A Geek History of Time - Episode 117 - Diversity and Dragons with Teo Morgan Part II

Episode Date: July 24, 2021

So first thing foremost, I think being the addition of pant leggings is really when you start to see your heroes get watered down. The ability to go straight man, that one. Which is a good argument for absolute girls. Everybody is going to get behind me though, and I support numbers to go through. When you hang out with the hero, it doesn't go well for you. Grandfather took the cob and just slid it right through the bar. Oh, God. Okay.

And that became the dominant way our family did it. Okay. And so, both of my marriages, they were treated to that. Okay, wait, hold on. Yeah, rage, I could. How do you imagine the rubber chicken? My grandmother actually vacuumed in her pearls. Oh my god, you always had to sexual revolution.

It might have just been a Canadian standoff. We're gonna go back to 9-11. Oh, you gotta get over it. And I understand that the birds are still on the boat. Agra has no business being that thick. With the cultists, we're in real weak. This is a geek history of time. We're with you next.

We're the YouTube real world. And it's Ed Blalock, a world history and English teacher here in Florida, California. About to embark on a new job, a new site, won't have to commute more than 50 miles each way. Very excited about that, but you all already knew that because this is like the third time I've pointed that out and been getting my episode. Who are you?

Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a Latin teacher who is about to embark on a new job in a new subject at the same site. But, which is the new subject? Teaching drama. Whoa! I know. Everybody says, too.

They all say, really? Well, yeah. Oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense. Yeah. You've not already been doing that. Yeah, it's a lot of that. But, yeah, but that's kind of what I'm doing, and that's going to be the same commute.

But I am rapidly transferring things from one room to the other. And I have books that are 60 years old. No shit. Well, and those are just the history books. The Latin books I have are over 100 years old, which, I'll get to keep those. Like the physical books.

Yes, yeah, I have a lesson book from 1894. I have a book that I teach myths out of from my level 3 is from 1925. And what's most chagrinning to me is that it won't be a hundred years old by the time I teach it for the last time. Oh, that sucks. It's a kick in the ass. Yeah, but I will say that is the advantage to teaching a dead language. Yes, yes, you get old books. Yeah, it's cool. It smells like grandparents without the emotional abuse

or butterscotch. And it sucks. And you all hear this melodious baritone voice in the microphone with us. You might remember him from last week's episode. But just in case you don't, I'll do a little bit of intro. We're sitting here tonight with our guest, Teo Morgan, who is a huge goddamn nerd. But we're gonna see how he's monetized that this time, because life is a hustle.

Teo, tell us about yourself. What do you do? Who are you? How do you do? Yeah, I am Teo Morgan, that's T-O-M-O-R-G-A-N, and I am the host of a role-playing game slash comedy show called Diversity and Dragons, and I've very poorly monetized it. Mostly I don't money into it, like in the form of promoting it, in the form of trying to get just yet enough, so I can give, you know, my other, you know my cast members a little bit a uh a compensation because they're all brilliant and I just feel fortunate that they're on stage with me and uh art supplies because I draw maps you know by hand or for the thing I had to build the thing that holds the it's it's you know and then I have

a costume that I that I piecemeal I think I just spent $20 to get another piece for it. Okay. But yeah, I'm really bad at the monetization. On that, what I'm hoping is that you build it and then it will come. You know, like I did, I know like that. That's the reason. You build a critical mass.

You throw enough money into the center of it and like you wind up reaching, you know, a chain reaction level where it starts generating power. Yeah, but I'm basically almost breaking even at this point. No, I'm just kidding. Almost. You get that. Yeah, I remember I did the same thing with my pun show

because I bankrolled it because I had, what do you call it, steady income. And so I bought, you know, I bought it. So every show, I made sure we paid people, but also I was paying myself a little bit, a little bit. And then once our business manager came on board within three months of that, I was completely paid back for my investment. Well, everything since then has been profit.

So can I get Emily's number? Oh, absolutely. 100%. So, okay, last time, oh, absolutely. 100%. So, okay, last time, oh, and by the way, for those of you who are doing heads, we will be back next week with Dune, but we wanted to make sure that we squeezed out both of these episodes because on July 29, Theo has a show starting at 8 p.m. at Comedy Spot in Sacramento. That's right.

Where can they get tickets? If you go to bigblackdice.com, it'll shoot you over to Comedy Spot's website and you can buy tickets right there. There are $8. I think right now. That's great. That's very cool. Good money.

I think they're gonna be $8. Tomorrow and the next day too. I don't know how I say it right now. Like you know that. Well, they've got a little less than a week as of this recording. Yeah, yeah. But, all right, so last time we were talking and we circled around to some really

interesting stuff about the worlds that you were liking and then you were kind of getting to something that both Ed and I are very interested in but kind of can only approach as outsiders but kind of can only approach as outsiders. And it's because the game was literally built for us as two white dudes. Yeah. And built with the, you know, so much, so much in our culture is built with the assumption that the default is white guy.

I didn't realize that D&D is basically like Fubu for white before us bias. Oh, you get for white people. Yeah, yeah. They get for Wife people. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like that does, yeah. It tracks, sadly. But like, I remember hearing, I don't think I came up with this, but I have since used

it to explain things. Going through life while white is like playing on tutorial mode and being told that it's veteran mode. Uh, well, I wouldn't know that. Right. I don't know. Is it that awesome? Like, it's, I know it's not that awesome for poor white people.

Right. It's, it's, it's so pretty okay. Yeah. I think you're just better off than other economically privileged people. Yes. But really economic privilege is probably the best. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, yeah. Yeah. That's going through cheat codes. Yeah, so yeah, we're so happy. Oh, I like this. There's a couple levels of privilege, okay. What is attractiveness privilege? Yeah. What's attractiveness privilege?

I wouldn't know. Good question. Because that's another one. Oh, yeah, that's what it is. I mean, I'm niche in all the way. Yeah, so it just happens to be a big alcove for that last niche. And just to give credit for that quote, the original line, John Scalzin, the science fiction author, is the one who said white privileges like going through life on easy mode.

Oh, really? Okay. And then from there, it's been, it's been that, you know, and coral areas. Right. Too many of you think that like you're playing on veteran and you're not. Right. Right. Well, my favorite quote about white privilege is, and one I can give fully behind, because I think it applies to all white people is that white privilege doesn't mean your life wasn't hard it just means that being white wasn't white was hard. Yeah, definitely.

And I think that a lot of people are like, oh no, like they're treating me bad because I'm white and I'm like, what happened? And they're like, they called me white. I'm like, they said, but they spelled it W-Y-T. Oh my God. What else? Why could just tell, they think that I think,

things that I don't think. What do you think? Well, I think that black people, there's no racism. That's like, well, you do think the thing, they told you, they held up a mirror to you. Yeah. They basically just held up a mirror and it says, this is you.

But they're all, you didn't like it. And now you think you're being oppressed. Like have you ever heard of living down to a stereotype? Because you're doing that right now. I think I think speaking as a white, I think the white, the white, the white the white the white as a person without color. Um, I think you're pink. Yeah, I I'm salmon, but uh, but speaking as a white, I would say that white people. Yes. Uh, white people tend to think that racism is name calling. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a person. There's personal right racism. Right. And then their structural racism. Right. My question is, yeah, there's a person there's personal right racism and then their structural racism right my question is Yeah, is if there's no structural racism how come the personal racism is so uniform? Right, yeah, like I did a joke the other day that I said I said all these people who are mad about schools teaching a critical race theory

or probably also mad that Subway is teaching people how long six inches really is. But like in order to understand the totality of that joke, you need to know that supposedly black people have big penises and white people have smaller penises, which is a structural thing. It's part of our culture. This communicated idea. So like if you don't understand that, you're not getting the full joke. So like somebody from Japan might be able to get the surface, you know, like somebody from China,

might go get the surface, somebody from Russia, might be like, but you have to be here inculcated in our culture to understand the racial stereotypes. Very much the American male experience. At least the, again, I can speak for me, the American white male experience to have a constant dick fear. Like, it's a rare thing that I found a fellow white who doesn't have some measure of dick fear. And it's the weirdest. I don't like calling it

fragility because fragility implies something is precious. It's not. It's brittle as fuck. Like it looks good and then you just flick it a little bit and the whole thing crumbles and it's just incredibly weak. Um, well I just want to say something. Yeah, but as far as I know, the Morgan Brothers, we dispel the myth that all Black men are... Yeah, I mean like my oldest brother once said he's disappointed many a white woman with this is high average penis He's like it's a little bigger, but Not really I also

Again speaking for the white male experience it is independent of anybody else telling you that it's fine Like it your experience your explanation explanation of how you experience us doesn't matter. It's what we experience for ourselves and that's it. Because there have been studies done, surveys done, where like 80% of women are like fine with whatever their members or whatever their partner's member is. It's not the size, the girth, the length, or whatever their partner's member is, it's not the size of the Earth, the length, or whatever that matters, and yet universally, men, white men.

Yeah, I can't, again, I can't speak for all men. But I just wanna validate it for you a little bit. Okay, because I just wrote another study that was done, that was, I think it was over 1,000 women, and it was like 1,700 women, and they all said that if they're gonna have a one night stand, they'd prefer the guy be hung. Right.

But if they're gonna pick a partner, then that's not as significant. Yeah, as a priority for picking a mate, like long-term partner. Yeah, partner. Yeah. It's like that's way low on the priority list. Yeah.

Like, you know, if we're gonna have a role in the hey So that's all it is that makes sense though because from a guy perspective like you have certain things certain attributes You appreciate on a person. Yeah, and if it's a one night stand you'd be like, man. Yeah, you know XYZ, yeah, you know Yeah, because the guys are very frank of stand. They're gonna be together if I could get a woman today He's these hands and these earlobes with these boobs and that colored hair and those eyes Oh those eyes that went like that and their teeth got to be like, you know They have to be like that girl. What's her name Heather Graham? They have to be pointy like that little and we get that

So down into and just like build like a rector set woman. Yeah, you know, But the renderer, yeah. The renderer is nicely. Yeah, but then if you found that woman, you'd be like, I don't care what she thinks. Right. You know, like, I don't care. I just don't know. No, no, shh, honey, don't talk. Yeah, and that's how women are too. Women are, very much like that.

In a day, like the- People are people and why she wouldn't be. So, but yeah, like you're saying, it's equivalent. I mean, there is a layer of that. And again, like you get that same guy who, I mean, we could sit down and stand out the perfect mate for each of us, right? You can stand it out.

And then you could take that paper and in six years time, check in with each of us and our mate would maybe check off one or two of those boxes because that didn't matter nearly as much when it comes to a partner. That's, now when it comes to a partner. That's... Now, when it comes to who you're murder hoboing with your dick, that's a different beast.

