The Glass Cannon Podcast - Glass Cannon Radio #6 – D&D Monster Manual Review, Andor, Running Mystery RPGs

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Reviewing the D&D Monster Manual (2024), Andor, GMing mystery games, and Skid's Dallas murder-walk. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/H-AQOTxP35g Access exclusive podcasts, ad-free episodes, and livestreams with a 30-day free trial with code "GCN30" at jointhenaish.com. For more podcasts and livestreams, visit glasscannonnetwork.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are listening to the Glass Cannon Network. This is Glass Cannon Radio with your hosts Jared Logan and Joe O'Brien. Ah! You're my home alone. Ah! Wait, where did he put his hands? It's here, right? Ah!

Welcome to Glass Cannon Radio, the show where you, the nash, get to weigh in, be wrong, and then we correct you. Ha ha ha ha ha! Yeah, buddy, you know it. I'm Jared Logan, this is Joe O'Brien. We got McD on what is commonly referred to as the ones and twos. What's up, good buddies? There he is. Hey, what's up?

Here comes the boom! Is my favorite Kevin James movie. Here we are, another episode, another live show, talking to members of the niche. Joe, what's going on with you today? How are you feeling? I feel pretty, I feel pretty bad, man. I am in physical pain. Yeah. It's very sad. Gallstones again? Not this time. Not this time. I have got something

I heard about my whole life and now actually have a little thing called tennis elbow. Tennis elbow. You heard of tennis elbow? I was about to guess gout, but okay. Tennis. Yeah, that would fit. That would fit. No, tennis elbow. And it's a real pain in the ass. And it's really sad because I enjoy playing tennis.

I hadn't played for many, many, many years. And I've got a group through my neighborhood. I got in with a group that was like playing through the winter and I had to chip in for it. And we play in this tennis club and I just do it once a week and it was good physical activity and I was having a really good time. And I got it for about four months. Now we're four months in and all of a sudden I start noticing this pain all along my forearm,

all up along my forearm. And I'm like, don't even tell me. And I read tennis up on like WebMD or something. And it's like, luckily it doesn't require surgery. It just requires rest. You need to not play tennis for a year. What? And I was like, what?

Like, okay, great. So I'll- But Joe O'Brien lives for tennis. You know, it sounds silly, but for real, like we, we need physical activity. And now I'm just going to go back to eating cheese steaks every Tuesday. At least you got it playing tennis and you didn't get it

lifting cheese steaks to your mouth. Yeah, exactly. So that sucks. I have to ice this thing. It's all inflamed. Ugh, it blows. It really blows. I got something called frozen shoulder one time. Have you ever heard of frozen

shoulder? Basically my shoulders, like when I moved my shoulders, it was extremely painful and it was both shoulders. And I'll tell you why. I was in a pool throwing my kids in the air for an entire summer. That's what they like to do is have me throw them up in the air. Yeah. I kept throwing them up in the air and then one day I couldn't put on shirts. I was like, when I put on a shirt and I had to go to physical therapy for that.

Yeah. Because I'm a great dad. Yeah. You are a great dad. You're an athlete. One more. I'm a great dad and our bodies can are great. You're an athlete. One more. I'm a great dad and our bodies can't handle how great a dad and great a tennis player we are. Uh, it's, it's

a shame. It's a shame, but I'm excited to be here. This does not require the use of my wrist or forearm. So I'm pumped. No, and we've got a really, really fantastic show lined up today that I'm really excited to tell everyone about. So today on the show, we are going to talk about the new 2024 monster manual from wizards of the coast. And the reason we're talking about this is because wizards of the coast is the best company that publishes tabletop role playing games and Dungeons and Dragons. Fifth edition is objectively better than Pathfinder. It's objectively a better game.

And that's why we're talking about it. So we'll be getting into that. We're going to talk about and or the new season two trailer just dropped. And I thought it looked real good because and or season one was so awesome. This looks like it's going to even take it up a notch. We're going to have a nerd travel log from Joe. He just got back from Texas. It's going to tell you about some nerdy things he did there. Nerdy things on tour with the GCN baby. That's right. And then we're gonna get into a great movie

that I think a lot of people may have missed, and we wanted to correct that by getting the word out as much as we can with our little show. So we're gonna talk about the Jeremy Saulnier Aaron Pierre film Rebel Ridge. Rebel Ridge, it's on Netflix, the best action movie uh, Aaron Pierre film rebel ridge rebel ridge. It's on Netflix, uh, the best action movie in the last five to 10 years. And finally, we're going to do a little advice column. Ning.

We're going to have, we're going to have, um, we have some letters, some, some DMS that members of the nation have sent me and they are questions for advice and we're going to answer those to the best of our ability. Keep in mind, Joe and I have no formal training in any useful skill. And that's why it's going to be a rich and continuing segment. Joe is incapable in most areas of life, which is why he became an agent. Yes, exactly. Exactly.

It's the perfect career to land in if you give people horrible advice and then take money for it. Right. And I'm good at coming up with facts about the Renaissance, but getting them mostly wrong. So, uh, those are our skill sets. So that's the kind of advice you'll be getting. But the best part about this show, the whole reason we do this show is that you can call in, talk to us about the topic way in. And you do that by getting on the discord. If you're a member, going to the glass cannon radio stage and just raising your hand while we're talking about the topic. and we will call on you to come up and give your two

cents or $20 on the topic. If you're not already a member of subscribing so where you can get on the discord it's so easy just go to jointhenesh.com right now you can 1, 2, 3 lickety split become a subscriber and talk on the show today. And you can even do it for free for a little bit by using the promo code. What is it? Joe GCN 30. Yeah. 30 days free to check it out.

Yeah. So come join us, join us in the room. I mean, we're starting right out of the gate here with, uh, the, you know, thoughts, impressions, first impressions on the newly released Monster Manual for 5e. And if you want to talk about it and have your opinions weighed in, you just got to jump into our Discord. If you're in there now, raise your hand.

Raise your hand now and we'll try to get you in in this segment to talk about it. Get your opinion heard. Okay. So let's jump right into it. Um, the new 2024 monster manual came up, came out in 2025, but whatever. Uh, it's the new 20, when I saw that, my first thought was like, Oh, uh, wizards of the coast reminds me of the way the glass cannon network does things. It's like, Oh, here's our 2024 monster manual. And it came out in 2025. Like you set dates, there's a million reasons why you should hit them. And then there's a million little things you never think of that delay things.

But I was like, Hey, look, they're human beings. How about that? That's right. They are human beings, but just barely. Wizards of the coast. Burn the building to the ground and salt the earth so that none may ever work for them again. Listen, full disclosure, I do play five E sometimes. And I actually have an ongoing game with my brother and some friends who don't live in Los Angeles. So I'm pretty familiar with five E. I did a three year campaign one time time with some friends including our buddy Clinton trucks

Wizards just released a new players handbook a new dungeon masters guide and now this new monster manual and I wanted to talk about the Monster manual specifically. I mean very quickly. They'll kind of let you know what they changed. It wasn't that much you know what they changed. It wasn't that much. Okay. So one thing is they cleaned up the stat blocks to make them a little bit more usable on the fly. For example, they finally put their initiative at the top of the stat block, something that Pathfinder has been doing for a while, right? By putting that perception at the top. There are now more stat blocks, so you get more monsters, but they're not necessarily new monsters.

You get more variations on the same monsters. Like for example, there are now two different types of Cyclops instead of one. There's like a Cyclops or Oracle or something. And then in like under the priest category, there's like an acolyte, or actually under cultist. There's like a cultist fanatic and a cultist hierophant. And you know, there's a couple of different versions of each monster. You've seen this in second edition, right? Like in Pathfinder second edition. What do you mean? They've done this in their bestiary. Sorry, I've said bestiary from the old days and I can never fix it.

It's pronounced bestiality. Go ahead. Bestiality. Yeah. So they do a similar thing and I love it. Like if you go to skeleton, like if you're looking for a skeleton champion, you go to skeleton, you're going to see like five different skeleton stat blocks that are all kind of small and just slowly increase in level from skeleton Archer or skeleton scout, right?

To skeleton overlord or whatever it is. And it gives you variation within CR, so to speak, though I guess Pathfinder is not using that term anymore, but you know, within CR to, and it's cool to see that, that they're doing that for 5e players because I love that aspect. If you want a skeleton that's eighth level to take on the players, you can find something like that. Maybe. Um, so that's good.

Um, they have done alphabetical filing again, but I, this annoys me. Giants used to be G and then under that there was a hill giant, a cloud giant, a fire giant, a frost giant. Now it's just flat out super alphabetical. So hill giant is under H. Storm giant is under S. Storm giant is under S, but that's bullshit. And here's why. There's a creature called a Naga, which is like this big kind of snake guardian thing.

And there are like three different types a bone Naga a spirit Naga And uh, I don't know another type of Naga. This is my whole point I don't fucking remember the types of Nagas. I'm not gonna be like, you know what? I need here a spirit Naga and then go to s I'm gonna go. I know they're called Nagas. What was that one thing? Like, I mean, that's, that's what I think. All right. And then, uh, they made the monsters a little bit more formidable at their CR level. I think that's a good move. My experience with fifth edition is around fifth level. Everyone's a superhero and it can be very hard to challenge them. So I think the monsters have been, they've been, um, uh,

tuned up a little bit to be a little harder and then finally and I really want to get into this at some point Of the discussion they have taken orcs out of a monster manual Their party line on this is that orcs are now a playable race. They were in the players handbook I think for the first time. And so playable races don't get entries in the monster manual. Instead, you're supposed to use like, if it's an orc bandit, you're supposed to use the bandit entry in the monster manual. If it's an orc cultist, you use the cultist entry and then maybe you want to

have these entries for all those types of monsters in the best year. Are they all human? Is it human bandit, cultist human like is that it doesn't say human in the it just says Bandit and then I guess the idea is that you can work with it. No Yeah, you know what it does have artwork. I don't know off the top of my head What the artwork looks like whether it has I think it, it is mostly human, but, um, yeah. You can take the species template. They're calling it species instead of race or ancestry. And you can with that, maybe add a couple of the orc traits to a bandit. And then you have an orc bandit. So, um, no more orcs in the bestiary different from pathfinder who in their remastered bestiary has an orc entry, but I think also has a elf entry and

you know, like every kind of playable ancestry is I think also represented in some way in their bestiary. So, um, those are the things we want to talk about. I mean, I want to throw it out there first, Joe, I mean, is this kind of book even useful? Like especially if you're playing pathfinder, you're playing adventure paths. And given that we have things like archives of Nethus now and there's similar things like there's a fifth edition SRD available online. Do we even need bestiary books anymore?

It's a good question. I think that the, the search ability of stuff and the ability to find these stat blocks online, it's hard to ignore that that is probably the way a lot of GMs are going to go to look up something that they're either think that they either need to look up cause it's in a game they're running or something. Because Pathfinder does this a lot in APs. The AP will say, you are going to fight a, um, you know, I'm, I'm blanking on literally any monster. You are going to fight a wolf, right?

