The Glass Cannon Podcast - Glass Cannon Radio #21 – The Alien Franchise/Railroading PCs/Great Gamblers

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

Joe and Jared breakdown the Alien: Earth trailer and give their thoughts on the franchise in general. Plus, is railroading the wrong way to run an adventure? 0:00 Intro 2:30 Vegas Games 40:00 Alien: Earth 59:00 Alien Franchise 1:25:45 Railroading 1:56:00 Listener Award Watch the video here: ⁠https://youtu.be/ZcluFugz5g8 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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kind of like I'm already on vacation. Nice! On behalf of Air Canada, nice travels. Wi-Fi available to Air Plan members on Equip flight sponsored by Bell Conditions Apply, seercanada.com. You are listening to the Glass Cannon Network. This is Glass Cannon Radio with your hosts Jared Logan and Joe O'Brien. Hail Satan!

Hail Satan, hail Asmodeus, hail Molok. Yes! Asmodeus tail Moloch All of the demons of the nine hells have brought us Jared Logan Joe O'Brien here to deliver Glass Cannon radio on the glass cannon network the only show where you get to call in and Probably not have a real opinion. Just kind of go. Hey guys. I also agree And then we hang up on you. Oh, no, I think there's gonna be a lot of debate today Really? Oh, yeah, I think so. I'm looking forward to it. Well, I Encouraged that debate we have an Incredible show today. We are gonna talk about the new trailer for an alien TV show alien earth

That trailer just dropped then we're gonna talk about the Alien franchise in general. That's gonna lead us into a discussion about railroading, right? Yes. And we're also gonna have a contest today. We'll get to that contest question in a minute. First, I have to address the lack of an elephant in the room. Seth Skorkowski was supposed to be here with us today and he was forced to cancel

due to technical difficulties that he found out about yesterday. Uh, his entire internet line was cut by literally physically cut. Yeah. Big pair of shears, like when they opened the ribbon to a new bank, and they cut it in half. No, he really, really couldn't make it. He's very sorry, but we're gonna have him

on an episode very soon. Yeah, we're gonna reschedule. We had some fun stuff to talk about, and we bumped that too. So we bumped that back, and we thought, what's going on right now in, uh, in geeked him and man that alien earth trailer drops. Let's talk a little alien.

We got to get into alien. Uh, but before that, I want to talk about how incredible Las Vegas was. Oh, the 10th birthday of the glass cannon podcast. That's right. The 10th birthday of the glass cannon bot podcast at the link hotel and casino in Las Vegas. If you weren't there, you missed out. If you did not attend the lifelong friendships and heights of the gaming

art form that were achieved will forever be out of your grasp, forever. There's no way to get those moments back. No, we really had an incredible time. I played all kinds of games. Yeah, it was like a lot of gaming, a lot of different games going on obviously, and a lot of fan runs stuff.

Yeah, so did I, so did I. I played in one of your games, you GM'd a Delta Green game that I played in. That was so fun. Right. And I played in your Delta Green game and they were connected. That was kind of cool. Loosely connected. And then we also, I played space base for the first time, the

space base, I guess you'd call it a board game. And here's my thing. So when we started playing space base, if anybody knows space base is like you roll dice and then based on that, you get a certain amount of money and then you can buy little rocket ships to go into your space base. And then those rocket ships affect how much money and income and ultimately victory points that you get. And they kind of do, they interact with each other in interesting ways. So when I first started playing it, I was immediately like, I'm not going to like this because I don't, because it seemed like dominion to me where you're really kind

of playing by yourself and the only interaction is when people snipe the card you wanted, you know, like other than that, there's no like attacking other players. There's no, like attacking, there's no victory points from other players. There's no stealing victory points to me. It's not even as interactive as a worker placement. In a worker placement, the snagging of resources seems to me a little bit more, I don't know, interactive. I don't know why I feel that way. So I was really worried it was going to be like Dominion. But then we got to playing and I almost won having never played before in my life. So I don't know how good the game is if a new player can just, I mean, I was this close to winning.

You were this close to winning and I would say- But Kate snagged it from me. Kate did. She swooped in- She swooped in- Just from behind and overtook you with a very unlikely role of an 11 on a 2d6 Yes, very unlikely role, but she hit the jackpot on that role and it slung it past I thought that it was a fun game for Vegas. That's for sure is really no I mean ultimately I really liked it because I did find that we were able to see here's the thing

I'm so into role playing games but I forget what an intense experience role playing games are you kind of have to pay close attention the whole time and you kind of have to maintain character and maintain pacing and all of these different elements and then it was just actually really nice to sit down and play a game where we could kind of joke around while we were doing it. Or I could just say nothing and use my board, you know, like, and play my turn, you know, like, I mean, that was really lovely and I was being too hard on Space Base as I often am on a lot of things. So, yeah, I was very much so like, uh, we do so much role playing that it is nice and

refreshing to play board games sometimes. And specifically something like space base, because so you say, I don't know how good of a game it is because a new player just almost won. And I think that like, to me, that is a reason why a lot of people would say it, it is a good game and I could see both arguments, but like, it's one of those games that is largely dice driven. It is largely luck based, but that creates a relap relaxation, at least for me at the table where I'm not like, you know, having analysis paralysis, that kind of worker placement thing where you're like, I need this, I need A and B and C all just as much as each other.

And I can't figure out which one the other opponent needs more and how I can outmaneuver what, there's none of that. You can just relax and roll dice and kind of see what happens. But you are making a lot of strategic choices. You're making choices that matter. Yeah. But if, but if the die never goes your way, it never goes your way, but with only 12 numbers, it's not very likely that you'll be completely out of the mix.

And so everybody's kind of like bopping and shaking. You took a strong early lead and then everybody started kind of creeping up. And then yeah, Kate, whoop, shuttled in there at the end. But it was awesome. Stole it from me. And one day I'll rematch with her. How did you feel your, your RPG games went that you jammed? I loved my RPG games We'll talk a little bit more about alien later, but I only I jammed two alien games

They were really really fun and I can talk a little bit about that jamming process later Because I jam the same scenario back-to-back which I've never. And it allowed me to kind of, it was almost like a quick play test and it allowed me to change some things. You also did that with Delta Green, right? You GM the same scenario back to back. Yeah. I GM the same scenario back to back. The difference with Delta Green is that that one was pre-written scenario. And so like that was kind of set. There were some things I did a little differently, but like, I mean, in terms of how I presented things that I didn't like the first time, but then, but with Alien, that was, you know, a homebrew. And so yeah, there was a lot of, and this is why I want to talk about railroading and

stuff. It's a really interesting concept when you're homebrewing, you know, how to avoid certain railroading traps. But anyway, I, what else? Oh, so I played Space Space. That was really fun. I played Space Space, that was really fun. I played in your Delta Green game. You did a great job. I played Moonraker, which I've talked about before, which is, that's an awesome game. Paula taught me, I played a couple of rounds of the Lord of the Rings trick taking game. I love trick taking games. I grew up on trick taking games, so they come like very naturally to me. And I grew, I've grown to really like the crew which is like a a cooperative Trick-taking game that got pretty popular and I played it with my family and we had a really good time with it It's really fun

and now out of that has come this new Lord of the Rings one where like you have missions and you play characters and your characters have certain goals and It was really fun. And so thank you to Paula for that. And then what is this? Just like, I have three Frodo's. That's a trick. Yeah. So it's basically the suits are like the Hills, the forest, the mountains and like the swamp or something like that. right? Those are the suits. And then they just have numbers one to eight. That's it. But the characters are like, uh, Frodo is in like every mission, basically, I think. Well, I don't know early on he's in every mission and Frodo is like his most important goal is different than the other characters. And you choose your character from like a limited list. So in the first mission you can draft between Frodo.

Oh, and there's like a Trump card. So whoever randomly gets the best, the one ring, which is the Trump card, immediately gets Frodo. And then from there you pick, you can draft Gandalf or Pippin or Sam or Mary, whatever it is, the first one you can draft who you want. And each one of those characters has a different goal they need to accomplish. And so Gandalf is there to like help Frodo and the other ones are there to like, they have to get a couple, whatever.

Anyway, it's, it was really fun. You draft Radagast the Brown. Yeah. Yeah. I'm pretty sure. Pretty sure Radagast comes up. Uh, what you would call it definitely came up. There's another wizard, isn't there?

There's Saruman, of course. Saruman. I can't remember. And then there are the blue wizards who went to the East, Joe. So the game is very much based on the book, The Fellowship of the Ring. It's very much what it's based on and not necessarily the film. So anyway, that was fun. So the highlight for me, though, gaming wise was learning to play

Star Wars Unlimited with Rob Kirkovich. So I really enjoyed Star Wars Unlimited. I thought it was really fun. It is like something I laughed at him about back in Nashville when he was doing it, because he's like super, super into it. And I was like, the last thing I'm going to do is get into another like magic like game, right? A collectible card game, a pay to win sort of like drain all your cash, trying to find rare cards kind of game. But I don't know, I got drawn in by the whole

thing. Matthew wanted to get into it. I wanted to get into it. And so we all did and Rob taught us. And we met Garrett out there who was an attendee, who was a huge collector and taught us so much about it. It was so nice. And so, yeah, so now I've brought it home and I'm starting to teach my kids and it's really fun playing with them because it's a fairly simple game, you know,

compared to like a magic, it's fairly's fairly simple and yeah you just have a leader and you've got the space theater and the ground theater of like combat and as you pull things out you either pull out ships or ground troops and you're going against each other in on the ground and in space so if somebody's dominating in space they may just crush you if you can't beat them on the ground. But you so you have to kind of have a balanced attack and you're attacking each other's base. Anyway, it was really fun. That sounds awesome.

Yeah, yeah. I watched a little bit. It looked cool. Yeah, yeah. And and then we did what was called like a draft, right? Like we opened a new packs drafted around this where Rob was really teaching us what what do. And Garrett and me, Rob, Garrett and Matthew each drafted a short deck of cards and then played each other. I was sweating bullets the whole time I'm drafting, just stressed, because I don't know what any of the cards are

and the most important thing to me in the world is winning. Or I should say, the most important thing for me in the world is not losing, right? So like so stressed out, I'm like, I'm not good at this yet. I don't know how to build a deck about it. And they're all just like laughing at me. So we get it all done. I play Matthew head to head and he kicks the shit out of me with this deck that I

just watched and he just drafted. Yeah. And, uh, I was like, well done, Matthew. And we like ran out of time and I had to move on. And, uh, and then I heard after the fact that Garrett played Matthew and shellacked him. And so Garrett came up to me and was like, I took care of Matthew for you. I beat the hell out of him. And then I found out just after that, that Rob beat the hell out of Garrett. So like Rob was like the ultimate Victor. And, uh, and yeah, I was like, I don't know what would have

happened if I would have played Rob, but it probably would have gotten really ugly. Yeah. Anytime I would draft magic, I would die on turn three or earlier. So I've mentioned that before. So yeah, I mean, drafting is, it's a skill in and of itself. It is, and it was hosted by our new friend, Garrett. So thank you very much for that, Garrett, if you're listening to this.

