Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Reimagining Blood on the Clocktower w/ Becca Scott | Quests N’ Answers

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

Welcome back to Quests N’ Answers! This week, Dan Casey sits down with the one and only Becca Scott (Good Time Society, Dimension 20, Parlor Room) to break down her approach to running RPGs, transforming Blood on the Clocktower into a narrative actual play series, her brand new Dropout series Parlor Room, and much more.   Support Good Time on the Clocktower on Kickstarter! https://bit.ly/4jic9fQ Listen to the Sorority RPG podcast: https://spoti.fi/3XUcSf0   New episodes of Quests N’ Answers air every Wednesdays on Geek & Sundry or wherever you get your podcasts: https://lnk.to/goblinmodepod   Learn more and sign up for the Geek & Sundry newsletter at https://www.geekandsundry.com/!   Subscribe to Geek and Sundry: http://goo.gl/B62jl Twitter: http://twitter.com/geekandsundry Facebook: http://facebook.com/geekandsundry Instagram: http://instagram.com/geekandsundry TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@geekandsundry Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm Dan Casey, and today we have a very special guest joining me here in the Conversation Dungeon. Now, you may have seen her gracing screens and dropout shows like Dimension 20 or Um Actually. You may have seen her curating endlessly amazing gaming experiences on Good Time Society. And you may have even seen her right here on Geek and Sundry and everything from Game the Game to Goblin Mode and Beyond, just to name a few of her many credits. Folks, you love her.

It's Becca Scott. Becca, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you so much for having made. It's such a pleasure to get to talk to you. Yes. I was thrilled that we got to play together recently on Goblin Mode. And I watched you masterfully solve puzzles with your copious notes. Yeah, the one time taking notes has paid off for me. I'm usually not the person that takes notes in a group, but that was a testament to why it pays to occasionally write things down. Yeah, absolutely. It was very impressive. You got to the root of the puzzle Amy had to. had crafted.

Yes. She was so surprised. I think she cried. She did. She did. Anytime you can make your DM cry, that's a victory for the players. We're going to take it back one day at a time. Mm-hmm.

But so this was the first time I got to play a TTRPG with you. But I'm curious because you've, you are a staple in my mind in so many actual plays in gaming. But when was your first experience? When did you first get into the world of pen and paper role playing games? The very first, what I ever played. It was run by Ivan Van Norman on a Twitch show at Geek and Sundry called No Survivors. Amazing.

Some charity or something. It was like some dumb shoe detective thing. And I wore a crazy hat and made crazy decisions as is my hallmark in any game. Why would you play if you can't upset everyone at the table with your crazy choices that you insist or in character? As long as your character believes it and you believe it, it's canon. Do you remember what your earliest? character was. Do you remember, uh, apart from the crazy hat? Just some gum shoe. Um, that's all, that's all I recall. But, uh, yeah, yeah. And then TBD RPG, which was formerly Weave Society was,

um, when I really felt like I got my chops, just playing a bunch of one shots and running games for a fantastic group of women that, uh, are, are my rider dies to this day. Amazing. Well, I want talk about running games in a moment, but I'm still talking about characters a little bit. You mentioned that tendency towards being an agent of chaos. What is your philosophy when it comes to character creation? When it comes to character creation, I always want to play something I've never played before. But at the same time, I can't play a meek and timid character. I can't not make the boldest choice possible to move the story forward because as I believe you do, I come from an improv background and you're not allowed to rehash anything.

You're not allowed to dwell on anything too long. You need to keep the story moving from A to C at all points. And so my character choices stem from that. What is something super bizarre that I'm going to have to try and justify? And that's my little character game for me the whole time. You got to keep yourself invested as well. I respect that. I feel like you and I are similar in that.

I abhor a vacuum. if there's kind of an uncomfortable space or it feels like something's about to happen, I feel the need to fill it and just keep the energy up or keep things moving. I think that's also, you know, you are also someone who's a very accomplished live events host, and that is definitely a skill that is very necessary there, a tendency to be able to vamp whenever necessary. But in this case, fill it with bits.

