This is not don't expect to bet on your lifetime. Straight from your fine
side hi eron, Welcome to side Quest. The in between episodes where we're
nuts adventuring through lands of fantasy and mysticism. We're generally complaining about television or
interviewing people more interesting than us, and today happens to be the latter,
So lucky you. Who do we have with us today? Myself, Steve
Weaverll, Drew Hayes, Robert Bevan, Hello, the normal guys who are
always on this side, but who isn't a normal guy who isn't always on
the podcast? Special guest Eric Ugland. How do you do? I'm doing
great, guys, Thanks for having me here. It's a plusher Man,
thank you for joining us now. If anybody hasn't heard of Eric Ugland,
it's a prolific name in LITARPG with the both the Good Guys and Bad Guys
series. Speaking of LITARPG specifically classified as gamelet LITARPG, Eric, do you
want to tell us a little bit about what you do? About what I
do or gamelet LITERPG in general? I guess we could. We could tackle
the entire genre and your place within it. Sure, let's go big.
Oh yeah, I'll do what I can. So. Liter PG and gamelet
is a relatively new genre. Kind of depends on who you ask and when
it started, but it's kind of agreed to be within the last decade or
so, and it came from South Korean and Japanese light now over through Russia
and then English authors found it and I've been trying to make your own stamp
on it ever since. And it's kind of like the middle ground of reading
fantasy and playing Dungeons and Dragons, so it's it's more like you're reading Dungeons
and Dragons. And usually if it's LITTERPG, the game mechanics are very visible
and obvious, and I think to really be applied to this genre, you
need as a as a story, they need to be integral to it.
It can't just be sort of like layered on and not really make a difference
to the plot or anything that's happening. As far as myself, I was
twenty eighteen I published the first book and The Good Guys, and I had
been writing in a couple of other genres before then, and I had no
idea about LITTERPG and just kind of discovered it started reading it, and it's
just like realized, this really lines up with all the things I like to
do, and you know, I just I really already telling stories in that
style and have just kind of gone fallen on it ever since. That's for
me quite a useful explanation of what they RPG is, because it does tend
to vary. For instance, Bevan's probably the closest right we have to let
RPG. It's kind of a it's a D and D E c KI.
I guess the mechanics are sort of integral to the world, but there are
different, I guess, variations of how intense someone can go of that.
Our listeners have described you as a crunchy lit RPG, which I'm given to
believe is I guess more mechanic heavy. Would that be fair to say?
I think yeah, I think so. I don't think I'm anywhere near as
crunchy as as some other authors, because I don't necessarily dwell much in the
math, and I feel like the crunchier authors have much more. You know,
these are the formulas, and I, you know, this is the
way that I can really maximize this form love I do just this extra bit
of manner into this spell here, then I'm going to get three extra points
of damage there. There are layers of crunchiness there. Yeah, I didn't
know what crunch you was until Steve explained it to me. Well, I
didn't know what crunchy was until one of our listeners explain, Oh wait,
no, I asked you about it, and I looked up the answer on
Google before you could answer, it's probably better. Yeah, to be fair,
the only reason I brought up is I wanted to hear Eric explain it.
Yeah, it's I mean, it's a new genre, so a lot
of the rules and the tropes are still being established. Yeah, speaking of
it being like it's a relatively new genre, I was going to ask,
I mean, I guess this would have come up from having a love of
both D and D and I guess fantasy novels in general. I say,
you're already publishing before this, But given that the genre is so new,
how much did other LITARPG authors influence you? A fair out? So when
I first found out about it, there wasn't so much in the genre that
you if you were really trying, you couldn't read the bulk of it,
you know, Now, I think they'd be really a real challenge. There's
a lot of material out there, so I really dug into it and I
read as much as I could, so there is a lot of there's sort
of a lot of information out there to build off of now, and I
was I was really impressed with with Aler Hon Kong in the Land, you
know, when I first read that, I really enjoyed it. I know
Matt Denneman's more recent, but he's someone that i've He's a friend of mine
and I've often looked at what he's doing and sort of found a lot of
interesting bits and pieces there. Oh, we definitely love Matt. He's a
good friend of the podcast. It's going to be at our convention this year.