Thanks, Garrett. And yeah, Star Wars Unlimited was really cool. And I wanna thank all of my players, all of my players that I had. I can't name them all, but they were all amazing and fantastic and really good at playing their characters and had so many creative ideas. I mean, Joe, all of my scenarios were homebrewed. And now that I'm back in LA, thinking back on it, I'm like, Oh, I

would have done this differently. I would have done that differently. I would have changed this. But the main takeaway that I have every time I run homebrew scenarios is do less. I feel like I pack in so much stuff and then I want to show all of the stuff to the characters. And I think if you're ever writing homebrew scenarios for your players, leave room to breathe, leave room for them to just full around, improvise,

talk to each other in character. We still had great moments like that because we had such great players, but, um, you know, I'm always going to be critical of what I did. I'm always gonna have ways I'd like to improve. Oh, me too, yeah. I was, the alien stuff, I was like, I could've done this better, could've done this better. And people seemed to be really, to really enjoy the scenario.

And like, and ultimately I was in that same, you know, that same sort of boat where you're like, you're thinking of all the things that you, you could've changed later, or you could've done a little bit better. And I was honestly surprised, I guess I shouldn't have been. I presumed it would be kind of like a con game, where, you know, players are looking to sort of just get led through the scenario in a lot of ways until some decision points, right? Like, you don't want to force people to awkwardly role play with people they just met, you know, especially in like a pretty twisted environment, like a horror scenario and stuff like that.

Right. And I should have, I should have known that the players would have been much more like glass cannon style, right? Would have been much more interested in diving into their character, talking in character, not about the plot, talking about, you know, making decisions in character and letting that take a long time to breathe. And so, yeah, I found myself shocked at how much I was just sitting back like, Oh, we're not going to do 60% of what I planned here because they're goofing off like a glass cannon show and they were great. So yeah, it was really fun. They were amazing.

Kudos. And, uh, they knew, they knew how to hop right into character. My vampire game. I had the nastiest most Despicable collection of blood sucking leeches. I could possibly hope for they were all Politicking against each other even while even though I had planned this big combat scenario They had plans and wheels within wheels. It was really cool. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm just writing down that at some point we need to do a segment about... So my players

were really great about this. This is in no way... I know we're coming right after talking about Vegas, but this is pointed at nobody in particular. But I really want to talk about the tradition of when you're playing a role playing game, that moment about 10 minutes after you started where everybody starts introducing their character and they do like, sometimes they do like a five minute monologue about what kind of clothes they're wearing. We got to talk about that. There's got to be an alternative to that or why is that a thing? I know you need to know what the other characters look

like but I'm always like, especially like on actual plays. I feel like on actual plays people are constantly like, well, he's a bit of a rascal and he has a shock of red hair and butterflies tend to wait on him. Like it's like this like long thing. You could say this about so many things, obviously, but it really, it's such a player by player thing. Like, for me, personally, I go into a scenario and I'm largely thinking about rules and mechanics. And do I understand my abilities on my sheet and how they all work? Like, that's kind of my

priority. And maybe I have like a hook or something for my character. Like, that's the idea. I can't even tell you how many times I've gotten on stage or I've been on this camera for a show. And it didn't occur to me until we are in the moment that Troy says or somebody says, like, what does your character look like? You know, I have the vaguest idea of what they look like. I don't, I don't know what they're wearing. I don't know how to describe. I don't know what they're wearing. I don't know how to describe, I don't know what color way they're presenting today. Right, sure.

And so I'm just like, oh, and then I feel like I stumble over that. And I remember back in the day playing with Grant, and when you would go to Grant with a character description, you could tell that he spent whatever, 10, 15 minutes, writing word for word exactly what you see, which is like important as well, because it gives all the players a clear picture of what they're looking at. But obviously he thought so much about that in an area that I never thought about. And so you see the same thing with players

at the tables at Vegas. Some people are just like, you see an old guy. And then some people are like, he has this in his right pocket, he has this in his left pocket, he see an old guy, you know, and some people are like, he has this in his right pocket, he has this in his left pocket, he has an earring and they, but you know, he's got tattoos of this and that he's got, and they go into like extreme detail. Uh, it's just funny to how different people approach the game. It's different. Yeah. I, you know, I'm kind of a fan of this is an old guy.

And then as you play going, you know, when it comes back to you again, you go, well, he takes his Crimson cape off of his shoulder. And then later you're like, you know, he has this very, very hooked nose and he kind of puts it in your face. Like you just find moments to kind of throw that kind of stuff in instead of what I see all the time in actual plays is like people talking for five minutes about their eye color. For some reason, nothing could be more boring. If you were reading it in a book and there were six paragraphs about what a character looked like, you'd be like,

I'll read something else. All right. That's my hot take. Hot take. I think we should get into. Yeah, I think we should take a few calls, because I think we got some people that were in Vegas or people that played some games, or if you want to comment on any of the games we played, Star Wars Unlimited or Space Base, anything like that. Just know this, when you come up to the stage, we're going to chat with you for a minute, and then we're going to ask you a question. We're going to have a contest question this week for a fun little prize. So in packing for Vegas, I was going through grabbing all my gaming stuff and I came across

something that I think would make a great giveaway. So I am going to give away today, this is gonna be so dope, to the best answer to today's question. used, but in great condition. Full Norse Foundry glass cannon, clear quartz dice set. There it is. You see that glass cannon, John, right there. You see that glass cannon logo on the D6. I got this a couple years ago. This is not one of our campaign set dice, and it doesn't have our unique cases. It just has the glass cannon case on it. But it's from a long while back. And yeah, I found it. I was like, I don't I don't really need this. I could share this with the nation. So I'd love to send this

out to to somebody who who wins the contest question today. So in inspired by Vegas, our trip to Vegas returning from Vegas, we're going to a very generic question today I don't want to see the the most interesting answer we get the question that we're gonna ask today is who Took a gamble Who took a gamble and this can be anyone anything any it could be fiction It can be real life. It could be history. It could be anything It could be fiction, it could be real life, it could be history, it could be anything. Who took a gamble? If I just give you that general question, Jared, what comes to mind for you? What's an answer?

So we're talking fictional or historical, right? Anything. Or modern day real people. Who took a gamble? And as you always say- You could have won, you could have lost, doesn't matter. As you always say, the best answer is one everybody knows but nobody thought of Everybody knows who it is, but nobody thought of it my answer isn't great

But it is at least from one of my favorite media, so I would go with Norval Barnes who is that's Robbins Tim Robbins in The the the HUD sucker proxy. Do you remember that? Yeah. Yeah. And he just holds up a piece of paper with a circle on it and goes, you know, for the kids, uh, and they make, and that's the invention of the hula hoop.

And it's a giant success. Yeah. But like just taking a gamble on, look, there's a circle, strong, a circle. And that's the funniest gamble I can think of. It's a business gamble. So, uh, yeah, that's a circle. Just drawing a circle and say it for kids. That's the funniest gamble I can think of. It's a business gamble. So yeah, that's what I thought of is Tim Robbins, right? Yeah, Tim Robbins, that is right. I used to love that movie.

I haven't seen it many, many years, but I've watched it multiple times when I was like, I don't know, in high school or middle school. I love that one. So I'm going to go with an organization. I'm going to go with an organization and I'm going to say, and this goes back to, you know, my favorite series of films of all time, the Lord of the Rings series. I'm going to say New Line Cinema in backing a three film shoot with a basically unknown director shooting completely overseas before

anything was released yet, you know, putting whatever 200 plus, uh, I don't know how much was put into that 200 plus million dollars into that movie. I don't know anything about the background, but I know that like to make that movie was definitely a gamble. And, uh, and then obviously filming it all at once too. They filmed it all at once. It was without seeing what the six, you know, the original, I think I remember the original idea was like, we'll make a Hobbit movie. And this wasn't even new line was somewhere else. Like we'll make a Hobbit movie. We'll see how that does. And if that does really well, we'll make a two part Lord of the Rings movie. Anyway,

it just evolves over time. And, uh, and they try to take it away from him too, right? Or they got really nervous during Helms Deep. The executives, they were like, they got really nervous and more money had to keep getting pushed into it. And there was, I remember there were articles that were like, if this doesn't hit, if the first movie doesn't hit new line is going to go out of business. Like that will, it will kill that that studio So yeah, that was a that was a big gamble. All right, let's Gamble let's bring in a caller here. Oh, you know who was in you know who was in Vegas Jared our friend fist Fisco our friend Fisco was in Vegas and She's here today. Let's go join us if you'd like to chat or perhaps you've

Stepped away. Oh, there she is. What's up? Oh if you'd like to chat or perhaps you've stepped away from me. Hello. Oh, there she is. What's up, Fisco? Hi. Oh, man. What a weekend. What a weekend. I'm still basically sick.

I can't. My voice is fried. If you weren't there, if you weren't there, you missed the time of your life. Such a penis. Yeah, everyone sucks. So Fisco, what were your takeaways from Vegas? It definitely was a lot of what you guys were saying where I went in with, I go into games a little bit like you did Joe, but this time I decided not to learn any rules, which I didn't like. And not learn anything about my character and just kind of trust that everyone there you know is going to be great and that I will be fine.

And your game was the hardest because it was the first one in the night. You ran Delta Green and we were all soldiers, which is not a thing I'm super into, but I really want to play Delta Green so I don't care. And then I didn't roll well until near the very end of the game. And I remember at some point you looked at me and you were like, what's going on in your character's head?

And like, that's all I had been thinking about was why does he suck so much? And it brought so much character to this to this guy and it was nice because I could trust that everyone else at the table who was really into it were taking the story while I was trying to figure out what was going on with him. Yeah and you let the die rolls sort of inform you so he didn't have to do the work ahead of time it came to you while you played yeah. It was the whole weekend was so freeing and I know it's

going to make me a much better role player because getting to role play with a bunch of people who genuinely care, who are really into it, who would do anything to play helps just make the environment so relaxed and it didn't matter if I knew anybody else at the table, we had an absolute blast. It was amazing. So the nation was amazing. Yeah. Yeah. The Niche turnout was incredible.

And obviously there were a lot of fan run games that were just Niche run games that were just awesome and people were raving about. And yeah, yeah, that's so great. Fisco, who took a gamble? You got an answer for this? Oh my god, I don't have an answer for that. I don't know. That's a hard question.

Then you shall not win the dice. I know. I'm not going to win the dice. But I think, to me, it's more of a type of person. So like a person who leaves where they grew up, leaves all of their safety to try something completely different. Like just that kind of person to me, when you let go of everything and trust that you have

what's in you to make the next steps work. And you can't think of an example of that. Anyone who actually did it. No, no, no, I want that to be the answer. Write all of that down, Jo. When you leave the lands you know. There are just so many people that do it. And you walk off into a new world.

That's it. Perfect, exactly, Jared. And you learn that emotions are truly within. That's it. That's the one. I want that to be one of the answers we picked from at the end. And let me tell you right now, it's leading. Leader in the clubhouse right now.

That's for sure. All right. Thanks Fisco. Thank you Fisco. Oh, later. That's awesome. I mean, McD has an awesome answer, thanks Fisco. That's the only answer. Thank you, Fisco. Later, that's awesome. I mean, McD has an awesome answer, but maybe we won't share it right now because maybe someone else could take it,

or should we say McD's answer? No, McD can just say McD's answer. He's on here. If you wanna jump in, McD, say your answer. Oh yeah. Well no, that was basically Fisco's answer oh yes yes she was describing Frodo Fisco was describing Frodo yes that's a great answer if I may she was describing an entire type of person McD of which Frodo is a subset that's yes so so anybody who answers

anything like that we'll be like sorry, taken. You know what? Can I change my answer to the human race? The human race has taken gambles at several different junctures throughout history. Yes, yes it has. Yeah. Let's take a call. Joseph, Joseph Joestar. I like your name, Joseph Joestar. That's a good one. What's going on? Yeah. So I was, sorry, I'm forgetting the question. I forgot what happened. So something about, I know the question you're asking, but I'm sorry, can you repeat what the rest of it was that was unexpected to be called? You want to know what the contest question is, Joe?