Exactly. Fill it with bits or light some dynamite and see how this moves things forward. Yes, which I believe Jason actually did. and the game I signed in on. Yes. You somehow managed to jury rig it, so you gave him dynamite canonically. So thank you for your contribution there. I'm curious, though, do you, are, when it comes to, like, making a character for either

a home game or a game that's going to be produced for a larger audience, do you find yourself being someone who kind of waits to see what the party needs? Or do you have a clear idea of exactly who you want to play going into something? I may roll- dice, see what's on the sheet, see what needs to be filled in to have a complete party that makes sense, that has the unit to the yang, that everybody can have their heel or their opposite number in the party because so rarely do I play off-screen TTRBGs and I want to give a good show. And so it's definitely a different way of playing at a home game in that sense.

but then you end up doing something unique because you're just filling in the spot. No, I totally get that as well, especially in so much of what you do in your day to day is taken up with, you know, creating content in this medium for an audience that I imagine doesn't leave a lot of time for a home game on top of everything else. And you understand. Yes, that one. That's the one. That's the biggest one.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe in a few years, we'll see. but in the meantime, it's a challenge that is certainly kicking my ass in terms of fitting in. There's no succinct home game that you can play in. No one plays 30 minutes of D&D. If only they did. Now, Magic the Gathering, on the other hand.

Sorry, different topic, different podcast. No, no, no. It's all welcome here. It's Magic the Gathering played an integral role in sort of the fantasy pilling of young Dan. I saw the Magic the Gathering cards in the store drawn in by the art. on them, discovered a whole game there and then just sort of created a slippery slope down the world of TCG, CCG's D&D, you name it. And here we are today. Any acronym with some dragons on it. Let's go.

If there's winged creatures, worms, yvorns, et cetera, I'm in. But I want to talk to you about, you know, it's an interesting sort of push and pull because a lot of people, probably maybe watching or listening at home think about this from the perspective of, okay, I'm creating something for a home game. How does your mindset shift when you're creating something that's intended to be put forth in front of an audience? I would say if I were to play a home game, I would still have the same objective, which is create maximum fun for the other people sitting at the table with me. Because they're an audience as well. And so as long as you're giving gifts to the group, then I think backwards engineering to have a really fun time at your home.

game is thinking about what would work well in this performance type of setting because you are choosing to perform together. I mean, it's the same thing whether or not the cameras are rolling. You just get to not worry so much for filling that dead time as we both love to do when someone's doing the math of their role. Exactly. I think that's a very good point. I mean, I always think of sitting down and playing an RPG as a form of communal storytelling. It's like very much like sitting around. the campfire of old, but they've added some dice to randomize things a little bit.

This chooser and adventure book we're telling together. So you are performing, you are performing for an audience. The audience is you and your friends. Exactly. But on the flip side of things, you know, you mentioned that you've run a number of games now. Do you remember what the first session you over ran was? Greetings, adventurer. Spring has sprung here in Los Angeles.

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The first game I ever ran was a haunted summer camp that I made my own one-sheet, one-shot, that was like, pick your stuff. that for your camp character. You could do this or this or this and I made a map and Camp Creepwood. No, that's a game. Camp, maybe it was just Camp Lakewood, which was the name of the YMCA camp that I went to as a child. Incredible. But, yeah, it was a TBD RPG episode. So it exists somewhere in the archives of Twitch. Yes. In the deep in the annals of the internet, the internet. Wherever you're watching this, it could be here someday.

Yes, look at the window right beneath this, and it might even be right there. I'm curious, though, what's your, you know, how is your approach to sort of running games and world building evolved since you first started running them? I wish I could say there was less panic. I'd say it, it, I've realized I need less preparation, and yet every single time I overprepared. The most recent campaign I ran was called sorority. It was Call of Cthulhu, and I put it on a podcast feed. So please look wherever you get podcast for sorority. I just recently released it, but I don't know how to start a new thing.

And so, like, it's just kind of out there in the world. And it was about a haunted house. And I had three brilliant performers, Christina, Gina, and Serena, the Enas. And basically, I prepped each session based on what they did in the last session. I knew a rough layout of this house, but it was a haunted house. So obviously all of the rooms can move. If you're not in it, it's probably moving somewhere. And as it progressed, I just had a rough.

Here are the kinds of characters they were going to find in the house. Here is the overall moral that I want them to learn. Like what am I trying to say with the campaign? And it's most often F the patriarchy. Can I curse? You certainly may. Yeah. Well, at the patriarchy.

Yeah. There, I said it was, excuse me. I said it with the emphasis. This is my duty as an ally. Good, good, good, good, good. But, yeah, I think trusting players to fill in a full portion of the story, if you have three players, then a full quarter of it is going to be each of them. You don't have to do as much work.

