The Glass Cannon Podcast - Glass Cannon Radio #8 – Romance in RPGs, Daredevil, Monsters of Irish Folklore

Episode Date: March 13, 2025

Joe and Jared debate the need for relationship mechanics in RPGs. Jared explains why Daredevil may be the best Marvel Comics character. Plus, how to bring monsters of Irish Folklore into your home games and a review of the Last of Us Season 2 trailer! Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/M8xWu1opEOQ 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 megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You are listening to the Glass Cannon Network. This is Glass Cannon Radio. I'm Jared Logan. This is Joe O'Brien. Hey! What's up, everybody? This is the show where you put us in our place about the nerd topics of the day. Joe, how are you about?

I'm doing fantastic, buddy. I'm doing great. Man, we got a lot to talk about today. There's there's new stuff hitting the hitting the bookshelves in the RPG space. I'm excited to talk about it. There's new TV shows coming or already out. I mean, lots to lots to discuss in the nerd world. And I'm looking forward to getting into it. Yeah, and we want to hear your point of view, and then I might roast you. Might, might. I might, I might not.

Do you think? Sometimes people are way smarter than I am, for sure. That is 100% true. But not everybody is as good at roasting as you are. So sometimes it's hard to give it back. Not everybody has the deep- deep seated insecurity that I have. That is a, yeah, it's a unique. And you have to have a really bad lacking void in your heart

and be really insecure and defensive in order to master roastery the way I have. Now, I know that comedians are by and large, you know, know, your friends, you have several friends, obviously that are comedians. You operate in this space as a space you like to work in. And I think that this is a safe space here. We can talk as friends among our listeners and kind of get to know you a little bit better. Do you like comedians in general? Do you enjoy hanging out with them in general?

Okay, great, because I do too, but I was curious. I do very much. Stand-up comedy or comedy in general is a gigantic category. So of course there are people whom I don't like and of course there are comedians whom I don't think are funny or good. Some of whom are quite famous.

I bet. I bet. And a friend of mine who's a very successful comedian, who's very funny the other day was saying, man, there are so many like really bad comedians, you know? And I was like, no, there are so many bad famous comedians. There are tons of excellent, incredible, hilarious comedians you've never heard of. Only the comedy nerds really get in and find these people.

So do a little digging and maybe I could throw a list up somewhere. I think we should do a segment on this show at some point where you just give us a couple names of people to check out that like people we might not have heard of that are really funny that we got to do a little digging to find, but that are really funny. It's definitely a type of nerdery is comedy nerdery. And I'd be happy to do that.

I wonder if the names I see. So that's what's so weird about it is like someone whom I think of as famous, someone, you know, my friend who like lives in Vermont would be like, never heard of them. You know, I've never heard of that person. I'll be like, but they're famous. And they'd be like, not to me. They're not to me. Famous in your neighborhood of Los Angeles. And I'm like, oh, okay. So it's a really weird thing. You know, I'm definitely in a bubble by being part of it in some way.

Yeah, yeah, makes sense, makes sense. But I'm excited to see everybody out here hanging with us today. Got plenty of people in Discord chomping at the bit. People on Twitch. Thanks for coming to Hangout, guys. For real, we love you guys, it's awesome. We love talking to you guys. That's truly sincere.

I know that everything I say sounds sarcastic. Listen, if you want to call in and get to be part of the conversation, you just need to be a subscriber to the glass cannon and then get on the discord stage. Raise your hand and we're going to get you in. We're going to take some of those calls. Let you weigh in on the topic at hand. If you're not already a subscriber, you can do that in three shakes of a lamb's tail by going to join the nation.com and becoming a subscriber. You can do it quick

enough that you can be on the show today. If there's something you really want to say about, Oh, our incredible topics. Yeah. What a light up today, dude. And let's talk about that a little bit. We've got the new NPC core for pathfinder remastered second edition has rules on relationships. So we're going to talk about dungeon love. We're going to talk about some dungeon love. And I also am going to expand upon some other interesting things in this new NPC core book beyond just romance.

But I think that that definitely jumps out at you. Relationship mechanics is really, really fun. Relationship mechanics. And honestly, like beyond Pathfinder, I know it's hard to think outside of Pathfinder, but beyond Pathfinder, anything about when relationships have sprung up in your games, I think would be great grist for that conversation. Absolutely. Okay.

Then we're going to talk about, there is a new daredevil television series, daredevil born again on Disney plus I've watched. I'm also a huge daredevil fan from the comics. If you've read the comics, if you've seen the show, even the old Netflix show, come and talk to us about it. Talk to us about what you like or don't like about the character, what you like or don't like about the show. Then in honor of St. Patrick's day, right around the corner, say top of the morning to you, top of the morning to you, George. Oh, I won't even do a broke cause I'll suck at it. So we're going to talk about, uh, creatures from Irish ish

mythology. Cause I actually found the leprechaun is not that integrated into Irish mythology. It feels like more of a greeting card creation, but we're going to talk about leprechauns and pathfinder. And if we have time, maybe some other things from Irish folklore, um, the new, the last of us season two trailer has dropped. We watched, I hope you watched. If you haven't go watch it now. It's like two minutes long. And we're going to talk about the last of us and our expectations for the second

season, and then finally I have a little nerd travel log for you. I did some traveling over the weekend and hit some nerdy spots. So we'll get into that. Awesome. Awesome. When we get there. Uh, but okay. Yeah. Uh, please subscribe, hop on the discord. You can do it for free for 30 days with GCN 30. That's the code, right Joe? Yep. GCN 30. It'll get you 30 free days to try it out. Check out everything that's on there. Yeah. And why don't we get right into it so we can start taking calls in a minute? I just want to talk about this new NPC core. First of all, it's a beautiful book.

I think Paizo always does beautiful books. Yeah, they do great work, man. I mean, we've known this for years. It's not news. It's why we play the game. We love it so much. But they continue to impress. I haven't really known it for that long.

I haven't known it that long. You know, I, I played some pathfinder oney like maybe like over 10 years ago. And then I sort of forgot about pathfinder until I joined the glass cannon. And now I'm like, Holy shit, are these beautiful books with like actual useful rules in them? So, I really do love the piezo brand. And this is first and foremost, a commercial for them.

First and foremost, piezo incorporated a division of Lockheed Martin. Uh, they are, yes. Paiso incorporated a division of Lockheed Martin. So, uh, the book though, uh, if you go to the back has rules on. What are they calling it? Uh, relationships and Advancement. So part of this section in the back, it starts on page 226 of the new NPC core

is about advancing NPCs, which is very important, but I really wanted to talk about the relationship part. So first of all, there is what is called a connection subsystem. And I, you know, Paiso loves it. Subsystems, you know, the leadership subsystem, yes. The, uh, the heck exploration is its own special subsystem. So now there is a subsystem for relationships and they make it clear that it's not just romantic relationships could also be a business partnership, a friendship,

a mentorship. It could be any of those things. And they've given you a tier system that shows you from the highest tier to the lowest tier. So at the highest tier you are bonded. That is like maybe you're married, you're bonded for life. Um, yeah, I think you're married. Yeah. I was like, this is obviously married, but they did. Well, no, bonded for life. Yeah, I think you married. In the middle you're like. Yeah. I was like, this is obviously married, but they did, well, no, not obviously married. It's not just spouses. Oh, it is.

It includes sworn siblings, spouses, and queer platonic partners. So you know, someone who has committed their life together doesn't have to be romantic, but it can certainly imply financially or you live in the same space or whatever. Yeah. We have, we have bonded our lives together. Yeah. I won't go through every tier in the middle there. There's just like acquainted, you know, um, you've met this person and then at the, uh, the below, you can, you can sink down into the lower tiers where you are avoided Despised or the connection is even vindictive to you I love and I love it you basically go up or down

the connection tier system by using tokens Those are minor moderate or major tokens And you can think of them as gifts, but they don't have to be physical things. They could be like a minor token is a small act such as a bouquet of flowers from a nearby shop. A moderate token is like doing a favor that includes overcoming a moderate encounter, for example, or spending a week of downtime with the person. And then a major token is a taxing request, like, uh, uh, fulfilling a request that requires multiple encounters, spending a month of downtime with a person.

And then also to destroy the relationship, to bring it down into those like despised and vindictive tears. You can use insults, minor insults, moderate insults and major insults. I think from the context clues, you guys can kind of read into what that might mean. What I was going to ask you, Joe, relationships in games, do we need rules for this? We know Paizo is going to make them, but do we need the rules? I think we do. I think that it is a really important thing to offer gamers because I think,

now there's an important, there's an important point here. All right. So there's two, two layers of which I'll attack this. One is do we need rules for relationships, meaning actually charting the connection between relationships? I mean, overall, do we need any of this? I mean, we're just playing make believe. It's a guideline.

And I think it's important for a guideline. It'll help GMs to track a little bit better using a shared language with their players what status different relationships are at, which obviously you can just look at it as like a tool for romance, but that's not all it is. It is definitely a tool that could help you to get a significant relationship with the person who you are trying to exploit, right?

Or a person you are trying to break into somewhere and you're trying to make a friend on the inside. There's a lot of interesting mechanics that could go into that, that I enjoy the opportunity to take that out of roleplay. Because sometimes, to have the option to take it out of roleplay. Because sometimes I'm not as clever as to how exactly to befriend somebody on the inside of a bank, right? In order to whatever. And the GM might not agree that my strategy works at all or whatever.

At least this way we can work on through a system of die rolls or intentions where you can say, my intention is to create a relationship with this person. They go, okay, well, how would you go about doing that? The GM can decide that would be a, you know, that requires a role that requires role play, whatever. That's one angle. The real quick, the other angle is something that we haven't mentioned, which is a sidebar on the following page that I think is important to talk about super important, which is they do a great, Pies always does a great job of this for like, you know, safety gaming tables and stuff like that.

And so what they lay out is in this sidebar, some, well, the topic is content safety and in game relationships. And as it goes into deep- Consent. Consent. I'm sorry. Consent, safety, and in game relationships. And really it starts to talk about bleed and boundaries.

Bleed meaning, and this is something that we could do a whole show on And I would love for callers to call in and talk about I want to say I've never seen this discussion of bleed in a game before maybe it has been in some other game I haven't heard this term or seen this discussed inside of a game text before and Man, it it really like turned the light on for me and made me go, yep, that's something that definitely happens in games. Yeah, so just to explain to people

that might not know either, because I didn't know either, I had never used that term, and I think it's a great term. The term that they use is bleed, and it means when emotional things that are affecting the characters bleed through into the actual players.

