Mayday Plays - 🕳️The Dead Drop | Into The Darkness

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

Sergio and Vince sit down to discuss Black Project Gaming’s harrowing journey through the Delta Green campaign God’s Teeth. Vince shares insights from behind the screen, from handling its brutal horror to advice for Handlers looking to run it themselves. Then, Sergio chats with Thom Raley, Morgan Llewellyn, and Keith Craig of Into the Darkness, a long-running horror gaming club active since 2015, to uncover what makes their community so enduring and unique. https://intothedarkness.club https://blackprojectgaming.com Make sure to subscribe to get updates on your favorite Mayday shows: https://www.youtube.com/@Maydayrp?sub_confirmation=1 -- 👕 MERCH: http://ko-fi.com/maydayrp & https://mayday-merch.printify.me/products 💵 Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/maydayrp 📰 Join our newsletter: eepurl.com/iIVUjo 🎙 Listen to us: 🟣 Apple Podcasts : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mayd…ys/id1537347277 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5vdTgXoqpSpMssSP9Vka3Z?si=97a6a19d71cf4be0 🟠 Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/mayday-roleplay 🌟 Other Socials 🌟 🐦 Twitter: http://twitter.com/maydayroleplay 📸 Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/mdrp.gram/ 🔴 Website: http://maydayroleplay.com/ 🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@maydayroleplay 👾 Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/maydayroleplay Thanks for your support! #mayday #roleplay #deltagreen #horrorgaming #ttrpg #gamingadvice 00:00 Opening 01:57 God's Teeth 26:26 Into The Darkness 55:30 Outro

Hello and welcome. Thanks for joining us. My name is Sergio and I am the handler for Mayday's award-winning Delta Green campaign titled Doom to Repeat. And with me, as always, is the writer of the newly released campaign Dead Hand for the Street Wolves RPG, but also the handler from Black Project Gaming. It's Vince. Welcome back to the Dead Drop, buddy. Hey, good to be back, man. It's nice to take a little breather, like you said. I just wrapped and released a full campaign for the Street Wolves RPG called Dead Hand. You can get your copy now over at Drive-Thru RPG, itch.io, and the Tablecat Games website. And as our patrons know, I am also very, very deep into running God's Teeth. In this episode, I plan on bringing everyone up to speed on where that campaign stands so far and share some early impressions for handlers curious if God's Teeth is something worth running at their own tables. Then in the second half, Sergio sits down with the one and only Tom Rayleigh and some fellow GMs of Into the Darkness, a long-running horror gaming club that's been playing on Discord and producing YouTube videos since 2015.

If you enjoy the show, please like and subscribe and leave us a review or a comment below because it really helps us out. So, Halloween is right around the corner and you've put up your decorations, you got your sexy minions costume all laid out, but in all the excitement, you forgot to plan something to do on all hallows. Eve. Well, we've got you covered. Pull out last year's candy corn, sit back, relax, because you have found the dead drop. For those who haven't been keeping up, Vince has been running Black Project Gaming through the Delta Green campaign God's Teeth, a dark, brutal story that's equal parts mystery, tragedy, and cosmic horror. Now, last I checked Vince, you're about 16 sessions in and you've said you've probably got another six to eight to go. So I wanted to sit down

with you here at the slightly above halfway mark to get your thoughts on how God's teeth has been running, what lessons you've picked up as a handler and where you think the chips might fall when it's all said and done. Sound good? Sounds great. Let's get to it. Okay. So first question, how are you feeling about the campaign as a whole? And what's the morale level over a black project? So far, it's been an absolute ride. I've been loving every minute of it. It's a great campaign. The players have really responded well to it, really dug their teeth into it, no pun intended.

Moral level overall is great. Everyone's enjoying it. I did query some of my players before we sat down for this interview just to get some of their thoughts. And everyone, morale is not yet in the toilet, which is good. That's for the players, for working group mass. A little bit of a different story. Morale is well on its way down, down the tubes. But the players have been enjoying it. Of course, scheduling is always the great ugly beast that rears its head and prevents us from digging even deeper into it as often and as frequently as we may like. But so far, everyone's been having a really good time with it, exploring all the various themes. The one thing they really highlighted was obviously there were some concerns about how, some of the subject matter would be handled starting out. But they've all been really impressed with how Caleb Stokes, the author, really implemented everything and showed versus telled as far as instead of outright describing some of the more graphic subject matter, specifically like with reactions to the cat folder, it was more about how it makes the character feel versus what it is they actually see.

So that's something they really responded well to and really enjoyed. So would you say that folks who are apprehensive about this campaign maybe should give it a read to confirm because you think that it actually handles the heavy material better than anticipated? I would. I absolutely would suggest that. Give it a read first. Obviously, a lot of people have lines and veils when it comes to violence against children, violence against animals, which honestly has come up just as often, if not more so in this campaign as opposed to just focusing. solely on what these kids have gone through. But yeah, it's Caleb, if you read the afterward in the campaign, it really comes from a very deep, dark, personal place where all of this originated from. And he handles it with the, I'm trying to think how to put this. He handles it with the due care and consideration that it deserves.