Exactly. I mean, look, you can railroad. people to a certain degree and sort of try to get them from like point A to point C. But what happens that B is going to be almost entirely up to them because, again, it is this like mutual act of sharing in telling a story together. If you just wanted to tell your own story, then you would make a short film or you would write a book or you could even write a module if you want to keep it in the context of an RPG. But that's, I think that's the element of excitement that keeps me invested, keeps me coming back to both actual play and home games as well.

Yeah. And no matter how much you want people to fight your MPC, they are going to try to romance it. Yes. They just will. Yeah. And depending on how that romance goes, they may still fight anyway. Who knows? I'm all the DM for certain. I'm curious, what was your experience like creating something for a purely audio medium versus something that has that visual component as well? Did you find that there were different considerations that went into it? definitely a lot less considerations, a set being one and how I look in the faces I make being another. Because I chose to try just an audio medium, so I would get to release some of that pressure. For sure. That is always an additional stressor or thing that you need to think about.

If I could just put it all into one method for people to intake this story, then maybe I can really drill down. on how to tell that story. Just to make it simpler for me. No, I appreciate it. It's quite literally theater of the mind in that respect. And look, I love I love miniatures, but sometimes it's just nice to go on that audio journey as well. I'm curious when it comes to running games either for a home game occasionally or when you're putting together projects. Do you have homebrew rules or a favorite home rule that you like to employ in a campaign?

Gosh, home rule. The rule of fun. If you're not having fun, get out. Get out. Just leave. No, if someone wants to do something that they are very inventive with the way they want to handle a situation, it absolutely makes no sense for the mechanics of that system. But it's cool, then they should get to roll for that thing. Now, they may have to roll a natural 20.

Of course. Yeah, yeah. Or a crit of whatever. die value is appropriate, but always give them that chance, give them that hope. At this point, I feel like natural 20 is becoming almost diagnostic. It's just synonymous with something going very well, even if the best doesn't have that many sides. So that's my hot geometric take. Come at me, mathematicians. You know what? I'm having a Nat 20 kind of day, baby. Exactly. And I don't even have a single die on me. Not one. For people out there who are maybe considering starting their first campaign

or prepping to run their first adventure, or maybe you just want to shake things up in an existing game. So you have a piece of advice you would give to people that are trying to approach things from a fresh perspective. Be an active listener. As you said, a railroaded game is always going to be derailed by your players, or at least they will do their best to try. And they're not going to have fun if you make them get on the pirate ship when they really wanted to stay in the market for another three days. Just let them do what they want to do. you'll find a way to put the story points that you thought were fun in there eventually. Or they'll say, is this what you wanted us to do?

Should we do what you wanted us to do? Eventually, just let them get there on their own time. Yeah. And look, every campaign needs a good shopping episode. It's like an anime when there would be the random like summer trip to the beach episode. You just need to have that in there. You got it. The bottle episode and Breaking Badgers catching a fly.

Exactly. We've been... It's the same. That's like shopping. Exactly. Our attention spans have been crushed and diminished by binge culture. We only expect eight episodes of a show every five years now. We deserve so much more. But I want to shift gears a little bit. It's sort of... I mean, look, there's a through line here, folks, I promise. Because, Becca, you're not just a fantastic performer and storyteller, but you're also, as some people may know, the CEO of an amazing company for fans of gaming and quality storytelling.

Good Time Society. Whoa! We have a whole freaking building. Yes, that is children's gymnastics foam that we have put on the wall as sound dampening. That is some innovation right there. That's amazing. Yeah, shout out to Matt. Yes, shout out to Matt indeed.

I feel like now more than ever, sort of we've talked about this a bit with sort of like the act of coming together to play a TTRP, but now more than ever it feels really essential to make time to sit down and play. just the act of play feels something that really can't be overvalued. So I'm curious for you, from your perspective, what does the active play mean to you? And how is that sense of it evolved at all as you folks have built the team and community around Good Time Society? Oh, wow. I feel like every day we come into work and we're here to play.

If people, I've never not had a fun day at work. And I hope that's true for everybody else who either freelance, is full time here because we have this great opportunity to create our dream workplace in this miraculous world that we get to live in. You included where we just get to play games for work sometimes. And yeah, remembering that and remembering that like the world is so full of struggle that it is important to remember to engage the part of our brain that is meant to be utilized. that we forget about as we get, you know, older and try and function like a real adult.

