All Bars. 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 manager, Gillian Ashley Blair IVY, although if you call me anything
other than Jill, I'm assuming that I'm in trouble with the law. Joining
me? Are our bards? Please introduce yourselves? Hi? Everyone, my
name is Ashley Banks, and I played Belser Damil. I am Ross Carry,
I play Andrew Harrowhold, I'm Bob Kellian, I play Kelonian Stumps.
Hi. Yeah, I'm Anne Coldman and I play Hi. I'm Tae Das
and I play Cretaceo thunder Thigh. So we find ourselves back on the train
in episode seven. Uh. This was another episode that we recorded with Ashley
joining us remotely on zoom with everybody else at the table, which always promotes
some interesting challenges. Ashually, we had combat in this episode. How did
it feel to be away from everybody else and still participating in combat? Honestly,
it was fine. Most of the combat was not involving Bell. Yeah,
yeah, he didn't. You encountered the mimic and you yeah, hoped
up and then we said no thank you. So, so it actually wasn't
that bad. And I think the fact that the party was split kind of
this is going to sound weird, but it made me feel a little better
like there was stuff going on that I wasn't involved in, but also it
was because I wasn't involved in it, right, Yeah, Yeah, I
think it was fine. That that makes sense. And you were you were
out with Kilony and Bob. How is it for you having having everybody else
at the table but you're seen partner being being remote for that for that session.
In terms of the visuals, we're both sort of looking at the same
like plot the same board to see like sort of where we are in this
situation. So I kind of feel like we're pretty similar situation with that,
Yeah, and just communicating back and forth. I mean I don't recall there
being any issue with that. Ashley. You're a very lively person to improve
with, so so that's good. Yeah. So I thought it was fun
and I enjoyed doing like kind of a little pair off where we can go
and do our thing and you know, people can something else is going on
in another car. I think that was kind of fun. Yeah, that
was that was I think one of the things that being on this train kind
of like you know, with the train, the physical space means that it
actually is easier sometimes for everybody to split off. Speaking of folks getting split
off, Ross you as Andrik took Higgins, who we now know if we've
listened to the entirety episode seven, and also if you haven't listened to episode
seven, why are you listening to this? But we know by the end
of episode seven that Higgins, our faux porter, is dead. But before
that happened, Andrick takes Higgins out to talk to the engineers. Ross,
you know, looking back, because we were a little bit distanced from when
we recorded this episode, what made you decide or Andrik decide that, A,
you should go investigate talk to the engineers, and be that you should
take Higgins with you. On the first part, why to go investigate?
There was some backstory stuff about Andreck and where he's from that going out going
to explore weird things is part of his family's job, and he has done
that kind of thing before. He is perfectly comfortable being in a duo specifically
doing that kind of thing. Oh, why Higgins, Because at that time
we didn't know who Higgins was in terms of being an adversary, but we
did know that he was a quote unquote porter, and I figured, you
know, hey, rather than someone barging into the the engine of the train,
that it might be helpful to have someone to explain to the engineers that
what's going on in the back of the train, while also having an investigator,
so to speak. I think you were all pretty suspicious of Higgins already
by this point, though. There's no downside to keeping Higgins in sight,
yes, certainly, or to keeping him away from Gideon specifically. Yeah.
Absolutely. So when you go out, you talked to the engineer who's a
Goblin and his assistan engineer who's a Goliath, and the assistant engineer went out
onto the track to see what the They had seen a shape on the track,
you know, maybe there was a person standing there, maybe not,
we don't know. It was the middle of the night. Went to investigate.
As you're watching, you still see this thing on the track. But
when the assistant engineer gets there, he doesn't see anything. So he comes
back, the train starts moving again, and Higgins goes off heading back.
I think that you probably he probably said he needed to check on the passengers,
or you probably told him to go ahead, knowing that your compatriots were
a couple of cars back. And then you investigated and you found a uniform,
a torn, dirty uniform that had been stashed in a coal cart.
And you also wound up finding you were looking at these barrels that were also
full of water. One of the barrels, instead of sounding or feeling like
there was water in it, you heard a soft thump on the inside of
it when you just the barrel. Correct, What did you think when you
when you heard that, oh, that there was a corpse in there?
