The Adventure Zone - The The Adventure Zone Zone: Steeplechase Wrap-Up!

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

This week we’re answering some questions about The Adventure Zone: Steeplechase, as well as talking a bit about our upcoming projects! To learn more about the Marvel Multiverse RPG: https://www.marvel.com/rpg Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointaz

I'm so happy. Wow. Hey Justin, I'm not gonna make fun of your thing. I thought it was really good. I don't know why they're being- I'm glad you liked my thing that I did. Yeah, I don't know why Griffin and Justin or Griffin and Dad are cooking fun.

All alone. Your great solo project. My great solo project. Hi everybody. Welcome to the Adventure Zone Zone about steeplechase, mainly, I guess. Like, I don't know. I can't believe we've gone this long without doing one of these. It feels like, well, yeah, it's just been a weird, you know what?

Part of it was that, that weekly schedule that we have for a while. Oh, Jesus. It was two weeks, and then it was one week again. It's just been a lot to keep it. I don't know how people get together to play role-playing games on a weekly basis. I thought I was going to die from all the world. How do you know? It was real mazes and monsters like I was losing myself.

In the, like, it was getting hard to tell what was reality and what was. At this point, I'm more beef than ma'am. Yes. But we're taking some of your questions, and we're going to try to answer them to the best of our ability. Dad, you've got this handy question list in front of you. I do, I do. Let's begin at the beginning. Wait, does everybody have open hearts?

Oh, God, you know. Yep. Hold on, let me do that. Okay, cool. Ready. Ow. Don't touch it. I find the themed layers.

to be fascinating. And so I was wondering, Justin, were there any layers you designed that just didn't make the cut? Or maybe they transformed and became another layer. Clint, Travis, Griffin, if you had a layer each, what would the theme be? And that's from Jess. The one layer that I know of that we didn't do is, I had a good name for it, but is infinitum. Is that what it was? Yes.

I believe that was what it was. The sci-fi. Oh, yeah. layer. And that was, that was the, the layer that we didn't quite get to. I just didn't have a place for it.

I don't know. And I was also going for like, more, more unique, I guess, setting stuff that we hadn't, like, done a lot of before. One exception there being, like, ephemera, which is sort of a subversion, I guess you'd say, of fantasy,

but, pasty. But, yeah, that was the one that I had thought of that we did not, one of the ones I thought of that we did not. didn't do. The sidereal age. That was the name of the faction in that one. We didn't really do factions,

but I thought that was a cool name. That is a cool name. Yeah. I think there was also some talk early on about something with dinosaurs, and we never really got to that either. That kind of became the menomals. Yeah.

Like that idea of like animatronic animals and bringing them into it, that kind of became them. I would have enjoyed a, like, Halloween Horror Nights, Universal Studios Hollywood vibe, a horror-themed layer. What was the...

I really enjoyed that, Goose bumps. Oh, God, what was the name of the Goosebumps horror theme park where you would go down an infinite slide and die on it

and then there's a roller coaster you go on and you die on it? I don't know. It sounds scary as hell, though, right? It's really scary. Yeah. The scream park.

No. That wasn't it? No, that wasn't it either. I would have just done a layer that's just all one big stunt spectacular. Oh, yeah. And like the entire layer is like the Waterworld and Indiana Jones and other stunt spectaculars that I'm sure exist. I think there was a Ghostbusters one short-lived? I don't know.

I have found myself realizing I don't know nearly as much about Disney and theme parks as I, I thought I knew doing this season because there's just a sort of infinite array of failures scattered across the landscape of all sort of theme park creators. And I had really thought about, at one point, I thought, man, I hope he does like, I thought, like a martial arts movie from the 70s. Yeah, that'd be cool.

Because that's good radio right there. Sure. Yeah. Kicks and punches, yeah. But I mean, with all the, like, wirework and all the stuff that I had. There's a place in Kyoto called Toe, Kyoto Studio Park. That is what you're describing. But in real life, that seems like it would be incredible.

If not, like, well outside of our area of expertise to try and simulate in a podcast product. I remember when Steeplechay started, you guys mentioned your characters not being permanent. Did that change as the story progressed? What were your backup characters? if you had any. That's from Jimmy. Can I go first? Yeah, please.

Because this was a big part of my gameplay. I honestly was just kind of struggling with Emmerich. And really early on, once we got into the hard. Disconcertingly early, if you happen to be the game master. I know. Yeah. And so, especially when he dug himself in a hole with the judges and all that stuff, I like how you phrase that, Dad, when Emmerick dug himself into the hall.

Well, the story just kind of took it that way. So I very early on, very early on started talking, you know, thinking about a replacement for him. And that's where the idea of Emerald came along, Emmerick and Hardlight. And I mean, I know that was a big reveal when we hit you guys with it. gosh, that had been percolating for so long. As a matter of fact, there were a couple of times where Justin would say, no, not yet. Yeah. And what happened was, I kind of fell in love with Emmerich all over again.

Travis, you desperately wanted to die too. Well, yeah, so what ended up happening was I had this guy who his main function was like punching people and wrestling people and, you know, kind of be in the muscle. But we weren't really that ended up not being like the vibe of our group so much. And it also made me think like he was the one who was kind of, especially after the, after his trauma where he had gone soft. Like he didn't really want to be doing it anymore. He was only doing it to like protect Amrik and, and, oh my God, I've already blinked on every.

