See solars. Oh one, Welcome to the barbecue, where the cast and
creators of Oops All Bards grill each other about the most recent episode. I
am your host and game master Jilly and Ashley Blair Ivy. But if you
call me anything other than Jill, I am assuming that I am standing in
line trying to renew my driver's license. Let's have the Bards at the table
introduce themselves. Hi, my name is Ashley Banks, and I played Bell
Surnommel. Hi, I'm Russ Curry. I play Andreck Harrowhold. And we're
also joined by our producer, Nate Runkle. So we're a smaller group today,
but we have a whole episode that we can talk about, Episode six
of Oops All Bards. Folks at home who have not listened to episode six
definitely want to go back and listen to that before they listen to this episode.
But just a quick recap, a reminder for anybody whose memory is not
totally fresh on this. This was the episode where the Bards that we've already
come to know really link up with Cretatio, our newest Bard. There is
some waiting to get on the train, some some light espionage that happens on
the train platform, as well as Belle and Kilonian working to create a distraction
some kind of maybe suspicious activity from some of the porters around there. You
all realize that you are writing first class, which is a novelty for some
of you, but not all of you. And then while you're on the
train, it lurges to a stop and a porter comes and talks to Gideon
about Gideon being in danger, and then the party starts to kind of split
up and start to investigate. So so that's that's where we are, and
i'd want to I want to start by talking about Belle, you and Ashley
as Bell, you and Bob as Keilonian put on a big song and dance
number on the train platform. Yes, yes, we did so often in
a D and D party, like a more more balanced party party. That's
not all bards. Bards are used to create distractions like that. How does
it work when you are an all Bard party and you are creating a distraction?
You take the Bard with the lowest intelligence score and put them on the
distraction making love it So knowing that what did you, Ashley as a player
hope to accomplish, and like, what do you think Bell understood of her
mission in creating this distraction. I don't think Bell understood that there was a
mission. I think Belle was fully in the mode of like, oh,
yeah, we're waiting for a train, let's like play some games. And
I do think that it was like, yes, she was dancing and she
was a distraction, but it was also very much like she was trying to
do the game where you like jump in the circle, do a dance.
Somebody else jumps in the circle and does the same dance and then does something
different, and you like passing it around. But her party was not into
that, so I do think she ended up like pulling in other platform members,
yes, and just ended up like I think Belle thought she was just
having a great time making friends, uh, spreading a little joy around and
uh, living life. I mean I think that that is definitely what wound
up happening. But at the same time you did you did effectively create a
bit of a distraction, and then Ross Andrik and also with Clarice and Cretasio,
it gave you an opportunity to, like, you didn't really go anywhere
per se, but you were able to kind of just speculate around and you
notice some potentially suss activity from the porters, right I'd love to know at
this point, not knowing anything beyond the fact that the train stops and there
is a porter who comes to talk to you, what are you what are
you expecting right now? We talked about this a little bit in the last
barbecue in terms of, like, at least my personal excitement for getting into
this train sequence. But you know, I I I ross love you know,
murder on the Orient Express and that the Adventure Zone arc, Murder on
the rock Port Limited, the train sequence from Captain America. Like, I
was really excited to get into this train thing. And anytime you put a
train there, you've got a confined space where you know you're looking for,
especially when it comes to a stop, that something has gone wrong and suddenly
everyone is a suspect. So a little bit of that was above table.
But also Andreik is a pretty suspicious being, and so I immediately and part
of this is because I know my wife. I know Jill very well,
and I know Jill's affinity for some of those same things that I just mentioned.
I started going into POI rot mode really is where I was going.