That crazy guy, he's always I don't know how how does he write
so much and still go to every single convention? I have no idea.
I was just in Denver with him at a convention a couple of weeks ago,
and I think he was already at one again last weekend. Yeah,
he was at Norwest Kahn yep. Not to be confused with any of the
other conventions that happened in the Northwest. That's sactively vague title Yeah. I
read just about everything you could get my hands on in those early days,
and it was just because I was just trying to understand what the rules were.
You know, how does this differentiate from fantasy? What makes this unique?
That's interesting. Let's say you being published before you're free into LITOPG.
I guess what did you find? Was there anything more liberating about writing in
LITOPG despite the rules? Well? Sure, I mean so, I've always
fantasy has always been one of my favorite genres to read, but I always
felt like I didn't necessarily have the sort of serious chops to go or write
epic fantasy. But I feel think there is a more pulp mindset to lit
RPG, and there's more of a there's more of a sense of fun,
and I think, you know, obviously I'm generalizing broadly here, but to
me, it seemed like there was more room for fun and goofiness and a
bit of SaaS and sarcasm then I saw in epic fantasy, and it just
resonated with me. I guess that makes sense. I suppose LITSARPG and the
idea of Isakai is maybe the only way to I guess reclaim a very entrenched
genre with kind of very entrenched I guess tropes and beloved tropes. I suppose
maybe it's any way to kind of drag into the modern. Well, yeah,
I think that's certainly a way to look at it. A lot of
the other LITERPG authors like to give me a hard time because I've I've been
saying that LITTERRPG isn't a genre so much as a style. So because you
have to have a genre associated with it, is just there is no just
liter PG bulk of what would write a s fantasy LITERPG. But you could
do sci fi LITTERPG. Harman Cooper does. He has a Western LITERPG.
I know that Tao has tried a romance LITTERPG. So there's all sorts of
different ways that you can take it. It's just that the most successful people
have been so far has been a fantasy. Nobody likes a radical Eric.
You've got Target on your bank now, big one. Okay, another thing
I wanted to talk about again. I called you a prolific LITTERPG writer,
and I think that might be an understatement because it comes to you've done this
unique thing with your series where you have two sorts of parallel series called The
Good Guys and the Bad Guys for I guess obvious reasons if you want to
explain that well. So, originally I was writing about someone who wasn't so
great. I wanted to, you know, when you get it's a guy,
do you kind of have a chance at a new life? And so
he decided to be a good guy instead of a bad guy he was in
the previous life. And then I realized I wanted to write something that was
a little bit different and provided a little bit of an alternative just to writing
the same book of the same series. So I started The Bad Guys,
which was about someone who wasn't that bad and going and trying to be bad
but realizing he wasn't just a bad person. So it's more like a Robin
Hotel. And as I was building sort of a grander narrative, I realized
that there's a third piece that I've I've had planned that will be I don't
know when it's going to be coming out, just because I just my schedule
is so full lately. I'm wondering was it going to be the neutral Guys
of the Ugly Guys, But there will be an Ugly Guys and it will
be weaving in, so it will be three series going on at the same
time. I know, yeah, that completely a different Guys. I could
write out one that sounds like an easy one to write. I got.
I got a deal with Yonder and they asked if I would write something for
their platform, which is like a serial fiction based platform, and I did
The Grim Guys there, which is still happens in the same world, the
same timeline, but just somewhere different and focuses on two monster hunters kind of
pattern who decided that they are going to be brothers in this new world that
they're in. Oh. Nice again, you mentioned your schedule there, and
I mentioned there is a large catalog of Eric Egland's stories for anybody who is
curious. Do you sleep occasionally? But mostly it's because of of children who
wake me up, not necessarily being busy working. Ah, I see,
but I'm nowhere near as prolific as a lot of the other authors out there.