And unfortunately you'd already dismissed Higgins, so you just had to start making your
way back to your compatriots. Well, I wouldn't say unfortunately, because here's
the thing. Let's spinning forward and thinking in the moment, like if I
open that thing up and spill it out, and let's say someone else walks
into that car and I am standing over a corpse. Who knows whether I'm
pulling it out shoving it in? What's going on there? Fair well?
And especially because then you also found us some hastily discarded street clothes in some
of the lockers in the break room and so so there's definitely there. There
are definitely things to be suspicious of and things to be wary of in this
situation. While you were doing that, Clarice took out her portable hole uh
in hopes that she could convince Giddy into in it. So an I know
that, like we talked to the beginning of the campaign about everybody getting a
magical item that was either like something that you had from your family or was
a graduation gift or something. I'd love to know how you came across the
portable hole and decided that that was what you wanted your magical item to be.
And then you know from there where the where the thinking was and and
because this is the first time we see it in the in oopshell bards,
so like where where did it come from? And also why did you decide
that this is the appropriate time to use it? Yeah, I mean one
of the things that you told us when we were developing our characters was to
think about what our graduation gift might be. And for Clarice, she was
not attending graduation, She was not interested in graduation. It was not her
priority or her parents. This is a tick the box, get the training
and get the credential and move on. So I knew need to think about
what kind of magical object would be in the house and historically something that her
parents would have had or needed, but not feel like they needed in the
contemporary like in this moment, right, so that it could be a situation
where Clarice basically gifted herself something from the attic. And so I was looking
at what are kind of the unusual or or rare special magical objects that are
small enough to be forgotten when you don't need them, and meaningful enough that
upon encountering it without anybody explaining what it is, you'd be able to say,
that's doing something interesting and odd. I want that. I want to
explore that more. I want to engage with it more. So the idea
was to find a magical object that I didn't have to do any kind of
incantation right, or where there weren't somatic like any any ingredients needed nothing to
trigger right, and where there wasn't a high level of risk of accidentally triggering
it. But there also was a way to investigate it and start to understand
it without necessarily knowing everything about it. And so that that was my starting
point, just like looking for something that could reasonably have been valuable and necessary
enough to keep, but not central to daily functioning or worth always having with
you. And that was not sort of a monkey's fist kind of level of
danger sure, but still could could turn out to be useful depending on circumstance,
and it certainly did. I mean, I don't wanna, I don't
want to spoil anything, but like the idea to use it in this Gideon
moment was for Clarice is a character rather than for me, as like the
person playing her. It's just kind of like a things go in it,
right and they come out of it, So like maybe it's a thing.
Uh And obviously like in the in the train car, like she doesn't know
if it needs to be fully flat, like she she just doesn't know if
it's gonna work. But the high value thing that is also forgettable is a
kind of hard magical object to pin out, so to take a decent amount
of research, and ultimately the reason I landed in the portable hole not just
all of those components that I laid out, but also thinking about what it
is to be from a political family. We move in the shadows right,
We're not interested in during times of great conflict being the ones on the front
lines. Rather, we're strategizing we're behind the scenes. And that to me,
both in terms of building Clarissa's are tiny fig you're like physically, but
also in terms of thinking about like the modus operandi of her parents and know
what she will have learned. Concealment and like evasion felt very important to just
sort of like the family legacy. Yeah, so you take out your port
of a hole in this episode for the first time, and you are trying
to convince here uncle Gideon to climb in the hole and then to make it
look like he's escaped out a window, which there were some shenanigans when it
came to opening the windows. There was a lot of like are these windows
magic? And no, they were just windows. But Jessice Giddeon is getting
into the hole. Higgins reappears, and this is where you already again we're
suspicious to Higgins, but this is where you realize that Higgins truly is a
baddy. Because Higgins sees that Gideon, for all he knows, is about
to get away. He doesn't really know anything about the hole. He just
sees that Gideon is in this hole get about to get away, and Higgins
holds a knife, and then we're an initiative and now we're having our first
our first fight since episode one or episode two. How did you all feel
getting back into into action and this is also Cretatia's first time fighting with all
of you. All right, I'll go sure, yeah, So yeah,
it was It was cool to be in a in a fight words. Yeah,
it was interesting because I mean he's definitely different from the characters that I've
played, you know, just mechanics wise, so uh, definitely turn to
turn trying to think of the right thing to do that would make sense in
character and also would be effective in in in turn based combat was definitely new
for me because there's a lot of things that I would think of, also
just in terms of some of the limits of the mechanics itself, that if
you picture yourself as this particular thing, there's all these things that you'd want
to do that you can't necessarily do in a turn based environment. But it
was fun and I wanted to make sure I injected Cretasio's personality into the fight
to make him do things that he either he would not want to do and
then would like visibly be frustrated about it, you know, having to be
violent and having to use his size to do things. You know, he's
not a pacifist like Colonian, but you know he doesn't like that he has
to be a tough warrior dude despite his training montage. But yeah, it
was. It was fun. I think it was. It was a cool
first look for I mean, I listened to the other episodes a little bit,
but it was a cool first look to see how the other characters kind
of operated in combat. Awesome. How did it feel for everybody else to
be back in combat? Who was everybody who was participating in this encounter?