So what are you expecting. I don't know what to expect, other than
you know, someone seemingly innocuous is probably responsible for this is my above table
suspicion. But I'm looking forward to the process of trying to suss out who
that is and what they're doing. So let's talk a little bit about the
train itself, because I told you in this episode, but we didn't quite
get to this particular mechanic. Actually we did once because Belle and Clarice went
to go find snacks, and so moving between the trains, there is it
triggers an acrobatics check while the train is in motion that you all have to
pass. It's not a very high one, but if you don't pass it,
you can take some damage moving between the trains. But then also when
the train eventually lurched to a stop, there is some damage that automatically came
with that. Because you're you're not going to be able to really roll a
check on that, it's going to happen. So you are in this machine
that is neither friend nor foe, but has the potential to cause some damage
to you. It's not quite a layer action like when you're fighting a big
bad but there is there is definitely something about the setting being potentially perilous that
creates another element that you have to consider. So as players like when you
find yourselves in a setting like that, how does that play into the way
that you are are going through the encounter or through the setting. I personally
love this. This is you know, to go to not so much talking
about our episode, but just general t TRPG stuff in general. Whenever you
can make the environment or the terrain become part of the encounter and adding a
level of complexity. For here, it's you know, being at a confined
space. If you can make terrain three dimensional so that there are things to
climb up that you might slip off and fall down into, that makes both
combat encounters and exploration and investigation much more interesting. And so I really liked
the One of the reasons I like the train thing is because you've got to
work in tight quarters. You've got to figure out how you're going to move
around both my allies and again the suspects as it were, So I really
like that dynamic. Ashley, how did you feel about the potential for taking
damage just by moving around the train? Bell has a plus ten to acrobatics
and it was a DC ten, So it's no risk for you, really,
literally just oh, I guess, I guess it's a little bumpy whatever.
So I wasn't worried. No, I mean, I thought it was
interesting and I appreciate I, like Ross said, I appreciate that it added
a little bit of dynamic to just the act of moving around, and it
makes you It doesn't prevent you from choosing to move from one car to another,
right, but it prevents you from being really frivolous about it. And
then of course the train stops and you almost killed the chicken. Yeah,
so let's talk about that. Unfortunately Pop isn't here, but there was there
was automatic damage that happened when the train stopped, because since the train lurched
to a stop, there was no way that anybody was really going to have
an opportunity to be prepared for that to protect themselves in some way. So
I'd made the decision that there was not a saving throat. You were just
all going to take damage. And it wasn't a huge amount of damage.
Although Clarice I think rolled and managed to roll the full damage. Yeah,
and Gideon did too. But Bob is sitting here, does Angel have to
roll for damage. I said, yeah, you know, Angel's on the
train, and everybody at the table just goes really quiet because Angel's a real
chicken. Angel is not a familiar, not some sort of of mythical beast.
Angel is a chicken, and chickens have one hit point in D and
D. And I was not okay with killing Angel because the train lurched to
his stuff. Honestly, I hope that I don't have to kill Angel at
all, because that would make me very sad, and I think that that
might get our podcast protested by PETA. But I made the decision that because
Angel is so light, that the force of the impact was not going to
affect her in the same way. She's not going to like slam into something.
It was just like she could do like a little gentle hop and chickens
can't really fly, but she could kind of flutter down and she'd be fine.
If you have a balloon in a car and a car stops, the
balloon just sort of bops around, Yeah, but it doesn't, Yeah,
it doesn't pop exactly, you know, a chicken. I don't think we
ever established how big Angel was, but like she's just a small, little
hen. She's not a she's not a big like monstrosity that you've created,
like the KFC has created to have like the biggest breasts and thigh as possible.
We were talking about like a little tiny hen that Kilonian found in the
woods, and so I just made the decision. And I think dms sometimes
have to make decisions like this to like, yes, everybody is taking damage
except for this beloved ENPC. Well. I think one of the first comments
from episode one wasn't it like, I hope you guys don't kill that chicken
or something? Yeah, yeah, I think I think that that may have
been a comment like that one of our friends had made to us. It
was like, like, I will still listening if anything, how's the chicken?
Yeah, Ross and Ashley, you're both very experienced as dms. Have
you had to find yourselves in positions where like you have to make a decision
like that to mitigate the damage to play god. Yes, well, and
I was actually going to put this back to you. I've not had to
do it with an animal companion. You know. I have had characters who
have familiars before, and I do not hesitate to womp those familiars out of
existence because they wamp back. The conjuring player just needs to The character that
conjures them just needs to go, like get some incense, do their ritual,
and they can baff back their familiar into existence. I haven't had to
do it with an animal companion, but that experienced Joe. I was wondering
if, well, actually let me let Ashley answer first, and then I
have a question to throw back to you. Sure, yeah, I don't.