I think that's overrated. And I think we need to remember that our childlike nature is what brings us the greatest joy. And that the whole point of the world is bringing the greatest joy to the greatest number of people. That's what I believe. That's amazing. And I think that you folks are certainly doing that through Good Time Society. And I'm very excited as well because you're about to be bringing a different type of joy to people through what I think is a very exciting project.

Yes, the best kind of joy. Murder's most foul. Murder joy. You folks recently launched your first Kickstarter for a project called Good Time on the Clock Tower, which, from my perspective, is a very different kind of actual play series utilizing the game, blood on the clock tower. But for the uninitiated, what can you tell us about this project? I imagine everybody has played some version of Werewolf or Mafia or one of those games

where there's a day phase and a night phase. And in the night phase, somebody chooses who dies. And in the day phase, you try to figure out who the bad guy is. This is the best version of that game that has ever existed. And in my opinion, ever could. It is created by the Pandemonium Institute, which is in Australia. And they're absolutely amazing folks. And what is great about this game is someone played a game of Werewolf and then died very early

and was so frustrated by that experience that he said, you know what? I'm going to make one where you still get to play when you die. So that is the big differentiator of this game. Everybody on the good team or the evil team has a unique ability and gets to use it to varying degrees of success. But there's always a puzzle to be solved. If you're on the evil team, your job is to protect the demon. And maybe you're just a minion. And maybe your life is expendable in service of your demon surviving.

And you throw yourself on that sword. Honestly, being a minion is maybe my favorite thing besides storytelling for the game. because there's always a godlike DM-like storyteller. And then all of the good characters have this amazing mind-bending puzzle of taking the information that good characters get and sussing out who's evil based on that. But the twist is good players could be poisoned or they could be drunk or they could be lied to by evil players. And in any of those cases, they would get wrong information. And so it's this perfect mix of social deduction, but it has enough mechanical elements that I have never had to feel bad after this game. I mean, sometimes you're bummed you didn't win, but never do you turn to your partner and say, you lied to me.

I'll never forgive you, as has definitely happened to me in other social deduction games. Or I've done to other, said to other people, you know. We all have, we all have that one friend who takes a betrayal in a game like this. a little too personally. And hopefully they can remind themselves that, look, it wasn't you. It was the demon talking. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know. Something about blood on the clock tower, it just never

goes down that way. Because you're just piecing together the puzzle. You're just all committing fully. And if they hadn't lied to you, would they even care? I appreciate that. I love a good game of social deduction. And I love the possibility for intrigue and

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Now, I'm curious, tell me a bit about how you folks are going to translate this game into a series in Good Time on the Clock Tower. Yeah. So there's two pilot episodes. we already put on our YouTube to say, look, this is fun, right? What if it was a million times better because it had a budget? And so they are amazing cast and I'm pretty proud of the edit that we did. But in terms of what we can do visually, I think there's so much more to be done. And we just moved into this new bigger space that I was showing off on a minute ago.

So we will have a lot more room to work with. So I can create that moody shadows in the background. I want to really create an immersive space where you feel like you are actually in Ravenswood Bluff, or at least the characters you're watching are. And there's something so fun and juicy about watching this game played, but it's very difficult to film because it's best played with 11 to 15 players or more if you have travelers in your game. And so it's not something that anybody with the channel can feasibly do. And we've got a lot of really talented people here in L.A. We've got access a lot of in front of and behind camera talent. And so I just want to do it, number one, because it's my new favorite game.

And number two, because I think there's not that many people that can do this that well. You're right. I mean, especially from like that amount of people, I don't, anyone who doesn't have a production background may not appreciate the sheer volume of trying to get 11 to 15 people. on camera in a way where it feels like they all have meaningful screen time and will fit into what are the majority of production spaces without costing an arm and a leg. But I'm curious from a gameplay or mechanical perspective, are there any challenges in adapting this for something that flows like a series would? You mean like continuity between episodes or?

Either continuity between episodes or are there mechanics in the game that need to be perhaps tweaked or modified in order to better facilitate something. that's being filmed. The great part about this game is that there need to be no changes. In the night phase, everything is done silently through sort of pantomimiming from the storyteller talking to the players when their eyes are open and everybody else can be talking about something else. What I did in our pilots is I added voiceover to just describe what I'm doing because it is an extremely complicated game and I still want to keep it accessible to people who maybe are watching a, of, Episode number five, having never seen the game before.