And, you know, it's never played for shock value. It's never played for like that in your face kind of. Rindhouse horror. It's all about the emotional impact of witnessing these sorts of crimes, these sorts of tragedies, and how ultimately it's, you know, the system that has failed more than anything else. And it's failed the kids. It's failed working group Masticate. It's failed everyone that's been touched by this. So yeah, he handles it very, very well. And it's obviously still very heavy subject matter for people to deal with. But there's definitely enough wiggle room in there to massage it for your table. And if the reaction from our listeners and patrons is any indication,

you guys are handling it very well as well. Everyone is really enjoying it. There's some great comments. People really look forward to every session that comes out. So I was curious to ask you, when we ran impossible landscapes, the walkthrough, I mean, you talked about how Black Project kind of ran through that as fast as they could. Is the pace a little different here? Are they trying to approach God's teeth differently than Impossible Landscapes? 100%. Night and day.

So we were done with Impossible Landscapes at the 16th session mark. I think maybe even earlier than that. But yeah, right around this time, we were wrapping up with Impossible Landscapes. They were very much full steam ahead. They really latched onto that. The only way out is through kind of deal. And they're like, okay, let's get through it. let's go. With this though, the pacing is definitely, I don't want to say slower, but it's more

considerate, more caution. They have to exercise more caution and how they approach certain problems. Like take the second scenario in the campaign, red thoughts. All of that is essentially, here's the situation, here's what you have to deal with, here's what the program is asking you to do, now go forth and do it. So they could approach that from any number of different angles. So it's a little more sandboxy than you probably expect coming out of impossible landscapes. There's a lot more discretion. There's a lot more individual choice and decision-making involved. So it's a lot more freeform in that respect, even with white teeth, depending on how they make their way progressively south from Maryland and Virginia down to North Carolina, down to Florida. There's a lot of different

ways they can approach these different problems. Pizzarelli, the case officer for working Grumasticate is a good avenue to put up right and left limits and keep people on track because he is very aggressive and very, I don't want to say, micromanaging at this point, but he definitely has a vested interest in making sure working grumasticate doesn't make his life any worse than it already is. So it is, there's a lot more, there's a lot more freewheeling that the players can do. And then not just that, but then we're also dealing with, you know, with the king in yellow, it becomes eventually clear what it is they're dealing with, the influence

they're falling under, and what it is they're up against. But with God's teeth, the, you know, the entity only up until now that's been behind all this has only just recently been named. So it's still been, for the longest time, they thought they were still dealing with Babushka, with Yelena Kalamantiano, and that somehow she was still, you know, acting from beyond the grave or whatnot. But, yeah, only until. now, they actually were able to put a name to the force that's been manipulating them and everything else has been happening around them. So there's been a lot of discussion, a lot of great role play moments where it's just really been about the players and then the characters themselves coming

to terms of what it is they're dealing with. And do you think some of their apprehension also came from those first sessions where they came across Babushka and what she did to one of the players? 100%. Yeah, it's, it's, my players are well aware of how deadly Delta Green can be. And so they've, they've approached every possible encounter with, for the most part, with due caution. I mean, there's only so much you can do when a bear comes charging out of the woods at you. That is, you can't really plan for that. I am, I am excited to see how they deal with the, the spoilers ahead, the chimeras in Florida when they finally get down there. I remember hearing that in RPPR and thinking, this is a crazy situation, so I can't wait to hear how you guys

handle it. Yes. Yeah, it's going to be, I'm hoping nobody, nobody bites the bullet on that one, but we will certainly see. Well, speaking of standout kind of crazy moments like a bear running out of the woods, have there been any standout moments that you're still thinking about, any that might have repercussions down the road? Yeah, for sure. The Yellow Rider, the appearance of the Yellow Rider, Nyar Lathotep at the trailer park. Bear was the only one around to see it. And so everyone has, you know, those, especially in the form of Adrian, have been questioning his mental stability and his reliability. And now they've had even more reason to question that based on his lone encounter with this thing. But it was, you know, thankfully due to Adrian digging into it a little

deeper is when he identified, you know, the connections to Bass, the connections to Egyptian mythology. And so it opened up a whole new avenue for them to go down and especially start coming to terms with this force of causality that's been manipulating everything. Other than that, obviously, the raid on Kornikopia House itself is a great standout moment. I really enjoyed that, and I thought they did a great job with it. What else? What's another standout one? I really, you know, I did enjoy the, it's more of kind of like a heartbreaking moment, but I really enjoyed at the end of the fight at Charlotte's Rest Veterans Home when the agents had opened up on El Gable and the dogs. And Sarah just took a moment to sit with one of the dogs that have returned to normal after El Gable died.

And, you know, taking just that kind of tender moment with that dog in its final moments. And of course, Bear ripping out El Gable's throw. with his teeth was awesome. We're still paying the price for that one. It's sometimes it's violence, but it's also sometimes those quiet moments that make a Delta Green session memorable, you know? Absolutely.