Like some sort of a dire wolf. And it'll say like bestiary one in parentheses and that's it. No stat block in the AP. Then you have to go reference the bestiary in order to get the information, pardon me, and the stat block. Unless it's a unique monster, then they'll put the stat block in the actual adventure. So you need a bestiary. They make when you're running to have tabs open with, cause sometimes you have three or four monsters in one given encounter. I mean it happens sometimes. So you can just tab over to like the monster you need. That's why D&D Beyond is, oh go ahead. I think it's largely about the personal experience though too. Like some folks like to just Google a list and you know, like a list by rank of Pathfinder remaster spells and just sort of like go through, you know,

that list. Some people like to sit back in a chair and flip through the player core and read spells. Like it's just something I enjoy doing. Perhaps that's what this Monster Manual is for the folks that like to sit back and just read monsters, which a lot of times can trigger ideas, especially if you are home brewing, right? But from what I hear, and I've not read the new Monster Manual myself, I don't play any 5e just in my life right now. There's no, it seems like they've trimmed out a lot of lore and a lot of details on the monsters that they give that add story and depth to what their societies are like or what their, you know, temperament is like and stuff like that, right? If they move in swarms, if they move in

packs, if they what they do with their young, that kind of stuff I think is is really interesting for home brewing. And I hear some of the reviews say that they've trimmed out a lot of that in order to get to that goal of having GMs. Oh, you just open the entry, you get one line or two to say what the monster is and a stat block and you can just run it. And I get the need to do that. But if you're trying to develop your own campaign, which a ton of people do, I feel like it's nice to have a little bit more in depth, like what these creatures purpose usually is, what their motives usually are, what kind of environment they usually live in that kind of stuff. Now, now five V did, did cover that even after their first monster manual in 2014.

After that, they came out with a, in 2016 with a book called Volo's Guide to Monsters. And that book had new entries on monsters that, you know, are pretty basic goblins, orcs, hobgoblins, gnolls. And it had their society and it had little maps for the kind of places they live in. And it had, you know, their culture and their religion and all of that stuff. So, you know, that was a really cool book. It also had new monsters in it at the end. That was a really cool book.

So they have kind of covered that. It's just, you know, there's maybe not room for it in the initial monster manual, but you're saying that's what you like. I mean, I am someone who likes to page through the monster manual and just kind of look at it or look through a bestiary. And, um, I, you know, I, I would like more lore personally, because I would like to use it to create encounters. And I know that that sounds silly. What I'm saying is I'll work backwards from the monster, right? Rather than necessarily create the whole environment, create the layout of the encounter and then

populate it with a monster. I like the idea of going backwards from the monster that you're fighting and so hearing about their environment and their habits and all that stuff really, really helps. But then what you would call it, the, I forget what I was gonna say, the building, you know, in reverse kind of from that direction. Yes. The, the lore is very important. Oh, I know. I was gonna say that also the way the book is organized, it's like that is, that sounds insane to me that you wouldn't have all of the giants under giant, that you wouldn't have, you know, all of the, you know,

dragons under D like, and you start reading through different types subtypes of dragon. Now in the back, do you want to have an index that alphabetically lists every monster by pure phonetics with their page number? Yeah. But like the idea of just flipping through a book, it shouldn't be alphabetical. The main listing, the main listing should be by type for sure. I feel like, uh, that feels like at best a lateral move to be like, look, we changed something. And at worst just, I mean, to me, it's a, it's a mistake. Um, it is a mistake. Uh, I, we want to

hear your thoughts, Nesh, just on bestiaries or, you know, what you use a monster manual or a bestiary for, like, what are your thoughts on that? So go ahead and start raising your hands and give us your thoughts on that. And we will, we will get into it with you. Um, Corvus Corvus wants to speak. Here we go. Corvus Doxwalker. If you got any thoughts on this, come on up. Hey guys. Welcome to the show. Hey, welcome to Glass Cannon Radio, Corvus. What's up, man?

Good to be back. Good to have you. Good to have you. Well, like, I am really enjoying the new Monster Man book. And for one note, my dad is a printer, recently retired retired and I showed him the new 5e books and he was really impressed with how they all came out from an artistic and all that standpoint. My thoughts are, much like you, Joe, my friend, Jimmy, almost never picks up the DNG. He goes flipping through the Monster M menu and creates his adventures based on,

ooh, that looks fun and cool. And the whole point about the alphabetical order and things like that, I'm looking at a few of these things right now. And yeah, every entry has a paragraph or two of lore. Whereas it has its habitats and what type of oh so it's all in there some of the reviews i read made it seem like they did nothing like they well look at all out no no they didn't take it all out but there is less there is less

okay there's a paragraph of lore there are like quotes that are in, you know, in game in, in world quotes, but yeah, uh, there is some taken out. Yeah. For like right here, like the nickel off is a habitat planer. Uh, and the thing is like the nickel off, which is a demon, you would, if you were like, you would have to look for, Nicoloth under D for demon. And like you said, Joe, there is monster creatures by type. So you have aberration, dragon, all those things in the back of the book.

So you can just look up in the back of the book, oh, dragon, black dragon, blue dragon, dragon turtle. I disagree with that layout. I think it needs to be exactly reversed. You go to the back for the alphabetical. When you're just flipping through, like I don't know by one line entry what type of monster that is, you know, just on its name. Like I know it's a dragon type,

but what I'm saying is like the specifics of it. If I'm just flipping through a book, it's so much easier to take in very quickly like what the nuances are of that dragon, right? That type of dragon. And story wise, especially if you're home brewing, you're not looking for a Nikolov, you're looking for a demon.

You know what I mean? You're like, I need demons for this part of the story. Right, and if I go to the back of the book and look under D for demon and it says Nikolov, page whatever, with no other information other information like all right, I guess I'll go flip to a nickel off but I have no idea what this is. You know, I don't know. I, I, I, am I making sense? Yeah, I don't know. There's, there's definitely been like the, the, the, the little bit of, of conversation I've seen on those online is, is it's really going to end up being dealer's choice where like some people absolutely love it the way

it's currently laid out that they can just flip through alphabetically and find very quickly what it is they're looking for. And then there's going to be people in the other camp that are like, I'm not sure what I'm looking for. Yeah. Let me just look at demons. Let me just look at, uh, demons. Let me just look at spiders. Let me just look at, you know, I think it brings up a larger question Corvus, which is who is this book for? Right. Is this book primarily for extremely knowledgeable GMs that are trying to operate a game efficiently and quickly, you know, or is it for people that want to browse the book to design games?

Of course it's for both, but like, who is the larger customer? I will, I will weigh in on that, which, you know, I think in general, and it's the problem a lot of pathfinder players have with five V is that five V is made so that eight year olds can use it. So if you're asking if it should be a knowledgeable GM, I think five V is made so that eight year olds can use it. So if you're asking if it should be a knowledgeable GM, I think five V is almost always framed for beginners because they, you know, I don't understand the structure. Then. Okay. I can, I can, I can almost see that point there. Uh, by the way, Joe, uh,

I hope you had a good time in Texas. I hope your fighter worked out really well. I'm sorry. I missed out on the fighter build from last week. Oh, we had so much fun, man. I wish you were here. Like it was such a blast and it hugely impacted the character bill. So right now I'm really enjoying intimidating strike is the way to go as what I would have told you. Oh yeah, buddy. I showed it. So did a lot of folks. They love intimidating strikes. And so I took it. It's the best cantrip in the game. It casts bless on your allies and bane on your enemies and does a lot of damage. All in one shot. Yeah. At your full attack bonus. All right, Corvus, we're going to let you go, but thank you for waiting. Thank you,

Corvus. There's one positive review from a 5e player who likes the book, likes the layout, likes the art. But that's another thing. It's like, the art is so important. The art, like great art can let you forgive so many other little things, right? Because that's, to me, what a bestiary is really all about. It's about looking at amazing pictures that evoke feeling

about what a monster is. You know, I, you know, my, my opinion, you know, I've looked through the, the new manual and, uh, some of the art I like better than the 2014 art. Some I don't, some I, and particularly the cover, I don't like better than the 2014 cover, but Hey, that's my two cents. You know, another thing I was going to gonna say is Joe as someone who ran 5e For almost three years and got characters through level one through 20 I'm a little tired of all the old D&D monsters, you know

Like I'm a little tired of the boulettes and I'm tired of the Grimlock. And I've used them all. I have killed player characters with a beholder. And so lately I find myself more drawn to like a book like Cobold Press's Tome of Beasts, or I actually really appreciated that Pathfinder has a remaster where they're not using chromatic dragons. They're throwing all these new types of dragons at me.

You know, they're like twisting and changing all those old archetypes that we're all so familiar with. And I personally am a little tired of, so I like, you know, when I'm looking for monsters for like a homebrew game, I don't go to monster manual one baby. I'm going to, is there a monster manual three? Is there a bestiary three? And that's the thing for me. Like I agree with you a thousand percent. I think if I hadn't, so when I first got back into it, skid got me back into playing role playing

games and it was through a game called pathfinder, right? That I had never heard of. And I hadn't played since whatever middle school. Uh, and I just like, when you saw a boulette, it triggered great nostalgic feelings the first time. Right. Then when you see it again and again and again, it's like, you want something new. So then I'm running, I remember I'm running a council of thieves, an AP that is I think mediocre, I remember I'm running Council of Thieves, an AP that is, I think,

mediocre reviews, but I loved and our, our group loved it. We had, we did all six books. Actually, we started in book two, long story, but we did five of the six books. You saw the campaign through to completion, took, I think three years of game time to play it. And what jumps out to me is the monsters in there that were just written for that AP. I still remember some of those monsters being so cool and so scary and and they're based on different lores from around the world and stuff like that like you know folklore from around the world and like they were not classic monsters at all and yet they evoked the biggest response

from the players. And so yeah I do think that like some of those iconic D&D monsters, you don't necessarily have to keep leaning into them. But like you said, Jared, the game is really geared to children and you know, and both, but like they need to acknowledge the fact that new players are coming in all the time and they need to teach them what a beholder is, right? They need to teach them these these iconicholder is, right? They need to teach them these, these iconic monsters. Can we take another caller? Let's do it please. Yeah. All right. Let's bring up somebody who, who I saw this weekend and who's been on glass kind of radio before the seat. Are you there? Hello. There we go. Hear me? Yeah, we got you.

How's it going? It's going great. How's it going for you? It's going great. It was good to see you in person this weekend in Texas. Yeah, it was. Yeah. So tell Jared what you did for your master's degree.

Yeah. So I think I surprised most of the cast this weekend going around asking everybody to sign my master's thesis, which was published a couple years ago. This isn't new news, but it was some fun that I've been wanting you guys to sign for a while. I wrote my master's thesis on the GCN. Really? Yes. Yes.

Wow. It was on actual play and I'm currently still reading through it and it is awesome. It's really more, it's really about actual play and the layers of what a different entertainment type it is and really breaking it down into its component parts and analyzing it academically and it's fascinating. Really good work. Oh good, and what you're enjoying it.

Really good work. Thank you. I'd like to read that if you'd please send it to me. Yeah, can do. Yeah. Awesome, can do. Yeah. Awesome. So anyway, what are your thoughts on you got thoughts on the Monster Manual? Obviously, you've got a master's degree in this stuff. You're an expert. Yes.

Well, I won't say that I'm an expert in 5e actually, I've only played a couple of sessions. But I did want to jump in and discuss like the fact that D&D 5e is marketed towards children because that sort of aspect influenced me in my life. So this wasn't me personally, but the man who got me into D&D, or in TTRPGs in general, I should say, his story was his father loved to play D&D, but their table was a little bit too old for him when he was little. So he spent his days borrowing his father's books and flipping through the monster manual and just reading entries. And that instilled in him a love of the game. So much so that years

later when our paths crossed, we started our home game. And then I started playing Pathfinder. And then I wanted to learn more about Pathfinder. And then the Pathfinder 2e playtaste came up. And that made me listen to you guys doing your preview of the Pathfinder 2e. That's how I discovered you. That ended up me doing my masters. Like all these dominoes in effect, all because the artwork and the entries of a bestiary caught the imagination of a child. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a really good point, Diccio. Thank you so much for calling in. Yeah, that's, like we said, the artwork is so important. And I think any kid, how much more are you gonna to be drawn to monsters and monster entries than like the societal breakdowns of dwarves? Right. Like, I think it's the monster manual is the thing.