There's a phrase. Now, what is a murder hoboing? Does everybody know that listening to what murder hoboing is? So a murder hobo is, I know. I know, it's actually, yeah. It can't slay out. In D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, you go through a world and essentially if it's a I'm

gonna say a poorly wrought game with characters who are or with players who just care about you know fighting and fucking then you just go town to town killing shit and taking their gear yeah Yeah, you're just you're just tram's in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and, you know, and the thing is, one of the things that came up last episode was talking about, you know, the development of like moving from game to game, as you got older and the development that I think all of us can speak to over time as you know tabletop role players I think we all go through a phase

where that's what happened at the table we were playing at. Driving force behind it what we were doing. I went through a phase where I was the reason that was happening, yeah. So, I mean, you know, but then, you know, I think, I wound up saying, like, the other day, talking about role playing, you know, you can kind of plot why people play the game on the way I put the libertarian test. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The libertarian activists. Yeah, yeah. But you can, you know, why are you playing this game? Can be plotted on like an x, y axis, where the x axis is, uh, I want to vent my id versus I want to be heroic.

Yeah. And then the other one and then the other axis is, I want to be me. And I want to be somebody who's totally fucking not me. I wanna get really interesting. And so, for me, I know exactly where I fall in that, like now, 40 something years old. Yeah, I weigh all the way over on the heroic end. Thank you.

I usually play a paladin or a cleric. And I like to convert people. Yeah. So when I play a cleric, I'm always a shester. Oh, really? Always. I'm always a con man. Yeah.

Yeah. Because, you know, in real life, you don't believe in any of that. Right. So, like, playing a cleric, you know what I'm saying? I'm a cleric, so obviously I'm working in a whole set of games. I play it the way I want it to be. Right. Yeah, yeah.

But I'm not a big believer in organizing. You always play Paladin. Because I want to be heroic. And most of the time I want to be me being heroic. That's why I want to play the game. I want to have the ability to make the world a better place and be the one solving problems and defeating evil. Because in my real life I don't have the capacity to go out. I can't go out and punch Nazis

because they're legal consequences for doing that. So like literally in a role playing game a couple of months ago in a long, long-term game I've been, I mean, we actually wound up finding ourselves in a tavern right next to a bunch of Scarlet brotherhood. Oh, are they like and human Superman's there's great great hog from from Greyhawk Is that a real thing in the Greyhawk? Okay, Scarlet brotherhood is literally a blood-haired blue-eyed racist organization.

Why do they give us such a hard time for talking about this written in there? Yeah, I'm sorry, I was a big fan, I left for run-rome, so that was the same thing for a deal. Um, and so anyway, we found ourselves an extra table of these, you know, Scarlett Brotherhood guys and Mike Clarick, because we're playing in a spell jammer, which is like D&D in space for those of you who don't know in the audience. And my Clarick character is like a minute I've seen these guys before and I made a religion check and my DM said okay yeah no they're scarlet brotherhood and I knew exactly what that meant and there were two or three people who didn't like at the table, the virtual table saying well okay what does that meant. And there were two or three people who didn't, like at the table, virtual table,

saying, well, okay, what does that mean? And in character, I explained to him, well, they're human supremacists, and not only are they human supremacists, but they're convinced that like this one group of humans is superior to everybody else. And a party bard, who's 11, in real life, says, I'm gonna starting picking a fight.

Like, he's the only one. Yeah, because he just knows what's wrong. He just knows it. And the kids are all right. Yeah, and literally, and literally, and then out of character, I said, yeah, basically they're fantasy Nazis. And literally everybody, the table was like, okay, I know we're on theumbling. Like, game over. I can't do that in real life because like, I have a

wife and a kid that like if I spend a night in jail, that's gonna cost probably. So like, no, I want that's what I want to be able to do. If I'm gonna, you know, act out, that's the way I want to act out for other people. I just want to open doors. Yeah, well, yeah. So it's a long, yeah, so I'm a monk. I don't give a short short version. Yeah, but we were playing a competitive at a con game and somebody rules

layered and I didn't realize it was competitive. I just thought it was just a sprawling like 50 person game with 4 gms No, you're gonna win something at the end. I didn't know so I played a monk love monks You we open the door and group of people decided that they were gonna go in together and they start shooting at us and stuff and they were just like God damn it. Okay, well I open the door grab my friend pull him in close the door and they're like we can't do that I'm like Okay, well I open the door, grab my friend, pull him in, close the door, and they're like, we can't do that. I'm like, how can I not do that? You let it go like this, grab like this, I'm like 16th level monk, I can do that.

No, you can do one move action, and one attack action. I'm like, okay, so, opening the door, move action, yes. Grabbing my friends and attack action, yes. That's all I can do for this round? Yes. So you can keep just firing because you got four attacks per round. Yeah. Okay, next turn, I'm going to pull him through and then I'm going to close the door. Well, you know, and they came up with the reason why I couldn't do that.

And it was three rounds before I could open a door, grab my friend, pull him through, close the door. before I could open a door, grab my friend, pull him through, close the door. And from then on, the joke became monks, like I'm gonna have a big bad evil guy, and he's gonna have butlers, and every butler is going to be a monk. And so, yeah. Because that's what they do is open a door.

That's what it's, and that's literally all I could do in that game, and so that became the catchphrase of, but that's what monks do. That's what monks do. So, that game and so that became the catchphrase of but that's what monks do That's a monk's so I that's open the door All right, so wisdom If we're lucky. Yeah, so all right, so Did I step on what you're gonna know okay, but you know, it's funny I've been I want to have an opposite story to that when I was a kid and I first got into this one campaign that when a year I played this dwarf

He survived But like so the first night I sat down. It was a tavern scene You know I come in and I'm supposed to meet the wizard and this other warrior. I'm a fighter sure and I get in there and I decided I'm like my guy hates it forks Okay, like my guys you know been, been Ancest because you know, I read the great I think I read the Greyhawk thing and they're like oh Well, I guess the people I came from the Ancest really fight or works my guys a fighter. He's been on the front line I drew I drew his herald or wait, you know like a shield and yeah, and and and then

They go okay, where you're in here and there's like across the table freeze, another band of adventures and they look like this and then I go, wait, did you just describe a half work? Or is that an orc or what? And then he's like, yeah, he feels like he might be half work. And then I say something rude. I can't remember what it was. I said, I said, I can't believe there are greenies in here.

Or something, I think that's what I used to call them, greenies. And so like what I was doing is I was playing like what I experienced from the flip side. You know, like I was like and what was funny is all the other people in the game were white and they hated it. They hated that I was being a racist. You know, but that's our thing now. Yeah. Yeah. Well then it just started like I was you know greenies or whatever and then and then the GM to punish me. You know like instead of just having them ignore it as you know greenies or whatever and then and then the GM to punish me you know like

um instead of just having them ignore it like you know like I had to do my whole life like like like like his his non-orked friends actually backed him up oh oh you know like must be nice because I didn't expect that like I totally didn't expect that to happen you know like they're instead of them gaslighting him going hey just don't why are you taking a so you're being so sensitive come on you call yourselves greenies but why can't we what can you say it you know you say greenie with a yeah I mean yeah yeah yeah and I mean you know you are a greenish yeah you are you're green I mean that's I mean am I wrong I mean you called me you're greenie I mean you know don't I get to say that word so we get in this big fight

And my character has 18 19 18 93 strength 19 Constitution. I am like a monster Yeah, first level monster, but I'm still like a monster. I have like way way too many points I rolled out a good on and Well the 19 yeah, and and so I Well, the 19 car yeah, and and so I Is a low magic game low magic so like I wasn't allowed to have any magic items or nothing like that and so We They start they take a fight with us now can and of course my buddy Brad like he's a wizard

You know and so he's got like two hit points. There's nothing like that. He's afraid. This is definitely great. And then it, but Ken's like, I don't really want to do this, but you know, I'm fighter, so let's do it, you know, like, and so we proceed to pummel the shit out of these, we beat the shit out of these guys and, and we win. And then, but then like, my buddy Rusty, because he's, he's got, he's like, I can't let this happen like the racist just one So he says you look over and the bar keeps like you you need to leave and then and he has a blender bus I didn't know what that was at the time, you know, and then I was like oh a blender what and then he's all he has a gun And a black powder and I at that point I didn't even and then I was just like I'm attacking him and I just like you know

And then he's like what and he's like what wait wait He's gonna he's got his finger on the trigger and then I go I I attack him and then and I already roll this stuff And then he's all okay, well you can use that as your role because I hit him I hit it like 18 and and you know Fucking with the pluses and whatever and then and then he's like but he gets to shoot first So you may not that may not happen, you know. And so he misses. So then I like fucking kill that guy, jump over the counter and then I go, and I remember, I was in a friend, like I was like, I was like, I got a gun, I got a gun in D&D, I was so excited. I never had a gun in D&D.

And this is a legit D&D game. I didn't copy this off anybody's character sheet, you know? Like I'm not like cribbing script and fucking answers a lot of people I got a real good and then I was like so I look all around I look under the counter like there's got to be ammo Right like what he had it right here like and then he saw well, he's got a he's got a a bag full of pottery shards And then another bag that seems to be full of powder and then there's like a little ramrod I got take all that shit, you know, and then, then, and then, and then, Brad and Ken are like, you know, they, they left already, like one as soon as I tacked them, and I thought, fuck this, I'm not doing this, I leave. And I was like, what kind of, what kind of D&D game is it, because every game I played

in before, even the legit ones. Everybody would just back your play. You're tacked, I guess we're, I guess we're going to murder this town, you know, like, I didn't come here for that, but, and I were gonna go destroy the evil wizard, but yeah, we gotta kill the tavern people first. He's evil. He's like Walmart, basically. He doesn't pay these people now. We're in a waffle house.

This is what you do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but then anyway, I get to shit and then I run out, I run out of this place and then as we're getting there, there's like the town guard and they're like, there he is, get him! And then they start shooting at, and then I don't have a fucking horse but like they do they both have horses that then I say to Rusty I go I grab I grab on to the bottom of the rain you know like the the strap of the and then I just hold on to that and like pull like I don't know if I'm like Jackie Chan and rush hours and we're fucking under the

horse and and so I'm like grabbing grabbing onto that and then he's, you gotta make a strength check because he's trying to be a hard ass. But when I swear between the age of, between the age of like 13 and 21, 20s, straight 19s and 20s, off of any 20 side of the diet, I was the luckiest person now, one, two, right. I burned it out, I don't, you know.

But I was constantly. That ever a metaphor for aging. Yeah Yeah, dice impotence, but like it's yeah, it's like I was just and he was mad He was mad because like the racists right not only the racists kill kill the guy The inversion of the racism. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and then I got away So like and and and the cops were actually gonna help the green guy You know what I'm like and I didn't kill any of them. We got away. But yeah, then the next time I played, they were like, and then I was okay. I was fine. I got it. I had a gun. I like, I killed out.