I haven't had a chicken on a train situation, per se, but
I did. I think I mentioned this in an earlier barbecue that like my
first time I ran an encounter, I like vastly overestimated what my players could
take on. So there were like way too many enemies, and I didn't
know, like the number of enemies also affects it's not just yet economy.
Yes, so I didn't know that I was new. So like in the
middle of the encounter, I was like, just kidding. Turns out that
this guy's hit points are half of what they were, and these guys are
scared, so they all run away, and you know, I think it's
not exactly the same, but that vibe of like you see what's about to
happen, and you're like, on one hand, the joy of D and
D is like you don't necessarily know how things are going to go, right.
The roll of the dice can change things, But at the end of
the day, the d it's the DM's job to make sure that you're a
fun story. Right. It's a game. We're supposed to be enjoying it.
And if the thing that is about to happen doesn't actually impact the story
and is just going to make it a less fun time for everybody, right,
it's like the opposite of the rule of cool, Right, it's the
rule of uncool. Like, nobody gains anything from the chicken dying because the
train stopped nobody, there's nothing lost from the chicken living. So clearly the
right choice as a DM or a GM who is, you know, ushering
this story forward is to keep the chicken. And that was what it ultimately
came down to. I figured that losing Angel, especially in that way,
was going to be just such a big bummer that it was going to really
affect the Tambra, not just of that episode, but like the rest of
the campaign. So I wasn't I wasn't gonna let it happen. Right,
There's a huge difference between Angel biting it because a train screeched to a halt
versus if we get into a big bad battle down the line and that is
held hostage, or the big Bad recognizes Angel as a potential leverage point against
Colonium and puts like or just like tries to take Colonian out of the battle
by taking out Angel. That you know, and we talk in session zero
about like what we as players are willing to indulge, what we're comfortable with.
There are tables at which, you know, a big Bad could take
out Angel for the specific purpose of taking Colonian out of the fight, and
that would at least make sense and be it would be relevant to the story.
Yeah, right? Are you giving her these ideas because he knows that
I will not kill animals if I can possibly avoid it. But one of
the things I want to ask you though, is you know, is there
a difference between say Angel and a player character, Like as you're sitting at
the GM table and at this GM seat at the table, Ashley and I
think have both been in situations where you've got one of your player characters on
one or two hit points and you see the roll of the dice and you
have to decide if you're gonna lie or not, and Frank and I don't.
I'm not a fudger. I had a situation where I was like one
of my characters going down and where and everyone's gonna have to deal with that.
It was really tough. It propelled the story forward in an interesting way,
but like we had to take a whole we had to stop the session
because a character was gone. So from where you're sitting, it hasn't happened
yet, But have you thought about that event and what it might look like.
I mean, character death is on the table. You're an all barred
parties, so I haven't at this point like created any obstacles for you that
should put you into truly mortal peril. But it can happen, I mean,
like a natural one crossing over the train enough times like that. Some
of you have few enough hit points that like that could be like you could
just fall off the side of the moving train and and die. But it's
not my intention at this point. It's that it's not a possibility, or
that it's not acceptable for me. I think the difference is that angel is
angel is a companion that has not been able to like really make any decisions
that would ultimately affect her fate. Angel is there because Keilonian brought her on
board, and I didn't feel, you know, like the fact that she's
a pet aside. I just didn't feel like I could say Angel's just been
like the on the receiving end of a couple of animal handling checks, and
now Angel is going to like have to roll to survive. If one of
the players was like if you if somebody was playing a kenkup that was reskinned
to be a giant chicken and you got into battle and that player got to
zero hit points and then didn't roll enough death savings throws, like, yeah,
that player would be dead. It's different when we're talking the character would
be dead. Do not kill your please do not kill your players. The
character the PC would be dead. It hasn't come up so far, and
I think and I think that goes back to what I was saying earlier about
like it's about the story, right. If a character, if a character
that is in the party dies, that's part of the story. If Angel
dies, it's just a bummer, Like there's no there's no actual reckoning.