So if you are, if your two characters are flirting in game, is that actually a vehicle for you to be flirting with another player at the table? Which is perfectly fine if both people are into that. That's what they want to do. Are two characters dating in the game and the players are dating in real life. And then on the other side of that coin are two characters that are getting into PVP is that dangerously crossing into bleeding into making friends get fight with each other or argue with each other. I think this happens. I think absolutely. I've seen it happen in so many games. You know, it's happened to me.

Someone insults my character and I get annoyed. You know? Um, and I, and I really believe that the person does that in good faith. Their character was just insulting my character, but it makes me mad. So this happens. And so these safety guidelines that they, they lay out here are so important. You know, I, some games don't just do a side box. This is a very good side box, a very good inset side box here.

But, you know, they say that it's all about check-ins and it's all about kind of communicating, which I think is true. You have to step out of the game for a minute and be like, you know, very obviously, even if you think it's gonna kill the mood, fuck the mood, you have to go, let's stop for a second. Are you okay with this happening?

Does this seem like fun to you? And if the person says yes and gives clear consent, then by all means have your half work and your gnome engage in full intercourse. Yeah. Well, and I think that's, that's an, you know, the other aspect of this that, and I'm going to keep pushing this like, yes, ultimately, what does everybody think when they look at this? They think about romance, they think about love, they think about, you know, those kinds of relationships. But it's important that the way I, not until I read this section did I think that I see how well they laid out a groundwork that works just as well for hatred or enemies or, you know, trying to destroy someone, right? Like those, it's important if it's NPCs that you're tracking it correctly and that everybody's comfortable with what's happening and vice versa. If you're tracking it between PCs that you are just being careful and checking in with

people and all that kind of stuff because that bleed is... Look, I'll be honest. In general, a lot of these aspects of the game have not really concerned me very much. I've felt that my gaming groups have been fairly safe without having to talk about it. We haven't needed a lot of calibrations. We haven't had to like say, are you okay with this? Are you okay with that? We can kind of feel each other out and get it, you know, but I also play with close friends. Yeah. Even playing with close friends as I'm reading the bleed section, I'm like, I would be lying to myself if I said this didn't happen to me. It happens all the time. And that I

wasn't uncomfortable at times with things that were happening, but I never said anything to anybody because I didn't want to make it a big deal. And it wasn't a big deal, but it just like I had to find a way to work it out myself. This is nice because it makes it a team effort to work it out. Yes. Joe, you're of a certain age and we were told not to talk about our feelings. Yes. But Gen Z's opening that up, baby.

And now we're gonna have that discussion at the table and that's a good thing. I would like to go back for a second. So while I wanna say first and foremost that the safety rules are integral, incredible, and I'm so glad we've reached a place where we're communicating like that, my thing I want to go back to is I devil's advocate. I don't know if we need all of these relationship rules.

Shouldn't part of a role playing game be okay. Yes, I've mastered how to get maximal damage from my weapon in a melee combat. Now it's time for me to come over here and practice a different skill, which is gauging relationships with people acting, improvising, you know, like, and some people will go, well, I'm not good at that. Well, I'm not good at goddamn maximizing my character, but I figure out how to do that. You know, these games, they should be fun. They should just be fun, but they should also, you know, let you stretch yourself a little bit.

So I think that coming up with this very tiered, very stratified relationship system, to me it's like, why not? Let's just freeform it, You know, why don't we learn together how to, uh, you know, get closer with an NPC. It might not involve just giving them a token. Right. There might be something very specific that motivates this NPC. Maybe this NPC likes to be insulted. No judge. I'm not kink shaming. I'm just saying I, I find now if the, if the AP in question,

cause by the way, we're playing pathfinder. So we're playing APs. If the AP in question brings this relationship, relationship system in and the way that for example, quest for the frozen flame brings in the leadership system, then by all means, if it's part of like the whole system of that campaign, yeah, let's, I guess let's do it, but I really feel like we don't really, we need the check-ins, we need the communication, we need the consent, but I don't think we need different tiers of relationships and tokens that increase or decrease the tier.

That's my devil's advocate. Should we take some calls? Yeah, let's take some calls. I'm on the opposite side of you on that. I think that it's a great tool to have because you just basically, it is a tool in your toolbox. You don't have to use it, but it's there if you need it. And like I said, this goes beyond romance and can be a good way to track really fun, engaging mechanics with relationships that are required to, as part of a mission or something

like that, to gamify it a bit. And I think some people really enjoy gamifying things. So I think it's a great thing to have and to take out of role play. Let's see where people stand on it. Let's talk to Curdy Bird. We got plenty of people looking to hop on. I'd love to see what Curdy Bird has to say. Curdy.

Hi, Curdy Bird. Man, struggling. Classic, classic GCR move. Classic GCR move. That's all right. Curdy Bird will come back and we'll get him on there. What about professor? Jester professor professor jester is your microphone working?

Are you ready to rock? Hello. Thank you for joining. We got a pro. Fantastic. All right, buddy. Thoughts on, uh, thoughts on NPC relationship systems. Professor. Well, I think I'm with Jared on this one and it kind of touches on like the reason why I don't like relationships and video games is that it comes down to, oh, you give them enough items and then bam great to go when that's, you know, I much, much, much prefer getting to do the improv during the role play.

And that's the role playing part of the game. I do understand. Yeah. If you think a relationship is giving someone a number of items, then you're sorely mistaken or you are my wife who never says I love you, but it's always like, I got you those pens you like. Um, uh, also I think that it's important. I am going to establish here because I don't want this argument to get too out of hand and start getting weighed against me.

That's not really acceptable to me. And so let's clarify some definitions here. Let the professor talk. Professor, shut it. I got something. Well, we have to agree to a certain set of terms here. One of the terms we have to agree on is token. A lot of people see that word and they think of it as a physical object.

That is not what the word token means. It's a good catch-all that could be anything from a physical thing, a gift, to something you do for someone. A gesture, a, a feeling and a most something you share, you know, that we both know that the person that wants to use the relationship tier system is going to just then count out their gold, figure out what item they need to buy and then hand it to the NPC. Okay. We know this because I like to give not interested in, in, in, in, well, I don't want to, I don't want to do blanket statements, but to me, that feels like that person is trying to get the simplest solution and

trying to brainstorm other more creative tokens doesn't seem like part of that person's way that they operate. This is a hypothetical person. Professor, what do you think? Yeah, man. I, I trust players out there. Jared, I think has been turned against players after playing with me for a long time. I love players. I just know what they do. I also love you going like, Hey, this relationship system, relationship system, it's a tool in the toolbox. You can use it or not. When we

both know that players find out about all these things and then hand them to you, like we're doing this, like you can't have something in a book and expect a player not to try to use it, which is why every fucking time we do a pathfinder game, the girls show up with uncommon, super rare spells. It was in a book. It was in a book. Anything else? Professor jester before, before we let you go here, but no, no, not really. I just want to thank Jared Logan for teaching me the antivirus masquerade and how to play it. Oh, that's awesome. Awesome. You're welcome, my friend. We appreciate it. Man, that was episode one of GCR and we will come back to more vampire soon. I hope we talk a lot about playing vampire on the network again. We just got to try to find a way to make it work.

The best game. Uh, on the network again, we just got to try to find a way to make it work. It's the best game. Kurti, did you get your, your microphone to work, uh, by any chance, Kurti? No, it's not working, bud. Sorry. Bummer. We're, we'll, we'll keep trying. Asteron wanted to weigh in, I think, on this conversation.

Asteron, uh, is this something we need? These NPC rules, these relationship mechanics? Is it a need? I don't think so. Is it a good thing to have? Possibly. I mean, it could be good for a newer GM who doesn't want to get into the ins and outs of talking like, Oh, does NPC like this PC or not? Now we have a stratified way of saying, here we go.

This NPC is here. And I get where Jared's saying that PCs are going to try to game the system and get it to the easiest way possible. But my PCs would love it. They'd have a field day with it. And they would be coming up with the most creative. My players are coming up with the most creative ways

to get in the system. And I think that's a good thing. If you are not necessarily comfortable with tracking the relationship on your own. Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. Thank you, S. Terran. It does. It's man, it is tricky. Like you said, need, I don't know if you need it, but it's, I think gamifying it is, is fun for some people.

I don't know. I think that's another question. And we, maybe we can ask Verducai. Verducai, what's going on? Do you think it's fun to track relationships this way? I don't. I think it's more fun if it kind of happens more naturally. Um, anytime it's come up in my games or games of y'alls that I've watched, it's more for

like a humor break and just being funny. It's not like a long sustained relationship unless you count like Matthew and Kate, I guess. Um, but I could see where some people, you know, would really like something like that. If they're going to make maybe relationships a big part of their system, like, you know, would really like something like that if they're going to make maybe relationships a big part of their system. Like, you know, you can't move past XYZ until your relationship with so-and-so improves or something like that. But for me, if it was like a game of courtly intrigue, you know, if it was that kind of a game, then it would make sense. Yeah, like less of a fighting, you know, dungeon crawling type of game. Oh, 100%. I mean, I think it stands to reason that this is not implied at all to be utilized in a game where NPCs are not terribly important to the story.

You know what I mean? Like, I think that this is designed specifically for long-term campaigns where NPC relationships are essential to the plot, you know, and essentially gamifying that. But yeah, like I, Vertica, I know you know, when we like, we enjoy doing NPC connections and relationships that are brief and hilarious. And that is a really fun way to play. I totally agree. Yeah, I don't know. I wanted to ask, I wanted to ask just, just to move it to a different kind of topic in a way. Do you like romance in your role playing games

when you're playing? You just said that it's usually funny and quick, but between PCs, between PCs and NPCs, how do you feel about that? I mean, I like it personally, my very first role playing game back in college, um, Verdo Kai, that's where she, you know, where she came from. She had a relationship with one of the other main PCs and it became like a big, huge thing.

Like, you know, star-crossed lovers separated as kids, la la la. And it was a big part of the story, but it wasn't like a dice rolling fighting type of game. It was more like a round robin, like we're building a story type of game. So I enjoy it personally, just cause you know, even you're listening to podcasts, you know, my eyes tend to cross sometimes when you get way into like, you know, seven episodes of combat type of things. I enjoy more of the role playing aspect and the character backstory building. Um, so for me personally, I like relationships and games, but it's

not like necessary to have fun. I don't think. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I also think that the generally speaking relationships, especially ones that progress into romance are so much better if they're few and far between. Like, you know, if it's kind of a rare occurrence in your game, it makes it special. It makes it really interesting. I don't think it's something you

should try to do in every game that you run, because forcing that is, it devalues it. Sometimes it's kind of a first thought for some people. Like the first thing they come up with is, oh, I'll make my character interesting by, you know, attempting to have a romantic relationship with another character or an NPC. And I think that that's, it's kind of a first thing that people go to sometimes and they should try to come up with- Low hanging fruit. It's a little bit of a low hanging fruit.