And that's the trick because the first time you play, you're like, what just happened? My brain hurts. How does anybody figure out anything in this game? Everyone's drunk and poisoned all the time. And then the second time, you're like, oh, I get it. And I'm going to master this. At least if you're meeting, that's what you say. And so the difficulty is really in capturing the private conversations, which in a home game,

anybody can get up and talk to anybody and they're all doing it simultaneously and you can see who's talking to who and in ours you can capture the the town square as it's called but getting every one of those private conversations and finding the ways to piece them together when they were all happening happening simultaneously is a whole other fun puzzle in its own right see i'm imagining i don't know if you watch uh the traders the reality show but i'm imagining a lot of I should. It's the same. It, I mean, yes, it's another example of mafia or werewolf, except there's nothing they can do when they die. It is worth your time if you're a purveyor of trash television.

Also, Alan Cumming can do no wrong. But I always love that it's just people walking to different rooms in this Clue Mansion to have their private conversations. So I'm very excited to see how you folks execute that. How do you think the show like this aligns with people that maybe watch or listen to you a lot of actual play TTRPG content? What sort of, what are some differences and what do you think people can expect? I think it's, it's different in that a TTRPG is storytelling without necessarily an end goal. Sure, there's a boss battle, but the goal is developing characters and developing relationships. And in this, it's about ending relationships. No, just kidding. In this, there is the defined goal

of kill the demon or kill the town. So in that sense, it's a lot more. targeted and more mechanical. But in a different way, you get to role play as much or as little as you're comfortable with and still be a full contributor to the game. And so we'll see if we add in some special episodes in our series that are very thematic or whether costuming adds to that. But the tricky part is

you can't actually tell people what your real character is most of the time, that could get you killed or that could out you as the demon or worse. Yeah, I guess being out of the as the demon would be worse than just being straight up killed. Yeah. Yeah, just derails everything. Now, I appreciate that you folks are going through the avenue of Kickstarter for this. Do you have any advice for people who are maybe pursuing an independent publishing model like this and maybe exploring, using something like Kickstarter? What's been your experience so far as you're getting this project

off the ground? I know obviously the campaign is still active, so it may be too soon to have this level of sort of like 2020 like hindsight, but I'm just curious what the experience has been so far in terms of people that might be preparing to embark on their first independent publishing journey. Hire an expert. Laser Weber is an incredible Kickstarter manager and friend. And he's in one of our pilot episodes and has run like Rika Shanker's film Kickstarter that just finished and Izzy Rowland's short film and has run a bunch for himself, just did a queer trans festival called The Joy Who Lived that's going on this month, in fact. So he gave me full confidence that we would at least get to our original.

original goals and that I knew the steps and I knew how to promote it and I knew kind of what are what are the things that people who have done this understand because there's no worse feeling them putting yourself out there and then having the first go not work but the great thing about Kickstarter is that if it doesn't fund then you could always mount it again later try again and learn learn through doing yeah but I think as well that's a really good point about sort of trying to set yourself up for success by partnering with people that have been down this road before or tapping into your community, you know, finding people with this expertise because while it's accessible to everyone, it is still, there's still so many best practices,

so many challenges. You know, I've seen people make certain mistakes before where it's they promise far too many rewards, for example, and then just are buried alive for the next year and a half just trying to ship all of them out. It's a real, it's a real, like, push and pull between creating that value for people and also just trying to find people willing to invest in something very cool and say, I believe in this project and I want to see it brought to life. But I'm very excited that so far people have been saying that with a resounding yes to good time on the, good time on the clock tower. And I'm excited to see where it goes from here. Thank you so much. Of course. So I want to talk a what as well. You are someone who has been

playing board games online for a minute. A minute. You, you know, from, from GNS to Good Time Society to some news that broke recently, very exciting about your one-woman quest to play board games with seemingly every cool person on the planet, beginning with a brand new show called Parlor Room and Dropout. So tell us a bit about that. How did this project come about? Oh, man.

I have been pitching this for years. I have been lucky enough to be a regular guest on some other dropout show. shows. And truly, if they were ever going to do a board game show, I would feel utterly betrayed if they didn't let me host it. So I'm really glad that things worked out the way that they did. But I put together a pitch document. I presented it. And it just kind of was the right time, right place. Plus, it's not, you know, aside from the talent, it's not extremely expensive in the world of dropout shows have become rather impressive. And when you make the show as good a game changer, you have to continue. You have to continue. uping your season finale each season, whereas just playing games with some friends sitting around a table can be easily duplicated. So, you know, I think that was a good selling point. I actually got to be an executive producer on the project. So I had a big hand in pitching my dream version of the set.