Yeah, but I'm also curious to know whether they are in fact human
beings too, because there are some. There are are some massively prolific,
he said, like Matt Denaham. How does he find a time too to
turn up a because I've been to a kind of Matt and he seemed like
pretty spaced out, like he's got a lot going on. I think,
yeah, yeah, you know, there's there, there are tricks to it.
You know, you can certainly find some shortcuts here and there. A
lot of it is just being able to type quickly. I suppose just type
quicker if you're a quicker. Yeah. Yeah, I'm married to my editor,
so that kind of helps. So yeah, you know, I'm the
only author that she edits, and she just kind of waits for my books,
and I can just get them, get them to her when they're done
or when she yells had to get them done. Yeah, excellent works for
me. If we're just talking about the good guys and then the bad guys,
what is that about? But pretty serious, is that? Right?
Yeah, it's a it's a huge amount. It's not that many. It's
fourteen are out in the Good Guys so far, and nine are out in
the bad guys. So that's what twenty two Oh yeah, only only twenty
two books. That's most of my whole catalog. Well, say these all
take place in the same world. Now, are all the are all the
good guys? The same characters, and the Bad Guy has a different set.
Yeah, so essentially, so the Good Guys follows a singular character named
Montana who's kind of just the biggest hammer looking at a world of nails,
and he's about as smart as a hammer, and it's mainly him forced into
a leadership position that he doesn't want and really can't handle. And it's kind
of a town building out in the wilds. And then The Bad Guys is
sort of a Robin hoodie thief who is actually in the capital city of the
same country, so it's much more urban focused. Um, slinking around,
stealing things, learning some magic on the way, um. And you're I
kind of set it up so you can see some of the politics happening there
that have ramifications for the Good Guys. Okay, that's what I was going
to ask about, because there were set in different parts of the same world.
Are there I wanted to know if there were like tangential things that affect
both. Oh yeah, definitely, Yeah, there are things that there.
There are small things, and there are some some major things. There's not
I try to work hard to make sure that if you want to only read
one series, then you don't need to read the other. One's that there's
nothing that is fundamental that is sort of shown in one series and not the
other. So there are some characters characters a cross over, but no one,
no one major, or if they do, you know, you're you're
finding some of the like there's there's nothing hidden in the other books that will
disrupt something out. I mean some of them, like the timelines are shifted
so that if you read it in a specific way, some of there's little
tidbits that you get in one series that will make the other Like you start
reading the other series and like, oh, I know who that is.
You know, I've heard about them from this other series. Now you're seeing
them up close and personal interactions. And so I have tried to hide a
few surprises in that way, but nothing like where you have to read them
all. And the Grim Guys is even sort of further afield that's in the
next country over, but it's the country that's at war with the main country
and the good guys and the bad guys. So trying to like show that
they're not just evil people, they're just people whose ruler has a different perspective
on things and wants to take over the world. Excellent. So given that
we have like a you people start in their writing journey who listened to this
podcast so far, some good advice with typing fast and having a living editor.