No, no, I do know the contest question is... No, you just want to know what we're talking about? We were just talking about Vegas and the games we were playing. We talked about... Yeah, homebrew... Space base and... Board games, Star Wars Ultimate. Yeah. Have you been listening to the episodes so far?

Yes. Yes I have. I just walked my dog. Sorry. No problem. I didn't get to go to Vegas, unfortunately. You missed out. I was actually. Yeah, I know. But something I actually reminded me was to Joe, since you started playing Star Wars Unlimited,

I want to recommend, especially for your family, like your kids, Disney Lorcona is by the same people. It's kind of similar in the fact that like you can just use any almost any card as a resource to Star Wars Unlimited, but like just Disney characters. So can I ask you this? Is there an O'Malley the alley cat from the aristocats card? I honestly, I believe there is actually there. I can't imagine.

I'm in. I can't imagine there's a single thing in all of Disney film history that isn't in that game Like they must be cards for every single thing and I am familiar with or kind of I actually played Lurkana first And when I was first taught Star Wars Unlimited, especially the resource usage, I was like, oh, this is like from Lurkana and Yeah, I was very familiar with it and I have played it with my kids But yeah, Star Wars is a little bit more up my alley than, uh, than the Disney, uh, whatever. I played Lurkana and I got killed by Sebastian from little mermaid.

Yeah, he killed me. He could be rude. Yeah. He's an evil leader. Uh, Joseph, give us a, uh, he destroyed my brother bear deck. Oh yeah. Joseph, give us a, uh, he destroyed my brother bear deck. Oh yeah. Uh, so for my answer for who took a gamble, honestly, I got to go with Han Solo. Han Solo.

He knew the odds and ignored them. Yes. Yes. Somehow survived. Like they would all be dead if it weren't for him taking that gamble. That's true. Good answer. Thank you, Joseph. That was awesome. Han Solo definitely took

a gamble. Never tell me the odds. Flying directly into an asteroid field. Let's do one more before we move on. We'll have plenty of time to talk to a lot more people. But if you think about it, Fisco's answer sort of encompasses Han Solo. All right. Okay. That joke is going to wear thin fast because it's going to be it already has with you. Fisco's answer was literally everyone that ever took a gamble was our answer. And that's a hard thing to talk. Bloody Eagle, if you want to join in the convo, we'd love to have you in for a second. You want to talk about games, the games we're talking about? No. second. You want to talk about games, the games we were talking about? No. Just raise your hand and then leave, I guess. All right. Let's go to ultimate frisbee ultimate. What's

up ultimate frisbee sub ultimate. How you doing? Great. How are you? Again? I had a great time hanging out in Vegas. Awesome. Awesome. Happy to hear what you play. Would you love what game stood out? So I can tell you one story about playing massive laser play testing with Brian Holland. Oh yeah. He's working on his own game. Massive laser. Yes, that's right. Oh, much fun. Thank sci-fi dungeon crawler for Luke Goblins. Sci-fi dungeon crawler for Luke. Goblins. Is it like destiny? The role playing game?

I don't know. Um, so it's, it's, it's a D 100 system roll under, um, you get XP and you can spend your XP to increase like basically gain random skills or gain random items off of tables. Hmm. Okay. So would you say it's kind of OSR? It's kind of old school? It is. Yeah.

It's very, it's very OSR. And so based on, you know, obviously what level of creatures you're fighting, how many creatures you fought, you get to roll a certain number of times on tables to either gain skills or to gain, to gain items. I heard this, I heard this from somebody during the weekend. They said, so basically you, it's almost, it's also almost like a rogue-like, right? Where you like, you're leveling up at a really fast rate and collecting all of this every combat

gear. Yeah. Every combat you're leveling up, you're getting more and more, more powerful. And then the next session you would just start at zero again. Right. It's, it's really fun. That's interesting. You're fighting alien monsters. Is that right? Yes. Are there any like sexy green alien ladies in the game? That's up to Brian or how he's into that. So they use so many of them in Cthulhu

and my games. Yeah. Can I tell you guys a quick tragic story about the day after the retreat? Sure. Make it quick. Um, my wife bought me a, uh, day pad, like a day trip to go see the grand Canyon. Oh my God. You and your wife are getting divorced. Yes we are. It's tragic. Jesus. No, it was 110 degrees that day. And we got an hour from the Grand Canyon.

And the radiator blew on the van. Oh no. And so we were stranded in the desert for several hours on the side of I-40, waiting for someone to come pick us up. Wow. Van or did you rent a van?

Nope. It was a tour company. Um, and the tour company had no contingency plan, excuse me, for getting up off the side of the highway. Wow. Um, and of course it was Sunday at 4 30 PM. And so the taxi companies were closed and not a single Uber or Lyft would respond to our dropped pins to come take us off the highway.

Oh my goodness. That had no repair kit. That's fucking bullshit. No antifreeze. So how did you get out of there? I called highway patrol Wow Wow Because basically like there are there's like 11 adults in this car. All of them are twice my age

I'm 36 so the frame of reference for you and they're all like trying to either repair the the the radiator with And they're all like trying to either repair the the the radiator with hair ties and plastic Not knowing that our radiator is a pressurized system and it has two distinct holes one of which can't be patched And so they I didn't know that either I didn't know about the two distinct holes You two distinct holes, correct? It's what you need in any sort of good system, right? So they try to patch the system, they fill the radiator with water. We get a mile down the road and the lights flashing on again.

And still finally, I'm being yelled at because I'm suggesting things, but I'm too young to know what I'm doing. Um, it's actually I'm like, you know, can you send how I patrol over? We need a tow to the nearest town. No one else is coming to pick us up. Um, it's actually, I'm like, you know, can you send how I patrol over? We need a tow to the nearest town. No one else is coming to pick us up. Wow. Oh, that blows.

So we spent three out four hours at the McDonald's in Williams, Arizona. Well, at least you got to have McDonald's. What did you, what'd you order? Of course it was wonderful. I really enjoyed my lunch there watching the sunset away from where I was supposed to be. Yeah. Far, far away from the grand Canyon. So double quarter pounder with cheese or are you a big Mac man? Uh, I usually go with the quarter pounder and nuggets. Uh, that's a great choice. Uh, McDermott in, in discord chat says that's why you have to take the helicopter service to the grand Canyon.

I mean, it would have been much easier. I don't know why he didn't just, right. And the glass cannon Vegas retreat offered a helicopter, uh, to grand Canyon day trip. Yeah. You can do an extra fee, of course, for an extra modest fee. Yeah. Ultimate. about that story. Play Deadlands in the Grand Canyon was our pit. Can I give you one final kicking detail?

Oh my God, you've given us five already. Okay, one more. I know, there was one more. The van we showed up in was hot at the beginning of the day. And like, and we said, the AC is not working. Can we just change vans? And they're like, no, it's going to take too much time. And so the van that comes to pick us up at the very end

is a brand new touch screen van with perfectly working air conditioning. That they had at the jump. And oh, man. What company was it? Grand Adventures. OK, so if you're a member of the niche, I want you right now to find out the addresses

of the people that work at grand adventures and post them on the internet for us to attack their homes. She first, uh, man, it is, did you get your money back for God's sake? Every fund will be processed in five to seven days, but the owner has a pension or a history of attacking people who give him negative reviews online. Wow. Well, get ready for the whole buddy. The nation's coming in for us.

All right. We're smearing cat blood on his doorstep. Who took a gamble? Senator Brutus of the Roman Senate. Senator Brutus. That is a good answer. Great answer. That's a great answer. I answer. Everybody knows, but nobody thought of, and it was a gigantic gamble that did not pay off. Did not pay off. It did not pay off. Ultimately. All right. Now we should bring up your hand up hanging're holding your hand up, hanging there, we're going to be talking to people all day. Don't worry. But we got to keep it moving here.

Let's talk about our next topic of the day. Yes. Alien Earth. So my favorite thing about this is how streaming services now, the trailer has just dropped for a new television series based on the alien franchise and it's you can see it on FX on Hulu on Disney. Yeah. Cause the big kept saying Hulu on Disney and I'm like what?

And then it also kept saying FX anyway. It's all of those things. This show is from Noah Holly who you might know his work in television from the show Legion, which I really loved, and Fargo, which I have seen every season, I'm obsessed with. So I really like this guy's track record. It stars a young woman named Sydney Chandler, who the only credit of hers I recognized was Don't Worry Darling, a film that I saw and did not think was very good, but I also don't think she was a huge role in it.

This show also has Timothy Oliphant. I didn't realize that. Oh yeah. And he looks really cool. I love Timothy Oliphant. He's another, I want to say replicant, but a synthetic. He is a synthetic as is Sydney Chandler's character. Although in a new way, I don't think we've seen before an alien. She is a consciousness that has been transferred to a

synthetic. And if you watch the trailer, it looks like the plot of the show is that a ship holding alien life forms, including definitely the xenomorph, but with it says five life forms in the trailer, crash lands on earth and the creatures get out and a team of synthetics led by Timothy Olyphant and Sidney Chandler have to track down and capture or destroy these alien life forms which have gotten loose on Earth. And that's a really great premise. The trailer looks incredible. Joe, what are your first thoughts? I don't have much to add.

I think that you have summed it up pretty well. I don't have... When I saw the trailer, you know, my first... It's funny for me, Alien as a franchise, we'll get into this in a second, is I'm a little more, I like more than I don't like, you know, compared to like what we talked about with Star Wars a few weeks ago.

What's the problem? How come it's so hard to make great stuff out of this? And there's a lot of, a lot of nuance there with like, well, how old were you when you first saw it? How old do you know, it's right. Who is it really for whatever. Alien is pretty clearly horror and it's pretty clearly, you know, sometimes an action and it's clearly for adults. And so maybe that's a reason why, but I've liked more than I haven't liked in the alien franchise. And so when they said that they were doing something, you know, yes, a little bit of my cynic is like, well,

what's this going to be? And then when I saw the trailer, I saw that before I knew anybody attached to it. And I was just like, this looks awesome. So I think, yes, the story concept is extremely cool. I think the, it's like, how do we not think of these things? It drives me crazy. I'm like, how do I not think about a whole, you know, Legion, for lack of a better term,

of synthetics being sent to fight aliens? It makes so much sense. It's a cool premise. Yeah, a very cool premise. And then yes, I mean, obviously, trailers are easy to make something look good, but I love the way the trailers cut. I feel like it really feeds into the horror aspects, the music of the trailer, the sound effects of the trailer are very horror-esque.

And yeah, yeah, and it looks like it's sprawling. You know what I mean? It looks fully cinematic. It looks like there's things in ships. It looks like there's things in forests, in mountains, in water. It looks like it's in all different sort of set pieces, which seems cool.

And my favorite part, it's only two months different sort of set pieces, which seems cool. And my favorite part, it's only two months out, less than two months out. So it's not like we're, you know, we're talking about a trailer here that we just teased for a film next year or a TV show that's starting late next year. This is coming out August 12th. And yeah, you can watch it on FX, you can watch it on Hulu. The Disney thing, I believe, if I'm not mistaken is that's just international. So international people can watch it on Hulu. The Disney thing, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, is that's just international. So international people can watch it on Disney Plus, but I think if you're in America, you're pretty much just doing FX or Hulu.