Mantras. Thank you. And so I was ready for him to like basically turn himself in to take the heat off of them. But I think that the thing that ends up happening that, and we talk about this, I think every time we do with the Adventure Zone Zone, I think if this had been a home game, right, that we were just doing for fun, we probably would have swapped out characters constantly. but doing it as like a narrative storytelling gameplay thing as a like for an audience. The thing is, is we were very, after talking with Justin about it, we didn't want to just be like, oh, sure, we'll just scrap this character because you want to play it.

Like we wanted it to be narratively, you know, if it came up, it made sense. And he just ended up not getting to that point. but I was ready I was gonna do like an 18 year old like kind of spider connected to everybody who had like grown up in the buttercream and coming from a long line

of like buttercream you know baddens called smudge Jenkins and he did not end up manifesting I think I might have mentioned him in passing because I wanted him to exist if I ended up needing him but it didn't come on

Like, I was, if it, if the moment had ever called for, like, they got caught. These railroads went so bad. The thing that needs to happen here is someone needs to turn themselves in. Like, it would have happened, right? Or if it was like, oh, my God, someone has to take a big hit that they're not going to survive. Like, it would have happened. It just never came up, and we didn't want to just do it to do it. Ditto?

How about you? Nope. I love, I loved Montrose. I love playing. him every second of it. I never ever wanted to switch. I, yeah, no, I didn't, I did not want to do that. I really, really, really enjoyed that character playing him and being that, being that role in a big world of crime. And I wouldn't have changed the thing, man. Conrad said that they love the show. Thank you, Conrad. And Conrad is wondering, do we still play outside of work?

I assume you mean like role playing games and stuff not like do you do fun things because we go play ball in the park I mean sure I throw axes and do dutpin bowling and you know all that but no I don't I don't think any of us do

well yeah so I end up playing a lot of like I guess on people's like one shots or go to conventions and do best work stuff there right it's like all of that gets kind of scratches that itch I also at this point I don't really know anyone in time I have like three friends any like in Cincinnati

that are interested in playing tabletop games and they all are like theater people whose schedules are so busy we couldn't possibly work it out I look forward to when BB and Dot are a little bit older I think that they will be like way into it and we'll be able to do some like gaming together but right now it's

it's a little too much work, uh, to be fun. I would love to. I just don't, I mean, my life is so not conducive to regularly scheduled recreation. Uh, it's just not. I would get so paranoid if I had like a standing D&D game night or something with, with folks here in DZ that I would just get interrupted literally every time because, you know, one of my kids didn't go to sleep or we're sick or et cetera. et cetera, et cetera.

Which honestly, like, I don't, I think does have the benefit for us of, like, I'm always pretty excited to record tasks with you guys because I really look forward to, you know, playing games with y'all. So, Juice, how about you? Nah, I don't really. We do so much sort of, like, creative work that normally in my free time, I, if it's just for me, it's not normally a creative exercise just because I like to save. Save the juice.

Yeah. Creativity is finite. Fuse it all up. What? You're out of it. Oh, no. Oh, God. Don't tell me that.

If you look under your right... If you look under your right arm is gone, you're fine. If you look under your right armpit, you'll see a sort of spherical meter. That is your creativity. That's what that is. Yes. And charge it back up by listening to our content. Oh, my God.

My sign negative numbers. Well, can I suggest any of our many great podcasts? I'll have to listen to them. Yeah. Check them out. I'm going to combine two of these. because they're both similar. One from Sierra, one from Andrew.

Does Griffin still create the background in ambiance music or ambiance music? Of course, Justin is the mastermind behind Dream It to Now, but I'm curious about Griffin's approach to working on the soundtrack for your Taz campaigns. And then Andrew asked, what was the inspiration for the theme music? Or Steeble Chase, it puts me in mind of the punchout games as if it was the theme for Beef's Arm Wrestling game. Can I mention, let me talk Dream It's Now real quick. Yeah, yeah.

Because that was actually Eric Neer. You can find him on SoundCloud or Bang Camp. Lifelong friend of the family. Yeah, he's been my friend, like my entire life. My oldest friend, and he is, he did the music for the Charlieverse episodes. He's done some work for things I bought at Sheets. And he did Dreamt's now based on. Just the couple of notes that I sang in the actual show when I and

Mainly it was based on the music that Disney uses at the fireworks shows like enchantment and the far superior Happily ever after if you listen if you go to Spotify and listen to like happily ever after you will 100% Get the like the the thematic the thematic allusions because it is it is very much in that vein. I also asked Eric If you haven't listed the full version on his band camp, you should. I asked him to make the lyrics as generic as possible. And I think he achieved it brilliantly. Most of the music on this season was actually sourced by Rachel, our editor. I did a couple of tracks, I think, early on.

I had the realization when we were doing Ethersea. It was right before we had Gus. And I was like, I'm not going to have any time. I'm going to just record like a dozen songs. And then that'll be the music for the season, which I did not have time to do for Steeplechase. And it is so much easier to do that stuff ahead of time than it is to do it like week to week like I used to. So, yeah, I only did a couple of songs, but the theme song I was really proud of. I did make that.