And then our production designer Taylor did such an incredible job, taking what was in my brain and making it real. And things like the name. the name was I had a big hand in and like the color palette and all that. So it just felt really magical to take what I have been doing for a freaking decade, which is started at Kikin' Sundry, now here at Good Time Society, just making videos about board games. And then what does that look like elevated to the end degree? And I just feel so much joy that I was given this opportunity to do it and to work with such genuinely funny people on this.

on this season that I'm so proud of. That's amazing. I love that you were also getting the executive producer and getting really craft this from the ground up because you can tell that your hand was in this. I'm curious what was on your sort of vision board for the aesthetic of

the show because to me I was like watching the trailer. I'm like, this feels like in a good way, Ms. Havisham's house before all of the decay and old cake. Yes. Miss Havisham. Okay, I'm not a fan of AI art, obviously.

But if I'm trying to communicate with the person paid to make art, what is in my brain for her to create, I typed in, Miss Havisham, Alice in Wonderland melting parlor room. And, oh, and jewel tones. Jewel tones is very important. Yeah. I just love a warm jewel tone. And all that kind of soup of those words, all thrown into this, like, kind of Victorian aesthetic that I'm a huge fan of.

Just find it delightfully creepy, even though it's not a scary show at all, but a lot of my favorite board games have to do with creepy themes. So like when, I have a little of that sprinkled in there as well. And yeah, I threw all that spaghetti at the production designer and she made something beautiful out of it. That's amazing. Well, it looks great. They did a fantastic job.

I'm very excited to see the end result. I also really love the premise of this, which, if I'm not mistaken, involves your guests bringing a game that they want to play. Yes, and also it's a collaborative effort. I mean, look, I imagine I do, I'm cognizant of the fact there's a level of production that has to go on behind the scenes as well. Are there, are there any games that were vetoed? Or did someone be like, hey, I want to bring a mousetrap?

Can we really, can we get this to happen? Oh, we're never playing a mousetrap, baby. I would say not everyone has a vast knowledge of every, game in the wide pantheon of board games. And we were aiming for things that are very camera friendly, specifically, especially for this first season, fingers crossed, you know, that there are more seasons to add more games. But so we stuck with the classics that everyone knows, like the taboo, some dice games, balderdash, and sort of like presented some things that we thought would be good to the people that we thought would be really fun, you know, main guests, quote unquote,

and just kind of let them choose. But like, Rika, huge fan of taboo. Her family always played, this is like their game. And Seffi wanted to run a TT RPG. I was like, with this cast that we're thinking of, Thirsty Sword Lesbians. Come on. So we kind of helped pair people with the game we thought was right. and then had to do the fun thing of like, well, who are, we asked everybody what people they would like to play with.

And then we had to say, like, well, they're already in one or two other episodes. You got to give me more names. And we got to such an amazing group. The dynamic and chemistry between each group and each episode is so distinct and so special. And I'm so proud of each and every episode as its own beautiful little flower that I really can't wait for the show. to start rolling out. That's awesome. I also love hearing that about Rika and her family really enjoying taboo.

Our family enjoyed taboo as well. But we were more of like Scrabble was the game. I think that would ultimately like tear people apart in the Casey household. I'm curious for you. Do you utilize the two letter words? Yes. But not to like the upsetting degree that I think stuff like words with friends enabled where people now just have that like short list of two letter words they can use.

Oh, you didn't know they memorized? No, no. I certainly didn't back in the day. You know, it's on the back page of the Scrabble rule book. So sorry to keep interrupting. I just, um, please. Our version didn't have it.

Our version didn't have, uh, the rule book. We had like this really busted old like hand me down edition, which there were no rules in there. I was just maybe my parents lied to me about how it's actually played. I've been playing the wrong way the whole time. You know, there's a secret quadruple word score. if you really want it bad enough. Yeah, if you want it bad enough.

Yeah, you just got to want it bad enough. Was there a game in your household growing up? They're like, the game that you all played? We played a lot of, I hate to say, monopoly. I actually got very into Scrabble in college. It was my drink beers on a Saturday night and play Scrabble activity. Like, I played so much Scrabble before I knew how many games were out there. And it was the first game that I became very intensely obsessed with and was like, are there

competitions? Should I look into this? Before I even had any idea that I might have a career having to do with gaming, I was in acting school. And I was like, but Scrabble, though. Yeah. Well, look, I love games like Scrabble. I love word games because they keep your mind sharp. It's just you're flexing that muscle in a different way.