At least? I still find combat as a bar weird when I'm not playing
a support purely support type of role. It like, this is the challenge
of Oops All Bards is trying to figure out what your actual role in combat
is. Yeah, it's definitely not a traditional You can't go the like sword
and board route that you might or or at least like back up the sword
and board character that you might in a more traditional game. Right right,
as a bar, you're typically trying to debuff the enemies and buff all your
allies, but at some point someone has to get in the mix. For
me, the access point was really just like the relieationship with Gideon. Right.
I think there's ways in which, at different moments I take inspiration for
Clarice from like different animals, just to sort of essentialize her into behaviors because
I haven't played a bard before, and so thinking about animals that are sneaky
like a cat, or thinking about protective mama bear but tiny like it helps
me to sort of create the justification, the build out for how she would
behave within her skill set. And so for me, Clarice is never going
to be She's never going to be a bear. She's not interested in being
strong or particularly you know, intimidating. But the idea that in her worldview
there are lines you don't cross and that's specifically about her people feels very grounded
in why she would have studied what she did in school and why she would
be interested in politics in general. Right, It's about making a difference long
term, protecting people, making lives better. Like, she's interested in policy
and stuff, and so if you think about why somebody goes into public policy,
it is ultimately no matter where they land, it's always about making a
difference, changing the world for the next generation and protecting people, making lives
possible, and soone. And so she believes in Gideon. She believes he
can make a bigger difference for more people. And so even though she certainly
doesn't know what it is to cause harm in a meaningful way, she does
have that like gut level evaluation that protecting him may serve a greater good and
protecting more people, so she can make that tough decision to cause some she
doesn't know harm because her worldview is always about three steps down the line,
the next five plays or six moves in chess, or whatever it is.
So I think also one of the things that was happening here in this encounter
was that Gideon rolled very poorly. Throughout this encounter, there was no point
at which Gideon really managed to do a lot of damage despite being the acting
Secretary of War, despite being a monk, and Critasia was also rolling pretty
poorly. Tage. There were several times where you tried to bite and didn't
really do anything, or you managed to like kind of grapple Higgins, but
like there was no real damage. Yea Ultimately, there was damage done,
and Critasio actually managed to get the first kill of the campaign. Tage,
as the newcomer to the campaign, playing a character who doesn't abhor violence,
but who at least wants to find another path for himself, How did it
feel for you as a player, but also how did it feel for Critasio
to get this first kill? Yeah, I think he, if I remember
correctly, I think he is a little bit grumpy about it. But then
again, also I think we were kind of like, oh no, he's
dead anyway. But yeah, I think that kind of that kind of messed
with him a little bit. I think that I think later in later,
in later interactions, he's gonna be grumpy about it, having you know,
because he also I think he scores the final blow with like a big,
like thunder thigh kick right, like a Spartan kick, not that big.
I think he had three points left. He rolled three points of damage.