It was very much inspired by Lupin the Third, specifically. the theme to the movie that came out, the animated film, which I don't know if you guys saw, absolutely slaps ass. Oh, yeah. Which is, you know, very jazzy, very... It's a lot of cowboy bebobbony.

Yeah, there's a cowboy bbbaugh DNA in there. And then... No, Johnny Quest? I really thought. No. I could totally see that. I don't know if that was in Griffin's head. Yeah, no, it wasn't...

It was not a direct inspiration, but, you know, that theme song does whip ass and is always kind of kick. and around in there. I really liked, it kind of came together when I, I like weird instruments in like jazzy stuff. And so when I, I messed around putting the sitar in there, it gave it kind of like a bit of a fantasy vibe.

And so, yeah, that, that, I would love to be able to make more music like that, but it's, it's really far outside of like the type of music that I know and know how to make. and it's hard to do like jazzy orchestral stuff in a DAW, if you don't really know what you're doing, which I don't. But yeah, that was what went into that. Now, I have a question here from Matthew that I'm also curious about. Like, I'm way into world building and the methods people used to do it. And Matthew wants to know Justin the world of Siebelchase felt really unique and well thought out.

Does you have any specific method for world building? And if you did, what did it look like? Oh, man, method for world building. I think it's all very like, I mean, a lot, it's weird. It's this combination of like background and active creation. So like background creation is a lot of stuff I was doing where I'm just like looking at original sources. Like watching, looking through like original print materials. videos from like the 80s and 70s of people at theme parks watching basically all of

defunct land. It's probably the biggest like inspiration I think in terms of like the system that informed the creation of the show. That part is weird because it's like you're just pumping your brain full of junk and seeing what it like does the old rock tumbler bit and seeing if it spits out any gems. And those look those came to me like at weird. times I would just be like in the shower like oh shit the barrister's that'd be cool and I'd go and write it down some of it was like I would have one single idea like ephemera was just I just thought it was be so funny to have a balance theme restaurant that I kind of did all the other stuff based around it I thought it would be so stupid um and you were right and I was right and I mean that's

the main thing. It was I had text documents on each of the layers where if ideas came to me about those layers, I would pop that text document open and just drop it in there. And honestly, that was sort of an exterior brain for me. I would have it open while we were recording if I needed an idea or needed a concept. I had a whole bunch of them there that I could that I could pull from. And that was the more active part. And that was usually closer to recording. The thing about world building with Blades in the Dark and the sort of third most important tier of this is that I could not do too much ahead of time. I really couldn't.

I couldn't. If I got too firm with my plans, I was sort of going against the main edict of John Harper with Blaze the Dark which is just like give your players agency and let them be the heroes. So a lot of what I was creating is more in terms of like an eye. obstacle course, you know, and letting them figure, color in a whole lot of those connections and the, and the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, specificity of, of the world. It's, it's, it's very much a collaborative, uh, thing. I, well, here's a follow-up then. Okay. Um, from Katie. I really enjoyed steeplechase the game

system and setting were exactly what I didn't realize I needed. My question is, Blades in the dark feels like it is geared toward individual. heists rather than a larger narrative, was there a challenge as a GM bringing it together for a more cohesive, overarching story? And for everyone else, was there any aspect of the system that challenged you as you were playing? And let me tack on a part of the question from Jennifer before, because I think that also addresses it. What was it like playing in a game system with the ability to use flashbacks? Fucking great. Yeah. That was the best part of the whole game.

That was really the reading about flashbacks is really when I was like, oh, this is it. Like this is the system for us. This will be perfect. In a way like it's the, can I talk about the flashbacks thing? Yeah, please. Yeah, do that first. I think it is the most brilliant part about Blades in the Dark. I think Blades in the Dark has a lot of going for it.

I think the way that it handles like action roles is great. I think that the way that it sort of like allows you to manage a crime syndicate as a small business is like really fascinating. The ability to just make shit up as you go through flashbacks is kind of perfect for us because all of a sudden like we don't have to go into every job knowing exactly what we're going to do, which is basically how we approach every situation on this show, regardless of the game that we are playing. I did find at times that it was a like a paralyzing amount of freedom. Like when you are able to when you have the leverage to, you know, through this system, like make almost anything true

at any point, as long as it sort of fits the laws of this world, I would find myself, like, going large spans of time not doing it because of, because there was not like, you know, it's not like I'm picking stuff off a list. It is like coming up a shit for whole cloth. It's kind of like in Super Friends, when Superman would regularly, forget some of his powers. Yes. Because it was narratively convenient.

Sometimes I'd remember like, guys, you can just say whatever the fuck you want. And they would forget for many episodes. Like, oh, good. I don't have to worry about that. That's excellent. I will say, like, with the system, I love this system. But it takes a little getting used to at the beginning to not do actual, like, planning. Right?

