The Glass Cannon Podcast - Glass Cannon Radio #20 – Is Fudging Rolls Okay?, Age of Vikings RPG, Nerdiest Hobbies Bracket

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

Is fudging rolls ever okay? Is Deadpool's awesomeness waning? What does special guest Skid Maher think of the new Age of Vikings RPG? Answers to these questions, plus a March Madness-style bracket to figure out the nerdiest hobby of all time! 0:00 Intro 6:00 Three Questions 36:00 Bracketology 1:11:00 Age of Vikings 1:36:30 Nerd History 1:52:00 Book Club Watch the video here: ⁠⁠https://youtu.be/4rRCwaC4Esk Access exclusive podcasts, ad-free episodes, and livestreams with a 30-day free trial with code "GCN30" at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠jointhenaish.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join Troy Lavallee, Joe O'Brien, Skid Maher, Matthew Capodicasa, Sydney Amanuel, and Kate Stamas as they tour the country. Get your tickets today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hubs.li/Q03cn8wr0⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. For more podcasts and livestreams, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hubs.li/Q03cmY380⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. You are listening to the Glass Cannon Radio with your hosts Jared Logan and Joe O'Brien. Ah, that's good coffee. Woo, that's good coffee. Holy shit. Oh, just hitting me! It's just hitting my spinal cord now! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHWOOOOOO!

Woo! Did you have your coffee this morning, Joe? I am not a coffee drinker. I don't do coffee. Oh, well, you should get into it. It's good for you. And it wakes you up in the morning. You're like my wife. My wife is not into coffee either. Well, you should get into it. It's good for you and it wakes you up in the morning. You're like my wife.

My wife is not into coffee either. Yeah. Yeah. There's lots of us out there. There's lots of us non-coffee drinkers. You're like my wife in a lot of ways. You're like my glass can and radio wife. I wish I could be as funny and as talented as your wife.

I'm trying. I'm working on it. You said something that I don't want to let just like slip by. Um, it's not good for you. Stop it. Coffee is not. It's good. It has a, it has electro lights. It's good for when you have a basketball game. You come off the court. That's what I come off the court. Hot coffee. Not a, not a coffee not a cold one a hot coffee

Like pouring down my face Burning my skin then run right out there and score a slam dunk is what I call them Score score a slam dunk man. I'm done for two points. You've got the terminology down. I love B-ball. What can I say? Speaking of basketball, just today, earlier this morning, I had an engagement at my children's school. They had the... It's summertime now,

you know, so it's like it's getting to the end of the school year. Sure. They had the school Olympics today, which is basically when I was in school, we would call it field day or flag day or no, not flag day, field day. And it was like school, we would call it field day, uh, or flag day or no, not flag day field day.

And it was like, you'd go out and play outdoor games all day. And so I volunteered this year cause I was like, they were like, could you do between 8 30 AM and 11 30 AM? And I was like, I can be back in time for glass cat radio. So I volunteered and they put me on basketball. And so I was like running through the kids, like each one gets three shots. If you get it in, you get a point and the teams are all countries like the Olympics and they're made of a mix of first to fifth graders. So it was super cute and super fun. And yeah,

it was a good time. So lots of basketball for me. Was any like, uh, so there was like a, uh, uh, there was like a little kids who were like Russia. Yes. Well, no, I don't think anybody would know. There was no Russia. There was no Russia. There are a ton of other countries though. Obviously, you know, there's France, Spain, Italy, Germany, uh, Scotland, Ireland. Yeah. There was no United States either.

I was the Soviet Union in my mock UN in, uh, in middle school. Yeah. And I ended up nuking the seventh grade class. in middle school and I ended up nuking the seventh grade class. Well, they must have pushed you too far. It was Def Con 5, man. What was I supposed to do? You had no choice. They left you with no choice. Well, here we are. This is Glass Canaan Radio. If you've never been here, I'm surprised. If you never listened. I'm at this point, I am a little surprised, but basically we're going to talk about the

things that you care about things in the tabletop RPG and nerd sphere. We're going to get into a bunch of great topics today. Today, we're going to start it off with three questions for me about nerd related topics. Then we are going to get into a bracket y'all. We're gonna do some bracketology. I'm not even gonna tell them what the bracket is yet. Then it's time to talk about an incredible new role playing game that I had a lot of fun playing.

It's called Age of Vikings. It's gonna be from Chaosium. And we have a special guest for that one. Skid is gonna join us for to talk a little Age of Vikings with us. Yep. Right, Skid is going to join us for to talk a little age of Vikings with us. Yep. Right. Skids done skids on more age of Vikings than I have. Uh, and then we are going to have a little history lesson, a little nerd history about Vikings. Uh, and we'll top it all off with announcing the book for

book club. The next book. Everyone pay close attention. I can't tell you how much it tickles. Actually don't pay close attention. And don't tell anyone who it is, what it, what the book is. Cause it tickles me to no end that constantly on the discord, there are people going, what's the new book with like three question marks. Have they announced the book? Where's the book? Well, today's the day. I hope you're tuning in. Today is the day.

I hope you're listening. Today is the day. Don't tell anyone. Don't tell anyone. I want to see how I'm going to start keeping score. How many people can we get to post to the discord to sit down at their computer to get to type it in? Where's the book?

And then hit the enter. I want to find out how many people we can get. All right, well, let's get right into it. I'm fully, my body is ready. Oh, if you're ready, we wanna hear from you. That's the big point of this show. Yes. So get on our Discord if you're a subscriber.

Go to the Glass Can of Radio stage. You can raise your hand. We will put you on the show to talk to us if you're not already a subscriber You can do it in like Two minutes 15 seconds. Oh, yeah 15 seconds, maybe two minutes max, but yeah go to join the nation Use the code GCN 30 for 30 day free trial come in join hang out get on the show today And maybe you can have your own response to these three questions. We're starting off with three questions today. I want to start off with three questions because I want to put some topics out there. Boom. And then anytime throughout the show, you're welcome to call in and talk about them.

Even when we're in other segments. That's great. We're going to keep these conversations going all day. If you have a thought or an opinion on any of these things or any of Jared's stupid answers, you can call in and weigh in and have your voice heard. Okay. First question. My answers are going to be canon. First question for three questions. My concern, slight concern, which is that you led this segment off saying that it was going to be nerdy topics, nerdy questions. My first one is not. No, this is more general. The other two will get into it. The other two will get into it. But first question, this question is really going to culminate in me just asking, is this okay? Is this okay?

But it's going to have a series of introductions, including some visual aids. So here we go. These are three books my son brought home from the school library yesterday. These are first grade scholastic reading books, first to second grade chapter books for them to start learning to read a little bit better on their own. Books that aren't just pictures, right? I don't know if you, have you ever heard of the I survived series of children's books? Have you ever heard of these? Okay, there's a book series called I survived about famous, you know, like disasters and

stuff like that. So for example, you have he brought home I survived the destruction of Pompeii. Oh, I have seen these. I have seen these. Okay, I survived the destruction of Pompeii, AD 79, right? You get a little history, but you get it in a, you know, fiction, historical fiction, firsthand action. Yeah. Yeah.

From the perspective of a kid. Then we have this one is, I didn't know that this was a thing, but I survived the shark attacks of 1916. Wow. Okay. Apparently there was a rage of shark attacks in 1916. And here's what I want to know if this is okay. He handed me this one.

9-11. And I did a double take. 9-11. I'm calling it now. I survived 9-11. I survived the attacks of September 11, 2001. Is this okay is the first question. Is it okay?

My answer to you is it's absolutely okay. I think that kids learning about 9-11 is a great, a great thing. If you can do it in a way that, I mean, you know, is accessible to a kid. Um, you know, we've had movies about 9-11. I don't know why we can't have a youth novel about 9-11. I don't know why we can't have a youth novel about 9-11. And I just want to say I'm fully in support of all of these books, which I were only kind of, I mean, I, I might've spotted them one time in a bookstore. I'm fully in support of all these books because they seem like they're not babying kids. You know, it's like these

are intense, scary topics, but we're saying, Hey, you can handle this. You know what I mean? You can take this on. Um, so I think, I think bravo to page two, 11 year old Lucas, who's walking on the streets of Manhattan has never seen a plane flying solo. Eight 46 AM page three, pull up up Lucas wanted to shout, go higher. And now his heart stopped as he saw what was in the plane's path, the twin towers of the

World Trade Center. The plane sped up. No, with one last ferocious roar, the jet plunged into the side of the towers. Page three. It sounds like I'm not going to let them read it. I just want to get your opinion. I'm curious what a lot of other people think about this. I agree teaching history is extremely important, even very dark and dangerous history, and

doing it in a smart way for kids. And most history is dark and dangerous. Absolutely. This one jumped out at me as too soon. Now, that's because we're of a different age. You know, they don't have that feeling about this event. Why would they? And so, you know, it's, McD says that's the new book for book club.

We announced it early. I survived. That's it. I survived 9-11. September 11th. Oh man. Look, too soon, too soon is an interesting thing because too soon to me feels arbitrary from the perspective of people living in our time right now. You know, I mean, the people that

suffered in the black plague really suffered. Children died. Families were destroyed. People saw everyone they ever knew die. That's serious. We need to have empathy for people in 1348, the same way that we have empathy for people in 2001. So if something is written with empathy and with sensitivity to the issue, then I'm cool with it. There could be an argument made that fictionalizing the 9-11 events is trivializing it or not showing the proper sensitivity. I say to me, I weigh teaching kids versus being super sensitive about it.

And I, I would prefer to make sure kids learn and, and, and, you know, have a, have an awareness of history. So that's where I land on that. But I see someone making the argument, this is insensitive. I see that. But then I think you, if you make that argument, then I think you need to make that argument about the black plague, about Pompeii, about, you know, the victims of the golden horde. Like, I think you need to like have that, that sensitivity to everything, not just recent events. Understood.

Understood. I, I said, it's been, I said to me, it feels too soon. Steno and Spitfire and chat say it's been 24 years. Exclamation mark. That is true. That is true. Um, the last thing I'll say before I move on to my second much less dark question is I remember reading it.

I can't remember if I was reading it or if it was part of a documentary, but there was an interesting, I can't remember where this thought came from, but there was an interesting take on how you approach a documentary for like how different it is. This was like 20 years ago, 15, 20 years ago, how different it was approaching a documentary that you're gonna make for television on World War I or World War II even now, 20 years ago, than it was to make a Vietnam documentary. Like, oh, I know what it was, I'm sorry.

It was Dan Carlin, history podcast. Yeah, hardcore history. Hardcore history. He did a segment where he explained how much different it is when you're about to launch into a deep history dive about something that people who lived through it are still alive. That's a whole different thing that you're approaching. Anyway, that's what it made me think of. All right, question number two. And yeah, anyway, that's what it made me think of. So all right, question number two. And by the way, Colin, raise your hand.

I already see some hand raised. We're going to bring you up. You can talk about any of this. I'm laughing at the kid going, I keep thinking, pull up. Pull up. Yeah. It's like, oh my gosh. All right, so question number two.