Three was like the maximum for a kick I think in the mechanics. But
yeah, with that being particularly like a not a barbaric in the literal sense
of like barbarian class, but that's a big thing for his people, like
the giant legs and the claws and the kicking, and so it was by
finishing a fight, specifically by doing that one thing that is so stereotypical of
his people. Yeah, and that's something definitely to talk about with with Gideon,
who knows him and kind of I don't think he at this point knows
what where Cretatio's struggle is, but you know that that's something that he'd want
to talk about with him and kind of come to terms with his role in
all of this fighting and the war to come. So yeah, I think
I think it's set up some stuff nicely. So speaking of people who are
hesitant to join the fight, Kelodeon took your first damage today. So in
this in this episode, you and Belle ONTs, you evade that mimic in
the dining car, you head into the kitchen and pretty much immediately you find
knives being thrown at you and they hit and they do damage another another person
dresses a porter who is in the kitchen rating reading the kitchen for kitchen knives
that can be used as daggers. How did it feel to just have this
damage done inflicted on you as a character who's a pacifist. Well, in
the world of the game, I'm sure Klonian would not appreciate being hit with
a knife, you know, in the shoulder or wherever we said that it
was. But as both shoulders, yeah, both shoulders. At least it's
symmetrical. But test him will that hurts a little bit. I will try
to understand where you're coming from, right right exactly. He's like, oh,
well, they got a couple of song ideas out of this, like
this experience. Yeah, so I think But as me playing Kelonian, I
like to think that Kelonian would prefer that one of his functions could be to
step in the way of danger as a passive instead of like having it to
be inflicted on others. Now, of course, in the real world,
like you got to deal with the pain of that. So I don't know
how much you would appreciate that, But as me playing him, I could
see that as one of his functions is to do that, and you know,
but yeah, it is difficult. It's difficult to do this, Like
the combat with the pacifism. I thought it would be a nice challenge,
and it is a nice challenge. But I do find myself in these combat
scenarios being like, well I could cast sleep, that's one, which is
what you did. Yeah, right, right, yeah, yeah, And
that's so like I was like, okay, you know, nage're being thrown
at you, you get bonus harmed because of the sneak attack aspect of it
role for initiative, and then you wound up coming up in the initiative first
and you're just like, I cast sleep like and now the initiatives because your
your one adversary is asleep. But I did want to also mention when you
cast sleep this time because you left your guitar in the first class car when
you'd headed out with with bell, so you read a haiku instead of singing
a song like you normally do when you cast sleep. Where did that idea
come from? Well, it came from the uh. I don't want to
say the like player's manual or wherever the description of the turtle is, because
they're in there somewhere there's a haikup and it's like tortal hiku. And I
was like, oh, that's great, I want to do tortal haiku.
So yeah, that's where that's where that came from. And uh and it
was yeah, because exactly like you said, it left the guitar in the
other car, so I had to do something and you know, haiku is
you know, at least fairly easy to throw together. Yes, So after
after he gets knocked unconscious, then Bell ties him up and writes bad guy
on his forehead in Sharpie and we decided, I guess there would be there
We are sharpie's in this world, and there would certainly be Sharpie's in the
kitchen because the chefs need to label all of their their different containers. Ashley,
where did the idea to write bad guy across his forehead come from?
It? It seemed very very on point for Bell. Yeah, I don't
you know, sometimes characters that I played just momentarily possess me and tell me
what needs to be done. And in that moment, Bell was like,
you can't just leave him like that. What if he gets out right?
And and Bell did do a very good job of tying him up, and
we established that this is a skill set that Belle has because of circus arts.
Yes, yes, circus art, yes, but you know it occurred
to Belle that this guy's gonna wake up. That's a fact. And there
are I think I don't remember exactly, but I think like they did try
to like take away anything sharp that could be used as a weapon or to
escape being bad. But like, nothing's guaranteed, and wild things are happening,
and at the end of the day, this person's still dressed up as
a porter, right, So if they get out and they start wandering around
pretending that they're good, like, who knows if they're gonna go see our
friends and pretend that they're an innocent porter, or if they're going to see
some like random passenger and present they're an innocent porter. Well, we need
to stop that. So how do we do that most effectively? You put
a sign on their face and that that way they can't trick anybody into thinking
that they are just part of the staff exactly. And and I think there
was this living moment and I don't know if this was my thought or Bell's
thought, but it was like, if the porter comes out and is like,
these people attacked me, that's gonna be bad. So yeah, so
you just put it on their face and then the best, the most exciting
thing about this choice is that presumably when the porter wakes up, the faux
porter wakes up, if they even escape, they're gonna be so preoccupied with
the whole I just got put to sleep and then tied up situation. They're
not going to be looking in a mirror. I mean, it's it's incredibly
genius. Honestly, Yes, you know, there is. We never established
that there are bathrooms on this train and therefore mirrors. I mean, like
you're the kitchen, there is a bathroom on the train. But we just
we never we never established that it's more of the train to explore dining.
If there's a dining car, doesn't there have to be a bathroom. There's
got to be an ocean like a uh yeah, the equivalent of ocean.