Because I think that you want to, like, when you're finding out about the job and everything, like, you want to ask questions, you want to discuss it. You want to be like, oh, we could do this and this and this. but like that really goes against the spirit of the game. You're supposed to start like in the middle of it and kind of like go from there to make it feel more like what would be in a heist movie or something. And to kind of find the right balance of what we do need to know like where we are when it starts or whatever, but we can't coordinate a game plan too much. Like I think that is a, uh, I think that's maybe where like the learning curve of it is.

if you're coming out of other, like, game systems where you want to have a plan in place that you're executing versus you're executing something and building the plan as you go. That took a while to kind of lock on to. But I think once we did, you're right. It completely changed the way we played the game because I think, you know, oh, what's the plan? We've got to have a plan. But this game is not built that way. I think two of the things that we had to really kind of adjust. to that I think we, well, I ask you if you guys think we did, but I think that once we locked into

the flashbacks, I think that changed the, and remembering that we are bad guys. We're criminals. We're not heroes. Yeah. And, you know, that was one of our stated desires. We didn't want, we wanted to play criminals and not necessarily, you know, and it's tough to play that. But I think once we got into that, I think we stuck with it pretty well, don't you think? Yeah, we're not really good at being negative bad people. Like, we're, I think we're good at a little bit of a lovable rogue who's like, oh, yeah, I'm going to steal your money, but I'm going to knock you unconscious and carefully sit you in this chair and put a blanket on your lap so that you get a good night's

sleep while you're unconscious, right? Like, there are times where I think beef would be like, I'm going to kill that guy. We're all like, wait, no, don't do that. Don't do this. Well, yeah, I mean, it's tough. If you're putting someone at the center of a story, they are going to be the hero of it, almost without fail in all narrative stuff. Like, they are the one you're following, right? So their actions have to be somewhat justified because they're the ones moving the action forward.

So it is hard to make someone like, they cannot be the antagonist of the story if we're going to follow them. I think it was more like finding opportunity. to not, to go outside a convention and to not necessarily like follow the rules all the time. I will say just to your point about it seeming more set up for individual heist. That's definitely like a big focus. I will say that part of that is my own, the sort of parts of that game that I did not figure out a good way of incorporating. Yeah. So like in in Blaze of the Dark,

there's supposed to be, and we talked about it a couple times, these like, this idea of like gang tears and your layer, L-A-I-R, layer and the territory you control and all this turf

because Blaz-N-D-Dark is set up around a specific fictional city. Yeah. And like the factions within that city and how they feel about you, how you feel about them, do they work with you, all this stuff.

Right. The problem that I ran into was I wanted to keep the story, we're moving geographically from like layer to layer. And we set up pretty early. There's not a lot of crossover. So if you go to ephemera and piss off a bunch of people in ephemera, if you go to another layer, it's probably not going to have much of an effect.

And that was what I was up against. So a lot of the aspects of that game, I was forced to kind of leave by the roadside because I couldn't figure out ways of organically using them. I wish in hindsight that I had just skipped them all. together instead of making like half-hearted attempts at building a layer and having factions and stuff like that. I will say though that I feel like we captured the spirit of that a lot in like, I don't know, I enjoyed like having a focus for us being like increasing our foot hold in the buttercream and in used to Ben as like the big sort of narrative hook for us. Like I found that

very, very cool and a like a good carrot to always kind of have. have in front of our characters. And I felt that. Like, I mean, we weren't necessarily doing it concretely, but I think by the time we reached, you know, the last couple episodes, it definitely felt like we were more connected to the buttercream and, you know, the in between layers

in that world a lot more. And I think we saw that in the final monologue. Yeah. Of, like, winking at that and hinting at that, which, by the way, Jennifer mentions the closing monologue from Crystal and how it title, lovely bow. That was, I think, a really...

Were we yada yotting the praise? Like, the praise parts, we should not yada yaw. I'm saying. No, this is what I said. The closing monologue from Crystal, especially tied a lovely bow on the themes of this season. And frankly, Autumn did an amazing job as Crystal was okay. And Slice stepping in when Crystal was out.

Yeah, those are our friends, Slice Hicks and Autumn Hicks. Autumn is a really talented voiceover actor, as is Slice. Slices is an actor as well, but we've known them again. Yeah, 20 years probably there. Yeah, Justin went to college with Slices. I went to high school with Autumn and then Slices and Autumn got married because Huntington's not that big of a town. And here we are. And they probably loved each other.

Oh, yeah, that's probably it too. I will say we all, this is very quick sidebar before I hear the question. we all got really into watching like Disney videos like the four of us me and Sid and mainly me and Sliced Autumn Sid likes them too but so there's like a lot of these vloggers doing Disney stuff and they watched them as well

and there's one who's sort of like the probably the most prominent name AJ and Autumn had this like killer AJ impression that she would do and that is like the birth of Crystal with the cake because I heard that and I was like oh shit that should be like the intro of the thing so if you go and watch Disney food blog videos, you will hear, like, the voice print for that.

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Yes. Troubled Waters is the answer. To this question and all of my life's problems. Now, legally, we actually can't guarantee that. But you can find it on maximum fun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Griffin, is Montrose really just a regular Siebel Chase worker who turned to crime? What did he do to get kicked out of his last crime gang? And Justin, was there ever a chance that you would have let Montrose actually beat

Kenchell's dad? That's from Jenny. I mean, Justin wouldn't get a choice in that. Oh. If I would want to be Kenshal's dad, I'd be Kenshal's dad. That's how role-playing games work, I think. Is that it? No, that's not right.