Definitely forget behind that. But the scope of what you're doing, how
do you plan the world building? Do you have one of those crazy CIA
boards with like bits of string and photographs. I keep waiting to see one
of those, please me. You do not here because it's a vacation house,
but you know I have notebooks and all sorts of crazy stuff like that,
you know. So part of it was building the world before I started
building the stories and building the game before I started building the world, so
layering things on top of each other. And then the final bit is really
only building as much of it as I need as I'm going so that I'm
not spending time building an entire world when I'm only focused on a little bit
sensible. Yeah, because you can really get lost in world building. You
just spend forever trying to build a world if you really want to, and
it all you know, you can all defend it as work as writing,
because you know this could be useful someday. You go full talkey you never
come out, Yeah, exactly. And I you know, have a I
have a private World Anvil that myself and a couple of volunteers work on together
and try to keep it all moving together. And for those of us who
maybe should no but don't, what is a world anvil? So World Anvil
is a program that allows you to I guess it's kind of like the digital
version of that CIA board. So it allows you to put things together and
like use hyperlinks to tie them all together, so you can say, you
know, here's this spell that was learned by this character. We'll try to
get into screen. You're saying, like, this character lives in this city,
and then you have so you can click on that, and then you
can go to that room and see like, Okay, here's the story of
this city and the country that it's in. And when I've wrote about it
this one time, I mentioned this guy was the mayor and this was the
tavern that the character went to, and these are the people that were in
the tavern. And so you can just sort of follow all those little things
through as necessary. Wow, that sounds like an awesome resource. Sounds amazingly
useful, Bevin. It's great. So world Avil is one and then camp
Fires another. They're both sort of competing apps, and you know, I've
heard great things about both. I just happen to use world Anvil right now,
and I stumbled on these two readers who are maybe the most amazing readers
I could have ever found, and they kind of live in my books and
they know more about it than I do. And I also have just a
discord message group with just them, and it's I wouldn't say daily, but
it's very often. I'll just send him it out and be like, you
know, what color was this person? What color with their eyes? Or
like what was the did I name this ocean? And it's like, I'll
get excellent everything back I could want authors and dragons. We are a big
proponent of our listeners being far more competent than we are. It's almost integral
to our you know, our brand. You know, it's amazing how how
useful that is. It's the only reason I'm successful. Don't tell him that
when the Royalty's coming. Yeah, but I get what you're saying. Um.
I always want to ask this to a let our PG person, But
the only one I know is Bevan had he give me an answer that would
would shock and disappoint me. I'm sure if you were to be easy guide
into a D and D world and you could choose the class type of person,
what would he choose? So as in like saying I would want to
go to Grayhawk or oh god, what was the dark dark Stone? I
can't remember the name of dark Sun. Obviously I wouldn't want to go there.
That'd be horrific. Um. Yeah, you know, I kind of
would want to go to is it here Dragon where dragon Lands takes place?
Dragon? I guess one to live there. Yeah, if I had to
live in this world, I would probably try to be a paladin, because
you know, you've got some tanky skills. You could you could make a
living just being a healer and taking care of a small if they lived somewhere
and not getting involved in the huge wars you're not going to be. If
you're a made you get the really cool magic, but you also got to
deal with like Racelin and all those things. I mean, that's a really
good question. I don't know, man, No shit, you're a made
you that's what the money is. Yeah, there's a lot of response.
There's a lot of backstabbing going. I'm would have made his man that always
up to something. See, I'm right, I I go druid baby,
access to a little bit from every class. Uh, got that wild shape
to get the dodge when ship gets real. Yeah, survivability, druid Druids
where it's at. I'm changing my answer. Plus my name's in it,
right. I was about to say everyone loves the paladin, but then I
remember I'm on Office and Dragons and that's not the case on our podcast.
I decided the next D and D game campaign I joined, I am going
to play the traditional nineteen eighties nineteen nineties style Chad a good Paladin. I
guess, lawful, good palat I'm just gonna lean it. Ta had to
be lawful in that day and age man that back in the alignment restrictions.
Yeah, and I'll see if I can't find someone to play a half elf
Ranger rogue multi class. That's kind of a fun idea. Just the most
stereotypical characters you can possibly build exactly that is it full generic, and just
lean into it. And maybe you know, if you have the right sort
of a d M, you can just have them just always they're rolling into
towns, and the towns people are just like what did you guys fall out
of a bad story? Like who is this? Oh yeah, you've got
a half hour Barbarian, You've got a chayout it good, Rube. Yeah,
you're chasing down a shadowy villain. Hey, Paladin, is your dad
missing or presumed dad without a body? Yeah, he's your dad. Oh
look, it's a surly wizard who can't get can't get any social interactions going.
I thought you were gonna say, can't get an interaction? Yeah,
yeah, yeah, wizard with e D that's so. That's all I took
away from Dragon Lens. You have to have the really beautiful clare to do
lay on hands, right, I shouldn't have to be that good looking.