Is Deadpool awesome? Okay, so that's what a great question, okay? So Deadpool is awesome. Okay. But his fans make him suck. Well, I guess you could say that about a lot of different IP uh, you absolutely can. The Dave Matthews band is awesome, but we don't really love

their fans. Um, Deadpool got co-opted by a bunch of people who I would call their sense of humor cards against humanity. Uh, and, uh, and that's too bad. Um, I, uh, and just if you care, I like the first two Deadpool movies and I thought Deadpool and Wolverine was not a movie. It was a series of Easter eggs and cameos. And I find it. Yeah. I found it kind of like to be nothing, a nothing movie, but, uh,

we'll just focus on Deadpool. The, you know, Deadpool is a character and if series comics are anything, you think Deadpool is awesome. Deadpool is cool. I don't know. You know, Deadpool to me, uh, especially in the comics from the nineties when they first started making him funny, those comics are just so brilliant and were a really different flavor.

Now Deadpool has like five titles every time you look at the comic book store that are going at the same time. You know, I think he suffered from a little bit of what I call the Harley Quinn bloat, where it's like this character isn't that great. This character doesn't need five comics at once. But yeah, certainly any character can be cool in the right hands, you know? But yeah, like hardcore fans of Deadpool kind of suck.

And then there's too much Deadpool. He's kind of overstayed his welcome. Okay. Last question. Yeah. Should a GM ever fudge die rolls? Yeah. So Seth Skorkowski, my good buddy and incredible, uh, YouTuber has an incredible video about this.

Oh really? I haven't seen this. Until I saw Seth's video, by the way, you might see Seth on this show pretty soon. So until I saw Seth's video, I would have said never. I would have said never. I would have said never. And I'll paraphrasing Seth here, but I encourage people to go and watch this video. I think it is about fudging die rolls.

So just Google fudge die rolls Seth Skorkowski. He says, sometimes it's okay. And he gives a very specific example. It's like when you want it to be more entertaining for the players, that's when you should do it. So not to beat them, uh, but when you need to make it more entertaining and he doesn't mean like all the time to make it entertaining all the time, but like in a moment where you have the wherewithal to go, Oh,

this is going to be a huge disappointment for the players unless I fudge the role here a little bit. That's the up. So, so he has an example where the player goes into the dungeon, the player character goes into the dungeon and he rolls for the bad guy that's in the dungeon, the war, the black knight or whatever, and immediately gets a crit that would instantly kill the player. And he's like, that's not going to be fun. This is like the boss battle. The player just walked in. So he fudges that first die roll,

but then he lets the rest of the die rolls go the way they are, the way they go. And the player ultimately loses the fight, but the player isn't wiped out in the first moment. Like the player wasn't even there. And so then, you know, all the other players are like, holy shit, you went nine rounds with that guy that was awesome, you know? Uh, and it was all because he just fudged one role. So I, I believe too, I agree with Seth that like, if you are, if you are. Uh, on top of it enough to go, Oh, this is going to really suck.

If it, you know, this role is going to really suck for the players, then fudge it, but only when it's in that specific instance and never ever tell anyone that you've fudged a role later. You've got to keep the veil. It's the beauty of the GM screen. The beauty of the GM screen. Don't go later and go, I actually fudged that role so you could fight longer. Oh God. That'd be a far. Well, you know, I'm even of the opinion, you know,

you'll run a mystery scenario and then people will go, people won't figure out everything. And then they'll be like, what was happening there? What, what was going on? What was happening in that room? And I'm always like, I'm not going to tell you, like I, I, I want the game to be experienced the way it was experienced. I'm not going to sit here now and give you the backstory after the fact. And I've been in so many games where after the, after the scenario is over and everybody's like picking up their stuff to go

home, the GM's like, well, actually what you didn't know was that that guy was a spy for the other team. And then, and I'm like, I don't want to know all this. I want my experience to be my experience. Okay. That's fair. Makes sense. Um, I've got, you know, uh, my thoughts on these things across the board.

Don't really need to weigh in on it right now. I want to know what do you think it's okay to fudge a die roll? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's okay. And it's funny, I've never seen that video and that is precisely what I would say. I mean, to the letter.

It's like, first of all, it is so, the danger here is like, I can say it is very few and far between. Some of you have to use very few and far between. But the reality is also, if you use it at all, you lose credibility for all roles forever. No, it's true. That is a tricky line to cross or not cross. But I'll just say I come from the school of the GM's whole responsibility is to be another player at the table that's playing a game with their friends

and is supposed to facilitate fun. And fun is not always winning everything, but fun can clearly be in the sights of a gun and fun can get destroyed by a die roll and make everyone miserable and really grind things down to such a crawl that nobody even wants to play in those kind of dangerous situations that GM's power to do that, I feel like is a power that should be wielded and used with wisdom, you know, with wisdom. It takes experience and practice. And sometimes I'll let a die roll. I won't fudge it.

And I'll let a die roll just ruin the fun it's happened. And then I have to like walk it back or you know what I mean? Like I like suddenly realized, oh, I've ruined this game. Well, this die roll has ruined this game and I've let it happen. And I have to get a walk it back or retcon something or, or even go, you know what? You can roll again. I mean, honestly, I've even done that before. When the more elegant thing to have done would have been to just fudge the die roll and not say anything about it, you know? Yeah. Um,

it happens. Not, not every game, not, you know, one out of nine, one out of 10, but it happens not not every game not you know one out of nine one out of ten, but it happens Let's let's take a couple calls before we move to the next segment just because you know There's a lot of topics we just threw out for people to weigh in on and I'm curious What what people want to talk about let's bring up Travis Travis has been on the on the show before Travis Welcome back join us What's up guys? How's it going? back join us what's up guys how's it going buddy how are you it is going well and I have Ender with me because he has read a lot of those I Survived books so oh you want the input of another 11 year old yes please um which is one and do you want to hear about

the first one well you don't you don't need to give them a snob. Just tell them what you thought of the books. Do you like them? Oh Yeah, I really like them. They had a decent amount of history. It also showed a fictional story of some one I think But some of the stories up have like a family involvement During a point in history Mm-hmm. Yeah, it focuses on that story and it has a bit of the history in there

and that's why I kind of liked it because it Okay, was it was it ever scary was it ever? Was it ever scary was it ever too scary? Oh, no, no, I've been scared. Okay good. That's good to know That's good to know and and then I'll just hit quick on the other questions The Deadpool question was like was it if Deadpool is oversaturated? No is Deadpool awesome? That's the only question Don't write another question. But my answer was that he's oversaturated. Yes.

I was going off of what Jared's response was and I kind of fall in the same lines with Jared, he's awesome when done right. Um, Rick Remmender X-Force books. Yes. I love those. The Remmender X-Force was awesome. And then the Fudging on the Dice rules. I agree. Sometimes it's necessary, especially

if the players aren't getting where they want to go or don't realize what they're not doing. And I would never tell them. Like if I help them out, I'm not going to punish them, but I usually will give them a little headway because most of my players will get stuck and not even realize that they're standing in mud Yeah, right. Yeah. All right, great. Yeah, I was thank you for the call. That was Great to have an 11 year old actually from your from your friend. Yeah I'm assuming son, but I don't know. Yeah, you know what? I don't want to jump to any assumptions

Yeah, one one comment from feignless Finnerly in chat is, and I agree with this too, and this is one of the things I love about running Delta Green. Ideally, if you're not happy with any possible outcome on a die roll, you shouldn't be rolling a die. But it is the series of unlikely complications compile or a series of unlikely rolls compile into a problem and you can't get off the die rolling train, fudge. So yeah, I agree with that. I think that there are times when GMs call for too many roles.

You don't really need to, you can just move on without a role. You know, we should do a whole segment on when to roll because I kind of like rolling a lot and every GM, every GM section of every TTRPG goes, don't roll too much. Only roll when it's absolutely necessary. And it's like, for some reason, I just love a role to see if you, I don't know, make a good sandwich or whatever the BCs are doing.

Those are roles where you don't care that much about the outcome. And it's just fun. And you use a strategy that you use that I appreciate. And I really like a lot is you use a lot of die rolls like luck rolls to determine things that are your choice to make, you know, like how many guards are in the room or how many people believe you or what, you know, just be like, you know what, let me just roll a die and see is this, you know, item at the shop? You could just say yes or no. A lot of times you say, let me roll a die.

And I like that. That's great. As long as you go with whatever the outcome is. Right? If you say, is this item in the shop? And you say, let me roll a die and see, and then fudge the die? Why'd you call for the die roll? That's an extreme example.

I may have done that. I've done just about every dumb thing you can do on a tabletop game. Let's get another call. Let's get Falonis up here. Did you have a thought on Deadpool fudging rolls or the September 11th attacks?

We're talking 9-11 here on Glass Canter Radio today. What did you think of it? Pro or con? I think Falona stepped away for a moment. So let's get Rodith up here. Rodith, if you're ready to rock, hop up and join us. I'm always ready to rock. Hell yeah, dude.

So on that fudging thing is one of those things. I did a lot more when I was younger, younger, because I always kind of called for the role. And I've gotten to the point now where I'm a little more comfortable. And also, it's harder to do online, which is most of what I play now is, is, uh, well, cause you do public roles.

Yeah. Yeah. I love online, but you roll in your tray at home because I don't like it all to be completely transparent all the time. Yeah. And one of the things I was thinking about this from the, uh, was it last week, you guys had the player comment, but what makes a great player? Yeah.

One of the things that wasn't touched on was accepting the story changing role. Yeah. And rolling with that. And that's one of the things that I, I feel like I can, I can do now with more confidence than I used to be able to. When accepting the story, say again, I'm sorry, Rodith. Yeah. Accepting the way the story changed based on a role.

Oh, right. The random event that changes the story. And, you know, especially for, uh, for players in, in games like pen dragon, uh, where you're rolling on traits and that kind of thing, it can be really, uh, cool because it sends players and directions they don't normally follow. Yeah. Everybody, everybody as a player gets a reputation for being a

certain way game masters, the same thing. So if you want that, uh, story to go in a, uh, a more random way. Then not fudging can be also just as useful, but I totally see. No, I agree with you. Not fudging can be also just as useful, but I totally see. No, I agree with you. Not fudging is awesome. And, and, and that's the only thing we'll playing games have over video games or watching a TV show is that it can go a random direction, right? Right.

Yeah. And the, the really gifted players will roll with it. They'll lean into it and give you some, deliver some amazing stuff. Yeah. You weren't expecting because, and that's what keeps me coming back is, you know, I, I, I storytell for a living. So, you know, it keeps me coming back when the players totally surprises me with their cool action. Well said, Roderth, well said. Yeah. I think I agree early on, I would, I would be tempted to fudge more for, to direct story

in a way I thought was entertaining and cool. And that is a mistake. That was, that is a mistake that I've learned from over the years, because sometimes a die roll that I'm like, Oh, I don't like this, the way the story is going. It's like, that's not where you fudge die rolls. It's for me, and it happened so rarely. It's when the result is so boring or where it nullifies just like anything interesting happening. We should have Philonis now. Philonis, are you here? If you want to hop on. Hey, how's it going? Can you hear me?

Yeah, it's going great. Yeah, we can. want to hop on? Hey, how's it going? Can you hear me? Yeah, good. Yeah, we can. So I did a was it one question or three? I didn't catch that quite because I got like kind of a joke one and then just a serious one. felonis were you watching the show earlier? Did you just call in?