And yeah, I've never considered, you know, the age of in the
age of trains. But then I guess before I don't know when did plumbing
start, there were there would at least have been like latrines by the time
we got to steam seam locomotion in our world. Yeah, right, but
worth exploring. I feel like I feel like somebody has probably read written a
doctorate thesis on this, Ashley. One of the things quarter Potty got it,
Ashley, always here with the punts. One of the things that you
said, Ashley, is that sometimes your characters kind of take over and like
you you start to kind of think like them. I'm wondering if that's true
for for any of the other parts, whether you find that sometimes, whether
these characters are in other RPGs that you're playing, other campaigns that you're involved
in. Is there a very certain point where who you are kind of stops
and who your player is kind of picks up. Just Ashley, just me,
I'm the only one who dissociates. It's fine, don't worry about it.
I mean, it's a hard thing to articulate when I am explaining D
and D. The only time that I really have to differentiate for myself is
when I and get excited about like puzzling something apart and it's not consistent with
my character's ability to know things. That's that Like, that's the piece that
I struggle with as a person and as an actor, Like I get very
excited and gets very excited when she knows things. It's just like my modus
up Randy, my brother calls it and explaining, like I get very excited
when I know things and I want to explain them. It is who I
am. Okay, I own it. It is what it is. So
my one moment when I have to think about this is either if I know
something from a different campaign that to my character is new in this campaign,
or I just like have a good guess, like I've logicked out the p
and yet it's not. We're not ready to be there as a campaign.
So it's a hard question to answer because when I am playing, even if
my character is motivated by completely different things, most of the time I'm not
separating what I want to do from what the character wants to do because there's
a psychology that I've found that I can make sense of and so I follow
it right. And I haven't really played characters. I certainly have played characters
that are very decidedly not me Scisigy, but I haven't really played characters that
I had to struggle to understand. If that makes sense. Yeah, there's
always a sequence that adds up to who they are that makes sense to me.
So I just don't know how to answer it. So the just for
background for our Listenerscisig is a character that Anne plays in a campaign that Ross
runs. It's a We're in It's a Spellchammer campaign, although we've yet to
actually do the Spellchammer part of the campaign and Sissig is an astral elf warlock
who is bonkers and I love them so much, but yes, is very
far from who I know and to be as an actual person. And touched
on something there that I was actually going to throw out to everybody, which
is, and Jill included which is you know, we've kind of in a
lot of these barbecues discussed, you know, the difference of playing an RPG
as a podcast as opposed to just playing the game itself. But what what
she just mentioned that I'm curious about is as performers, what are some choices
that you guys have made kind of in the show that you wouldn't have regularly
made as a performer because you're playing an RPG on a podcast. Kind of
the for some the great question Nate Well, I interview, I interview from
time to time. You do you do it? Do you do some interviews
from time to time? Wow? You should like consider doing this as a
job. I've thought about it. You know, it would be really nice
if someone gave Nate a time slot from say, five to eight pm every
Monday, to you know, play some of his favorite tunes talk a bit.
That would be wonderful. It's literally just to listen. Another excuse to
listen to my own voice is all that is. Yes, listeners, why
not radio? Tune in on Mondays? It's a digital radio channel. You'll
get to hear Nate's dulcet tones as well as all of the music that he
will play for you. But but yes, I think Nate, you're asking
a asking a great question, and I don't want to be the first to
answer it because I probably have a very different perspective on it as GM versus
the players. So Bard's how do you how do you feel about that,
like the decisions that you make in the pod versus home games? So just
yeah, So so the question is what, yeah, what would we do
differently playing our characters because it's being recorded versus you know, just playing or
was it more was it like, like, what would we do because it's
a podcast versus performing generally, like doing an improv show or something like that,
doing an improv show or or just performing in general, because you know,
you you are limited to audio and now you're all audio performers, so
like it's not like you know, you're you're coming out of left field and
not you know, in your own wheelhouse. But but it is a different
kind of muscle to flex when you're kind of trying to, you know,
flesh out a character or flesh out a scene. I'm going to jump in
here and make a random reference. I think we all probably know about the