Tellingly I used to run games for kids. You know, we, we did this thing called kids versus dragons, where it was like seven to like 13 year olds. And there were, you know, 10 year olds who had memorized the 2014 Dungeons and Dragons monster manual. So no matter what monster you threw at them, it would tell you, it'll be weak to spells against its intelligence. You know, like they would just know exactly like all the things that it does and stuff.

I mean, I just rewarded them for that because good Lord. That is amazing. Just kids that had just been paging through it for years and just memorizing it. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. I wanted to ask, this is like this new monster manual. It is a, it's a revamp of the old monster manual and really mostly things have just been tweaked.

So in a way it's a remaster, not a new edition. And that's, that's kind of how they're, they're selling it. They're saying, you know, this is not a new game. This is not sixth edition. This is kind of a, uh, just a new monster. Can we just talk about that for a second? Yeah, let's talk about it. I didn't understand the branding choice at all to, to call, like, I don't care if that's what you want to do mechanically.

I just didn't understand the branding choice at all to call it D&D 5E 2024. I thought that that was horrible. I don't know. My gut reaction was like, when you name anything, anything after a year that is the current year, within a year or two, it sounds obsolete. Like it just, by its very name, it sounds obsolete. Just like the Pathfinder remaster books don't have remaster stamped on the spine,

the D&D new books don't have like 2024, 2025 stamped on the spine. So, I mean, they're not gonna feel too dated. Gotcha. You know, my major issue I wanted to bring up is like, when you're only getting slight tweaks to things, are they really just trying to sell you a book? A $60 to $70 book?

Is that really what they're doing, you know? I mean, I think some people might feel that way. Pathfinder Remaster, a little less controversial because so many changes are made, especially with the monsters. Well, the driving force behind the change is obvious. And while it is, you know, GL debacle. While it is financially based, it's also legally based, right? Like you could make it, you can argue that it's financial from a licensing perspective. You don't want to feel, you want to own all of these ideas completely. I get, there's quote unquote greed in that, but there's also the legal aspects of that,

which are like, you don't want to be messing around with other people's IP anymore. And I totally get and appreciate that, which is why I am willing and more than happy to continue dealing with the struggles of the remaster in my games that I play in as they bleed one into the other. Oh, this ability is still from the old one. This ability is from the new one. Yeah, I guess they synergize, but oh, look, we found that when you combine these two things,

it's OP, right? Like a little shit like that is frustrating, but to me, it comes from a place where I understand. If I'm taking the most favorable view of 5E's quote unquote remaster, the 2024 version, to me, it's just a pivot from a poorly received, you know, from poorly received publicity about a new edition.

And it's like, could very well be 10 years of play testing really does matter. Like, I think you really do see things after five years that you might not see after one full year, because there's so many mechanics, so many numbers, so many details over so many levels that you have to not only do, do millions of people have to play it, but you have to get feedback

from enough of them, you know, well designed feedback in order to make decisions. So of them, you know, well designed feedback in order to make decisions. So taking the most favorable view, I would say they probably knew there were ways you could actually improve the mechanics of the game. Absolutely. Be with all that time to see it in action. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, like, Yeah. Um, so yeah, I mean like, uh, sure, certainly there are legitimate reasons to remaster it. Um, but really, I mean, I'm personally looking through it and having been very familiar with the original monster manual, I still am kind of like,

this is so slight a change here. Yeah. That, I mean, my solution to, um, PCs being a little bit more powerful than you, you know, then you, uh, initially expect in, in Dungeons and Dragons five V was just to throw really powerful monsters against them that didn't exactly fit their CR level. Like I would just be like, Oh, you're fourth level. Here's an eighth level monster. Deal with it. Run away if it's killing you.

Like, you know, I think that, I think that, um, CR challenge rating and all that stuff is kind of a wank sometimes. I think that like, you know, in, in old school D and D in the eighties, there were dungeons created where there were monsters that the players just couldn't beat in them at their beginning levels where they might encounter it. And that was okay because that's still an encounter. Not everything is meant to be defeated by killing it. You know? Well, let me ask you, sorry, I don't mean to change topics too much, but like, yeah,

this begs the question of, you know, one of the design points of Avowed, the new game that came out, we talked about last week from Obsidian that I'm currently playing, I streamed yesterday. The choice in a video game world to make, like in Skyrim, to make the world level with you out in the wild, or to have certain zones just have monsters that are way overleveled. And you can just die if you walk into those areas versus, and you know you can't go there until you're higher level. You love Skyrim. It's one of your favorites, but they did make a mechanical choice to have, as you're moving around in the world in the wild, no matter where

you are, there are wolves there at first level. And then there are ancient demons there when you're at, you know, end game levels. It just wandering the woods. Do you have thoughts on that? Like, I mean, do you, do you prefer leveled with you, right? Skyrim leveled with you. Um, so I think a video game is a very different beast. You know, I, it might be, it might be, you know, way less fun to fight enemies in a video game that don't level with you.

Um, so I think that that's a different, a different thing. Whereas I agree. I'm not asking you about your opinion on video games. I just bring it up to say, like, is this really like Skyrim did this this way? Is this really smart game design to in a given dungeon in the same floor of a dungeon have monsters in a tabletop game that vacillate four to six levels between each other in one room or another?

Nobody does that, right, Jared? I mean, in like traditional- They certainly don't do it in a Pathfinder AP as far as I can tell because agreed in pathfinder a level or two Above makes a larger difference because I think it's so finely tuned When I'm home brewing though, I do it because I want them to come up against threats where they're like, oh, holy shit Especially in 5e where it's not quite as finely tuned where a level above is like insta death, you know, like a unbeatable encounter.

And sometimes what I'll do is I'll use a higher level monster, but I won't use all of its deadly special abilities. I'll just say it's not using those that day. You know, it's right now it thinks it can kill them with its claws, you know? And I don't think that that's cheating or doing it wrong, you know? I 100% agree. I think that's a great idea. And I would totally do that if I was home brewing a game.

There's a great Pathfinder Society scenario I ran back in the day that takes place in the world wound, where you're reinforcing some troops or you're helping some folks and you have to take this tower or something like that. Anyway, at one point a full-blown, like, 25th level demon shows up and you encounter it and it's like, it's an encounter. I think it's like a fourth level thing and And it's like, it's an encounter. And I think it's like a fourth level thing. And the idea is through the way that you played, it's extremely weakened.

It's behind this giant wall. It only has one slit and it can't really hit you. It has to like kind of like fire, eye lasers or something at you. And it's slowly breaking the walls down. And the idea is like, it should be obvious to players that like they have to run, like that this is not, you know, a winnable fight. So one mechanic that I did back then, and I still do now, I'm curious about your thoughts on this, is I don't mind. I think that the best way to

communicate that to players that might not be picking up on the proper narrative cues based on your description, because you don't want to say you have to run. I think that the best way to do it is to completely break the fourth wall and talk just game mechanics, because I think that talking to the players in game mechanics helps to have their characters understand what they're seeing.

So I think I said something along the lines of like, you look at this creature and I can't fully describe to you what the character is seeing, but I can tell you as a player that it's AC is 40. Right? So that immediately put them in the mindset that was just like, holy shit. You know what I mean?

Like, oh my God. So, I don't know if that's, you know, kind of cheating or, or, I don't think it's cheating. I think sometimes players would like- I think sometimes that's the best way to communicate, you know, is to just use the math. Just communicate.

I mean, I don't think that's cheating at all. There's a lot of different ways to do that, you know? I mean, you might use a recall knowledge check. You might just flat out tell them you might like give them like three or four obvious hints, you know? So that, uh, only a moron wouldn't be able to put it together and you will find that there are, you are playing with morons, but, uh, that's okay. Like, I mean, I guess, I guess the whole GM strategy of hiding information from the players is, um, I think usually a bad one.

And, um, especially with the complexity of the games now, things have evolved so much jot that down. This is a whole topic for another day. I'd love to talk about withholding information as a GM. I think it's a great topic. There's some things you feel like you have to. There's some things maybe you're withholding too much and it's ruining your fun and players fun. There's a lot of I have a lot of thoughts on this, particularly as it pertains to lore to things that like the characters wouldn't know. But it's like why not tell the players, you know, I think it deepens the game.

It makes it more interesting. Um, I think it's even 13th age, which is the Pellegrine grass fantasy D 20 system that says sometimes you should give the players like you should describe scenes where they're not even there, like two of the villains talking to each other and just sort of like tell a story, you know, and then go to the players and where they're at, you know, yeah, and then go to the players and where they're at, you know And hint at things and foreshadow things and show them things that they're not necessarily present for so yeah Like they are there they're Partially writing a movie where they can see other scenes in the movie that their characters can't see they're just responsible for writing their character

But they still know more about the broad scope. Yeah. It's yeah. Anyway, definitely giving players the information they need about monsters. Uh, it, I don't think it should always be like a puzzle where you're trying to be more clever than them and have them not realize it's ACS 40. I don't think that that is a fun game or the way the game should be played. Should we take more callers? Yeah. Yeah. Let's, let's take more callers. Um, to, to, to doom. And then I want to say one thing before we move off. I want to say something interesting about great old ones and, uh, and statting them out in a bestiary. So let's, uh, we'll talk about that in a minute, but I also want to talk about the orcs leaving out the orcs. We have a lot to cover. All

right. So let's get to some balls. Uh, Roberto's mic is muted. So, uh, if Roberto can unmute their mic, we'll, we'll get them on here as soon as possible. I got you unmuted. There we go. What's up, Roberto? What's up guys? You know, a long time listener, second time caller. Great to be back. Awesome to have you back. What do you call it about the bestiary? I am, I am. So to give you guys a little bit of background, and I think this is the first time I've heavily agreed with Jared on this show. But what it really comes down to is I find that the barrier for entry for 5e is so much easier obviously reiterating this. But I've experienced this more recently where I've had a game going for about like eight

months now with a new group of people through some scheduling issues. You know, we've had new people join and come in and out. And I would say the majority of the party, this is the first time playing D&D. And it's definitely something I can recognize that D&D is starting to lean hard into the ease of access in terms of like being able to play. And I think that's just because of how almost more loose the rules are compared to Pathfinder. And I find this great in terms of,

hey, I can get a new group of people and we can get them playing pretty quickly. But I will also say that when I'm trying to build a story and I've only ran some one shots here and there, I do find myself leaning towards third party creators for five be a lot more like global press is a main thing I pull from all the time just because I find oh it's so great I mean yeah and I think it's because it's you can clearly see it's a group of fans that have looked at me and said well the fans kind of know how to make this a little better a little more creative a little more fun or add some more variety

and so I lean into that a lot. Got to disagree with you there. The fans never know better than the people who are making the show. I mean the monster manual. We're not talking about Pathfinder, Jared. We're talking about 5e here. I will have to say that I also recognize now, especially with the current faction of D&D, that I have to realize that Wizard of the Coast is answering to Hasbro.

And when you really look at the background of a very large company and some of the decisions that have to be made, that I think a great example is I think the D&D movie is a great marker for where 5e is, like post that movie. Because they've decided, hey, Asbro announced we're not making more D&D movies. Like, we're not going to do it. Even though it was so well received by the fans in my opinion. I loved it. I loved it too. I thought it was so fun and everyone I talked to who's a D&D person who watched it were like that was great and I think this is an example. It's not a great box office though. No and obviously that's why I think it comes into the factor of well when you

look at a large company they're looking at these numbers and they're going to be like, Hey, it didn't have a great office. We're not going to pursue this route. And that kind of hurts. But at the same time, I understand like that's what a big company is going to do. This is also why I think I've never seen such a surge of people moving from D&D to Pathfinder before. The more people I've talked to play D&D more and more, they've been wanting to dive into Pathfinder more and more.