No, I was kind of No, no, no, it's okay. felonis. Let's go through the show so far. So so you're bringing questions to us. Is that what you think this is? Oh, we're answering your question. We got you on the phone and your question is, what just happened? There we go.

That's the best question, right? Philonis, do you have an opinion on? I kind of want to know. What's one of the questions? Yeah, name one of the questions. We just asked no no no no I want him to ask his question What's the question you have oh? I like so I was just gonna say joke one before all this stuff came out if you were invited to a diddy party Would you have went and then the real question though was, what age do you think it's like appropriate and all that to start getting a kid into role playing and stuff?

Because I got a five-year-old daughter. Okay. I have a six-year-old daughter. So would I have gone to a ditty party? No, I would never have been invited. It is moot. Yeah, and also I don't really, I don't party that hard. So, uh, no, I would not have been anywhere near that. Um, and then, uh, the question when to get kids into role playing games, I think it different, different for every kid. And my six year old, I don't think is personally,

my six year old, I don't think is ready for TTRPGs, but we're playing Pokemon card game now with, and we're ignoring some rules sometimes. And we're playing Pokemon card games. So my kids are six and eight, and I started them on the Pathfinder beginner box, and they're pretty, I mean, the eight-year-old, if I really sat her down and made her focus,

and like, she would get into it, and she would play it somewhat by the rules. With the two of them together, they could not play it by the rules, which I was totally fine with. And we just did like, we rolled a D 20 and however high the number was, was the result of their action. Right? Like it was the, and they would be excited about seeing a 15 or a 16 or a 20.

And they would know a two or three or a five was not as good of a result. And we played like that and they had a blast and they keep asking me to play it, to continue that story. So the answer, like Jared said, is like, it's different for every kid. You got to feel out like what they're into. But yeah, trying to get them to like, well, that's a two action spell and that's just not going to fly. I feel like even at eight years old, Yeah, hopefully you go by their interests.

My daughter will watch me play D&D and stuff and she's always asking, you know, like I want to watch you sit on your lap and like while I'm playing on the laptop and loves listening to the voices and everything like that. Cool. That's cool. Well, great question. You don't get to respond to anything else. Rodith wrote in real quick and said on Discord that 10, Rodith feels, he feels is the magic

number for kids playing. 10 is a great age for it. And he said, for no other reason than the violence, which, you know, that is one reason. Because I was playing with them when they were even a little younger, we were playing No Thank You Evil. I don't know if you've ever played that. That's like a Monte Cook games RPG for kids. And they loved that.

It was great, but like there aren't a lot of adventures for it. And I'm not very good at home brewing this stuff, but super simplified mechanics. And it was all fairy tale kind of stuff. And so they thought things, but you would fight like, you know, a piece of cinnamon toast that like came to life or something. So it was very, it wasn't dark in any way. The quote unquote violence. Let's take one more call on our three questions.

By the way, you can call all through the show about the three questions, but I do want to get to bracketology. Fez. Hey, long time listener. First time caller. Buddy, I'm so glad you're finally calling in! You are the first person who said that when we got him on the line. You are. It's our pleasure, buddy, to have you. How you doing?

Oh, doing great. Doing great. So I have an answer for the fudging the roles. It depends on what type of game you're running. If it's a one shot, you're at a con. Fudge the roles, make people heroic, make things move along, you don't want dead space. But if it's a long campaign that you have, like with your friends every night, kill that person on that coming to the boss and make that a reconciliation plot point

that the party has to go through. I mean, I feel like collaborative storytelling from a long form campaign is very important. And it's not adversarial, but to be honest with like, oh shit, I just rolled that nat 20. I'm sorry, but you know, your character is gonna, are you okay with that first check in? And then I think there's some solutions

that we can go moving forward. But I think that's where I am with fudging roles. Wait, are you, so are you suggesting putting, like making it a negotiation? Right. I mean, you're saying to the player, like, if you don't want this to happen, we can roll this back, you know, like, is that, is that an option? Cause you're not fudging, you told them the die roll was a crit. Right. That's, that's where as a GM and a long form, you're with your friends.

I think that transparency, that trust is there to be like, Hey, look, it, if you don't know whether how that friend is going to take it, then have that conversation, right with the group. And like, this is what it's going to be. If you're not okay with your character dying, there has to be some sort of consequence, let's figure that out. Right. Yeah. Um, but if you start fudging that role in that long form, I feel like the integrity of the game is suffers a little bit. Interesting. Sure. I, you know, I, I'm 100% behind character death. You know, I think that that's a great thing. And there, you know, we had one in blood of the wild, you know? Um, so I think character death is great.

Um, I think telling people character death is on the table when you start the campaign is great, but I also think if you build up a big fight and then in the first round, the monster is going to wipe your guy off of the whole, you know, killing, they don't get to play, killing. They don't get to play that encounter. They don't get to play that encounter. That would be an example where a little die fudging intervention would be, would be okay. Yeah.

But I like your point, Fez and thanks for the call, buddy. I like your point about, uh, also circumstantially, it's not just the scene. It's not just your players vibe. It's also, there's a big difference between a long form campaign with your friends and running a one shot at in Vegas for fans, right? Like, and it's not fan service. It's like, you're there for one night to have some fun. Like don't make die choices that are boring and drag things out or make people not have

a good time. But character death, yes, should always be on the table. We'll take more calls on this stuff throughout the show, but let's get started on our Bracketology. You guys are going to see how this segment goes. It's going to roll through, but we'll take calls throughout about even the Bracketology or about the three questions. So hang in there. We're going to take more calls in a second.

Jared, do you want to introduce this? Do you wanna start it? Explain what's going on here? So this is something hopefully we can bring back. Basically, we thought it'd be fun to do a bracket to sort of decide what is the nerdiest hobby? What is the nerdiest form of nerdery that exists? Who is the, uh, all time champion of nerd hobbies? So to that end, we've created a March madness type bracket, and we're going to discuss and then pick a winner for, um, each matchup, and then we'll have a final

four and then we'll have a championship. And, uh, we may not get all the way to the championship today. You know, this might continue into a further episode, but without further ado, should we? Yeah, I'm just going to start it off with them first matchup. Yeah. So we're going to get a graphic up here in a little bit that shows the bracket, but for right now I'm going to leave that off because I don't want to show you all the things that we have listed here.

So this is a very arbitrary list. It is randomized. So the quote unquote seeding, if anybody actually follows March Madness, does not follow that trend, which means you might see some early matchups that could have been late game winners, but they're going to face off early and somebody has to win. But let's just get started with some of the matchups. It's random. Yeah. Okay. Basically, uh, these, all these words that I've put on this, we've done 16 hobbies that we've put out and each one is sort of worded in a way that you could add the word nerd after it.

And you would kind of know what we're, what we're talking about. So, uh, our first matchup today, this again, this is totally randomized. Our first matchup today is war history nerds versus video game nerds. This is the first matchup. What is nerdier is the question war history or video game nerds. Believe me, I have an answer already. This one I think is not a tough matchup. It's not a tough decision to make. Okay. What is your answer? Video games are so mainstream now. They're so widely popular and accepted.

They could hardly be called niche. I would say video games probably fall at the bottom of a nerd spectrum of things, but war history, you're reading big books about the civil war, World War II. You're playing axis and allies. You're, you know, you've got model planes that that's a whole array of dorky things. So I'm going with the war history nerd. I agree with you. We'll go war history nerds.

And, uh, we also got to kind of define what these broad categories include, because to me, this also includes like war history nerds includes a couple of big nerd categories that to me are subcategories of war history nerds, reenactors. Reenactors, absolutely. And war gaming, like, but you know, like war gaming,, like a civil war, war gaming and like world war two war gaming, that kind of stuff all comes under war history. Access and allies, right? Access and allies.

Yes. Um, there's a game. When you go to Gen Con, there are these guys at Gen Con who set up a giant map. That's like the size of four Gen Con tables for access and allies with, and you it's so awesome. And my friend Brian got to play it, it was very cool. Okay, next matchup, here we go. Comic book nerds versus board game nerds.

Now this is a tougher one. This is a tougher one, board game nerds is also distinguished from a separate category which will be coming later, which is tabletop role playing game nerds. So RPG nerds. Uh, that's a different thing from board game nerds. So board game geeks to hype the website versus comic book nerds.

What's your plan? See, plan C on Twitch says that board games are way nerdier. Uh, I'm seeing a lot of, well no, I'm seeing board games and comic books. People are saying board games, people are saying comic books. This might be a situation where we have to get McD way and if we differ, but I'm going to make a choice. I've made my choice. Okay.

Wow. I don't know, because both people, both the board game and the comic book nerd has no free storage space in their house at this point. Um, exactly. But the board game nerd arguably has less space. I feel like the board game nerd is really a board game. People are constantly selling their board games. They're like, yeah, I bought it in 2018.

I played it one time. Um, I don't know that makes the same thing. They're like, yeah, I bought it in 2018. I played it one time. Um, comic book nerds do the same thing. They sell collections. They, they collect, they, you know, ship, you know, it's, it's interesting. I mean, some of them, some of them have gone digital now. Some of them, you know, they, they will, uh, buy the, the collected novels, if you will. Um, and I'm way more of a comic book nerd. Oh, this is tough. Okay. I think I have my answer. Okay. I'm going to go with comic book nerd. I think is a nerdier hobby overall in general.

If you factor in a whole lot of different angles of it, board gaming is nerdy as shit. But the reality is there's a whole lot of monopoly out there and there's a whole lot of board gaming that's just very mainstream, very normal. And yeah, there are comic book movies that are very, very mainstream, but hardcore comic book people that know the runs and the artists and the writers from generations past. And, uh, you know, to me that is, that is intense nerdery and it's, it's to be admired and respected, but I picked that book. What do you think? I, uh, for the same reason for the body of lore is so complex and deep in comic books and the need to master it. Cause you can't just pick up an issue of Batman.

Like you'll pick up an issue of Batman and you'll be like, what's going on. And it's like, Oh, you didn't read the seventies run about Rachelle ghoul. Like, you know, it's, it's like totally like it exists in this weird space where you have to be aware of all this history and this lore. So I would say ultimately it edges out board games just barely. I go comic book. Okay.

All right. Let's move on to the next matchup. This was one of the random ones that I own. I wanted to fudge die rolls here. I wanted to hand move this one because these two are meeting too early in our 16 team field the next matchup is collectible card game nerds versus

miniatures nerds Oh Collectible so collectible card games. We're talking magic Pokemon collectors, you know game players, whatever Pokemon collectors, you know, game players, whatever Star Wars unlimited, uh, net runner, right? This whole thing up against miniatures, which to me is collecting painting. And then I would say gaming with like war hammer or that kind of stuff. So miniatures, aficionado nerds against collectible card gamers. What, what do you have an easy choice here? Two evenly matched teams, Joe. Two evenly matched teams. Another great matchup.

Yeah. I was going to, I remember we had that caller about Magic who said that Magic ruined, uh, game stores. Like, you know, like those nerds are horrible. A lot of them are horrible. I know plenty of Magic nerds that are great. I know a lot of them are horrible. I know a lot of them are horrible. I, like those nerds are horrible. A lot of them are horrible.