Sometimes, it can be. And I also really prefer for it to happen, and this is why I'm not super hot on these NPC rules. I like for it to happen. And this is why I'm not super hot on these NPC rules. I like for it to happen naturally and not like, you know, session one from the jump. I'm going to try to fall in love with this person, you know? Right. Right. It happened on haunted city and it was extremely organic the way it happened to

the point where it actually surprised me. We had two PCs who ended up having a relationship and it was cool. It was very cool. Yeah. Yeah. I think like you said, it's if you wait for everything to be really established before introducing it and you're not just coming out the gate like I want to bone everyone, you know, it's a lot better of a story to tell or to listen to.

Cool. Thank you for the call, Verdikay. We're going to get somebody else up here in a second. I want to throw a question out there to everybody. Let's talk about those initial interactions on the romance and the things, right? Where you kind of like somebody, right? Your PC kind of likes somebody. Could be another PC, but or an NPC.

I don't think it really matters in this case. Um, Jared, in general, uh, do you think that there are people out there in regular life? Do you think there are people out there that are just good, like, like Excel at flirting and people who just will never be good at it, no matter how hard they try, or in fact, the harder they try, the worse it gets. Like, do you feel that that is an accurate statement of the spectrum of like,

the way people interact in real life? I don't think that that's completely fair, that there are people that will never be good at flirting, or that there are people that are just incredible at it. I think that relationships are about chemistry. So the way that someone is not good at flirting might be really attractive to somebody else. And the way that someone thinks that they excel

at hitting on girls may really turn off, I don't know why I said girls, and hitting on other people. I'm coming from a very heteronormative perspective. You're so into chicks, Jared. Look, you got to neg them, Joe. You got to neg them. The way that you hit on somebody might turn them off.

I think it's all about chemistry and different people go together in different ways. I don't think that there's anybody who's bad at relationships. They just may not have found their way into them. All right, let's see what Jobster thinks about all this. Jobster, thanks for being here every week, buddy. It's good to see you. It's one of the perks of being unemployed.

I get to join for these little broadcasts. Right on. Hey, we want all of the nation of being unemployed. I get to join for these little broadcasts. Right on. Hey, we want all of the nation to be unemployed, Jobster. One day. It's really got some financial consequences. As it turns out. Thanks for inviting me to talk about the new networking protocols.

Yes. I just want to kind of push back a little bit. I'm more on Joe's side that I think this is a system that can be useful. Because Jared, you really favor at the table, in person, figuring it out as you play. And I assume you're kind of exaggerating your stance a little bit more to make for good radio. But I think that also is influenced by the fact that you are a comedian, improv performer, actor, you're in Los Angeles where there's

a bunch of those people around. And so you're surrounded by people who have perhaps a higher level, a greater ability to read other people at the table and respond to them. Whereas I play at a mix of tables and some tables have people on the spectrum for whom this system would be a tool that

would let them have those interactions in the game in a way that they wouldn't be able to play out in real life. And that's fair. That's fair. But what about my point that sometimes we need to stretch ourselves? Sometimes I'm not good at figuring out the rules, but I stretch myself to try to do it. So is there not an argument that someone who's really good at figuring out the rules and systems might learn something or might enjoy even learning to improvise and read another

person? I think there is something there, and I'm a teacher by profession, like I'm a language teacher, so I encourage my students to stress themselves. But at the same time, you can't push people out of their comfort zone. You can create a space where they feel comfortable stepping out. But for some people, they're just not as able to do it. Also, I feel like there's a difference between system mastery,

and people don't have able to do it. And also I feel like there's a difference in between system mastery and people don't have like social anxiety about optimizing their build. Right. That's what I was going to say. Like what you're talking about is not something that is deeply like personally impactful to somebody min maxing. Right. Well, it's some people, but for those people, usually they're already good at it. I think relationships is something that can be very sensitive to some people and can really upset them that they don't have more or aren't better at it, you know? Yeah, like being bad at math is something that, or you know, not having been taught math the correct way, but for the way to work for you. Not having math skills is not as big of an everyday,

like it's not as much of a burden as not having great social skills. And yeah, people can develop anxiety. There's just a lot more of it's, as social animals being bad at the social part can really hurt. Yeah. All right, Thanks, Joe.

I appreciate the call and your mic sounds great. Call in any time. I love a good sound on mic. It is, that is something that definitely occurred to me as I first read these rules. I was like, I think that this is an interesting opportunity for folks that may have, that may struggle a little bit socially to have, uh, you know, uh, a way in or a path that explains a little bit more, you know, what you need to do to increase somebody's, uh, how they value you in their life, you know, to increase the importance

of that relationship. Um, just one more little retort to, you know, what Jobster was saying and what you were saying, Joe, is that, you know, I do think that there is pressure sometimes to be really good at the rules and to have them all like an encyclopedia in your head, especially in a game context. So there is social pressure and there is, uh, you know, I do feel bad sometimes when I get a rule wrong, but I go ahead and I push myself. I, I, I, I don't know. I, I, I feel like role playing is good for people. Yeah. I think it's good for people. It's reps, right? It's reps. You can do in character to try to train yourself on,

you know, exercise or brushing your teeth, two things I don't do. Role playing is good for you. Blueberry Rogue. Blueberry, what are your thoughts on this? You thinking more along Jared's line, you thinking more along the Jo line, what do you think? I'm thinking I have a new book that I should be picking up on Friday when I get paid.

My experience of romance and kind of, you know, little spicy relationship moments haven't happened in Pathfinders as much as it's happened in Blades in the Dark. My character, we were doing a jailbreak of sort, and my character was being really flirtatious with the prison guard, and it was one of those few times where I kind of stretched myself as a role player, and I felt like a little bit awkward doing this. I felt like a little bit awkward doing this. And, you know, but the game runner, lovely DECA,

he kind of, you know, whatever I threw, he kind of threw it back as being kind of like this Colonel Sanders-esque warden. But after the session, he made sure that he messaged me and he was like, hey, you know, I just wanted to check in and make sure everything was all right. How was, you know, if you felt uncomfortable or anything. And I told him I appreciate him checking in.

And if I ever felt uncomfortable about something that I would bring it up or let him know ahead of time. And then one of our characters, other player characters in our gang has a tendency to like do one night stands. So that's one of his vices. So we kind of encountered it. I'm kind of looking forward to the book to get some ideas. And then you kind of mentioned, did you want my kind of

at the table story about love and relationships? Sure. OK, so my I started with Dungeons and Dragons. story about love and relationships? Sure. OK. So I started with Dungeons and Dragons thanks to my husband. We went to the gaming table. And everybody at the gaming table, we were a family for many years. So much a family that they actually pulled me aside and said, Hey, Jess,

we've noticed this about your husband. Now, anytime that you want to go, we're there with you. So when I split with my husband, I got the gaming group. Wow. Wow. And so, and we are still pretty much friends to this day. I'm actually going to one of their houses this weekend with my kiddo having a play date. But they just kind of really again encouraged me while I was role playing and just kind of seeing, okay, he was the one that kind of brought me into this world, but he's not, you know, and it kind of questioned and again

stretched how I felt in some relationships and And then even till this day, you know next week I'm going with a bunch of gaming friends who I consider my chosen family and you know, we're going to the live shows Amazing amazing. Amazing. So, so for me, that's a hell of a check-in. The check-in is, are you sure you don't want to divorce your husband? Yeah, they actually, uh, one of the things I ended up getting like a, uh, was

an epic item after, uh, the separation for my, uh, in-game character. Uh, her name is strawberry, the ranger at the time. after the separation for my in-game character. Her name is Strawberry the Ranger at the time. So yeah, and we had like a little party and I'll put the picture of that cake that I brought for a celebration on the Discord chat, which y'all should be hanging out in. You know, we're having a blast. Put that little plug in there.

So yeah, it's just, again, tabletop games. Definitely let you have a better idea as a person and allows you to grow as a person. That's what I- Oh, sorry, Blueberry, sorry. Well said. We have to move on, but thank you so much. That is a really good example of how,

not only of how you can stretch yourself in games, but also the bleed, right? The bleed that occurs. Right, the bleed. And then also how gaming groups, man, they can form intense relationships that are good. Yes. That can be bad, but a lot of times like they can become like your family. You know what I mean?

It's a really cool experience to be a part of. Jared, have you ever had a gaming group break up over a fight like from the game? Like because of the game? Yes. Yes, I have. Um, it's, it's, um, it's sad when it happens. It is. Um, I don't want to go off on a rant. We, we save those for the end of the show.

But one time I was in a group that they were never satisfied with the amount of work I did. They were like, well, why didn't you do this too? Why can't you do all this? Well, why can't you add this? They basically wanted me to be a CPU. They wanted me to be a computer for them to have fun with. An AI GM. An AI, yeah. They wanted me to do all this extra stuff and I just got kind of tired of

it. So I was the GM, so I broke up the group. That sounds pretty cruel, but gaming groups come and go. They do and it's all about having fun. And I played with those people again later. I played with some of them again later. So it's all about having fun. If you're not having fun, what's the point? W story. What do you got on this?

We're going to have to move on soon, but I love this conversation. So I think Joe, to your point, I think it's very good for NPCs to build that kind of, especially if you're newer to jamming, to build in those checkpoints to define those relationships, good or, you know, if they get better or worse, but to also, to Jared's point, we're adults, we have to talk to each other. And that bleed is going to be hard to maintain. And romantically, like, they've got to talk to each other, but I think it's a lot of it's up to the DM to say, okay, what are we in a role with here? You know, but first and foremost, you got to trust each other.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, we always talk about that. It's a, I mean, trust comes from role playing. Trust comes from role playing. It comes from looking people in the eye from like listening to what they say to you and then having them listen to you.

That's what trust comes from. You know, um, in a gaming group anyway, I think. I think so. And like you've said your blades in the dark group, that was very different than like what we've seen with Kate and Matthew, you know, it was a very different than like what we've seen with Kate and Matthew. Yeah. It was a very different thing. And then even yesterday on Twitch with Mary Lou, I mean, you just have to trust each other

and you need to know kind of what the outcome is going to be. And a performance is different than a home group as well. Yeah. So perhaps, yeah. Just thank you, WStory. Well said and thanks for mentioning Disorganized Play yesterday. So brief plug, Disorganized Play returned, a game that I haven't run in six years, returned yesterday live and Jared played in a game that I ran.

