It's alms. Oh. 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, Jillian Ashley Blair Ivy, although if you refer
to me as anything by Jill, I'm assuming that I have jury duty with
me. Are our bards? Please introduce yourselves. Hi, everyone, my
name is Ashley Banks, and I played Bell sternammele Hi, I'm Ross Scary,
I play Andrew Carrolhold. Hello, it's Bob Killian, I play Keelney
and Stumps. Hi. Yeah, it's Aunt and I play Larice claud.
Hey, it's Tage and I play Cretaceio thunder Thigh. Hey, it's me.
It's Nate. People hear me talk enough, but Hi, I'm Nate
bruncle and I produce this and you hear me every once in a while say
dumb things on this microphone. So Bard's episode eight very exciting. Still on
the train this episode. We actually we recorded a couple of episodes at the
same time, but we recorded this one fully remote. And the reason we
did this fully remote was because in our last recording session Ashley was sick and
Ashley joined us by Zoom and everybody else sat at the table, and that
became challenging for many reasons, and so this time around, it was Ann's
turn to be sick, and so we decided, rather than try to make
it work a second time, we were all going to hop on Zoom and
Nate, I actually want to start with you. We had to do this
last minute scramble. I ordered Anna microphone at Target that she had to go
pick up. We got everybody online and everything worked. From your perspective,
though, like, what is the difference now that we've done everybody together.
We've done everybody together except for one person on Zoom, and we've done everything
on Zoom. Like what are the pluses and minuses or what are the challenges
or the benefits and boons that you're seeing while we're going through these different recording
formats. I think one of the benefits of doing it this way is that
because everybody's recording locally their own audio, we can now cut out any kind
of distracting noise or anything, so any edit is possible essentially, whereas you
know, we are sometimes when we're all in the same room limited because you
know, someone you know drops something while someone else is speaking, and we
can't edit it out right exactly. Yes, for listeners who are always curious
what the phantom tone is that it comes through every once in a while.
It's usually somebody bumped their their boom mic and the spring goes boom and and
you know, I, for the most part, I try to edit it
out, but if someone's in the middle of, you know, a key
piece of information, I can't cut around it, so you'll still kind of
hear it in the background. Whereas with this, you know, I can
everybody and just focus. I mean, like this is like I can frank
and sign all this together. I can move people's people's entire conversations around and
stuff like that. But the challenge, as I'm sure everyone has learned,
well maybe not everybody, and I don't know. I don't want to presume
that all of the listeners went through a global pandemic like I did. But
I went through a global pandemic a few years ago, and I had to
use zoom a lot. And one of the challenges is you don't kind you
don't get the same kind of flow in a conversation as you do anywhere else
because you you know, especially now that we all know how Zoom works.
You know, early on it was a lot of overtalk and you couldn't hear
anybody and nobody comes through. But now it's like everybody's just waiting for someone
to talk and afraid to talk, right. And you know, I'm somebody
who hosts a podcast and I do all of my interviews over Zoom. So
like I've I've got it down to a science of how to sit back when
I need to sit back. And also like silence isn't a bad thing.
You can take that moment to kind of you know, let things recollect,
and then the editor goes and takes care of it, which in this case
is me. But for the most part, Zoom takes a lot of the
kind of personality out of a conversation. So it's a challenge. It's definitely
a challenge, but from an editing standpoint, oh my god, it's the
best. I definitely noticed when listening back to this recording, because you and
I, you and I listened back to these recordings several times listening back to
this recording that it didn't seem quite as lively because we didn't have there wasn't
the energy at the table people were largely on mute, so we weren't getting
a lot of laughter, a lot of interaction, sidebar conversations, that sort
of thing. So I agree with you. It's definitely easier for me to
be able to leave you a note be like, hey, cut this part
out where like Ross talked over Ashley or Ashley talked over Ross. Sorry,
guys, not to believe you. That's just often the ones who are your
the back of table energy that we've talked about before. Not to pick on
you, but you well, at the very least it's it's usually my husband.
