right, Remind
me not to go to any beaches. Like the beaches in North Carolina are
lovely, because like when like my wife and I we okay, we went
to a resort from fucking England. It doesn't sound as bad as we went.
We went to resort in Belize for our honeymoon, and it was since
it was just she and I, she went like we were had any many
kids, yester, We're like we went on Christmas Eve and we got to
we went to Belize City and went down to the resort waters and like it
was fantastic. The waters were crystal clear and blue and beautiful, and the
food was fantastic. The drinks were great, and like we had a cabana
on the beach or you opened the door and it wasn't stupid hot, it
was warms. You could go ou kayaking, but it was like that was
a good beach. I will give that beach credit. But unfortunately, growing
up on the East Coast beaches, I'm not a fan. So yeah,
every summer moves like, oh, I'm taking the kids to the beach,
I'm wanna come with us. No, I'm generally a beach fan. I
do love going to the beach, nice beaches, not your toxic waste beaches.
But if I'm talking about a holiday, it's just for me, it's
not just doesn't just involve me lying in the sun for two weeks, flying
like a glistening ham. Uh. Yeah. I want to go to a
europe And city with like an interesting woman. I want to smoke cigarettes,
drink clean lager, and piss on history about hopefully if I'm going to get
arrested by a polite European police officer, my my perfacation for me has conditions,
and that's I think where the time, costs and transportation is. I
want to go on adventure. I want to go hunting cryptids and stuff.
But I don't want to be covered in bugs. I don't want to be
eaten by a bear. I don't want to lick, you know. I
don't want to be like it to be uncomfortable living in like living in the
tent city, just selling ship and the soil. Guys looking at his clipboy,
go, why the fuck are you here in Jersey exactly. You know,
I want to go on adventure, but I want to be comfortable while
I'm doing Bigfoot brought and handcuffs into your living room so you can shoot it
in the face in the backyard, in the back eye. Just saying the
brandy now making dance, making dance now, I feel you on that alley.
I think for me, I want my one dream vacation that I do
have one. I want to go to Germany. I want to go to
specifically where the Black Forest of Germany is. We're all all like the Hans
and Gretel fairy tales and all that old timey world shit, like that is
the location where all those like those what we call groom fairy tales that the
kind of like originated from. They've got a lot of beautiful fricking castles that
are B and b's Like, that's where I want to go. I want
to go see this gorgeous, dense primeval forest. I want to go for
some trail hiking and walking. I want to drink some really expensive German beer
and have a like a broadfest and like that's that's what I want to do.
The family can come with, they wise Bevin. I'm still a little
bit surprised with the whole fishing aspect of you know, I didn't have you
down as a fishing guy. Yeah, I love fishing. I don't mean
I never ever get to do it. But uh, well, what kind
of fishing are we? Are we talking like, you know, out of
pond fishing. Are we talking deep sea fishing? Just sticking a stick of
dynamite in a lake? Well no, you know, with a rod and
real but uh wherever? I mean, if he was just like satd bicy
water with some beer, I fail. If I catch a fish then even
better. But uh, yeah, I mean was the last time I went
fishing and I was a younger man then, But uh caught a big ass
fish? Actually, uh, I failed to catch an even bigger fish.
We had a marlin on the line for like six hours. My friend and
I were passing the rod back and forth and we just could not It was
when it jumped out of the water. I thought it was a sea monster.
That thing was so big. I've never seen a fish like that before.
But vision you're doing anything for six hours, we'll have a secret,
so you keeping from them. But anyway, the guy that was running the
boat after you know, the sun started going down and says, guys,
we're going to go back in. And uh, he made a last ditch
effort. He took off his T shirt, dunk it in gasoline, tied
it to a weight, and tied it around the line and sent it down
to try to poison the fish. I think it just ended up corroding the
line because that's when it snapped and the marlin got away. But there was
pissed off acidically birnded marlin waiting for you to come back. Told I did
make it out of there with a big sailfish though, so that was cool.