And then, but then through the rest of it, he just had, he just basically was like, I'm just going to put you guys straight into dungeons where you can kill green things. Right. And then we'd get into these, like, we were in the caves of chaos and we were in this one thing. We'd killed a bunch of hobgallons or, or was it orcs And then we'd get into these, like we were in the caves of chaos, and we were in this one thing, we'd killed a bunch of hobgallons, or it was at Orcs, but we got to this room, because some of those things were authored,

they always tried to have an ecology, and you know, because it was not. So we got to a room that was all, like women and children. And then, and then I was like, well, what are racists doing?

And I was like, well, they're just gonna make more. You know, so then I just like started. I killed, oh, you beat me till it, yeah. What was that? Nits make life. Yeah, so I just, I think I killed the first woman and then they were like trying to stop me

and then I killed the second, I like, it was all strength checks against them and they're like weaker than me and I killed the second one and then, and then I'm about to kill the kids and then, then Ken's like, he's like, they're babies. And then I was like, okay, we'll just lock him in that other room. And then, but it was interesting because of the journey of Digniris Goury, who's named after this character from a comic book called The Realm. But it went from being that fucking awful.

Like just my projection of like, this is what race, what you do to us, right? This is what you do to us, you know? And then all my friends there just like horrified that I would want to, and I'm like, I'm not playing this because I want to play this, I'm playing this like, because I was kind of a thessian back then, like I was like,

I've picked the identity from my character. I never attacked the party though. Right. You know, that's the thing is I tell people if you're gonna be evil and my guy wasn't, he's laughable good, but like, and because of D&D, I was able to get away with it because I only attacked evil people. Oh my God.

Because I did, that was the other thing, is I had bread. That's, I forgot to mention that, because I asked Brad, I go cast a detect evil on them, and they were evil. So, I can just kill him. You know, yeah, I can just kill him. Wow.

And it doesn't affect my, you know. I'm glad you didn't make it political. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So then I don't think, I don't think the barkeep was evil. I think he was neutral, but it turned out, you know, but that was after, we didn't detect anything on him. But yeah, so then gradually DiggerScore became like more, and then the next kind of characters I started playing,

down like every character I play, I like to do, not do that anymore for one. But like, because of a lineman and D&D, I, that bothers me too. Like if there's an alignment in the game, then oftentimes, like, I'll, like, see if I can buy a home of a lineman change. Subdued evil people and then just put it on their head.

Nice. Yeah, because it, then take it off and be like, okay, we can't kill him now. Like I do the opposite now. You know, like, yeah. But before I was like, this is what you're like. And now it's like, this is how it should be. Like, why are we killing everybody?

Just, everybody get a helmet of alignment and just, you know, just start popping on my peersian therapy. Yeah, and then one game I convinced to the GM that is it possible that whoever made the helmet of alignment change could make a helmet or a war hammer of alignment change? So I had this like buffed ass like half-work cleric that I just go around.

And his point was like he wanted to go to all the dungeons or all the black em'all. Yeah, any place where his people were and hit them to get them, like, cause I always look at it like this. If D&D says there's these inherently evil people, they are cursed. Right. Yeah.

That's not a good thing that you can't see the social function of altruism or whatever. Even if you are inherently like a psychopath. Yeah, I mean, we have therapy systems set up in the real world for people who exhibit sociopathic tendencies, or psychopathic tendencies. Yeah, sometimes you have to tell them the pragmatic reason they should choose

to do altruistic things. Yeah. And still get them there. And this brings it right back around to the world of comedy because. Ah! Yeah. Yeah. For everybody in the audience,

there was a conversation while we weren't out recording about that, but, but, yeah, no names, but yeah, I mean, there's a lot of people that are self-serving and sometimes their selfishness actually does them harm because they can't see the bigger picture, where they need to get along with people You need this place. You don't like them and you're mad that they did something

But you need them because they're gonna be in the same town as you doing the same shows and they're in the same business And if you got a fucking fight them every time you see them right that's not good. Well, it's that that quote We're trying to build a fucking society here. Yeah And you and evolutionarily, cooperation is our superpower. Yeah. That's actually, if you look at how we operate compared to other animals, like our ability to work with each other and build communities and be altruistic is what actually got us off of the planes, you know, and get us off of the food chain. Yeah, basically, yeah, that's what, you know.

You can, but then I'm gonna ask you a question. Okay, everything you've said is absolutely leading me to asking you this question. Okay, I don't know if this question, so let me say this real quick, that thing that cooperation is our, you know, is our advantage, evolution advantage. The interesting thing about the cyberpunk game

that I played with my buddy, Sal, that was the first time I'd seen, because he explained it after sometimes to me. I was one of the only people interested in how he was a GMM. Sure. What Sal would do, so the first thing he would do, he never a GMM. Sure. What's Sal would do? So the first thing you do is he never ran a module.

He had what he called plot bubbles. So he had a book that he wrote all these ideas in. So he told me his theories like, look, in most people that run a game, they'll be like, first you go here, then you go there, then you go here, whatever. And maybe there's some branches off. I don't do that.

I come up with a scene. I know you guys are gonna get in a fight in Ali wherever an Ali is it can happen right, you know It doesn't need to be on this and that street Yeah, oh, you went to bleaker street instead of a Broadway. Yeah, you don't get to have that fight now Yeah, like I don't like and and I was like Because I'm so used to going roommate room. See room, you know whatever, you know, like, you know, like, you know, because I'm so used to going, room A, room C, room, you know, whatever, you know. And then, uh, I have TPK for that.

Yeah. And then the other thing he would do is when he was like, because he'd have something like, you know, he'd have so many threads, like I said, he'd have, you know, you're going to go, you know, you're going to go get, uh, bio illegal weapon from this guy. So then you could go use it on this cyber psycho, you know, full conversion board

Because this is the only thing I'll punch through his armor and then you know as you're going here You get a phone call from you sensei saying there's some weird guys outside and then you go, okay Well, I'll be there in a minute you hang up and as you're going to kill the cyber psycho guy Then you get another phone call from somebody saying yeah, your sensei's dead click Right and then and then while that's happening and you're going to go over here, then what's happening is all the players are going, who the fuck killed his sensei? I bet it was the mega corp or I bet it was that one poser gang we pissed off or I bet it was the Chinese phantom guy that was like a superhero but it's actually a serial

game, whatever. And we're all like speculating, Sal is taking notes. Yeah. That's the best way to run a game. It throws up in front of the players. But they're paranoia, run a game. Listen to them do the epileptic treat. Yeah, and it's like a buffet of like, like, you know,

cause then he could be like, that's a pretty good idea. That's a fucking great idea. That sucks. But if I mash it with that and have that fuck that this a monster you know like this is the idea ever and so you're just basically like I call it like cluster computing yeah fucking as a gem if you can take your ego away from it and realize that you've got fucking and I this is one thing I

like about new school games more than old school games because you remember like D&D the culture of D&D is or are you playing in Damien's game? Right. Are you playing an Ed's game? Yeah. Are you playing in Taylor? We all fucking took time off to do this. That's true.

You know, and you're sitting here saying, well I do the most because I planned and whatever we know you're like that dude you would have planned something else if you were planning a D&D thing. Yeah. Like the fact is that this dude at the other end that only has this amount of time because he's got five kids and he volunteers time at a fucking homeless shelter and whatever. Your plan is not better than what he's doing,

but thank you, thank you for doing that, but also honor the fact that he took time out away from the homeless people, away from his family, away from his job, to be here so you could run the thing that you obsess about. Right. And so I like new school games because they honor that, like that everybody's

there and that we all contributed and then also that you deserve to fucking have, like, why did you come to the game? Like if you came to the game to play like a hero and then the GM's just like, no, you're all anti-heroes this time. You can't be a fucking hero. And then you're like, well, is there some way? Well, no, I have this idea and you're stuck in it. Yeah. You know, that's how class, I'm sorry I pointed out. You like it. That's why you're like, well, is there some way? Well, no, I have this idea, and you're stuck in it. Yeah.

You know, that's how class, I'm sorry I pointed out, you like it. That's why you're stuck. You know, but that's how it is, right? And I used to run into so many gems that they're like, well, if they don't like it, they don't have to play. And then I'm like, well, what if nobody fucking play, bro? Like, and then like, do you ever notice like,

you're the gem that doesn't have a persistent group? Yeah. Like, you want? Why is everybody go away? Cause you're the GM that doesn't have a persistent group? You know, like you want? Why does everybody go away? Cause you're looking noises, bro. Yeah, like you know, like you're, it's no one wants to, like this is a thing that happened in video games in the early,

or in the late 2000s before the teens, was that the film directors started getting into the storymaking of a lot of first person shooters and stuff. Pretty soon you were just kind of, it was no longer a sandbox. You were just kind of in a movie. Yeah.

It was like writing through having been to Disney World recently. It was like writing through the Peter Pan ride. Yeah, it's like, you know, there's a track here that you're gonna follow and you're gonna go through this. Yeah, look, this is associated memory. Yeah. Like that was all the games. Okay, so I just wanna say this real quick.

I bought a 5E themed game, it's Neverland. This guy published a book and it's Neverland, but it's in a hex map. Okay, and it's really cool. I love the art in it, it's like very stylized but kind of like Foster's in a hex map. Okay. And it's really cool. I love the art in it. It's like very stylized, but kind of like Fosters Home for imaginary friends if you guys love that. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But yeah, this is funny. You said that because I don't really love Peter Pan, but I saw it and I was like, I was looking at it. I was like, this is great. Like, I want to do this. Like, I want to create something like this for Diversity and Dragon. Sure, you know.

Very cool. Speaking of it. So in the last episode, we talked a lot about issues of ultimately, you started off color blind because I was a kid. Yeah, you were a kid and this was your normal. And as you grew, you started noticing different aspects of the game and people telling you to shush, but being okay with other stuff. And then, oh, this is political and then we kinda got into that. So for anybody who for some reason decided

they're gonna start with part two, there you go. Oh yeah. What did you do? You did, you did, you mentioned all the misogyny, homophobia, racist jokes that I just, I don't know why. But I think it's because I didn't quite know what they were, you know? Yeah. Like when you're between eight and whatever, you're like, what's, what? I don't know why, but I think it's because I didn't quite know what they were. You know?

Like when you're between eight and whatever, you're like, what makes that funny? Yeah, you're like, what's, you know, all the, because all the slurs are just so freaking weird. Yeah, I mean, it's like, you're like, what and back? Like, what is that, who are you talking about? Yeah.

Well, you know Mexicans, like, no, I don't. Like, what do you, what do you even fucking talking about? I mean, they don't know, that's the thing. They don't know that it goes back to the river and stuff. Yeah, and then I've had some that were smart enough to know that well because like, whatever. But like, my friends who are Mexican did not migrate here. They live here.