Just kind of separating themselves, getting away from more of this, like kind of vague rule set to a harder rule set, but also to me Pathfinder has more variety because of how much more fleshed out the rules is, if that makes any sense. Yeah. It makes sense. Yeah, and thanks for the call Roberto, appreciate you weighing in. Experienced 5E GM there, I like the mention

of the third party too, It's a great way to spice up, you know, when you're talking about getting the same old monsters all the time. Let's not forget that Pathfinder was fans who were making their own 3.5 content. Exactly. Yeah, I mean... So take it easy on the fans, Jared. I know, I know. I love the fans. I love the fans and they love me, but mostly for my body. Talk to me about your thoughts on the orcs being removed.

Well, it's a complex issue. I think the reasons and motivations for removing orcs I think are good, you know? A friend of mine pointed out back when we just had the 2014 monster manual, the description of orcs was, it was, it sounded like a racist pamphlet from the 1800s, you know, it was like sloped brows, you know, like there was a lot of like physical characteristics that sounded, if, if you heard it out of context, you'd be like, is this the clan handbook?

So I get why they would want to correct that sort of impression. The, the issue that I think confuses people or gives people pause with a decision like taking orcs out of the monster menu was goblins are still in there. Are goblins not people? Well they're not a playable species. That's the party line we're being given. Goblins are not a playable species, orcs are, but I would argue, and this is not, I came to this kind of conclusion based on a really great YouTuber named professor dungeon master who did a whole

video on this, that, you know, there's two ways you can categorize orcs. Orcs can be fully people, you know, where they, um, they're not just like feral monsters. They have like a complex culture and they have families and love and aspirations. And that makes them in a way, sort of a variant human, uh, a big green skin tusked variant human, and that's great. That's fine. That's a totally valid way tusked variant human. And that's great. That's fine. That's a totally valid way to play the game. But in your game, orcs could be Tolkien orcs, disgusting,

petty, feral, filthy, bloody minded, full of bloodlust, just wanting to kill for the joy of killing. And that's a fine interpretation too. In that case, orcs would be monsters. So it's really like, what is your interpretation for your game? I think they're both equally valid, but 5e has decided default works are sympathetic variant humans. Goblins are not. What do you think?

I, uh, yeah, I don't know. It's it's, it's very complicated. Like I agree with what you said that there are two ways to view orcs. I loved playing a half orc at the start of our first campaign on Glass Cannon, the Glass Cannon podcast. It was the first ever half orc I played. I was really excited to play that. And I loved the idea of sort of working on this feral side, right?

That is kind of, uh, bloodthirsty and, and, uh, violent, right? This, this, and trying to play against those instincts. And then, uh, I built a full orc for our live show, which I thought would be amazing. And that character famously died in the first episode. Right. Wasn't that character's name? What was that character's name? The character's name, the big green loser. I mean, basically that character didn't have names. Character had no name? That's the conceit at the start of Strange Aeons is you don't know your name. You have,

because you have complete amnesia. And so we just started naming, you name each other in the moment when you meet each other and stuff. That's where we come up with Mrs. O'Lady and, you know, and my other character ended up having an incorrect name, a misremembered name that was actually someone else's name they thought was their own. So yeah, we did eventually come up with a name for the character, but at the time the character had no name and everybody just called him the green loser because he died immediately. But yeah, anyway, I was very excited to play a full orc and use it as a playable ancestry. And I think it's great. I mean, that's what's in the remaster is a playable ancestry, but correct me if I'm wrong. I haven't read through the

monster core recently, but our orcs in the monster core in a pathfinder remaster. They are, they are. But I think as I said, you know, all of the playable races, uh, sorry, ancestries are, are present, I think in the pathfinder bestiary, you know, to some extent. So, uh, Dungeons and Dragons has made the decision if it's a playable species, it's not on the monster manual specifically, but if it, uh, isn't a

playable species, it is. Um, I, I mean, I, I honestly, I find it a little, I find it a little arbitrary. Um, but all of this is made up anyway. I honestly, I find it a little arbitrary. But all of this is made up anyway. Like if we say that Klingons are warlike, are we being racist about Klingons? We get all kinds of stories about Klingons struggling with that, struggling with the warlike nature of their culture, you know?

Some lean into it, some lean away. know, some, some lean into it. Some lean away. Sometimes it's right to lean into it. Sometimes it's, it means you're ruined to sort of embrace that warlike nature of their culture. And I think the same opportunities are available to orcs, you know, and an orc can, can look at its culture, uh, with a full sentience, full agency and make decisions about that culture.

And I don't think putting them in as a monster and a monster manual negates that, but I'd be willing to hear other points of view on it. Um, there's definitely, I'm, I'm super open to hear other points of view on it. Um, there's definitely, I'm, I'm super open to hearing other points of view and, uh, and figuring out something that I'm missing here. Um, if anybody has an opinion on this, I would love to hear from them. Uh, or, you know, just anything about bestiaries or the monster manual. Should we get one more caller? Uh, yeah, sure. Let's bring up,

let's get one more. Yeah. Let's do great. Great. Great. Squid. Come on up. If you're still there. Oh, great. We see it was just chatting and Twitch. So it might be a little bit behind. We'll see in a second, but yeah. Hey guys, can you hear me? Yeah, we got you. What's going on? Oh, not too much. I was just chatting and quit switch I went wouldn't looked at it and I noticed there is actually distinction in the monster core from Pathfinder versus the Monster manual as described

They have separate sections for NPCs versus monsters And so orc characters and goblin characters are listed in the NPC section rather than in the monster section. That's not true for all playable races or excuse me. Hobgoblins are listed in the monster section so there's a little bit of a variation there. Right and but like bandits are listed in the monster section. Right. Right. So is it a bandit, an NPC or is it a monster? Yeah, I would probably call it an NPC, but yeah. Pathfinder does, right? Pathfinder says, if it's a job or a profession, it goes into this sort of NPC category. If it's a type of creature, it goes into the monster bestiary.

Yeah. And then the other thing that I wanted to mention is that I've heard a lot of people talking about is how they removed monster creation rules from the monster manual, which apparently is where they used to live. Uh, wanted to know if y'all had any thoughts about that. Uh, I don't know if they're in the DM guide or not. Uh, I don't play five. So, um, uh, monster creation rules. I've looked over the DM guide or not? I don't play 5e so. Um, uh, monster creation rules. I've looked over the DM guide.

I have it right here, but I don't know if monster creation rules are in there. Um, I'm not sure. Yeah, but they definitely took them out of the monster manual and I see a lot of people saying, I love the idea of a dungeon master who has time to prep a full game, but also create some monsters for it. Yeah. Are you independently wealthy? You don't go to work. I don't know why you think that this is a, this is, this is, this is some folks like,

it's a passionate, passionate hobby, like it is for you. Uh, but you play in a lot of games. I mean, if you're only running one game, you know, I know tons of people that love creating monsters. I think it's like, it's a stretch. Let me tell you what happens. Let me tell you what happens. Party wipe. And you're like, what the fuck was that thing? And the DM's like,

I actually created it myself. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. The pathfinding monster creation rules are real easy. And Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. That, that pretty much sums it up. The pathfinder monstration rules are real easy. And I don't know, it seems like there's kind of a difference there between IV almost discouraging it by taking them out. I don't know.

I always just did reskins, meaning I used the stat block pretty much as is, but instead of a goblin, it was a mug wart or whatever I called it, you know, whatever was appropriate for my game. I used things as demons that weren't demons. I used things as dragons that weren't dragons. I just reskinned based on my need at the time. But yeah, I remember, and thank you for the call, great gray.

At the time I do remember the when the remaster was being developed, we were looking through the remaster, I thought that and second edition even before the remaster, they there were some interesting documents that Pathfinder put out on creating monsters or creating encounters. And it was really, I feel like the system is pretty elegant. I do really enjoy it. Like, it'll give you like a range of stats that you can just sort of apply and pull from different things to create a monster. Now creating an individual special attack ability, that's like, you got to make that up.

But they would give you guides as to like, what should be one action, what should be two actions, what should be three actions actions and what should be a free action. Just generally speaking, you know, anything that doesn't suffer from a multiple attack penalty should be two actions, right? Or anything that suffers big penalties after the attack could be one action, stuff like that. Like, anyway, there were a lot of neat design things that they would give you a sense of like how what a what an attack modifier

should be for a monster of this level and stuff like that. And, um, yeah, anyway, I thought it was, I thought it was people in the chatter saying, I make, they're saying it's easy to make monsters in pathfinder. So I guess people are home brewing and pathfinder and making a bunch of their own monsters. To me, this sounds normal to me. I don't think you are. I think you're playing APs. I don't think you're actually making your own monsters. But maybe you are. Maybe you like to sit around and just make monsters

and enjoy the act of creation, which is super legit. Should we? Keep it moving? Head to a galaxy far, far away? Yeah, we got a lot to talk about, man. Oh, yeah. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away and even longer time ago than A New Hope,

because we're gonna talk about the prequel series. Oh, we love prequels. The prequel series and door and the new trailer that just dropped go and watch it it's a good trailer I think it made me excited for a season two of the show Joe your thoughts on the new trailer I have no and or in general I have no comments on the trailer I have no thoughts on the trailer I will not really watching the trailer I despise watching trailers for things that I cannot wait to see because I don't want to know anything. And I get a lot of guff for this, especially from Skid, Matthew, you

know, just in general, they, you know, they love trailers and Troy too. It's like, you're out of your mind. Like anything you see that that excites you you are going to forget by the time the show airs Like that's the kind of the number one thing Joe I know you don't watch the trailers, but I I gotta tell you it looks like based on the trailer Andor is going to help lead a rebellion against the Empire This is the other thing that happens is Sorry to let you know that. The constant. And also, I hate to break this to you. The rebellion is going to eventually be successful. This is the whole thing.

That's the same joke Matthew says every time. And so I just feel like for me, it's more about who is in it, what sort of new characters are coming out, or old characters are gonna be represented in there and stuff like that. Like, I don't need to see things to get excited about season two of Andor. I'm already excited. Because you're already on board.

I just like to watch it. I love trailers. I love to watch trailers of things that I don't know anything about, that I'm like, what is this? But yeah, Andor season two, I don't need to see. So outside of that, I will say that I loved season one of Andor. This isn't news. I think I've talked about it on a couple different shows. Highly

recommended by Skid that I that I check it out. So I checked it out when it was first airing. It blew my mind. To me, it gave me the most Star Wars-y feeling that I have felt since I was in high school basically and really dove into watching the films over and over and over again. I sort of, it got me back there. I felt like the way technology was represented and the way that the ships looked and sounded and felt, it all just took me right back there, which was so awesome. And then you add all the nuanced layers in there of following empire characters. Yeah, that's my favorite part. Yeah, that we're not just watch an office

show about the Imperials at work. 100%. And my favorite part was that like, at least this was my interpretation of it is they don't take the, um, I forget the guy's character name, the, the, the stormtrooper in seven, right? Who, you know, that, that, that is what makes it to me a little front door and a little kids movie ask is like, you have the guy who's the stormtrooper, who's actually like a great dude and a hero. Oh yeah. Played by John Boyega. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Is it Finn? Anyway, that's it. Finn. So you take Finn and it's just very, to me, it's kind of like, it's childish, but it's fine. You know, that's an interesting story that hadn't been told before, but it's kind of, uh, it's front door to me. I, what I love about Andor is like, these people do not seem like good people, right?

Like they do seem like they'd work for the empire. And yet somehow with the execution of the show and how well written it is and how real it feels, you sympathize with these characters. Like even though they're not heroes, they're not great people necessarily, you feel kind of the world they live in and the culture that they're not heroes, they're not great people necessarily, you feel kind of the world they live in and the culture that they're part of and how they have to navigate it. And I found it

very interesting. I thought it was really well done. What I will say, to kind of circle back around to our last conversation on the show today, most of Star Wars, 90% of it, I think is created with eight year olds in mind. Oh, it is. And, um, you know, and, or was their chance because they have a bunch of different shows on Disney plus right now to do one for adults. And that's probably why we respond to it stronger than anything, but I would go even farther. Joe, here's my hot take. Oh, here we go go even farther, Joe. Here's my hot take.