And I just sort of ran a dungeon crawl. It was the very last minute thrown together because we had to cancel another stream and I wanted to get something out there for you guys and we got a great crew together Jared, Mary Lou, Sydney and Rob Kirkovich. Rob it was his first time ever playing 2e. Really fun. You can check out the VOD on Twitch. If you don't see that the full produced video with the mastered audio will come out as soon as possible. I'm not sure when that's going to be, maybe next week. Anyway, that game, Mary Lou sort of decided out of the gate to be flirty. She was definitely her in character. She was definitely flirty to the other characters,

all of the other characters in one way or another. And everybody had a different response. Some people sort of embraced it a little bit, maybe did a little flirt back. Some people put the immediate stop sign up, right? The immediate hand up. And it was so funny and it created great content. I do not think that when your party is sort of like interplaying like this, you need to step in as the GM and say, okay, so would you say at this point you're associated?

Right. Or are you just acquaintances? Right? in as the GM and say, okay, so would you say at this point you're associated? Right. Are you just acquaintances? Right. Like you don't need to put labels on everything, but I do think that this is an interesting tool to utilize, particularly for NPCs, but man, that was fun yesterday. That was really fun. It was really great. She always does incredible stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Mary Lou brought such great stuff to the table and to see her. And without that, without that Rob's character's backstory wouldn't have come out. Yeah. I mean, Mary Lou brought such great stuff to the table and to see her. And without that, Rob's character's backstory wouldn't have come out. Exactly. We wouldn't have had that. Rob responded to that in improv and developed backstory for himself that he didn't have

before. Like, it's just really, really cool. All right. Should we take one more here before we move on? Let's take one more. This is a good combo. Let's take one more and then we'll move on. I'd love to take more, but yeah, we have a lot to talk about.

And you know what? I had stuff I want to talk about in the NPC guide, so we'll come back to it later. We'll talk a little bit more about it maybe in another episode, because there's great rules in here that were not in Pathfinder before beyond just NPC relationships and advancement. But we're running out of time today, but let's bring it up maybe next week or the week after. Alex, any final words here on romance and relationships in games? Yeah, well, I just wanted to point out like both Jared and Joe, both of you have run games like Blast Can Network with mechanics relationships. I mean, Blades in the Dark has a whole faction relationship system that doesn't stop your

interplay with those different factions. And Delta Green has those numerical values for your bonds and that's certainly, it just offers a sort of another lens to view the role playing. Yeah, that's a great point in that I did think about that as I first read through this. And again, this isn't like extensive stuff that they've put into the rule book. Two pages, they put two pages into this 300 page book about relationships. And because they thought maybe somebody might want to use this. As I read it, I thought of Delta Green bonds was one of the first things I thought of.

It's like, all right, so how would I categorize the relationships of the bonds we've had in previous seasons of Delta Green? All right, so this was a bonded person, right? This was a spouse. This would have been a committed person. This was like a long time friendship. This would have been, this is my therapist, right? This is what? And it may be an associated person. I'm not sure. So trying to define it through bonds was interesting and I'll get back to you in one second. Bonds is an essential mechanic to me to what makes Delta Green Delta Green. And it made me think maybe putting in more NPC relationships, even NPCs that are created by players that you then take as the GM and say, what would you like to do with this? All right, let me now throw some rocks at it and mess with you while we're playing.

It's a good idea for Pathfinder too. I think it deepens the game. Yeah, and it doesn't, you know, like, it like the the numbers of your bonds are like, like who you have a bond with doesn't prevent you from having interesting relationships with other characters. You know, like Troy and Sid's relationship in Delta Green. Like sometimes it's reflected by the bonds, sometimes it's not, and that never stops the role playing from working.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Alex. Good call. I think they can work alongside of each other. Jared, we can play together and still have fun, even though these rules exist. Okay. It's true. No, it's true. It's true. It's just, you know, he's mentioning the faction system for Blades in the Dark. I feel like working for a faction and getting a good opinion from them is a little different from, you know, a one-on-one relationship within a PC.

I just think it's very different. Yeah, I mean, I could certainly see it both ways. What I think is very important to instill here as a parting point is while we like to highlight the romance angles here that people are obviously going to go to first, this system is designed for all forms of relationships. It's true, and this system's also designed for organizations, if you wanted to be, you know, track your relationship

with a thieves guild or something. And we haven't talked about the negative sides, which are really fun in this too, to categorize how an enemy goes from despised to vindictive. Imagine defeating. To have somebody out there that wants to destroy you, that is actively looking to ruin your life.

It's, what an interesting element to add into your game. An NPC that's messing with you while you're trying to defeat the big bad. But imagine defeating the main bad guy of your campaign by just raising him on that relationship status all the way to marrying him. Why not? Why not? I mean, it's probably not how the AP is written, but whatever. Why does the big bad have to be a guy, Jared?

Why does it have to be a guy? It has to be a man. The big bad is always a man. It has to be a man. All right, guys, obviously so many people want to talk about it. We love it and sorry we can't get to everybody, but let's keep it going. Let's see what else we can talk about today. All right, well, the other night I flicked on my Disney Plus and I put on Daredevil Born Again.

This is a sequel to the Daredevil television series that was on Netflix for many years. And now it is, it's, it's moved to Disney plus cause Marvel owns is owned by Disney and Disney has all the Marvel television shows. So they've now moved it to Disney plus Charlie Cox is still daredevil. We still have Deborah Ann Wall of someone big in the gaming, gaming world. And, uh, some of the actors have returned as well.

Um, I am a huge fan of the character daredevil. Joe, you don't know much about it, right? Nope. Do you know anything about daredevil? I know that daredevil is blind, uh, and that, and that it's, it's, he's a New York superhero and that he is, uh, that he's a New York superhero and that he's a lawyer, right? That I know. I never read a single comic and I was surprised

at a pre-show when we were working on the rundown for this week. I was surprised at how emphatic you were about your love of Daredevil. So I'm curious, what makes Daredevil such a great superhero? So for whatever reason, there are some characters who have just somehow attracted the greatest writers who

have written the best stories. And with a character like Batman, it's a no-brainer because it's such a high-level, marquee, A-list character. But there was a time when Daredevil was, you know, a very low DC or D-list character, but then Frank Miller did a run on the Daredevil comic. And since then, there have been so many great stories told in the comics by Ed Brubaker

There was a mark way did an incredible run Brian Michael Bendis did an incredible run on daredevil. These are all really worth reading most recently Chip Zdarsky the comic writer chip to the Darsky with the artist Chichetoetto, Mark Checchetto, did an incredible run on Daredevil that kind of focused on the ethics of beating up criminals. Is this something that we should be doing? Is this something a good guy does? And Daredevil as a character is always investigating these kinds of

issues. Daredevil is extremely street level on a bad night. Five guys with crowbars can beat daredevil. That's one of the things I love about daredevil on a really bad night. Five guys with crowbars are his arch nemesis. Okay. He's not like this sort of ultimate badass like Batman where he can beat anything and he often is reflective about what he's doing and what good it really is doing. And he has one of the best villains, uh, well, several of the best villains in comics, but, uh, Wilson Fisk, the kingpin, is an incredible villain who

also has all those shades of gray. He's this horrifying, tyrannical murderer, but he's also very much in love with his wife and has a very loving and trusting and loyal relationship with her. He is this like giant thug, but at the same time he really enjoys art and the finer things in life. Anyway, was he originally a daredevil villain? I thought that he was a Spider-Man villain. He was, he was a Spider-Man villain. And then eventually he found his way into daredevil in a way that eventually he became kind of daredevil's main arch nemesis. Uh, whereas spider-man, you know, doc, awk and green goblin for him.

So the mythology of daredevil is incredible. And all of those writers I mentioned have like multi-issue runs that you must read. I, I swear every one of those is a must read. They're so good. And then, and then we have the TV show. Have you watched any of the TV show? I based on this and us discussing it, you said just watch the first episode of the new show on Disney plus. So I did, I did that. All right. What'd you think of that?

Positives. Well, first of all, it did feel like a sequel. I felt a little bit lost. I was a little bit lost, too, Joe. I couldn't believe that they just jumped in and they didn't go, hey, just a reminder. Here's where he's at. Here's who the characters are like. And this is a problem with all of the Marvel TV shows and movies now, is that they just go, you've memorized all of this. Let's go. And it's like, and this is a problem with all of the Marvel TV shows and movies now, is that

they just go, you've memorized all of this, let's go. And it's like, dude, I have a fucking life. I have children. I don't sit around studying the Netflix Daredevil show. Why don't you give me a goddamn minute and tell me who these people are again? So I was a little bit lost. One thing that I'll say that jumped out that I really love is him being blind created something that I so greatly appreciate that I never did before my career in voiceover, which is I started to learn so much about the world of audio.

And I, it wasn't just because of the VO actors that I represented, it's because that I would so often have relationships with recording studios and those studios a lot of times would do cinematic recordings. They would do, um, um, uh, you know, like Foley work and stuff. They had Foley rooms and stuff. So I'd learn a lot about how cinematic audio is done. I started to actually care about sound editing and the Oscars, right? And like sound design. The sound is awesome. Right. So cool how they fade in and out from like what everybody else hears and then what he hears. And while he's in the middle of a conversation, literally somebody's talking to him and that sound will just kind of like quickly fade out and you'll hear something else like really far away and then he just

slightly turns his head. Very cool. It was almost like a new way of doing Spidey Sense, but from a production standpoint, I was really impressed with the sound editing and the sound design. It's an opportunity to play with sound. His powers are an opportunity to do cool things with sound. Absolutely. I thoroughly enjoyed that.

I really liked him. And talk about relationships. One of my favorite scenes was like they had a simple little scene where he gets set up on a date by a friend. But he didn't know it was a date. And the same thing happened to the other person. She didn't know it was going to be a date date and that scene was very charming and very fast and Honest and played really well, and it made me like him

So it's a good way to like help me like you get that kind of scene with Thor. You know what I mean? You don't get that kind of scene with Batman, you know, you're never gonna see that kind of scene But with Daredevil, you can pull it off, which is why Daredevil is a really great choice for television, you know? So really briefly, can you give me some cons to the show? Not knowing where you were. Number one con was it was confusing.

I didn't really, like there's somebody who dies at the beginning and it's a huge deal and I'm like Why is this a huge deal? Yeah? I did remember this character, but I I would have I would have loved a little bit of a refresher on their relationship Yeah, exactly. And then like also the villain like I don't know who that is, you know, whoever That's Bullseye. Right. That's Lester Boyd next to your Bullseye.