So but yeah, like it's it's a lot easier to make that sort
of edit, but it is. We we definitely miss out on something by
recording it in this We're not like we're not recording totally dry in a studio,
but it is a drier style of recording that we're doing. And I
just observe briefly. Yeah, Like you're using the word easier, both of
you, and you're insane, Like there's no version of edit. Like I
understand that you are trying to put things in relative terms, but like,
yes, the notion of easy is like in my world, does teacher world.
Being a lower school pe teacher, you don't need to really lesson plan.
You can just bring the parachute out when you don't want to think,
right when we're talking about the amount of editing that goes into listening to everybody's
individual track and then figuring out which moments need to come from which of the
two recorded versions of it, and then parsing out silence and how long to
leave it. When people are like, you're you're describing an insane amount of
work. I hope you document it just pro posterity. Maybe I will,
Maybe I will, I'd sell you. Maybe it was a little behind the
scenes, Maybe there's maybe there's a barbecue which is just me cursing all of
you for two and a half weeks. No, but but I when I
say easy, it's it's comparatively because I'm like trying to cut around things like
including like weird like like sometimes breath like inhales get picked up on multiple mics
and like that's like so like even if I'm trying to match the edit,
and I can match the edit on your recording, I still have this issue
of the bleedover from the person who was sitting next to you. So so
it is easy er. I guess I should, I should I should be
using the the er signifier there. I think we both said easy. Err
yeah, yeah, I might have said easy. But again it's it's completely
comparatively. Yeah, I know this is inside baseball, but like I just
even as we're recording this particular barbecue, I am having the experience of seeing
my own inhales recorded and having that little tacit meter like nearly max out when
I breathe too deeply. Oh Nate, Oh Nate, I'm so sorry.
Well, here's the thing, though, you also play a character where that's
part of the personality, so it's easy to just leave it in a lot
of times. So really, and it's harder when we do the barbecue episodes.
Me. Yes, But and while we're while we're talking about you and
your voice, you didn't have much of one when we did this run of
episodes, and I you know, so, so we've already seen like Clarisa's
kind of standard vocal fry, which you say right off the bat in episode
one is an affectation, but it's the affectation that everybody knows, like that's
your your daily voice basically, and then you have your unaffected voice, which
we got to see in I think episode three or four when we were uh
in our zone of truth and now we got Anne can't do Clarice's normal voice,
so An it's going to be a kind of rough around the edges city
cop for these episodes, which worked really well on the train. So just
talk to us a little bit about like understanding that there were actual physical limitations
for you, Like how did how did that happen? Yeah, I mean
it was like two minutes before the call on it, and I just started
trying to warm up vocally to just get into that like sound. And I
don't know if we're gonna have to edit this out for just like a gross
out factor. So like listeners, you may need to skip ahead Nate in
certain amount of time here. But I literally like the amount of mucus I
was producing that was getting moved as I tried to make that vocal fry.
I could hear like wet sounds of moving mucus in a way that made me
uncomfortable without a microphone, Like it was. It was a lot of mouth
noise in ways that like the throat shouldn't make. Yeah, I'm trying to
keep it. I mean, I'm feeling you I have a trigger warning.
I'm sorry, but yeah, it was. I tried to do it and
instead of or whatever my sound is, like, it just it wouldn't happen.
It was either wet kind of sicky mouth noise but coming from the deep
throat of displacement, which is just really unsettling, or it was my normal
voice, or go in a new direction and given Clarice as a character is
like, we'll see what the scenario brings up. She's a chameleon. That's
what she cares about. Is just like controlling the situation to play to her
terms. So let her be a chameleon as the guy forced to listen to
all of this with over your headphones since that are sound canceling so that all
I can hear is these sounds. God bless you for making that decision.
