The Glass Cannon Podcast - Glass Cannon Radio #28 – Paula Deming/Board Gaming 101/Doctor Who

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

With Joe out this week, Paula Deming joins Jared as a guest host! They discuss Board Gaming 101, Doctor Who, and why changes in established media are tricky. Plus, a debate on the use (or overuse) of Perception in Pathfinder 2E! Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/F2wpMbCztJk⁠ 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

No frills, delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points on your first five orders. Shop now at nofrills.ca. You are listening to the Glass Cannon Network, the premier source for role-playing game entertainment. This is Glass Canaan Radio with your host, Jared Logan, in Joe O'Brien. Hi. Oh, here's the music.

Yay! Hey, hi, welcome to Glass Canaan Radio, everybody. We kind of had a little bit of a technical issue or two this morning, but we're afternoon, depending on where you are in the world. But we are here now. It is myself, Jared Logan. Oh, God, and I'm blurry. I'm not ready.

I'm not ready to do the show. It's me, Jared Logan, and with me today, my guest hosts, the amazing. Paula Deming, everybody. Hi, Paula. Hello. Hello. I'm happy to be here. Joe always has, like, crazy big energy at the start of these things.

And I feel like, should we be? doing that but another part of me's like we don't have to. We can just be ourselves. I like Joe's crazy big energy but we can have a different kind of energy. We were saying that we're going to have more of like a delicious dish type of energy. Yes. People know the S&L delicious

dish sketch. We're just here. I feel like I need to be closer to my microphone to like really do it. Be a little closer to your microphone and speak a little more. Speak a little smaller. Yeah. Yeah. That's really nice. It's a really nice time today. Yeah. Hanging out, taking

your calls, talking about things, and we just really hope that you'll join us here for Glass Canaan Radio. Yeah, and now cut to 50 people going, Paula's audio is low! And then committing Sepuku, because that's how intolerable that is. Guys, we have a really fantastic show planned for you today. And because I have Paula, it's like a Paula show. We're going to do some things. Some topics that Paula knows a little bit about and talk about some things we both love. We're going to start off with board games.

We're going to talk about board games 101. And I just wanted to point out that one of our Discord followers, Harry 1385, said he doesn't really care about board games. So thanks for letting us know. Guys, whenever the topics, whenever we list the topics of Glass Cana Radio, be sure to run to the socials and announce whether you don't care about them. Right, right, right. That's always really great. Here's my favorite thing, if we're going to throw out things that sometimes

happen in a live stream, is when you're streaming and then another channel goes live and the people in chat go, oh, this other channel just went live, so I'm going there, bye, I'm like, thanks. You could just go without telling me that you're choosing someone else other than me. It's almost like the, it's almost like the fans of some of this stuff don't understand social cues. Anyway, today we're going to talk about board games, generally, sort of all the different types.

Then we're going to talk about the teach. How do you teach your friends how to play a board game or a tabletop role-playing game? Because that comes up a lot when you and your friends are playing a new game. Maybe you're about to teach your friends. Maybe you're about to play your first blades in the dark. How do you teach them how to play that? We're going to get into that. Then we're going to get into a show that Paul and I both love.

If Paula is cut up, I am not. We're going to talk about Doctor Who, an enormous pylon of geek culture, an old school major geek property. Then we're going to talk about changes. What do you do? How do you feel and how do you handle it when an IP that you really love or a show that you really love or something that's part of your geek diet changes? Maybe the cast changes, the setting changes, something like that. So we're going to talk about that a little bit. And then finally, we're going to have a little debate and switch where Paula and I will debate a topic.

And there might be kind of a twist. So, Paula, welcome. I'm so glad we finally got you to co-host the show. Me too. Did you get home from Jen Con, okay? Did you have any travel difficulties? Was everything cool? It was very smooth, very nice.

I have no complaints other than the ride back from the airport in the lift was one of the worst rides in a lift I've ever had just because I don't get car sick. But the way this particular car like braked and accelerated, you felt all of it like you were taking off in a spaceship. I think it was an electric car. And so, like, the way, I don't know, but it was, I was like, oh, no. And it was, you know, an hour from the airport. Yeah. To my home. So, but other than that, everything was great.

That's great. Sometimes I get Uber drivers who make me confront harsh realities about our society. And I don't mean this as a joke, but I will tell this story, which is potentially sort of horrifying, which is I got him with an Uber driver last. Jen Con or the Jen Con before, and it was after the Glass Canaan party, so it was like almost 1 o'clock in the morning, and this Uber driver picked me up, and he kept getting phone calls from his mother, whom he would put on speaker, and she was like not making a lot of sense, and it was just him driving while he was like, Mom, you have to eat something. Oh, my gosh.

Eat some bread. Maybe don't. And I was like, this is not the type of customer service that I'm accustomed to. No, I didn't. I was like, okay, big tip for this guy, because he and his mom are going through some shit. Sometimes you get in an Uber and you're like, wow, this person's going through some shit. Yeah. And then it makes me go, I don't really want to be in the car with them.

If that's the case, frankly. It's true. You want someone who's at least. emotionally well. Yes. Every time I get on an airplane, I say quick little prayer for the emotional and mental health of the crew on board, if I'm honest. Have you watched the new season of the rehearsal with Nathan Fielder? Are you a Nathan Fielder fan?

I am a Nathan Fielder fan, and I've not watched. I'm just going to bring up my audio because I'm being told that it's a little quiet. No, let them enjoy your audio at the level you've decided to put it at. Don't listen to them. What's important to me is that I'm balanced with you. So hopefully that's better. Keep me posted, everyone. Yes, I really enjoy Nathan Fielder.

I love Nathan for you. One of my favorite things I've ever seen on television is his, I think it's called Thank You for Smoking episode of Nathan for You. Uh-huh. I think it's absolute art. And I've seen the first season of the rehearsal, but I've not yet. yet watched the second season. Well, the second season is incredible.

I'm not done with it, but it's incredible so far. But I will say, if you plan on taking a lot of airline flights and you have that kind of anxiety, you sort of just mentioned, I would wait and watch it when you don't have any flights coming up very soon. Because it's all about airline crashes. Oh, good. It's the second season. Oh, good.

It doesn't spoil anything. Well, let's get into the huge airline crash that is this show today. We've already bungled our tech to start off, but from here on out it's going to be smooth, a smooth ride, no turbulence. Smooth ride, at least over on the Discord. If you're having trouble on the Twitch, come on over to the Discord. I don't know what you have to be to access it, but be that. And then it'll be great. You have to be a subscriber to the Glass Cannon.

Oh, yeah, the Twitch is acting weird, huh? The Twitch is, we're having a, there's a little bit of a connection issue, I think, over on our Twitch. We're having an OBS nightmare, maybe. You know. Great, great. Paula, I'm so sorry that this is the episode that you're on. That's okay. We'll have a perfect tech episode with Paula on it again soon.

Let's go ahead and start getting into our topic. So let's talk about board games. Let's do it. I think that this is a giant, giant topic for geeks. They have become so huge board games in the last 15, 20 years. I can remember them sort of growing and becoming more of a thing, you know, as I got older here. I'm someone who plays a lot of RPGs, but I don't actually get a chance to play a lot of board games, Although you and I got to play Dune Imperium.

We did, which is one of my favorite games, yeah. Yeah. I'm actually surprised, Jared. I thought, so I started in board games before doing more in the TTRPG world. And I am surprised to find out that not that many people are into both things the way that I am. I thought there would be more crossover than there seems to be. Yeah. Well, they do.

they do require a different set of tools, I feel like. You know, in a board game, you generally are looking for the most optimal move possible. You know, you're using your logic circuits a little bit more to kind of, you know, in a board game has a win condition. Someone is trying to win it. Whereas an RPG, you're using a little bit more of your soft, creative brain. and there's no winner. So they're very different beasts.

Yes, yes. That's very true. Yeah. Yeah. I think the reason I tend to play more RPGs is because I do have more of that creative storytelling brain than I have that sort of logic brain. And I don't mean, the way I'm even saying it almost sounds like I'm denigrating it. I don't think that there's anything. I admire people who are able to kind of think a couple movies.

who have that sort of chess mindset and are able to apply that to something like Terra Mystica or something like that. Sure. But what's great is not every game is like that. I find that there are, if I'm going to be very reductive, two kinds of gamers. Gamers who play a game to solve a puzzle and gamers who play a game to have an experience. And people who are that like, I want to experience something are probably more the kind who would also enjoy TTRPGs.

And there are games that you can play that are more about kind of a storytelling experience or a thematic narrative experience. So we can find a game, we can find a game for everyone. Okay. I love that. And I think I definitely am a, let's have an experience type gamer. So let me just ask some questions. Let me start with a complaint.

Sure. Okay. That's not a question, but sure, you can complain. Well, there's, you're like a little kid, I have a question, and you call on them, and they say, I have a dog. And you're like, that's not a question. Thank you for sharing. Exactly. You got it. Well, I, you know, my personality is I frame everything with negativity. And yeah, I'm familiar. It works for me. It works for me. So my, my question complaint is there's this game that people love, love, love, love, love. Now, it's old now. It's quite old. But I remember. when board games started getting popular again deck building games started getting popular and my friends would always drag this game out and I absolutely hated it and it's a game called dominion I was

to say it's dominion isn't it yes I have that jotted down as a game type to talk about okay great so yeah I just I'll very briefly say why I hated it okay and the reason I hated it is I call it quiet math, which means that everyone is sort of just quietly playing their own game, you know, pulling cards and building a deck and discarding cards. Nobody is really interacting. I know that in some versions there are cards that allow you to interact, but for the most part, no one's really interacting. And to me, it's like, isn't the whole point of us getting together to play a game for us

to talk to each other and laugh and goof on each other? Not for everyone. There's a whole series, you know, this is what I think you're probably less of a Eurogamer hearing this about you because Eurogames very often have no player interaction and can be what is lovingly or sometimes unlovingly referred to as multiplayer solitaire, where everyone is kind of doing their own thing, but we're all at the table together doing it. And that can have its own kind of joy. So, well, I'll say, is for people who don't know what Dominion or a deck builder is. Dominion is the first game that was a deck builder.

And a deck builder is basically where you start, everyone starts with kind of the same deck of cards. Usually 10, 10 cards, and you're going to have a hand of five cards every turn. You're going to pull your five cards. And you're going to play all your cards out that turn. And then you discard them. and the next turn you draw your next five set of cards. And what you're doing with the cards that you're playing out is typically buying better cards from a market to add to your deck

so that your deck gets better. And hopefully as you go, you're culling, you're taking out your kind of crap cards you started with. So you have a deck that's not too chunky, you know, because you want to have a good probability of pulling the cards you want. If you have too many cards in your deck, you're not going to do that. But you want to, like, cede that deck with better cards. And Dominion is the first game that did this.