I think we've gone We've got away from We've got away from generic to slightly
erotic, which is also I don't say it is yeah, also kind of
inevitable, I suppose. Yeah, I mean a home with Peasant could lay
on hands. Yeah, well, the right and we all know why Racon
was so angry all the time. God, that series makes a lot more
sense now. Yeah. It was one of my favorites growing up. I
love that I think I probably would try to live in that one. I
mean it, you know, we know the most about the forgotten realms,
just because they've that's all they've been writing about lately, but ironically tiled then
I suppose. Yeah, So I was thinking, yeah, that's the one
we know the most about it. Yeah. What was the one with the
magic trains even trains, Polar Express? Yeah, I had to go live
in the Polar Express everything they could use a palette in there. No,
that would be that would be terrified. Occasionally Tom Hanks comes out and harasses
you about Chay, stay away from my children, Tomas. Oh, the
good old days, the D and D world of Polar Express, the shadowy
villain, dead eyed Tomas. What I love about the Internet is that it's
probably already out there somewhere. Someone's definitely going to be soon. Yeah,
it will be soon. What is the DND equivalent of All thirty four?
It's got to be one right anywhere? Okay, So deep into series Good
Guys, Bad Guys, and the corresponding tales within that, how far do
you see yourself taking this story given that you put so much into I guess
keeping a world building sound and you've got such a strong foundation, how far
do you think you can go with this? I mean, so in this
particular storyline, I guess storylines I do have. There's a greater tale progressing.
I don't really have a book number in mind, but I have a
vague concept of where I'm at, and I think I'm sort of at the
one third ish mark. Sort of depends on how many sort of side quests
I decided to get distracted by along the way, or how focused I get
on just like ripping through to the end. But yeah, I have,
you know, a great, big story that's happening so far, mainly in
the background, just sort of like little tidbits, and you know, yeah,
I don't. I don't really know if there's a numerical way to describe
it or how much I can say without giving too much away. Yeah,
we're not expecting any you know, radical spoilers on this podcast, but if
you have any, you know, please day. So let me think I
suppose the advantage of I guess, building up the world like this, I
mean, I suppose even once the main events play out and the characters play
out, you still have that world and in a very kind of Raveny feist
kind of way. Yeah, And you know, part of the problem with
writing something like this is sort of author burnout, trying to make sure that
creatively, I'm not just sunk into just the same story for so long that
I get that I get tired of it, let alone if other people do.
But yeah, you know, there's a lot of a lot of room
to explore that. I've tried to make it as open in a real world
as possible, So if I do want to lean into what Travis Baldry has
built the fantasy cozy, then you know, I'm pretty sure I could find
a small corner of the world to write about Goblin starting a Gelato stand something
that's uh, that's that's gotta right yourself, right, I think goblins in
Gelatto. I don't want. I don't want to make promises on your behalf,
on your behalf. I'm looking forward to that coming out. Eric,
you heard it here first is the Goblatto Chronicle. Surely as soon as you
said that, you were like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's kind
to happen. A friend and I are already writing it. I don't worry
about it. It's in the works, Goblin. But now Goblatto. I
mean, yeahs to be in there somehow, I don't Goblin put it out.
I mean, I love goblins. They're one of my favorite creatures.
Goblins and Cobalts I do love. Yeah, that's a lot you can do
with them. Oh yeah, well just yeah. Trying to tow the line
between the established creature and coming up with all my own stuff is a bit
of a challenge lately. I really do need to put together another board and
the monsters, just to try to keep them all straight. That was one
thing I did approach ye about the world of warcraft Goblins, just giving Goblin's
bust in accents. Fantastic move. So I don't know why I didn't see
it before while I was reading like Lord of the Rings. Just like I'm
tempted to reread it now and it'll just make more sense to me if they
all sound like they've come out of Good Fellas. As soon as it is
and in the public domain, I'm going to hire just a group of Southie
actors just having redo all of them. Okay, So I've than Goblin ice
Cream, I've than this entrenched world you up building. Are you still writing
outside of lit RPG or is this just no turning back for you? Now?