It's just gonna make everybody depress, right right, and not working on a
screenplay in my head where people are playing a campaign where if you if your
character dies, you die in real life. Oh no, it's like Nightmare
on Elm Street. Yeah, and but I'll say this with the caveat of
turfs can go all the way off a cliff. But you know, I
remember the moment reading the Harry Potter books when when Hedwick dies, and that
is very forceful, and it within the context of that story, it mattered,
I would, you know, And so like again, I don't anticipate
something that happened to Angel in that way, but like that is the kind
of way to take an animal companion and make their death right, as opposed
to, oh, the train stopped right exactly exactly needs to be. And
I think that's I know, Joe, you can correct me if I'm wrong,
and Ross as a d M you can chime in too. But I
think that's the difference there is like if there were a PC death that were
just like, oh, the train screeched to a halt and somehow the roles
ended up just straight up killing Chlorice, don't I don't think you would have
done that right, Like you would have been like, okay, wait,
we need to rethink this, yes, right, because there's no story value
to it. There's no it Like that's why we don't roll for falling meteors
when we're walking through the woods. We just and that is not We've talked
about some things that are different between when we're playing for recording a podcast sake
versus just playing at a table. This is something that is not different.
I have the exact same attitude when I'm not recording, yeah, versus when
I am. Because even just when we're sitting around a table on Friday night
with pizza and beer and playing our home game, that kind of mentality that
the story still matters, that is very much right the way you play right.
And you know, I think in this case, like if if Clarice
was sitting on one hit point when that train lurned to a stop, I
would have just gotten like done away with a mechanic that anybody's taking any damage
around a saving throw or something something, or it could have been like because
Clarice is on you know, if Clarice were like on a stretcher on the
aisle, there's nothing for her to slam into. So you know, it's
just it's based on where everybody's positioned on the train. So yeah, I
mean that's and that's one of the things though, like as a DM you
also have to decide on the fly. It's also one of the the things
you have to take anto account when you're dealing with an all barred party and
for example, you know, to get into the weeds a little bit.
You don't have a character specifically a cleric, but I think there are a
few other sub classes and other classes that have access to revivify. Right.
We had talked earlier about the mechanic of moving between the train cars, right,
and I think if you roll a natural one, you're not you're gonna
make us take damage. You're not gonna be like, ah, your leg
falls through the two things and you die, right, And I think it's
the same vibe there. Yeah, you know, there are some I'm trying
to remember. I think this is this is maybe a Brendan Lee Mulligan rule.
There's there's some like other other podcast streamer DM person who has a rule
where like, yeah, hit points are a thing, but if you take
the sort of damage where like if it's a head shot, you know,
and it's it's a significant amount of damage. We're not gonna tally up the
hit points. Like that person is missing their head, they're dead. Yeah,
Like if you are walking across the train and you trip and your leg
gets stuck and the train is still moving and your leg gets wrenched off,
like you dead, right, So so yeah, like there is there is
that to consider too. But I also and I think it's this feels like
the inverse of that rule, which is like if you're not doing something that
is actually like fighting a bad guy or you know, sometimes you have non
combat encounters where's like somebody is making a big risk, like crossing over a
gorge, Like if you slip, you're gonna die, right, But like
you're not gonna be rolling to move from one train car to another and then
risk character death right right Exactly thinking of the train thing, we're thinking of
the moment when Bucky goes out the side of the train and Captain America.
But Bucky lives because nobody wanted to kill Bucky either. He's the chicken.
He is Captain America's chicken at least in that movie. Tell me I'm wrong.
So So you're saying we could have given Angel a mechanical wing. Yes,
I'm saying that in season two. There's nothing preventing us from having an
Angel come back and have a mechanical wing. I will take that under advicement.
You're welcome. Also, Angel should also be responsible for killing Tony Stark's
parents. Amazing. So we're we're actually kind of running out of time for
this episode, but I did just want to really quickly talk to you about
we meet a We made a porter that everybody is immediately suspicious of. And
this has been a pattern with you all. You were you were suspicious when
Critatio linked up with you at the beginning of this episode. Okay, Belle,
wasn't Andrick You were, of course, But as Bards generally like you're,
you're a friendly group. Where is this suspicion coming from. It's coming
from Andrik and Clarice. That's the end. No, Like Klonian was chill,
Well, Kilanian is it's good friends with Cretatio, So yeah, Bell,
it was chill. It's not coming from the Bards as a group.