I'm glad it wasn't torture for unique, because it really like it was not
going to be pretty if I tried, and I don't think it would have
ultimately served the play of the character as much to try to adhere to a
voice in that sick form, I date to open doors for me right to
be able to switch her that fluidly like episode to episode, right, but
to just switch her into a fully new vocal placement and approach, I think
is a thing that drew out more about her as a character. Probably look
like you wanted to say something no I was just jokingly going to say,
and you described that as like what this like wet, sticky mouth noise.
I was like, Oh, great, that's the title of the episode.
Let's call it that. You know, we we've not been giving names to
the Bardbeque episodes, but maybe maybe we'll need to start doing that when we
do these when we pick up for season two. So we get we get
Clarice the cop here, and I would I would just like to note for
our listeners that that does not necessarily mean that we, the cast and creators
of itself Buards are pro cop. This is just all Clarisa are bastards.
This is just an archetype that worked in the setting and worked with what out
with what as limitations were, but also worked for the setting. Because we're
we were kind of in a caper at this point, so we we have
a lot. You know, we touched in the last barbecue about the problem
doing too many NPCs, and then here I've got you guys on a train
where there are lots of NPCs for you to speak with, and the kind
of first group of NPCs that you encounter are a pair of Kenku who traditionally
Kenku cannot actually speak. They can only mimic other sounds that they've heard,
and the rules on that have changed over the last couple of years. I
have a ken coup Bard that I play in a different campaign, and when
we rolled up that character, ken Kuk could not speak, they could only
mimic, and at some point that change and it was like, well,
I'm not changing the way that I play this character, and I love that
limitation for ken Ku, so I kept it as far as we were doing
here, even though and again I am so sorry listeners because I had to
sing. I didn't have to sing, but I did sing a line of
four non blongs what's up for you? In that session. I see Ross
Win saying this is one of Ross's least favorite songs. I happen to really
love this song. But all of which is to say, there are certain
limitations that are built into T D and D like the way that you build
your characters. The way that the spouse works, the way that the weaponry
works. And here we also have the limitations of the physical space. I
see Bob in the comment saying, shame on you, Ross, it's a
great song. I agree, Bob, thank you. But also if we
get copyrighted by them for just mentioning that or like trying to sing it,
how funny will Bendica should be? We're not. We're not going to.
This definitely falls into fair use. I will say YouTube might put a copyright
tag on it. That is just you can't monetize it. They are really
sometimes well if we can't monetize this one episode, I think we'll be We'll
be okay. Yeah, but yeah, So so what I was what I
was trying to ask is you know we have we have all these limitations in
D and D in terms of how you can build your character and how spells
work and whether you can stack different boons that you get throughout the game,
and here we also have the limitation like the physical limitation of the train,
which we started a couple of episodes and continues through this one. How did
it feel to all of you to be in a playing space where, like,
you know, your ability to walk down the aisle might be impeded by
one of your fellow players, and your ability to move between rooms might Like
there there's a potential that you're rooms between cars, there's potential that you could
take damage between them. How are these how are these limits working for you?
I didn't mind them one bit going into the I think we talked about
this a few episodes ago on Barbecue. Going into this, I was so
excited that the train is a classic trope, and it's a classic trope for
a reason because you get a fairly confined space, kind of like a haunted
house type of situation, where there are designated subspaces that can each have their
own personality because there's going to be a dining car, a lounge car,
a passenger car, a freight car, a luggage car. So but you
are still confined by the overall structure of the train. It's not just an
open setup. So those little mechanical things like squeezing past aisles, that was,
frankly, I didn't think about them. I was just like, Oh,
what's the next car. It's the kitchen car. Great, Yeah,
I thought I thought of it like a game of clue. Yeah, I
just would second that, And for me, it's also that creativity is in
your response constraints, right, like I think you, just as like people
who do storage solutions for like tiny homes or sailboats, have to be much
more creative in their way of rethinking and resetting, And just like engaging with
limitations, I find as a as a player that the more ways you constrain
me, the more interesting the choice ends up being, at least for me,
but to go outside even of our particular game, But thinking about tabletop
role playing games in general, you know, there's a lot of talk about
and appropriate to talk about when we're doing the train episode, but railroad versus
sandbox and the and railroad is not it's used disparagingly. There's a whole debate
to be had about that. But even a sandbox has borders around it.