Yeah, I mean, yes. Montrose was a regular steeplechase worker who turned to crime. I had temptations from time to time to like make Montrose something else, like make Montrose have some sort of like... Give him that Emperor Papatine's grandson glow up. Some sort of thing like that, right? Because you've got a character in a mask, you think like, well, that's an opportunity for some sort of big twist. But the more I got to live with Montrose, the less I wanted to do that, the less I wanted there to be some big gimmick. And instead wanted him to just be a dude who used to glean basically any enjoyment he got out of his life from going to places like Steeplechase.

who then finds, you know, some sort of emotional connection with the thrill of crime and realizing that he is very good at that. And so when I played that card in the, I guess, penultimate episode where I told Kinchel, I was his dad, I don't think there was actually a part of me that really thought that was going to be true. I just really, really, really liked the symmetry of pulling that, what was a pretty offhand joke that came out of our first heist again at the midnight hour. Yeah, and that is exactly why, that symmetry is exactly why I would have let it lie if he had wanted to. It would have taken some work. it's to the weird gray space when you're doing like an actual play story it's like it is collaborative

and even if it's not something I could think about unless I had explicitly ruled it out I mean I'm open to it I'm open to any ideas no matter how they might like complicate stuff so if he had been very committed to it especially because he had

done it several times before I think that you had set the groundwork for it but it's also like you had also set the groundwork groundwork for that being a lie. Like how somebody falls in again. What I loved about Montrose is that it kind of, he like allowed me to correct or just go a different way from this thing that I feel like we all have this temptation to do when we're

doing TAS, which is to have some big secret, to have some big mystery from our, our characters past that we get to play and have that be like a big bomb that gets dropped. And that's very good. And we've certainly like, uh, explored that so much in the past. But I also find myself like getting, um, wishing that there was more sort of like character development on screen and like character moments that happen on screen. And for Montrose, like, that's what I wanted. Like I just wanted his story to be.

in steeplechase. And I really, I don't know, I really liked his trajectory going from like an aspiring small time, a small time crook to like someone who becomes very confident in his ability to, you know, silver tongue his way out of any situation. So yeah, I avoided that urge at all costs.

I think that's very interesting because Bryn asked the next way, we didn't see too much from backstories beyond a few mentions. Is there anything you wanted to share or anything you would have liked to explore from Brent? And I do think that's interesting because I think we all, I can't remember if there's like an active discussion we had or just something we ended up doing. Or it might be like Justin's, Justin tends to let the development happen for his characters on screen as well. And if there's backstory stuff, it comes up in the moment. And so I think that in Siebel Chase, all three of the

PCs had backstories, had things in mind. But we didn't. like use them to just if we didn't like plumb them for drama you know what I mean like I had a whole thing for beef where basically and I can't remember how in detail I went when it did come up but that he had been this like you know all-time great arm wrestler but he also had a gambling addiction and it ended up he would like gamble on his own matches and he got he got caught like fixing the fight and got like blackmailed by this guy and they all got caught and he got banned from it for life. And like it was this, you know, sorted kind of like criminal past in that way that he was now kind of finding a second chance at fame and infamy or whatever in steeplechase.

And it's like, okay, cool, I know that. I know all of that. I know like that he is not a big, dumb brute that he is a smart guy. You know, people see his size. and he gets feel like he's dumb. And it's fine. That's for me to know and use and playing the character. And we just didn't really shoehorn backstory moments in, you know?

But see, I would push back against that because I feel like I did talk about Montrose's, like, weird relationship with park history. Yeah. And it came up. Like, you did talk about beef's, you know, lost fame and talked about Amarik's, you know, going from being a beloved Imagineer to what he is now. Like I feel like that stuff did come up in just playing. Yeah, definitely. Like do like full-on flashback moments of like what happened in our distant past.

Yeah, I think that that's it. It's not that it didn't come up and it's not that it wasn't there. It's more like there wasn't a scene where it's like and Beef's old promoter shows up at Steeplechase to try to get one more gambling. score from or whatever like you were still playing moving forward you know we weren't like and here's a dream sequence of young emerald or emrick dreaming to be whatever boy that got confusing didn't i know god bless yeah man it was just there in our stories um when it was appropriate to bring it up is there anything you wanted to say about emmer i he didn't really go the way i thought

he was going to go. I really, I always knew he was going to be kind of odd, but I really thought he was going to be the, the go-to brain guy. And very obviously, very, and very early on, it became apparent that he would be a brain guy, but just more of a theory guy instead of a tech guy. Well, it was a very Doc Brown kind of feel to it for me. Yeah. I think that was, I think that was in there two. I had really kind of imagined a cross between Tesla and Vincent Price. Oh, okay. And Vincent Price was kind of a constant touchstone for me.