On the subject of Nairalathotep, is it easy to make sure to distinguish between the two or is there a concern about the players' misunderstanding and thinking Naira Lathotep is their patron or whatever? There's definitely been that perception among the players and their characters. But I think once I was able to hammer home and reemphasize that this wasn't Nairalithetep speaking to you individually, this was him speaking through you to whatever it is that's

behind all of this. You were just a conduit for that message. So I think, you know, once they kind of wrap their heads around that, it was easy to distinguish and differentiate between the two. Got it. Is there any part of the first half of the campaign now? looking back that you might have prepared differently or maybe you might warn future handlers about to look out for it?

Yeah, I wouldn't have killed Father Avarado. I wouldn't have killed Jack's first character. That was a big regret on my part because I think, especially now going into Miami when they're going to start dealing with St. Lawrence Church, Father Reblato and everything, I think he would have been, he would have been absolutely invaluable there. I, if I remember right, I think I had Jack Roll his damage and that's what killed him. I'm not saying I should have fudged the dice. What I probably should have done was at least given them an opportunity to resuscitate him,

which I didn't do. So I should have done that. That's a big regret of mine. Definitely find ways to, I don't want to say minimize the lethality of the Kornucopia House raid, but definitely keep in mind and use Bass's influence on causality to your advantage to help make sure everyone makes it through. I couldn't do anything about Bobby because Brett, God love him. He was, he decided, you know, this isn't for me, which is perfectly fine. But Father Alvarado, I think, was salvageable.

I could have done a little bit better of a job on that. But yeah, that's, that is absolutely something. That's hard because, you know, at one side, you want to make an impression that this is going to be, you know, maybe a different kind of Delta Green campaign. At the other end, I hear what you're saying, where, you know, maybe. in hindsight, enthralling him or, like you said, maybe allowing for a chance to resuscitate him could have been a chance,

especially now when you mention that there's a religious connection later on in the campaign, but it's hard in that moment to know exactly what to do. I feel like every time I run Delta Green, there's a moment where I say, ah, you know, maybe I could have run that differently, but it just is what it is, you know?

100%. Yeah, and if I had known that I would be able to send Bobby out the way I did, you know, with Yelena Kalamantiano turning into the unnatural daughter, killing him that way, I think that would have been the avenue to make that impression, and that I could have, you know, rolled it back for Father Avarado and then, you know, so we still have the, you know, the gruesome, lethal death and the emotional mental impact of watching one of your de facto cellmates die in this horrible, brutal manner. But yeah, that is something I definitely regret.

But other than that, the main thing I would, and I tell everybody this, I tell this to everybody who wants to run impossible landscapes, everyone who wants to run God's Death is you've got to read the campaign and then you've got to read it again. You've got to take copious notes. Like one thing I don't want to say screwed up, but there are names of different cornucopia house survivors that are kind of scattered throughout the book. They're not just in the Red Thoughts chapter when the agents are able to get their hands on the adoption records. they're kind of all over the place. So it's useful to go through and take note of the name so that way you can bring them up at that time. Like I missed Jennifer Wills, who's going to show up in Miami. And that was a name that I failed to mention when they looked up the adoption record.

So I kind of had to play that up a little bit. I kind of had to cover for that by having Nikol Chilikov send the records from when Jennifer was staying at King Torino to Sarah, the decel agent and have her receive it that way. That's good advice. Just maintain a record of those members of the Chronocopia House or the folks that were involved. That's good advice. Okay. Have there been any surprising moments of levity or maybe a break from the dread that felt impactful?

I know that Black Project isn't known for the jokes, but I still feel like, you know, it's natural to, you know, have a moment of levity. Oh, yeah. Yeah. there's at least a half a dozen what the fuck moments where we just, you know, we just end up laughing for a good five, ten minutes over whatever it is that's going on and trying to process what the hell just happened. The one that comes to mind, and of course it made it into the episode, was, of course, when Adrian and Bear were left to their own devices at Carrie Houghton's

apartment and tried to strong arm the apartment manager who had, who had the Maryland State Police Detective's phone number, and so they're saying, I'm going to call her right now. And the apartment manager is like, cool, I'll call her too. And then you've got Adrian faking that he's on the phone with her. You've got the apartment manager talking to her at the same time, and things kind of blow up from there. That was a pretty funny moment.

It was really, really good. I enjoyed that. Nice. What has been the hardest section so far to prep and or run? Oh, great. question. Four of them, right? Three or four of them?

So what we've got, we're on three now. So we've gotten, well, yeah, four. Yeah, because we've gone through, go forth. We've gone through the long years. Yep. Red, red thoughts and white, and we're in white teeth now. Definitely, I would say red thoughts can be a beast to prep for, because there's just so much that the players have to account for and go after.

There's so many different leads that they need to pursue. White teeth, it's a little simple. It's, you know, go after El Gable, go after Samuel Ball, go after Thomas Perez. Like, that's pretty simple. And you could drop leads to them at any time, because by that point, warrants have been issued for all these guys, and there are ways for them to pop-up on the radar to get players moving in that direction. Red Thoughts is a little bit different. Red Thoughts is kind of wide open and how the players want to approach it. So you've got to try to, as a handler, account for what it is the players could possibly do, what avenues they appear they want to go after first, and then have methods in place to kind of steer them in the right direction.