worst people on the internet who narrate their own actions when they send messages and
they use the asterisks like oh to indicate like the behavior as they say whatever
they're going to say. And that's his hat, milady. Yeah, it's
just like the level of cringe extreme. Hold on, now, hold on,
I mean, I guess we all do it ironically because because no,
this is actually I have a lot of feelings about this, and it is
relevant to to RPGs, which is that this behavior originated in online role playing
forums when like you couldn't easily distinguish between physicality and speech, and so that
became just a shorthand. And that was when I first started in the the
oldie days of neopets dot com, When I first started role playing, that
was the way you did it, and there was nothing cringe about it,
except for insofar as being a twelve year old on neopets and playing role playing
games, nothing cringe about it beyond all of those factors, except since then
some individuals who perhaps consider themselves activists for the rights of the primary power holding
gender, have have co opted it and ruined it for the rest of us
in the same way that they have ruined what was objectively a very good hat
that is all thank you with. Ashley has anticipated where I was going to
go with this, which is that you do have, in like the common
parlance now, a set of additional associations with narrating something that is fundamentally expected
to be a visible action, an observable action. And so what I was
gonna say is that feelings. Well, but this is exactly the point,
right, Like we do have feelings, there is an actual legitimate purpose to
that narration, and I think I certainly had to adapt back to the origins
of that behavior. I had to recognize that if I'm looking at Ashley in
person and we're making meaningful eye contact, it's not a valid form of communication
on a podcast until I narrate it, right. And so that for me
was an adjustment, just like getting over the other associations and recognizing that there
is a skill to narration and benefit to being intentional and thoughtful about naming certain
what would be observable behaviors. It's really funny that you say that, because
now that I'm thinking of about it, especially like I said, all of
you have lived in my head as the editor for quite some time. Is
I would occasionally hear yes, I would occasionally hear and in your voice when
you speak in the third person a hesitation to do so. And now it
all makes sense. I am laughing, but yeah, yeah, it was
a thing I had to overcome. Anybody else Any any thoughts on what you
do differently for improv if you're on stage or if you're just in a home
game versus what you're doing for the POD, I think for me, I
don't know that I would make any different decisions within the game as Andrik.
If I were playing this in a home game versus what we're doing here,
I would asterisk checks notes asterisk. I actually probably would have would have built
very differently in that. You know, when when the concept of Oops All
Bards came about, uh, one of the things that Jill and I talked
about were like, oh, this is going to be like a pop off,
unhinged type of situation. Maybe there needs to be a more rounded,
i'll say, quote unquote straight man type of character. If if we were
doing this now, knowing what I know now, I probably would have built
an even more unhinged character, even as compared to some of the other folks
here, and just gone all in rather than I probably overthought the like,
oh, what is the not mechanical balance but emotional balance of the party?
I would have just gone over the deep end. And you know, who
knows, I still might Andrew it seems like such a normal, well adjusted
person, so and very straight, Yes, Bob, Yeah, I don't
know. I think it's not too different for me from say, doing like
a an improv sketch or something, because I think that's one of the things
I enjoy the most with role playing is being able to, you know,
improvise a little bit with the d M and with the other characters. But
I guess the biggest difference is the game dynamics. So you know, in
some ways the sky is the limit with when you're in a when you're in
a combat situation, but in other ways, you have a list of things
that are possible for you to do, and so you know, I guess
there's sort of become like those are kind of your suggestions, you know,
for your improv situation that you're going to work with in some ways. But
yeah, mostly I think in interaction, I think it is very similar.
You know. I guess there's always the consideration of the like timing. I
guess if it's like if we're in the middle of something, you might be
tempted to, like to go off on a dialogue with a character, but
like, oh wait, yeah, we have to fight this porter right now,
so we got to do that instead of the other things. So yeah,
I think for me as the GM, one of the things that I
do differently than that I would not do as much of when running just a
home game is the voices for all of the NPCs. That is partly because
like I've talked about this with the Mission Rejected folks too, which little plug
for Mission Rejected that most of us are involved with in some way another podcast
it's O our sister Pod or our mother Pod, even on the Portroom network.