Yeah. Your family migrated here. Yeah, you know, like, my great over there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, they, my grade over that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, they've been here, you know, like, and so, like, but anyway, it's like, that all that stuff used to baffle me, I think partially because I'm just too fucking literal,

you know, but like, yeah, all of it. I just, then you have to figure out, okay, well, why do you think that? And then why do you say that? And whatever, so it took me just a, I think a long time, just, and then start being like, okay, because, you know, I think as a long time. And then started being like, okay, because, you know, I think as a kid too, you're not used to being empowered to make choices

for yourself either. Also true, you know. D&D is one of the first instances where, and I see it on my kid's faces, they get paralyzed for the first 10, 15, 20 minutes of the game. Because they're like, oh right, I have to make all these decisions and there will have consequences.

Not, here is your prescribed cone of effect. Here you go. Well, yeah, you do. I'm more like making social choices about like, you know, I'm with these people and I've never seen this side of them. I've played with them a lot on the playground. Right. But never once have they said these things, but now that we're trapped at a table and maybe they're maybe they're like, I don't know what's going on right now. But they got to start saying weird shit about, why are you telling me who you

hate or who your dad hates or your mom thinks is responsible for the awful. But anyway, that stuff happened in a way that the massage and the home phobia racism pretty regularly, not like, no, we burned across at the table. You know, I mean, it's just regular, run of the mill, every day racism, you know, and, you know, just like mom used to make whatever, you know, but like, you know, like, but, yeah. But, you know, it's there, it's just been there. And, you know, some of us, I mean, I will admit, you know, I'm one of those people who thinks that racism, homophobia, sexism, I have it in me.

I was raised in this culture. I was taught to be like that. Right. It's part of as we say the water that is women. Yeah, exactly. So that like you know, self-examination, I realized, oh wait, I am homophobic. Right. Like when I hear that, they're not talking about someone else. I am homophobic. I was inculcated into a society that taught me I call my friend

you know, a slur for gay people. Right. Because they didn't throw the basketball right or because they're crying, because they're skinny, like, or whatever it is. Yeah, because they don't like what I like, you know, whatever, you know, whatever it's just, for some reason that was okay when I was like very little. Right.

But then like when I got older, my mom, you know, had a relationship with a dude, he was, he would be by sometimes, you know, like, I guess, in dry spells, but they became really good friends. And after they had dated a little bit and then I went over to his house. He played D&D.

This motherfucker had hell with D&D books. He had the, I'd never seen the box sets. I'd only played the book. Oh, okay. But he had all the box sets. He used to let me play fucking, I don't know if his Bard's Taylor, or whatever, one of those old texts.

He had text-based games when my mom and him would hang out they'd have barbecues and all his all his friends would come over And that's when I was like I was like why are these dudes here? Some of them are pretty you know like whatever You know why do you make them you know whatever but it it was a trip when I was kids So I but I would be in the just the den just being a fucking nerd You know and they'd be doing their own adult things out there But they were all hell and nice to me all the time of course, and then when I got to be an adult and a like, you know, maybe 10 years later I found out when he passed away from age like oh, he's gay Right, I never said that word again

And I generally won't ever say it because like that dude was like my he seriously literally was like my dad My he did it like he got me a he got me two different bikes He you know he helped my mom out when she needed money like my dad, he got me two different bikes, he helped my mom out when she needed money, he fixed my mom's car, and he was like her best friend, and he was always there for me. I had this, he took me to like, I had a summer school, the arts at Mills College, and he took me to that and brought me back,

and he did all this shit, like a dad or step-dad, or long-term boyfriend would do. And I was just like, why the fuck do I say this shit? You know, why do I, you know, this guy and all his friends, you know, they've always been nothing but nice to me. And you know, they never tried, I didn't even know they were gay. That's how, you know, like, I didn't know they were gay. They never tried anything.

Just like you didn't know your friend was Honduran. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, they never did anything to me because you didn't know your friend was Honduran. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they never did anything to me because they were interested in men. Right, they were not interested in anything. Well, just like there are plenty of people I don't know or straight.

Yeah, because it doesn't come up. It just, that's a slice of who they are. You know what I want to say that? I, that's an interesting point you make because when I was a kid, I was really fascinated at That some gay people had like a list were an accent or you know like spoke affirmatively or whatever But my kids are asking me about that because that's still presented in media sometimes. Oh, yeah

And then they've run into they've run into some people that do and and I just you know I just said well, you know It's it's not all gay people speak like that But it's kind of like if somebody from New York, they're going to talk like other people from New York. And so since gay people tend to want to date each other and they want to be around other people that won't persecute them for being gay, what is that? Most guarantee that's probably going to be other gay people. You end up having, you know, higher concentration.

Yeah, and then they pick up each other's affectations, but not all gay people will talk like that even if they're in that group You know because they might socialize outside of the group, but it's all about socialization and my kids are like, okay Yeah, that makes sense, you know, but I find it interesting because like I'm in a different place than like my parents were Like you know, my mom was like trying to get me to be kind, but she didn't have a vocabulary to discuss a lot of these things Sure, well because nobody did yeah, nobody did. Yeah, I mean, you know trying to get me to be kind, but she didn't have a vocabulary to discuss a lot of these things. Sure. Well, because nobody did. Yeah, nobody did. Yeah.

I mean, part of it, again, is like the pattern on the wallpaper, kind of stuff, is back during that time period, in the world we all grew up and even didn't get me in being the child that he is. Significantly younger. Yeah. But in that time period, when we're talking about, you know, the late 70s through the 80s, into the early 90s, the vocabulary didn't exist to teach us how to be tolerant because, you know, we have the vocabulary, the tools to talk about,

it still had to be developed. That's true. And, you know, it was reflected in role-playing game. One of my favorite supplements, because I really loved Life Path after Cyberpunk. There's a series called Heroes of the First One's Legend. And the first edition, the author wrote in there, like you roll on a table to see,

if you have deviations, one of them was homosexuality. And it said, it's a mental deviation, blah, blah, blah, and it wrote down in there like you roll on a table to see if you have deviations one of them was homosexuality Hmm, and it said it's a mental deviation blah blah blah and it wrote down in there And then I think they did a second edition where they changed it. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean like yes I'm changed. Yeah, these yeah, well yeah, cuz literally well, I think it's cuz they they had a editor that was not Much of an asshole as the previous guys what happened. I don't know if they read the exam But he may maybe but I know that guy Still wanted it to be what it was okay, yeah, but maybe, but I know that guy still wanted it to be what it was. Well, yeah, and, but I noticed, like you're saying,

that language, I mean, as far as it's concerned, the professionals think it's a mental disorder. You know, people who study it, think it's a mental disorder at that time. Yeah, yeah. Like, I mean, so, you know, what are people that don't, you know, that that's the expert, you know, he says you're crazy, you know, like the experts say you're crazy. So obviously crazy. And then we might go up from there.

Yeah. And then if you, if you fly against, which is weird, right, because back when the experts were presenting things like homosexuality is crazy and go ahead and burn up all the dinosaur juice you want. Whatever as long as experts saying that they're good but now that they say oh well homosexuality's an after condition, races a construct, gender's a construct, the planet is burning. Oh those, I don't believe in science anymore. Like, let me tell everybody on my iPhone. Like, you know, let me get on Facebook. It's programmed by structural, you know,

like it's all engineers and other people then. But I don't know, but like, it is, I didn't really think about that, that the language, because of course, I see that, but then I'm like, well, like, how do you write books? Well, I mean, we didn't know what, without having them be that. We didn't know what sexual harassment was, really, have a word for it until I need a

help. Yeah. You know, that was just a culture, yeah. That was 21. That was 21. And then it still took another eight years before Spousal Rape was actually on the books. My mom said, because my mom went into the workplace pretty young and then But at the time she was in the workplace. She said that there was no protections No, that if a guy grabbed your boo like they just say well if you don't like it

It's kind of like the thing if you don't like it don't play is the same thing as like the gym You know like gyms that are being assholes and it's like you know because you could go tell your boss And I'm like well that you're a woman. What are you? What are you doing? You know? What do you expect? It's a fun and then there were always have something that you're carrying in front of you when you go into the Alden. Always sit in the back of the you know, there's all kinds of shit. All right, so it's the question the question I'm sorry. We had a question. Yeah as fun as all that is to talk about I really really really want to bridge the gap from You noticing a lot of stuff that Ed and I didn't In your games that he and I didn't because again it was

defaulted to us and how that led to so we've kind of covered you know you noticed a lot more shit than he and I ever noticed in our games. How did that get you to diversity and dragons? Oh that that's interesting question. Okay, so how the origin of diversity and dragons? Yes, I was, you know, I was taking many, many, many improv classes at comedy spot because I was trying to get better at it. I'm not inherently good at improv. Like it's hard for me. I'm good at writing. You know, I'm good at writing, but if I am like giving, you know, tell it, speak it, you know, if I'm doing my material, doing my set on stage, and then somebody interrupts me,

I don't freak out. Like there's some people that yell at, I don't do that. Right. Cause there's definitely a difference between a heckler and a helper. Like a lot of times when I'm on stage, the people that interrupt, they're just excited

to be there. Yeah. You know, they're like, hey, I know what you're talking about. You know, I have something. I'm also included in the list. Yeah, look at me, I like you. You know, and then you're like, hey, I know what you're talking about, you know, I have something. I'm also included in the book. Yeah, yeah, yeah, look at me. I like you, you know, and then you're like, fuck you for real. I can't remember it, you know, and like- I have a rhythm.

Yeah, or, you know, yeah, whatever you say, you know, like, you know, if you just cleverly turn those shit a like, I like you too, when you were quiet, you know, whatever, you know, right. If you just, like, there's all kinds of quick way, but my goal, I started realizing, my goal should be to entertain not just to fucking Tell them my set of jokes that are obviously this one wasn't so engaging as to shut that person up Maybe this is maybe maybe there's two notes. I should take one crowd work to Right a better joke like that joke was boring

Yeah, you know, there's there's actually lessons for pedagogy involved in that. 100%. Really? Yeah, oh yeah. No, if you're having classroom management issues, look at what the fuck you're doing with the kids. Yeah.

Like, as a comedian, I'm an incredible teacher. And as a teacher, I'm a middleing comedian. Yeah. But so to skip from that to like that, so that's why I was doing improv. I was doing it insanely, because coming from stand up, where you're taught to grind,

I was like asking every improviser, how do I grind on this? Because there's no open mics. I can't just go to a bar and start doing improv. Like it's just so hard. So what I decided is I just like keep taking classes and I'll even take the same class over and over from different instructors.

His different instructors are gonna teach different ways. I happen to find that I respond well, the women instructor, if you know instructors. I don't know, that was just my pattern, you know, like and but, you know, particularly best side of LeBron, who's on my show is brilliant. And then, Justin Lopez is brilliant, Mel Guevart is brilliant.