Yeah. So I'm pumped. I'm going to, I don't know if I, I don't, I don't have FX. I don't pay for Hulu. I do have Disney because I got the kids and stuff. I will get a subscription to watch this show. Right. I'm psyched for it.

Yeah. Ashilon on Twitch chat is asking, do we know what the timeline is for this show? And I think I saw a video where they say it's like after Prometheus and Covenant, but I don't know that it's after aliens. Look, who cares Ashalan? Really? I mean, you know, we can, it's just a curious, I'm curious too. I believe, I mean, it must be, I think it, I think it has to be after everything. I think it should be after everything, right? He's got to be after Romulus, right? I mean, I don't want any more, I don't want any more prequels to anything, please. Like don't show me this is how Ripley is born. I don't want any more prequels to anything, please. Like, don't show me this is how Ripley is born. I don't want that.

Oh. Yeah. And I think that, like, it's cool to be able to refer back to the things in the films. And with it being Earth, I think that that's a hugely important thing. Because you're talking about the events of Alien, right, take place in the Outer Rim, or whatever you would call it.

I don't remember what it's called. The Frontier. The Frontier. And that's the whole point, I think, right, Right take place in the outer rim or whatever you would call it. I don't remember what it's called the frontier the frontier and That's the whole point I think right is this horror Coming home to earth like if it just happened before the events of any alien movie It wouldn't make any sense I feel like so I also I would also approve of them just never mentioning anything from any other alien movie and just Presenting this and we don't know exactly when it's happening or whatever.

It's just like kind of let things stand on their own. I did like that Romulus sort of stood on its own as its own encounter or whatever. Uh, I have problems with Romulus. We'll get into it. Uh, maybe, uh, but, uh, here's, here's the thing. So I'm excited about this. It looks good, but Joe, we've been really burned on franchise TV before. We've been burned on the rings of power.

We've been burned on the wheel of time. Dune prophecy was not good. The magicians adaptation by sci-fi is bad. And we've already talked about this, but people can argue the expanse is not all It's cracked up to be so we know that it's really hard to bring a franchise to TV Can you think of one franchise? Well Fargo? I guess Fargo far by this guy by this guy Noah Hawley Has sort of worked on television. I'm, I'm going to be bad at thinking of it for sure.

I'm sure somebody is going to write in chat and I'm going to maybe someone in chat can tell us something else. What, what was a film or novel and was adapted to television in some way. Oh, someone says they like Foundation. They like Foundation on Apple. I haven't watched that. You know, I started to watch it and I'm such a fan of the books. It was such a divergence that I was having a little trouble getting my knowledge of the

book out of my head and just enjoying the show, but I still plan to watch that show. So people like, and then, and then there's people I think defending the expanse right now. That's a, you know, that's a, people. That's a you know, that's a people are split on that I mean, yeah people look at that. I still watch I watched all of the Wheel of Time. I've watched all the Rings of Power. I watch it. I just know it's not very good Well, I'm watching I got a good one. I got a good one. Yeah, Mickey, please in the heat of the night Yeah, McD please in the heat of the night Yeah, man totally yeah, I Don't know anything about in the heat of the night

Carol O'Connor The Carol Connor amazing. All right, so somebody posted in twitch chat that the AI answer is telling them that the Alien Earth series supposedly takes place two years before the events of the original Alien film. I don't love that. I don't love that. But then somebody said, and this makes a lot more sense than what I was saying, they say, Sixth Scribe says logically, I thought that Weyland- Yutani was trying to get aliens

back to Earth throughout the whole series. So it would make a lot more sense if they knew about it beforehand, and so maybe this is how they found out about it. So that is an interesting idea. Yes, Aaron the Shark and Samu Ryan. Well done. Shogun. Shogun was awesome. Awesome. So that's a good

answer. The original series or the new show? I never watched the original mini series. My dad said it was really good. The original. I love the novel, uh, read it multiple times. And then the new TV series was awesome. The new TV series adaptation. Last of us talking about very good. Are we really talking about a franchise when we talk about Shogun, for example? We're talking about a book. Are we really talking about a franchise when we talk about even The Last of Us, which is like two games? I mean, maybe you are. I'm just saying when you bring something really huge like Star Wars, it can be really difficult when you bring something really choose a huge like well, I don't know. I mean, the Wheel of Time, I hit or miss, is just one series

of books. So we've talked about how good Andor is. Speaking of which, do you want to talk about Andor next week or what? We got to talk about, we got to do a season two wrap up of Andor. I still have like six episodes, but I- All right. So we'll give them a couple of weeks, but we'll let you guys know when we're going to do it, like at least a week in advance so you can binge whatever you need to binge to wrap it up. But yeah, anyway, it is difficult. I'm a little concerned, but man, you got to feel like you're in good hands, right?

Fargo, Legion, let's... Yeah, you're in good hands. The other thing that concerns me, five alien species, they say that in the show and they show you that these aliens that other than the They say that in the show and they show you that these aliens that other than the xenomorph are in the show. And I'm like, is that too much? You didn't need that. I just want some xenomorph. You didn't need that. You know, and that's enough. You are enough. Xenomorph. Do I, do I sit down to like watch an alien movie or an alien TV show and think to myself, I've had

enough xenomorph. Like I don't need anymore. Like, no, that has not occurred to me yet. One time a friend of mine ran the alien RPG and his scenario had no xenomorph in it. And I was a little bit like, dude, I would, I came for the xenomorph. I would totally, I would totally do that. But that's because when you read the alien book, it does get you a little obsessed with how good the world building is. And you're like, there's so much here besides the xenomorph. I have to share this with players. But then yeah, players, they're the correct reaction is where's the fucking xenomorph. So yeah, it is, it is tricky. What else?

What else? Final thing about Earth is if you've ever read the old Dark Horse alien comics, it looks like Alien Earth is going to be partially based on an old comic series from Dark Horse called Alien Outbreak, which is in fact about aliens, the Xenomorphs showing up on Earth. And there actually are very specific things in the trailer, specifically a child's drawing of the Xenomorph that connects to things that are in Alien Outbreak. So I really highly recommend so many of the Alien comics that came out in the 90s and even Marvel very

recently after Disney and Marvel got the alien IP put out some incredible alien comics by Philip Kennedy Johnson in 2021 there was an alien series by Philip Kennedy Johnson who's an incredible comic book writer so I would check out the alien comics if you have a chance to if you're I should do that person I should do that. Let's take a call real quick before we talk about the franchise more in general Sarah Beast Is looking to join us and chat on the show. What's up, Sarah? Yeah hop on Sarah when you get a second and in the In the meantime, you know, I guess oh, there she is. What's up, Sarah?

Hey, I'm sorry. I'm at the airport about the flight home from Vegas. Oh my god, you're still in Vegas Yeah, we we couldn't we can pass up the opportunity to be here for a little while Amazing amazing. You're truly a beast Sarah. That's awesome. I Didn't know if you were still accepting gamble answers. Absolutely. Get yourself in there. Yeah. I feel like this is like a teacher pet answer, but when you guys actually quit your day job

to do glass panning full time, that was a huge gamble, but it makes a difference to the network. Yeah. That is the pandriest of pandering answers, but it is a great one. Nonetheless. I know. Thank you. Do you got anything else you want to weigh in on before we let you go and get on your

flight? Um, there is no alien they will make that I will not watch. It is everything they've done. I have enjoyed so, so much. Uh, and then. It is everything they've done. I've enjoyed so so much And then This was amazing All the games I played in were phenomenal and I walked into a lot of them not being to be great on the rules and The niche the role playing the way the DMs managed us. It was phenomenal

Awesome. Awesome. I am so so happy you enjoyed it. And yeah, it was great playing with you. Have a safe flight. Have a safe flight home. Take it easy. Yeah. All right. So yeah, the GCN guys quitting the old day jobs. I mean, I'll tell you, my wife, she was like, really?

You're sure about this? And I was like, yeah. I was like, I've run the numbers. I'm pretty sure we could do this. And it worked out. So that was nice. Yeah. All right. My wife and I had a huge fight for days. I was sleeping on the couch. She was like, you think you're going to make a living doing that? Get a real job. Get a real job.

And then for nine days, I worked for Uber Eats. And then she said, okay, you're really sad and you're just sleeping out in your car. You can come in and work for the Glass Cannon Network. Very nice of her. And we had incredible makeup sex. Wow. Wow. Thanks for, thanks for talking to us that.

I'm talking three, four times in one night. Let's go to the phones. Squid. I'd rather I'd rather hear you talk about literally literally anything than what Jared is talking about. Do you have anything on Vegas? Anything on alien earth? What do you think it's squid? It's good. You got to unmute your microphone. I am. Hey, what's up, squid?? I came in to talk about Jared's sex life. I'm so disappointed. Okay. Let's talk about it.

No, let's not. So yeah, I had a fantastic time in Vegas, a lot of what's already been covered, but I do have an answer to franchise that was adapted from movie to TV show, and it ties into Vegas because it's Stargate SG-1, the perfect answer. Stargate SG-1. Stargate SG-1. People loved that, I never saw it. Why does it have something to do with Vegas? Well, because Bisco and I ran

a experimental multi-table dread scenario based on Stargate SG-1. Oh, that's right, I heard about that. That's right. Went without a hitch. We could not have been happy with the way that went and had a terrific time with it. That's awesome.

Yeah, but Stargate, you know what I mean? They made three series out of that movie that it's only loosely connected to, honestly. And I honestly think that the series is better than the movie in a lot of ways. So, uh, yeah, that's cool. Good answer. Good answer.

Squid. All right. Give us a, who took a gamble, get in on this contest. Uh, let's see. I'm going to go with, um, a guy who started a political campaign hoping to spin off a media empire and wound up the most powerful corrupt person in the world. So Donald Trump. Yeah.

Donald Trump. Are you going with Donald Trump and the rise of global fascism? I am. I am going with Donald Trump and the rise of global fascism. Yeah. He took a big gamble on democracy We all lost risk democracy he risked our basic freedoms And How did he just say that was thinking oh so Stargate so I rewatched Stargate recently

Like within the last six months for the first time in more than a decade, maybe more than 15 years. I rewatched and I loved Stargate. I watched it over and over and over. And I still like it. You know, it holds up. But in rewatching and being more nitpicky about it, it is really hilarious, especially when you think about role playing games and like how the way we tell stories, watch it again and see how hilariously ridiculous it is in how quickly things develop. Like the movie's like an hour and 42 minutes long or something like that. And like from the moment he walks in the door as the expert to try to begin decoding hieroglyphs, to the moment like the Joint Chiefs are in the room and they're turning it on and they're all walking through, is in the fiction. Like six hours or something.

Like it's hilarious. It is hilarious. But they kept it moving, man. They made a hot popcorn movie that kept it moving. I think that's just good advice for role playing games. I don't think it's bad advice at all, but it is really funny when you think about like, wait, how, all these guys were waiting in this room for him to have this answer. Movies today, sometimes I think feel very dilated compared to movies from the nineties,

you know? Yeah. But I do remember, I swear to God, I remember in the 90s feeling like, wait, like you didn't know that it was edits or that they'd cut things out, but I constantly felt like stories were getting squished in like the 90s and early 2000s. So I don't know, it's hard to find that balance of like just the right amount of length. What are your initial thoughts on, you and I've never talked about this. I know you ran an alien game at gen con one year, uh, on our, in our booth.