Yeah, and that that's and you still need to play within those borders.
You can do whatever you want, but there are still borders. It's not
a desert, it's a sandbox. Yes, And I hope that I presented
you with a sandbox that just happened to be on a railroad, rather than
railroading you into certain things that you were going to have to do or not
well done? Yes, thank you, I try so. Yeah, so
we you know, we meet then the canker ultimately useless, and then you
use bought some merchants and Bell spots the first and this is like, what
one of the first times that we really see you all interacting with people from
the outside world, Like most of the people that you've interacted with, the
NPCs you've interacted with so far have been either professors or like government officials.
And now we get to see how the outside world understands all of you,
and we realize that Belle is a little bit of a basically a Kardashian like
Bell's a little bit of a celebrity in the way that she is spotted and
recognized without necessarily being famous for a specific thing other than coming from a specific
family. Ashley, we talked a lot about when you built Bell and like
the power that her family has. How did it feel to be out,
you know, to be we talked in the last barbecue about how you kind
of get lost in your characters sometimes, so like, how did it feel,
as Belle to suddenly be in the position where you are recognized out in
the world. Yeah, I think, so it's funny you should mention like
the like me being in the character, because that is a moment where like
me, Belle and my experiences are very very different. Right, So I
had to play as somebody who not only gets this attention but is used to
it and also returns it in kind, and just like has you know,
I think she's a fun foil to Clarice, where both of their families are
very powerful, but Clarice is coming from a background of working in the shadows,
whereas Bell's family is coming from a sort of standing in the spotlight position,
and that's not something that I'm frequently in. Turns out, I don't
have people asking me for my autograph on the streets, don't you know?
Come out? Well, I know we are an audio only medium. Yes,
I think it's a grave mistake on most people's parts, but it is
true nonetheless. And so just like having that sort of like easy likability was
tricky for me because like I knew I needed to be really likable, but
how do you play really likable in a way that comes across as genuine m
hm? So I found myself really struggling with that. Well, I think
that your your fans on board were more than happy to with the way that
you handled that attention, and hopefully our fans listening at home will also give
me grace. So also on the train car we had we had Kelonian trying
to calm everybody, all of these passengers who the train had stopped abruptly.
Now the train was moving again. There's been no announcements, no broadcasts,
nobody knows what the hell is going on, and cretatio not critasio. Keilonian
is a he's not a college of eloquence parts, so normally, like the
inspiring speeches are not really his thing. But Bob, you rolled really high.
You gave an inspiring speech, and you also managed to ask people like
if they see any porters, to not trust them and to let you know.
How did it feel to be in this position where you were also interacting
with people outside of the zones that we'd already established in the last several episodes.
Yeah, Kilonian's charisma is pretty high. I think I've mentioned before that
I wasn't playing that very well. I feel like at first I was easing
into that. But yeah, I don't think that Keilonian is trying to make
an inspiring speech so much as he is trying to put people at ease,
and I think that that's something that's more his motivation and that was sort of
an opportunity to do that. And I'm glad that we were able to use
is Kilonian's charisma in this situation because that's exactly how he wants to solve conflicts,
is making everybody feel better and you know, addressing everyone's concerns and trying
to find the non violent solution. Yeah, and you did. I'd like
to cut over to we had a little heart to heart moment between Cretasio and
Gideon. So, you know, when when the rest of the party left
to kind of continue exploring the train, it was decided that Critasio and Gideon
Creatasha would stay back basically to protect Gideon. Angel also stayed back with the
two of you for her own safety. And then you have this heart to
heart with Gideon where you talk about how you know you're you're heading back to
see your family to basically do the one thing that you never wanted to do,
which is to join them, to join the fight. And Gideon acknowledges
that you were never particularly a fighter. How did it feel have having a
heart to heart conversation along those lines in the context of a game. Yeah,
it was interesting. We've played a few. I think this is maybe
only my third D and D experience really ever, and so yeah, they've
been interesting and they have had depth, but they're definitely I don't think they
definitely never got to a point where we both had to kind of inhabit a
character enough to have an emotional discussion on the background that we had that we
had worked on together. So it was, it was interesting, It was
it was nice because you know, it is generally a kind of whimsical comedy
podcast, but it was it was good to kind of see to get to
put that lore to work that we had written out. And I you know,
there's a lot of a lot of tropes in media that I'm tired of.