The campaign is well written off that there's plenty of naturally occurring instances that Caleb provides the handler with to do that, to steer them one way or another. Along with different complications, you can throw at them to either slew them down or make their lives a little harder than they need to be, depending on what they do and don't do. But thankfully, it was relatively straightforward with our run through, but that tends to be a heavy lift for handlers because it's essentially, it's the one part of the scenario that most folks never get around to running, which is the cover-up. And it's happening mid-campaign. So it's definitely a mental shift for players and characters alike. But provided you've got the appropriate guardrails in place and you've done your prep work, you've taken your notes, it should be good to go. But it definitely, that's one that warrants paying close attention to.

The way you describe it, it does remind me of those kind of midpoint in impossible landscapes where it is a little more open. They could go to Dorchester House. They could go down many avenues of exploration. Yeah, yeah, the Samajina residents, Boris's house. Yeah, they could go anywhere. Yeah, it's definitely more open to that respect, which some people respond really well to and others are like, they get that analysis paralysis.

Like, oh, shit, what do we do now? You mentioned Black Project's morale as players is high, but I'm curious as to if you've had any other feedback from them. What do they think of it as players of the campaign so far? Yeah, they're definitely enjoying it more than impossible landscapes at this point, I think. From what they've said is it's more grounded. It's grittier. It's more realistic in a lot of ways than maybe impossible.

possible landscapes is because with the surreal horror of impossible landscapes, you're just kind of all in. But with God's teeth, it's much more kind of in the dirt, in the mud. It's more grounded in that respect. The horror is much more realistic versus what it was with impossible landscapes. So totally different, thematically different. There are still, you know, the question of free will and, you know, whose influence are we operating under, you know, are these really our choices, or was all of this predestined and predetermined. But they're approached in different ways, and they're really responding well to how it's approached in God's teeth.

They really like kind of the freedom they've had so far to just explore different avenues and really just debate what it is, that's that, you know, what influence they've fallen under at this point. So, yeah, they've responded very well to it. They're enjoying it. And I think at this point, they're definitely excited to see how it's going to end because at this point they have they're just like I have no idea how this is all going to wrap up or where we go from here once we get all these kids like what could possibly happen next and yeah once we get into the hidden god I think based on um oh that's actually the next question so I'll wait for that so Dave I mean we're we're here let's talk about it you you are approaching the end of the campaign what is the assumed direction you know do you think you're going to follow the book to the letter or is there going to be some variation because of what the players have

done? I think we're going to pretty much be able to do it as written. I'm interested to see what happens when they identify the ice facility and they realize that Conradin is still operating and he's set up essentially Cornucopia House 2.0 under, you know, with government, you know, backing and resources and the program doesn't want them to do anything about it. So I'm very interested to see what they do with that. What I will say is Cammy's character, Sarah Hart, has developed this obsession as a disorder because she hit her second breaking point where she is now obsessing over the fact

of whether she should have killed those kids back at Cornucopia House like Clovaster. And now, you know, as the handler, I'm about to throw her into this facility where Conradin is making more of these kids. It's like, what is she going to do? When she finds that out? It's going to be interesting. I am, I'm definitely curious if there's, you know, how Adrian is going to respond to it, how he's going to, you know, whether or not he's going to be all in or not, how bear is going to do. And how, you know, especially with Leah as the doctor, how they're going to, you know,

what's going to happen with the team when one is like, we need to kill these kids. Because that's a direction I think it's going to go in. And they're like, you absolutely cannot do that. So I think there's probably some PVP in our future. Yeah. More so than there's going to be the climax and then there's going to be the interpersonal climax. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. And there's any number of ways the scenario can end. I mean, obviously, you know, I'm not anticipating anybody walking away from that. But I'm excited to see how they get there. That's awesome. And we are excited for that as well. You know, last question, do you think with how well it's gone that you might continue

into God's hunt and those extra materials? Probably not. I'm probably going to leave it by the wayside because one of the things I was most worried about, especially having learned my lesson with Father Alvarado, is I wanted to do everything I could to make sure everybody made it to the end. And with the scenarios in God's hunt, some of them can be pretty brutal as far as survivability goes. So we're probably going to avoid that.

What I may end up doing at some point is returning to them as like one-shots, is like, you know, because I really want to run God's law at some point. I really like that scenario. Everybody loves God's breath, and that's another one I think would be a lot of fun to do. And then God's light is absolutely surreal as hell. It's almost like a return to form for Impossible Landscapes, you know, fans. So maybe at one shots at some point, but I think we'll all be ready for a break once we get through this. Because, like, we've been, we're at session 16.