I find it to be very themeless. It is themeless. It makes you think that you're going to do something with medieval times because the cards have like castles and peasants and kings on them. But really, there's absolutely nothing about the gameplay that has anything to do with medieval times, right? No, no. It's just like pasted on. And I would say, okay, I'm being called out in our Discord chat right now. now by Des Seat. DeCcio, I'm not saying your name right, who said,

first one that got popular. It wasn't the first game with the mechanic. Let me slightly rephrase. Dominion is typically credited with being the game that brought deck building to the masses and is why we have so many deck building games now. Now there are way better ones. Have you ever played the video game Slade the Spire? No. There's a board game version of it now as well. that is a deck builder. Dune Imperium is a deck builder. Dune Imperium had this quality.

It's a combination. It's a hybrid, right? But there are deck building qualities in it, which I enjoyed very much. And I felt like the cards actually did feel like Dune. Yes. Yes. Others, Clank is a great one. I just played at Jinncom, the D.C.

deck building game. And I really liked that a lot. D.C. Heroes? It's called the D.C. Duck Building game. But it might be. There's like a ton of different. It's like Batman and Superman, right?

Yes. But I played the new version that has like, you can be the villains. Ascension is kind of a classic. I've played Ascension. I've played Ascension. So that is, that's a deck builder. But I get what you're saying about like you don't want to play a game that doesn't have any kind of like player interaction. And that's why I'm like classic Euro games or German style games are probably.

probably not going to be for you as much. A good example of this is like Settlers of Catan, or now we call it just Catan. Why don't we call it settlers anymore? They've rebranded. I don't know why. I want to call it settlers, and that's not what it's called anymore. It's like when HBO Max decided to just be Max, and we were all like, why would you take HBO off of that? We all know what HBO is and all the great work they've done.

It makes no sense. Exactly. Okay, so Catan is not a deck builder, obviously. Catan is a meeple type game. We call it, is it worker placement? Is that right? Yeah, so if you're placing, if you have meeples or cubes or anything that you're putting out on spots on a board that then get you resources or points and you might be able to block placement for other people, that's a worker placement game. A lot of people play lords of water deep.

That's kind of a classic worker placement. games. Lords of Waterdeep. It's sort of a, it's sort of like a easier worker placement, wouldn't you say? Or sort of a straightforward one? You know, I haven't played it in a really long time. Jared, it's because my gaming group for a while wanted to play it every time we got together. And I was like, I never need to play this game ever again for the rest of my life. Makes sense. That tracks. Stone Age in our discording. And now, see, now I have something nice to say about you, to see Scio, Stone Age is a great worker placement game classic.

My brother is a giant board game guy and he played Stone Age with me. Yeah, I liked Stone Age. But Dude Imperium is a mix of deck building and worker placement. Wingspan has a kind of worker placement except it's on your own board as opposed to on a shared board where you can block people. Good. I want to limit that interaction with other players, you know. Yeah, I don't want to. be in another room and I wouldn't have to look at their horrible faces, you know?

And then Euro games are great for you. Low conflict, low randomness or luck. Yeah, I've written down here, sometimes zero player interaction at all. You're not going to have combat in a game like that. Your competition's going to be over like points or resources. The theme usually doesn't really matter in Euro games. Right. Now, this is historically speaking.

Things are changing. I just don't understand. Why have a theme at all? I guess because you want to make it like visually pleasing. You want to have a reason for someone to pick the game up, I guess, off the shelf. But then that's bait and switch. You're like, hey, are you into the war of 1812? Check out this game.

And then they pick it up and they are, I am into that war. And then when they play it, they're like, this has nothing to do with wars or the 19th century or anything. Yeah. I will say games now are doing that less and less. Like we're talking about Euro games and then what you're probably going to be more into his an Ameritrash style game. But now more and more games are like, honestly, like a combination of those categories. Those categories honestly don't even really, I think, apply in a lot of ways to a lot of new

modern games that are coming out. Well, tell me what an Ameritrash game is because, so I'm not super clear on what all of these terms mean. So I did know worker placement. I didn't know that Euro usually meant no interaction, usually. So tell me what Ameritrash is. So Ameritrash, and this is a controversial term, not everyone likes it because it has the word trash in it. Sure.

Americans are trash, though. We are the trash of the world, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So some people call it American-style game. I'm trying to popularize the term Amera Venture, because it's like you're on an adventure, AmeriVenture game, maybe. So these are usually I'm trying to popularize the term Amera shit. That's also, yes.

All the way from trash down to full shit. Yeah, yeah. So these usually have more of a focus on their theme or their aesthetics. There is usually a higher luck factor. So you might be rolling dice, for example, in an Ameritrash or American style game, a thematically focused game. There's going to be more direct player conflict and interaction. You might have combat where you're rolling dice against each other to see what the result is going to be. You might have player elimination that that is in fewer and fewer games now than it used to be.

It's tend to look like people are like, oh, that game is player elimination. We don't really do that anymore. Like roll to move. We don't really do that anymore. It's not fun. And Ameritrash games. are what got me into the hobby. I started with betrayal at house on the hill, which is a game where you are exploring a haunted

house and you're literally like revealing tiles that build the house out as you go. And then things happen based on the tiles that come out and then you're rolling dice to see if like a haunt is triggered and then it starts cooperative where you're all working together. And then one of you becomes like the traitor who then turns on everyone else. I've heard great things about this. I got to try this. When Betrayal House on the Hill works, it is so brilliant. And when it doesn't, it is very broken.

So it's very swingy experience. And Zombicide would definitely be in Ameritrash, right? Zombicide is 100% in Ameritrash thing. Someone offered to send me a Zombicide Dark Ages or the medieval one, Black Plains. That's my favorite version of it. I'll take that, but really I want one of you to send me Zombicide Night of the Living debt, okay? It costs about 100 bucks, and I want you to send it to my house so I can have it, all right?

So someone else to buy it, but then send it to you. Right. So I really like zambicide. Would Twilight Imperium be in Ameritrash? Twilight Imperium is a classic Ameritrash, but it's also, I think Twilight Empire Empire also counts as 4X, which means, oh, no, I'm not going to remember what all the X's mean. Like, explore, someone will know, exterminate, expat, expat. Explore, exterminate, exterminate, that's a topic for later. Yeah, a little topic for later.

It means you're like building out a society and then expanding out and then taking over. And I can't explore, expand, exploit, exterminate. Thank you, Elf Barf in chat and other people. War of the Ring, Arkham Horror, Eldridge Horror. Anything where you're like a character with special stats is probably more on the. These might be my favorite type of... That's going to be your jam more, I think. Because it's more of an experience, right?

Yes, you're kind of putting out a little story. A dungeon crawler, you know, like dissent, or, you know, something like that maybe. Because that feels a little more like you're playing an RPG. Right. But then you have games that I think are really a mix, like Gloomhaven, I think is a real mix between a Euro game and an Ameritrash game. Well, I think Gloomhaven is close to an RPG. You know, this is why I'm not really interested in Gloomhaven.

It's like an RPG, but with some of my parts I love and an RPG taken out of it, right? What, like what, it's a dungeon crawler. You control a specific character. That character has certain special abilities, right? There is a story. There is like a plot that, you know, unfurls as you go through the game campaign. style. And yet, you are absolutely not expected to and perhaps even discouraged from actually engaging in role playing while you play it. And it is way more in the board game mode of

picking the most optimal move at all times. Really? Like, you kind of look at Gloom Haven. You're like, oh, a dungeon crawler. But actually, Gloom Haven is all about hand management and action economy. Because you've got cards in your hand and you have to strategize. It's a puzzle. How do I play the right card at the right moment to optimize my move? Because if I don't do that, I will get destroyed.

So to me, it's like an RPG for people who are afraid to play an RPG. Well, my understanding is that Isaac Childress designed it because he wanted to play RPGs or his group wanted to play RPGs, but no one wanted to GM. So it was like,

well, what if I could make a game where no one had to GM? And that's kind of how Gloom Haven came about. Interesting. What didn't they want to jam? Oh, Marco in our Discord chat, games like Oathsworn are more RPG-type board games. I let Oathsworn into the Deepwood is super fun if you're looking for narrative choices that feel meaningful. Plus like monster fights and you have like a portion of the game that's like the narrative portion. and then you go into the combat portion

and it's super fun. Great. That's my kind of info dump on a lot of things. Are there any other types we haven't covered? Are there any others that we should briefly mention? Eight million other. Like, I feel like kind of Ameritrash. Some people say Amera Thrash,

because it's almost the same but different. Frash as a word is just trying too hard. Those are kind of our. big like umbrellas and underneath that we there's lots of other kinds of games we could talk about i think deck builders was something i'd wanted to mention because i know you like dude imperium yeah but i mean there's so many kinds of things i don't hate deck builders i um it sort of depends i do like for the theme to matter a little bit in a game uh i don't really like i guess i don't really like euros that much but um so there's are there any subtypes that

we might want to mention, or if not, that's cool. We could start taking some collars. I think we could take some collars. Let's take some collars. Let's just, guys, come on here. Tell us your favorite type of board game or a board game you tried recently that you thought was incredible. I see Tuck Tuck Tuck. Tuck has been raising their hand for a while.

McDee, can we bring Tuck Tuck up here? Also, if anyone has a suggestion other than Amera Venture on what to call an Ameritrash game, that feels less offensive. or insulting, I'm open to hearing that. We'll make it happen. Yeah. I think I can invite to speak here. Tuck, can you hop up here?

Hey. Hey, y'all, can you hear me. Yeah, I can hear you. I can hear you loud and clear, almost too loud and clear. Okay. Oh, well, sorry, good headphones. No, it's me, you know. Go ahead, bud.