I know plenty of magic nerds that are great, but I hear a lot of them are horrible. I don't know how many horrible, miniature painters seem pretty, what's the word I'm looking for? Harmless to me, right? My brother is hardcore into miniatures. He has not played very many games, but he really enjoys collecting them and painting them and finds the painting to be very soothing.

I've done a little bit of miniature painting. It is very soothing. But it doesn't mean it's not nerdy. You know what I mean? No, I think it's extremely nerdy. You know what I mean? I think it's extremely nerdy as well. You know, it's funny how we're kind of comparing them based on the personality or attitude of the people that do them. Is something nerdy or if people are more aggro and toxic? Well, there's a lot to be discussed here. Remember, whoever wins this category is going to be discussed again. So like we don't need to go too deep Did you have a gut reaction? I had a gut reaction. I feel like I'm which one's more expensive

That's hard to determine to those. Yeah, these are the two most expensive hobbies. This is a big category right here. Yeah category. I Think I know where I would go. I don't quite know why I would go that way, but I think I know where I where you going I think I'm gonna go miniatures. I think I know where I would go. I don't quite know why I would go that way, but I think I know where I go. Where are you going? I think I'm going to go miniatures. I think I got to go miniatures as well. So they pull it out. There's just something about the, because the miniatures, it encompasses the game of CCGs. It encompasses the collecting and paying money of CCGs, but then it adds things like making terrain and painting and doing all these modeling activities, which adds like an extra level of nerdery to it. So I got to go miniatures.

Yeah, I mean, there's some, there's some feeling in chat that I'm seeing here. People, people sort of using the criteria of how social something is as being the differentiator. Like, uh, miniatures painters are more social, so they're less nerdy. I just don't see it that way. I do believe they're more social, but I don't think that that to me defines what is, and is not nerdy. I don't think something that is nerdy has to be unsocial. Um, to me, it's, to me, it's not a social or not social, and I don't

want it to be toxic or not toxic. I think it's more like the specificity and complexity of the tasks involved. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like we said, these are two heavyweights. It's a shame they met early in the, in the competition. It's crazy to have CCGs out in the first round of a field of 16, but it's bad luck. You came up against miniatures and I feel like if I go over somebody's house who I haven't met, right? It's a neighborhood sort of, oh, our kids are friends. And I walk into their house and I see that they have a collection of Magic cards.

I'm like, oh, holy shit, you play magic. Oh, interesting. If I walk into somebody's house and they have a case full of painted Warhammer miniatures, I'm like, this is a geek. Like, this guy is gonna be into like everything I'm into. Right, like, so I don't know. I just feel like it's a little more, like you said, the specificity.

All right, next matchup. Awesome. This one might be a blowout guys. This one just might be walking away. You don't even have to tune into the game. You already know what's going to happen. This is Star Trek nerds up against theater nerds. Oh, they're the same people Joe.

I know it's, it is. It's kind of tricky to say. I don't know. Um, man, it's know. It's kind of tricky to say. I don't know. Man, it's tough. It's tough. When we talk Star Trek nerds, this is very specific. Obviously, some of these other categories are much more broad.

But we're talking about folks that are into all of the lore, go to the conventions, just sort of know all of the worlds, know all of the ancest, know all of the ancestries and, and aliens and, and their people and their people that can speak Klingon, right? This is like, this is a respectable nerd level. We're not talking about somebody who likes TNG, you know, we're talking about someone who's seen all of the shows, uh,

who has at least one uniform in their closet. Yeah. We're talking about somebody who has like on their coffee table is like the blueprints of every single level of the enterprise, like the structural blueprints. Remember when they published the books, they used to have books that had just the schematics for the different ships. Yes.

Freaking cool, man. I know. It's freaking amazing. Up against theater nerds who are, man, talk about a subculture, talk about an intense click of people that are obsessively into what they're into, which many people are not interested in. Like a lot of people don't care about it all and and talk about people who are ready to burst into song you know people who are just

like kind of always on and a lot when you talk to them yeah I mean you know theater nerdery filled with a bunch of spazzzes and dorks, man. Um, I, uh, I used to be a theater nerd. I used to be a theater nerd. I guess I sort of am a little bit still, um, but I'm still, I'm more of a Star Trek nerd these days. Um, but that doesn't answer which one is nerdier. Do you know what you think is nerdier? Yeah, I'm going to go Star Trek.

Nerd is, is you're going to go Star Trek. Yeah, I'm going to go Star Trek. Do you want to go up against me on this and take it to a tiebreaker? You know what? This is so weird, but honestly, I do think in this particular case, I think theater nerdery is nerdier for some reason. Okay. Trek seems more accepted now. It's almost like a classic form of nerdery.

Whereas theater nerdery is just always going to be like, it's just, it's just very specific. Actually, if you're like really into Broadway, what a weird person you are. Do you know what I mean? Dude, I love, I love musicals, good musicals. I love them. I sit there with a shit eating grin on my face the whole time, so happy. But while I'm feeling that way, I'm like, this is the most ridiculous form of entertainment on earth. As I sit there watching it, I'm just like, I can't, how did someone even think of this?

This is so crazy. By the way, Mike from Boston just posted in Discord the picture of his Star Trek, the next generation blueprints book. Hell yeah, dude. Hell yeah. So you're going to go theater. That means we got to take it to a tiebreaker. McD, if you're, if you're a, you want to weigh in here and break the tie between Star Trek nerds versus theater nerds who advances. This is a closer game than I thought. I can break this tie. Nice. Go for it. It's gotta be theater nerds, man. Okay, yeah.

There's way more variety, right? You got Shakespeare, musical, off-Broadway, Broadway, independent, one man. Yeah. Like dude, there's two men. One man show, oh wow. Yeah man, there's just too much. And Star Trek's in a. One man show. Oh, wow. Yeah, man, there's too much. And Star Trek's in a lull right now. Let's be real.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Good answer. I like it. To me, that's an upset, but that's exciting. That's what March Madness is all about. Right. Okay, we have finished half of our first round.

We finished half of the first round. Why don't we take a couple of callers? Let's see if anybody wants to weigh in on any of these things we've talked about or the three questions. Clancy wants to weigh in. Clancy, what do you got for us? What's up, Clance? Hey.

Hey, what's up? I wanted to bring it down and talk about 9-11 somewhere. Oh, sure. Please, by all means. I do think it's good for kids to have the context of it, and there is a lot of misinformation that they will encounter later in life. So I think it's good for kids to have the context of it. And there is a lot of misinformation that they will encounter later in life. So I think it's good for them to have a good base. Joe, in that book, does it say that,

does it say steel beams can't be melted with jet fuel? In that book. I haven't gotten that far. I've only read the first three pages. McD put that in chat, I just had to say. I mean, that's a good point. Who's writing these? What are they including in it?

Right, yeah. Maybe you should read it before you let the kid do it. Yeah, I don't know. Did you have anything else on any of the other questions or the madness bracket so far? Oh man, I'm like, I'm very upset by the theater kids thing. What? Really, why? You think Star Trek is nerdier? Way nerdier.

They know like dimensions of the ships and, I went to the Star Trek experience with my boss in Vegas once. And I just drove him crazy asking when we were going to see the Millennium Falcon. I mean, that's it. I went out when I would play Starcraft against people online. I would always make my name Jar Jar Binks and I would keep going. Is some people going to die? That's amazing.

That's amazing. Clancy. Well, thank you. Thanks for calling. And always a pleasure to hear from you and hang in there for the Millennium Falcon. Something tells me they might be mentioned soon in our, I think we got some Star Wars coming up in a second. Coming up on a match up. Let's get Ultimate Frisbee up here who posted their blueprints. Mike from Boston. dude, are you upset by this theater victory here? Yeah, I'm pretty upset. You guys have rigged this bracket.

It's really unfortunate to see. Wow. What do you mean? Wow. Hot takes as usual. How is it rigged? We're just trying to pass through the theater nerds. Yeah, it just seems like Jared and McD had a set outcome and they've achieved that goal.

And poor Joe was left out. I mean, McD really convinced me with by going like by saying one man show. Show that is something else. Go to see a one man Broadway, Shakespeare. Look, think about it this way. If you met someone and they had Spock ears on, you'd be like, wow, that is a nerd. But if you met someone and they just launched into a song from rent, you'd be like, Oh my God, the levels of nerdery right now are making me collapse. Oh, man. Well said. Good. I think it's a good argument. I mean, this is bold. Mike from

Boston is calling the putting the integrity of the show on, on question here. Yeah. It rigged. We rigged our first bracket. Mike, do you have anything else? Anything on the three questions? The die roll on that one. Yeah.

Three questions. I was going to make it to the fighting second, but I think Deadpool fans are confused sometimes with the Ryan Reynolds fans these days. Hmm. That's an interesting take. And he's very popular, you know? So who so who's insufferable Deadpool or Ryan Reynolds? Yes. Okay. Um, but no, for fudging roles, I had a quick story about this. I launched a cursive straw campaign during the pandemic and run through and it's, it's the house full of spirits and I just player who put in like five pages of backstory into this character and got slammed by a specter for max damage.

They only have 10 hit points at first level. He rolled a D10 and rolled a 10. If that particular monster brings you to zero, the character just dies. Right. Like that's it. There's no death row that they just suck the soul out and he's done. And it's like the second encounter of the campaign. Yeah. And I'm like, that's not fun for anybody. Right.

Yeah. But if you listened, I'm sorry, I didn't know. I don't know if you said it was a guy, but if your player listened to how to be a great role player last week, they would know don't write five pages of backstory. Yeah. Absolutely. That's your first mistake. In fact, that character deserves to die.

I should have thought, I let the role happen. I'm like, I saw you're dead. And, um, we ended up having to come back and allow the role to happen. And I was like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I let the roll happen and like I saw you're dead and Um, we ended up having to come back and allow one of the other players to quote-unquote resurrect the character

Just so we can move forward with the night Okay, because an adult had a temper tantrum basically, yeah, yeah Basically, yeah. Yeah Thank you for the story Mike I could you know, yeah, you got it You know, you know your players moods. You got to watch him. You got to pay attention and take it would have been a good Would have been a good opportunity to fudge and I miss them all the time All right them occasionally. Let's continue our bracket. We'll get to more of you guys in a second. Here we go. The next half of our first round continues with the matchup between film nerds versus

fantasy sports nerds, film nerd. What is more nerdish being super into film filmmakers from many generations, many countries, many styles. We're talking Tarantino level, Tarantino level. Yeah. Yeah. You've memorized all the Italian spaghetti, Western directors, you know, or maybe you've seen all the films of Ernst Lubitsch,

you know, I kind of fall into this a little bit. I'm a big like, I'm a big classic films guy. I'm a big into film history. I don't care about fantasy sports at all, but I have heard people talk about it for five minutes and I wanted to kill myself. I love fantasy sports. I don't. I'm not a film nerd. I just love movies, but I don't know anything

about the deep culture of movies, of film. And I think that, man, fantasy sports does not get enough credit for how nerdy it is. Like, it's almost considered like cool or something, which couldn't be further from the truth just because a lot of its population is made up of like jock quote unquote types does not make it less nerdy. One of the most nerdy aspects of it is what you just said. When fantasy players, if they don't know each other, like meet in a social situation, they will ruin a table, like a hang, just by talking about fantasy. Because

you can talk about it forever. You can go down these rabbit holes. And I love doing it. But I have to be told sometimes, like, stop talking about fantasy football to this person. We have to talk about something else now and I'm just like, oh, okay, sorry, like back to reality. I left the planet Earth socially for so long. So yeah, it's pretty damn nerdy. Film nerds I find to be like, you, you know, generally speaking, kind of, I, I feel like it has a reputation of being like, obnoxious and, uh, uh, elitist. You know what I mean? Like if you like a popcorn blockbuster, you know, they're like, Oh, so you don't understand film. You know what I mean?