I have a secret project I'm not allowed to talk about that is not
fantasy LITTERRPG, but mostly yeah, mostly all in on lit RPG. I
don't I spend more time thinking about other things that could write that are just
not fantasy LITERPG, but are other stories with LITERGI style style elements. Yeah.
I've spent like the last eight months, nine months just fiddling with this
story that I can't figure out that is a kind of like a rogue Light
that is set in the nineteen eighties some fun. It's a quantum leap style,
so you know, this person jumps into a new body, but then
it's mixed with Groundhog Day, and so every time they die, they're in
the same body starting at the moment they leapt into it for lack of a
better way of describing it, and then they have to like you know,
make the perfect run in order to keep the world from ending, and then
as soon as they do, they're like whitched off to the next body.
That sounds really cool. Actually I haven't been able to. One I don't
have the time to write in my wife says I'm not allowed. And two
I just can't. I can't get the story to work. Yeah, he'll
hear you. I do like the fact that the eighties has become this such
an exaggerated recollection of the era that it is almost like a fantasy world in
itself. Oh yeah, Well, there's just so much pop culture to to
lay on top of there. It's it's easy to use some of those things
as a shorthand because we're all familiar with you know, if I start talking
of you know, the town looks like Hill Valley, or you know,
it's the messy bedroom of Michael J. Fox at the start of that of
back to the Futures, like you already know exactly what I've exactly what it
looks like, and kind of you probably are already guessing what his family life
is just based on the fact that it a similar set up. Yeah,
I guess eighties is kind of a genre now, Yeah, yeah, I
mean I am curious about litz upg again. Bevan his paps, the writer
I've known for the longest on this podcast, And even though he was using
the whole mechanic of well of mechanics back then, I never really can I
was writing in this for five years before I knew little. I don't think
I had a name at the time. I remember somebody to describing it as
a Dungeons and Dragons parody, and I thought that's less correct, But you
know, we didn't we didn't really have the terminology back then. I guess.
Yeah. I mean there's there are a number of books you can look
back to and say, oh, yeah, this, this would have been
LITTERPG had had that classification been there back then. M yeah, I'm genuinely
curious to know if again I write a lot of kind of parody of the
fantasy genre and having those you know, having those accessible tropes available whenever I
want them, and knowing that whoever's reading it will understand it is a very
useful storytelling. Crutch is the wrong word, but I guess like device,
device is a much kind of word. Yeah. Yeah, I'm wondering.
Part of me always thought to including game mechanics might be restrictive, But the
more I read of the genre, the more appear to genre. I wonder
if it opens up, in fact, more opportunities for connecting with readers who
are just as familiar with I guess, the gaming side of fantasy as they
are with the literature side of fantasy. I mean, I would argue that
that I would always say that having more restrictions gives you a greater avenue towards
creativity that just complete and other freedoms where you can kind of get bogged down.
You just don't know what directions take things, and you A lot of
the readers who are getting into LETTERPG are not necessarily readers before they find LETTERPG.
You know, there's a lot of people who think of themselves as gamers,
who are not necessarily finding the time in their lives to be able to
play games and scratch that itch, but find that LITTERPG allows them to do
that. There's a lot of you know, truckers who listened to let TERPG.