We've probably got six to eight more to go at least, depending on, on how long it takes to them to get going. So, yeah, I think we'll be ready for a break. Well, I'm really happy to hear that although the campaign is really intense, if you have players who are ready for it, they have the right mindset, and the book supports it where it's not just a slog. I'm happy to hear you guys are enjoying yourselves. And like I said, everyone is really enjoying listening to it,

and we can't wait to get to the end. It'll be bittersweet because it's been such a fun ride. Absolutely. I appreciate that, man. It's been great. And thank you all for your support through this and for all the listeners who are enjoying it. We wouldn't be doing this if nobody gave a crap. So it's great to know that folks are responding well to it. And I couldn't agree more with what you said. This could be a slog, but there is a lot of emotional and mental investment in this story and these characters and seeing where it goes for my players. So they're all in. They are ride or die to. the end. So we'll see how it turns out. Well, if you enjoy this interview and you want to see more of what Black Project is doing, they have a YouTube. All of their podcast versions are available wherever you catch your podcast. So catch up on Black Project if you haven't already, listen to their Impossible Landscapes campaign. Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Vince.

Hey, thank you, man. Appreciate the time. For sure. Since 2015, Into the Darkness has been more than just an actual play channel. It's been a community. Week after week, they brought Calla Cthulhu, Delta Green, and other horror RPGs to life on their YouTube and podcast feeds. But what makes them unique and the reason why I wanted to highlight them isn't just the gaming. It's the people, the community. Viewers don't just watch into the darkness. They also get a chance to join in. Players can grow into keepers. game is a chance for someone new to join the circle. It's that open door spirit, that sense of an ongoing club where horror gaming is shared

and celebrated, that makes them stand out in a crowded actual play space. I'm thrilled to welcome the folks behind it, Tom Rayleigh and some of his moderators, Keith Craig and Morgan Llewellyn. Gentlemen, welcome to the Dead Drop. Thank you for having us. Excited to be here. Gentlemen, can you introduce yourselves? Tell us how you all contribute to Into the Darkness.

Well, I'm what I call the host. I started the club, and I just sort of oversee everything and make sure it's running smoothly. And I do the video production end of it. I joined the club in 2018, and I am an active keeping. are GM for the club, and I help with the moderation of the Discord channel. Yeah, similar to Keith. I've also been around since 2018, running games, playing in games, moderating the Discord server being there, helping the got the Discord server set up initially and so forth.

Tom, I'd love a kind of overview of an origin story of Into the Darkness. How did it all start? Well, it started really with my joining another sort of club, which was Lovecraft EZine. And I became friends with Mike Davis over there. And he had a Wednesday night gaming session with a few friends. And I got involved with that. And then he got rather ill. And he needed somebody to sort of take over.

And, you know, they pushed it on me. And soon after that, I just sort of went independent. And it had nothing to do with publishing anything or putting anything online. That was an accident that happened. Did you come up with the name Into the Darkness? Yeah, yeah, I did. Once we got started, I figured if I was going to organize it, I needed to give it some substance. And if we were going to record it, which we decided we were going to do,

our original idea was just to record it so that we would have something to remember what we did last time we played. You know, I've loved horror my whole life. So I kind of stole a little bit. of our introduction and our outro from things like CBS Radio Mystery Theater. And just added those little things in. And I had no idea at the time that it would grow and grow and grow and grow. So you start recording for posterity and for memory. And at what point did you say to yourself,

oh, this might actually be fun to put online? Well, I mean, I don't know. I think it happened so gradually. It was convenient to put it on YouTube because then all of the players could just watch the video. And then people started watching it. And at the beginning, I figured, well, I certainly can't. I never even considered monetizing because I thought that's not why we're doing it anyway. And we never did.

Well, then I guess a follow-up question is Morgan and Keith. guys come to find into the darkness? I run called Cthulhu for my home group that we've been playing together for almost 15 years now and there was a scenario in Manches of Madness, the sixth edition called The Plantation. And I really couldn't figure out. I was like, I don't know how to run this scenario. It seems very on rails. And so I just did a search for, on YouTube, for an actual play of the plantation and into the darkness had run it. And I watched it, decided I'm not going to run that scenario because my impression was correctly, but there was a thing at the end, Tom goes, hey, if you'd like to join the club,

follow this link. And I just retired from the military, and so I was looking for something to fill my time between jobs. And so I just put in for it, emailed Tom, letting me know, hey, I've been playing Call of Cthulhu, since like 1991. My first game was the terrible secret of Lod X, which I remember like 10 minutes into it. My character got knocked down to one hit point. And I was like, oh, they don't hold back.

And so I was like, yeah. And for me, I wasn't really looking for any scenario specifically. I was just really developing an interest in a call of Cthulhu. Like in high school, I was getting into Lovecraft, a friend of mine was like, you should play call it's good through the role playing game and like why on earth would i do that um and then eventually i finally gave it a try and i was like oh my god my friend was right i should have should have done this years ago so i just started looking around and came across a couple of channels but there was something i really liked about um into the darkness and when i saw that they're like hey you could sign up to

play with us i'm like well they're just a bunch of liars um that's not true so i sent an email out and then you know in the next day i'm in a game and so i've been here for the last uh like What is it, eight years now, seven years? Seven years. You all have run some pretty huge campaigns like Horror on the Orient Express. What did finishing those early campaigns teach you about the scheduling and the turnover and the morale in a volunteer-driven group? Well, I guess we try to let ourselves be a little flexible. We know that there's holidays.