All right. Yeah, so I was starting off. You know, you guys already mentioned the trail house on the hill. that was kind of my intro to games like board games and kind of this disrespect but I kind of have a question so games like like Scythe and kind of these more

complicated I guess kind of strategy based games if you have you know players of different kind of ability in that range like you know I played Scyth with my buddy who is leagues ahead of me and his ability to strategize and think ahead on the game and then we played with my fiancee who is

brilliant in writing and other things but not great at that. So we had kind of three different levels and how do you how would you balance that out or is there you have ways that you maybe play different games maybe each game that you play

maybe there's a game that's better for your fiance that you play later after you play Seith one week I don't know what do you think? Yeah oh that's tricky like like do you like kind of house rule almost like like a handicap happen to the game or, yeah, I don't know. Part of it's like, that's such a good question. I feel like that's a challenge that I feel myself. Like, how do we find a game that kind of

fits the needs of everyone, someone who is really good at that kind of strategic, long-term thinking while playing a game with someone who's more good. Like, I'm more like tactical. I can think one turn ahead, but if you need me to set something up now that's going to pay off in three turns, that is not going to go well for me, which is why actually I bounce off of Scyth myself, because by the time I get my engine going, the game is literally over. Right. That's what happened to do. Yeah.

We're not all created equal in the strategy arena. I'm very bad at strategy. So, I mean, I don't know. I think, you know, you just need to play Scyth one week, but then the next week play something your wife would be better at, like, I don't know, code names or is that the lamest answer ever i love code names i don't think i think code names is super fun um i don't think that's a lame answer i think that probably is the right answer like saying like okay we're playing two games at our game night we're going to start with sife and then we're you

know because we know that like my buddy it's really his jam and then we're going to play this other game that's really your jam and then we've like everyone feels like they've had a chance to do something that they, that works with their brain. I know that, you know, RPGs are the same way. You have to tailor it to your group. Not every group is going to want to play Pathfinder 2E, you know. Yeah. So, all right.

Thank you, Tuck, Tuck, so much. Thanks, Tuck, I don't know if we were helpful, but. Yeah, I don't know if you were either. No, I mean, that's kind of what I expected, but yeah. Thanks, y'all. Quickly, I will say, and you can hear this answer off air or on air, whatever. Jared, do what you need to do. But there is another game in the Scyth world that works a little better for me.

And it's called, oh, shoot, now I'm going to forget it, expeditions or let me look it up. It's a huge expeditions board game. Let me make sure. Yes, expeditions. It's by Stonemeyer. It is in the world of Scyth, but it plays very differently. And it works way better for me. So it might be something worth looking into that, like, if your friend is super into the theme of Scythe, might still also be able to, like, jive with this.

And it might be something that, like, your wife might have more of, like, a grasp on the way this particular strategy works. So that's, look at expeditions. It's just, it's huge. I'll take up your whole table. I have brought Marco to the stage. Marco, can you hear us. Hi, Marco. Yeah, I can hear you.

Yeah, you sound great, Marco. How's it going, man? Yeah, good, good. Thanks. Yeah, I've got a sizable board game collection much to my wife's chagrin. But a couple of other sort of types of games that haven't been mentioned yet

that I don't know, maybe of interest to Jared, are LCGs like Arkham Horror, expensive to get into. But they are very thematic. And they do feel like you're working through a story when you're playing them so they are a bit more of that sort of event type thing.

Yeah. Arkham Horror, the card game, I think this is a great suggestion of something that might be fun to look into, Jared. It's almost kind of like a deck builder,

though you're building your deck more like in between games to improve it as you take your characters through these different stories and working together with the other players to like meet the challenges. It's co-op, yeah. I think that's a great suggestion.

Yeah. And the other type, I just wondered how you both felt about the sort of, you know, the social deduction type games, blood in the clock tower, where we'll fall of that? You know, people love the hell out of those games. And I got to tell you, that's another one. And I'm very biased. And maybe this is kind of stupid, but I still would rather just play a role-playing game where we're solving a mystery. You know, I'd rather just, like, I'd rather... I think they're easier to get non-role players into, though,

because it's a sort of one, you know, it can be done in an hour or whatever. True, it's a bit of role-playing, but you're not rolling dice. You're not having to teach lots of rules to them. Absolutely. Those are the benefits. Absolutely. And I still, and I haven't played Blood on the Clock Tower or watched anybody play it, but I've played some ultimate werewolf and things like that.

And I'm always like, oh, God, I wish we were just playing a role-playing game about a village that has a werewolf in it. But that's me. I think it'd be, and I wonder what you would think, Jared. I think that's a really fun topic suggestion, Marco. Thank you for that. I think I'd be curious to know what you think of Blood on the Clock Tower if you were ever play it, Jared. because something that I think Blood on the Clock Tower does that elevates the social deduction genre, one of the problems I have with social deduction games is player elimination.

If you're voted out in the first round, sorry, you just don't get to play for 45 more minutes. And also, there tends to be a lot of, we're voting them out because, because, because they look shifty. And you're like, well, that's not actually a reason. But blood on the clock tower actually gives you kind of a reason to start to like feel suspicious of people and have a reason to maybe start voting people out. And the best thing about blonde on the clock tower is when you're killed either by the demon or by your fellow villagers, you're not actually out of the game. You're allowed to talk. You're allowed to interact.

You still play. You just don't get to vote for who dies except for one more time. So your vote becomes very important once you're a ghost. But you're still actually playing and interacting just the way almost that you would be if you were still alive. And I think that fixes a lot of the issues I have. And Blood on the Clock Tower is great, too, for people who really love puzzles. Because you have these set scenarios with the different kinds of characters. And you can really, it's not how my brain works, but you can really puzzle out the identities of people.

And I think that appeals to a lot of people. Thanks, Marco. Thanks. Yeah, thank you, Marco. Here's what I'll say about those social deduction games also, Paula, is I'm extremely bad at being the monster. I played, this wasn't a social deduction game, but I played The Thing, the board game.

Oh, yes. Uh-huh. You can, you know, draw a card that says, you are the thing. It's got a hidden traitor mechanic, yeah. It's got a traitor mechanic. And I drew the card that said I was the thing. And the first time a word came out of my mouth after that,

my friend was like, you're the thing because my face was bright red because I am the, you can ask my wife, I am the worst liar on earth. It's stressful. Sometimes when I'm doing a bit, I'm pretty good at it. Anyway, let's take one more call and then we'll get into the second aspect of this. Oh, look, it's the person who hates board games. Harry 3, 1385.

Let's get the guy that hates board games up here. I don't hate board games And I preface Let me just read with your road here Harry I was on the show I'm just read what you wrote here She said I'm very excited about Paula being on the show

But I also don't really care about board games Yeah I don't I like playing them I love playing them because I'm a very competitive person I come from a very competitive family We're the only people in the world who enjoy Monopoly because we just like fighting each other Let me let's play some better games

in the not. I mean, you can find something better. I have played many of them. I love playing a werewolf. I love playing co-names. I love playing them. But for me, the fun part is the competitiveness. It's like the interactions with each other. And so the specifics of the game just don't matter to me at all. Interesting. No, I feel that. May and my family, we are super happy to just play like basic card games,

like Bull or we play Kluke a lot. It's like a Greek separate game, which is excellent. poker like just stuff like that like the the specifics and the flavor of the game it just doesn't playing chess with my daughter who's six but so you know we don't get all the rules right but so harry i have a question have do you ever play cooperative games then or do you stay away from them because they don't have that competition i don't stay away from them by i i pretty much the only people i play board games with are my family and so it's all very basic stuff you know No, it's no, I haven't gotten into, like, I haven't heard of most of these games that you've mentioned so far.

Because I just, with friends, I play tabletop games, you know, we just never really go. You play RPGs with your friends. Yeah. Yeah, sorry, tabletop. Yeah. I have. Okay, I have a suggestion for you, Harry. I don't know how easy it will be to get, to get your hands on.

So forgive me if it's not. But I'm just thinking of what's a game that's not Monopoly that might have sort of that feel that you, you could maybe try playing with your family. If you can, look into a game called QE, it's the two letters, QE, you are still, like, bidding on, like, properties, but you're not, there's no board. You're not, like, rolling dice. You have your own little player board because you're representing, like, a country

who's trying to, like, it's about, like, gosh, what is it called, like, futures? Or, you know, like, you're, like, bidding on the value. you of something to like make your country the best or whatever. Paula, you're not selling me. I'm not selling it at well at all. But hold on. I'm just imagine, hey, I'm excited, Paula. I'm just imagining selling this to my family.

Yeah, no. That's what I'm thinking about. So the fun part of this game is, because it's rather abstract, but the fun part of this game is different things are going to come out and you're going to bid on them and you're going to bid secretly, but you can bid anything. There is no set, you have no actual like money in front of you. So you start the game off being like, I'll bid $4,000 for that tile that's going to let me check some things off on my box. And like three turns in, people are like at some point it tips and someone's like $1 billion, $1 billion for this.

And so it just becomes this crazy thing where you can literally make up money. But the trick is whoever has spent the most at the end of the game loses. So you're always trying to, like, push the boundary of how much you're spending, but not so much that you have spent the most. You want to have spent the second most. It just look into it. Maybe watch some videos about it. Joe O'Brien tried this game and said he loved it as well. What's it called?

It's called QE. QE. They should also change the name of it. I mean, we're always, we're always playing the name. How are you going to get excited to play QE? That's, I know, but it's, it's, I feel like if you like Monopoly, it's not the same, but it might have a, I wouldn't say we like when I'm up here. I'll say we play it.

We don't like to we play it, fair enough. Harry, we all know that you do not care about board games. We know this. I can't tell you by Doctor Who and I'm very excited to hear about. Oh, well, then maybe we'll bring you up again when we get to Doctor Who. That'll be awesome. Thanks for the call, Harry. Thanks, Harry.

All right. So let's move into our second topic here. You know, there's an aspect of board games that becomes very important. You know, we were just talking to Harry about how he could get his family into a new board game. And that is very, very tricky getting your family or friends to try a new board game with you. And so the key aspect is the teach. How do you teach someone a new game? So let's talk about that, Paula.

I'll give my two cents. And I'll say that, you know, RPGs require a teach as well. But I think the teach on RPGs is both easier and harder. And I'll explain what I mean very quickly. I think everyone knows how to role play, you know, how to like play pretend, all right? Yeah. So generally, I'm a teach as you go kind of teacher with RPGs. I try to get them role playing first, you know, pretending that they're in the scene and reacting to things and making decisions.

And then when they say, oh, I want to pick this lock, that's when I bring the rules out and start to explain how the rules work. Now, I say that's easier and harder because, like, it's easier because I don't have to explain all these rules up front and make sure that they understand them. But it's harder because it can get very, getting people to role play, depending on who you're talking to, can be very difficult. Yes. Yeah. Not everyone is comfortable being, there's an emotional vulnerability to role playing. Yes. And I'm not even talking about character interaction like you do in Blood of the Wild where, you know, you're having.