I mean, I think that, you know, I wouldn't necessarily see
it as as bridging the gap of fantasy readers finding game of game tropes there
to help them, so much as finding people who might not necessarily be readers,
who are gamers who suddenly can connect to a story because of those elements,
and they, you know, because they understand it and they start to
see or want to see the progression. Yeah, oh that's interesting. I'd
actually never thought a batter lie that I came to D and D way after
reading stuff like Dragon Lens and the riff War stuff, even though all that
I guess spawn from playing D and D. So no, it never occurred
to me to look at like that, but that makes a lot of sense
to you. Well, there's also people who are coming into literapyd from video
games especially. You know, there's a lot of people who who are playing
Skyroom and get to the end of that story but still want to have that
sort of experience of seeing that world or seeing a different world, but come
at it from the point of view of the RPG mechanics that they've learned from
playing RPG video games. And I suppose the mechanics of RPG video games there's
a very straight line between those and early tabletop RPG. Yeah, I would
say it's more like a shaded spectrum that it's you know, that's obviously where
the ideas came from, and then a lot of the times they just get
shifted around in very slight ways until you can't really all the difference, but
you know it's there. Yeah, I always prefer it with as little math
as possible, So I do appreciate yellow games making that more accessible that people
like me who hate math. I want the computer to do the work.
Yeah, that's what they're for. Yeah, AI, back off, do
the math, leave the fun stuff to the rest of us. But that's
a that's a separate podcast. Yeah, AI is fascinating. I am.
I am loving it. That's interesting. Okay, why are you loving it?
Is it because you want the machines to destroy as Eric? Is that
the bomb you're about to drop. I never want to say anything that our
forthcoming robot overlords might take an any negative way, because I love that civil
Yeah, whole hearted smart call. You know, in looking at a lot
of I have long used name generators and sort of you know, the things
that you can find on was it Don John, all sorts of the various
like medieval tavern generator or a lot of the tools for the people have built
for DMS, random tables and stuff. And in a certain way, that's
what I have started to use, like chat GPT for I use it as
a as a as a writing assistant where I'm asking it sort of the questions
that I don't want to try to figure out how to search for. You
know, the other day I needed to name a guard captain. I was
like, okay, well just ask chat DPT what the last captain of the
guards for Sar Nicholas was. It's like great values that name, and anyone
who reads it and knows who that person historically is gets that little dopamine hit
off. Oh that's neat. But for me like that would have actually taken
time for me to research and find out, whereas it was literally just typing
it in for that. Yeah, I think there's a lot of promise.
Um. I've done a few experiments with some apps you, one of which
with the developer of the AI, just so they could watch how I was
using it, and it's it's really interesting how it's working right now. And
the way that I would describe it is is to think of it like the
AI is your kitchen staff in a restaurant. You know. It can't build
the menu, It can't figure out what to make, it can't provide any
of the ingredients, but it can do like the measling plas, and it
can do kind of make some of the sauces, and it can kind of
say, oh this this could taste good with that thing. But ultimately you
still need, you know, the chef to do all the guidance and make
sure everything is done correctly at the end. So for me, it's really
cool to have access to a writing assistant who I can ask all sorts of
all dumb questions too. Yeah, but I'm also not using it to try
to, you know, generate stories or or provide kind of that lemon of
assistance. No, while I'm sure various Shelaton's I do agree with you,
it does seem like as a I guess a research assistant AI is is a
pretty good buddy. Um they can kind of like it can sort of surprise
you and cuts out hours of Wikipedia rabbit holing, which right can be a
times. Think I do have some some decently vat I want to waste times.
I know if I get sucked into one of those. I was like,
I went to go look up the type of wood used in a ship,
and like five hours later, I'm coming out of the hole having figured
out why the P thirty a lightning was the most effect a fighter on the
Pacific, but not the European theater. That's the thing. It's an enriching
experience, but probably not in the direction you want to be enriched. Yeah,
I have so much worthless information now. Yeah. Yeah, there's all
these points in stats you did not intend to build. I think that made
you sound smart. There we go. Continue my research into flight characteristics world
War two fighter planes. Well, you never know when that's going to come
in handy, that's right. I could write the World War te litter pig.
Yeah, there you go. Well, Bevin, I apologize. I
did see someone working out the map the other day of how well an F
sixteen would go up against an adult red dragon and the dragon just has no
chance. Yeah, that's a great thing about modern humans. We do tend
to kill dreams really efficiently. Yeah. If there was magic in the world,
you can be sure we'd find a way to boil it down and put
it in a needle or packet at the end of a warhead. Yeah,
yep, we're both. That's right. I'd probably be the most depressing lit
up or guests. Reversely toppy, Yeah, I've become deaf destroyer of fantasy
welds. Yeah, it makes sense. Just send a tonic bombs through various
portals. Oh, it takes all the joy out of it. That's try.