But one thing that I will always be a sucker for is when comedy
shows take a brief a brief break from the jokes and they have usually something
sad or something emotionally heavy, like I love that. I absolutely love that
stuff, like the the Fresh Prince of bell Are like, how come my
dad don't want me? Man? Like that's I love that kind of thing.
So yes, I am old enough to know what that is. Ras
was that just still on the air when you were born? I think it
was, Yeah, you were two, I think yeah. I think it
had reruns on Nick at Night for like two decades. But even more than
yeah, you like, when I was a kid, was like The Brady
Bunch and I dream of Genie. So when when exactly is your birthday?
September of nineteen ninety six, September tenth. Okay, was not alive when
The Fresh Prince ended? Oh really, Okay, I did not know that
episode was made. Oh wowd just barely missed it. I had my bot
mitz felt like two weeks before you were born. I had a police record
by the time you were born, sir, Like, that's gonna be a
separate barbecue episode. Half choo. Yeah. Anyway, So, just to
go back, you were talking about like the very special episode sort of of
uh that that moment of drama or seriousness or sincerity within the context of comedy.
I'm curious whether any of the other players have ever had a moment where
they've had like what felt like a true moment of emotional connection or or like
a very real sort of interaction within the context of a D and D game
or another RPG. Yeah, I can jump in and just say it's not
necessary with the same kind of profound mood shift that at that page is describing
when he talks about either cretaceous conversation here or one of those like iconic sitcom
moments. But I can certainly say just within the cast of characters who are
present in this room, Ross and I have had a chance to really engage
in extended character development in other campaigns where even if it's not like a single
sustained moment of connection, the opportunities to grow and grow a connection can make
for some pretty cool sandbox moments. Yeah, and I think it can also,
you know, in giving and giving a character kind of an emotional arc,
you know, something that they have to resolve by the end of whatever
season or series. It can often like tea up a really good joke,
so you know, I think we may or may not have that payoff later.
But yeah, that kind of grumpiness that Cretatio has, and you kind
of see why it is so that when he finally decides later on in the
series to lean into something or to embrace people, and he can he can
say a really silly, a silly way about it, like and these are
my friends, Like, yeah, I think it can tee up a really
a really good moment because it'll be funny but also cathartic. All of us,
most of us know each other from doing Shakespeare together. That's not how
I know Ross obviously, and then Ross and I actually know Nate from from
other parts of our life. But but the bulk of us have done Shakespeare
together. And the thing about Shakespeare that you know is it holds true in
drama today is that you can't have comedy without drama, and you can't have
the drama without comedy, Like you can't have Macbeth with that that porter scene.
Shout out to Tay, she played the porter when and directed Macbeth.
And you also shout out to Anne for knowing exactly what to do where to
place me shout out and shout out to you for not missing that one performance
almost missed. We allowed to even talk about this. Does Tage's family know
he was in the play. My family does not know about this podcast.