Emotions and talking in character. I mean, like, even just pretending to be somewhere and see things and make decisions based on that input is very hard for some people. Their brains do not work that way. So they teach on a role playing game, you know, I think it can be like as needed. You know, if you're playing a space game, you don't need to get into space combat rules the first time. You can just kind of deal with. Like, you can do a whole session where you're just dealing with the core skill mechanic of how to see if you succeeded at a skill or not. So you can teach it pieces at a time.

But with a board game, you can't really do that. Yeah, some games you can sort of learn as you go. I used to try and do that more. Like, we'll just learn as we play. But, like, that's not really the best experience. And everyone is going to learn a board game. differently. Something I've learned about myself is if I'm not going to be taught the game by a person at Game Night, if I need to learn it separately for myself, I need to, I benefit the most from

watching a video about the game and then reading the rules because I need the visual context and then I can understand what I'm reading from the rule book. That's my brain. But for me, I think something that gets missed out in teachers for board games a lot is like the big picture, right? So I think it's always important to start with here's the concept of the game. Here's what we're trying to achieve, like the objective. Here's how you're going to win. And we're going to attempt to earn those points by doing, by placing tiles, deciding what they're next to and gathering wood or whatever. Right. The who, what, where, when, and why.

Give me the big picture to contextualize now all the little details you're about to give me. And then you can go, okay, on your turn, you're going to have one action and it's one of these three things, this, this, and this. And I already have a bit of an idea in my head of why I would do those three things. Right. Because I know what the big picture for the game is. People skip that bigger picture all the time, though. You've got to like, you have to give the who, what, where, when, and why? Why are we doing this?

Yeah. Who are we? What, you know, what, what is this? Like, yeah. It's like, okay, cool. I can place my worker there and get three wood, but what is the point? And for me, like, that's not going to stick in my head if I don't know why I would be doing that. Right.

How do you win? Like, people, it's so nuts, but, like, people can totally, like, you know, a good rules book says, here's how you win, like, at the very beginning of the rule book. Like, yeah. But people when they're teaching games, will forget. to say how you win like very early on. Yeah, I actually found I was just talking about this with some people. A detail that always gets forgotten about and you'll be like three turns into a game and you'll go, wait, what's the end condition? Like how does the game end? And a lot of times that gets forgotten about and the teach is what actually causes the game to end. And that's important to know

because like if it's, oh, the game ends when the first player has run out of cubes. Like I need to know that so that I know, oh, Jared only has four cubes left. I better, like, I don't have infinite number of turns to make my plan happen. I have four turns to make my plane happen because, you know, like, and that's important, important to know, yeah. Yeah. Okay, so who, what, where, when, and why, how to win. Those are, those are super important.

What else would you say is super important when you're teaching people working? And I think turn structure, knowing what your turn looks like and then the things you can do on your turn. And then, and then like from there, and then you get more and more kind of granular as you go from there. Now we talk about the specifics of those actions that you can do on your turn. And now it's like, and then at the end of the round, this happens. And then, you know, like, and then at that point, you've basically, you've basically done it. You've done it.

So you basically walk each player through what their turn might look like. I was reading a little bit about this online, some advice, and I think some of the best advice I saw. was to play a couple rounds that don't count, right? Like, just play a couple rounds that don't even count to let everybody kind of try it out. What do you think of that? Or is that too time-consuming or? I think it depends. Like, I think if it's a game where sometimes you'll be like, hey, we're going to do just a learning round.

The first round, it's a learning round, like maybe something that's a card game. This one's a learning round. We're going to play with open hands just for the first round. and so everyone will understand what's going on. And then we're kind of actually fully in it. But I think sometimes that can take too much time to do. So that's why I think the person teaching should be ready with examples. So like don't have like my game is not like fully properly set up when I'm about to teach it to you because I'm going to be flipping over cards to show you.

Okay, if this card comes out, this is going to happen. In this example like this, I'm going to move my meeples here so you can see when this happens, it works like this. it works like this and then we reset everything shuffle the cards now we're ready to go so i think examples yeah um and if you're the person teaching be willing to like be really open with new gamers about what you're doing and why or be willing to go i'm happy to look at that secret card that you have and help explain it to you and not use that knowledge now against you like i'm teaching you the game. You're brand new to this. You know, we don't have to play everything Uber competitive until our second game of it. You know, like, I think that's important

I mean, as a teacher. Maybe I'm really, really off base here and I'm going down a bad road, but when people teach me board games, once they go through the basics, I want to start. You're ready. And sometimes, and I don't care if I make a huge mistake. Yeah. Because I don't consider and like, if I make a suboptimal move or something, I don't consider it. I'm not mad at myself for doing that. It's my first time playing. So it's okay if I don't understand like a finer point of something or an advanced system. But then I have friends who when they teach a game, they get done with the basics.

And then they're like, okay, now let's talk about this subsystem. And they go on and on and on. And the next thing, you know, 45 minutes have passed. Yeah. I don't like that. Yeah. Well, that's good to know. Like, if I'm teaching you a game, it's good to know that you'd rather get into it. And when that thing comes up, then we could talk about it. Some people need all the information before they start. But those people are wrong, Paula. Well, they're just different, Jared, I would say they're just different. Wait, instead of different, can we say bad? Um, we could say, um, like, slightly undesirable. Maybe as a compromise.

Undesirables is a great word. Undesirables, yeah. Yeah. Well, I just... Ooh, Sharky and the Tint has some thoughts in our Discord chat about this. Tent has numbered bullet points for us. Yes. Okay.

So Sharky's going to weigh in here for teaching board games. Start with what the board game is. Fing, story, et cetera. Then his number two is start with how you win and you lose. Well, which do I start with, Sharky? You have two start withs. Then number three, run through a turn. Number four, explain the rules.

Yeah, of course, you explain the rules. Sharky, you're just repeating what Paul and I said, but with more numbered bullet points. Remind them how to win, lose, and then remind them what the board game is and start playing. So I feel like this is a little rule sandwich. It's like say these things and then repeat them in backwards order, and now you're ready to play. Yeah. All right. Let's take some calls about the teach.

Let's see if anybody has anything to say about the team. teach. I know Elijah cursed had his hand up or their hand up. I don't know why I assume a man, maybe because they rule the world. Anyway, the name Elijah feels typically male to me. But it could be anything, you know, it could mean anything. It could mean anything. Hey, Elijah, can you hear us? I can. Can you hear me? Yeah. We sure can. Did you have any thoughts on board games or teaching board games? I have thoughts on a bit of both, actually. My dad has been really into board game since I was young, so I've been playing a variety.

You started all talking about Dominion, and like that was one of the first games I can remember playing with my dad, so it's got a pretty good spot in my heart. Yeah. And I do enjoy it, but I do admit, it does get very repetitive. But there's other games like that one, Quacks of Quedlinburg is pretty fun.

It's a very random game. If you haven't tried that one, I highly recommend it. Especially if you like... Wax of Quedlinburg? Yeah, so it's like a deck built... Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'll let you... No, that's okay, go ahead, follow it. It's like a deck builder, but it's what we call a bag builder, which is like a shoot-off,

an offshoot, an offshoot of a deck builder. So instead of, thank you, it's a shoot-off, thank you. We're instead of adding things to make your deck better, your deck better, you have a bag of tokens and you're buying new tokens to add into your bag to make your bag better. And you're, I'll let you explain the actual premise of the game. that, Elijah? Sure, yeah. So from what I understand it, is you're an alchemist working for some kingdom. You're trying to brew a potion in your cauldron, and every turn you could buy different ingredients to put in your bag. And then once everyone's done buying their ingredients,

one person is that we call the drawmaster. One person will announce draw. And every time it's announced to draw, you'd reach in your bag, you'll take out a token at random. You're going get to see what's in your bag, and you place it on your cauldron. And some tokens can progress you further into the cauldron. Some tokens are worth nothing and can actually penalize you, and then you can get to a point where your cauldron can explode, or your deck would bust, basically. And you would try to get it to a certain, as far as you can, without exploding. And that's how you get one, victory points into gold to buy more ingredients.

And the more gold you have, the better ingredients you can buy. And does it feel thematic? Does it feel like you're an actual alchemist? Does it, I mean, exploding cauldron sounds pretty fun to me. Yeah, I think it feels, you know, so it's not, I mean, it's no, you don't have a little miniature of your guy with special powers and a backstory, but I feel like it feels thematic enough. And do you interact with the other players, or are you quietly building your bag by yourself?

So there's a finite amount of tokens and resources. So, like, the more expensive ones, there's less of the more expensive ones and the more powerful ones. So, like, you can buy, if you have enough currency to buy two tokens, you can buy two of the same really expensive tokens that might be the last ones, which can mess up someone else's plan or someone else's bag. This is a nice way, yeah, to make it kind of sound like there's player interaction. There's not a ton of player interaction. No, there's not. But that's okay. And this game has, Jared just introduced you to a new board game term.

So when we say push your luck, this has a push-your-luck. This has a push-your-luck mechanic because you are, should I pull out another one? Because maybe I'm going to bust, but maybe I'm not. And so that is a push-your-luck style. Is it easy to teach? Or what were your thoughts on teaching, Elijah? Yeah. I think, honestly, Quacks and Quedalda, Marib, was really easy to teach.

I'm a very strategic and logical-minded person. I like strategy games, like risk, scythe, access, and allies. My wife, on the other hand, is not very much that way. and games that involve a lot of heavy math, or even slight math, she doesn't really enjoy. So this game, she loves. And when she told me she loved it, she played it like three times in one night. I'm like, I've never seen that before.

So I'm going to go buy the big box version of this. Yeah. It's got like two expansions that add some different mechanics and stuff to it. But it's all really simple and easy to pick up. It takes like two turns, I think, as what I would say, to kind of get the flow of it and then probably by the end of like I don't know the first fifth

like fifth round six round maybe everyone's pretty much in the groove and they've relaxed they're not really worried about messing up anymore as from what I've seen as for teaching that's kind of how I do it is what kind of what you in chart you guys and Shark you were talking about was like giving a premise

of the game what the background is I guess and then run through a turn with the win and loss conditions and then so maybe some tips and tricks on how to like get head. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, that's one thing we did gloss over is kind of giving people tips on how to win,

you know, because sometimes when you start a game, you have absolutely no idea what might be a good strategy, you know. Interesting. Well, thank you so much, Elijah, for calling in. Yeah, of course. There's also one other thing. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to go ahead.

No, no, no. That's fine. Go ahead. I don't know if you guys have heard of this or anyone else in the nation has heard of this. called Board Game Arena. Oh, I'm on Board Game Arena all day long. Yeah, that loves it.