We know that there's going to be things coming up. But for those big campaigns, I've always tried to recruit the people that are willing to agree that, you know, if you've got things on Wednesdays that come up all the time, then don't sign up for the game. You know, because we want you to be there. And if you're going a whole month without playing the game, you'll forget. You'll forget everything that was going on. There's all sorts of intricate plot lines and stuff. So I sort of screen that in the beginning. We try to play once a week.

And when something comes up, let's say, you know, somebody's got to go to a wedding or something like that, then we schedule another game, a short game, to fill in the gap so that we're constantly producing. That gives us the opportunity to put in short games since, you know, they'll fit. into one or two episodes usually, and I just keep on top of it. So it really just comes down to making sure the players are understanding the commitment to those longer campaigns. Right, right. Looking back to 2015, the very beginning, what do you feel, and you're all welcome to chime in on this, what do you feel has been the hardest part of building the channel and maintaining the community?

knowing what to do. Somewhere on my shelf is YouTube for dummies. I didn't know the first thing about what to do. I still sometimes think I don't know what the heck I'm doing. I think one of the challenges that we've talked about, I think we finally cracked this nut, but we debated it quite a bit on the moderator Discord was how we can get new players in the game.

games and all. And, you know, I'd say we probably spent a couple years talking about, hey, how can, how can we get new players into the game? And so we finally settled on Thursday night, his short, short games, two or three session games, and we try and get the new players in that. So the thing in there, we've discovered a lot of really great role players that are really fun to play with, which we wouldn't have been able to if we hadn't made that concerted effort to go, hey, this is the day that new players can join in and play. And it also helps you out if you got the person that you're like, okay, this person kind of flates out all the time. We're not going to put them into horror on Dory Express because we're never going to finish it. That's interesting too, because

you mentioned you want to have as many new players as possible, whereas a different actual play group might say, hey, look, this is our core group, these five, six, seven, eight, ten people, however many. But there's something interesting to me about your desire to bring in new folks. Can we talk about that? Why is it so important to bring in new folks to the club? Well, I think there's a lot of people who want to role play and they don't know how to role play. and a lot of times they can't find people who know how to role play, and so they just kind of wing it,

and they don't, they feel unsure and they don't know what they're doing. That's not like there's a set way to do it. It's just, it's more comfortable if you can play with a few people who know how to play and will encourage you to play as well. So it's kind of a mission statement that we want to, teach people how to be better players. We want to teach GMs how to be better GMs. Because players who get to play with good players become good players. And GMs who get good players become better GMs. I started role playing games in the 80s and stuff. And frankly, in the 80s and stuff,

if you played role playing games, at least in the Midwest, you were bullied. you were picked on quite a bit and you were kind of the outcast of society. And I just don't want people to feel that way. I want people to feel like, hey, this is a community where people enjoy the same thing you do and you can kind of be a weirdo. I'm a weirdo.

I mean, you know, I got a new HP Lovecraft because obituaries cause of death album cover was the same cover on the HP Lovecraft book. I don't want people to feel like they're not welcome because I know what that feels like growing up. And so that's why I enjoy the community so much of welcoming

other people. You know, as Keith and I were talking about how we joined, we just saw this open call where, you know, if you want to play with us, let you know come play with us. And, you know, I volunteered myself right for this and was accepted and I found such a great group of friends. It would be

strange for me now with, you know, the people that have been doing this for years and we're all just like, you know what? We've got the group. We're going to cut it off. And that's it, right? Like to deprive other people The same opportunity that I have Just feels wrong.

You know, other people should have the opportunity To join him. You know, it's like this hobby shouldn't be, We shouldn't be viewing ourselves as gatekeepers, you know? No Grognard's at Into the Darkness, huh? We also recognize, too, that there's turnaround. People aren't going to be gaming with us forever. People when they're in, you know,

they've gotten out of high school. and they're looking for a job, they start to play with us. We know it's likely that they're going to go to college or they're going to get a job or something, and then they'll move away, but they're always welcome back. Now, I know you have folks from all walks of life, and there are probably oftentimes folks that want to join you that are maybe a little bit camera shy,

or like we were just talking about inexperienced players. Do you have any tips for folks that maybe want to get into something like this, but are worried about how they're going to look or how they might come across. I know you mentioned that Morgan when he first started was a little shy, but has obviously come out of his shell. Any thoughts on that? Yeah, I would just say, right, if you maybe don't. But if you want to go back seven years ago and look at my behavior in those games,

like I was making role-playing mistakes and super shy and stuttering a lot and was really figuring it out. I was still new to call of Cthulhu, too. So, right, there was a very, like, signs of, like, I didn't know what I was doing. And I, at no point was I discouraged. And other people were very encouraging and supportive. And it's something that you, it's like, it's a skill, right? It's a skill like anything else.

So to be able to be, you know, getting on something and knowing in your back of your mind like, oh, I don't know how many people are going to watch this. This is publicly facing, like, oh, my God. That performance or that comfort performing is a skill. So to expect to show up to the first time and do it perfectly is not going to happen. You know, you could study up all you want or try to learn all these tips and techniques. And then you get on camera the first time, and your brain goes blank as you forget everything that you prepped. It's just, it's, you know, practice makes perfect as much of a platitude as that is. It's true in this case. You will get better and more comfortable being on camera or being playing in this public way, the more that you do it.