I've obviously run a decent amount of alien. Um, and I've never played in it. I don't think, uh, what are your, I, we've never talked about this. You and I, what are your thoughts on the Alien franchise? I love the Alien franchise, truly love. I watched all of them last year. What's the beginning? Release order or chronological order? Alien. Release order. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Release order, yeah.

And that was all to get ready for Romulus. You know, I was very excited about Romulus. So my vibe on it is, alright, I'm about to go into my take on the entire franchise. Please go. Alien, 1979, the original is a all-time classic. Aliens from the 80s is a all-time classic action movie. Absolutely. Then the drop-off is remarkably steep. I think that the drop-off is huge after Aliens. Alien 3 is my least favorite. I think it betrays the characters and the whole nine inch nails of it is very tedious and dour and it takes the fun out of Alien.

It's, you know, it's just, it's just a nasty movie. Alien in resurrection. I almost said insurrection, but we're not talking about Star Trek. Star Trek. Alien Resurrection. That's the one that was written by Joss Whedon and directed by the French guy who directed City of Lost Children. I like that one because it's just kind of gonzo. It's like really out there. It takes place farther, way farther in the future and the designs are all really wookie and wild and it has a swimming xenomorph, which I think looks cool in the film. So then there's Prometheus.

I feel like each one of these installments should add something new and interesting about the xenomorph. And it doesn't have to be necessarily scientific or biological, but just a scene or a fight or it doing something it's never done before. And I remember in Resurrection, the swimming aliens being like, this is dope. That was cool. Resurrection also has, you know, Ripley is a clone with alien DNA in her,

xenomorph DNA inside of her. And then it ends with a monster that is a kind of like her offspring, which is kind of like a half xenomorph, half person, a were xenomorph, if you will. Um, I don't really love that creature and I'll get back to it in a second. Prometheus. I love Prometheus. It's not, it's a very flawed movie.

It's not a good movie, but I love the aesthetic of it. I love how it looks. I love those giant astronauts, seeing them walk around. looks. I love those giant astronauts, seeing them walk around. I love the C-section sequence where she's got to get the robot to cut it out of her. I think that's incredible. But ultimately, it doesn't make a lot of sense. And I don't need to know where the xenomorphs come from, guys. I don't really want backstory on that. I don't need to know the secret. Even though I loved seeing the big astronauts walk around, I kind of would have preferred

them to stay as a corpse in a chair in the first movie. Leave it mysterious. And then finally, well, Covenant, the less said the better. It's terrible. It's got a good setup with the colonists and Danny McBride and Billy Crudup. I'm like very into like when it starts, but then I think it's just the worst alien movie after Alien 3. And then Romulus.

So Romulus is a movie that had a lot of potential, but I actually think that that Ian Holm deep fake that they do ruins the movie. It's so funny you say that. It's so funny you say that. How do you feel? I feel, I guess the same way, but... It's so badly done.

It looks bad. I don't really have a heart. It's a giant part of the movie. Basically, I want to say... They keep bringing it back over and over. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. Relax. Calm down. I'm not mad.

I try, at times. I can be a little bit nitpicky like that, and I know that that's not a nitpick, but I can let things that shouldn't ruin movies for me, like things that will just, I can't like get out of my mind. I didn't let it ruin it for me, the movie, but it was objectively horribly done, terribly executed, and I think mainly never should have been attempted. There's truly no reason. Stop doing it. You could have had a new actor who is a different synthetic and you could have gotten a great actor done a great cameo. We do not need everything to tie into the earlier things. There's already a xenomorph.

We fucking get it. None of us were going to watch it and go, but wait, how was it connected to Alien? No one gives a shit. Just show us an alien movie. Like, so, you know, having this synthetic there who's like giving some exposition and it torn apart, great, no problem. It was the Ian Holm deep fake. It's so badly done and it's such a huge part of the movie.

Yeah. And I also have a huge problem with, I really liked the synthetic played by, oh God, I can't remember the actor's name. The main guy, like the main synthetic character. The main synthetic, yeah. But then he says, get away from. Andy, Andy, I think is the character's name.

Andy, right. But then he says, get away from her, you bitch. Echoing the Ripley line from Aliens, and I'm like. You hate that stuff, you definitely hate that stuff. Ugh, like just, like, write a new fucking line. Like, you know, this stuff where everything needs to tie back, it's lazy, you know, write a new line. Write a new awesome line.

Write a new, yeah, oh God. The synthetic thing drives me nuts. Now it didn't ruin the movie for me, but it drives me nuts, because I just feel like I see an unbelievable waste of Resources like whatever was spent to do that is an enormous waste and then I see like you know the added idea of

Introducing a new synthetic like a new model or something is extremely cool everything's cool about that and like, you know Just having an actor like a good actor do that part would have been awesome Yes, and you would not have and this is the crazy thing. It's like you wouldn't be answering I feel To legions of lunatics the people that go online and bitch about everything I don't think anybody would be bitching. Like, why didn't you deep fake this model? Because that's what every one of them looks like. And if you didn't deep fake it, that was the wrong choice.

Like, I don't think you would have heard that from anybody. Especially if it was a good actor. And you just did it without explaining it. Like... It's for sure an executive. That's not like a writer's decision. It's like someone who's like, wait, you know, we should tie it into original alien because people like that. But that's like a dumb take.

That's a dumb take. You're absolutely right. A new actor, a new model of synthetic, whatever you want to call it, would have been so much more interesting. The whole like, I mean, in the very beginning, that there's like a, there's like a probe that's going out and it's like shining its light on a wreckage of a ship. And you just see for a moment, a part of the ship turns and catches the star, the sunlight nearby.

And it just says Nostromo as it's just like floating. You're like, cool. I'd like, that's all you need it. That's good enough. There's a little homage, you know, you didn't have to, you know, deep fakey at home and make everybody wince through those scenes and just kind of like look away as so weird. These legacy sequels, man, they need to lighten up on the legacy. Like, uh, we get it.

It's alien. We get it. Yeah. the legacy. Like, we get it. It's alien. We get it. So that said, I enjoyed watching it. And like someone earlier said, if it's alien, I'll watch it. I really enjoy it. You know what I really liked about Romulus that stuck with me that I remember? And I remember what I like more than the Ian Holm thing. I never came back to that. What I really liked was, I think I blocked the Ian Holm thing. What I really liked was the way they portrayed these sort of mining colonies and stuff of Weyland-Yutani, which is- Yes, that was fantastic.

Which is how I set my homebrew was like a colony like that. I set it there because the way that they portrayed, I loved that, especially when you're getting into a video game, like skit got me into a cyberpunk. Like when you're talking about a similar sort of, uh, dark future run by corporations. Right. But then you have like night city, which is awesome in its own way, because it's super slick. And the whole cyberpunk fashion vibe thing is like super cool. Yes. This is like that, that, you know, that, that dark future where everything is like dystopia, but that dystopian future where everything is like pure utilitarian, right? It's like everybody's just wearing browns

and grays and just the basic clothes and everything's just as Weyland-Yutani on it because there's no- Hyper capitalism. Yeah, hyper capitalism and you see that they're almost like, you know, prisoners on this planet and because of course they are. How? Like why would you have any rights if everything's run by a corporation? You know, it's really interesting. That was great. And I would have loved to have seen more of that.

I understand they have to get up to a ship and have an alien adventure. But I really love that. Can I say one more thing I did not like about Romulus? I really didn't like the final monster. We've already in Resurrection had a half human, half xenomorph. We're doing it again And I really hate joe the xenomorph can already rip you apart Why do we need a super xenomorph?

We don't need that. The xenomorph is cool You know one xenomorph against like the survivor, you know is great Maybe two or three or even do an army like you have in Aliens. We don't need to improve on that or one up that. Just make an exciting sequence around the Xenomorph. We don't need a half human, half Xenomorph super monster. Yeah, it's silly. I agree. I agree. Yeah. Um, but, uh, let's, let's see what you guys think What do you guys think you weigh in here on alien get in on on the contest talk about Vegas talk about games We talked about so far. There's there's lots on the table. They're duke. I is here. They're duke I what do you want to weigh in a bird a guy lots to discuss?

I knew you're gonna call on me now when I what what's the problem? What's that I said I knew y'all were gonna call on me for aliens, which is not my element I just wanted to play in the contest. No, that's fine. You do you don't have to say a thing about alien Yeah, you're here for the contest and I love it. Give me an answer who took a gamble Evil Knievel evil. That's a good one. Good one took Took many, many gambles. Many gambles. That's awesome. So I rewatched. What did I just rewatch? Oh, because I was going to Vegas, I rewatched. I don't know how to spell Evil Can Evil. I have to look it up. I rewatched on the flight. This was so fun because it's on Netflix. It's like leaving soon. So I downloaded Ocean's

11, which I hadn't watched in 20 years. Right. So I downloaded that. I was like, this will be fun to watch. So I'm watching Ocean's Eleven and I forgot about the Casey Affleck and I forget the other actor's name, the like brothers that are just like, constantly at each other and annoying everybody and everything. And there's a scene where they're, the two of them are in the van and Matt and Matt Damon has to stay back on one of these smaller heists leading up to the big heist.

And he's like, please don't leave me with them. And he's in the back of the van and the two brothers are at the front just going at it. Are you they're doing a cut? They're doing a game. And the game is like, yes or no questions, you get 20 questions to figure out who I'm thinking of in my head. And the one brother just goes, uh, all right, yes. He goes, uh, are you, uh, are you male? And he goes, yes. He goes, are you alive? He goes, yes.

And he goes, evil, can evil. The other guy goes, damn it. I was like that Scott con Scott, Scott con. That is it. Yeah. Are you mad? I forgot those characters too. They're very funny. Evil. Evil. Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Hey guys, welcome back from... I'm doing good, I'm doing good. I'm down to talk about aliens. And I really want to also give it a quick spin

on TTRPG alien stories. Please go ahead. Yeah, first of all, Jared, I agree with you. Romulus is awful. It's such a terrible waste of potential because I just want to remind everyone of the anti-gravity, alien corrupted hallway in the space station, where we go from seeing a singular alien,

like killing three of our protagonists, and then there are like a hundred aliens in that hallway and our one main character girl kills them all with a pulse rifle it's just it's the fact that that one other minor guy just goes if you bump out the stock you could put on auto targeting and that just obliterates a hundred aliens. Yeah. They should be scarier than that, but that's why you needed a super alien. But, but that's, I think that's the struggle because you can, you can like, you

can point out the exact, like matching line of events from alien to alien Romulus. It's beat for beat the same movie, but it's just boring because instead of just having one alien be terrifying for the whole film, we have equally unsuited people to be in a confrontation with an alien, obliterate a hundred of them, and then we have the random child at the end.

Yeah. And you're also making me remember that the aliens gestate more quickly in Romulus because they're super alien embryos and that's just like a cheap way to get them to burst out quicker. I don't know, man. Yeah. You're really talking me out of Romulus. Uh, what else do you got on, uh, what else do you got on alien? Let's me out of Romulus. What else you got on? What else you got on alien?

Let's move on from Romulus. What else do you got? I think for TTRPG stories the best way to play a a longer form Aliens game because I think you can play something like the aliens RPG or mothership in a a one shot, two shot scenario or con game. But for a longer form, Alien story, you have to play a system that doesn't have anything to do with aliens. Hear me out.