I've actually played a few games on that. I have a hard time learning new games on that. But if I play them in person, then I'm like, oh, yeah, let's play them here. Yeah, so Board Game Arena is a website where you can play a lot of digital versions of games. That's how I play games with people who don't live anywhere near me or how I get to try games that I don't own yet. there's a digital version of them on board game arena. And I tell you what, five years ago, you could not have paid me to play a game on board game

arena. It was not, in my opinion, a great platform. But now it's how I play, frankly, the majority of my games. I play digitally on the platform. It's great. Yeah. Interesting. Now, is the digital experience as fun as in person?

It depends. Some games, I would say yes. And some games, absolutely. You really should play it in person with the physical components in real time. Because on board game, you can also play real time where you're both actively, you know, we are live here on this platform taking turns. And the game is going to take 30 minutes and it's happening right now. You can also play turn-based where you take your turn when it's convenient for you

and then the next person will get a notification that it's time for their turn and they'll take their turn when it's convenient for them. So I might have a game like that that lasts a week. because we are very slowly taking our turns. So. Let's get Shiv up here and see what Shiv has to say. Shiv, I'm inviting you to speak. Join us, Shiv.

Hello, can't hear me? Yes, hello. Great, thanks. Longtime listener, first time caller. I feel honored that it's my show. Yeah, truly. I just wanted to mention that I find, so I'm a big, board game person obviously I'm listening to the show I'm also a dungeon master and I find that there's a huge overlap in teaching someone a new board game and being a good DM and what I mean by that is like if you remove yourself as like someone trying to win and instead are somebody who's like trying to help your help your table do a good job I think people really learn a lot faster that way right you don't want to win the game Raptor T's

teaching it. You don't want to be the one that wins the game after you've taught it. I mean, that's, that's so fucked up. Yeah, I mean, nobody feels good about the game and then win it. Yeah, no one likes to be, you know, oh, come over to Shiv's place and let's get beat at some new game we've never played that he may be made up to do this. So, yeah, just like taking that approach of like not being so hyper-competitive, you know, and if you do some kind of crazy, you know, combo or something like that, your table through it so they don't feel, you know, like they're getting rub pulled by whatever it is that you're doing. My wife is not a board game person, but I really am. So I've found that things like Munchkin is kind of like a meat-in-the-middle kind of game. But yeah, I guess,

so yeah, just kind of what the other folks are talking about with meeting people where they are with games. Because, I mean, if you're going to set up Sife, you're not playing another game unless you're there for a few hours, right? So like kind of, I don't know. I think that that's another kind of piece of taking your preference out of it and kind of deferring to the table of like if you've got somebody there who's not going to have a good time with your hyper-focused, you know, super strategy game. I mean, I play Warhammer and I get that. Most people don't like it. So, you know, when I've got people over to play a board game, it's like, yeah, let's do munchkin or let's do, you know, something a little bit easier, a little bit more digestible for

everybody so that everyone's having a good time. And then it's like, maybe it's not exactly what I want to do, but the rest of the group is having a better time, so it's kind of a net win situation. Isn't it so tedious to have to deal with these people that don't understand the finer points of strategy? It's the worst.

It's rough. Often we're married to them. You know? Yeah. But I'm joking and being a dipshit, but honestly, it is so hard to find a kindred soul, a kindred spirit who wants to play that very complex strategy game.

Or in my case, that TTRPG about a very specific historical period that was published in 2005 and is now out of print. It's like that meme, you know, like, you know, find yourself a nerd because they're never going to be cheating on you. They're going to be hold up in a basement or a garage with their very hyper-focused little dolls and cards and stuff, you know. Well, it's good to have different types of. people in our lives. We don't all want to be the same person. But it is hard. I mean, we should do an entire topic one day on finding a group or finding players because it is so tricky. That can be really difficult. Yeah. Anyway, thank you so much, Shiv. Yeah, thanks, Shiv. Something that that made me think of, I think it's such a, we're talking a lot about

teaching a game to people who maybe aren't playing a lot of games who have never played this game. But it is also a little different if you are teaching a game to people who are as deep into this kind of hobby as you are, right? And you're on like this, you have the same reference points. You, like, I could say, hey, so this game uses like this from Dominion and this from Lords of Waterdeep and this from Catan. And they might be like, cool, got it. And then you can go. And then if I've taught those people of the game, I'm not going to try to not win. I'm going to try to win, even though I'm the one who taught it.

As opposed to if I'm teaching a game to my parents, for example, who are like, don't have all of that same experience, then I am going to be like, okay, I'm not trying to win. I'm trying to help them have a good time while we play this. And so I think it can be a different approach, right, depending on your audience, I guess. But teaching to experienced players can have its own difficulties because they're going to have all these assumptions baked in and they are going to interrupt you to be like, oh, well, don't you want to do it like this or, you know, et cetera, et cetera. Look, I think we'll close up our board game section. I just want to say, I have an idea for a board game. Did I tell you about this, Paula?

I don't know. Is this real or is this a bit? This is not a bit. This is a real board game. The board game is you set it up and then you just take the expansion out of it. And that's the whole game. And then you time how fast you're able to. take the expansion out of the board game.

How quickly you're able to go through the decks of cards and find the little symbols that say, this is the expansion cards, and then you remove them. Exactly. Yeah, this is not a bit at all. This is a very serious game. Or maybe just a board game where the whole game is just setting it up and taking it down because it feels like that's mostly what you do when you play a board game. Anyway, if anybody wants to sponsor this.

This game, yeah. DM me and you send me money, which I will. definitely spend on developing this board game. Yeah, yeah. The last thing I'll say to close us out that we didn't talk about in terms of like a category that has been brought up a couple times on our Discord chat and I'm like, oh, I should mention this quickly. There's also a whole category of games that are solo games that you can play by yourself. And I love solo games and I recommend them. And if you want a highly thematic solo game experience, Jared, might I recommend a game called Final Girl to you?

It is about being the final girl in a horror film. And they have a million different, like literally like 20 different like modules you can get for the game where you are in a different kind of scary movie. And you can play me in the game because I have a promo card for it. So it's super fun. Everything about that sounds incredible to me except solo. We need to do an entire segment on solo gaming because there's a lot of solo RPGs right now. And I am very much not sold on the solo gaming phenomenon. The reason I play games is to look into the eyes of other human beings and laugh with them.

But I understand people love the solo gaming movement. So we should talk about that. But everything else, thematically, that sounds because you know I love a, I love a horror movies. Yeah, I love a horror movie. Let us get into Doctor Who. So I wanted to talk to Paula about Dr. Who, because you have an entire series of reaction videos, right, Paula? Would you please tell us about that? Yeah, I have a YouTube channel.

One of the many things I do is a YouTube channel called Galifrey Gals, my friend Kat and I. watch different sci-fi and other TV shows and movies and react to them. And we started with watching Doctor Who and it was special because Kat is a huge Doctor Who fan and I had never seen it before. So they were kind of guiding me through the series. And it's strange because when we first started, I was watching episodes that, you know, first aired in whatever 2005 or whenever it was. And now we're watching new episodes as they release, which is kind of a wild experience for me. But, yeah, so I've been somewhat entrenched in the Doctor Who, the Hoovian fandom here the last few years. I'm also a giant Doctor Who fan, although I have to admit I'm not caught up.

But I was heavy into Eccleston, Tennant, Matt Smith. I watched all of Matt Smith. For some reason, I puttered out during. Capaldi, but I, every, every month, I'm like, oh, I have to get back into Doctor Who. And I guess is it, it's on Disney Plus now? It's on Disney Plus now, but not all of it, just like the most recent two seasons, I think. Oh, no. So watching Jody Whitaker would be tough for me. I don't think, and you know, I'm not 100% sure. Maybe someone in our chat knows. I think it's just the shooty Gotwa era on Disney Plus, but I might be wrong about that.

It looks like I need a Brit box. Looks like I need a Brit box subscription. Okay, apparently HBO Max has the others I'm seen and Brit box. Yes. Great, because I really, really do absolutely adore Doctor Who. And I got into it with the new doctors, starting with Ackleston. And I love the tenant in Matt Smith eras. I even love some of the old stuff.

You know, I got so into it at one point. I went back and I watched some of. watched any of the classic doctor who i've seen some um it's a very different experience yeah yeah i've seen some um a chunk of first doctor stuff and then um a few yeah a few of some of the other ones but not not a ton yeah i really like john pertwee that's the third doctor and that's when the doctor is exiled to earth because of budgetary constraints um they couldn't How when he has the car? He has the car, exactly.

I've seen one arc with him in the car. Yeah. And like, they turn, people get, maybe that's the first time I saw stuff with the master because he shrinks, someone puts him in like a lunchbox. The master is introduced during the John Pertwey, third doctor run. The master is introduced. And it's also the introduction of unit, if you know. Ah, yes, yes.

Unit features heavily in newer, um, newer. The new version. The most latest seasons. Yeah. Okay. And then I also like the one right after that is Tom Baker, who I think is kind of all-time class. He's a lot of people's like doctor, I feel like, yeah. It's really hard to get into the old doctor because it's so serialized and it's so different.

And the budget looks like, I mean, it really, it looks like the equivalent of someone's whole movie from Missouri now. But it, um, the Tom Baker is an amazing performer. And there is, um, a storyline that I watched called Genesis of the Daleks during the Tom Baker. I've seen that one. Yes. And that's got like a famous monologue and all this stuff in it. But it's, it's really quite, quite interesting and awesome. So, um, so yeah, I've done the Eccleston.

I've done Tenet. I've done Matt Smith. How, can you tell me a little bit about what's been going on in the last? What is it? I guess I've missed six or seven years at this point. Yeah, because there's Capaldi, who I loved. And then Jody Whitaker after that. Well, I get, yeah, it was Jody.

And then they did, I'm trying to remember now because they brought back David Tennant briefly. So Capaldi, Jody Whitaker, who I really enjoyed. So these latest seasons, and this will launch us a little bit maybe into the next topic. so we don't have to go too deep into it until we're ready for that. But have, I think, had a bit more controversy to them because there are changes to the way the doctor is portrayed. You know, Jody Whitaker, the first female doctor. And I really, look, okay, her first series, fine. They were still kind of feeling it out.

But once you hit her her second series, I really loved a lot of what was going on in her second series. I love Jody Whitaker the way she plays the doctor. There are some incredible episodes in that kind of in that series. And oh, no, no, I've forgotten his name. The guy who plays the master, I guess this is slight spoilers that the master returned. And the guy who plays him is someone knows his name. And I think it's like Sasha. Now I can't remember, but incredible.