Yeah. And the character. But it was just only when I really kind of embraced how odd he was, how weird he was. And that you guys, we formed kind of a relationship between us all. that was kind of just accepting how weird he was. Well, there was like this kind of reverence that Beef and Montrose had for Emrich's, like, ability that I feel like had a,

an interesting dynamic in like us excusing that and just being like, well, that's the cost of genius, I suppose. It is also, also Emmerc creates an interesting power imbalance, I think, and I think Blades and Dark is really good about that. Like, if you get right down to it, beef is good at hitting and Montres is good at talking and Emrick is the Green Lantern. So it's like it is a little bit imbalanced in that sense

in a way that is narratively effective, I think. Yeah, and I think we backed off of it a little bit to the Green Laner thing. Well, yeah, we limit it. We worked with the Prism stuff and everything. I think that made it more impactful when Emrick did you things. But I also think Dad made a great choice

to be like, Emrik doesn't spend his time healing like he's so he's so cerebral that he's not even thinking about like taking care of himself physically and so it ended up being like i beef was doing a lot of like mother henning for uh emrick of like picking him up from time to time and carrying him places because he would be so injured he couldn't make jumps and he couldn't like get out of situations there was a lot of like okay cool man but your angle is shattered and you haven't done anything about it for like two heists so i'll carry you up the stairs i get and like it made it so that amric wasn't just this like all powerful god of creation um dad you got to duck out soon is there any of these questions that

you wanted to hit or well i have i i have two i i assume you're going to get to one of them so i'm going to get to the other one because i have to know well from maya what What was everyone's favorite moment of the campaign? And can we get one last Doug Sacks solo for the road? I'd really rather we didn't. Yeah, the sound is so bad. I bought this at the beginning of the show. And I thought it would be, I tried to learn how to play it.

Because I thought wouldn't that be cool? Can you play any music on it? Can you do any song? You know Hot Cross Buns? What I just did is as far as I got it with the Sax Monica. this instrument is called. And I thought it would be, it's just the Facebook video

that sold it to me, said it's real easy to learn. And it's not easy enough, I'll say, so that's why, and I just kept it within reach because it made me laugh one time to do it. My favorite moment was,

because I'm a very self-centered person, my favorite moment was when we finally used Emerald. And, the surprise that I think you guys had an inkling of Montrose and beef. I think you had an inkling of what was going on, but I still think that him quote unquote dying was kind of a surprise for you. Your fucking Thanatos fucking Freudian death drive in role-playing games is as such that when you're like,

okay, I throw myself into the goo. And I, part of me was just like, well, that's just dad. Yeah, dad hasn't been talking about wanted to off Emmerick for a while now, so. So let's just do it. So yeah, no, that was a surprise for me. I think my favorite, my, my, I, I liked so much of it overall. I think my favorite sequence was like the, the laundry truck chase. Yep, that was what I was going to say.

The entire gutter city heist, I think, yeah, the gutter city heist. laundry truck chase was fucking great. The moment when that like solidified like oh fuck plant beef is so fun for me is that scene in the hotel where he comes down and there's like five security guards and he just like takes them out one by one. And later dad would describe it as a naked beef which was not true at all but like wrestling them

and the chocolate, yeah and the chocolate fountain and shit. It was just really fun and like all the rolls landed and like he was just knocking dudes unconscious left and right. That's great. Clint, I know we have to dismiss you so you can go pick up my children from school. Any final thoughts? I want Dad to tell us about the next season. What?

Oh, Dad, what's the next season? Well, the next season will be Taz Ultra Space. And should I tell what we're doing? Yeah. Yeah, man. We're going to be playing with the new Marvel multiverse role-playing game. and it is going to be sort of a follow-up to our babysitters that were in Journey into Mystery, the War of the Realms in Marvel Comics.

Collect that. You can get that as a graphic novel. All five issues collected in one sleek volume. So very excited. And I'm going to GM it. That's going to GM it. And we're going to have a special guest, Kate Welch, and Gabe Hicks, joining us to play as well. That's going to begin on November 30th.

Probably a shorter, shorter season. We're going to have some shorter. It'll be more of a, and then we got more stuff after that. We got so much crap. You know what I mean? We'll tell you all about it. You're embarrassed. Goodbye, Dad. I don't even know about all this stuff. Goodbye, guys. Hey, guys, I loved Steeple Chase and I can't wait first to go back. Thank you, Dad. I hope we do soon. Okay. Next up, any other questions? Yeah, I'm going to know because Justin, you for a long, long time you were very adamant that you didn't want to do it, but you're like, I don't want to run a game. And so we have several questions of people wanting to know, for example, Haley wants

to know, what about GMing did you enjoy the most? Oh, sometimes the pieces would just like kind of click together. I really like that feeling of like the probably the most satisfying thing is when you can see the end of an arc or a storyline or even a moment and see how it's how it all connects. And it's like a really cool. If you've done your homework and you've like done the legwork of trying to create a lot of different vines that you can swing to and different like ideas that you might use or you might not use every once a while while you're doing it, they just kind of like sync up and give you the answer that is like narratively really cool and compelling. and I think that is probably the thing that I am like most,

that I found the most satisfying. Evan, and apparently a lot of other people, asked, would you ever consider doing a live show for Steeplechase? I think Steeplechase would work great as a live thing. I agree. Yep. I think that it could be self-contained enough. It's action-oriented. It would be, I think it would be a lot of fun.

I think for flashbacks, we should make people stand up and go over and do the scenes somewhere else. That would be great. That would be cool. But yeah, I think it would work great for a live show.