And this happens to me all the time with like Marvel movies, Marvel TV shows. I'm always like, everybody knows who this person is but me. So let me just Google the real name of this person. They just said, oh, I've heard of the name Bullseye. Okay. Anyway, that was a little bit confusing. Uh, you know, otherwise I mostly liked it. I, I, I definitely, uh, I definitely liked it and I, I, I certainly appreciate it. Oh, there's one more pro that I can give in terms

of story ideas. This is a trope and it's a trope that I thoroughly enjoy. The reformed bad guy. Yeah. Is he really reformed? Right? Yeah. I think it's a great trope because as an audience member, it's that you never really know, right? Can you really trust? And I love it a lot more when they don't tell the audience that he isn't and the hero doesn't

know and that dramatic irony where you're sitting there waiting like, oh, you gotta find this out. I like it when they don't tell the audience either, but they keep you guessing. And that, I don't know if that's where it's going, but that's sort of what they set up. You're speaking of course about the fact that Wilson Fisk, the kingpin played by,

played incredibly by Vincent D'Onofrio. Oh, I'll say another pro. I love Vincent D'Onofrio. I love Vincent D'Onofrio. D'Onofrio and anything, but he, he's the perfect person to play the kingpin, which is why they used him also in Hawkeye as the kingpin and they continue to use him that way. So, um, he is running for mayor of New York. Okay. I will just say that that, so we don't get into too many spoilers that is straight out of the Zdarsky and Marc Chicheto run of the Daredevil comics.

And that is an incredible subplot because instead of Daredevil and Kingpin fighting, and I'm talking in the comics, I don't know what's going to happen in the show, but instead of them fighting, we're just kind of following the Kingpin trying to navigate politics. And people keep insulting him to his face because as a politician you have to take some of that you know yeah and kind and and you just see him just like don't murder this person don't murder this person and his struggle to become respectable to stop being a murderer and a thug is a really kind of incredible journey to see in those comics.

And I really recommend that run. I also think they do a good job of the other side of that coin of sort of explaining for Daredevil, who is a lawyer. It's kind of hard to deny the fact that vigilante justice is against the law. Like, and so he struggles with that. And so out of the gate, you kind of have a little bit of like, maybe they're setting up kind of a cold war, right? Between, between the kingpin and daredevil where neither of them can go at each other,

but they're both watching each other and they're both waiting for somebody to slip up. Because on that end too, it's like, if he actually gets that power, if he's actually the mayor, he can shut down Daredevil legally, right? Like it's very interesting. That's cool. You can create a task force or whatever. I'd love to hear what the nation has to say. If they have any thoughts on the Daredevil comic books or the Daredevil TV show, or even just Marvel shows in general and how you're thinking they're working at this point in the evolution of the MCU. Would love to hear from you guys. So let's get someone on the line.

Does anybody want to talk? I've asked Mark to come up here. Mark D. Mark. Hey, Joe. How's it going? What's up, dude? Dude, I haven't talked to you in ages. I mean, a very, very, very long time.

Mark comes out of the comics business. I know Mark because of My good buddy Nick Lowe And yeah, it's been a long time mark. I'm so happy you're here. I'm glad to be here I wanted to give some some insights on on your buddy Nick Lowe there So when I started at Marvel back in the day Nick was an intern in the Marvel Knights office working on that Brian Michael Bendis run. Wow. And he befriended Alex Malev, the artist,

and got drawn into the comic book as Detective Nick Love. So he is Nick Love in the Brian Michael Bendis run. Can you see the photo ref visuals of him as this like beat cop who gets involved in that storyline and that has been my nickname for Nick for many a year. Oh man. I never knew that. That's a man. I'm going to call him Nick Love now too.

Detective Nick Love. I wanted him to get his own spinoff book or like a TV show. Detective Nick Love. That is amazing. It's a great character name. Have you watched the Daredevil TV series? Not current with the, I haven't watched the new stuff yet. I did watch like a recap video because I feel like I missed the third season of the Netflix

show. Right. I trailed off halfway through, though I'm queued up to be able to watch it, but I had forgotten a bunch of things as well. What did you think of the initial run on Netflix? There were aspects of it that I really enjoyed. The street level things were really, was really interesting.

Some of the variations, the deviations that they took, I wasn't that keen on. I feel like they kind of wasted some of the characters to a bit. But oh, there's Detective Nick Love. Oh my god. McD already got it. He put it in Discord chat. That's amazing.

We have a search and seizure warrant, he's saying. He has this whole interrogation scene because it's the storyline, Jared could say is that they, Matt's identity is revealed. Yeah. He's Daredevil and so he's like arrested at some point and I think they're interrogating him in the office because it's been a while since I've read that run. I can't remember exactly what the circumstances were. No, it's so good.

That's just one of the things that happens. The art is beautiful. Bendis is of course an all time legend, but they reveal his identity. Then he gets arrested. Then the brew Baker run just starts with him in prison. So Daredevils in prison and that's a whole storyline. And of course, if you're a vigilante who went to prison, things can get bad right away. And they do. So, uh, so I really highly recommend the brew Baker and the, and the

bend is run so much because there's so much fun. Stuff that I actually got to work on was when all these things were coming out. I was in the trade paperback department. So I made the, the Frank Miller omnibus collections. I added those and in gathering stuff for those, I got to go to Frank Miller's apartment in Health Kitchen. His assistant dug up all kinds of stuff that's in the back of those collections like his initial pitch

for the graphic novel for Man Without Fear. Oh, wow. I got fun stuff. Mazza Kelly sent a bunch of things, all those, his layouts and pencils for Bornegan run that they're clearly inspired by in the new series is all that. That's awesome. The designer on those collections was a friend of GCN, Pat McGrath, who designed those collections. Oh, wow. Pat McGrath, who designed glass kind of podcast logo, but the old one in the new one

Man, I didn't know GCN had such deep Marvel roots. I'm Nick but yeah. Yeah That's that's how I met Jill through Nick. We we start I played softball with you in Central Park and the Dodds ball in Queens. Yep. Softball and Dodds. Mark and I are athletes, Jared. Yeah. Uh, sure. No farmer and I. As many comic book fans are. Mark, thank you so much for calling. Dude, please call again.

Nice to meet you, Mark. It's great to hear from you. Nice to meet you, Jared. I'm looking... It's good to see you guys in Ann Arbor when you're here. I got my ticket for this show. Awesome, dude. All right, great. We'll see you there. We'll catch up.

Thanks for calling it. That was great. Yeah. Yeah. Mark is such a great guy and we got to play on teams together, like you said, back in the day. Oh, the good old days, Jared. Before kids and life and before children.

Yeah. Before children. Yeah. BC, the BC era. The BC era. I remember it. Let's get a couple more Daredevil calls here before we have to move on. Scram!

I love saying your name, Scram. Hello, friends. What's going on? Hi, Scram. How you been? Good, good to see you guys again, wherever you are. I love Daredevil as a big Spider-Man fan. I'm very Daredevil-adjacent in that way. I'm very Daredevil adjacent in that way.

My favorite part of the Chips or Dusky run is when he talks about how badass Spider-Man is. But the part that makes it good is they treat each other with respect. They really do respect each other. And Spider-Man threatens him. I don't know if you remember that, Jared. He's just like, yeah, I remember that part.

Tell someone again, I'll put you down. And like coming from Spider-Man, that's a promise, you know? Like he doesn't just say that. He's the goofy child of Marvel. And that's like the best part of the comics for me is the, when they get to interact but not be burdened by crossover events and all these things happening. And it just feels like the most realistic of two heroes that grew up near each other and Respecting each other Yeah, no, I love that they take time because those guys do come into contact a lot they're both like the street level New York guys and

Zdarsky takes time to just take a couple issues to develop that relationship and to even change it to where unexpectedly you see Spider-Man saying, I'm, if I have to, I want to take you down Daredevil. Cause Daredevil starts doing certain questionable things. But I mean, yeah, I love that. I'm with you when, when they take time to develop a relationship like that, instead of just doing a team up or a fight, that's really fun. Uh, garbage boy. Uh, what do you got to say on Daredevil?

As I recall, you chimed in pretty quick that you wanted to say something here on Daredevil, so if you're still there, we'd love to hear from you. I got to get my Marvel Unlimited up and running. So do you have Marvel Unlimited, Jared? Do you read comics on your smart devices? I read comics on my smart devices. Yeah, I gotta get that up and running and I can check out that run. And I read a lot of comics still. Oh, hey garbage boy. Yeah, we gotcha. All right. I have not read much of the Daredevil comics. I read a little bit of Marvel Unlimited,

but I was a big fan of the show. I really like I really love season one it was one of the best shows ever seen. First half season two of The Punisher was very good and season three it was also very good. I have not seen or heard much about the new Daredevil show but I do want to check it out. I think only two episodes are out so if you haven haven't heard much yet, then that makes sense. You know, it's not really completed. I didn't know if they released the whole thing.

That's good to know that there's only two apps out and I've seen one of them. So I'm not too far behind. I think I'm going to continue. I think I'm going to continue. I mean, it has an incredible fight as well. Big comic book fight. It may be a little over the top actually,

but that first episode doesn't skip on the action. You know what I liked about that fight, and I'll keep it as spoiler free as I can Garbage Boy, is just it felt very real because, and this is something you never see in superhero fights, is fatigue. Like actual fatigue. And they really showed fatigue of like two boxers that don't get a break like at a certain point They get real slow, right? Like it was cool. It was a cool idea Yeah, I mean I feel the dare to show it's always been really good at that Like especially that like that famous one shot hallway fight scene from the first season That was just like one of the best fights ever seen by the end he's like stumbling

Because he's been done through so much punishment stuff. It was so good. Yeah, awesome Thanks for calling in garbage boy Appreciate the take and there's our first like person that says they've seen the whole first series on Netflix and really like yeah So yeah, I may have to check it out. I think Nick really liked it too. At least the first season of the Netflix show I feel like I remember him saying that. Let's get one more in here. The Ericson, before we move on, we got to talk about some Irish folklore. Oh, we sure do. Hey guys. How's it going?

We're doing great, man. Thanks. I've been a big Daredevil fan since, I guess, I think I'm like with Jared where he's kind of like vulnerable and it feels more real and I just thought he was a cool hero I was like the agile heroes like spider-man and him but the show huge fan. I watched the first season I'm surprised they don't have the recap like you mentioned because like I just started watching and or two because everyone loves and or And they do big recaps for the Star Wars shows like every every episode, but they didn't do it for the Marvel. I haven't started the new Daredevil. But I'm a huge fan of the cast.