I mean, what an opportunity, you know, you don't get this in almost any other series or IP or type of fiction where there is one character that can be played by different gendered people, people of different races and ethnicities and backgrounds. And Dr. Who has only decided to explore this in the last 10 years. Yeah, right? And it's tricky because not everyone is a change, right? It's a different way of viewing. I don't understand what's so different about it. I mean, the differences are interesting in that it is a woman. But what's controversial about that?

Like, to me, that's a feature, not a bug that the character can be played by multiple different genders. Well, I think you're a reasonable, open-minded person and not everyone. So we're talking about sexists have a problem with it. I think there are people who are sexist, who don't want to see, cannot in there. Maybe they don't realize within themselves, but I think cannot reconcile with themselves. This person who up to this point, you know, 12 doctors have been maybe of different ages, but all white men. and to kind of change in your mind the way, like, that portrayal is difficult, I think, for some people. Well, did she play it very differently?

Or does she just, no, I bet not. One of my favorite things about Doctor Who is whether I'm always a fan of the writing, and I am not, especially in these latest, the latest end of the series is hot garbage. But the doctor is always the doctor. And I'm so impressed at the way they're. able to keep this consistent character, even with every reincarnation being a little bit different, a slightly different version, but at their core, they are that same character. And I think it's so brilliant the way the show has been able to do that. Well, he's always a really, really good person who believes in democracy, free will, the sanctity of life, right?

Sometimes. But sometimes things get a little dark because the doctor's been through some stuff. You know, You see that with Tenant's doctor, with Capaldi's doctor is actually quite angry a lot of the time. I mean, you needed that to offset how sort of hunky-dory some of the earlier doctors were. They were very like, you know, thumbs up and smiles. Yeah, but sometimes it's like, unlike something that sticks out with me with David Tenant's doctor is like, I give you one chance, but I don't give second chances. So I'm going to give you a chance to do the right thing. And when you don't, then yes, I will wipe out all of you on this planet who are here to take over. And you're like, oh, okay.

Woof, you know, like. So who's your favorite doctor? David Tennant is my doctor. Yeah. For sure. And he did a little bit longer run than some of the other guys, right? He did, did, did he do more than two seasons? Was he two or three?

I think Matt Smith felt like he was in it for a old. Wild. David Tenant did, I think he did three. If I'm, I can't remember now. But I love David Tenant. And then I would say it's a toss-up for me between Capaldi and Whitaker. I really like both of them a lot. Yeah. I have a hard time myself with Clara as a companion. I find the way she is written incredibly frustrating. The companions can be a make or break. Sometimes the companions are a little, annoying or stupid or yeah you know sometimes i want a companion to hang on longer and then they go away you know and i'm yeah sometimes they're very quick i have less problem with the doctor's regenerations than his new choices of companion usually sometimes like i wish they would carry over more like sometimes they have it where the doctor changes but the companion doesn't i'm like i need something familiar to hold on to because it is hard like it's hard the first time you see the new episode with the new doctor like we're going to get into all that yeah that's our next

topic it's a super important topic we can really get get into but let's just stay on doctor who for a little bit longer so um i really do think it's unique as an IP in that the time travelness of it and the tardis being able to go anywhere any when means that you can really tell any type of story you can imagine so they can do you know unlike other shows they can do a star trek type story then they can do an x-files type story then they can do a this is us type story yeah they can do almost anything so i bet that makes it really easy to write for in some ways and very hard to write for in some ways because you can almost you don't have those restrictions right to like you can be like well i could do anything so what

should I do? And it can be hard to choose. And you don't have the constraints. Do you have a favorite Doctor Who episode? I have a favorite style of Doctor Who episode. And that is the ones, they're usually two parters. And it's where they're like, we're on a spaceship. We're stuck in one location and there's something scary happening. So like the Satan Pit is a tenant era, like that two parter where they're like stuck on a spaceship and the guy like shows up with the weird tattoos because like you know and then there's ones um or even like uh yeah anything where they're stuck somewhere there was one from this past series um what was it called like midnight or the midnight or something like that um like you can't be expected to remember all of these things i can't be

expected to remember all of them um you like you like a stranded on a spaceship kind of storyline and I've definitely seen you know I think every doctor has at least one of those right yes yeah that's usually like ooh we're getting this style of episode now um yeah and it's usually a two-parter and it's usually easy to film in a studio yes it's like their little bottle episode right like yeah um another thing i like about dr who is that it's aggressively weird i think that it is weirder than any other sci-fi franchise I can think of. It's weirder than Star Trek, weirder than Star Wars, weirder than something like The Last of Us, because it's really out there, you know?

And again, that has to do with the fact that it's kind of an anywhere, any when kind of a show where it can be set absolutely anywhere. But I also think that, like, oddly enough, the budget constraints that it's had, especially early on have ended up making it a weirder show because they had to come up with really creative solutions to what monsters and aliens looked like, what an alien world looks like, how the TARDIS works and how, you know, so all of these things ended up with really idiosyncratic kind of quirky solutions and it has conglomerated into something that is very, very, weird. Yeah. It was kind of like early Star Trek, too. You know, when you look at, you know,

these props for things, you can look and be like, that is made out of, even like if you look at like TNG and I know we're talking about Dr. Who, but like, you know, Jordi's visors like a headband or this thing is made out of the, um, the carton that, um, uh, panty hose came in. You know, that's like egg shaped. And then that stuck to this. And you get these like kind of iconic. things that were made out of just garbage, because that's what they had. Or, you know, the Dalek having like a plunger sticking out of the front of it, right? It's like, well, we have this. We can make something cool out of it.

It does. You get these, like, very unique, creative visuals because you're having to kind of make do with whatever you can cobble together. Yeah. Yeah. And the original first doctor series was the intended to. to be an educational series. Yeah.

Yeah, it was intended to teach children about history. And he has very young companions, the first doctor, doesn't he? He has his granddaughter who's there. And then, like, her two teachers kind of get stuck with them. Yeah, Susan. I love Susan. She just is scared of everything all the time. Sometimes I'm like, okay, Susan, you can help yourself.

You can help yourself a little year, Susan. I know it's the 60s, but come on. Well, I mean, like, original Star Trek, I always laugh because original Star Trek is like, we're so progressive. We've got, you know, different races on the bridge of the enterprise. But a lot of the episodes are like, that woman just needed a man to take care of. So these shows that can be very progressive for their time are still sort of backwards. So right now you're saying you really disagree with the direction that the show has. gone. Is that what I was picking up there earlier? I feel like they really let the show

down with the way this season, this season ended. And there was a lot of stuff happening, I think, behind the scenes that we do or do not have confirmation on. Like, I don't really know. But they're, they had this really cool companion this season, who I really loved. And then the last like three episodes, they just changed. her and she did nothing. And it was like, why do we have her? Why is she here? She's not doing anything.

Due to some problem with the actor? I think there was a lot of like casting availability that made them change up how they were approaching stories and like things that were maybe written for one character had to be shifted to another character and then they didn't really make sense. And then I think there was a lot of things up in the air about was Disney Plus going to continue funding the show? Right. Always good when that intrudes on story-telling. And so they didn't know. And then so Shudigatwa is like waiting around to figure out like, are we doing another season of Doctor Who

or not? And then finally, I think at some point he had to be like, I can't keep doing this. I need to be let out of my contract. This is my impression from what I've seen. And so I think they had to reshoot the end because they didn't write the end of this season to have a regeneration of a new doctor and they had to go in and kind of tack it on in a way that I think made no sense had for me no like I don't need to go into it too much but I I just hated the last episode it just didn't it felt like all the characters were completely different people it felt like new writers had come in and written these people and I was like this is not at all what's been set up and it's just such a shame

and it's such a shame too because it's like there were difficulties with Jody Whitaker's era because of COVID and things like that that changed the way they were able to produce the show and this area, a lot of things up in the air and I think it's unfortunate that we have our first female doctor, we have our first black doctor and there's extra pressure, right,

to make those extra good so that the naysayers can't use that as an excuse for like the show not being good anymore. And when all these other things come in and make it so that the show isn't as good as it could be, I feel like that creates a difficult situation. Well, hey, let's talk about like, you know, just to take it to something else. Yeah. Marvel, you know, Marvel finally decides their movies are going to star like the black Captain America.

But then that's at the point where the movies have kind of. have gone downhill and it feels like they're not making as high quality product anymore. I mean, also, it sounds like, you know, the idea of having different doctors over the course of several years is kind of cool, but it also seems like it creates complications in the production. Yeah. Anyway, I am going to watch all of it. I'm going to watch. Even that episode, you say, is so irritating.

There were some stuff I really liked this season. I think the way shooty got was. plays the doctor. I really enjoy. I like him a lot. He's much more emotional than the previous incarnations of the doctor. I really enjoy him. His style, the way they've styled him is so good. I love everything he wears. I'm sharing him a little bit, actually. I'm realizing now with this shirt here today, it's kind of like this sort of a vibe with him. And yeah, there's a lot to like, which makes the stuff that I don't like harder. Right.

You know, because you can see what it could have been. And it's, yeah, the way I feel about other things that I don't like. It's like, I could see what those things could have been and they weren't and they failed. And so it makes me more disappointed. Let's bring up some callers. I'm going to bring up old man Tizzle has had his hand up for a long time. And I'm not sure that he has anything to say by Doctor Who. But if you want to talk about board games, that's fine too.

let's bring up old man tizzle what's up old man hey oh i can say a lot about dr who so that's good great um i think you're kind of given matt smith the short end of the stick i really liked his character but i think you guys nailed it the great thing about the doctor was one every doctor is somehow a little bit different and they get to explore those different kind of emotions. You know, Capelty was definitely the angry doctor.

Yeah. You know, I thought Matt Smith also then showed he was more to me the regretful doctor. Like he actually... I'm not giving him the short end of the stick, old man.

Matt Smith is my favorite one. Okay. Well, then Paula is. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I didn't say I didn't like him. He's just not my doctor. She likes a tenant and then Whitaker and then,

yeah, she likes, but yeah. But Matt Smith's my... Amy and Rory, top-tier companions, I mean, they're great. Yeah. I mean, I think that's the great thing about, and I agree with you. I think the most recent one is they try to get so much into the cleverness and trying to be unique. They lost the storyline where, like, my favorite, like you haven't started talking about the villains of Doctor Who. And those to me are some of the interesting aspects.