Okay, speaking, we were speaking of con experiences and Matt Dinhaman never
sleeping. What do you have planned for the year. Do you make a
lot of appearances? They don't. I don't really make any appearances. I
stay in my little hole in Maine for the most part, except, you
know, visiting Cloudy La for a week. Um. I was trying to
get to Dragon column this year and I just couldn't make the dates work.
Just had a baby last summer, so she's still young enough that, you
know, being away for a week is a bit of a challenge. Yeah,
so I don't really thank you man. She's nine months old, somehow
weighs twenty five pounds, which is absolutely absurd in the size of a child.
But she's great and I will continue to blame her for my lack of
productivity. Thanks I have. Mainly it's just writing. I have good Guys
coming out soon that I'm gonna be putting bad Guys out, hopefully in early
June, maybe late June, July, August, September sometime around then.
Um. And then I'm writing a new series for eighthon which I've been describing
as a fuzzy puppet tower climber you could have taken like the rot pim starting
it. I'm sure I did that too. It's about a human who's issachide
into the body of a fuzzy puppet. Wizard is trying to bring life into
inanimate objects, and every time he does, the inanimate object is so you
know, the human inside the enanimate object is so stunned. They don't really
know how to react to what seems to the aim giant Wizard is trying to
talk to them. The Wizard keeps thinking he's failing and throws everything down the
trash shoot, which he's been throwing magical experiments down for the last few hundred
years, and it has created this these floors of arcane refuse, and yeah,
this poor fuzzy puppet has to try to make his way back up to
the top of the tower to see the Wizard to try to get back home.
Finally we have a workable mechanic for understanding the Jim Henson universe. I
was thinking of the origin of Sloppy. Oh yeah, yeah, there was
a wizard's ghost. I'm not familiar with sloppy. You shouldn't be familiar with
sloppy. It's a it's a tangent. We don't want to go on,
right now that sounds that sounds fascinating. Yeah, I mean, I've always
been a Jim Hunson fan. Was my earliest goal in life was to be
a muppeteer, and wow, this is kind of going into that direction without
hopefully without invoking too many trademark disputes. Yeah, I think being a muppeteer
is probably the astronaut of the creative world. It has to be the show,
right, Yeah, I mean I would have loved you know, and
all the things like you know, Labyrinth and Dark Crystal and those sorts of
things with the things that I love the most, even more than the Muppet
Show. But yeah, them up being I mean, being able to even
just being able to actually meet a muppet and a muppeteer. It is now
kind of like my high point in life. Someday it's gonna happen and I
just have to get fames. Not one excellent ambition, a noble ambition.
I would say the book Quest, Noble quest. Eric has been absolute delight
talking to you and lovely. If you're listening to this and you're not curious
about the game lit lit upg series, the Good Guys, the Bad book
Guys, then you have no soul. Go check out immediately if you haven't
done so already. And yeah, we will be following the rest of your
career, hopefully Muppet orientated career with interest. Thank you so much for coming
on the show. Thank you for having me. It's been an absolute delight.
Thanks Eric, thank you, thank you good. I am super excited
about that Muppet book. That's brilliant. Yeah. Speaking of carn appearances,
don't forget to book your tickets for Authors and Dragons can August eleventh to thirteenth
with the usual Authors and Dragons madness, but with special guests such as Matt
dinoman An, actors and more so. Go to www dot Orfice and Dragons
dot com to buy your ticket there or to just hang out. I don't
know what you do with your free time. I'm not your bus again,
Eric, thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next time on Side
Quest. Bye bye bye, all my friends. Authors and Dragons brought to
you under a Creative Commons license, meaning you were 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 in closing themes performed
by the Gore Core four,