Oh, here we go. A hot take coming. Warning. I'm going to have to get a sound effect for Jared's hot take. Hot take. Hot take incoming. Get ready. Hoo hoo hoo hoo.

Oh, it's getting hot in here. Aside from the original trilogy, episode four, five and six, which are all time classics. Andor is the only good Star Wars thing. There are no other goods. Is that a hot take? I feel like not only that's how I feel, but that's how everyone feels. No, no, I don't think that's how everyone feels. I guess people like the Mandalorian.

People like the Mandalorian. I do not. And everybody's gonna throw Rogue One in my face. Rogue One sucks. Ha ha ha! Rogue One fucking sucks. You know how it's gonna end. They steal Peter Cushing's face.

I'm not okay with that. The characters are entirely forgettable Entirely forgettable including Diego Luna's character. He's memorable in and or but he's not memorable in rogue one Rogue one is not good the only good Star Wars things are the original trilogy and First things are the original trilogy and Andor. I will say I won't go that far because I can't deny when I went and saw Rogue One in the theater, I enjoyed myself. Did I say I can't wait to watch this again?

No. But I enjoyed myself and I felt, but that's the only one that really came close. Everything else I was just like, my God, like I'm not enjoying this at all. Tell me one thing about the main character in Rogue One. Yeah, I don't know. Tell me one, one character detail. What is her personality like? You can't do it.

It's like trying to describe and I'm not, you know, I'm, this is, you know, there's this classic YouTube review of the prequel trilogy, you know, episodes one, two, and three, where the reviewer says, describe a personality trait of Qui-gon Jinn. You can not do it. Mr. E Knight in Twitch chat says her name was Jen Urso. She broods. She broods. She broods.

That's exactly what I thought but couldn't put into words, was like, she's brooding. That's what she is. She's a brooding character. And I don't think, the thing I like about Rogue One is that it was not based around this central character. It is an ensemble piece where the sum of its parts, it's more than the sum of its parts,

because it's about that story, that legendary story that you thought of way back when when you watched the original movies. It was neat to me seeing that, and I had a good time watching it. Do I put it anywhere near the level of the first three movies or Andor? No, I do not.

No, no. But Andor, so you love Andor though. You thought it was a great show. I love Andor. Okay. I think Andor, I would put it up there with the top sci-fi shows of all time so far, you know, and I'm very excited for season two. I, Andor made me feel things, you know, and I thought it used the Star Wars mythology really well also. I thought that the way they brought in droids and starships and, um, even aliens, you know, they go very light on the, on the extraterrestrial, the, the other species other than humans, they stick mostly to humans. I think that's such a smart choice

only because it grounds the story for a viewer. Right. For the humans watching it, I'll say. It grounds the story in a way that makes you feel like it's a real uprising and that there's no guy with six eyes going, I'm T-Flow B-Block. Right, and also, Not to mention that all the fucking Star Wars aliens are supposed to be cute or funny. You know, it's, you know, the Jar Jar Binks syndrome.

Yeah, but it's, what was I going to say? Oh, you mentioned the starships. So here's what I think they did such a good job of that I missed from my early watching, right? When I was younger and I watched, my memory of it is, uh, is the empire strikes back. That's really the first thing I remember. And that's when I was a little kid and I, I only remember sparse scenes here and there. And I remember being so scared of the Empire,

right? Like they were so like, Darth Vader is terrifying because if you make one mistake, he murders you. Like the crime for any mistake is instant summary execution, right? instant summary, summary execution, right? And the emperor in return of the Jedi is so scary, right? So scary looking. And he has such an evil, evil vibe about him. Right. Now, granted, this could be because I'm a child. And when I was watching it as an adult in seven, eight, nine, it all felt like just

a bunch of fireworks, right? It doesn't, it feels like a bunch of explosions and not that intense fear where I think Andor brought that back, not only to a point where the idea of getting found, like from the, from Andor, from Cassie and Andor down to, and I can't remember the character's names, but down to like the spies, right? Like the Senator or whatever, and the other guy in Coruscant. Their fear of being found, like, you know, they'll just be firing squad, right?

Like they'll be dead immediately. So you feel that fear. And then coming back to the Starships, there's a scene on one of the planets where he first connects with like that crew in the woods that's camped out and they're going to do like an insurgent mission against one of the rebel or one of the Empire's bases. There's a scene where a single TIE fighter flies over them. Yeah. And it's terrifying. And I was like, this is so well, I'm getting chills to thinking about it now. Like, once you put a million TIE fighters are flying everywhere in space, they're just getting shot

all the time. Now, I know this happens in Return of the Jedi, but that was a long build to get to that. Right? Yeah. In this, they really, a single TIE fighter moving over you, the sound, the idea that if your camp is found, you're all gonna die. They're gonna just burn the forest immediately and kill you all instantly. It's like, you feel that fear. I thought it was so awesome. To go back and get that much emotional mileage out of one TIE fighter,

because I completely agree with you about that scene. You know, that's a great trick. And that's not easily done, I think. I think that Andor's, it seems like the philosophy, uh, the guy's name is Tony Gilroy who created it. The philosophy of less is more really, really, really benefits and, or, and makes it a fantastic show. Yeah.

One tie fighters all you need. Let's take some, I want to know what the nation thinks. Well, look at us. Same time. Let's see what the nation Ed ed Robinson, you've had your hand raised for a while. Hey look if you want to touch on that monster manual, that's fine We haven't gotten to you yet. Ed. Can you hear me? Oh, we're good. Can you hear me? Yeah. Yeah, I can hear you I can't I'm doing pretty good awesome I can hear you. How are you doing Ed? Sure can. I'm doing pretty good. Awesome. Awesome. First of all, I'm going to briefly argue with Jared and say that if you haven't seen Skeleton

Crew, if you have kids, watch it with your kids and that you will see Star Wars like you saw it in the 70s. Oh cool. Yeah, I do want to check out Skeleton Crew with my kids. I just watched 4, 5, and 6 with my kids for the first time. So that was, that was exciting. Yeah. Skeleton crew is like, um, the Goonies was for us in the eighties and it's just fantastic. Cool. My issue is, my issue is like, um, my kids are three and five, so they're not quite old enough for like star Wars, I think in some ways and watching it on my own, I'm like, that's for kids. This is for kids. I, you know what I mean? Like I, I just own. I'm like, that's for kids. This is for kids.

I, you know what I mean? Like, I just feel like I'm watching a show for children. Um, I just, I entered, my kids entered that perfect age in my opinion, uh, eight and six, so I waited, I held off star wars. I mean, holding off until my daughter was eight was really difficult, especially cause I didn't want her to get any spoilers from episode five. Right? So I'm just like, I never mentioned anything about it. I would just always stay away from it. was really difficult, especially because I didn't want her to get any spoilers from episode five.

Right? So I'm just like, I never mentioned anything about it. I would just always stay away from it. And it worked. She was completely shocked. Though she did bring up that like, she was like, oh, that's what that means. Because she was reading some like dogman comic or something where it was like, I am your father, like real big.

And she was like, no, I get it. It was cute. And sorry, anyway, sorry, Ed, any thoughts on Andor? Oh yeah. The thing that got me excited about the trailer was seeing I'm worse in credit and I, I, I know that Jared's not particularly fond of Rogue One. One of the things for me was there was actually a preview book, a prequel book to Rogue One, I think it was called Catalyst.

And it talks about the relationship between Orson Krennic and Jan Erso's father. And a lot of Krennic's story is dealing with government bureaucracy and people like Tarkin trying to steal his money for their own projects. And as somebody who works in government acquisition for a living, I really bonded with Orson Krennic over that. Yeah, I'm sorry, Ed. Who is Orson Krennic? He's the main villain of Rogue One. The old guy in the light uniform.

No, Ed, not a shred of memory of that character. But- Well, he showed up at the very end of the trailer. So he's gonna appear in Andorra Season Two. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Finally, the Orson Krennic fans get the sweet Orson Krennic fan service they've been waiting for. I'm going to make Ed a t-shirt that just says Orson Krennic with the character on it. And Ed can wear that to Gen Con. Oh,

oh Ben Mendelsohn. Yes. Okay. Oh, Ben Mendelsohn. Yes. Okay. It was Ben Mendelsohn. Oh, Ben Mendelsohn. Yes. Okay. Yeah.

He was awesome. That was awesome. I like Ben Mendelsohn very much. He's great. Let's get another caller. Cmos85, can I ask you a personal question? Cmos85. a personal question. Seamus85, apparently not, Seamus does not want to, does not wanna join us and speak.

All right, I'm gonna move on to Butterbiscuit. Butterbiscuit, where are you? Oh, of course, and then Seamus comes up. Seamus, hold on a second, keep your mic muted. We'll come to you in one second. Butterbiscuit, what do you got? Hello, Butterbiscuit. What do you got on Andor?

Hope you guys can hear me okay, I'm hiding from my boss right now. Oh, awesome, I love it. A little workplace breakout. Nothing would be more flattering to me than if you got fired for this. Yeah, so I mostly agree with what Jared just said about, and, or being the only good thing pretty much ever.

Although it was kind of funny to hear Joe say, Oh, not everyone thinks that because there's this online Psyop going on about people saying the prequels are actually good. Oh God. When they're in fact terrible. And that seemed to be an accepted fact when I was little, but now it's widespread. But anyway, yes. And or is amazing.

And I feel like it has revitalized star Wars in my eyes. And when I was first watching that, the, the I episode where they finished the heist and then are escaping the star storm. My God, I was like, Oh my God, this is amazing. I was going to, that's all I was going to ask you is to give one, one memorable scene and holy crap, you hit on another one. What a memorable scene. And then right at the end of that same episode when the thing with Eben Mazerbackerak's character happens I mean, I don't want to spoil it, but yeah

I don't remember. Don't because yeah another great part. Well, like we said on this show, there's gonna be spoilers on this show But yeah, you get the idea. Uh, but yeah, that's, oh, such, so, so good. So good. So, and you know what? Sorry, go ahead, butter. I was just going to say, it just feels so refreshing. It's not weighed down. Yeah. Of this power. Sir. Yes. Yes. It's not way down by all of this power. Yes. Yes.

I agree with you. I, I do wish it was not a prequel. I fucking hate prequels. Yeah. You know how they end. It sucks that it is a prequel. I agree. Yeah.

I wish that they could reboot, you know, star wars in that way, that they really could sort of have a, a rebellion story where you don't know what the end is going to be. And I think that that would be really amazing. And I would just want to agree with one thing on Butterbiscuit before we bring on Seamuice, which is a lot of this shit that Disney put out for Star Wars, While I do appreciate the desire to buy that property and create more in that sandbox. I like the idea of wanting to do that. I feel like almost all of it were failures, in my opinion. And it started to dilute my love of the original movies.

It impacted- Look what's happened to Marvel. my love of the original movies. It impacted. Look what's happened to Marvel. Well, look what's happened to Marvel. The same thing. Exactly. And so I feel that Andor, just like Butterbiscuit said, it reinvigorated for me what I love so much about the original movies. I mean, it's done wonders. Cmus85, oh shit, I just kicked you out.

I apologize. Wrong click. I'm going to bring you right back. You're out, Cmus. I've waited all this time. I just kicked you out. I apologize. Wrong click. I'm going to bring you right back. You're out Seamus. Waited all this time. I'm bringing you right back. Unmute your microphone and can I ask you a personal question? God damn it. Unmute your microphone. Seamus. No. Shit. Sorry, Seamus. Shit.