Don't worry. I really in this about how like my relationship with my mother
is tainted by her not supporting the arts, Like I we have not had
this conversation. Yeah, we havens. She's a little bit on biographical I
think a little bit so so yeah, like you you know, we have
that you have that Porter scene because when you have those really serious moments,
you need something to break that seriousness for for your audience. And then all
of the comedies also have a moment where a son will get banished by his
father for not doing the that his father wants him to do, or two
lovers will get into a spat that threatens the foundation of their relationship, or
two friends will become separated. And so having this these moments of serious of
sincerity within a comedy podcast like Oops All Bards, I feel like has a
tremendous payoff, and I hope that we're going to get to see a little
bit more of that, some moments of emotional connection that some of the other
players will get to experience as we work towards the finale. Bards, any
questions, comments, observations, any predictions that you'd like to indulge before we
sign off on this episode. I was just going to append to the like
Shakespeare thing. If that doesn't resonate. There's also this idea from ancient grace
and stuff that, like tragedy is about somebody who you think is better than
you in some way falling to their demise. Right in comedy is somebody who
you think is pretty low or like weak in some way actually surmounting their circumstances
in delightful, unexpected ways. And I do think that like within comedy,
those moments of like emotional meaningful thinking and interesting or relatable psychology, those moments
of greater depth are a part of that vindication of the comic butt of the
joke. And I'll add that the nature of the game as a collaborative game
is one where you got to support each other, and so it presents a
lot of nice opportunities to be good to one another. And I think it
has those sort of sweet moments that you mentioned sometimesange even if it's silly,
where you got to support the fellow players because it's a collaborative game. Yeah,
I've seen people like work out interpersonal shit like while they're playing their RPG,
like their characters have worked out something that has helped with whatever is going
on away from the table, also kind of kind of progress. So there's
there's something that is you know, supporting each other as game players can also
lead to better outcomes otherwise. Not only is that true, but literally my
group Therapy did a D and D one shot so amazing, bam, I
was going to say. And then sometimes you realize in the middle of a
scene that you accidentally dumped your own trauma into your character. Yes. I
think we've all done that too, trauma Ate, Yes, Nate. Yeah.
One last thing is I just want to give a shout out to my
college pal Heather, who has been commenting on all of our posts and listening
to the show and following along, and I just want to say I'm glad
she stuck along watching the show because I don't know if the other bar happened
to see this, but in Ruckus's farewell episode, she was like, if
Rucus doesn't come back, I'm leaving, and I was like, oh,
bad news. Yeah. That's the difference between just playing a playing a home
game and playing for the podcast is that not only do we have to be
mindful of each other's our relationships with each other as players and as characters,
but we have to be mindful of the relationships that our listeners are forming with
our characters. So there's a there's a whole other layer to that too,
But thanks Heather, Yes, yes, I'm glad. I'm glad you.
Thanks Heather for sticking with us. All Right, we're gonna go ahead and
call it there. Join us in two weeks for episode nine of oopsal Bards,
and then two weeks after that roughly, you know, sometimes we can
be a little bit a little bit behind on these releases, but roughly two
weeks after that we'll have our next barbecue or we'll pick apart episode nine.
As always, I am your host and game master, Jillian Ashley Blair Ivy,
joined by the entire cast of Oops All Bards this time around, which
is so thrilling. Thank you all for listening, and we'll see you soon.
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 Bellsernamio and Coleman as Clarice Sauercloud,
Ross Curry as Andrew Carroll, hold Tage, Sinha Das 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.
I'm on YouTube at Oops all Barns. We'll see you next time.
Oops It's all bars. Oh another quality podcast from the port Room. So
like time check because we're past nine o'clock and I want to let everybody go
and I need food in my belly. Baby needs. Yeah, I had
dropped off because I was putting our food in the oven. Well, I
appreciate that. Thank you already did that, And that's why we're in the
predicament. We're in ross. Stop putting things then Ross. What Jill doesn't
know. What Jill doesn't know is that I've actually hired Nate to come to
the hospital with us and live past our labor and Jill's labor. I didn't
get the remote equipment for nothing,