And it's just like, Hey, I had a good time. It's entertaining. What are we, what are we talking about here? Um, that sort of like, I'm better than you vibe exists throughout a lot of film nerdery, I feel like. Um, that's absolutely right. And we're holding onto that, uh, very tightly. Uh, we are better than you because we have seen some Goddard.

Um, and, uh, yeah, we feel very strongly that the rest of you, peons and peasants don't quite get, uh, the magic of cinema. I have, I have an Ingmar Bergman box set. Um, that's set. What's your choice? All of that said, I will go fantasy sports. I think that- I'm also going fantasy sports as a nerdier hobby in general. It's just it's just it's just more

Intolerable to be around they're both obnoxious. They're both so obnoxious, but fantasy sports is more obnoxious Okay, got a big matchup next. This is gonna be the prime time game. You got to tune into this one No one knows I feel like where this one's going to go. Uh, two heavyweights. We have anime nerds up against LARPing nerds. Wow. Yeah. Anime versus LARPing. Had a great glass cannon radio on LARPing a few back, a few back where I couldn't make it. I listened to it after the fact with Mary Lou and I was fascinated with her detail of how it all works.

But the whole time I was like, I don't think I could ever do this. Like it sounds so intimidatingly nerdy. Like a hobby that is so intimidating. But you know what else is for me? Anime. To even begin to get into the depths of anime. It's almost like it crosses over into that comic book nerdery, there's so much, it's so deep,

there's so many little hidden nuggets that all these, you know, specific anime nerds know about. Tough one. What are your initial thoughts on this matchup? Do you think it's a tough? Anime has an incredibly deep body of lore. It really is very, very deep, but it also has some mainstream qualities.

I think people have generally universally accepted Miyazaki, for example, Spirited Away and such. And anime is really, you're just talking about, I've had people say to me, I don't like anime. And I'm like, all anime is animation from Japan. It's so incredible. There are so many incredibly different types of it. It's kind of like saying, I don't like action movies.

Like I'm like, okay, okay. I don't know. I guess I get it. But I don't think people realize how broad a thing anime is to me LARPing LARPing is my pick to win this whole thing. You're putting it ahead all the way to the championship. That's my prediction. I think LARPing is going to, I think LARPing is going to take the whole ball of wax baby,

because I can't think of anything that is nerdier than LARPing is going to take the whole ball of wax baby, because I can't think of anything that is nerdier than LARPing. It incorporates so many nerdy things. It incorporates theater, nerdery, RPG, nerdery, cosplay, nerdery. I mean, you know, it incorporates a bunch of nerderies under its umbrella. So I, I, I gotta go LARPing here. Okay. All right, gotta go LARPing.

I don't know that I like the early call that it's just gonna win the championship outright, but let's see what it comes up against along its path to the finals. Next up, we've got, we called it alcohol nerds. And so this is meant to encompass beer nerds, wine nerds, whiskey nerds, bourbon nerds, this whole movement that I feel like has happened

over the last 30 or so years, 25 years. Man, are these nerds up against cosplay, Cosplay nerds. Now, this is tricky. You said LARPing is kind of like that. This to me is its own category. This is people- Yes, of course. There are people that cosplay that do not play any kind of role playing game at all. Or board games. They don't game. They're people that dress up as their iconic hero, fictional heroes. And I believe there are people that go to gen con and San Diego comic con mainly for the cosplay. Like they go just for the, to be around people that are

cosplaying to be in the cosplay contest. Um, I always am blown away by some of the cosplay I see at gen con. I'm like, wow, that's really cool. I can't believe someone's able to create that. Um, so, so much artistry and just creativity goes into it. Um, yeah, I mean, it's great. Uh, alcohol, more obnoxious. Yep. Alcohol marriage or more. I don't feel like there's anything obnoxious about cosplay unless, you know, obviously there's like tears of how much you put into it and how obsessed you are with it,

but like, you don't get the sense that people that are dressed up at a con look down at you for not dressing up. Like, you know what I mean? Like, whereas you can- If anything, they look uncomfortable. You can be at a backyard barbecue. Sweating in their Wolverine uncomfortable. You can be at a backyard barbecue. Sweating in their Wolverine suit.

You could be at a backyard barbecue and just like crack a Cor's light and have somebody be like, ew, oh my God. Cor's light. You're like, really? Like, okay. So, you know, are we making unbearableness part of the, you know, it sounds like we were getting into that

with Fantasy Sports Versus Film. We shouldn't, we shouldn't. That's what we did in, you know, it sounds like we were getting into that with fantasy sports versus film. That's what we did in the last one, but we shouldn't, right? That should not be the only, at least it shouldn't be the only arbiter. Maybe it decided the last match, but it's not going to decide this one. I do think we have used as a, as a, what's the word I'm looking for? We have used as a rubric, like how mainstream something is. You know, alcohol nerdery is far more mainstream than cosplay. And I think, I think even though that's, it's kind of obvious, we may be

overthinking it here, I think, come on, clearly, clearly, cosplay is nerder than being really into whiskey. I think that that's clear. Uh, okay. I'm with you. I'm with you. I think that that's clear. Uh, okay. I'm with you. I'm with you. I think we could talk ourselves around a lot of different ways, but cosplay is going to win this one.

So we'll just give it to cosplay and our last matchup in the first round. It's going to be a tough one. Star is what was left. Star Wars nerds up against RPG nerds. Oh boy. Star Wars nerds up against RPG nerds. Oh boy. Star Wars nerds up against RPG nerds. Our final matchup of the first round. Very nerdy hobbies.

I have my answer, I have my answer. I have my answer too. Yes, I'll say this. My answer is gonna be RPGs. And the reason I'm going that way is because Star Wars has become obviously more mainstream over many, many years. I mean, it's been mainstream for a long time. When I think of it though, I think of like people that, you know, argue about the speed of a tie fighter versus

a tie interceptor. Like we're talking nerds that really get into, you know, we're talking the way Matthew Cabotacaza can list off multiple planets that have never been mentioned in any of the movies that are in the systems because of books. He's read extended universe stuff Yeah, these are big nerds But I think that and I don't think playing RPGs in and of itself is particularly nerdy but maybe it is maybe I'm just I've been drinking the juice the The juice too much for too long. Well, we're very inside the RPG hobby. We're deep inside of it. So we probably can't see the RPG hobby. We're deep inside of it. So we probably can't see ourselves objectively, right? I think Star Wars, I got to go RPGs too. Star Wars has become so mainstream, you know, there's

Star Wars water bottles, there's Star Wars shampoo. You don't see a Pathfinder shampoo, man. Yeah. There's a, it's just, you know, Star Wars is culture now and RPGs are still a niche, you know D&D 5e has more Awareness now, but that's that's it man when when someone says oh you played it you have to call RPGs D&D Just to talk about it because people are so unaware of what it is or what it entails. So, uh, I gotta go RPGs. I'm with you.

I'm with you. We'll go RPGs and that, uh, that rounds out the first round. So let me see if I could get this. Let me see if I can get this up for everybody to, to take a quick look at, uh, pardon me. Uh, I'm going to, uh, let's see. I want to get this. There we go, wait.

Come on. This is so frustrating. You can do it, Joe. I know, it's just like, it annoys me. It's not working. Well, just tell us who won. Just remind us who won and who's won. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, so...

Let me see. I'm sorry. Two seconds here. Was this the... Yes, I know the mistake. Okay. I'm about to have it. Yes. Here we go. Got it, and done. There we go. And alright, so here we go. I might have to do a little zooming and stuff here, but let's add it to the stage. There we go. We've got our first

bracket is complete! As we look through the first round, so so going into what we would call the the Elite Eight. War history is about to face off against comic book nerds. War history versus comic book, miniatures against theater nerds. Oh, that could be a very interesting matchup. Fantasy sports versus LARPing. Seems like Jared's already decided on that one. And cosplay versus RPG nerds. Wow. Fantasy Sports versus LARPing, seems like Jared's already decided on that one, and Cosplay versus

RPG Nerds. Wow. Yeah, this is interesting. I feel like maybe we gotta move on and do the Elite Eight on our next show. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think that's a great idea. Yeah, let's do it.

So speaking of our next show, we will not be live next week. So we're not doing a show next week, the week of June 11th, that week we're going to be in Vegas for the 10th anniversary of the GCP. We're out there with a retreat and so we cannot produce a GCR that week. So there will be off next week, but we're coming back June 18th. And yeah, hoping to have a special guest that week, we might have Seth Skorkowsky on on June 18th. So that's what we're hoping to lock that up. We'll let you guys know. But in the meantime, we will finish and complete this tears of nerdery bracket on our next episode. We'll take the eight down to one. It would be great if we could get Seth's

take on some of this stuff. Yeah, Seth will weigh in. Sure. I bet. That would be amazing. All right. That said, let's move on to our next segment here. We've got a special guest for this one. Definitely. I'd love to have you introduce it and bring our guest up whenever you're ready there, Jared. Okay.

Absolutely. So recently, the Glass Cannon got an opportunity to do a play through, which will be available to you out there in viewer listenerville soon of the incredible new role playing game Age of Vikings. There it is. Look at how beautiful it is. Oh, what a gorgeous cover. Gorgeous book. Yeah. Look there it is. Oh, what a gorgeous cover gorgeous book. Yeah, and You can find a video online now of our guest Playing it with some friends from chaosium and including some players, you know

Please welcome age of Vikings veteran skid Marr everybody skid Marr Hello, yo Hey, how's it going? Are. Skid, are you in Discord? Great. I can't find you in Discord. I am in Discord. Yeah, I can't. You're in the room with everybody?

I'm in the room. I just raised my hand. Oh, thank you for raising your hand. Oh, there it is. Yeah. I couldn't find you for some reason. Thank you for raising your hand. That was polite.

Very polite. There we go. Good to see you, buddy. So, let's talk about it. Yeah. Yeah, good to see you, Skid. talk about it. Yeah. Good to see you skid. Um, so just, I want to just say before we get deep in, uh, this, this game is, uh, from chaosium. It's by a guy named Pedro Ziviani, uh, who did a phenomenal job.

I guess he did most or all of the writing and then there is gorgeous art throughout this book, uh, by people named Ossie, forgive me for the names, Ossie Hikala and Martina Starzuska and many others. But this art, I mean, there's like cool maps. There is this cover is incredible. Wait, there's just one illustration I got to show because I think it's so dope. But this is a gorgeous book. That's one thing to know. The other thing to know, Skidwell, how did you feel about it, playing it? Because I've only run it.