Sorry Seamus. Sorry, technical issues are a pain in the ass. Just raise your hand again if you get. If you figure out how to get that mic unmuted. In the meantime, Mr. E Knight, do you got anything on Andor? So I'm one of the Philistines that has not seen Andor yet, but I'm really, really looking forward to

it because I've, uh, I'm getting into playing a edge of empire game soon. Oh, that is going to be set in the same era. So I am stoked to kind of get into that, uh, that era and get my head around it. That's great. So Edge of the Empire is the sort of... That's sort of the smuggler setting, right? Outer rim sort of setting. So we're doing an overarching campaign where we're going to start in Edge of Empire and then move into Age of Rebellion.

So that's what I played. That Matthew ran was Age of Rebellion. So phenomenal. Matthew did a great job, but it felt like Andor. I was like, what we're playing here, randomly improv with Rolled Dice is better than anything anybody's made since Star Wars, you know, since those original movies. And so, but Andor is the first one on my, oh yeah, that is actually better than our game. The narrative die system is so dope as well. It just like helps the GMs and the players run the

story. It is so much fun. I just wanted to, I don't want to take up too much time here, but I did also want to just throw out a shout out to Mick D for getting us all set up with the live streams of the live shows. Yeah. I was going to talk about that in a second during nerd chat. So awesome. Thank you guys so much. I can't believe it worked. I really do appreciate it. Yeah, it's good. I can't believe it really do appreciate it. I can't believe it. Thanks a lot, Mr. Enid. I appreciate you calling in. Yeah. Well, we'll talk about the Texas trip in a second, but let's wait. Is it great transition? Should we just go ahead and yeah, let's, uh, yeah, yeah, let's get into it. We got a lot to cover. So let's

get into it. I now present a nerd travelogue from our very own Joseph O'Brien. Philadelphia born, but now a world traveler. A world traveler. And I returned to a city I have not been to since 2019, I believe, and I was just there briefly, in Dallas, Texas. I have been to Austin multiple times in my life. I've been to Houston, I've been to Galveston, I've been around a bunch of different cities in Texas.

I've been to Plano. I stayed in an Airbnb in Plano during COVID randomly with Nick Lowe and his family. It was amazing. But like all over Texas, and I never go to Dallas for whatever reason. So this trip, we were going to Dallas and Austin for Glass Cannon Live. I got to go down to Dallas. You can see McD has thrown up a graphic there of beautiful downtown Dallas. But what you're looking at right there and the subject of this travel log is actually

us doing a little history nerding out courtesy of my my friend Skid Maher, who's in chat right now. Skid, you just missed the Andor talk. We're going to have to get you in for some extended Andor stuff, especially when we start watching season two and doing comments on every episode on Glass Cannon Radio. Skid took us to this spot that you see right here, and that is Dealey Plaza, the location of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. That's the street right there and that the building you see there,

that red building there is the book depository and it was just incredible. So Skid walks us over there and you can see there's this like, well, we'll put up a graphic with the path, right? So like when you go and actually stand there, they put X's in the street, literally sunken into the asphalt of where the two shots hit JFK. Do you know about this, Jared? No, I've never been to Dallas. Okay. Wow. Okay. Yeah. So I'm like, I'm standing there and I'm just like, it's, it's amazing. It's only like a small little two lane road that just leads onto a highway. Basically it's a very short kind of stretch of street and it is, there's this X big X depressed into the center of the road, depressed,

like maybe a quarter of an inch, right? It's meant to not mess with your tires too much, but you can definitely see it from the sidewalk and there's two, one where the first bullet hits in the back, I believe. And then the second one, which is the kill shot, the head shot a little bit down the street a little bit. And as you stop and stand right next to that second X on the sidewalk and look back, I mean, you can see, and Skid is pointing out like the exact window that

Lee Harvey Oswald is in at the moment. You can see the line of effect of the shot. Well, Joe, if you believe it was him. Exactly. Well, we'll get to that in a second. So you turn around, there's a really interesting plaque there that marks the location as a US historic site. It mentions nothing about Kennedy, nothing about an assassination, nothing about a murder. It's literally maybe a six inch or eight inch plaque that just is embedded in some stone and the grass there just off the side of the road. And it says this is being preserved as a stone and the grass there just off the side of the road. And it says, this is being preserved as a

national US historic site for its, for its importance in the history of the United States of America. It's all it says keeps it very, something happened here. Something happened. Exactly. Important. And so skid is then like, all right, well now, and we only had a little bit of time because we had to, we had to go to lunch and then load in. He's like, we want to, he's like, all right, well now, and we only had a little bit of time because we had to we had to go to lunch and then load in. He's like, we want to, he's like, I want to take what he called the murder walk, which is to, in fact, skit, if you want to hop into discord, you should hop into discord, you don't have to hop into Streamyard, just discord and I can get you on here. The the path of Lee Harvey Os Oswald from the time he runs out of the book depository is stopped for a moment and, uh, almost questioned there by police because they heard a gunshot and everything.

And his manager's like, no, no, no, no, no, he works here. Like that's not him. And he just leaves and heads back to his, uh, boarding house. So skid orders a lift to take us to his boarding house where he was staying at the time. And while we're waiting for the lift. Which is now a Panera Bread. It is now a Panera Bread.

You would think, right? Something along those lines. And, but no, it's just a regular house. Just like, I mean, the lift pulled up and I literally turned to whisper to Skid and I was like, Skid, I think this is just somebody's house. Like it's on a very small street, suburban street, with just like house, house, house, house, house. And they're all kind of run down, you know, like not well kept. It's not in a great part of town. And it's just kind of like,

there's barely a sign. So it turns out it was hidden behind like a parked car, but this small sign out front says it's the boarding house and that you can like come in and see it. We're like, okay. So Skid rings the ring doorbell and no answer. It's just an answering machine comes up and it's like, please make an appointment to like come and see the boarding house. We're like, oh, all right. But then we start walking and Skid takes us on the walk, the path that he takes leaving this house to then being stopped by JD Tippett, a police officer who stopped him and said, yo, fella, we don't know what the exchange was. No one will ever know, but there's some suspicious sort of something going on. And the picture you see now is like, right where the this murder

happened because Lee Harvey Oswald then shot this cop four times killed him on the street, just a certain amount of blocks up from the boarding house. So we walk up there, see that and there's a big plaque there. The intersection has since changed since back then. But they put a marker there and it kind of explain who JD tip it is what he did etc etc He was killed on the same day as JFK. You know all this stuff. So Yeah, anyway, I don't want to take up too much time. We got a lot to cover, but I just know this is incredible Yeah, one thing I will say is the Kennedy assassination really did put the kibosh on presidents driving slowly buying convertibles.

You don't see that anymore. No, you don't see that anymore. Put the president in a convertible and have him drive slowly down the street. It's not something anybody does anymore. And I miss it. It was a simpler time. I think that it was really, it was really surprising to me to see how quaint it was for lack of a better term. Like,

the whole area was very small. I was pictured what you can't see from the Zapruder film as like a big area behind it, a grassy knoll, like a hill, right? All this stuff that's just out behind the camera where all these like thousands and thousands of people were packed in to watch this motorcade. But you get there and it's like, it's already a monument. It already was a monument to George Dealey. I don't even know who he is. I think he was like a mayor or a governor of something. And like, it was all cement.

And like, that's why there's a Pruder film. Like he's standing on flat cement right off the side of the street, like filming this. And, and yeah, it's all very, like the street is just very, he just made a left on a very small street heading to the highway. Like it was just, it was really incredible to be there. It was, it was very surprising. I that's, I mean, this is a kind of nerdery I get heavily into assassination, nerdery, presidential nerdery.

And, um, I would, I would go on that walk. I, if I went to Dallas, I would be all in. I would try to make that happen. Um, uh, what do you think? Do you think Oswald killed him? So we're standing there. That's what these plaques, these officially sanctioned plaques would have you believe.

You're getting it. We're, we're, we finished just looking at the book depository, the line of sight, the X's, everything. It's like, all right, let's go to the boarding house. We don't have time to walk there. Let's just take a lift. So he calls a lift and we're standing on the side of the road right by where this all happened, waiting for a lift to come. And this guy just comes up to us out of nowhere. Satchel over his shoulder and it's just like, I mean, he doesn't even say like, hey, how

you folks doing today? Or like, you folks interested in the JFK assassination? He just launches right in to like, you're not going to get the real tour no matter who you ask around here. I'm the only one that really has done the research and knows what happened, blah, blah, blah. And he starts reaching into his like satchel and he's pulling out these like pamphlets and papers and he's like, I'll, you know, like I I'll give you this for free, but like my whatever pamphlet is $5, you're going to see the actual conspiracy revealed.

And he like flips open this book in my face and just like holds it up and it is like horrific full color medical examiner views of like JFK's exploded head. Like, and I was like, Oh my God, like that's what you call a hard sell. Literally, I was like, Oh my God, like on the street. And he was like, it will show conclusive evidence for how Lee Harvey Oswald could not have possibly assassinated John F. Kennedy and blah, blah, whatever. Does that work for him showing exploded heads? Has that ever worked for this guy?

I mean, I don't know. I mean, he's been doing it. It must have been doing it a long time. So I guess it's working. Or that or he's just stubborn and not changing his ways. But we were like, and then right then our car pulled up. We were like, sorry, we were just waiting for a lift. We gotta go, bye.

The line between entrepreneur and crazy man raving in the street is a thin one. Yeah, Skid and Chad says, that guy sucked. Yeah, well put Skid, well put. Well, I wanna go and these are the kinds of spots I like to visit. I find it so fascinating. I had no idea that the marker for the spot is so vague. It seems like such a strange choice to me. You could very easily put it into context with a plaque and be like, this is where a great tragedy occurred. Because I don't think anybody would argue that it wasn't a tragedy. That feels like 1984, a disinformation campaign. Tell us what happened.

Let people educate themselves. And perhaps I'm overstating it. I didn't look up the actual plaque again, but that's what I remember. They certainly don't mention anything about JFK or an assassination or a murder or a president. Like, they don't say anything of that nature. And so I thought it was a little shifty myself. I thought it was weird.

But you know, the other thing I thought was strange strange I had heard that there was an X in the street and I thought that was like here's where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated I thought that it was pretty wild that there were two X's for the exact landing spots of the two bullets like there are bullet point Xs, but not a description of what happened. Yeah, just, just odd. That's Orwellian. I'm sorry.

That's so odd. Anyway. It's so ominous. I want to move on, but I just quickly want to thank everybody that's listening to this, that was there in Dallas and in Austin. The shows were great.

The kickoff of a new home brew campaign. We'll talk more about that, Jared, as the year goes on. We'll talk about this home brew campaign. But McD, a huge thank you to McD for figuring out the tech to get it streamed live to Discord. That was really fun for folks. I hope you guys continue to enjoy that. I hope we can continue to do that.

It's really dependent on venues, Wi-Fi, and stuff like that. A lot of it's out of our hands, but we got lucky. In these cases, it worked out really well. And thank you to everybody that was there that came up to me before the shows to talk about Glass Cannon Radio and say how much they're enjoying Glass Cannon Radio. They're listening to Glass Cannon Radio.

I said, call in. And a lot of them were like, I'm too nervous. Or they were like, you do it at noon, you moron. On a week said, call in. And a lot of them were like, I'm too nervous. Or they were like, you do it at noon, you moron on the one a weekday. I work. I was like, yeah, that's true. But we'd love to have you call in. Thank you so much to everybody that was there. We appreciate you. Yeah. That's fantastic. Yeah. We're so happy this show, people are enjoying this show. And if you're enjoying it, let us know cuz we love to hear it before we move on real quick I'm gonna give see moose 85 one more chance see Seamus has raised their hand

Still with a muted microphone, oh No problem. Can I ask you my personal question? Yes, well done. I'm always curious about this. What is the question? The question is, were you born in 1985? Yes, yes, I was.