Because the characters in an Alien film don't know they're in an alien film. And that's, you have to build that in with your players, because if people know they're in an alien, you understand the like the, the dramatic flow of an alien story, you know, you're going to have to see a scene of at some point. And if you don't see a scene of you're going to walk away disappointed. But if you do something like Call of Cthulhu and retrofit it into a sci-fi setting, you can have a lot of interplay between characters in a spaceship or space station or mining colony and have a lot of building like stress and terror

in that way and have a much longer burn before you see the xenomorph which can easily be like as terrifying as any other mythos creature. Yeah it is it's tricky the I mean the book itself recommends you know based on the length of play they're like you know you have to be very careful with how you present the xenomorph and when because sort of when you present it there's nothing else to do and also because it's going to kill characters or at least they're going to be driven to the point of stress of no return and so yeah but it is strange among your buddies, your friends that are sitting

around playing to be like okay we're gonna're gonna play a long-form alien campaign and for them to just, you're kind of always waiting for the Xenomorph and that might take away from the other stuff. I think that in a long-form campaign, I wouldn't mind episode sessions where you don't see a Xenomorph personally. And I think some of that's on the players, not on the GM.

Like yes, we're playing alien, but you still need to play your characters like you don't know anything about Xenomorphs. Like you haven't seen the movies. And I think a lot of players are great at that. They're great at like just kind of taking the situation as their character would see it and playing it that way. Yeah, it's, you have to present interesting,

like an interesting mystery problem for the players that is not the xenomorph to start that is really going to engage them and get them interested before before you present it. I think there's plenty in the book to work with. You just got to work with players that are willing to do that. Sweet Threat. Give me an answer here. Who took a gamble? Contest question. Oh, what was the guy from the greatest beer run in history where he went behind enemy lungs in Vietnam to go deliver beer to his buddies? Oh, I know. Oh, you got to have a name, man. That sounds great, but I don't know the name. Yeah, sorry. It was like the Zac Efron movie was also made about it.

Zac Efron made a movie about it. Interesting. Well, I'll give you the answer. We'll come back to it. We'll see if we can find it. And we'll look it up. We'll look it up. All right, thanks, Sweet Threat.

Speaking of Zac Efron, on my flight to Vegas, I also watched The Iron Claw after your recommendation. What'd you think? I loved it. I loved it. It is crazy. I mean, talk about real think? I loved it. I loved it. It is crazy. I mean, talk about like, talk about real life is stranger than fiction. Like I was like, if you wrote this as a movie, people would be like, this is preposterous.

You know? Wow. It was so well done. And how about those closing credits? I want to live that way forever. That song rocks. It does. It rocks. But I mean, it's a, it's just a beautiful movie. I thought very dark,

very sad, but, um, but well acted. It felt very realistic to me. The performances were very down to earth. They weren't like over the top. Um, I thought Zac Efron was phenomenal. So yeah, I loved it. Roosevelt Jones wants to speak. Roosevelt Jones, why don't you join us? Roosevelt, where are you? Not there? Okay.

Wait, there you are. I'm here. Hey, how you doing? Hey, what's going on, Roosevelt? How are you? I'm doing okay. Look, I just wanted to say that I think FX distributor, we can all take Silas, that they produce really good television.

You look at like Reservation Dogs, Shogun for instance. You got what we do in the shadows, all that kind of stuff. I think they're in good hands as far as the Alien Seekers goes. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. That's a good point. Let's not forget the channel behind it too is yeah, a reliable one. And as far as the question of the day goes,

this kind of calls back, this is the first time I've ever listened on Discord, but you guys asked what the best sports movie was, and this was my answer for it as well. I think Babe is the best sports movie Baby babe, babe Best sports movie, but also the farmer took a chance on Okay, wait stop how is babe a sports movie

Okay, so the sheep herding competition Exactly Jared you're catching on. Wow. That's like an answer. No one would have thought of. Yeah. He nailed your criteria there, Jared. Yeah. Everyone has heard of babe, but no one would have thought of it as a sports. That's right. Yeah. And babes farmer chance from base farmer took a chance on babe. Thank you Roosevelt. We got you Thank you Ben syntax bad syntax. Why don't you join us here? What do you got on on alien or anything else? We've talked about we talked about a lot today Hey guys, hey, hi

I'm gonna fan of alien my whole life, you know Growing up watching them as they came out and I I've got a son now Alien my whole life, you know, growing up, watching them as they came out and I've got a son now and he's 14. Last year I watched Alien with him and I thought it really still held up and then we watched Aliens, which you know, growing up that was my favorite one. And the first time I watched it with him, you know, I kind of was watching it through his eyes, which is one of the fun things about watched it with them, you know, I kind of was watching it through his eyes Which is one of the fun things about watching movies with your kids and it seems pretty dated like surprisingly

I don't know. It's just the the effects were a little Off and you could kind of see where the wires were controlling the puppets and things like that I don't think that was the same thing with alien the the first movie. Well, Alien didn't need any effects. Alien was just in a ship with angles and guards and stuff. You barely see the xenomorph in all of Alien. You barely see it. Yeah. And that was kind of the big thing with Aliens.

That was kind of the big thing with Aliens, was that they showed you in full light, like the full creature, which was crazy. But yeah, I mean, I hear what you're saying and I don't. I think it holds up fully in terms of special effects for me, though. Yeah, me too. But I do agree with you that like, there is specific scenes like the drop ship sequence when it's just landing,

not the crash, but when it's just landing or when it's taking off, it does look like it's like kind of being held by a stick off screen, and it's like a little moving unnaturally. But I love that. That just gives something character. It's just because it's old, and old stuff can look awesome. King Kong from 1931 looks awesome. Does it look like a gorilla? Not really, but it looks awesome because someone used real craft to create it. So, you know, um, if your son was rolling his eyes at aliens, it's time to

discipline him in a serious way and teach him who's boss. You're, you're out the paddle. We got it. You really got to teach these kids what's what's important. Um, I think the spindly spindly legs of the alien queen at the end, that was one of the things where it was like, I don't know about that. It was kind of weird. It was kind of weird. Do you expect a movie from 1986 to look as good as one now? Well, not even the, not even the, um, the special effects, just the no choice to have it move the way it did. I think was kind of weird. I think, I, I don't know. I just watched it. I thought the alien queen looked awesome and I liked that it's a big puppet instead

of some CGI thing. They make these CGI things. Now they never look real to me. They always look like that. Physics doesn't matter to them. Yeah. Well, I just would have raised the camera angle a little higher. So we didn't see the spindly legs syntax. Give us a good answer here. Who took a gamble? I'm going to go with Lloyd Christmas. Oh, when I'm dumb and dumber. Great.

And Mary says, Mary says, your chances with me are one in a million. And he responds, so you're telling me there's a chain. Yeah, that was, that's a great answer. Especially like, I mean, Lloyd Christmas is great. See, he left his whole life behind. He sold anything he had to return this briefcase to this girl that he met for five minutes across the country because he fell in love with her first sight. God, that's a good answer. I love Lloyd Christmas. Good answer. Good one. All right. Lloyd Christmas definitely took a gamble. What is, what was I going to say based on this? Oh yeah. So I'm rewatching Star Wars with the kids, right? And now they wanted to watch seven and then we started to watch eight.

We're almost done. Eight. We're kind of watching it in pieces. And, uh, you know, I just sit there and I'm wondering of all our, all our Star Wars conversation, I'm bringing it back here because of the, the CGI versus models discussion of space combat, right? The space combat in seven and eight is like, it's cool, a lot of really cool shit,

but like, I don't think it's better. And I'm not like one of these guys that's like, I can see the flaws. It's not that I can see the flaws. It's just that something about the model ship fights, it's just more, it looks more interesting to me when you don't have a million colors and a million explosions every second and a million, you know, ships in a bunch of different

direct like, um, yeah, it's like I was saying about, it was like I was saying about home brew do less. You can do less. Like, uh, you know, they should pick, they should pick and choose a little more instead of just like trying to inundate you and overwhelm you. Cause they have this CGI capability where they can do that. GID on Discord chat says, you probably shouldn't watch Seven with your kids, Joe.

Capital S seven, as in the movie. Good one. All right. We should talk about railroading. Oh shit. I forgot. There's so much to talk about with the alien. That's okay. We still have a half hour left. I think that's enough time. Let's get into a little railroading because you know what? Callers could weigh in on railroading too big time. Let's go. Oh, I think so too. So basically, you know, coming off of like a, a weekend of homebrewed RPG games. And just generally, because we like to talk about GMing

wherever we can here on the Glass Cannon Radio, we wanted to have a little discussion today about the idea of the railroad. If you're not familiar with the term, that is when a tabletop RPG story or session has a specific plot that the players are Assumed or intended to stick closely to they're not supposed to you know Go back to the village and talk to the candle maker

they're supposed to go to the dungeon and fight the goblins and There are many published adventures that are railroads. Um, I've definitely played in many home games, home brew games where the GM had prepared a railroad and some people really, really dislike railroads because to them, a railroad, it misses the fundamental advantage that TTRPGs have over other entertainment, which in theory, a TTRPG should have infinite choice in how you deal or navigate the story. There are so many ways to give choice. For example, a dungeon doesn't have to be a railroad. If that

dungeon has multiple passageways that the characters can take, multiple ways to navigate it, it's actually one of the easiest ways to make something no longer a railroad because you can just make it have multifaceted, multi-levels and different, they can navigate it in different ways. But I would say, you know, Paizo APs, which I really love, are kind of by default, railroads. They have some dungeons that are like what I just described where you can navigate them in multiple ways, but I've seen dungeons in Paizo APs that are not, that are not navigable in multiple ways. They're really intended to be navigated one way.

I've seen that a lot of APs might have a hex crawl, but even a hex crawl often has like, hey, they shouldn't go this far too early because they'll be out of their level rank in terms of encounters. You know, so a Pathfinder AP is generally a railroad and I enjoy those. So I don't know, Joe, let's start with you. What are your thoughts on the railroad in the RPG?

What do you think? I think when it comes to pre-written stuff, especially Paizo APs, which I have more experience with than anything else. I think that like, I think that any player, like thinking or believing that, especially if your GM is running a pre-written adventure, that you are not on a railroad or would complain about being railroaded is stupid. I think that that's kind of dumb because you know what you're signing up for at that point. Now, the tricky part is how you define the railroad, you know, because I've always thought

of it as there are multiple tracks splitting in multiple directions. The difference is that they kind of make this this shape where they go out and in out, right, out and in. Right. So you have multiple paths to get to the same point, but you have to get to that point. I loved running impossible landscapes. I feel like that book you open up that book and it is the amount of depth of information for you to work with in a true sandbox in that adventure is unbelievable.

And there are a couple points that in my opinion, uh, you must hit for the adventure to continue, like for the story to go where it needs to go. Now it doesn't, you know, what I love about impossible landscapes is it truly does not have an end that is defined. And that's great. But the way you get to the possibility of the end, you have to pass certain gates. And so to be like, I don't want to have any sort of railroading in my pre-written adventures is, uh, I feel like that can be honestly kind of the silly take because sometimes the railroad is like, these writers have dreamed up phenomenal moments. And the important difference to me is like, that, that that moment can be experienced differently by different player characters.