What did you think? I loved it. It's great. As I did with Pendragon, I purchased a great courses course on Vikings so that I could get deep into some historical knowledge. So awesome. Dive in before that. So I was ready to go.

I was so primed. I was really excited about it. And the system does not disappoint. Chaosium always brings it. Yeah. And yeah, the art is incredible. Actually, I don't think if anyone out there is from Chaosium, I would love a hard copy of the book as well. Yeah. I mean, it really is just like a nice book to have. And this is the whole game,

so it's not a giant like heavy tome, but it covers so much. So, um, you get, uh, you get all the rules, but you also get all the background you need to play a campaign in 10th century Iceland. So there are chapters on ships and seafaring. There are chapters on law and government chapters on religion. And there is a complete gazetteer of 10th century Iceland. So you get all of that historical background. And then the rules are really fun and interesting too. I mean, what did you think of the rules, Skid?

Like how combat worked? You were in a combat in my game. Yeah. I think that like the combat system is great. It is a combination because actually it's funny because right now I'm heavy in prep for Top Secret which I'm running in Las Vegas. Huge mistake. I forgot how insanely complicated this game is especially in combat but the thing that I do love about it is how detailed it is. And I feel like Vikings, along with a lot of the Chaosium products, they hit the sweet

spot for me between being detailed without being overly complex and easier to run and play. So, that was great. I really, really got into the combat. I thought that was awesome. Yeah, if you're interested, if you have any, I'll go ahead, Joe. I just want to interject for a second before you continue on

and just make sure everybody knows, if it wasn't made clear, like, that this, you guys playing Age of Vikings is going to premiere on YouTube one week from today. So on Wednesday, June 11th, you're going to get to see Wednesday night, June 11th bookmark at eight o'clock Eastern, five o'clock Pacific premiering on YouTube. You're going to see Age of Vikings live play, not live play, but you know, I mean, it's prerecorded, but with Jared and Skid, Jared, fill us in on the rest of the cast too, before

we start talking about the game. We also have Mary Lou, Mary Lou and Paula Deming and there will be two parts. We did two parts. So you'll get like four hours total of age of Vikings on June 11th and June 18th. On June 11th and June 18th. And I just used the pre written adventure in the book, but the pre written adventure isn't really an adventure so much as a

sandbox. It, um, it's based around the Icelandic national assembly, which would happen every year in the 10th century in Iceland, where all these different, uh chieftains would meet all in one area of the island to decide legislation and all of the court cases that were brought to them. So that that event is sort of a backdrop for a bunch of little different encounters and things that can happen. Um, so, uh, it kind of cool to see an adventure included in a book. That's like more of a sandbox than a, a happens, then B happens and C happens.

I thought that was really cool. Um, the rules that skid works was talking about about the, like the difference between complexity and ease of use, you know, if you're familiar with call of Cthulhu, the big chaos Chaosium game this adds a little bit more crunch to the combat but I thought not so much that I was I felt like I was deep in the woods like there's um there's parrying in this so you you can parry every time someone attacks you and depending on how the parry goes you damage their weapon or they damage your weapon and your weapon can break in half. There are hit locations for when

you get past locations. Yes. Yes. Locations hit locations is awesome. And it ended up having some wild effects in our game. So, um, I, I just really, really enjoyed how that played out. It wasn't very deadly. Is the base mechanic, it's a roll under D100 system? Yes, it's still that. It's still that. But this game makes a little bit- Do you have a huge array of skills like Call of Cthulhu? I wouldn't call it huge, but I'd say that there's enough to make it interesting, absolutely. And because it's a historical game- there's enough to make it interesting. Absolutely. Um, and you know, because it's, uh, it's pretty comprehensive game setting. It's yeah, because it's a historical game. Some of the skills are quite, so it doesn't have like computer hacking or anything like that. No, sadly, no. No, no.

I mean, you could, I guess you could have I mean, there are skills like. I want to play Modern Age of Vikings. That's just a cool. You can just play a Viking with the completely inapplicable modern skills. I think that'd be really fun. Yeah. Are there any computers here? There are skills like Scaldic poetry.

Whoa, that's cool. I did some poetry. I did some in our game. Yeah, absolutely There's all kinds of lore like myth lore mineral lore is one of the lures Yeah, I mean there's there's just like oh there's going under the cloak so System is really interesting and there's this thing that's real from real, you know, Viking culture called going under the cloak where, where they're, um, they're wise. People would like put their cloak over their heads and meditate out in nature. And you can use that in this game.

If you're a magic user to kind of fortify yourself and get like more, uh, points to use for your magic. And the magic system is completely free form. So it really just depends on like how much, how many points and energy and time you want to put into a spell, what you can do. You don't have a list of set spells. Like in pathfinder, you can do anything within these certain parameters based on how much effort you put into it. And one of the beginning pregenerated characters can cause an earthquake. Wow. That's one of the examples of things that she can do.

You can change the weather. You can, you can. Really like cool kind of powerful things, but sort of also sort of amorphous and open to interpretation and. Yeah. And Mary Lou did some interesting stuff. She was the magic user in our game and Mary Lou did some interesting stuff. She was the magic user in our game and she did some very interesting stuff. Does it have, do the builds kind of feel like you gotta build kind of like a warrior

or you gotta build kind of like a magic user or can you be like a battle mage kind of class? Like, is that a thing? No, it's a good question. I think that you could definitely be someone who has both magic and fighting. This isn't as much like class or specialization kind of based character creation. It's more like Call of Cthulhu where you can divvy up points where you want them to go. So I think you could definitely do both. So is spell casting, spell usage a skill?

Just like blade usage is a skill? Yeah, like, yes. And there are two different types of magic. We used the safe Kona magic, the safer in our game, but there's also rune magic where you carve runes into things and then that has magical effects. So two different magic systems, uh, you know, and, and when we're talking about magic in this game, this is a very historical game that tries

to stick close to the actual history. But the magic is in there because the magic is in the Icelandic sagas. The Icelandic sagas being these great sagas that were written long ago. They were actually written a couple of centuries, I think, after, you know, the 10th century. But, uh, sorry, let me see that again. Yeah, sorry. This is just one. I bought this for $1. Um, but, uh, the stories in here are larger than life.

They're like myth cycle kind of stories and they have magic in them. And they also have just really bloody fights and deaths. Yeah. Uh, which goes along with the magic system for this game. Um, is there a clan mechanics? Are there like, like, are you part of a clan? Do you have, you know, reputation of your clan? Do you have holdings for your clan? Like is that kind of mechanics? Yes, yes, more or less. I mean, it's, it's, uh, I don't know about mechanics, but when you create your character, it's a life path system and you can go back and decide what your grandfather's life was like. Oh, cool. Love a good life path. And then you get your parents life

and then you get your life and even the pre-generated characters it tells like stuff like how many sheep they have and how many cows they have on their farm you know so you really do get and then that that's all you know created quickly with like die die roll tables and stuff but yeah you get a sense of like what their life is for sure did you guys do that as part of the show did you do any character creation or do you just kind of we use the regenerated regions and jumped into story cool cool Yeah Let's take a caller

Let's see if anybody wants has any questions about it or if you just want to weigh in on anything We've talked about today feel free sweet threat if you want to join us and hop on the show. What's up? And Amy we got yeah, yeah, I just, I really have to talk about fudging. Uh, and I'm also very excited about the age of Vikings game coming out. Cool. Uh, yeah, let's start with fudging. Go ahead by all means. Yeah. Um, for fudging, I think Yeah. For fudging, I think in my heart, fudging is reserved for people you don't believe can bear the weight of the outcome of the dice. So that should be reserved for children and hormonal teenagers. Do you mean like 46 year old hormonal teenagers? Cause I hear a lot of stories about those people.

Hey, you know, it's well, if those people can't handle it, but I think I have, I have lost friendships because someone just straight out told me after the fact, like you said, Joe, that you should never, oh, I think it was Joe Jarrett. That you should never tell someone when you fudged, but it became obvious to me because we played five at the time that he had fudged because I had run a similar like structure of a similar set of monsters. So I kind of still remember the stat block and I just saw him fudge in real time and like add hundreds of hit points to a monster. And it's

adding them to win to roll. Yes. And I think the problem with fudging is at its core that it's saying, like, I, you can't be trusted to handle this outcome of a die roll. And it's deeply, deeply disrespectful to me. And I have seen, I'm not accusing anyone currently of having done this, but I've seen prominent creators propose that you should just ignore hit points

in a system like Pathfinder or D&D on monsters and just end the encounter when it is dramatically appropriate or when the players don't have fun anymore? Well, I mean, I gotta tell you, man, I don't really, listen, I don't really do that, but the pressures of an actual play or doing a show, I could see why people would make that decision. Absolutely. But that's not- And also, grinding combats that go on for four hours are boring. Absolutely, absolutely, Jared.

But I just want to clarify, these weren't actual plate creators. These were just like home brewers, third party creators who advocated for people in their home games to just ignore hit points and just end the encounter when it had been dramatically appropriate enough. So if you used a fireball, that would be a high enough resource expenditure for the DM to choose to end the encounter. Yeah. Or if you chose not to have fun enough. Yeah. I don't, I don't, I don't, I'm sorry. I, I get what you're saying, but I don't totally disagree with that I don't think that that's terrible You know

I made a video one time about how to how to make combat simpler and it was all about how to get out of the Combat, you know making the enemies retreat making the enemies surrender like Making the enemies go to like some sort of endgame scenario where they activate a big trap or something But something where you're not grinding down the the hit points of something to the very last drop. You know, I haven't really done that on Blood of the Wild at all, but I really see the value in getting to the end of a combat encounter. But to counterpoint that, if you are, as Sweet Thread is suggesting, really throwing hit points out the window basically, where every combat you're just kind of feeling it back and forth and choosing

the best moment for the monster to go down or the best moment. I mean that to me feels like every monster then just becomes defeatable unless you just decide they're not. If you're not holding yourself to some objective standard, you know, that's understood between the players and the GM. I think that's a real dangerous road to go down. Now, I see how it's a dangerous road. Now, now I don't disagree, Jared, if you have a 275 point monster and everybody, and it, and it has, don't even get me started on concealment,

right? And then you give it concealment and now everybody is just bored and miserable because they think their characters suck because you ever, you roll four. Oh, I rolled a natural three. Now I can't even attempt the attack. All that kind of stuff. You, if you get to a point where a hit takes that monster to three hit points left, there are times I will absolutely be like, and you kill it, right? Because you just got to wrap it up. So I do it. But the idea of mechanically removing hit points as a mechanic and just making all of that not matter what the players say they did and just feeling out the right moment,

I think that's a bridge too far for me. And I also want to... Skid, what do you think? I want to know what's... Yeah, one second, Sweet there. We'll come right back to you. Skid, what do you think? I think, yeah, you can... I guess you can kind of split the difference with some of this stuff. I mean, you want to have some kind of meaningful obstacle to success besides whatever your

game master is feeling like at the moment. Like that seems like something to keep everyone honest, keep everybody invested. But yeah, I mean, there's times when if you strictly go by the rules, everyone's gonna be miserable and you're gonna stop having a good time. And it's like, you want to, it's, you have to feel it out. It's like, you know, it's not exact science. It's not. It's, it's an art. It's a great game master is knowing that that's sort of how to feel it out.