Yeah, Mel Guevart, they were all, and then for me, short form improv, like you might see, whose line is it anyways, it was very helpful, because like long form improv, since I'm so like like blinders on I'm like trying to track what's happening and still look at the big picture but short form is just a game. Right. You know, it's just like hey we're all gonna do an accent getting in and out of a car. I can do that, you know, and I'll knock it out of the part, you know, I can do an accent, get in the side and then you see me play Cyberpunk?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. let me tell you that time I alert but so go from there to you know I spent a lot of time with Brian you know crawl from a comedy spot and and and so I took a sketch right in class this most up But there was a point where he said like Because his son loves D&D. Okay, I love it and I think Brian was like just trying to be like I don't quite get it I have an idea. I got a geek show coming up. How about, if I give you a five minute thing,

is there a way we can just do a set like where you explain D to me, like I just ask dumb questions or whatever? And then I said, what if I just run it? And then he's all, can you do that in five minutes? I'm like, no, that's what's gonna make it funny. Like, you know, like, and so, he said, just take it, okay, I trust you, just do whatever you need to do.

And then, you know, I'll just show up and then we'll start with some questions and then we'll get into it. So he did it, I think like, like, 10 minutes. But basically, I wrote this whole adventure where he's going from room to room and the doors are closing on him, like, like, I was saying. Yeah, like, I was saying on him and the cavern walls and and he doesn't he's like a he was a halfling and he's trying to run through and whatever and he finally gets to this one room and then and then he gets forced out and he and and he's like out in the light and it turns out he got shit out of a dragon. Okay,

and then he sees his aggressive his adventuring party thereuring party there, but that's what he was doing is going through the digestive system. But Brian was great. He's just like, I was like, oh, here comes the other one. Oh, and inside of there, there was actually another, there was a goblin riding like a small pig

or something like that. And Brian woke up, the goblin took his shit. And then he ran off. And my goal is to get him to follow him. But Brian was just all over this way. Oh, you know, I, like in the eardardrum whatever, you know, I don't know. He's all over, but it's still, you know, he just ended up getting shunted out and I railroaded him because it was five minutes. Yeah, but yeah, then after that, it did so well. You know, Brian said, well,

people responded so well to that. I think you should pitch a show. So then I was thinking about that and I was like, I don't know if I got that in me. So I go in the back room and I'm I'm just kicking it and then Dejan is in there. And Dejan just had a killer set, you know, make a fun of Spider-Man doing all kinds of things like, because he's doing humor too, but like, you know, he's stand up. And Dejan's like, man, that thing you did with Brian bro, like, do you think we could do that? You know, and he's like, you know, do you think they let us call it Niggas and Dragons?

And then I said, no, they're not gonna let us put that on the marquee, but that's why a diversity isn't it? Cause I have a pet peeve about the word diversity actually. Cause whenever somebody says diversity, they mean Niggas. That's usually what they say. This play, we need to get more diversity in here. Let's hire one black person. Right.

You know, like, yeah, this show is, this show is here. Let's hire one black person. Right. Yeah. This show is very diverse. There's one black person in it. You know, like, you know, like, yeah, yeah. And if we can make the school more diverse, let's get a black quarterback. I don't know, right, whatever. It's just like, and so that's why I diversity popped

immediately into my head. Then I go online. I remember I off the show, I was telling you guys, I'm in these all these Facebook groups for games. I put in all these D&D groups and fake groups and Savage World groups, I just posted this thing. I said, how do you guys feel about the word diversity? Every D&D group, except for the ones I'm currently in, which is like three, I think

or something. You called the herd, basically. Every D&D group took that post down, because it got so much flame. Yeah. Really? Yes. Because you were bringing politics into their love. Well, what I realize in these groups is that they're so inclusive that they include every fucking troll, alt-right, asshole, whatever in there, and they don't want to rock the boat. So then the mods and the admins are dropping these posts at, they're killing these posts because they have to monitor them so much. You know, because they're sitting there modding the fucking group. They're getting pinged all the time. Right. Every fucking. And then it's just, it's just amping up. And then what happens, of course,

is like when people are in these little groups like that, they call their friends in. So then their friends start piling on, they start posting, ship posting, doing all kind of calling people names. And then now I said, they gotta worry about if their group is gonna get banned because it's hate speech.

Oh wow. So there's this whole big dynamic. I don't blame, look, I don't wanna blame D&D, Gary Gygax, whatever, but this dynamic on the internet where alt-right and fucking, just that, that fascistic, racist, homophobic, sexist, misogynistic, and so on, whatever you wanna call it, all of that shit. Shit, yeah.

They are protecting those people. And the reason they protect those people is because if those people aren't protected, they will get their fucking group shut down. They'll get them zucked. You know what I mean? Because they'll just keep doing hate speech on their fucking shit and tell the algorithm picks it up.

Yeah, if you know what I mean. And people are afraid of being the bad guy kicking people out of the group. Like, yeah, man, all of the best groups that I'm in, like across the board, to me, are the ones that are like, no, here's a deal. You're gonna get one warning. And then we're gonna kick you the fuck out. Yeah. If you're the one being hateful, intolerant,

if you're the one making misogynistic, you know, racist jokes, you're gonna get kicked out. Having active moderators to say, you're being an asshole. Yeah, well, definitely matters who's the mod, but I noticed some of the mods I was interacting with, I, you know, like I messaged them. I was like, hey, what's up?

I, I posted that thing about diversity and took it out. And then they're like, yeah, dude, we don't have to say, it's got to be game related. And then I go, it is. Yeah. You know, like it's about who's at the table? Yeah. It's a bad. Yeah.

I mean, it's totally, but the player's handbook, the second chapter is races. Yeah. So diversity clearly is game related. Yeah. Right. And then I go, but it is, but it doesn't have dice in the thing or whatever. But then so, but then I so I went away dejected. I was like, diversity and dragons has a good ring, but it's not going to be good.

And my buddy Rob, who is Romanian American, he and he, he, he's always been picked on because he's different. Right. But he said to me, you know what, dude, you should still call it that. So those people won't show up. Oh, yes. It is genius. I had to talk to Rob, somebody who's neuro-typical to get that. Because like that didn't occur to me. I'm like, I want to make it what it is. You know, I want to make what it is. And I want to make sure people can cut. But then when he said that, I was like, yeah, of course, I don't want those people

there. Right. They're going to scare don't want those people there. Right. They're going to scare away the people I want there. Right. Yeah. And I don't mean to say that diversity and dragons is a thing because it's not a thing that I did, like, so that only people of color and people on the LGBT spectrum and, you know, it's not just for, it's for anybody that recognizes that having many, many voices makes a better product in the end.

You know, like, and that's, that's, so then I did call that. So then the, the, you know, the first show I ran with stand-ups, because, oh, as I said, I forgot to say, on the same Geek show Emma Haney was on the same show. She did set and then so she, she came in and she said, tale, that was really cool. Like, can I do that? And then I was like, oh my God, because between Emma and Dijand, these are two of my favorite comedians and this is my favorite on TV. Anywhere. They're two of my fucking favorite comedians and I just happen to know them. And then I'm like, good, my foot. Yeah, we can try it. Would you, but you guys mind playing together? That would be hell of a cool. And then she's like, yeah, and then I said,

are you? Oh, did Jan told me I've always wanted to play, but I never knew anybody who played, you know, because where I grew up, you know, just nobody. And I go, I know I was I was fortunate that I went to school with a lot of white kids. And I got here in this because like, the, you know, the kids in my little section eight part, you know, we weren't really doing that, you know, like, Like, the kids in my little section eight part, we weren't really doing that. But then, what happened is, I asked her, are you the same as Dejan?

Like, you never got to play. Like, you never knew anybody that played and then she goes, oh no, I knew people. There's all kinds of guys that played at the pizza place, I worked. They were just creepy. You know, like, I didn't feel safe with them. I feel safe with you and to Jake.

Right, yeah. And then so then I asked Jason Barger, who you know, because yeah, he's on the punch show all the time. But Jason Barger, Jason B is like one of the only comedians who treated me like a person when I first started. Everybody else is just like, why are you wasting our five minutes of open mic time? Oh wow.

But Jason, you know, he's pretty new because he came from North Carolina and he's not gonna give a fuck You know, but so I and I the thing about Jason I say is Jason is important because I need somebody who's as Latino as I look Because he you know his mom's Puerto Rican right dad is Irish extraction as well But yeah, that kind of and then that kind of blocked it out. I had the, I was like, this is gonna be good. But then the reason the show evolved a little bit is actually because of input from the Jan and Jason. Because I was trying, the thing is, as we know,

Damien and I know, stand-up comedians are good at burning down anything but themselves. To get, you know, like if they're, if you're not getting the laughs, you're gonna make fun of this person, that person, whatever, they're gonna take down, take something down, you gotta take it down. So then I noticed that a really regular mechanism was to make fun of me, or make fun of the game, or make fun of the game, and it was funny, it just wasn't what I was going for. It wasn't immersive either, because you're constantly pulling people, you're pulling the audience out of it, you're getting meta in a way that is inherently deleterious to what

you're trying to do. Yeah, and decisions weren't getting made on the part of the characters. So the characters are basically on hold while everybody on stages like servicing the laugh, you know, and this is why Improv was important because I realized if we just do the story, there's gonna be stuff in the story you can make fun of. Right. You know, we just need to do the story.

So I talked with them a lot about can we actually play, well let's play a real game of diversity and drags on the table, Roman dice on the table. So you guys, cause I know you guys haven't actually played except for Jason played villains of Visual Annie's okay a lot yeah and and I but we'll actually play and then you can see you know what it's like to be the character whatever and I can't give you all guys Improv class is you know what I can yeah, but I can show you how to do this thing yeah for for real yeah Yeah, but we could just never sync up our schedules on that. And then so what happened is,

you know, again, like I couldn't at one time, Dejan had the, you know, net, you couldn't be available because of a show that he's doing. He's getting paid. He's actually getting paid. And, and then Jason had to ditch out a couple of times. And so I started rotating in improvisers, because and, and, and Bryant, I talked to Brian, Brian had mentioned that that might be a good idea as well and So yeah, I started rotating in and then one time I had Rubin and bit cytos the same time with Emma. It was fucking brilliant. Yeah, and then Brian actually said I think you should at this I think he said you may want to ask them if they can do it regularly. And then I was like, they never would.

There's no way. You know, I know that Emma was like down, you know, cause she's like the homie, you know, but like, I'm sorry, I'm an asshole. I keep referring to Emma as she, and I just recently learned Emma is they, her pronouns they, yeah. So yeah, Emma, yeah, they is the home. Yeah, they are the home. Yeah, yeah, and and so and you know, but then like

I asked Rubin and he said hell yeah, you know because he Rubin and then Rubin I started playing Pathfinder with Korki and Daniel and some other Improvisors I can't recall off top of my head and then and then Betzada I just asked her and she just she was hella gracious and did it and then it's just been hell like smooth ever since then and And Betzada never played a role playing game before this But her improv skills are just such that she could just be there and see that there's a story happening How can I be a part of it and make it better?