But I do, I do voices, but not really accents, and
that I have a couple of accents in my portfolio, but like that kind
of limits me in terms of how many, how many times, how many
voices I actually have before I start to repeat them. And then when we
all have an episode where there will be five NPCs, like when we had
all of the professors from Majian Marshall, keeping them straight not just within an
episode, but from episode to episode is exhausting. And I'm sure I'm positive
that there's going to be somebody who when the season is done, listens to
oops All Bards from episode one to episode twelve, I think is where we're
going to land, and they're going to catch that my accents or my voices
are not consistent between episodes for one of our characters, whereas like when it's
a home game whatever, you just like you can talk as yourself or or
come up with an accent, but nobody at the table really is going to
hold you accountable to it. I think that also the notion of trying to
trying to do that because this is an audio medium, because I don't want
everybody to just think like this is just Jill talking for too long. You
know, when you're watching when you're watching a movie and you see like George
Clooney, like George Clooney looks like George Clooney and everything that George Clooney has
ever made, and he generally sounds like George Clooney and everything that he has
ever made. But because of the context of the costumes and the other characters
in the plot and everything else, we can say like, this is George
Clooney in this movie versus this other movie. And it's harder to do that
in an audio medium because you don't have all the other visual cues, so
you have to you have to do what you can with your voice, and
that gets to be really challenging and sometimes very tedious. Season two oopsal bar
is fewer NPCs, I think is going there? So just to move on,
because I want to be conscious of our time here. After we get
this kill from Higgins, and we have the scene in the kitchen car where
we have have Bell and Kelonian and the now unconscious porter. Andrew and Clarice
go to find Bell and Keilonian and you walk into the dining car and you
discover this mimic that you did not know was there because Bell and Keilonian never
actually bothered to communicate that back to you, and you, how dare you,
I think? Actually I think, well, I think that you had
tried to do it through a spell, but because of the metal of the
train, you actually couldn't get the spell through. I think that's what had
happened in the last episode or at the beginning of this episode. I think
true. Yes, I'm at least I'm gonna I'm gonna be very generous with
that. But so now we have Andrik and Clarice who do fight the mimic,
which also you know that is that is the first time really that Clarice
takes any signal and and does take quite a bit of damage from the mimic.
Mimics are a really classic D and D battie. And we can talk
at length about classic D and D batties, and like little pause here above
table, we have we recorded a bonus episode at our last recording where we're
going to talk about more of that, so we don't have to get into
like the mimics in general, but just to get this question out. So
like we've encountered now this kind of classical D and D monster, Anarkin glorious
ross and and how did you feel about fighting a sentient table? I loved
it. Mimics are one of my favorite monsters in the game, especially when
it's not just a chest. But but you know, I've I've used a
mimic that was a ceiling that melted down. I have seen mimics that are
chairs that are doors. Like mimic is so much fun because it plays on
the suspicions of players who are suspicious of everything, which I think both Anne
and I are, And when you can get us to be like, oh,
your suspicions are valid, it really like ups the ante of this,
Really everything is an enemy, and that creates an interesting role play opportunity within
the combat. Yeah. I suckond everything Ross said. I as a person
am not suspicious nearly enough. But as a player of D and D and
as an English teacher, I refuse to not investigate. I refuse to not
read into things. If there are tables, I assume they're there for a
reason, just in terms of the mechanics of storytelling. Right Yeah, so
uh yeah, yeah, I seckon everything Ross said. It's please this.
This may also have something to do with why you have trouble separating your player
from yourself when puzzles are put in front of you. Yeah, yeah,
it's exactly. It's that I see everything as an opportunity to gather information,
and I guess the only thing I can add is really, I think this
is Tenate's question about what was that neats question. I'm already forgetting what we've
already talked about today to the question of the difference between the character and the
self. I as a person, UH don't delight in being suspicious of things,
but the character Clarice that justifies her whole worldview. Trust nothing, trust
no one. Yes, of course, the table is going to try to
kill you. I think the table is going to try to kill you.
Is an excellent note to end this episode on us. So thank you all
for joining us. Thank you audience for listening to this episode of the Barbecue.
Tune in in about two weeks for the next installment of Moveself Cards and
two weeks after that where we'll talk about that installment of Oops All Bards.
As always, I have been your host and game master, Gillian Ashley Blair
Ivy and on behalf of my producer Nate and everybody else in the cast.
Thank you for joining us, and we'll see you soon. Oops All Bards
is created, GMed, and directed by Gillian Ashley Blair Ivy. This episode
was produced, edited, and sound designed by Nate Runkle. Oops All Bards
stars Ashley Banks as Bells Cernamio and Coleman as Clarice Sauerkloud, Ross Curry as
Andrew Harrow, 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 and YouTube at
oops all Bards. We'll see you next time. How'll let go? Well,
we're sure you can guess. Oops All Bars oh one another quality podcast
from the port Room