Being a good game master is how to feel it out. Yeah. And by the way, I, I, I, I would sort of support the idea of doing away with hit points completely, but in favor of a damage system that made more sense. That's I'll support that. I think the by and large hit point based combat systems are kind of silly and I would like a more advanced technology to come along. I think it's we're overdue. It's very easy to gamify, over-gamify a system

where if you have 104 hit points and you're down to one, and you act with all of the same proficiencies as you did when you had 104 hit points, it doesn't make sense. You can just gamify that system to be like, hit points don't matter. They're an expendable thing that I don't really care that much about. It's tricky. That's why I think that's why you like hit locations. This idea that your right arm

is out of the fight. That makes story. Those are narrative mechanics that make things feel immersive. Yes, by the way, an area in which the top secret combat system excels. Cool. Sweet Threat, what are your thoughts on all that? What we just said? Yeah, yeah, but I agree. I when you are down, it's brought down to like three hit points and it sucked for the last three rounds of concealment. Yeah. Fuck it. Kill that creature.

Who cares? But when it comes to something like and again, I also want to say, Skett, I agree if the hit points don't work for you and your fault, for you general and the group, but that's something you would discuss with them. You wouldn't just do it behind the screen and just go, no, no, I'm, I'll just. Yeah, no, that's, that's admittedly different than what you were talking about. That's a different sort of idea than what you're saying. Yeah, you're right.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's the, that's the difficult part I have with this is people like prominent creators, hundreds of thousands of subscriptions on YouTube, putting on videos where they go, uh, one, never, never admit to fudging and to fudge when it's, when it makes for a better story. Like if you just want something to happen. happen and also want to say when we talk about Like the black knight killing a character in the first attack

That is a very specific set of systems that we care about that with because in more in my body or Mark book You wouldn't give a fuck if the dark knight killed a three-hit point like Wretch in the first round. Yeah. Admittedly, it is a different style of game. And thank you, Sweet Threat, for the call. That was a lot of good points to discuss. I mean, we could do a whole show on who has done combat mechanics in very interesting ways, and what part of combat you like in chunkier systems and what parts you don't, you know, trying to kind of fine tune that it's combat is very tricky. When you cross over into tactical gameplay versus action gameplay, you know, it's now let's get on the call and let's get squid and squid's been waiting for a while squid. Thanks for your patience. How you doing? Hope you're well. Did Squid's been waiting for a while. Squid, thanks for your patience. How you doing? Hope you're well. Can you hear us? I am well.

Thanks for asking. Can you all hear me? Yeah, we got you. We got you. What did you want to weigh in on here? Lots of topics floating out there. What do you think about theater nerds? Well, I love what I think about theater nerds.

I've been married to some, and they are definitely nerds. There's no question about that, but I think that the right call was made on that split. On the bracket, what I was curious about is the Venn diagram, right? There's overlaps of a lot of these. I used to do SCA, which is a cross between historical warfare nerds and LARPing, right?

So, which counts? Well, I mean, yes, when you're talking about reenactors, like, is that cosplay? You know? Yeah, it is. I mean, they get so psyched about putting on, you know, they... We just had one recently at my park, which is two-minute drive from my house. I was just taking my daughter down to drill her in softball just to make sure that she's staying up to the stuff of a rec ring, her eight year old rec games.

And, uh, no, I drove her down to the park and they were just rapping. I had no idea all morning they were doing, uh, a revolutionary war reenactment thing in this park. And these guys looked so dope. I was like, it must be so fun. I mean, they had the muskets and the heavy boots and the heavy coats and tricorn hats and everything. And it just was so like, it was like premier cosplay. Like they looked legit. Oh, Revolutionary War.

Yeah. Oh, sorry. Okay. Yeah. I thought it was like recreating one of the great Civil War battles that took place in Northern New Jersey. I do want to speak about hardcore nerdy though. If you're coming to Vegas, which I know all the rest of the people on this call are, are you coming to karaoke Thursday night? Because that is one of my

favorite nerdy activities. Oh, we should have put that on the list. Oh, is that theater nerd? Karaoke nerd is a subset of theater nerd. Okay, subset of theater nerd. Fair enough. That's fair. All right. Thursday night, next week. Thursday night, next week. I want to hear those jams. Nice. Nice. Thank you, Squid. That's great. It really is like,

Nice, nice. Thank you, Squid. That's great. It really is like, but there it is. You're right. It's a subset of theater nerds, but we're not talking about folks that enjoy doing karaoke. Like there are karaoke nerds, the people that travel to places to hit their karaoke nights on, you know, and they, they go with the same people or they see the same people all the time and they're kind of competing against each other. And there's, oh man, it's, I mean, we can come up with infinite teams for the bracket. I mean, we could get into people that, uh, you know, take animals and what do you call it? Uh, Oh my God, my brain is dead this morning.

What are you talking about? I don't know where this is going. Cut his leg. I don't know where this is going. Cut his leg. When you stuff the dead animal. Taxidermy. Taxidermy. Taxidermy.

Oh. But it sounded like I was talking about fucking animals is what it sounded like. That's where it sounded like it was going. We can talk about people who put their penis inside an animal, you know. Where do they match up? Or their vagina inside an animal, I don't know. I can see them on the final four. You know, we didn't talk about that,

like the outdoor, like hunting, fishing nerds, you know? Like people that get way into that hobby, we'll talk about it with everybody all the time. Gun nerds, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. There's a lot of topics we, uh, we, we're a lot of people up and taking their money nerds. Uh, you know what? You know who drives me crazy? Meth nerds. Oh my God. I love math. They just, they're just so in the middle. All they talk about is math and I'll suck your dick if you give me math.

Like it's like, now that's a nerd. All they talk about is meth and I'll suck your dick if you give me meth. Now that's a nerd. That's a freaking nerd right there. Shut up, nerd. Sucking dick for meth is not mainstream. No, that is not mainstream. That's a niche. That's a niche. They almost broke through with Breaking Bad.

That almost kind of made it cool, but it's like, it's still relegated. Didn't quite get there. Jared, do you want to move along here to Nerd History? Do you want to talk some Viking stuff? Yeah. So anyway, check out that game and check out our playthrough. When is that happening again, Joe? So next week, Wednesday, June 11th, there will be no Glass Cannon Radio. We're off because we're in Vegas, but we pre-recorded the first part of two parts of Age of Vikings playthrough. Jared running,

Skid, Paula, and Mary Lou through this new chaosium title, Age of Vikings. It's premiering on YouTube Wednesday, June 11th, 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific. You can catch it there, watch it live with the nation, and you can chat it out, talk about it. I'm really excited for this one. You guys were raving about it, and I can't wait to see it. And then the second part happens one week later, Wednesday, June 18th, again, 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific on YouTube.

Check it out. Now, we're gonna talk a little bit about Vikings, do a little nerd history with some incredible Viking facts. And I'm glad skid is here because he took the great courses on Vikings and he, uh, probably has, uh, even more background than I have from, uh, you know, the little bit of research I've done. Um, so, uh, Joe, where were the Vikings from?

Do you know where they were from? I always presume they were from like Scandinavia, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden sort of territory. That's right. That's exactly right. And they, um, they sailed and they raided all over the world. And, um, sometimes people don't know when this happened, you know, um, this was the eighth to the 11th century. So the 700s and like seven 50, they started, uh,

is like the first, yeah. And that's seven 93. So Lindisfarne is like the big one where people like they were really going strong by that time. Um, we'll talk about Lindisfarne in a minute. So, uh, they traveled very far from their homelands, these North Seraters. Of course they visited England, but you probably remember that they also visited North America.

There's evidence of them in Newfoundland. They went to Morocco and North Africa. There's evidence that they were hanging out in Morocco quite a bit. Wow. I didn't realize that that's freaking awesome. Kiev and Ukraine. There's evidence of, of Vikings in Kiev and then that that whole. Yeah.

Yeah. That was the Vikings in Kiev have sailed through like the Mediterranean or is this like overland they, they went to Kiev. They would have like sailed across the Baltic and sailed across the Baltic. Yeah. And, and they, they even became, some of them even became part of the Byzantine empire as Varangians, right? The Varangian guard. So they went and they joined the armies of the Byzantine empire. And there's even, uh,

there's even, uh, there's even evidence that they were in Iran at one point. So God, yeah. I mean, not a lot of cultures were so far traveled in like 700s to, you know, 1000s. So, uh, pretty cool. Um, they were not just one group. So it wasn't, you know, a United nation. They were like just one group, so it wasn't a united nation. They were like a large number of Scandinavian tribes, and they fought against each other just as much as they raided foreign lands. So that's something to know as well.

They weren't one united front. to how really the political unit of the Viking culture is the gothi or the chieftain and then his following around him. So they were pastoral, so they had farms, and then they would all kind of pay homage and be led by a chieftain. And that was the political unit. It wasn't across the whole island of Iceland. They had all these different little communities that came together in a very democratic way, which is surprising. Okay. Vikings had long ships, right? And they had like a really shallow hull. You remember what those long ships look like? And that was not only because it was

really fast to have a ship built like that, but not only was it really fast, the hulls were so shallow that they could handle the ocean, but they could also handle a river that wasn't very deep at all. So they could take their ships far inland and strike against people way inland. That was their biggest technological advantage was the longship. The fact that they could do that. And the longships were so light that the crew could even lift them over land to get to another body of water. So a big ship that could hold that many guys to go raiding could also be picked up, taken

over a hill to like the next river or whatever. So that's kind of some of the cool things about the long ships. They're big, they're big technological advantage. I mentioned that they were more democratic than you might think. They held those big assemblies called things where free men, let's, let's be clear on democratic, free men were allowed to go and decide court cases and decide legislation for the whole island. There's a lot of talk about how Viking women had equality

and then everything I read said that's a little overblown. They found like- More equality than was normal in the time and place. Right. Not quite. Yeah. Not quite. Not quite.

We're still in the Middle Ages. So, but they did find graves of Viking women who have incredible amount of riches around them. So they were respected and they were thought of as elites in many ways, some of them, but, um, they didn't quite have all of the rights that men had in some cases. Um, they were great at hygiene and very particular about their appearance. Uh, archaeological digs have found combs, razors, tweezers, nose hair, pluckers,

and all the evidence shows that they bathed regularly more regularly. Sorry, more regularly. I've had three shots before I started today. More regularly than like the Franks who were, you know, at the same time living down in France and Germany, the Vikings had a more bathing time. Um, so now let's talk about Lindisfarne. Okay. So, yeah, I don't know what this is. Yeah. Lindisfarne is what kicks off the age of Vikings. According to many historians,

it's, uh, Lindisfarne was an island and an Abbey, uh, that existed, uh, in the seven hundreds. Um, it was a famous Abbey because there were saints that had administered there. St. James and St. Cuthbert were both buried there. Cuthbert. Yes, they were buried there. And the Vikings came down to Lindisfarne on June 8th, 793, and they pillaged the entire Abbey. And they set it to the torch and they killed people.