So you have to, but you have to be willing to be uncomfortable and push through it. You know, there's been instances where I've run a game for Tom and then afterwards and just like, Tom, please don't post it. Like, oh my God, that was like, and then Tom's like, okay, and then he doesn't, right? Like, I feel very, very much supported by the community for sure. being a podcast where we featured some horror games and I think built a lot of our fan base from that, it seems like horror gaming has a lot of very devoted fans. What is it about this genre that kind of elicits so much dedication that, I mean, there's a whole community that every day, every week you guys are running games?

That's a good question. I think for me it's always kind of tapped into that, like, you know, something. inside me because I remember when I was in high school I would have to walk home from work in the middle of the night and I cut through the woods and every time I cut through the woods

I was like I should not have watched Friday the 13th week and you know even though I knew I was like nothing's going to happen but boy it would just there's something creeping in the back of your mind that it's just going to be like could be ah ha ha ha

It's not just horror, but I think they're like this investigative aspect to it. You know, role-playing the investigation, gathering clues, making connections, using logic to piece the puzzle together. Right? That's a kind of a different gameplay loop, so to speak, then, you know, we're going to go through this dungeon. We're going to clear out the gobbleins. We're going to go fight the dragon.

Like, it's just a different, there are different narrative structures that get opened up that are explored, I think, within the horror space. And so I think that people come to it for all different sorts of reasons. You know, my primary affect that I look for in are as sadness. You know, and that's something I can find more in these horror games and in indie games than I do in power fantasy type game, like Dugs of the Dragons and Pathfinder. So, you know, I don't watch a whole lot of horror movies, to be honest with you, or horror video games, I get too scared. But I do, I do enjoy horror tabletop role play games than I do like horror literature.

I think that it's that detective sort of inside of us that at least for me I like the challenge of trying to figure out what's going on we brought up Dungeons and Dragons Dungeons and Dragons to me is just fighting monsters and I find the combat to be the most boring part of the story

it's funny because it works for the player and for the GM there'll be a moment in some games when it all falls together in your mind, and you're suddenly like, oh my God, I know what's going on. And for the GM, it's, I just caused that to happen in that person.

And again, you get tingles down your neck too. That they solve what's going on. And cool, you know. What other jobs exist to keep into the darkness running? I know that Tom, you mentioned you do all the editing. Is there anything else that needs to be? done to keep everything running smoothly? I, well, I'm a graphic artist, my profession.

So all of the artwork and the video production and all that is just kind of stuff that I already do and I'm passionate about so I do it, you know, anyway. The only other thing, we've got the moderators, and the moderators are watching over our Discord channel. And they're, of course, making introductions and they're running games for the probably of the people in the club. And then other than that, Josh Harwood, he monitors

people who want to join the club. He directs him where to sign up and sends them whatever forms they might need. And then other than that, I think that's it. Well, don't let Tom, don't let Tom get too modest. He is, if, it's like the Atlas holding up the world.

You know, Tom, Tom does do the, without Tom's work, I mean, the, the show wouldn't be getting recorded and uploaded to YouTube and edited and all that, everything. So we all, we all support Tom, but he definitely is, the majority of the work gets done by him. So don't let him pull this whole modesty card on you. I won't, I won't have it. Not while I'm here. I want to talk about what makes Into the Darkness stand out for me from other actual plays,

which is that it's one of those rare channels that takes the horror seriously. I feel like you name any really big actual play channel, and almost always, if they do a horror game, it's going to be all jokes and yucks. And I think that's what really stands out to me about Into the Darkness, that the players stay in character, you guys are focused on the story, very rarely do you break character, besides maybe to talk about mechanics. How do you manage to instill that,

that conviction in all of these players? Like, do you talk to folks? Do you make sure that folks are paired up with serious role players? How do you get that? You know, oh, you go, Tom. Go ahead, please. Okay, oh, okay. I think a lot of it is that there's the core group that plays, you know,

that you consistently see. And they approach the game, and they, like, it's a horror game. They respect the horror and everything. And people tend to kind of go with what others are doing. It's like the three or four players are taking

the horror seriously. The other two are going to take it seriously also because unless they're just like a and we don't have that, but if you have a troll that just wants to be a jerk and just constantly throw out a joke all the time. But I think

most part people just go, oh, the group's playing this way, I'm going to play that way also. And so I just kind of, they just kind of go along with it. I don't know if that's true, but that would be my feeling why we can kind of keep it, take it seriously. We should say there is often, and particularly what I am involved, there is something of a peanut gallery that develops sometime in separately through the Zoom chat that's not part of the show.

So if you watch your episodes closely, you'll see people who are not active in a scene and they might look off to the side and then like smile or like cover their mouths laughing because they're reacting to some non-s like you know because joking around and being nonsensical you know if there is zoom at least as a medium there is that that chat function so I think that those that serves as a kind of a lightning rod to ground those worst impulses that's a good point I know that mayday definitely does that we always have our non-GM channel where we're dropping memes and jokes and things like that that are relevant. Tom, you have been a part, if I understand, of every Into the Darkness recording.