And I'd like to see what Griffin would do for his costume. And I'd like to not wear a costume. I want to ask this one for Nick. It's getting into spoiler territory. So if you didn't finish that as, really. What is? Yeah.

Now, we should have said that up front, man. There's no quarter for you if you want to go behind the scenes before you even saw the curtain call. Come on. Question for Justin. How far ahead did you? know that the nanofa father was Carmine Denton. I think you have a particular skill for taking the in

moment improvised bits and using them to build stories and characters with real depth and gravity. Was that the case here or was this reveal planned from the beginning? That's from Nick. I would take it once a step further in that question, Justin. How, like, nanofather used to, I feel like you started doing that voice at the beginning as a joke. Was that something you were like, this is somebody in the thing from the beginning? Or is it a joke that you did that became somebody? You know guys anybody can be a creator and I'm living evidence of that um nanof father okay nanofother started because I was extremely uncomfortable DMing and I felt stupid trying to be like now let me enter or step into my world you know and I

felt like so fucking dumb about it and even though I'd done the work like it still felt very awkward and uncomfortable so the original like nanofather thing was like me trying to tamp down my genuine anxiety and discomfort by making the most like, you know, tailweaver, step into the loom, all that shit about like weaving an incredible narrative, right? So having, so that was how that voice kind of got started and it kept going as like a running gag. And I think it's the best thing about doing like a silly role playing game is that sometimes the things aren't jokes. It's like they're already. It's, there and it makes sense, right? Eventually, I knew, so I knew that he was in the world earlier.

I knew that he was like real and not just like a goof. I knew that I would bring him out. And I knew that he would be in the ruins of old kiddadelphia. I knew that, because that's like, I was already talking about the rust storms and stuff like that. Like, I knew that he would be there. I don't exactly remember Sometimes when you're making stuff That has this many moving parts I don't know if this is your guys experience I don't necessarily

Note the moment of like Ideation I it just Things appear true to me Like they just seem to be It starts to feel like oh that's always been what it was Yes exactly as much of a cop at as that sounds It did kind of feel like oh yeah yeah he is Carmine Denton That makes perfect sense

Uh speaking of Sarah wanted to know, please explain what the actual hack was going on with Crystal with a K. Her subplot was so deliciously unsettling. I want to know it all. I have a suspicion that that was also like something that as it unfolded, you were like, oh yeah, this makes perfect sense. And not necessarily something, an arc that you had planned from the beginning, but I might be wrong. Crystal was useful at the beginning for bringing you back into the world. And I would obliquely remind you of like some story beats with Crystal, reinforced. the thing. It also

Crystal helped to make the world seem bigger because she was talking about things that we weren't seeing. Eventually, so that was like the the use, I wanted to do the previously on in a real light lift kind of way and that was the way that I like kind of backed into it.

Eventually, the tone of the show and the things that were happening made it important that we, that we establish like a different tone for the intro because it didn't make sense for her to be all like happy cheery and then we're in some pretty dire stuff um so that was part of it it started to have a little bit of like welcome to night veil kind of feel to me yeah of course i love night veil uh and that

that's definitely like that idea of a voice outside the recording studio that we can't see i think is a big, it's a very nightville thing. And I think that's definitely part of it. The other thing is that I didn't want Dentonic to, I needed a way to remind you that Dentonic was bad and had done bad things because I really was not, and that you were bad, right? Like I didn't want it to be, I didn't want those clear good and evil things to be there. And it was important for Crystal to show this other side of Denton. of like that the company is bad but also there are people who love it and that is that is the sort

of thing that i was interested in with crystal so and i also it's nice honestly it's nice to have a character and a storyline that doesn't have to connect or be satisfying or make sense because you're not getting all of it you're just getting little bits of it so it can be kind of abstract or just a tonal thing rather than a narrative that you're supposed to like follow I would say along those lines, one of the, it was such a, it's not like narratively important, but I really liked as Beef betting on who was going to end up being the CEO of Dentonink. And then like getting to influence that, much like Beef got in trouble with before, of like, I'm going to put it in position where this guy and it works out.

And it just made me really happy, Justin. Thank you for doing that. Thank you for letting me win that bet. And I don't think it'll make him rich, but it made me happy. Thank you for that. An anonymous. Or maybe the hacker group Anonymous wants to know. Can we peek behind the curtain a little bit about the Voice of Tron 5,000?

Do you have a list of show notes? Catalog of Accents you worked on? Which was your favorite character to voice in the season? I mean, the Voice of Tron 5,000 is a real spreadsheet that I got real into my tabs here. It is compiled heroically. by really one of the unsung heroes of the show. And I don't remember if there's just, Rachel, our editor has been absolutely an instrumental

in making this thing listenable and good and has been such a big help to me. Same for Jupiter. Oh, yeah. Who has gone through and, like, listen to all the episodes and he compiled, like, extensive documents with all this stuff and also came up to shit straight. Yeah.

The ephemeral lore was created by Jupiter, who I just told him make up the most fantasy bullshit. The worst fantasy bullshit you can't. And he did that with a plum. So Rachel, our editor actually pulled together the Voicotron list, and it is broken up into like the different layers. There are roughly probably 110 voices on here. And they're all, which you don't realize is a thing until you like go through all of it. And it's like, oh shit, I did so many dumb voices.