If it has to be experienced in only one way, and there can be only one result of that experience for a character, that can be too railroady in how it's written. So yeah, I think that it is, it is a little bit tricky, but what I tried... So I have played, I have read Delta Green scenarios, I should say, that I think are too railroad-y, and I did not like them. As I read them, I was like, you kind of have to go, you kind of have to hit like six or seven in one scenario, exact touch points from point A to point B, point C, D, E, F. And then you're going to face the same threat in the same place every time at the end. And it's just a question of survival. Those I think, you know, those I have not liked. But I think that railroading from a GM's

perspective is not such a bad thing. I think that it is unreasonable to think that a human being can generate anything at any time from what you come up with for your, you know, for your character to do. And to not recognize. All right. So, sorry, I'll take one more example from our, our history, right? Giant Slayer, our massive first campaign. There, to me, the greatest, one of the greatest, most impressive sandboxes that we played was, uh, was Skirkotla's tomb. Skirkotla's like a camp. This is on the top of a mountain. It is a frost giant encampment where all of these different tribes of giants

are gathering to launch an offensive like against the world and you are like guerrilla fighters that sneak up this mountain and then get to look at everything that's there. The key point of this is a tomb that exists inside the mountain cliff wall that you eventually have to get into you know to, to kind of fight the big bad. But otherwise, it's just this massive encampment and you can see everything at once and there is no linear fashion in which you need to write it. That was an amazing sandbox. But, you know, but you have to You have to set all of the giants against each other in order to, uh, like in order to create enough mayhem that they break camp, they leave camp, whatever. You have to sabotage enough that they do this and then you can, they can get out of your way so you can get access to the main tomb where the big bad is. So like, is that a railroad? Because you really have to do that where the big bad is. So like, is that a railroad? Because you really

have to do that for the adventure to continue. Like, no, to me that that is not a railroad just because that is what you have to do. That's the mission. No, that's just a clearly defined objective. Exactly. A clearly defined objective is a good idea. Yeah. You know, sometimes published adventures are sandboxes. And most recently with the Age of Vikings game, I just used the adventure out of the back of the book, which was really just a sandbox set at another encampment at the Icelandic National Assembly called the All Thing, which would happen every year in medieval Iceland. And all it does is give you a bunch of events that could happen. Multiple court cases that might happen, a bunch of people that they could meet and how that might lead to an encounter where decision points are made.

I think Paizo, they're very clever sometimes about having a quest that's a little bit on a track, but then you get to areas that are more, you know, sandboxy, you know, and that gives players more agency. But I will say I used to be extremely anti railroad and I used to say, no, uh, things need to be really open ended when you play because that's the one advantage TTRPGs have over video games, for example. But now, years later, I find that I really do enjoy a bit of a railroad sometimes as a GM and as a player. I like for the GM to show me where the fun is. And I think you can do both.

I think you can absolutely, both are, I, both are great. Both are great. When I play blades in the dark, it's completely improvised. I have a starting point and that's it. Uh, and that can be extremely fun too. Um, I will say, I think sometimes a railroad gives you more depth of setting cause it's not trying to do everything and be everywhere at once.

So the granular detail on the encounters, the things you meet, the items that are hanging around can be a little bit more filled in because it's more specific. You know? And to get that level of detail, you give up some agency. You can't just walk away from the giant camp, go down the hill and do something else. Right. Yeah.

So player motivations is tricky there. Like player character motivations, players like also don't discount how many players, whether they admit it or not. In some cases, they don't know this about themselves. Yearn to be railroaded. Yes, I think absolutely there are players that prefer a railroad. And then you'll have other players at the table that are complaining about being railroaded. It's like, but they're not realizing like, look, two or three other people at this table

are just waiting for me to tell them what to do. That is so obvious that they're just waiting. And sometimes I'll have to have talks with people. Sometimes I've had to had talks with players encouraging them to not be so railroaded, you know, like telling them like, guys, like, I don't want to keep telling you what to do next. Like, just do whatever you want. I'll figure it out. You know, the other thing that I'll say, I'm on your blades point. I love the way you run blades. You're the best in the world, but there is the reality that the game mechanics support that style. That's right.

When you have extensive stat blocks on creatures, that does not really. Benefit well from pure improv sessions. Right. Yeah. You know, like the amount of technical know-how you need to have when you're running a Pathfinder session. Can you be a little bit loose? Yeah. Can you, you know, like pull and drop a monster in here or there, especially at lower levels?

Yes. When you're talking about mid to high level casters and stuff like that, I mean, to just grab a, a, a, a, a step block out of nowhere and start like that. I mean, to just grab a step lock out of nowhere and start an encounter. It's not a great idea. Like you said, you're going to have, you keep the sandbox wide open, but all the colors are dull, right? Nothing gets really fine tuned. Now I'm curious. I'm curious where people stand on this. Yeah. A combo, a combo of the two, I think is really really the best and we talked about how Paizo makes a combo by having areas That are sandbox II. Yeah, if you if you're a right slide flourish the lazy dungeon master

He says you start with a great opening to your adventure then you have three locations and maybe you grab a simple map for each and then you have like three or four stat blocks of monsters that are that at those locations and then you have like three or four stat blocks of monsters that are that at those locations. And then you go and you just see where people end up, you know, based on your starting point. And I think that's a great way to do it too, where they can tack, you know, the locations and the, the stat blocks of the monsters that are at those locations are defined, but the order in which they are encountered is sort of up to the player. So I think that matters. Yes, and the trap that you have to not fall into, and this is something Feynler's Finnerly

just said in the Twitch chat. Feynler said, one of the biggest problems I've seen in this scenario that is, I've seen is a scenario that's written like a sandbox, but the author only has one viable option that shuts down most of the ideas that they themselves came up with. So like you have that cool encampment with a whole bunch of different you know places that you could go or things that you can do, but this is oversimplifying and not the case in that particular situation. But there's only one key that opens only one door that everything has to be in through. So you have to get

that key. It's very interesting if you write a sandbox, try to think of two or three different ways you can get through the main door you have to go through. So you have to get that key. It's very interesting if you write a sandbox, try to think of two or three different ways you can get through the main door you have to go through. That feels, that gives it feels like there's more agency for the player. In another great book, the encounter theory workbook by Ben Riggs. He says if there's an encounter, it should have multiple ways through. And this is right. You should be able to kill the guards, sneak past the guards, bribe the guards to get into the castle. Encounters should work that way. Sometimes in Paizo, sometimes in Pathfinder, they don't work that way. You're meant to fight these guys, you know? So, and that's a little bit more railroad-y. I am interested what the callers think. I'm interested too.

Let's get a few callers in because the last thing I'll say on that point is make sure, this is how I run games when I run Pathfinder. What I would say is make sure that you are doling out experience for avoiding encounters. In clever situations where they did things you didn't expect them to do in order to avoid a fight that is clearly meant to be a fight in the book, don't punish the players for that and be like, well now you're underleveled for the next thing, give that XP for clever ways around the story that you didn't think of. Samu Ryan wants to chime in. I'm not sure if it's on this or another topic. Samu. Hey. Hey, how's it going? It's Ryan. But hey, Ryan. Nice to talk with you guys.

Yes. I don't know if you know Matthew Colville. He had a good video like nine years ago where he talks about sandbox versus railroad. I do know Matthew Colville. I hadn't seen that video. is railroad. I do know Matthew Koval. I hadn't seen that video. He does this great comparison saying that the Hobbit is a sandbox and Lord of the Rings is a railroad. Interesting. You know, there's but one option, you know, the room has to go. So right. But the question is there's a million different ways you can do like in the middle, but it always has to come back. In fact, in fact, not, not, not to just contradict Matthew Colville, but in fact, the fellowship argues over the many routes that they could take the ring could go to

Gondor, uh, you know, who's going to go, you know, uh, Frodo goes to more, more door with just Sam Frodo goes to Mort or with Aragorn and the rest of the company with him. You know, they debate and argue about these things constantly. Even at the council of Elrond, they're like, maybe we give the ring to Tom Bombadil. So there were many ways through the quest of the Lord of the Rings. So Matthew Colville is wrong. of the Lord of the Rings. So Matthew Colville is wrong.

Well, maybe right in so far as you have to throw the ring into the fires of Mount Doom to destroy the boss like that. That's true. Gandalf does eventually say, look, this is it. Yeah. But like the the different the conversation is what's fun for players. That's what's fun. And so you want to make sure that that exists in your game. Ryan, did you have anything else? Do you have anything on Alien? Well, Alien's great. I love Alien. Predator's better, but a movie that became a franchise... You know we didn't talk about as Alien versus Predator. Yeah, we were talking about that in the chat. But a movie that became a good franchise was Alien Nation.

I don't know what that is. Alien Nation is a film that became a television show in like the 90s, Joe. Yeah, yeah. It's an old one. James Caan, tying it together with Scott Caan, he was the human in Alien Nation. It was a buddy cop movie and they bring in

an alien who's his partner in LAPD. It's great. Check it out. I gotta check that out. It's pretty cool, Joe. You should check it out. Ryan, give us a good answer here. Who took a gamble? Try to win this sweet dice set, dude. All right. Also tying it into Shogun. Ieyasu Toranaga, that's the real life version of Tokugawa. Yes. The Shogun. Toranaga, that is a great answer.

Toranaga took a huge gamble by attempting to take the Shogunate. Toranaga. Toranaga- it. Great answer. Let's get Grey Wolf up here. Grey Wolf has been waiting to chat for a while. Not sure if it's on Alien or something else. Are you there, Grey Wolf?

Yes. Hello? Yeah, we got you. What's up, Grey Wolf? Hey, how's it going? Good. Good. How are you? Good, I just wanted to talk about Prometheus. That was actually the first alien movie I ever saw and I loved it.

Oh, cool, cool. Okay, what'd you love about it? Wait, Prometheus was the first alien movie you ever saw? Yes, I know, it was wild. As a fan of Prometheus, the first alien movie you ever saw? Yes. As a fan of Prometheus, I'm sorry. Well, I mean, okay. So that was my first exposure to Whale and Yutani to since, like I was completely like taken aback

by Michael Fassbender's character. And I loved him in that movie, but when he turned out to be like this agent of this faceless company, it was just like, Oh my God. And he's betraying just everything about it. I love. And I don't understand why people don't like it. Well, I mean, as someone who's a big fan of Prometheus, this team that goes into the complex where, you know, the alien complex, they don't make a lot of good decisions.

The decisions they make don't make a lot of sense. They're supposed to be these professionals and they keep running into, I mean, like all the way down to at one point, this horrible creature is kind of emerging from an egg and one of them like just starts poking it. Like, you know, they make some really terrible nonsensical decisions. And I don't really know if the whole thing holds together as a story. Skid is in chat and he says the main issue with the movie is that everyone in it is stupid as fuck. Yes

Or direct way to say but I I do love the Prometheus Look and vibe and like I love the way that it looks and feels I think it captures that good Creeping dread, you know, have you since seen alien and aliens? Hello Uh, creeping dread. You know, have you since seen alien and aliens? Hello? Grey Wolf. We're talking to you. Grey Wolf? Oh no.

Right. Bye. Grey Wolf. Grey Wolf's boss was like, get back to work. Get back to work. I think Grey Wolf just got fired live on air. We've been, we've been waiting to see if that's going to happen.

Get fired for the niche your new job It's trying to get back in bus company's owner and making him pay We'll try to get you back in for the contest Alt Jared is back alt. Oh, I love this guy you love Hello original Jared, Yeah, all right. All right. Jared's like, get to the point. What do you got?

You guys have already talked about the kind of stuff around bad railroading. I want to give just the opposite side, which is total open world where a GM says all right you have your characters what do you want to do and everyone around the table has zero idea yeah they just stare at each other what's going on because the GM has not prepped anything at all including a starting you're in a tavern. I have, I've sat in on that game as a player and it is probably the most painful role-playing experience I've had. Yeah. I mean, a true sandbox is a, is dangerous.