And I had a little moment where I was with my ex-girlfriend. Her cousin was getting married. And she's friends with Deborah Ann Wall, who was at the wedding. And I was like, oh my god, I'm like totally shocked. And I was like really starstruck with her. But did you talk to her I did get to talk to her a little bit she's super nice and like you know I already

knew about her from like RPGs because she does a lot of like streaming and role-playing stuff yeah time still but I was cool and I love true blood like that was a great show I'm a true blood fan yeah but from the comics I remember was little kid and I managed to get my hands on daredevil 182 which is the electric died series as like Frank Miller and right Klaus Jansen did the ink and I remember getting it and there's that's not a book like The cemetery and digs up Electra like yeah make sure that she's like the one that made it like an adult book you know yeah he's the one that made it gritty and like street level and tough like exactly that daredevil was like jumping around fighting stilt man

that's true and I was like a younger kid but I used to like going to my local comic store and just like seeing the wall of like big books and I remember bringing that one home and I was like oh my god there's a corpse his face was like so like scared and then later in my life I found a Klaus Jansen signed 182. So I picked that up. Awesome. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. I appreciate you guys. Hey, appreciate you. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for calling in. Thanks, man. Love it. Love it when people call in. Please raise those hands. Let's see if anybody's interested in our next topic here. We're celebrating St. Patrick's Day

the Glass Cannon Radio way. Oh, St. Patrick's Day. Oh, St. Patrick's Day. Now this used to be a big day for me. Nick Lowe too. We used to like go out and go drinking on St. Patty's Day night. And it was always the best if it was like during the week.

The big green top hat on Joe O'Brien. Yeah, big beaded necklaces like with the big shamrock at the bottom. And man, what a scene. And it was, you know, it was a- Us comedians used to call that amateur night. Literally, that was the next sentence coming out of my mouth is, of course, it is amateur night.

But there was a time in my mid-20s, I was friends with Nick Lowe and a couple of our other buddies and Nick, we both lived on the same sort of stretch of a long road called Broadway in Astoria. And there were some great like Irish pubs on that street. And so one that was right near Nick's apartment at the time, he would go in a month or more before and reserve like a table. street. And so one that was right near Nick's apartment at the time, he would go in a month or more before and reserve like a table. So like we had a space. We weren't big fans of like walking into completely packed restaurants on St. Patty's day. But if we had a place

to like, yeah, get there, get a table, sit down, have our crew and just start having beers and having fun. Man, we took that excuse. It was a great time. These days, never will you see me out on St. Patrick's day, but it used to be really a ton of fun. I did it. I did it when I was young, but you know, now I'm sober. I'll be sober three years on St. Patrick's day. I count from St. Patrick's day. Wow. I don't know. I don't remember exactly when I quit in 2022, but I remember I definitely didn't drink on St. Patrick's day. Wow. I don't know. I don't remember exactly when I quit in 2022, but I remember I definitely didn't drink on St. Patrick's day of 2022.

Oh, you don't remember that. I thought it was because on St. Patrick's day, 2022, you got blackout drunk and killed a man. And the next day you were like, I gotta stop this drinking. That's what other people think when I tell them, yeah, have I told you my joke that I like to do? No. Anytime you tell someone you, they, that you stopped drinking, you see them thinking about

why you had to stop. So anytime I tell someone I stopped drinking and I see them thinking, the next thing I say is when I drink, I'm not good to my kids. Oh God, that's the worst one. I would have rathered you killed a guy on saying at the St. Patrick's day parade. I just like to fuck with them. Okay. So, but the, the, the way we're going to get into St. Patrick's day as TTRPG fans, as we are going to look at some Irish stats, how do they start out the Irish Jared?

How do they start out? Does Paizo incorporated a division of Raytheon truly understand the Irish American experience? We're going to find out by looking at the stat block for leprechaun in bestiary two in the bestiary to what does it say? Jared? What's the stat block say? First of all, let's always say, Paizo has such incredible artwork. Look how scary this leprechaun is.

Look at this terrifying demon from hell. Because it's also kind of jovial at once, which is more terrifying in a way. It's glowing green emerald eyes. It seems to kind of be dancing with a chalali in one hand and a pat and a, um, a, uh, a bag of gold in the other. And it's just kind of laughing at you. Oh man. Terrifying. Well, first of all, let me say, so I looked up leprechauns in the folklore and a lot of the things that we know about them are, are

kind of wrong in terms of the old folklore. A lot of this things that we know about them are, are kind of wrong in terms of the old folklore. A lot of that stuff is like recently added by like greeting card companies or, you know, commercial interests. So, um, leprechauns don't actually appear in like the old Irish mythology, like of the two Watha day non, if you know anything about that kind of stuff. Um, and did you know, like, I always thought leprechauns you go to the end of the rainbow and you grab their gold, right? But apparently they also want a lot of the stories give three wishes like a genie. And then also, um,

they're always working on shoes, which is, I thought that was an elf thing, like a, like a little elf, like not a, not was an elf thing like a little elf like not a not a Tolkien elf thing right basically when you look into folklore at all it's just kind of fairies and yeah there's a lot of names for them but they all kind of overlap and do a lot of the same stuff apparently according to the legends they wore red not green oh boy you're ruining everything now. I know. So let's talk about the Pathfinder Leprechaun, okay? Let's look at these steps. So the Pathfinder Leprechaun is fey. It's important to realize this is a fey creature. It's really a fey. Small.

It's a level two creature. It's a creature two and it's a small fey, It's a creature two and it's a small fey, like mischievous fey, right? Now a lot of fey are mischievous. Really the core behind a leprechaun is to mess with you. That seems to be their main thing. If you look at their primary innate spells, illusory creature, illusory object, invisibility. These are to mess with people like that. Therefore, Oh, and the first level spells, uh, first level primary innate, uh, color spray, shill alley. Those can kind of be combat spells, but then you have ventriloquism, right? It's

just weird stuff to kind of, to kind of mess with your head, dancing lights, go sound, mage hand, Presta, digitation, all of these. Right. And the reflex save is the highest. So, you know, at the second level, maybe your players can't hit them if they're trying to get away or jump away or something like that. And, uh, special ability to actions, create object three times per day. The leprechaun can just produce an item out of their hat. Any item in the world of one book or less that is it's typically mundane and does not have a lot of intricate you know artwork or anything to it but yeah it creates a

pulls an item out of its hat for and it lasts for an hour something like that so this is an encounter this is not a combat encounter this is an encounter. This is not a combat encounter. This is a encounter, I think in a game where you are trying to trick the players in some way. Yeah. This is a creature that steals from your players probably by swindling or, or deceiving them in some way. I think. Or, or literally pickpocketing. They have a plus eight to thievery, which is very good at second level

a very high deception as well Also, I love that. He the leprechaun has gold lore Gold lore that's awesome so so that the one thing I read about the folklore is you know the They used to say that the gold was buried the leprechauns gold was buried and that was based on the fact that in Ireland, the Danes, the Vikings basically that had come and dwelled in the British Isles for a long time and had controlled it. They had actually literally buried gold under the ground

and occasionally people would find it later. And then that kind of got wrapped into the legend of a leprechaun having gold so I think that this is a an encounter where the creature is trying to trick your players that can be a very hard encounter to pull off yeah it can be I think one of the first things you have to do is cast invisibility kind of before the combat begins. Then you need to create things like illusory object or illusory creature and not have it attack the PCs, right? Once it attacks the PCs, the leprechaun would become visible, at least in the way that I

would rule that, right? But if it's an illusion that is messing with the PCs but not actively attacking them, the leprechaun can stay invisible. So they can see something or an effect and have no idea what the source is. They can find out that it's an illusion, but still not know what created it. Maybe they hear laughter in the, you know, echoing off the walls of the room. They can't really locate it just yet, that kind of thing. And then this creature can obviously produce random stuff from its hat.

Really funny to produce something, it's invisible in its hand, then it sets it down when it moves away, it becomes visible. So suddenly a random object that would be funny to your party just appears on a table. Anyway, you can have a lot of fun with that. I think it's a lot of fun because it's not just another combat encounter.

So I would definitely use this in a game. I will also say if you ever have, um, NPCs or creatures that are trying to trick a party and they're talking to a party, right? It's going to be really hard to get players to buy into something like that. Cause players are so paranoid. But one thing that always will get players and this happened a little bit in blood of the wild. I don't want to spoil too much. If you start talking about trading items, which clearly this leprechaun is able

to kind of truck in that suddenly players are like, well, we need items like, Oh, they have a magic item. I would say, I would say the key part of that is you're establishing something that the other creature wants. So if you feel like that creature wants something and you know its motivations, you, you can, I think a little bit easier be blinded to its fake motivation, which is to lure you into a trap and hurt you. Right. Like if it feels like its motivations are self-serving and if it feels like its motivations are to get it saying, and it could help you in the process, it seems realistic to players and they'll, they'll fall for it.

Yeah. Right. If the character of the creature seems completely selfless and it's just doing something for the players out of the kindness of its heart. They're not going to believe that. Let's talk mechanics. Let's bring it back to our discussion of relationship mechanics, things you think we don't need in this game, because you should kind of role play with each other. How do you role play a situation where you as the GM are not as deceptive as the creature

mechanically, it has a plus nine to deception. where you as the GM are not as deceptive as the creature. Mechanically, it has a plus nine to deception. You could theoretically secretly roll the deception and it could be against the players perception DC. Or you could do a perception check or if they have lied to me, a deception DC. Or you could do a secret perception check to see if they know it's lying all behind the screen. Right.

And you could say your character, you know that this is a lie, but your character doesn't like, do you ever do that? Is that something you do with deception or do they have to believe you, the game master? I think that, um, that's a fine way to run it, but I think it's a, it's tough. It would be really hard to tell players, you know, that this is a lie, but you now must do things that are detrimental to your player characters because they don't know, you know, uh, you know, I would say I would make it very, uh, an either or light switch on or off.

Like if I said, you guys are tricked by this, then something happens and that's done. I wouldn't want them to have to continue to play the scene and be wrong or be tricked, you know? Cause I think that would be hard for me, even if I love improv and acting and things like that, even if your players throw themselves into that, it's hard to do things that are to your own character's detriment. I think I, I, well, everybody knows I do plenty of things to my own character's detriment, but I do believe that on purpose though.

Yeah. Well, yeah, not on, well, sometimes anyway, sometimes what I'm getting at is as a devil's advocate to that. And it's really just kind of a tangent as opposed to an opposite side is really like, I do enjoy that. I think there's something like I enjoy, um, having information, my character doesn't and playing that accordingly. No, of course.

Is that great? A hundred percent of the time? No, there are times when that really sucks, but I think there's times when that's really fun, even when you're putting yourself in a bad situation. And I think the reason is at least for me. And we could talk about Bleed here, I get like an emotional reaction to being deceived or fooled by a GM in real life. And I'm not mad at the GM.