Like, the Weeping Angels are one of the best villains ever created. so good and it's just simple it's just a statue but it is legit terrifying Blank was one of my favorite episodes that you know they ever showed

so I 100% agree with what you're saying I hope they get back to instead of trying to find all these Easter eggs and oh we got to talk about something that happened in the season tour a huge problem a huge problem

with IP entertainment in general. I mean, we're talking superhero movies, but also sci-fi franchises, horror franchises. Doctor Who is, there's this really horrible tendency now to make everything a bunch of Easter eggs or to make everything comment on itself instead of just writing a solid sci-fi story or horror story. Dr. Who should be, you know, a bunch of really great sci-fi. one-off stories. Yeah. I think the people working on the show right now, one, I think we could use some new, just new perspectives, new blood. Let's stop hiring people who worked on the show 20 years ago

to work on it again today. But I also think they've bought too much into the hype of we have to top ourselves. We have to keep doing more. We have to go bigger and better every time. It's like, I think that has caused them to lose sight of just, yeah, telling a good story. You don't have to go bigger with everything all the time, you know? That's another, like, stupid tendency of movies now. They'll be like, look, it's two of something. Or, look, it's a hundred of something. It's bigger.

It's, you know, it's like the alien Romulus. Like, look, it's a half alien, half human, and the aliens gestate faster and all this, like, it's super aliens. And you're like, I don't need that. I just need a really good story about the alien. So, yeah, it's the idea of like, we're going to force this on the audience and I know they're going to love it instead of just going, hey, here's just something that we love, I bet the audience will love it too. Yeah, totally. Yeah, I agree with you. They're trying to, they're trying to like be like, this time it's even bigger and higher stakes and more dangerous.

And it's like, we don't need that. We just need like a good horror story or a good sci-fi story. Yeah. Anyway, thanks so much, old man. Yeah, thank you. I'm going to have another, I'm going to get on here again when I've watched all of Dr. Hill and we'll have Paula on again and we can talk about it.

Look, we already talked to Harry, but let's bring Harry up again. Oh, yeah, Harry had thoughts on Doctor Who, right? He had thoughts on Doctor Who, so I'm going to invite him to speak. Harry can get up here again. Hey, Harry, welcome back. Hey, we're off board games now. I know you don't like board games, so we're off that. We know how much you hate board games, yeah.

So thoughts on Doctor Who, a friend. I mean, I was raised watching Dog Too. It started when I was seven, the new run in 2005, something like that. And so, yeah, Doctor Who was every Saturday. It's such a British thing. It's so integral. I love Eccleston so much. I love Donna.

And, yeah, I fully just agree with everything. Paul has been saying pretty much. So I'd have another opinion when I think you nailed it. Well, that's okay. Do you have a favorite doctor? It's probably Eccleston, which might just be because he never had time to have a bad moment. I thought Eccleston was fantastic. Absolutely. I love him so much.

He was fantastic, Jared. That's his catchphrase. Oh, it is? I didn't realize that. Maybe I am. I love him being northern for no reason. Yeah. Well, what was it?

She said she's like, he like literally in one of the episodes is like everywhere has a north. Like, every place has a north. And I just put in the chat, like his Dalek episode just called Dalek, which has one Dalek, is the scariest they've ever been. It's the most intimidating they've been. And it's a very simple, like it's a bottle episode. They're in like a warehouse pretty much the entire time. Yeah. And it's very intimate and it's very simple and it's terrifying.

Yeah. And that's also something that they've really let go of, which is Doctor Who is scary. and kids love that kids love being scared like hi my brother when we watched what is name of the Are You My Mummy episodes oh yes um I know exactly what you're talking about I can't remember what what it's actually called but yes one of my most vivid child of memories is my older brother hiding behind the settee watching that episode because it was so terrifying it is that one is scary it's the best yeah like they've let go of that and that's not being scary anymore? That's very disappointing.

Not really. I can't really. Yeah. It's too silly and it's too high budget. I also said this. Like, cut the budget in half and double the episodes. It gets scarier, the lower the budget is. Yeah. It does. Oh, yes, the empty child is the name of that episode. I was at Midnight is, from this season, I thought, was brought back that scary, that scary vibe. It did. I like Midnight. I didn't.

love spoilers. I didn't love it being a sequel. Right. Everything is a sequel to something else. Yeah. It's all the David 10 stuff. It's just then trying to recapture the golden year,

what they imagine the golden years. Like just back and back and back. But I did love that episode of this season. And I also really liked, I've forgotten the name, but the bomb episode where he stood on the mine. I think that's very one. It's very simple. And shoot, he gets a nice big moment,

which is good for him. Like he gets the big speech and every. he nails it and I'm sad to see him go but I am too you know he had to get out on there because they were treating him like rubbish yeah well thank you Harry I'm going to say goodbye for now but it's nice to have a real Brit weigh in on Doctor Who which we hadn't done yet because it is also one of the most British shows British things of all times yeah so really nice to hear from Harry one more time let us go ahead and move into our penultimate topic here because we touched on it earlier.

So we want to talk about changes and Dr. Who is a great example. Changes. Yes. When the doctor changes to a new actor, a lot of things about the series change, even though a lot of things stay the same. But I would say, I would venture to say that probably every time the doctor changes, there are a couple people who are like, nope, I'm out. Yeah. And not even necessarily for sexist or racist reasons.

Sure. Yeah, of course not. It's not always, that is for some people, but that's not for everyone. You know, we can't reduce it just down to that, right? No, of course not. So, and it occurs to me that there are a lot of things that go through changes, you know. There's a different James Bond every couple of years. There's a new Star Trek series that has a different cast or they cast different people as characters that you're familiar with.

Dungeons and Dragons has gone through multiple editions over the last 40, 50 years. And most recently, we found out that Brennan Lee Mulligan is going to take over for Matt Mercer on critical roles. That's a big change. That's a huge change. You know, some podcasts might switch their main show from being Pathfinder to something else, you know? These things happen. You know, members of maincasts might change and leave, you know. Yeah, and some podcast networks may create new shows that have new people on them that are not the people that you're used to.

And what I see, and I'm not just talking about glass can and stuff, I really am talking about, as long as I've been on the internet, looking up this stuff on message boards, is that there are so many people that when something changes, they go, I'm out. I'm out. I don't like that. That's, you know, they say it in a lot of polite. but honestly kind of obnoxious ways where they're like, sorry, but I really got into it for X, not Y. And so this is just not for me. So I will be leaving.

And it's like, you can just leave, dude. You don't need to let us know. You're leaving. You don't have to announce it and make everyone else feel bad. The door is right there. I guess you want us all to go like, you're right. We're following you. Yeah.

But also, like, I can appreciate the feeling, right? Like, we were talking, like, if I'm being really honest, you know, when critical role has, I watch, I'm a big critical role fan. And when they have a side series that has different people in it, it's not the main cast, I am less inclined to watch it. You know, I don't know those people. I'm not attached to them. And it's hard to make me want to check out who these new people are. And if they don't grab me right away, I might bail on it. Like, I totally understand.

I struggle when the doctor changes and I loved Eccleston. And now I have to get used to tenant. No, I hate it. I hate it until I fell in love, you know. I understand. I get why someone would go, well, I don't want to watch that Paul isn't because she's not one of the main original cast of Glass Cannon. I understand that feeling and feel that way sometimes.

myself right so it's yeah i understand the feeling 100 percent sometimes i don't understand the need to announce it to the world but i definitely understand the feeling and i have definitely even with dr who which we were just talking about bounced on i bounce matt smith is my favorite doctor i bounced off of him the first couple episodes of matt smith i was like i can't do this this isn't david tenant i can't do this yeah it's hard but that's then later, I said, man, I really missed Dr. Hu. Okay, I'm going to force myself to get through these. And then Matt Smith ended up becoming my favorite doctor. So, you know, I think that, well, I'm going to ask you, like, how do you approach change in a property that you really like, Paula? Do you say, you know what? I really love this stuff. I'm going to sit through parts that I'm not sure about and see if it grows.

on me? Or do you go, nope, I'm out. Like, I've got other things I want to watch, other things I want to do, and I don't need something that I'm not 100% jelling with right away. I will try. I will try to give it a chance and see if it grows on me and probably give most things more of a chance than maybe all of them deserve. Like, I'm a person who even if I don't like this. I, for example, and I'm not trying to bring up drama on the internet because people hate when I say this, but I did not like Deep Space 9. I watched every single episode of that show because I wanted to like it and I needed to know if at a certain point, I started to like it. And so I watched, and that's seven seasons of 25. That's a lot of TV to watch when you're not

vibing with something. So I'll try. Something else that helps me is giving space. So sometimes you're like, I can't, if you were like me and you're watching Doctor Who catching up, you're binging it. So you don't have six months in between series to be like, I said goodbye to David Tenant. I had six months to mourn. I'm ready for fresh Matt Smith. I watched David Tenet yesterday and today I'm watching Matt Smith. That's too soon. Binging thing we do now. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So you think giving yourself some space. Yeah. Even if it's like, look, this thing, their Pathfinder show ended this week and next week their Shatter Dark show ends. Maybe you're not ready to dive in immediately. Maybe you need to give it a month until you're in a place where you're like, okay, I'm ready. I'm ready. now I've mourned, I've moved on, I can do this thing.

And I think that that's what I inadvertently ended up doing with that Dr. who thing I just mentioned is I kind of just gave it space for a while. Then when I saw Matt Smith five months later with kind of new eyes, I was like, oh, I enjoy this. This is good. Yes. Yeah. You've let go a little bit of the closeness of I'm used to it being like this.

And it can be whiplash to suddenly feel it be something different. But if you give yourself a little bit of that time, that's what I think. So I think you're right. And so I wanted to make this point, which is, you know, for a long time, Paula, I would spend a lot of my time on message boards about American comic books. Basically, I was a huge Marvel and DC head. And I bought 50 bucks worth of comic books every week. Not super proud of that.

But what I found is like there were a lot of these conversations were about what we're talking about right now. where people would go, no, the version of the character now is not the real character. That is not the real character. The real character is the one from this era. Like, I hate this new version. I like the one from this era. And when they're talking about what they say the real character is, they fucking 99.999% of the time mean the way the character was when they got into comics or when they got into that character. Yes.

When they were a kid, when they were first introduced to it. So there are people that think, you know, that, that think that certain types of Spider-Man, you know, from the 90s or the valid type of Spider-Man, you know. Yeah. And sometimes it's really shocking how unaware people are. Yeah, of like why they feel that way. Where they were in life is really what they're talking about. And it even gets even sadder, Paula, I think sometimes some of these guys, because it's men, I think sometimes some of these guys are like, back when I was young and I was just getting started and, you know, life was beautiful and full of wonder and my whole life was ahead of me. And now it's all woke and it's different and they're letting women right.