Right. And, okay. So that's the origin. Tell us the format. Tell us how it works. Like, don't give away the entire thing. Yeah, I was gonna say, I'm not gonna determine what trade secrets are.

The basic thing is, is though I try it, because I incorporate it things I do, because I start playing fate for about, I think three years I was running fate games and again remember I was like saying I didn't really feel I wasn't feeling D&D right but in fate you know in D&D you hide the map from the players right you know right and in fate I was finding that I was you know in&D though, I did use like a lot of tactical maps. So you'd usually be trying to translate we saw in the module to a tactical, like a, you know,

whiteboard type of maps, not that. I can't remember what they're called, the Chesex. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a mat, you know, not a hex, but just squares. Yeah, yeah. I did use Hex for grips, because when I ran grips, it was Hex-based. But, yeah, anyway, the point being is that

when I started playing, fate, they use a system called zones. So they don't measure like the squares. They just say like this room would be a zone. And then, oh, Marvel did that with areas. With areas? Yeah, it's probably, that's probably, yeah, yeah. But yeah, so that is also a zone.

And then anywhere else is a door. That's another zone. And it doesn't matter how big it is, that's the zone. Right, right. And it's just, it's really just a way to determine entering exiting spaces and who's in line of sight without having a lot of complicated rules. Yeah, absolutely.

So, but that got me practicing drawing big maps. So then, and then I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring you somebody else, Dyson Logos is a guy who blew up Patreon with just hand-drawn maps He does old school hand-drawn maps. He's real big in the OSR and And I believe he also identifies on the LGBT spectrum. I didn't know that at this time I just asked him because I said bro like you're he does a lot of a Non-commercial maps like you can use his math for personal use

Oh cool and and and so because that's what his Patreon is about. He puts out maps and then you pay him and then he just keeps doing it. And then there's just more content that people can have available. Right, right. Yeah, but if you go to dysonlogo.com, I'll just plug him right now. Sure. There's a whole archive of all his old maps.

And so I asked him, I said, bro, I need like this show's coming up. And I need maps. Can I like hand, like can I blow up your mouse bite? he's all dude yeah do it yeah fuck yeah because we knew each other from Google plus back in Google plus was like yeah yeah bloodthroat RPG people and so he said that sounds awesome so I did it and the the main map of the main two maps of the world are Wokland, that's the continent of Wokland. And then if you go to the east of Wokland is a town that's on a cliff called Diver City. And both of those are transcribed from Dyson maps. But I learned how to do that because I was running a dungeon crawl with fate

because people said you couldn't do it. And so, because it's too narrative in it, too. But I was running a dungeon crawl with fate because people said you couldn't do it. Okay. And so, because it's too narrative in it, too. But I was just running straight up, Dyson's maps and populating each thing just like, and blowing the maps up hell of big, because I wanted people to see how great his maps are. So I didn't blow them up big. And then what I would do is like, in the game, like you can create aspects in the game.

So like, if you set a room on fire, you would, I just write on the map, rooms on fire, you know, room on fire. Or, and if they found like a magic item, I would draw it on the map, and then I would write. And then like if they declared things that should be true, because that's something about old school faith that I liked a lot, they called make it declarations.

So like if you're in an old dungeon, and the GM doesn't describe it, but the player can just call out, well, I'm gonna grab one of the torches off of the wall. Yeah. Cause, and then I'll light it. It makes sense, right? Yeah.

The GM didn't say there's a torch there, but why do you have to ask? Right. Yeah. Just say that there would be a, and then the GM can then say, and this is something I learned from GERPS, a lot of the GERPS, GM advice.

They said just let the, like if you're in a dungeon and And the the player goes I'm gonna go chip one of the flex of granted off the wall And then and I told all my player I would always tell all my players this but there's no mechanic in groups And I'd say you could tell me there's anything in the world and if I don't like it I'll just say well you go to chip off the granite and you actually realize it's it's it's slate I'll just tell you what it is You can yes and or no but yeah, yeah, but but you know, why not just say it's granite

But the reason I might be saying it's slate is because that's important to the absolutely. Yeah, there's an overriding plot reason Why you can't grab a torch or why I need this to be more difficult for you than grab the torch. Yeah, then I will get it there Yeah, but if not then yes, you grabbed the torch, then I will get it there. But if not, then yes, you grab the torch. But yeah, I could just easily say, well, you know, you're looking in the hallway and it turns out, you know, this, you're right. This, your experience, you know,

eventually you've been through a lot of dungeons like this, this all the way reminds you of this, about several that were designed by the same dwarves apparently, but they don't, they must have not got that add on because like there's just a table in the corner, but there is a lantern already lit, and there's an ogre asleep at the table as well. You know, like, yes, yeah.

Like, yeah. You see broken sconces. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Yeah. Somebody's been through and intentionally broken this. Why have they done that? That's a good question. Yeah, I don't tell.

But, well, I tend to, like, I go away over the top. Like, I'll just do it like a long riff and, and, and, and, uh, part of that is railroading because I just want to get to the ogre. Yeah, you know, like, you know, hey, and the ogre, he wakes up because you, you know, you, you just reach for this thing where you're supposed to, and you scrape the wall, but anyway, yeah. Um, but the, uh, okay, so he got the maps. I got the maps.

Okay. So, I wasn't telling him a fate, but like, so you got the maps. I got the maps. Okay, so I wasn't telling him a fate. But like so, one more thing, the declarations, that's called a declaration. And that thing should be in every fucking game. There should be a mechanic that just explicitly in the book says players can make shit up, you know? Yeah.

Because I feel like that takes what I learned from Sal and this is where I dropped back to Cyberpunk. Sal, listening to all of us in our conspiratorial mindset, was really kind of doing that already. Like we were saying things, and he's introducing them, but in secret, but if the players just know they can do that, then they will do it more often.

Yeah, and there is a thing that happens again, I game master for my kids who are 11 and 9 now. And they sometimes get risk averse. Because their characters are due pressures for them or whatever. And I always tell them like, look, if you do nothing, you aren't heroes in what's the point of playing. If you do something and it kills you, at least you went out of hero. Now that's two ends of the spectrum there, but also like if you just sit there and you're worried about protecting your precious character, you know, and I said this to my kids fairly frequently, a boat is safest in the harbor, but that is not why we build boats. And you know, depending on their level of frustration,

they're like, hey, okay, we'll get- I just got there, no. I'm sorry, took a second. No, no. But it's very much you create, D&D absolutely came from an adversarial. Very rules are, rules as written. And if you're not trying to kill your players,

you're not doing them the good serviceings like someone that and therefore people become risk averse immediately. I got a question for you. Yeah All right. Well, it's not even a question. I was like Um, so I've been working on saying I'm probably gonna introduce it if I publish Yeah, version trades Uh, it because I like I think I did tell you I want to make it more crunchy than the stage version. But we already talked about this. This is exactly what I talked about. But I'm just going to say it here because I think everybody should do it.

Don't make zero hit points. Don't make zero hit points death. Make zero hit points lack of agency. Yes. And then consequential. Yeah, because you've been talking about fate. That's what happens in fate is like you have the option of either saying, okay, well, you know, you took me out. Yeah. This is what happens on, you know, comatose in the hospital, you know,

or whatever. Or no, no, no. I'm dead. dead. Yeah. Yeah, the player gets to this side. Yeah. But this is how I wanted to die, or I still got more left in the tank. How about we do this instead? But I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I had this moment, like in a pivotal moment for myself. I'm not trying to say it's really super great, but for me, my style of play to integrate the fate that, that mechanism from fate into D&D, super easy, don't need to change any mechanics outside of this.

You hit zero hit point. You are now out. You don't want to get to choose what happens to your character anymore. If anything went past that, I count that as a negative, like you would typically count to negative 10. Sure. But I'm going to go further. However, fucking far. Mm-hmm. And then that thing is an injury. It's the injury that did you in that puts you on the ground and you write that next to one of your stats Sure And as long as you have it there

You have to roll it disadvantage against that stat Okay, and you heal it normally with healing spells because it's a wound it makes sense now, right? Yeah, it's not just hit points It's a fucking wound and the wound is that hard. It's right. It's that's that right and so that right there is something I want to put and I've never seen anybody Exactly do that that that something my buddy Mike kind of did and and we had some disagreement but in D&D Redux It's it's similar. I want to talk to him like because he's really brilliant and but I would like that to be what happens because then that way you can still walk around with a fucking wound on your strength

That's right. You say you know gaping chest wound and still be going around and people might be like well That's not realistic. Well neither goblins. Yeah, so what's not realistic to take 99 hit points when you have a hundred and just have one Right left and you're fine Yeah, it's not realistic to get a no fight, get beat up, and not be limpant the next day. And then what you could have is you could have the same rules you have, like the stabilization, you know, the first day check, you stabilize them,

or they have a gaping chest, one just not gaping anymore, you just, it's a chest wound. And then you've got the realism is in the, rolling at disadvantage. You're packed in it in there. It has a consequence. Now unlike one hip-point left from a pool of, well, and if you go with the hip points,

it goes right back to the tactical game that D&D was spawned from. But this gets me thinking, like I think my kids would make the same rationalization. That's rational thinking. They think like, I'm not gonna to risk myself because I could die. Right. And then I won't get to play this character who I love anymore.

You know, but if you make it so that, you know, you can do this, but you're going to, your character is going to suffer. Mm-hmm. You know, and if you think about that, and this comes all the way back to why did I start playing, it wasn't to see Bill Bo die on the first page. Right. You know, like that, it wasn't to see Bill Bo die on the first page. Right. You know, like that, it wasn't.

And he never did. There was no point at which Bill Bo was, I was never afraid for Bill Bo's life. I was like, what's gonna happen next? How is he gonna get out of this? The reason I love Conan the barbarian is because he lived. Right. You know, like, yeah.

That's gonna show, you know, like, and you know what, what I loved even more is what fucking James Earl Jones did to him. Yes. Because that movie isn't about Conan. It's about Thosodum and how fucked up he is. And how dope he is at the same time. He's like, right?

I do as small as fuck. You know what, yeah. He made that woman jump off the theme. That's how smooth he is. That's right, right. He's like, he's like the highest level pimp in all of Hyboria. And I really think that's what it was. That's what it was.

It's that. You know, he's a great, he's a great self. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, this idea that debt, and I'm not saying it's not true, but I think the people that say that risk of death is that they can't play without it, I think they're wrong. Like they just haven't played games.

I was gonna say, they're used to. They are used to, you know what they are? Those are the kids that are used to doing all the extra credit to get the A in the class. And then they run into a class where they actually get graded on the quality of their writing. And they're like, but I did all the things.

Why don't I get the thing I've been used to? I learned this system. I have gained this system. I deliberately picked a toad as my familiar. So I get a plus two to my con and I'm gonna spend the whole night making potions. You know, and you're like, okay, I mean, you wanted that thing but none of that matters because you lost the arm.