I'm a big millennial. I'm just putting numbers after my usernames. Whenever I see two numbers at the end of a username, I'm always putting numbers after my usernames like I have since 1999. Yeah whenever I see two numbers at the end of a username I'm always like, is that your birth year? Anyway, Seamus. You don't want to be confused with the Seamus who was born in 89. That's a big important distinction. Are you calling about Andor? I was calling about Andor, yeah. Nice, weigh in real quick before we move on. Okay, yeah.

So yeah, I wanted to add on to your guys' point about it being sort of the first adult Star Wars almost. And I thought that the way it was great how they did that because it was a lot of the way they made things sort of realistic. I'm thinking about the way they made things sort of realistic. I'm thinking about the way when they were walking at that beach resort town and how it just looked like a regular sort of beach resort town.

Anybody could be there. It was like, until you saw an alien walk by, it could be just from any random show. And that brought it a lot sort of closer to real life for me anyway. Yeah, yeah, good point, good point. Yeah, and also that I do say on program to my children about once a month, so that's a thing.

I'm sorry, say that again? Oh, and I do use that, get on program. Yeah, get on program. Like from the jail. Get on program, I'm gonna start using that, get on program. Yeah, get on program. Like from the jail. Get on program? I'm going to start using that. Everybody on program. Time to go.

Anyway. But you know, Seamus makes a good point about Andor, which is that it does things that Star Wars normally doesn't do. Like we see, like, for example, that one character's relationship with his mother and like a little apartment. We see people like go into the beach and like, I feel like there's like a lot more like mundane life in Andor than in a lot of other Star Wars things and you would think that that would kind of diluted and make it less exciting Or adventurous, but they they they pick their they pick their details really well

Yeah, and you get a little bit more idea of the day to day for someone in that galaxy. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. It reminds me of something I've heard about from, uh, Miyazaki's films where you have to have those moments of downtime, those quiet moments to make the big moments seem big. You have to have that up and down. Otherwise it's just, it's all bombast. It's all explosions and it's, it exhausts you. Yeah. And it loses its. It loses its effectiveness. Thank you for calling in Seamus.

Please call again. So the I was I was preparing Impossible Landscapes by Dennis Dittweiler. He wrote early on in the very early pages of that book, a couple pages focusing just on how monumentally important it is to have the mundane in your game and have it established and repeating before you enter in the elements of surreal horror that are kind of key to the King in Yellow. You know, it's just you have to show the mundane in Delta Green in order for it to sing. And you know, we strived to do that early on and I think that it really did You have to show the mundane in Delta Green in order for it to sing. We strived to do that early on and I think that it really did have a great impact on

the game. It's like showing those real life moments is what gives weight to everything else that comes after it. If you're like, oh, I want to start my game with a big action scene fighting an unnatural creature, it's like, hey, that's your game. You can do whatever you want, but like, where do you go from there? You know, you got to keep those kinds of things in mind. What, what horror, horror, especially, you have to very slowly ramp it up.

If you show the creature in the first scene, you've kind of killed any sense of, of threat or it's not scary. Exactly. It's just not scary. Uh, let me say one thing before we move on, which is I wanted to mention something about the, I said, statting out a great old one. So just to tie it in to Delta Green real quick. So the Handler's Guide for Delta Green offers stats and listings for a lot of unnatural creatures. It gives you a little bit of lore about what they are. A lot of the Cthulhu mythos and various different mythos that they all cover in Delta Green.

I heard an interview where some of the designers, developers, and writers of that book were talking about writing passages on great old ones and statting out great old ones. They had this debate among the creators about how to stat it out. And then eventually came to the conclusion that there would be no stat blocks and no statting out for great old ones. And they're like, anything you stat out immediately in a player's mind can be destroyed. Even if you make the stats crazy, it can be destroyed. It has some defining limits to anything. They were like, we removed any idea of stat blocks with great old ones and we just say, what can a great old one do? Anything you can imagine. What are they capable of? Anything. They're immortal. They're undefeatable. It lists it all down. Anyway, I just thought that that was a funny aspect of like a stat block.

I love a, a Cthulhu call of Cthulhu podcast called the good friends of Jackson Elias. And anytime they talk about a great old one or an outer God, they always do a part called can you punch it? And they will look at the stat block and be like, here's what would happen if you tried to punch it, you know, like, and I always think that that's really clever and really, really fun. So shout out to Scott Dorward, Matt Sanderson and Paul Fricker for giving me that enjoyment in my life. Shall we talk about Rebel Ridge?

Dude, a complete surprise to me. You said this to me a week or two ago, or you and Skid were chatting. It might have been when Skid was on Glass Cannon Radio maybe, or no, I think it was A Blood of the Wild. It was like A Blood of the Wild before we started recording. And you guys were talking about this show. You're both raving about this movie. So I went and checked it out. So please tell people what Rebel Ridge is, because I had never heard of it until you mentioned it. So it's not surprising that you haven't heard of it because we talked about streaming on this show not too long ago. And I don't know how much we hit on the fact that great movies, a lot of the movies on streaming are not good.

They're in my opinion, they're very flat, like I was saying earlier. But occasionally a great one pops up, but nobody hears about it. And the reason nobody hears about it is because everybody's algorithm is different. So I think I mentioned this, like, you know, as someone's algorithm is different, you go over to their house, you go over to your relative's house in Oklahoma and you turn on their Netflix and the shows that Netflix is selling them are completely different. You're like tradwife tractor pool.

I've never heard of this. So, um, my point is this movie got lost and this is the best action movie, pure action movie that I think has come out in years because it's smart. The action is thrilling and it has, it has some real issues and some real pathos at the center of it. Just a very briefly outline what it's about. A character, a black man played by Aaron Pierre, who you might have seen on the show.

Krypton. Did you know there was a show called Krypton about the planet Krypton? I had never seen. I had forgotten. Yeah. It was originally supposed to be John Boyega to bring him up again. It was really supposed to be John Boyega to bring him up, up again. It was really supposed to be John Boyega. There were a lot of problems with the pandemic and the shooting schedule and ended

up being this guy, Aaron Pierre, who does a fantastic job. So a black man played by Aaron Pierre is riding his bike to a town in the South. He has $36,000 on him to get his buddy out of jail. It's a, to post bail. Yeah. The reason he has to get his buddy out of jail is his, his buddy is going to be in trouble with the criminals he worked for. If he gets put into the jail system, if he gets put into the,

like the real prison, he's going to get killed in prison by some bad people. So he's got to get his buddy out of jail. in prison by some bad people. So he's got to get his buddy out of jail. The cops stop Aaron Piers character. He's on a bike or bicycle. Yeah. Basically because he's a black guy and that happens in real life

and it happens in this movie. And then they take the money from him because according to their Southern law, the laws of their state or their town, they are allowed to impound things that they find on, you know, very thin pretentious drug money, suspected drug money. So then it is Aaron Pierce quest to get the money back, to get his buddy out of jail. And it ends up being one man versus a town full of cops and that man has a very specific set of skills. I won't spoil that too much because it's a great scene. It's great and how they reveal his specific set of skills. But guys, this movie has, for my money, the best action climax I've seen in a while.

That final gunfight, fistfight is jaw-droppingly good. Uh-huh. Totally agree. And I think that there's... One of the reasons I think you don't see too many great action movies these days, it could be a variety of reasons, and this might sound stupid, but my gut is like, everything would have to just be redone, right? Like you'd have to just redo something that's already been done. And in some ways, this has elements to it that are an homage to first

blood. Like there are definitely elements to this that are very first blood. Rambo first blood, yeah, absolutely. A great movie as well, a classic. Great movie, yep. However, the main conceit beyond everything Jared said that he has not said, which is like the real motivation behind the money and what the money is for, not necessarily from the main character's perspective, but from the police perspective, is so interesting to me. It's very like, it feels very modern. It's like a modern story about the operational limits of police forces and what sort of bullshit they could pull,

bullshit they are, they would, they could pull, you know, in this case to, uh, remain even operational. You know what I mean? It's very interesting. And we absolutely know that police forces all over our country, and I'm not saying all of them, but there are many, many police forces that act as mobs. Right. Right. Which is why, I mean, to me, it was so enlightening just playing the tin whistles with you. Like, I'm very naive in a lot of things. I don't watch the news generally. And I haven't like my whole life. I just kind of like, I don't really get into that kind of stuff. And I just was like, when Blades in the Dark laid out the stat block for the cops as the exact same as the stat block for the criminals and explains that they're just factions, you

know what I mean? It's just another faction. It really is enlightening to think about how you can utilize the same exact tactics, the same exact power structures, the same exact sort of theories of how you recruit, maintain, and execute your will and take territory from other factions. This movie really does a great job of putting that on display. One is legitimized by government and the law and the other is not. It's a really extremely interesting thin line between cops and criminals. But I think, you know,

if we're going to talk about the cops in this movie, Don Johnson as the sheriff, Oh, so good. Such a beautiful piece of shit. Oh, he's amazing. He's amazing. He's awful, but he's not stupid. Uh, and he, and he may underestimate our hero a bit, but he's, he's not a dumb guy and, um, to see how he navigates the situation, it's as interesting as how the hero navigates the situation.

You know, and I also really liked David Denman's character. Uh, one of the first police officers that pulls him over. That character is that, I feel like David Denman so often plays this kind of like big, slightly oafish, shitty guy. Just kind of shitty. Like, not an evil mastermind. You know, not like some, just kind of a shitty dude. And he does it so well.

He's done it in a couple different shows where he kind of has the look of somebody that could be a nice guy, but he's just kind of a shitty guy. And he does a great job. It feels to me, you know, so realistic. And then there's the other guy who I think is, his name is Emory Cohen. Is that his name? Uh, the other, yeah, Emory Cohen, the other police officer is amazing at being basically evil. Like just so all the, yeah, all the people that play the cops are great and they, they, you know, they even get like a little bit of distinction

between them, their personalities, which you don't often see in like a, when there's like a group of bad guys, you know, the lesser bad guys often seem just like their one character trait is evil. And this is a little bit more complex than that. And this movie does not paint the cops brush, like, oh, these are cops. These are what cops are like.

Like they're each individual. They're not heroic, they're not automatically evil. Right, they each have their own thing that they're kind of doing and yeah. The system that they're perpetuating is evil though. Anna Sophia Robb, the co-lead with Aaron Pierre, the lawyer that's trying to help him. Um, she's amazing too. And they're a really good duo together.

Yeah. Really good. So they're kind of trying to solve a mystery because the, the, the movie keeps escalating. The situation gets more complex. You get deeper into what's going on in this town. It's a conspiracy. It's not just a straight revenge. Yeah. It's not just a straight revenge thriller. It's also a conspiracy thriller where you get into really deep with like Joe says, like how these- Follow the money. How these places work. Right? That kind of stuff. Yeah.

So interesting. And it ties into the legal system, which is why you have the justice system, which is why you have this lawyer character who becomes prevalent in it. I mean, it just is really great. So, just a one shout out to the director. If you haven't seen his other films, Joe, I know you probably haven't because I'm always like, you haven't seen that. But this guy, you know, something he has done that you might be aware of is he, he directed

some episodes of True Detective. So that's one thing he's done, but you have to see his revenge thriller, Blue Ruin, and his sort of horror siege thriller. This is the one you really have to see, the Green Room. Have you heard of the Green Room? No, only hearing you and Skid mention that it was the same director.

The Green Room premises a punk rock band, plays a gig and realizes when they get there that a lot of the audience are neo-Nazis. They get off to the wrong foot with the neo-Nazis and then it becomes punk rock band versus an army of neo-Nazis. Amazing! Oh, so that's why it's the green room. They're like, they're in the green room? They're trapped in the green room, literally. Okay. Say no more. Say no more.