And it's also something that's applicable to other games as well, where it's just honing strategy in a different capacity. So I think that Scrabbles definitely can be very competitive. I've seen some clips of people at these Scrabble World Championships. And I'm definitely not on their level. They're just operating on a whole different mindset playing five-dimensional chess that I cannot compete with. It's time to bring on the blooms at the Home Depot with Spring Garden deals. Find savings on hanging baskets and flowers to brighten your backyard or any space that needs instant color.

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An elderly widow working at an aquarium Tova forms an unlikely friendship with the Kermudai Marcellus, whose remarkable intelligence leads her to a life-changing discovery. Watch remarkably bright creatures with your remarkable moms this Mother's Day weekend, only on Netflix May 8th. Yeah, yeah, totally. There is one game, so we played very basic games, we played Clue, we played, sorry, we played Monopoly, we played, but there was a game called Alibi. It was like kind of a twist on Clue that I had to find, it's out of print, and I had to find a copy because, like, my uncle

had it and we would play it on certain holidays and that was one that I was like, there's something that I really need to know. There's one called Lie Cheat and Steel. We played a good amount. And the 40 games always did get heated in this Scott household as well. So I can relate. Were you an only child? Do you have siblings? I have two siblings. Okay. Very competitive relationship with them in terms of playing games. One. Who is like a ranked go player. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she organized like the, she was on the international board of Go for a long time. Holy cow. Finally stepped down because she was doing too much work on it. So she and I are the ones that really need to both be the one to explain the game when it comes to playing a new game that need to really get pedantic about the rules.

But I love her dearly. So I'll make that sacrifice. It's good to have at least one friend or one person who is going to be pedantic about the rules because someone needs to know how things work. Someone needs to keep the trains running on time. It's your inner producer coming out. And it's just something it needs to happen. Keep the ticket to ride running on time. Exactly. Because otherwise, this train's never going to leave the station or tracks will get built.

So I want to shift gears a little bit as we head into the final phase of our conversation. I want to get some recommendations from you for our listeners and viewers out there. So we started by talking about TTRPGs. I'm curious, is there, do you have a favorite TTRPG that you think people are maybe sleeping on or doesn't get enough love or as much shine as some of the others in the world that you wish more people would sit down and give a try? Shout out to Thirsty Sword Lesbians, which we're going to play in the first season of Parlor Room. Call of Cothoulu has been my game ever since.

I discovered it. Blades in the Dark is... So good. Yeah, it's just, um, approaches it in a different way. I, I love the very novel, um, kind of like flashback scenes you can do. Um, I recently played a game called Fallen London. Oh gosh, am I standing the name correctly? Yes, no, Fall in London.

That's, that's correct. And, uh, yeah, from Magpie games. And it was, get that baby. Um, it was so much fun. Fallen London was so much fun. because I love this idea of like London just fell into the pit of hell and now there's just a bunch of weirdos walking around the streets. It's everybody's Jack the Ripper here and everybody's kind of undead.

But like it's cool. We're just going to go about our regular lives. Yeah, there's so many good ones out there. And there's new ones all the time. So if you've got an idea for one. Oh, one more I have to say is Modifius put out Dune, which is powered by the Apocalypse.

Yes. Is it powered by the apocalypse system? I believe so, yeah. Yeah, two D-20s. I really like that system. And I was lucky enough to get to do a 10 episode series a few years ago with Glass Cannon. That, you know, it's probably deep in their channels at this point.

But it was a real delight with some wonderful people. And anytime I get to play with Ross Bryant, I'm in heaven. Oh, yes. Yes. He's always a delight to play with. But for that game in particular, I was really impressed at how they were able to translate a lot of these sort of like political intrigue and kind of wheeling and dealing into concrete mechanics. So if you're a fan of Dune, if you're a certified Duneatic, definitely check it out. I think it might be up your alley.