I'm sure a lot of them sound the same. That's really hard, man. That's a really hard job. I did not think about the practical nature of every layer would have a new cast of characters, and they all need to sound like something. Well, eventually you just started naming half of them, Justin. I think it was okay.

I think you survived. Justin, naming characters Justin. is inspired by Go Away Green. That's a character that's a color, a specific tone that Disney uses on walls to make it clear that you're not supposed to be looking at. That it's not part of the show. So when you would get to a Justin McElroyd.

It would reach the edge of the show. That was the edge of what I had made up. So you had to go do something else. Ah, okay. Excellent. Brilliant. Brilliant stuff. Diva was wondering if we would ever release the ephemeral lore doc that Jupiter made.

I'll ask Jupiter. I think Jupiter would definitely, I mean, I don't see why not. It's fucking hysterical. One last question here, because apparently a lot of people, including Amanda, wanted to know. What happened to Shukles? Yeah, Shukles, the cat. Yes. Shukals lived...

I died in the battle. I died in the battle. No, Shukles was with the kids in old Kedelphia. And so Shukles lived with them until they were rest, until all the kids were evacuated. And he now lives in ephemera, and he is owned by Dave Belista.

Oh, actually. And he's very happy. That's wonderful. Yeah. I knew about that. One last thing I wanted to say, I wanted to say, I was sure there was more to the woodedibles

from their introduction. I kept way, I don't know if Grimfeld the same way. I was like, one of these motherfuckers gonna move. I was ready for it. I was so ready. I wouldn't quit the show if they had.

I was ready for that jump in. I didn't like them at all. That is the worst. I really didn't like looking at those guys. I thought about it a lot, but here is what I came up with. That feeling that you had is exactly the feeling

that someone who is actually looking at them would have. Yeah. So I like the idea of having these animals that were very creepy and didn't do anything, but you were certain that they were going to do something, but they didn't do anything. They were just unnerving. Creepy as shit, and the fact that they didn't come

whole cloth out of your brain but rather existed in the real world haunts me to this very day. Sucks. It's also, though, I'll say, like, was useful in contrasting the medibles to make it clear that I'm not just, like, tossing out sentience, like Oprah with car keys.

Like, it's a meaningful distinction. So that's all the questions. We've got stuff coming up along with Taz, UtreSpace. We're going to spend the next few weeks dropping a bunch of content leading up to UttraSpace. So next week on November 9th, we're dropping all three episodes of Taz In Balance, which was a YouTube series that we did that was GMs by Abrea Aingar. But it's going to be here in the podcast feed, the audio of it.

And then on November 16th, we're going into the vault and posting Taz Houtanee or Houtanan 3, if you will. This is the first time we're going to try to release one of our virtual live shows. So the audio and the energy are a little bit different, but you're going to love it. promise. You're going to love it. And then on November 23rd, you'll get the Hout and a show that we did in New York Comic-Con just a few weeks ago, once again, featuring the amazing Abria Angar. And then on November 30th, we'll premiere Taz Ultra Space. So hopefully that's all clear. We're very excited about it. It's taken a sort of mini-series approach with that and maybe with the next few things we've talked about started exploring more short form seasons.

So, yeah. Justin, before we wrap up, any last thoughts? No, thanks for, thanks everybody for going on the ride with me. I don't read any feedback online. Or take any feedback from his brothers or friends or anything either. No, that's not true. The thing I said was true, but I really appreciate when people would let me know what they're thinking about it.

And when I've heard from some people that they liked it, that was really, it made me really happy that people enjoyed it. There's a lot of, I was very much, the questions that Steeble Chase raises and the things that Steeble Chase is about is something that I struggle with a lot that I think about a lot, this idea of escapism versus reality and the value of that and the value of what we do and all that stuff. So the fact that other people were interested in, it was very, was very cool for me. So I very much enjoyed doing it. I will say this. If you are like me, if you're hesitant, or like I was, if you're hesitant about doing something like this. And it's good. This is probably good advice for any creative project, but certainly with this.

I was thinking about this moment that we're in now when we started and thinking like, well, how the fuck do you come up with all that stuff? Like, it just seemed so big of a job to me. And what it turned out to be was, like, you know, eating the elephant or a jetplane. You just start at the wheels or the hooves. Of the elephant? Of the elephant. I think it's feet. You keep eating it and you eat it for months.

And eventually it's a whole podcast. Yep. That's how the saying goes. If I did it, you can do it. I'm glad you did it. I think for anybody who plays RPGs is a good thing to do, is to run one. just to see one, learn what you're. Oh, it will completely change.

Yeah. It will very much change the way I play. Absolutely. And I thought you did a killer job. I'm really glad that. I also feel like we have been able to have conversations now, all of us, about GMing, that has been. I mean, not that. I mean, we'll let him in eventually when he does like a long one.

You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. He's done short ones. You know what I mean? Like, that's fun. Short ones are different. Hey, thanks for listening. We really appreciate you.

And until next time. Bye. Never know when to stop drink. Maximum Fun. A work-owned network of artist-owned shows. Supported directly by you.