It can be very dangerous for, uh, of like extreme boredom for the players. For sure. Uh, that is, that is a good point. Um, yeah, you know, when we ran the sandbox of age of Vikings, all we did was say for each character, while you're here, you want to do this. Uh, and they had like one or two things that they needed to do while they were at the assembly. And then they of course fell into doing other things and their storylines crisscrossed by improvising it. But yeah, you need some kind of an objective.

Jared, give us an answer for the best answer we're looking for here on who took a gamble. Real life fiction? Anybody? Sure. It pains me to say this as a Canadian, but I'm going to give you George Washington. George Washington. George Washington. George Washington. Yep. Crossing the Delaware saying screw Christmas. We're doing this.

Yep. The attack, the attack on was it Trenton? I think it was on Trenton. Uh, thank you all, Jared. That's a great answer. Yeah. That attack, crossing the Delaware under cover of night to, to put an attack onto a fort.

Uh, United States is the greatest country in the world, the most powerful and greatest country in the world. And, uh, our leaders, you know, were the smartest and I think the most visionary of any other country. Uh, sorry, just going back to the stupid characters of Prometheus real quick, I got shut out asking Ouija and Twitch chat who said Charlize Theron's character forgets how to run to the left. That's absolutely true.

That's absolutely right. You remember this, right? Like the ship is crashing and she just keeps running in a straight line and it hits her and it's like, you could have just, you could have run to the left. Just run to the left. Absolutely true. Oh, that's awesome. Grey Wolf is back.

Let's see. If you, did you keep your job? Can you get your answer in real quick here? Grey Wolf? Oh, he's behind. Yeah. What? Who's someone that took a big gamble?

Yes, we can. Okay. Um, big gamble is captain Kirk captain Kirk on the, uh, yeah. Specifically when he hacks hacks the Kobayashi Maru test. Oh yeah. That's good. Good answer. I like that Captain Kirk hacks. I was thinking you were gonna cite the episode the Corbomite maneuver where he bluffs to an alien ship that his ship is made of Corbomite and the Resulting explosion of an attack will destroy both ships. Oh My Corbomite maneuver good one good one. All right, let's do lightning round here. We're just going to get you in, and all you get to do is give us your answer to the question. We'll get as many people in as we can in the next three minutes before we got a cut to finding a winner here.

So let's see, Idlex? Idlex? Is that how you say your name? Idlex, are you there? Hi, can you hear me? Yeah, we got you. We can hear you, I. I know you got an answer for who took a gamble I was racking my brain trying to come up with an answer for this one. This one is kind of obscure So I don't know if you know it Characters kaiji ito from kaiji series of manga and anime. It's a gambling series.

I'm sorry, Ida, like, but every time we do a contest, someone's like, okay, so this is a little obscure, but there's a manga that only I've read. Yeah, it's always the manga that is like the thing, like nobody's ever heard of. It's always a manga. Kaiji Ito is what a gambler? He is a gambler who owes money to the to the underworld and he ends up in a series of games where he has to win these games when these gambling games or he ends up as a slave or he loses his life. Okay yeah you don't really have a huge gamble. Thank you. I'd like, so you really can't have much more on the line than that. Like win this game of blackjack or

you literally die. Uh, all hail Lord Bezos. I just, I was, I was, I was reading his name as I was saying it. Oh, hell Lord Bezos. What do you got? Uh, so, um, kind of similar to our last guys, but maybe a little bit less. Uh, here we go. Is the, uh, squid games, Sean G. Hoon, the main protagonist who takes a large gamble by going into a game of death in order to, uh, not be killed by the mafia. Hey, that, that is not similar to the last one, because I've heard of Squid Game and I know who the main character is and I know how he takes a gamble.

What is his name? Oh, or that's the Shao Jivun. It's fine. Don't worry about it. I'm just going to write down Squid Game protagonist. Thank you for the answer. Yeah, that is not in the same realm, considering that squid game is and I could be wrong about this, but I think I'm right. That squid game is the most watched Netflix show in history. Right. So that's not the same as an obscure anime or obscure manga. Excuse me. Song Ji Hun is the character's name song Ji-sung Ji-hun Oh Jim with twins put it in chat. Thank you, Jen. You're the best All right, let's oh no, we're out of time. I'll do one more. Mr. Morning. Sorry for everybody who couldn't get in mr Morning, what do you got?

Hello, can you hear me? We got you. We got you. Give us the last answer real fast The Emperor's New Groove the movie was almost not made the way as a comedy. It was originally supposed to be a really serious movie. Disney almost dropped it completely. And they decided to make it a comedy. And so Disney. So Disney. They fired a, yeah, Disney, just the Emperor's New Groove specifically.

Got it. Yes. Thank you. Awesome. And you can play the Emperor in Lorcanah. I was actually killed by the llama from Emperor's New Groove in a game of Lorcanah recently. Hey, smartass, did you see the Lorcanah card in Discord chat? No. Jen with two N's posted the card of the alley uh, the alley cat that you like the actual card.

Jen is such a beast. I mean, my Arista cat's deck is going to destroy, especially once I get that racist Japanese cat that they have to put a disclaimer on the movie about. Oh, I'm going to just kick ass with my Arista cat's deck. Oh God. That's so good. Anyway, I can't find it. Oh, there it is. It's 1233 Eastern times. So nine 33 year time. You scroll back. You'll see the discord chat. Yeah. And discord chat. Thomas O'Malley, feline charmer. It's got stats an everything. Thomas O'Malley feline charmer. I'm gonna go ahead and say guys,

I don't think I can play Lorcan. I'm already making fun of Star Wars Unlimited cause it has cards like Lando Calrissian's cigarette case, Poe Dameron's belt buckle. So I don't know if I can do Thomas O'Malley feline. Jared. So guys, I know that you think like you call in your, your, your might be a little nervous. You're putting yourself out there and then Jared is just like mean, like just mean to you. I'm not mean. I just want to make something very clear. Jared sat down next to

Matthew and I, who were playing Star Wars Unlimited. And he was like, what are you guys doing? We're like Star Wars Unlimited. He's like, huh, uh, well, you know, I want to see what this is like. And within three minutes, he just made fun of us for like 15 minutes while we were playing the game and the game made fun of us and the game and us for playing the game. Yes. So it's not, he does it to those he loves for sure. And all right, let's, let's pick a winner here. Again, I'm going to send out this sweet, uh, used lightly used, uh, dice set that I've used in the past. I got this gorgeous dice set from Norse Foundry with the glass cannon John on it. It is a clear quartz holographic set. This is not a Joe set.

This was pre Joe set era. This is a set that I was gifted and played with for a while. And now I'm ready to pass it on to somebody in the niche. So I'm going to go ahead and copy and paste our answers here in Discord chat, Jared. So if you want to look in Discord chat, hopefully this makes sense in Discord chat, Jared. So if you want to look in Discord chat, hopefully this makes sense. Discord chat, I'll be ready. Let's take a look here.

Leading off with Fisco was the person that leaves the safety of their home or their comfort zone to take on a risky venture. That was answer number one. And then we go on from there. Lots of fun answers. Han Solo, Senator Brutus of the Roman Senate, Donald Trump, the GCN guys, Evil Can Evil. Chicky Donahue, by the way, was the name of the guy that did the greatest beer run ever. They made a movie of this.

A guy left America to bring his buddies in Vietnam beer. The greatest beer run ever. His name is Chicky Donahue, played by- Chicky Donahue, okay. Played by who we were just talking about My god, his name is that Gafferin Zach Gafferon. Yeah We got babes farmer Lord Lloyd Christmas, Toranaga Captain Kirk from hacking the Kobe more the Koba Marashi or wait them go by

George Washington crossing the Delaware to attack Toronto, or Toronto, Trenton. Freudian slip there. Kaiji Ito, squid game protagonist, and then Disney for the Emperor's new groove. You got one or two that jump out. I've got my, I've got my, I've got my top three. I've got my top three. Okay. My number one is the person that leaves the safety of their home to take on a risky event.

That's a joke. I almost like specifically, I had already, I had already announced that the joke was done, so I couldn't do it, but when Bad Syntax said Lloyd Christmas, I was gonna say, sorry, it was taken by Fisco, because that is the exact story of Lloyd Christmas. I was going to say sorry, it was taken five minutes ago. Because that is the exact story of Lloyd Christmas. But please, by all means. Okay, let me go to my number two. Kaiji Ito. He's from a manga that was published in 1997. Okay, and then your third choice?

And my third choice would be Senator Brutus of the Roman Empire. Of the Roman Republic. Senator Brutus of the Roman Senate. Okay, so that was not, none of those were in mine. So this is interesting. So my top three were Evil Knievel, Lloyd Christmas, and Toranaga. I love those answers. So what I'll do, why don't you pick one and I'll pick one.

We'll send them to McD and he can decide. So you pick one of yours. Can I just change it now? Yeah. I can? Okay. I'm sending it to McD. I'll send it to him in our Streamyard chat.

Oh, you're going to keep it private. Okay. Is that? Oh, well, I can send it in the Discord chat here. Or just say what it is. Oh, you're gonna keep it private. Okay. Is that oh well I can send it in the discord chat here Or just say what it is. Oh, yeah. Okay. I'll just say what it is. I'm gonna go with Brutus Brutus. That was my only serious answer Okay, great. And you know what? I just I loved it so much. I'm gonna go with Lloyd Christmas So I thought that was a fun answer. I never would have thought of and the man was at a risk. So McD, you got Lloyd Christmas or Brutus? Senator Brutus of the Roman Senate, both great answers. Break the tie for us. Who should win this sweet Dice set?

I think the winner is the person that leaves the safety of their home or their home to take on a risk. All right. Okay, I guess it's gonna have Who took a big gamble people who gamble? You know dozens of these people damn it Uh, I don't want to ironically send this dice set to fisco. I I feel like we should I think we should I think what an answer is this good. You are promoting poor listener answers going forward. I want vague answers from here on out. Vague as vague as possible. All right. If you two agree to do this, you really thought

about this and this is what you want to do. I love fiscal set it to fiscal, but you got to agree to this. Uh, I'm fine with it. I love it. The moment I heard it. So did I send it to fiscal. All right. Fisco wins with that nonsense. First answer, uh, an ironic giveaway of the listener award this week.

Uh, fiscal, uh, squid writes in Fisco is out of doctor's appointment. She'll be so excited when she gets out. Clorp Donk says what's to argue? It was obviously Fisco. All right. Well, well done Fisco. You earned yourself this sweet dice set. We'll get it out to you.

It was great seeing you in Vegas and yeah, all of you guys that came out there, it was awesome. Those of you that couldn't make it. We're sorry We missed you, but there will be more we're going to Nicheville in October. That's gonna be awesome Jared was just asking me about those dates. Hopefully you can get out there Jared. That would be awesome. Yeah, hopefully Yeah, it's gonna be such a freaking blast. So All right, I think we'll we'll wrap it up there buddy. That is yeah, that was a great episode Thank you guys for calling in.

Alien is a big, uh, that's a big topic to tackle and I- great topic. I agreed with all of your uh, all of your takes on that. I did. Masterpiece, masterpiece, huge drop-off. Yeah, and then some other fun stuff in there throughout the years, but yeah, get out there play some Alien RPG. It It's a great game look out for second edition coming soon I hope to run more of it with you guys in various nation events So until then take it easy everybody have a good one, and we'll see you next week. Bye It's time to 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 join the naish.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 jointhenash.com and use code GCN30 at signup to get your first 30 days for free. Tell your friends, come join yourself, and see what everybody's talking about when you join the Naish today.

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