I really want to know what is it about the project that just gets you so excited about it that you're a part of everything. What's the juice for you? I'm spending time with my friends. It's I love all these people. I like every last one of them, and I like seeing them and listening to them talk, and I'm so pleased at their imaginations when they're playing these games. I don't know.

It's just I'm completely addicted to the pleasure of it. And I think that I'm extremely lucky. And I know I'm lucky because I have played tabletop games with people at tables. And those never went anywhere near as well as they do in our club. So I don't know. There's just something about sharing it. Mike Mason said to me one year at Necronomicon, he kind of shook my world because I was thinking it was all about the games. And he said, do you know, Tom, it's really all just about friendship.

And I was like, holy shit, it really is just about friendship, isn't it? It's like, it doesn't matter to me what game we're playing, as long as I'm there with people that I enjoy being with. And that's where I get the warm fuzzies. It's just from that. I'd like each of you to answer the question of, you know, you've been doing this since 2015. What do the next 10 years look like for Into the Darkness?

For me, I hope the next 10 years into the darkness is that I'm still as active in it as I have been. I mean, I love playing games with the folks and everything. Firstly, I hope it kind of stays the same from my perspective. I'd love to get more people watching on YouTube and stuff and more comments on there. But I'm very happy with where we're at. You know, it's a matter of growing the community, right? I think, you know, the people that are here, the people who have stuck around, right? We do, we do this because we love it.

So getting, you know, we want more good players. We want more friends, you know, we want to develop relationships with great people. And that's, you know, I just hope that we grow with the aim of, you know, expanding this great community. I hope very little changes. But I hope that over the next 10 years, I find a way or we find a way to keep it going after I'm gone. You know? And I don't expect somebody to learn video editing and all that stuff and to keep that going. But that's not the club.

That's just my hobby. I hope that they keep it alive. my library is going to be theirs where they can just split it all up and I hope they continue to keep going and getting together and all of that. And I hope I'm there for it for the next 10 years. And I'm not, I'm not, I would like anyone's input

because I don't know what I'm doing. Well, that's always something I've admired about into the darkness. you all have a self-perpetuating community, which I think is very hard to find on the internet. You know, you have folks who enjoy the content, they gain the courage to join, and they become players or keepers themselves.

There's just always something I've really admired about, that recursive loop that you guys have, which I think is kind of hard to establish on the internet sometimes. So kudos to you all. I jokingly tell our new people, stop watching our show, because we tend to run the games, multiple times.

Right. Yeah. And if you've watched it, you can't play. I, on the other hand, I don't read, I get all the books and then I never open them up. Half of them are still in their plastic covers because I have to play all the games. I want to play all the games. Can you guys tell me what we can expect in the coming months or year for Into the Darkness?

What games you got cooking? I actually do an Excel spreadsheet with, if a GM contact. me and says, I want to run something. I have a form to send them that gets me, who wrote it, who published it, you know, all of that stuff that I need. And then I put them on the schedule.

So I've got a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and unassigned game schedule all in Excel. This isn't necessarily in order, but on Tuesdays, David Shifflett

is going to run Twin Peaks the murder of Sarah Kingsley which he says is the call of Cthulhu So that's interesting We all love David Lynch Then The people over it

That produced Cypher I think the game The Magnus Archives And Mike McKin is going to work his way through those scenarios running those for us. Did I hear correctly that you guys are planning to run God's teeth?

Yes. That's been on our, that's been on our assigned schedule for a while. Alex's son is going to run that. And it's just a matter of when he can find that, that spot to run it. That is the end of my questions for you all. If there's anything you want to promote or plug, please feel free to do so now.

Well, our channel is Into the Darkness. We've got a website. It's Into the Darkness.club. There's not much on the website except for directions to get to the YouTube videos. We are on Podbean and Spotify and iTunes. And if you want to join our club,

just come on, join it. Pop onto our Discord. You'll probably talk to Josh Harwood and he'll get you all signed up. Well, this was my method of getting to know you guys so that I can join a game one day soon. So I'm excited to talk to you more about that. But gentlemen, thank you so much for coming on. It's really been a pleasure talking to you all. You're welcome.

Thank you very much for having us. Thank you so much for having us. Well, happy Halloween, everyone. I am so happy we were able to return after a brief hiatus. make sure to check out our complete catalog of episodes on YouTube wherever you catch your podcasts. If you're into horror or Delta Green, there's Doom to Repeat and Black Project Gaming's catalog as well. As always, any questions or comments. Leave them for us and we'll be sure to address them in the next episode. We had such a great response to our impossible

landscapes walkthrough. I still think that once I've completed my playthrough of God's teeth, we will start tackling a new dead drop walkthrough. So please stay tuned for that. Heck yeah, I can't wait. But in the meantime, we want to thank our operator-level patrons as of this recording. That's Advance War Sammy, Bimblewart, Brandon C, Brian P, Cameron S, Kai H, Klee H, Matthew J, Ren E, Tony D, and Vince K. Stay safe out there and enjoy the holiday, everyone. Be seeing you, folks.