I'm mad at myself that like I didn't see it coming and it makes me angry. I would feel a lot better knowing that my character is being fooled and playing that aspect and leaning into it because I have more information and I'm not the idiot. You know what I mean? Like anyway, just throw that out there. Yeah, sure. That's super interesting. Yeah, I think it's super valid to tell people you are deceived. I just, I think that that would be a tricky thing to roleplay from the players point of view. I don't disagree. I don't disagree necessarily. Just throwing out a lot of different angles. Let's talk to Bumble scum.

Bumble scum. Do you have something to say on leprechauns here? Your mic is muted. There you go. Yeah. Hey. Hey. So I was actually looking at,

because I used to play a lot of first edition and I was, and I've dealt with leprechauns in first edition before. Oh, really? And I wanted to say, like, I think Jared's right on the money to play a lot of first edition and I was and I've dealt with leprechauns in first edition before. Oh, really? And I wanted to say like I think Jared's right on the money that these are not meant to be combat encounters in a way. They actually have the ecology section of the original leprechaun that mentions that they specifically do not prefer to kill other creatures and it's mostly all about, you know,

finding ways to trick your players and and make them think the forest is haunted or something like that. Yeah, interesting. And they laid that out back in the 1E bestiary? Yeah, otherwise most of the stats are almost identical in some formal way. Was it like a level 2 creature in 1E? Yep, it's a CR2. one II? Yep. Yep. It's a CR 2 CR 2. Yeah, okay Cool

That's awesome. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for the tidbit. How did the leprechaun appear in your game in one II? Well, I did a holiday one shot like a mega dungeon where they were saving Santa and all the players played different holiday inspirations so we I had a lot of enemies that were also holiday inspirations. So they were just kind of, you know, this mega dungeon of them doing that. And that's clever. That's awesome.

That's great. You know who should be in there? I was just thinking, I was going through the holidays and thinking like, what doesn't have, and I was like, you know what would be amazing is an Uncle Sam villain, like 4th of July, like the guy in the top hat and everything, but he's like some sort of evil mastermind.

He's so funny. Also has Pathfinder's Statted Turkeys yet for Thanksgiving? Turkeys are dangerous. They are, they are. Yeah. They'll run up on you. I can hear Bumble's come looking it up.

Yeah. I was like, well, most animals are like, turkeys are actually using the Raven statistics. So that's fine. That's fine. You know, that'll work. Anyway, thanks for the call. That sounds like a really fun idea.

The holiday themed one shot. Everybody plays a holiday icon and then put a bunch of holiday icon enemies in there. That's really fun. Let's do another Irish folklore enemy that shows up in Pathfinder. Oh, absolutely. So because we were talking about the Leprechaun, we decided to also get out our monster core

and look up the Banshee, which is, of course, a ghost or spirit of Irish folklore. And this Banshee, this is a bad ass Banshee man. This is a lot, a lot different than the leprechaun. First of all, let's just, before we put anything up and start talking about stat blocks, let's for a second just talk about the Banshee. So the Banshee, when I think of a Banshee, I immediately think of the

1959 film, Darby O'Gill and the Little People. This was a movie that as an Irish kid growing up, you watched it. We watched this a bunch of times. And Sean Connery is actually in that movie, a young Sean Connery. And I'll never forget forget there's a scene with a banshee. It is so scary when you're a kid watching this and it's because the woman in the story at the time, she falls on this mountain top or she faints or something and she's hurt. Darby O'Gill is trying to protect her. He comes up to the mountain and this banshee comes out screeching, wailing, attempting to take the life of this girl who's been knocked out and is like kind of unconscious.

And it's this – for 1959, not bad effects, like this floating kind of like bluish green spirit. You can't see a face. It's just like a hooded cow, long flowing hair and it's reaching these like unnaturally long fingers out to grab the woman and it's reaching these like unnaturally long fingers out to grab the woman and it's screeching and he's yelling back at it like, no, away fell spirit, whatever. And it scared me as a kid, that scene always scared me. So then I started looking up Banshees like for the purposes of this.

And from a folklore perspective, I'm summarizing, but you're basically talking about the lore of a woman who is so violently betrayed in life to her death, typically killed by a loved one or a trusted person. Right. That's probably, unfortunately happened a lot. Probably happened a lot. More than you'd think men just kind of offing their wives and things like that. Exactly. So, so horrifically betrayed that in their, in the afterlife, they, they become this spirit of pure evil that really seeks

evil that really seeks the destruction of families, right? Like wants to like kill families and like your loved ones and haunt them and kill them and stuff like that. And one of my favorite lines about it, I think it comes from the Monster Corps, I think. Oh yeah, this is it. It's the last line of the first paragraph. Some spec, I love this line. Some speculate that the more kindhearted the person, the crueler the banshee. So like if they were incredibly kind in life, it proportionally makes them that much more horrifying as a banshee. And so what Jared is saying here, when he talks about, this is not a leprechaun you're dealing with. This is no joke. We're talking about a CR 17 creature, a creature. I was surprised because in five, in five, he, the Banshee is a level four.

And I think that that's been for years. It was a creature 17. Shock. I mean, that's a, that's like a, that's a goddamn boss battle, man. I mean, that is it. That's a boss battle at the end of a two year campaign. Like this is a major, major encounter, uh, with just what you do.

You betray her and kill her at level one or two. And then she comes back at level 17 and kicks your ass. You use the relationship mechanics during level one to get bonded. And then you have to kill them because of something in the story. You betray them and then they return later in the campaign to a, a, a level 17 creature and in corporeal undead, unholy spirit with a 39 AC 39 Resistance to all damage 12

Yeah, double that resistance to any non magical attack So anything non magical any any hit you're taking 24 off before any damage gets through. Just amazing. I love, I love, uh, it's reaction vengeful spite. If you critically hit this banshee, it gets to use its most powerful attack against you. And you just, it just suddenly slams you with, um, four D 10 plus 14 mental damage with it. So with a can't even enjoy. Yeah. With a DC 38 basic will save.

Yeah. So you can't even joy critic against the band. She, because when you crit, it kicks your ass like as a reaction. So what I was immediately drawn to was the, the whale. This is what I remember from, from the movie when I was a kid. And sure enough, there it is. It's ability, a two action ability called whale. Uh, the Banshee unleashes a soul chilling whales of the damned,

which is a, an actual spell. This is a rank nine spell that it unleashes with a DC 38. The whale, I love this. The whale overcomes silence and similar effects of fifth rank or lower. So you could be under the effects of a fifth rank silence spell. And this Banshee can still burst right through it with Whales of the Damned. Whales of the Damned, I didn't have it ready here, but it's a pretty phenomenal spell. These are the kind of things that I never see because we never play to this high of a level.

Right. But yeah, Whales- I wonder what inspired them to make this such a high level creature. When I think about a Banshee, I definitely default to the level 4 or 5e kind of idea, that it's a ghost with a sonic attack and they've decided to make it a very powerful foe. I mean, I'm just a little surprised. I wonder what their thinking was on that. I don't dislike it.

I kind of like seeing a creature like this, this powerful. The Banshee can hear heartbeats within 60 feet of it as an imprecise sense. That's so freaking cool. That's cool. That is so cool. Anyway, Howls of the Damned. This is a rank nine spell from player core. You howl a lament of damned souls. Every living enemy in the area, and it's a 40 foot emanation, every living enemy takes 8d10 void damage with a basic fortitude save. And if you fail it, you also become drained. It just sucks the life right out of you. Anyway, awesome creature. Awesome creature. It's awesome. Yeah. And you know, that wailing or that, that, that screaming that Banshees do that comes from Keening.

Are you familiar with Keening? Uh, yes, but please go ahead and explain. I was reading about it. Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, it's just, it's a type of like mourning that people in Ireland would do. It's a vocal lament for the dead. And people would kind of like do this scream singing when someone died and they would keep it up. And I'm not gonna attempt to do it

cause I will do it wrong. But this sort of scream singing as kind of a wailing morning for the dead is where the Banshees kind of singing or screaming comes from. I wonder if we'll ever play. Do you think we should ever just throw together like a one shot of level 17th level, like here's what, here's mine.

Here's my interest in doing that. Or is that just insane? My pitch. I would love to do that. My pitch is when I finished blood of the wild, I would like to do a AP that is like from 10th level up. 10.

Oh, dude! That sounds like a great idea. Now I don't know if we'd get the Banshee in there. Maybe we'd have to homebrew it. All Irish folklore. What part of Golarion is most like Ireland? That's where we'd have to go. It's a good question. I mean, it's probably Viricia, probably the classic location because

it's on the ocean. It has the cliffs, the bluffs, the cold windy mountains and stuff like that. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe somebody else has a better idea. Or maybe we just play a level 10 AP, a level 10 and up AP. Singing Zombies on Twitch says, from experience for PF2E, it is so hard to play a level 10 AP, a level 10 and up AP. That would be incredible. Singing Zombies on Twitch says, from experience for PF2E, it is so hard to play a level 17 character cold. You have to remember the 100 things your character can do. Yeah, 100%.

That's a good point. But it's not a bad idea to try to start at level 10 and work your way up. But I think it's important to, if you start at level 10, you gotta spend several hours like working, not just building the character, but re reading and rereading all your abilities before you play your first session. Maybe we take the characters from blood of the wild and we run them through curtain call, you know?

Yeah, that's what I said. I suggested that. I was like, yeah, you said that now they're like famous heroes if they live and then they go and do that. Yeah. Anyway, it could be fun. Uh, let's keep it moving here, man. We're running short on time. Yeah. Uh, let's keep it moving.

Let's talk about the trailer for the last of us. There is a new season of the last of us coming hailed as incredible. The first season I watched it. I really did love it. Did you watch the first season. I watched it. I really did love it. Did you watch the first season of The Last of Us? I did. It was my favorite television of the year, of that year.

Yeah, it really did. 2023? When you tell me, I think it's 2023. When you tell me zombies are back, zombie apocalypse is happening, you know, my tendency is to roll my eyes because we've seen it so much. Thank you.

But the last of us does have a different take on it. The zombies are different, you know, biologically, but beyond that, there's also just a way the story is told. The last of us television show had an incredible mix, I would say of action Last of Us television show had an incredible mix, I would say of action and pathos where the relationships and the, the emotional state that they were going through was as important as the incredible action set pieces that they, that they ran throughout the show. What'd you think of the trailer?