You know, and stuff like that. Yeah. So I feel like I have to add an addendum, because I know there's some people, because I'd think there's different levels of play. So there's some people that are still playing RPGs at the tactical, like at the tactical origin level. Those people, I'm sorry that I said that you're not wrong. You need to die because you're, you're playing like a individual war game. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and that doesn't have a place in gaming, I play like that sometimes, but if I'm running a game, that is not why I'm running the game. And when I involuntary to play a game,

my greatest hope is that my friend, Sal, he's passed away. But if that I hope he's possessed somebody because we never died in this game. We just suffered immeasurably. Compared to any, like dying is not, it's not shit. If you play Cyberpunk and this arm is cut off and this one's wounded and you took a wound to your chest and you can't do anything you wanna do.

I can't do it. I mean, they saved me. You know, I'm not dying, but I can't afford a cyber limb yet, I got a cheap ass one that we rip off of this guy, but then the Ripper Dog gave me herpes. You know, whatever, like, like, it's just like, his game was so fucking gritty and hard that I'm like, dining shit, really.

You know, like, I mean, it's not really anything. You know, and that's what fate made me think. Because fate's cool, and that fate doesn't get as like crunchy as cyberpunk, but they do a similar thing in that. Like I was saying, they have consequences. So you get your, there's like, I can't remember them. There's like mild, moderate, severe.

And if you take one past that, it's extreme. And that extreme one replaces one of your aspects, your normal aspects. So you might have it like an aspect that's like, can see in the dark. Well, that's that extreme one might be that a fucking took out one of your eyes, you know, and it replaces can see in the dark, you know, or something like that, you know, like, and, you know, but you get the pick as the

player. You know, you get the pick, which thing you get rid of. All right, back to diversity and dragon's though. Okay. I'm sorry, that's the long, that's the long vision for diversity and dragons to kind of incorporate like new school and old school. And to make it a publisher bowl game. Now what, so I'm gonna hang on to that part. What is your goal in publishing that? Like why do you think that that adds a good to the gaming world?

Well, because there's a lot of things. So a lot of people are here publishing games and advocating for diversity and gaming and whatever. But I think one thing a lot of gamers don't want to admit is that there's just social dynamics in the mechanics of the game. There's social dynamics in our culture, of play, whatever, and these things are not welcoming.

And then further, how we socialize impacts how people intersect, right? Because if you're hanging out, if you're just a regular, I have a buddy who's a plumber and a buddy who's a worse at UPS. I met them because I knew this guy from doing movies with this other guy, and I'm just meeting all these guys.

And they, and I love them all, they all happen to be pretty much similar colors, different ethnic backgrounds, but similar color, sure. You know, but meeting great, and it's not their fault. These are the social circles within they run. And the schools that they went to, you know, when they were younger and so on. And it's systemic. It's systemic. They were in this neighborhood that had a school

that had this population. So that's who they, this is something that bugs a shit out of me, damning an ed, is the systemic racism is there get out of jail free card? That's there get out of jail free card. Why do they oppose it? That says you're not at fault for being racist

This this system did it to you right, but this system made you racist, you know But then they want to say no, I'm not they just rather say I'm not racist that other guy who you know flies the Individual choice. Yeah, it's individual choice and and what I do is not racist right no What you do is also a former racism right you say, you went, I hope, you know, a black family moved in. I hope our property value doesn't go down. They'll be like, that's not racist. That's based on statistics or whatever.

Right. That's economics. Well, you're certainly not helping by, you know, like, by not going, you know, what you're validating that system. But my goal is, and it's a fucking lot, but the reason I wanna, like, I've always wanted to publish a game, I've always wanted to take all the ideas,

I really love D20s. And I don't like fate dice. I play Fudge before fate. And I like what Fudge dice do, and I like the bell curve they create. But one of the things I had to decide is no matter how much I personally like the mathematics of them and the beauty of them

and all this stuff, when I play with other people, they don't like it because what happens in fate is you roll these dice that have negatives and positive, and they get you a number from negative four to positive four and it's a bell curve. When it goes negative, they feel like the dice are robbing them. It's a psychological thing.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, they're only having played a couple of fake games. Oh, God, yeah. And I was trying so hard to work around it because you can use D6s and two different color D6s make one positive and one negative. I found a better response to that. Yeah. You know, but as much as I love fate, it's built on that framework that is kind of repugnant to a lot of people.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the dice. The dice are turned off to some folks. Yeah, and they're really, they're really strange. There's no numbers. They're six sided, but there's no numbers. There's two blanks, two minus two. And I love it. So when I played Fudge, I loved that shit. I started just playing Fudge because you could do so much with that. Sure. And you can't, you really can. The other other thing I love about fate and fragile is fractal.

So like, what you can do is like, and you could, for a, and I'm probably gonna borrow the shit for like a dungeon. I don't have to fucking stat every fucking monster. I could say goblins in this have great attacks that cause they have words and they equated the numbers. So they are great at attacking, they're superb at, you know, trap building, you know what I'm saying.

And that's just for every fucking god, this dungeon has that, or you can just write, you could make it a more of a macro, a macro, goblins, great. Whatever they do to you, it's great. You know, and it's like how important are the goblins, you can decide in a fractal manner using the same system over and over and over.

Okay. You know, it just makes it easy to win it. And that's what I want. I want the game to be fucking easy. the goblin, you can decide in a fractal manner using the same system over and over and over. Okay. You know, it just makes it easy to win it. And that's what I want. I want the game to be fucking easy. To play. I want it to be easy to get into. And I want there to be some platform where people know if they're playing that game that

diversity or inclusion. That's a better way to say it. Inclusion is a inclusion, because it sounds good. Inclusion is important to these people. You know, whereas if you play D&D, you never know what you're getting. Right, like you ran into a lot of time again. Yeah, sometimes I run into a D&D group,

it's like, no, we're not all like that. I want a game where if you play that, you know nobody's like that. So like your friend told you, keep the name of diversity, and then it'll chase away. Yeah, and hey, if these assholes start playing diversity in dragons and then they show up to places,

and they're like, oh my god, this was really fun. You know, I don't know why I hate you guys. You know, like, I don't know why I hate you guys, you know, like, I don't know why I hate you guys, you know, like, I don't know why I hate you guys, you know, like, I don't know why I hate you guys, you know, like, I don't know why I hate you guys, you know, like,

I don't know why I hate you guys, you know, like, I don't know why I hate you guys, you know, like, I don't know why I hate you guys, you know, like, I don't know why I hate you guys, you know, like, I don't know why I hate you guys, you know, like, I don't know why I hate you guys, you know, like, I don't know why I hate you guys, you know, like, I don't know why I hate you guys, you know, like, I don't know why I hate you guys, you know, like, I love stand-up comics, I love, well not all of us, we discussed, but I love improv, I love drawing maps, I love running games, you know?

Like so it's like this show was like the, like it's the only thing I can do that incorporates all of those things. So that's a passion thing, and I just happen to have this other thing that is a value I guess of mine that I've attached. And so, but the wider, if I can get myself out of the pit of hell that I find myself personally in my life and get myself to publish it, that would be my goal.

Is that to create this game where people just know it's on the front, it's on the cover. We didn't just put a bunch of pictures of black people and Latinas and whatever and in Boo Barmer in here, you know, this is what we want playing. We want these people playing and we're not just going to do it by saying, hey look, you're in here on this page. Don't look at who wrote it. Don't look at the contributors of the play. I'm not saying, I don't know how far it was as the coast went with play. But I do know that there's been some problematic,

yeah, there's some problematic individuals that got kicked off, they're not in the book anymore because they were consultants. And then they got found that they were a legit, yeah, a legit sexual abuse or whatever. But anyway, that's why. Thank you for asking me, Damian. I think that helped me synthesize it.

I'm gonna play this, I'm gonna record it. I'm gonna sniff this out, I'm gonna put on my phone. So every time it rings, it's like, I'm doing this for this reason. I'm like that's right. You know, don't forget it. That's a good goal. It sounds, I mean, fuck, I hope it's doable. Yeah, well yeah. Well, there's only gonna be like five people to play. But, you know, that's those five people. That's gonna be the people. Gary Geigak started with printed paper that was you know bound for

50 bucks or whatever yeah But my goal would be of course to make a system that I really enjoy playing and I think is good Yeah, yeah, we would anything you're gonna do like that. Yeah, I think that has to be a default setting too Yeah, it has to be a good system because now we live in a world where all these systems do exist Like guy ge had it easy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Whereas now it has to be a system that's good

because you're going to have so many people be like, oh, it's this shit system that I don't care about the thing. And I'm already, it's a polarizing name, which I think is, I'm always a big fan of polarizing things because you can see where people line up. Yeah. I don't get why it's polarizing But I mean I get I mean I guess I get it because propaganda has forced this you know, just like critical race theory or

Climate change or any other thing, you know has been associated, but yeah, I mean that that's kind of good because I mean I guess One like you said don't give me your money. Yeah, yeah, it says it's protective coloring it sends a signal No, I like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's poison poison don't eat me. Yeah Or you know if your metabolism works a certain way You know I'm fucked. Yeah, but jellyfish and turtles. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so You you talked about when you were talking about white white women to do it and we're you know running running on with our time. Oh, do we go over?

There is one close. It's not I'm not too worried about it, but I do want to ask because you said, you know, with D&D specifically and I mean gaming in general, like as a sister white guy who wants to be part of and run when I run a game, a table that that I could legit say, no we're not like that. What would you advise me to do in order to make sure that the game I'm running and the table I'm at is is like not just safe but like welcome. Yeah, well that's hard because that's hard to say because I don't know there's a one size fits all kind of thing but I do think just What I started doing is being more promiscuous about gaming Like when when I started playing fate a lot and I was trying to find myself as like I'm not gonna

I don't want to play d&d anymore for a while because I just kind of tired of it. Because there's always that guy at the table. It's not the whole table, but there's that guy and then his friend and then the person who thinks like that guy but doesn't tell anybody and then so you're just outnumbered. You know, you're outnumbered. I mean, you can't win in that scenario and then you have to listen to that guy the whole fucking time.

And, but so, but I think what I started finding is that I would go to different I would just look at game stores Who's who's running Savage world who's running this and I started playing a lot of different games and Interfacing with a lot of different people and from those people I found oh, I want that person in my game I want that person in my game. I want that. Let me let me These are people that are open to new systems and and they're open to You know and and through playing with them I saw that their values are similar to mine

So I don't think it needs to be open to everybody. I think the thing is maybe to just go out and find people You know that that you want to play with and You know and when you're doing that selection just like you would be like I'm gonna go to the grocery store and eat stuff I'm gonna I'm gonna go to the grocery store and eat stuff. I'm gonna go to the produce section, see if I can find some chicken. You know, that's what people do. They're like, I'm in the produce section.

If there's chicken here, I'll buy it. If somebody puts chicken here, I'll buy it. Right. You know, the chicken's on the other side, sir. Well, I don't wanna have to force chicken on me. I just want chicken. Right. You know, I just want chicken to come to me.