Like this marlin, he's he's been lifting weights, he's got prison tattoos,
and he's waiting for Ben to come back. It's worse shape than I
was. Then this this sounds this sounds like a whole author's and dragons like
Moby like you know, like Bob's like, hey, why don't we go
why don't we film the next and dycon on his ship as we alsolow to
get like you know, like not like dragged away underwater. I know there's
a moose waiting for me in Alaska's why I'm not going back. So Bob's
got his Marlin Thiland, So I know there's a bunch of people I've pissed
on and Lincoln that a ways enough, Emily, did you vacation? Did
you piss on? Crypto? My vacation destination is Authors and Dragons Con twenty
twenty five, which we don't know about yet. But are you going to
drop some fucking bus I know, right, everybody's faces went really pale.
For a minister, No, it would be fun a d twenty twenty five
coming soon to a place. A well, I'm excited for that. That'll
be like if it does happen, they tend to happen in August, and
that's like I will be almost that's right. That's turned fifty. I turned
fifty just before that, and like, oh my fucking god. So yeah,
Noise Frick and I are like, eh, yeah, whate okay,
what Ops and Dragons the perfect event to grow old and die. It was
the friends we made along the way, sucker all right, So before we
head out here, how are you all feeling about the campaign so far?
Even though we have three official episodes, we had a bunch of like prequel
stuff. Are you all enjoying the episodes. Yeah, I'm I think it's
been nice since we I enjoyed the one on one episodes. I think that
got us all kind of you were nervous saying you don't like us nervous.
I forget. I have to edit. I have to edit these. So
I've been through all the episodes and if it was it's like, yeah,
they've still got it. We're all still shop. We'll see what happens when
you bring it together. But yeah, so far with Nice, it's been
bouncing off each other like cold times. Yeah, I'm excited to see where
it goes. Yeah, it feels good to be back in the back in
the saddle again. I'm enjoying running like I like making stuff and I like
seeing what you guys do certain things. I don't want to lead you around
by the nose, but I just got to at least nudge you down certain
channels to see which way you want to go. So I think it was
the last episode of Salty Bested when we hadn't played together since a live episode
in Portland. It'd been months, and it was like slipping into a comfortable
pair of pants And that's kind of like what the first collective dicey best its
episode was, and then realizing with horror that Georgier was in this. It's
still got the stains a little bit crusty, little crusty pants. Yeah,
I think it doesn't quite go all the way up. No, I'm I'm
enjoying the thing because, like again, it's been a little surreal for me,
because it's like when I was asked to do this, I was like,
sure, I got some ideas, and Steve heays, well, I
want to do all these ideas, Like okay, you'll throw all mine out
and go with what Steve wants and then you know, with a creative processically
my tem exactly. But the creative process about creating it has been fun,
but like just setting things up and see what you guys do has been has
been like very surreal to watch because like you know, going from a fan
to where I'm sitting now, and I'm looking forward to see where this goes
because I got long term plans, but if we ever see them, I
have no idea. So yeah, tru trust me and somebody who's ms one
of other other campaigns. We've all had long term plans, but you guys
got any any critiques, anything to like fix for the going forwards at all
all all aces. We'll say that for our ultra serious backroom meetings that the
list has never seen. Yeah, everything I could hope for. Oh that's
a low bar that sucked me. All right, that's a red flag right
there. Yeah. Okay, Well, well, if Drew having to pop
off, I hope we've answered some of your questions. We'll be checking in
what I was more regularly. Please to keep them coming on the Facebook,
on the YouTube, comments on our discords. If you're a member of our
discord, you can be a member of our discord by going to patroon dot
com. Forward Slash, Authors and Dragons given us five bucks a month,
enough to buy at least a quarter of a starving orphan, and you can
be part of a secret community of wonderful nerds whom I love and I guess
we'll see you in the next episode of Dicey Bastards and with side quests coming
as per normal in the future. So bye bye, everybody. Untors and
Dragons brought to you hundred Creative Commons license, meaning you are free to share
this material so long as credit is given to those who created it. Which
is us people you just heard to play the game opening and closing themes performed
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