But everything you mentioned is definitely worth checking out at your local game store. But speaking of your local game store, Becca, I have a hypothetical for you. It's game night. You've been tasked with choosing any game you want. to bring what is your choice and why okay how many players and what is the uh least gamery who is the least gamery person at this table because that's who i'm trying to set the bar for that's okay this is say this is a a perfect vacuum where you have the exact number of players for a specific game you've been jonesing to play with a group of people okay um i just got my copy of a kickstarter game called critter kitchen

where you are crafting meals for a cute animal food critic, and it's a long game over the course of seven rounds where you're kind of secretly selecting the order in which you want to grab different ingredients from different locations before you make your meal for this food critic, and there's kind of like the secret selection of you deciding which location you're going to, and everybody reveals at the same time. And if you're the, if you're the,

playing your little small chef and they get there first but they can carry less stuff and if you play your really big chef to go there they're going to be the last one so they're not going to have as many ingredients left to pick from but they can carry more and so then you've got to craft your meal out of that and try to score the most points it's really cute um de crypto is always a recommendation that i have for any game night you can play with any number of people if you've ever played code names i would say it's super advanced high octane code names is this the one where you're trying to to guess like four numbers to unlock something? Yes.

Okay, yes, I played this recently. Yeah, each team can view their team's four words. And the clue giver who changes each turn picks up a little floppy disc that has a series of three numbers on it that are one, two, three, or four in a different order. And you're trying to get your team to guess the order based on your clues. but you want to not reveal too much information because the opposing team, their goal is to intercept your code you are giving to your own team about the words that you all see. So if your round one clues are too similar to your round two clues, then they're going to piece together that, I don't know, they said gingham and they said ants. And so I know their word is picnic.

So you've got to keep going further and further outside the box as the rounds go on to keep eluding the opposing team. Until you get too esoteric, which definitely happened to a friend of ours, where we're like, I don't know where you were going with this, but we cannot follow you there. Yeah, you end up failing your own team because you tried to go so far and they are not coming with you. Exactly. You loop back around right to start back with yourself. But those are fantastic suggestions. DeCrypto and also you said Critter Kitchen. Critter Kitchen. Oh gosh, what else have I played recently? Just today I played a game called

Crafting the Cosmos and I'll just shout it out because it's top of mind. It is a very finicky, fiddly little game about each player has their board that has these little pieces that fit in perfectly where you're recruiting hydrogen and carbon and oxygen and helium to try and make planets and each turn you get to kind of do a little resource management and each person's of building their own thing entirely. It's irrelevant whether or not other people are playing this game, but it's very, if you love fiddily little bits in your games,

there's also marbles. There's marbles. Yeah, it's resources based on marbles. But something, if anyone's ever played Saddler's a Catan, if you don't roll a good number on the dice, you don't get any resources in crafting the cosmos. You get resources every single turn

based on where the marbles are sitting and the marbles are always somewhere. The marble, especially once they're out of the box, the marbles are always somewhere. The marbles, well, unless they go into that void where socks go behind the dryer. Yes. Then you lose your marbles trying to find them. Ah, okay.

One more. One more. Please, please. This is a card game that I recently brought on vacation and was a hit with the folks. It is called Skull King. It's a trick-taking game. And it doesn't go out. It's like hearts or spades or something like that.

Like if someone can learn how to play that game, they can learn how to play this game. game, but it's got pirates. It's got mermaids and it's got a Skull King and they're all sexy. So what's not to love? That's everything I look for in a family game. Right? Yeah. Sexy, sexy mermaids. Yeah. Why not? That's great. These are, these are fantastic suggestions. Thank you so much. Becca, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate you taking the time. Where can people find you on the World Wide Web? Oh, Dan, thank you so much for having me. It was such a pleasure. Everyone can find me at Good Time Society, just the one-time, Good Time Society, anywhere that you can type things into the Internet. Amazing. And we will put some links in the description below to make it easier for you to find those more readily.

You can find me trapped inside your devices as well, each and every week on Geek & Sundry or Nerdist, wherever fine podcast and videos are served. But, folks, thank you so much for joining us. In the meantime, though, tell us, what games are you playing this week? What are you most excited to introduce to your table? Let us know in the comments. Have a great rest of your day and we'll see you next time. Bye bye. Bye. Relax and let Ralph's delivery handle your grocery shopping this week.

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Kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered like bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight. But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins. This is old school adventuring at its most. cruel, your torch ticks down in real time, and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job. This is a brutal rules-light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make. This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s,

and man, it is so good to be back. Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the Shadowdark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on YouTube.com slash the Glass Cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day. what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark. Look, we all know there are a lot of celebrity interview podcasts out there, but there's only one happy, sad, confused. I'm Josh Harrowitzin. Yeah, I'm the host of the show, so I'm a little biased, but truly happy, say, confused is the place for nerdy and intimate conversations with all your favorite actors and filmmakers. From Andrew Garfield and Scarlett Johansson to Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino

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