It's dead though. You know, like I don't know. But like, you know what I'm saying? That's what it's like when, because every when I posted before they got torn down, the most polite objection was always all, I don't mind diversity. I just want it forced on me.

Where the fuck do you, I look? Where the fuck do you live? You live in like 99.9% of the people around you are the same. How else are you gonna get it? You need it for something you literally move through. You know, it's impregnable. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean like, there's a guy who wrote a book and he called it white topias. And I forget the guy's name, but he went to all these different areas where nobody he's he's all this is how racist being exists where they're without racists you know like because he goes these communities everybody there says they love him he's so great and and it's true that's personally yeah but then none of them want to dismantle any of the things that make it so that it's more dangerous for this guy to walk the street you know yeah like none of them because because cars are great. And, and, and, and I hate the government, but they're not doing anything wrong in that capacity. Right, you know, like, you know, like, you know,

like, you know, like, status quo, like I've said, a couple times, status quo leans authoritarian. Yeah, but I mean, there's not really a lot, I mean, and then, oh, here's another thing that we consider is I do think like, when you're inviting people to the table that might be experiencing trauma, that you don't experience, maybe like, try to be a little more open about.

They're gonna be dealing with things differently than you do. You know, because I know that like most of my friends, I've kind of decided, I think a lot of my friends are on the spectrum and that's why we get each other. Like it just so happened. Like, and it doesn't matter what, most of my friends are mixed, but also kind of like super geeky and like very focused

on like gaming or some like fucking thing that has a lot of rules. And they know if you give them a chance, they'll just rattle it all off to you. And I started going, maybe I'm not the only one on this spectrum. But like, yeah, I should get out of that. You know, like I should get out of like my friend group

needs to include people that are neurodiverse. You know, that do understand why somebody is upset that when they're talking about, like with you guys, I notice this, I'll say something. I'll be like, hey, this thing happened. And then you'll be like, that reminds me of this thing. And then you'll be like, that reminds me of this. I never once go, why aren't they talking about me?

Right. But that's neuro-typical behavior to be like, I was talking about me, I wanted to keep talking about me Is it really yes? Oh? Yeah, yeah usually people that are on the spectrum if you say something it'll jog their memory about something that's Analogous in their life and then they will we I should say we'll repeat it Yeah, you know like and I've had to going through therapy. I've had to undo'll repeat it. You know, like, and I've had to, going through therapy, I've had to undo that.

And it's an enthusiastic, like, then I'm adding to what you're doing. Yeah, and it's like this, like, oh my God, I found you're just like me. Right. That happened to me too. Here's this small slice that is similar and now, by the way, there's five tangents, but yes.

Yeah, but we're, you know, since we're kind of in the minority or not, it's acceptable. The worst supposed to adapt to the other side, you know like they're to be like oh well I need to learn to stop doing that right you know instead of the other person recognize Oh, they are being empathetic by recognizing my struggle is similar to their struggle The thing I will say this is a disqualifier if I because I've had friends real friends say this I'll be like you know they'll be like I don't think racism exists and then I go well I wish I

could agree with you but unfortunately my my own brothers get pulled over way more than I do because they can be identified as black from very far away and then they're like why get what do they do because I've been pulled over before because I was speeding and you know I didn't complain about it you were fucking speeding right you were at all three of my brothers have been pulled, have been harassed by cops just for being present. Right, you know, yeah. I had a wild laugh.

Yeah, my middle brother doesn't drive, but yeah, he has had, he is not out of all of us though, he's been in the military and he considered being a police officer. I considered being a police officer at one point, but I had friends that were, and they told me about it,

I might be able to do that shit, because I had friends that were, and they told me about it, I'm like, I can't do that shit. He's like, I can't look the other way. But my middle brother is like, you know, he's more one to say there's good and bad cops and whatever and sympathize. I think because he's so seriously considered being in law enforcement. But it's still the case that he has been discriminating against because, you know, and, but yeah, it's just annoying. And then to know my oldest brother, he's driven and been harassed so much. He has like he's proud of the scripts. He has to deflect the racism that is thrown at him from cops

Sure, you know, he's proud. He'll tell it. You know, he'll be like this one cop pulled me over because I was riding my Harley And then he's like he's like, you know, I don't what where you from? I don't I don't recognize you And then he's all I've lived here 16 years. I don't I don't know you what precinct are you from You know like Yeah, and then you know like and and so he's always so proud But like why are there so many why does my one brother have so many fucking stories like that sure Not one of my white friends has a story like that sure You know and and this is the thing so if you encounter somebody like that and then

They like if you have them at your table and then something happens that happens to them normally like that, and then, like if you have them at your table, and then something happens, that happens to them normally, that's resembling, you know, they might react different. And then you've got to not take that personal. You know, that's why the invented shit like the X card, the person who's being offended can just drop the X card and not have to totally explain their shit.

Right, and be deconstructed. I'm like, I'm a trauma for you. Yeah, by the table that's predominantly not them. You just dropped the X card and say I'm not comfortable with the, you know, I have to articulate, I'm not comfortable with the orc raping the goblin. You know, like, you know, I know you guys think you're being fucking edgy, you know, but you don't have to say that. You just say, I'm sorry, I'm not comfortable with the orc fucking the goblin. Drop your X card. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, you rub your eyes. It's not an orc fucking the goblin. It's right. You know,. Yeah. You rub your eyes. It's not an

or fucking goblin. It's right. You know, I don't know what it is, but it's it's you know, but it's, you know, and I think that like that stuff's important. It's important to acknowledge that like, you know, people that are especially people that are of different genders or say they've been harassed their whole fucking life and they might have been, you know, experienced a sort of sexual predation or, you know, from people that are supposedly straight that fucked with them, you know, that done things to them, whatever. And to just kind of like take a moment and breathe when there's conflict at the table based on the differences, because there will be. I think that's why people group together and similar, similarity because they don't want that conflict. Right.

Yeah. Well, and they will gaslight want that conflict. Right. Yeah. Well, and they will gaslight their way out of it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we are running up on, God, we could do this for four or five more episodes, but I do think we owe people do in the next week. Yeah. But, but I-

You guys got me wound up, and I sent them a passionate now. I can stop talking at any time. I swear. I'm like, hey, you guys need to watch a bus or whatever. So here's what I'll say. I want to remind everybody that in just a few days time, July 29th at 8 p.m. at the comedy spot, if you go to bigblackdice.com, which by the way is one letter different than another word. Yeah, that's funny. But bigblackdice.com, you can find tickets there.

They're only $8. You owe it to yourself to go. It's one of the best live shows in Sacramento and it's coming back and you know, make hay while the sun is shining as far as that goes. I want to thank you, Teo, for coming to talk with us and just getting nerdy with us. It's been a hell of a night Yeah, thank you. Yeah, absolutely enjoyed it. It's awesome. Yeah So do you Ed do you have anything that you want to recommend to people to read? If you haven't finished reading doom get it done

Homework fair finish it only the first book. Don't worry about the rest of them. I'm not getting into the rest of them. They get fucking weird. I mean, it's doomed. So it's weird. But you get what I mean. Just if you haven't done it yet, finish reading the book. That's it. Cool. Uh, Tato, is there anything that you want to recommend people to read? To read. I guess I should pick an actual novel. That's time for them. I was going to say another fucking. I recommended movies.

I recommended wrestling matches. I recommended. Yeah, so now. And if you have nothing you want to recommend, that's OK too. I mean, can I recommend three things? I feel like I'm going to be able to get around the game. High on the hog on Netflix is a show about African-American cuisine and how it's influenced all of the United States.

And one of the most interesting facts I learned from that is that some people speculate that all the recipes attributed to Martha Washington were actually the servant. That was nice. Because he was trained in France. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, but yeah, it starts in Benin

and then kind of comes to me like, yeah. And they kind of trade, it's just super interestingin and then kind of comes to me like yeah, and they kind of trade They it's just super interesting and I got my kids watching it and I also think that There's a movie I wanted to drop but I already I already did a movie the book There's a fantasy novel. I love the first one. I like the first two is guy guy name David David Farland wrote a book called Roonlords. And I love this thing. I've always wanted to put it. I wanted to try it in groups, in

fudge, in fate. And what it is is he said he was trying to write a Tolkienian thing and then he scrapped that and he just wrote something completely different. Roonlords, what it is, is there's these lords and they have this special kind of branding iron that's made of a blood iron, I think they call it, and it extracts properties from people and then they can put it on themselves. I started reading that series, yeah, that's amazing. And then they end up with these huge, like, these weird strategic things because if you get your, you can, the person has to be willing, but they can extract like, like, a brawn from you. And so they'll put that on their warriors,

multiple brawn, like a thousand brawn and one guy. So then they have to house all those people, though, because in order to keep the connection, they have to be alive. So then they house in them in these big fortresses. And so what will happen is that in these wars, they will try to assail those fortresses to destroy the dead kids. So then that person becomes weak again. But they can they can do smell, they can do glamour, you can be the most beautiful, your voice, and so that's what I recommend. It's a totally different look at like things that could happen. Well I'm gonna recommend the color of law by Richard Rothstein. We've talked about neighborhoods, we've talked about structures, and this one I actually has been recommended to me a number of times.

I'm going to pass that recommendation on, and it's basically, it's a look not just at redlining, but also racial covenanting and all kinds of other HUD and other, what I want to say, government agencies and how they've kind of reinforced old Jim Crow in New City planning. So definitely... Sounds like a really uplifting positive read there. Bunch of fun. Oh yeah, bunch of fun. I got one more. Okay, this is a nonfiction. Race is a four-letter word, the genesis of the concept by C. Lauren Brace. It's a textbook, but it actually breaks down like the origins. Nice. And then it has a lot, you know, it's a multidisciplinary kind of thing. But I loved it. It's really dry though. I will say that is not sure, you know.

It will be a textbook. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But cool. Okay, cool. Thank you. Well, let's see. They can find you a big black, big black dice. you. Well, let's see they can find you a big blast big black dice calm Well, that's really gonna find the show. Oh, yeah, and then again If you want to follow me big big underscore black underscore dice at Instagram or Twitter There you can just look me up tail Morgan on Facebook. Cool. We're diversity and drag All right, and you Well, you can find me on tiktok. And you? Well, you can find me on TikTok as Mr. Blalock. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter as EH Blalock.

We're going to find you. The Harmony. Yeah, well, let's just stick to them. The Harmony on Twitter and Insta and then Twitch.tv forward slash capital puns. And you can find my pun show there. So all right. Well, again, thank you, Taylor Morgan, for being on our show. I'd like you to pun show there. So, all right. Well, again, thank you, Teo Morgan, for being on our show.

I really appreciate it. Yeah, I know. I love having you here. Yeah, for Geek History of Time, I'm Damien Harmony. I'm Ed Blaylock, and until next time, keep rolling 20s.