It's coming from Andrick missed your poudy pants. And Clarice is in her last
name sour Cloud, Like, that's where it's coming from. And I mean,
I think there's been enough at this point recorded that audience has picked up
that, you know, Clarice trades in secrets, and Andrik is from a
family that lives on the outskirts, not necessarily of civilization, but but lives
in a pretty dangerous place, and you know, it's always very defensive minded.
And I think the other thing that factors in here is that when we
were first meeting Cretato on the platform, Andrack had picked up something weird going
on with the porters loading some of the cargo onto the train. So that
is really where Andreik's suspicion is coming from. It's really from the platform observation,
not so much stuff that's happened so far on the train. Okay,
I have one last question and it's actually for Nate. So we're recording this
after we've recorded episode six and seven. Episode five. In our last barbecue,
we talked about Ashley had had to join us remotely on Zoo while everybody
else was at the table, and then episodes six and seven and Clarice was
sick and we made the decision. You and I at the very last minute
not to try and do that thing again because it had created some technical issues,
and so I ordered a microphone for and to pick up at target first
thing in the morning, and she she had to drag herself out of bed
to do that, and then we all recorded remotely. So, Nate,
now you get to edit these two episodes from zoom. How are you feeling
about that, buddy? You're going to be surprised, but actually pretty good
because everybody's on their own tracks and nothing should bleed over, so it should
be the easiest edit I've had to do. Yet I'm saying that now having
not edited it. So when it comes to that day and I text you,
I was wrong, be prepared, noted, and I guess we'll see.
We'll see how episode seven goes too, because not to spoil anything for
our audience, but there's a lot that's going down in the next episode,
that's right. But no to that point though, like I did notice,
like you know, we've talked about it since then, but like recording over
zoom is something that has its benefits, It has its pros, and it
has its cons. You know, Like I said, the bleedover not being
there is enormous because it's easy to take people out if they're kind of laughing
or doing something, you know, to make that kind of edit. But
then also we lose the kind of glue that is being in person. You
know, we were talking last barbecue about Ashley, how you know, interjecting
becomes an issue and stuff like that because this slight delay or you know,
even just just the kind of not knowing when to be able to jump in.
So it tonally might feel a little different, but but I don't think.
I think we put on a pretty darn good episode if I do,
And that's that's not just an editing thing. That's also a D and D
thing because so many of us really you know, I've played D and D
for a long time, but got really into it during the pandemic and was
running games by Zoom, and you know, Jill, I believe in the
previous barbecue had mentioned something about back of table energy, where you know,
people are kind of like whispering doing their own thing at the other end of
the table from the DM that you get in person, which doesn't happen really
on Zoom. And on Zoom, you know, you can throw down a
virtual map very easily and move tokens around. You know, I'm Jill,
and I are not going to go out and buy a bunch of like physical
terrain to put down on the table. Uh. And in that way,
running on zoom is very easy, and you actually get to move the plot
forward much more quickly when you're doing it remotely. But you do lose kind
of that the fun, the weird chaotic energy that happens when a bunch of
goofballs are actually physically sitting at a table together. Yeah, zoom zoom dms
are just not the same. All right, we're gonna We're gonna stop there.
Join us in two weeks for episode seven of Oops All Bards, and
two weeks after that for the barbecue summarizing or recapping parts of episode seven of
Oops All Barts. As ever, I have been your host and game master,
Jillian Ashley Blair Ivy and on behalf of all of us here at Oops
all Barts. Thanks for listening. Oops All Bards is created, GMed,
and directed by Jillian Ashley Blair Ivy. This episode was produced, edited,
and sound designed by Nate Runkle. Oops All Bards stars Ashley Banks as Bell's
Cernamio and Coleman as Clarice Sauercloud, Ross Curry as Andrew Carroll, hold Tage
Sinhadas as Cretaceo thunder Thigh, and Bob Killian as Colonian Stumps. The Oops
all Bard's theme song is by Bob Killian with additional lyrics by Jillian Ashley Blair
Ivy. Oops all Bards is executive produced by the porch Room. We are
part of the porch Room Network on spreaker Prime. For more information, visit
oopsalbards dot com. Thanks and be sure to rate, review and subscribe to
Oops all Bards on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your podcatcher of choice,
and follow us on Instagram and YouTube at oops all Bards. We'll see you
next time. Oops It salbars Oh, another quality podcast from the porch Room.