I'll watch it and we'll talk about it on Glass Cannon Radio. I think, I think that, you know, I don't think we need to take calls on Rebel Ridge. Should we move on to our final segment? Let's move on to our final segment. We took a lot of time today on Monster Manual. Hey, our final word, go see Rebel Ridge. Go see Rebel Ridge. Should we move on to our final segment? Let's move on to our final segment. We took a lot of time today on Monster Manual. Hey, our final word, go see Rebel Ridge. Go see Rebel Ridge. Check it out. It's on your Netflix. I know you have that. Please check it out. We're going to move to our final segment. This is called

Dear GCR, where we are going to answer your emails asking advice. An advice column. So, it's going to be our advice column segment. Just call me Dear Abby and then Joe, I don't know, what's another advice column? You could be the other one. Yeah. I always think of my brother, my brother in me. I used to love that. That was so fun. Oh yeah.

Well, this is my buddy, my buddy and me. Jared McDee and me. Yeah. And McDee, make sure to weigh in here if you have some thoughts. So I'm going to start with our first question. I think we only have time for one. I think we'll do one today and we could do more down the line. We'll collect them. We'll collect them. Totally. So let's see. Oh, this is a great one

biomechanical magical writes What do you do when players totally don't understand a mystery? I was running a game with multiple conspiracies and mysteries and eventually realized my players were ignoring every clue I made trying to lead them into the bigger picture. Is it better to just railroad them? So I have thoughts on this and my thoughts come from another source. Not surprisingly, because there are a lot of people smarter than me out there. So there's a guy named Justin Alexander. He is a big time game master and game master advice guy.

And he has, he, he streams on Twitch, like he'll take questions and things like that. And he has a website called the Alexandrian, the alexandrian.net is where you can find it. And he is a huge proponent of something called the three clue rule. Have you heard of this show? Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say. I heard it from a different source, but it was the three clue rule. Have you heard of this show? Yeah, that's exactly what I was gonna cite.

I heard it from a different source, but it was the three clue rule. Maybe he didn't originate it, this guy, Justin Alexander, but he's written a lot of essays on it that can help you understand it really well. I'm sure what I was listening to was citing him, and maybe I just missed that name, but yeah. Maybe so, maybe so, or maybe, you know,

more than one person came to this conclusion on their own, but basically it's very simple. Anything you want the characters to know, there should be at least three clues in a mystery that lead them to that conclusion. And, um, those clues might need to be in multiple different locations. But, uh, so just to need to be in multiple different locations. But, um, so just to clarify on that, what I would say is it's not that the three clues

need to be in three different locations. It's that the three clues should, if it's done well, be location agnostic as much as possible so that you can drag and drop them into wherever players go. Right, wherever they go, you can drop these clues, okay? And that's actually sort of the opposite of a railroad in a way, because you're adapting to the players, right?

I mean, players are notorious for this behavior that you're talking about biomechanical,ical magical, like players just don't get it. Like this question is every GM that's running call of Cthulhu and Delta Green is dealing with this all the time. And I think that, so yes, making your clues vague enough, even in your own writing that they could be placed anywhere or come through any witness, a different witness from a different place or whatever, not a witness per se, a different, you know, interrogation or whatever, agreed. There are some places, the

blood spatter clue at a crime scene can only be at the crime scene. 100% get there. But as you're preparing and writing this, or even if you're just reading it and preparing it for players, know this. This is the other golden rule that came out of the thing that I heard about this exact conundrum, is your players will always miss the largest, first and most obvious clue. They will. They will. So just like assume that's gonna happen

and have these other ones ready to rock because they're gonna miss the first one. So to be clear, at least three clues for anything they need to know to move on, but you could give them more, like especially if they're not getting it. And just another thing I'll throw out there, Pellgrain Press, their gumshoe system has a system

where people automatically get clues by spending points. I don't even think you need to spend points. Some clues you should just give them. It shouldn't always require a skill role. Sometimes they walk in and they see something. Now it's, it's dependent on them to put it all together and figure out what it means. But the clue shouldn't like be behind a paywall. Like some, some clues they should just get right away.

Putting clues behind a paywall, as you say, is very dangerous. You have to- A skill check wall. You have to make sure that you're being selective and know what the results of success are and the results of failure before you call for the role. You can't call for a role, like an intelligence times five role in Delta Green,

or even if it was like a Gumshrew system, or I'm sorry, in Delta Green you could also, what is your intelligence number? No skill roll needed, right? That's one option. But if you want them to roll, you would want to know, well, if they don't get the clue, how is this going to move forward? So the alternate is, okay, they're going to get the clue.

I want them to roll because deciphering the files on the computer can either take them one hour or 10 hours. And the failure condition, they still get the clue, but they've created danger somewhere else or someone's closer or an encounter happens now outside the police pull up. Right? Like those failing forward, failing forward, have those elements ready and just define them in your mind. Like I have to give this clue. Now let's move on to another thing. Unless you have, um, other things to say about specifically the three clue rule.

No, I don't know. I want to move on to the players have all three clues for multiple pieces of evidence and can't put the puzzle together. That also happens all the time. There are no more clues. You think this is so obvious based on what they see. How do you move it forward then? Jared.

Oh, wow. What a great question. I mean, sometimes you just need to have smarter players. So there's a thing called like the idea role, right? Like there's- Right, sure. But again, what's the failure condition of the idea role? You just, you still sit there and go, uh, you know,

usually I think making it time-based or adding a threat is a good idea. This way you can- I think you, you, you've solved it with, with, you know, usually I think making it time-based or adding a threat is a good idea. This way you can- I think you've solved it with, you know, your time limit. You know, so many things in role-playing games benefit from a time limit. If we don't do it by this time, X happens.

Or the bad guys are operating their own plan. They're not standing there at attention waiting for the PCs to do something. So, I mean, you know, you could do worse than the bad guys attacking the PCs. The PC is getting a cap, a chance to capture or interrogate one of them, you know, uh, get answers that way. Um, but definitely like if they're just not putting it together, make something happen.

Because I'll say this, you could have a mystery game where the PCs never solve it, but if a bunch of exciting stuff happened, you still ran a good game. Oh, particularly in Delta Green. You know, Delta Green thrives in an environment where solving the mystery is not the objective. The objective is dealing immediately with any evidence of an unnatural threat, right? Like that's it.

And so solving everything is not necessarily needed. So maybe all you need to do is just nudge them to a location and then things will play out. There's a lot of ways you can nudge into a location. So something that I did, uh, in, in impossible landscapes at one point, and I, I won't give any big spoilers here, but at one point I felt like the players were not connecting the evidence. I also felt like the evidence is really hard to connect. It's so mind stretching with hostile, you know, mythos that you're kind of like, uh, okay.

Yeah, it's not intuitive. You're seeing all these different pieces, but you that you're kind of like, okay. Yeah, it's not intuitive. You're seeing all these different pieces, but you don't necessarily see how they fit together. And so what I did in one scene was they decided to capture and interrogate somebody. And I had that person tell them so much about the mystery. And none of that is recommended in the adventure. But

I just was like, this is a great way. Talking to another human is the best way to get across evidence. So what I would say is don't just tell them or handhold them as the GM or handler or keeper to like, well, look at this piece, look at this piece, come on. Well, what is it? What do those two have in common? What is blah, blah, blah? And keep asking them the question or say, you guys would realize that this means this.

I try to avoid that. I try to do it through an NPC. And I think a really good way to do that if you don't have one handy is to have always be thinking of a potential henchmen, a potential dissatisfied ally, you know, somebody that's either a defector. How about this? I mean, I've used this in Call of Cthulhu before. They have to take the evidence to an expert, which happens all the time in genre fiction. You go to the guy that can decipher hieroglyphics or whatever and then after that

guy reads the thing he goes insane or he gets targeted by the monster now you've got like another death on your hands and it's your fucking fault because you're the one that gave him the book but he's able to give you the information dump that you needed before all that happens but then still exciting stuff is happening in the story. And the fact that the characters weren't able to put it together on their own had a huge consequence. Yeah, there's, I just think that one of the best things you can rely on when the team doesn't put

the final puzzle pieces together is to utilize dialogue and an NPC. Create the NPC if you have to, and the idea role in this case can be, or the flat idea, if you just don't wanna have a role, you just say, what's your intelligence, 70? Okay, you know that there is a hieroglyphics expert at Columbia University that could potentially get you some answers

to some of these questions, whatever it is, the idea becomes talk to this other person that we haven't mentioned before in the adventure, right? Or look for an expert in this field. That way it feels a little bit less like you just had to hand them that and that they're stupid, right? Like it's just a bad feeling at the table. I know that feeling, uh, both as a player and as a GM. And I also know as Corp Dunk said in, in Twitch chat, I also know from being on

both sides, how easy it seems as a GM to put the puzzle together and how impossible it seems as a player to put that same puzzle together. It absolutely seems impossible. And I want to just say, you know, running mysteries is one of the hardest things you will do as a player to put that same puzzle together. It absolutely seems impossible. And I want to just say, you know, running mysteries is one of the hardest things you will do as a GM. Yeah. And you almost sometimes have to think of them as not a mystery.

You know, you almost sometimes have to think of them like, I'm going to give them these clues. They're going to jump between scenes because the clues are so obvious. Like, I don't know. If you're having trouble with a mystery, you are not the first nor are you the last. Just, yeah, I mean, but it's fun. It's fun when it works.

Start with the three clues method, make sure there's multiple ways they can find out the same information, and then if they have the pieces, all the evidence you've prepared, and they can't put the puzzle together, I would say go with an NPC of some kind because the best part about an NPC of some kind is the players can ask them further questions and you can respond. That's what's better than like, oh I found a note or I found a diary entry.

That might still not put it all together for them. The NPC could be a bad guy. It could be someone they have to coerce into helping them. It could be someone they have to charm into helping them or pay someone. Blackmail, whatever. Like it could be there. It could be their good friend or their bond. And they're putting that person in danger by bringing them in. Like make it interesting beyond just now this guy comes in and gives us the answers, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Um, anyway, yeah, we saw that that was, that was a great question. And yeah, it is. It's, it's, it's tough, uh, running mysteries, a hundred percent, but, um, great question. But yeah, well, we'll do this again. I like these dear GCR. We thought we would do a few more, but you know, it took a lot of time, but we'll, you know, we'll do more next time.

Hey, we know now it takes one question. You want to get into that question. So speaking of next time, what are we talking about next week? Do you remember? I, well, I have absolutely no idea. Maybe we'll decide the day before. I know there's something juicy that we're going to talk about. McD to you.

Do you remember? We're talking about Reddit, buddy. Oh, that's right. On the docket next week, Reddit. Reddit, we're just gonna get into Reddit. How do you use it? What do you think of it? What is it like as a tool for you, as a GM maybe,

or just as a way to pass the time? As a social interaction platform. We're not talking about like, oh, we're going to talk about the Glass Cannon subreddit. Like, no, that's not it. I'm sure that might come up, but like in general, it's Reddit. What do you love about it? What do you hate about it? What works?

What doesn't? How do you use it? Do you use it? All that kind of shit. And then of course, Jared, by the way, you've got one week. You better finish Dungeon Crawler Carl. If you haven't already. Oh yeah. Next week is the wrap the book club meeting for Dungeon Crawler Carl. We'll get into the book,

we'll talk about our thoughts, we'll take calls on it, we'll all chat about it. Excited for that. And then I'm excited for like, what's the next book? I don't know if we'll know next week, probably not, but like, we can open the discussion at least. It's book club. Yep. It'll be great. I can't wait to talk about it. I have thoughts on the book. I'm not gonna spoil them now, but I can't wait to get into that. Awesome, buddy.

Well, that's gonna wrap it up. All right, I love you all in a romantic way. Bye bye. Well said, buddy. Well said. Bye bye. Well said, buddy. Well said. It's time to make your membership official.

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