So they weren't afraid of God. What's that? They weren't afraid of their God. No, they weren't Christian. They were pagan. Yeah, yeah, like they didn't give a shit. Yeah, yeah. The great heathen army one day. But there didn't give a shit. Yeah. Yeah. The great even army one, one day.

But there's all this cool stuff that there's this thing called the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that talks about when Lindisfarne happened. And it says all this cool stuff like before the Vikings arrived, there was strange lightning in the sky and there was a famine that proceeded their coming and dragons were seen flying through the air for months before. I think we need I survived Lindisfarne. Yeah, we do. It's about as reliable that account, but it was also like it was written like many years

after the fact and really far distant. I think it was Alcuin of York wrote it and he was a clerk in Charlemagne's court like in, you know, the Cold War Empire. So far removed from it and certainly had an agenda, but yeah. Right. And to be clear, Linusborn, they couldn't put up a fight at all. It was like a bunch of monks who had absolutely no combat skills. And they had all this gold and valuable stuff in this building. And they just kind of got slaughtered because they weren't ready for an armed group to come marching in.

But in general, the Vikings, they did not kill if they did not have to. And in fact, once they'd established a reputation of being formidable and scary, fearsome foes, they then moved to like more of an extortion racket instead. Yeah. And they went sail to the coast. Yeah. They would sail to your coast and they would send someone out and they go like, look, I mean, we can raid you. I can bring all my men ashore and we can start stabbing everybody. Or you can just give me a ton of grain and gold right now. Yeah. Just pay the fine.

And people did it. Wow. That's like, people did it. That's like organized crime, right? I mean, racketeering, right? Like early racketeering. Yeah. They demanded there's a fair fair guild. Yeah, they demanded the fair guild,

that's like a tax and like, yeah, you could buy them off. To not kill you. To not throw your business to the ground. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And like so many people- The nice monastery you have here, it'd be a shame if something happened to it.

Like that's what it was. That's what it was. And like a lot of people that started out in organized crime, they kind of eventually sort of started to go straight. They ultimately, I think, landed more in doing farming and trade was huge with them since they were so far traveled. And people don't know that like they set up a sort ofo trading post at Dublin when Dublin was nothing but a tiny village.

And because of the Vikings, Dublin became the city of Dublin because they traded there and had that as kind of a station for their journeys and their trading. So I've never done any of the, the, the genetic stuff, the 23 and me or anything like that. I, I never have, but I always assume that, uh, I've, I've got some Viking blood. Oh, of course. You're Irish side because I'm, I'm Irish, but I'm, I'm also that like pale skinned, light haired, red bearded Irish. I'm like that. I must be where I come from.

Yeah. No, those, those are those Dubliners that you and me both buddy. Both sides. Yep. I probably have a really tough. I'm both sides. Yup. I probably have a really tough Viking in my history too. He was such a bad ass and he had a cool sword. My 23 and me comes back Viking warrior 99% warrior. That would be amazing.

They should be, someone should make a version of 23 and me. That's like that Viking warrior. That would be amazing if it said that. Someone should make a version of 23andMe that's like that. Viking warrior. That's all the whole past lives and people like obsessed with past lives. That's the same thing. It's just like, oh, I was Marie Antoinette in the past life. It's like, no, you weren't. If past lives do exist, you were not Marie Antoinette.

I guarantee you. You weren't famous. I got my 23andMe back. It says 33% Ninja Master. Well, yeah, you're right. This is a business idea. We just got to sell this online. People would totally go for it.

Are you kidding? So to finish up with our friends, the Vikings, they weren't colonizers, but in England they established an area they controlled for many years called the Danelaw. And there the Britain and Scandinavian cultures mixed together. And so a lot of people in England are also sort of descended from the Viking Raiders for that reason. And they kind of controlled a section of England for many years. And if you want to read a cool story about that or a action mystery stories about Vikings. And one of them is sort of a detective tale set in the Dane law, like where a Viking has to, a Viking has to figure out these English that are doing

like gorilla raids against his people. That's cool. So, uh, very cool stuff. Um, uh, and the last thing I wanted to mention was the blood eagle. Uh, do you know what a blood eagle is? I don't. Skid knows. I do.

So there are a couple instances of, in, in recordings by the, by the Norse, by the, the, the Vikings and also by Christian people who say that Vikings sometimes punished people using a blood Eagle. That is where they would put someone down on their belly and then they would open their back and pull the ribs out like so that they were sticking out and then reach in and get their lungs and pull their lungs out their back to look like wings. And that was called a blood eagle. Oh my God.

Yeah. Supposedly, this was how King Ella of Northumbria was executed by the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok in revenge for King Ella tossing Ragnar into a pit of snakes and killing him that way. I don't think that's true. I think King Ella was actually killed in battle. But that was the big example cited by most people about the Blood Eagle was King Ella. Yeah. Yeah. So I just wanted to leave everybody with the Blood Eagle. Wow. Good. Good. Strong ending. Nailed your landing. I'm seeing a couple Blood Eagle mentions in

Twitch chat in pop culture. So Blood Eagle was in Midsommar, which I never saw that movie because I heard it was so fucked up. Oh yeah. And then somebody else, Inky Zee says it's in Assassin's Creed Valhalla. There's a quest with a Blood Eagle in Assassin's Creed Valhalla. So yeah, apparently people know about this. So thanks for bringing it to our attention, Jared.

It's a thing. That's Blood Eagle. It's a thing. Someone also mentions the, speaking of anime, the Vinland Saga, which is on Netflix, which takes place. And it's heavily fictionalized version of a lot of this stuff. But it's great. It is a phenomenal series.

I really love it. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Jared, thanks for the work. That was awesome. Yeah, good job. Thank you. Very cool. I had no idea that there were Vikings in Iran. That's amazing. Yeah, actually that's one of the ways that they would identify these hordes that they would bury as Viking is because they would have all this Muslim minted. Like they were the ones that would bring it back. McDermott's response to the blood eagle is, go birds. Yeah.

World champions. Randall Cunningham, the first, the original blood eagle. The original blood eagle, Randall Cunningham. All right, Jared, let's wrap it up today. We got to get out of here. Let's wrap it up with a book club announcement. We're going to announce the book club book. We've chosen the next book.

Pay close attention and post it far and wide so that no one has to ask Jared what it is. He doesn't want to be asked. I, I, I, no, I'm going to answer every post when people in a demanding and feverish way add three question marks to what is the book? I'll be sure to post a response. Listen, Joe, before we tell the book, when is it due? When do you have to have the book read? You have to have the book read. Let's look. Uh, let's say June, July, July. I got all of a sudden gentlemen, uh, how about July 16th, Wednesday, July 16th. That gives you about five to six weeks to read.

I know it's a busy time for everybody with that. You know, we got fourth of July coming up and a summer get started. People get busy. I get it. Um, let's, let's give it five to six weeks. Is that all right with you? That works for me. That's beautiful.

Can't read a book in a month? What are you, Einstein? I know, right? What are you, Einstein? I know some of these people are gonna be posting about this next week and just being like finished. You know, I just can't do it. I'm gonna say the name of the book in a minute.

And then in four minutes, someone's going to go, just finished it. Read everything else by this author. One more tease before you say the book. This book has been around for a little while. It is a popular, very popular and I've never read it. Jared has never read it. Skid, I don't know if you've read it. But already we've got a special guest lined up to join us for talking about this book. One, Kate Stamos is a fan of this particular book and is going to join us. So hopefully I got to check her availability on July 16th, but she was like, I'm in, can't wait to talk about it.

I got to check her availability on July 16th, but she was like, I'm in, can't wait to talk about it. And what lastly, but not leastly, I hear that this book also has a phenomenal audio book, which is something that our last selection struggled with. It seemed a little bit, but right now as you're talking about it, please, Jared. All right. Drum roll, please. So the answer is it is the first volume of A Court of Thorn and Roses. Um. I was misled.

Hey, guys, I'm serious. I was misled. Go ahead and say it's A Court of Throne and Roses, book one. Now log off the show and go read it. Go read it. See you in a month. It's not, we thought we'd done some fantasy now. We thought it was time to do some science fiction

and maybe science fiction a little on the hardish science fiction side. So we will be reading Project Hail Mary by Andy Ware. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, the author of The Martian. We hear that there is a movie coming out for this novel. I think that's true. So perhaps we could even revisit it later when the movie comes out.

In particular, I wanted to read this because my dad read it and gave me the book a while ago, a couple months ago, and I thought, well, it'd be great if wanted to read this because my dad read it and gave me the book a while ago a couple months ago. And I thought, well, that it'd be great if I could read this and talk to my dad about it. That's assuming he remembers it. He often tends to forget. I read a couple months ago. I read The Martian.

I loved it and my wife and I, uh, we, the Martian is our number one movie in the list of movies that we like ask people if they've seen, if they just want to like watch a movie, you know, we're like, have you seen the Martian? Cause if they haven't, it's such an easy and fun watch. I love that.

Yeah. So much with like anybody that's like, you know, hanging out, visiting and wants to take in a flick. You're like, have you seen The Martian? That's our number one. I love it. I've always stayed away from Project Hail Mary because I have this disease. It's the fear of when the first book is amazing, everything else is going to suck by that author. I'm always so afraid that it's going to be a disappointment. Uh, but I'm, I'm going to try to keep an open mind and dive into

this. And uh, yeah, I'm looking forward to doing a sci-fi for our book club. Uh, I haven't read anything by Andy Weir, but I read the first couple of pages of this and I was immediately hooked. So great. I think this is going to be great. Big sharky says crap. I missed it. What's the book Great. I think this is going to be great. Big Sharky says crap. I missed it. What's the book? It is. The book is a court of thorn roses.

Sharky 2015 book one. Get on it. Wait, let me look at what the name of it is. A court of thorn and roses. Yes. The objective is to read the whole Clancy answered a court of thorn and roses. I mean, amazing. Uh, 2015 the,. 2015 by Sarah J. Maas.

The goal is to read Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir by July 16th. And we'll do a full convo on the whole book at that time. And hopefully we'll have Kate Stamos with us for that. So that is going to wrap it up for us today. Thank you guys so much for hanging out. Thanks Good. Thank you. Thank you guys so much for joining the show. It was awesome Tune in to see Jared and skid playing chaos eems age of Vikings next Wednesday, June 11th at 8 p.m Eastern 5 p.m Pacific. There will be no glass cannon radio next week. Don't panic. We'll be back on June 18th

We're just we're gonna be in Vegas next week So we're gonna be in Vegas baby If. So we're looking forward to that retreat. If you're coming to Vegas, can't wait to see you there. Going to have lots of gaming, lots of fun happening. But that's why there'll be no Glass Cannon Radio next week. But tune in to Age of Vikings Live, not live, premiering 8pm Eastern on YouTube. And then part two will be June 18th, which is the same date that we'll be back with more Glass Cannon Radio.

Until then, take it easy, everybody. Have a great weekend weekend, and we'll see you in a couple weeks. Take it easy. Later! Bye! Make your membership official. Start your 30-day free trial today and become an official member of the Naish at JoinTheNaish.com with the promo code GCN30. That's JoinTheNaish.com and use code GCN30 to gain access to exclusive podcasts, ad-free episodes and content you can't find anywhere else. Once again, it's JoinTheNaish.com and use code GCN30 at signup to get your first 30 days

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