Um, again, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not all people like that. I was just being a jerk for comedic effect. But sometimes it's like completely progressive nice people who I think don't realize that the reason they like that earlier version so much is because it came to them at a certain point in their life. At a certain point in their life. Yeah, totally. Um, something else that I think can be important to remember when you look at things like, Doctor Who, or Star Trek, or even Star Wars a little bit. So we have these different versions of the show, different eras. You know, like Star Trek, we have original series. You have TNG, you have Deep Space Nine, you have Voyager, you have Discovery, you have lower decks, you have Strange New World, and they're all a little different. Not everything in this property has to be for you. You have, I love TNG, it's my favorite.

Just because there's a version of the show that maybe I don't. don't like as much, doesn't take away the fact that T&G is great. It's tailor-made for me. That's my thing. But that might not be everyone's thing. But maybe those people love Picard. Well, awesome. Isn't it exciting that I can have my version of the Star Trek world and they can have their own doorway into it? Maybe you don't like Jody Whitaker as the doctor. But you know what? maybe there were some little girls who were not interested in the show before, and Jody Whitaker's their door in. Yeah. And now they have an in, and they can go and they'll discover their love of the rest of it.

Yeah. We can still have our Matt Smith era. It doesn't take away from that. And it's okay if I don't like everything being done in the current era. Maybe it's not for me. It's for someone new. And that's okay because now they get to have a version of this thing that I love. And I think we hold on to these properties, like it has to always be for me because you want to keep experiencing the thing that you love.

But it's okay if there's a version of it that's better for someone else because now they get to experience that love the way I have. And I think it can be hard to keep that perspective. I think you're absolutely right. And there's a tremendous amount of entitlement from nerds or fans where they're like, I am entitled to always enjoy. anything that has this Yeah Let's face it These are corporate brands

Yeah That has this corporate Doctor Who Spider Man Star Trek brand on it I am entitled To love it And that's just so weird And that's why I make fun of people

Who are constantly like It's just not for me It's not for me Because that's the same voice It's like it should be for me Yeah I feel like that's what they're really saying Let's take some calls

Yeah I'd love to know What other people think Let's see We've got some more hands up now. Let's bring up Fisco. I got it here. Let me bring him up here. Inviting to speak. Fiscoe, what's up? Are you here my friend? Hello. Hello. Happy the week after Jencon. Happy week after. I'm here with Squid. Hey, we got a two for. Hey, Squid. Oh, wow. Amazing. That's cheating, but we'll allow it. Yeah, sorry. Oh, and you're on the you're on the line with the first three people to ever play Yelka. That's true fact.

Oh, that's right. Squid played Yelka in one of our gauntlets at Gen Kahn. I saw that. Yay. And Fisko, you did too? Fisko, did you too? I did later, yeah. Awesome. Oh, thank you. But I have to say,

it changes stuff. You know, between the ages of 15 and 20, we're all assholes. And some of us grow out of it, and some of us don't. But one of the easier way, like, because I was like that with, like, role-playing games, I never wanted to play anything, but 3.5, like,

dozens and dragons, and now that I've gotten back into it and tried all these other different games, it has opened up such a whole new world of enjoying the games I originally liked. Yeah. Yeah. And I find, yeah, when they change, it gives us a new perspective to go back and rewalk

shows with this new lens that, like, maybe I wouldn't have had before. It's so interesting. No, it's true. So what I was going to say, I actually wrote this down is, I want to try, I personally want to try everything. And it's like, like, when I tell my kids, they have to try new foods, you know? Or it says, Daniel Tiger, you got to try new foods because it might taste good. Like, it's like, and trying something.

What we teach my daughter is trying something is not just touching your tongue to it one time. It's taking a couple big bites and chewing. So that might mean a couple episodes or a couple sessions of a game or something like that. That's how you really try something. Yeah, I agree. It's so it just it opens up a whole new area of like the university. Maybe didn't think about before a lot of times. Like, oh, maybe I should listen to someone else's perspective every night.

now and then, and that it might make my life better. Yeah. And just because maybe at first, just the fact that it's different makes it a little uncomfortable and so we don't like it. But then once you kind of settle into it, you can be like, oh, actually, I'm glad I gave this a chance because I love this. Yeah. I think what I have the most trouble with is when there's a genre switch in the middle of something.

If it works, it's the best thing ever. but then some shows or whatever can't quite pull that off and that gives me trouble sometimes. Do you have an example? What do you mean exactly? I would say like an example would be one that work would be a person of interest where it's switched from a procedural to singularity sci-fi and that worked really well. Whereas one that maybe didn't work as well would be I think a lot of people were put off DS9 when it switched from a more traditional. Star Trek show to a war show. I wanted more war. Oh, I loved it.

But a lot of people I know were like, this is not Star Trek. I can't handle this. So, yeah, I think genre switches are a little bit more challenging. It is actually really funny to talk about the switch in DS9 because what you realize is that people were arguing about things being different and new back in like 1996, you know, and how absolutely meaningless those debates are. now, you know, it's really, and how the debates you're having right now over something that's changing right now will soon be swallowed by the tide of history and hardly

fucking matter. And come back up again, you know, like people are people. And every, the, we have always felt this way, right? Like humans are humans. Well, thank you guys. It's the youth. It's the youth. Yeah, these kids don't understand what a.

real Spider-Man comic is supposed to be. Okay. And their loud music. Yeah. Thank you, Fisco and Squid. Great to hear from both of you. And I think we are at the point where we should do our final segment, Paula. We probably should.

We probably should. So this is going to be a little segment we call Debate and Switch. We're going to do a little point, counterpoint. Paul and I are on different polls of an issue. And we're going to go ahead and give each each of us about two and a half minutes or however long it takes to say our piece and get our opinion out there. And then you in the chat, you at home, you know, jumping on the chat and tell us who you think is right. You know, we'd really like to know who you think has the firmer ground to stand on. So I have prepared a written statement, which means my eyeballs will be going over here quite a bit.

But I want to get it right, okay? Okay. Today's debate and switch, my opening statement is, the perception skill is OP in the Pathfinder second edition remastered adventure system. You're telling me this skill is used to determine initiative, notice things in the environment like traps and hazards, and sense whether someone you're talking to is lying? You know, a couple classes started expert in perception, so they're better at sensing motive. And this makes sense when it's a rogue or an investigator, but why would a fighter

or a ranger be better at sensing when someone is lying to them? The idea of observing someone's facial movements to tell if they're lying. Like the idea that like perception, like noticing little changes in someone's facial movements, pure visual sensory input would tell you if they're lying is something only a group of people who don't understand social cues would come up with, i.e. Pathfinder fans. Understanding someone's motives is more than noticing how their face and eyes move. Only someone who can't sense motives would think that's how you do that. Sensing true motives is about context, word choice, and having the assertiveness to question another person's statements. That's a huge part, I think, of sensing deception is having the

self-awareness to go, I'm not just going to go along with what I'm hearing. I'm going to question what I'm hearing. That's why deception is a more appropriate skill. And I don't care that it's based on charisma, because I think charismatic people are better at discerning emotional states and motives. It's why they're charismatic. They have honed their empathetic. They have honed their empathy to pick up on subtle cues. In other words, I am better at sensing motive than the people who got mad at me for changing the rule because I'm more charismatic. Ultimately, I have decided to play rules as written. But I want this to be my final statement on the issue. Anyone who is using perception to track eye movements in order to determine another person's emotional state

is not someone I would want to spend time without a party. Well, luckily for you, Jared, we are in a party, not at a party. And I would question, what's the word you would use when it comes to noticing the fact that you might need to ask a question to dig deeper? Would you say you perceive what's going on with the other person? and therefore no, you must question further, look a little deeper. Maybe things seem off because you perceived that their eyes shifted or their body moved or they faltered or they said something untrue. Perceive sounds a lot like perception to me.

Semantics, Paula. Semantics. And that's all these games are. What other skill would you use to discover these things? I perceive things with my eyes. I perceive things with my ears. I perceive things with my heart. So, yes, I would say perception is exactly the skill we need to be using to sense someone

else's motive. Now, I will go on record and say that I think perception as your initiative bonus is a little weird. It does too many things. We're like perceiving what's going on, I guess. But I think Dex makes a lot more sense for initiative. But whatever, I have a high perception. So I'm not going to argue about it too much.

But I think it fully makes sense to perceive what's going on. You might be bad at lying yourself, but that doesn't mean you can't notice when someone else is lying to you. I mean, takes one to no one, but also takes someone who isn't very good at it to know when someone else is trying to do it. Plus, if we take away the use of perception, then what is the point of my feet lie to me? That's what I want to say. And the worst part is, when this happened in the game, Jared then did call me later and say, hey, I think if we rule this way, it messes up your feet, should we change it? What would be fun to you?

And it's just the worst to have such an understanding, reasonable DM. Excuse me, GM. GM. Yeah, we did talk about it. We did talk about it. I want to be very clear for everyone who thinks that, like, but Jared's ruling on this ruins what Paul is doing. Jared cares.

And we did, we did have a conversation about. Should we change this? Should we go about this? What's fun? What's not fun? How should we move forward? And so he cares. Don't worry.

That's what makes me a rat bastard. And I just, I'm sorry, Rangers are experts in perception. Why would Rangers, people that spend their time with animals out alone in the forest? Aren't they good at noticing what's going on in the forest? But why would they be good at knowing someone's motive? It makes no sense. They don't spend any time around people. Yeah. I mean, look, yeah, in real life, like, this is why you need that insight check.

It needs a whole separate thing, which is goes back to D&D, but insight, which is separate from perception, though I think might use the same base. Are they both intelligence? I can't remember now. I'd have to pull up a sheet. Well, if you have something you'd like to say about it. There's no perfect answer. If you have something you'd like to say about it, listeners, go ahead and stuff that directly up your own ass. because we have run out of time today. We've run out of time today. I want to thank Paula Demming for being absolutely effervescent on the show today. Oh, thanks for having me. Thanks everyone for sticking through.

Being here in the Discord, I know there were some Twitch glitch. I'm sorry about the Twitch glitches. We're going to have Paula on again when there are no Twitch glitches. I want to thank McDee as well and all of the callers for making this such a great episode. That's it. We'll be back next week with Mee. Mary Lou is going to be on with this. Exciting.

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