I didn't watch it. I don't watch trailers. I don't watch trailers of anything I'm gonna watch. Oh that's right, you hate trailers. You hate trailers on a show about a show where we discuss trailers. Here's exactly why Well, I'll watch trailers of things that I don't know about. I mean, you know, I'd watch a Daredevil trailer to the to the cows come home Here's the thing. Here's how psycho I am. You and I could not be more opposed. I can't wait till we do a real hard debate segment on spoilers because you and I could not be further apart on this spectrum. I am so irrationally opposed to spoilers that I'll explain. I didn't see the trailer, but in generating graphics for this show, I just looked at the cover art of the thing

and was disappointed that I know the actress who is in season two, because I love that actress and I would have been amazed to just see that unfold on screen and not know it ahead of time. But anyway, I'm half joking, but love that actress. I can't remember her name at the moment, but she is awesome. And I was like, how perfectly cast for more Last of Us.

And yeah, so I don't know anything about season two, but I did read something that said that there was some big reveals in the trailer, like major questions answered right in the trailer. Is that true or is that like an over-exaggeration? Am I misreading the- That felt like an exaggeration to me. Maybe it's because, you know,

when we get into our spoiler discussion, I wanna talk a lot about memory. The fact that I think we all assume that we remember everything, and I think that we actually really don't but Basically for me having watched season one watching the trailer. I didn't go what that happens. I was like, okay Yeah, it looks like more of the last of us with a couple different things going on. I don't know Time looks like time is oh, I don't want to spoil for you, Joe.

But it looks like some time has passed. Some time has passed. Caitlin Deaver, thank you, Spitfire, is the actor that I was talking about. When I saw Caitlin Deaver, I was like, oh, I had no idea there'd be a new actor, you know? And I was like, okay, so, you know, things are changing here. I get it, time's passing.

was like, okay, so things are changing here. I get it, time's passing. Also, is it just Last of Us 2, like shot for shot? Like is it? I don't know, you know, I really did appreciate in season one how they integrated stuff from the game into the show. I mean, it's mostly the game. Yeah, there's this one huge set piece

where you're just like protecting Bella. Bella is the actor's name. I forget the name of the character, but just like firing at zombies that are coming at her, you know, from like a window. And that's in the show. And it was a great little piece in the show too. Yeah. Yeah.

So I'm not sure if that's exactly what they did with Last of Us 2. Um, but yeah, I think the headline that I saw said something about the games. I haven't played the games. I, I watched a YouTube, I watched a YouTube playthrough of the first game. Uh, years ago. Um, but, uh, I, I do love the show. Um, I wonder what should we, should we take a call? See what the niche thinks? Uh, yeah. I mean, I don't think anybody's, yeah, nobody's really interested right now in talking about, uh, I wonder what, should we take a call? See what the niche thinks?

Yeah, I mean, I don't think anybody's, yeah, nobody's really interested right now in talking about the massive us. If anybody had any opinions on the trailer, please raise your hand, we'll get you up here. Yeah, I'll say, in season one, I loved an actress that I got to see at the very beginning. Anna Torv was in the first season. Anna Torv from Fringe. Are you a

Fringe fan, Joe? No, I never watched it. Oh, Fringe is amazing. It's got Pacey from Dawson's Creek. Well, now I know who you're talking about. And Denethor from Lord of the Rings. Now, I know who you're talking about from The Last of Us, that she was awesome. And that whole, that whole, oh, hey, we're almost exactly the same age.

That whole scene, not scene, I mean, it was multiple episodes. Like, basically, her whole arc, I guess I should say. Yeah. So good. What a good character. What an interesting, dynamic sort of relationship. It was just, it was just awesome.

Uh, she's a great actor and fringe is a great show. Um, all right. Well, that's, that's the last of us then if, you know, yeah, yeah. I think that we can just keep moving. I, um, more of certain, of course, I mean, it started what? April 13th. I think it launches. So, you know, check back, let's check back in Glass Cannon Radio in June.

I mean, we'll talk about season two, because I will be watching every episode of that when it comes out. I'm so excited. Yeah, I mean, and I've been catching up on Severance, Joe, so we can talk about that soon, too. Yes, yes. That's going to be coming to an end pretty soon, and we'll have that on GCR.

So make sure you're watching Severance. Get caught up on Severance, because we're going to talk about it and spoil the living shit out of it on Glad Scanning Radio. So watch all you can. Great. Well, then we're going to finish up today with a travel log. A nerd travel log. So first of all, why were you traveling?

So right now we're about to finish the tour, but I have been touring with my good friend, Kamel Nanciani. He's an actor. A lot of people know him as an actor, but he and I started to stand ups in Chicago 20 years ago. And so he and I have been on the road. I've been opening for him.

We've been doing theaters all over the country. And just this last weekend, we did Madison and Minneapolis, Madison, Wisconsin, and Minneapolis. So I have a bit of a little nerd travel guide for those two places. Okay. All right, go. Okay. So in Madison, Wisconsin, I was right near the Capitol and my move, any, any city I'm in is to

walk the city as much as I can. So the snow was coming down. I said, who cares? I'm going to take a walk and I always find a destination and it's always a bookstore or a gaming store. So in Madison, I went to both. I went to a bookstore called Lake City Books right up by the Capitol. Don't recommend, avoid Lake City Books.

Oh dear, okay, why? You know why? There's this phenomenon now of the bookstore that has only new stuff and only the first thought, most popular, most known stuff. And I think it's for like, um, it's kind of like an airport bookstore, but it's in a storefront. And I think it's for like people who, you know, they're not really book book nerds. They're just kind of

like looking like they've heard of like the most popular thing. They've heard of fourth wing and they're going in to get fourth wing. Right. So don't go to Lake city books. If you're listening and you own Lake city books, shame on you. Your store sucks. And let me just add, fuck you. Jesus. Yeah, sorry. Um, then I went to a place called gamers library. I walked down state street all the went to a place called gamers library. I walked down state street

all the way to a place called gamers library. Gamers library was a game store, mostly board games, but it was one of those game stores like that. I run into all the time where like you can tell that it's mostly given over to tables to play magic, the gathering, like again, it's like this place is very common for magic, the gathering, like again, it's like this place is very common for magic, the gathering ornaments, right? It is not a place to really get deep into games. But while I was there, I did have, when I walk into those places, Jared, I always think, like, I always think that they're, they should just put up a sign

that's like, if you're not into magic, the gathering, please leave. Yeah. It's the place. It's the, it's the place where they always have like a, a refrigerator full of Pepsi's and Mountain Dews. Yes. Cause the game store that's like super into board games doesn't usually have that, but a magic, the gathering tournament place always does.

I did, it did have a role playing game section. It was mostly five E as they often are. There was some pathfinder. There was some pathfinder one East of there was some pathfinder AP stuff. I purchased ever on rising from the last war for D and D five V. Are you familiar with ever on at all? Nope. I know the name, but I don't, I don't know any details about the setting. No, it's a really cool campaign setting. And I thought if I ever run five E again, I want to do something very different. That's not pseudo medieval.

I want to do something urban with some science fiction elements. And that's kind of what Eberron gives you. It feels a little bit more like final fantasy than Lord of the Rings. You said that. I do remember hearing that. Yeah. About that campaign setting. That looks cool. Do I do remember hearing that, yeah, about that campaign setting. That looks cool.

Do you think- And I wonder, yeah, go ahead, sorry. You think you'll run like a home game in Eberron? I think I will. I think coming up here, my mom, oh my God, I meant to say my wife. Oh no, my mommy, I mean my wife. Oh God, Jared. Wow. My mommy, I mean my wife Wow We just need to take a minute

Wow, there's a lot going on a lot going on hormonally for me right now Coming up my wife and my kids are out of town together. And I think I'm gonna take one day and run a really long game. I wanna try to run like two four hour sessions in one day. And I might run ever on for that. Who knows if I can find the players to do that. But I just wanted to mention before you continued on that

in chat, Conair on DVD, great name, great chat name, Conair on DVD said, unfortunately you picked like the two worst places to visit. There are so many better bookstores and game stores here. So. I know that there are Conair and I wanted to go to them, but remember my limitation is that I'm walking. I'm not gonna spend $78 on an Uber.

I wanted to go to noble night games. I wanted to go to a different, a couple of different places, but those are the places that I went to in Madison. Um, you wanted to put that money toward Eberron, not toward that money toward Eberron. Exactly. Listen, I want to know two things. One is, um, at the nation retreat, I've been pitching Troy that I run like an eight hour game. I want to know if there's any interest in people for something like that, because if there's not, I won't do it. But if people are like,

I would play one game all day, one day, then I would like to run that for you. Wow. And then the other thing is here on glass, here on glass cannon radio, is there any interest in maybe a day where we talk about some of the campaign settings? For Dungeons and Dragons, I know last time we brought up Dungeons and Dragons people were like No, why is it but this is Pathfinder and I get it I get it Listen, I'll be the first to say, Pathfinder is a better game, okay? Now everybody calm down and let's admit

that the D&D brand has been a major part of our hobby for 30, 40 years. And that some of those campaign settings, I think it'd be fun to talk about Dark Sun one day or Dragonlance, all the Dragonlance novels or Eberron. Just a thought. Let me know if you're interested or if you are like a fundamentalist Muslim, but for

Pathfinder, a Shiite Pathfinder fan. Okay. So the next day we went to Minneapolis where we performed at the Pantages Theater. And in Minneapolis, I knew that I had to go to a bookstore called Majors and Quinn. And Majors and Quinn is a incredible used bookstore. I did spend on the Uber to go to that. I went ahead and took a little Uber.

Love a good used bookstore. Gigantic bookstore. Lots of great used stuff, some new stuff. But the thing I love the most, Joe, is when the staff gets those little cards and writes stuff about the books. Not just a staff pick shelf, but all of the shelves have little staff commentaries here and there.

Love it. That's the shit. I love that. Sometimes I buy the book because of one of those little cards where someone has taken the time to handwritten what they loved about a book. That is exactly what, the only one I have for comparison to that is Pals in Portland.

That's Portland, right? Pals books, a famous bookstore there. I, they have those little cards all over the place. They seem kind of like almost randomly put, like it's just because they say, oh, if you're looking for something like, for fans of this, this is a really like, flew under the radar, blah, blah, blah. And I absolutely buy books because of those note cards. I mean, that's how I get those recommendations.

Yeah, and I found two great things at, I said Pals, at Majors and Quinns. I got a 1970 paperback of Philip K. Dix, our friends from Frolics 8, with a beautiful painted cover, the kind of old style, like painted cover science fiction novels that I like to buy. It's a vintage copy. And then I also got a copy of a Japanese thriller novel

called Out by Natsuo Karino. So I'm really excited to dig into both of those very soon. Finally, in Minneapolis- Hold on a second. The Japanese thriller novel. What is the setting for this? What is like the rough timeframe? I read the first two chapters and all I can tell you it's modern. It's a, it's a contemporary novel set in Japan. And all I can tell you right now,

it is about four women who work the midnight shift at a factory making boxed lunches and the job is very hard and all four of them really need money. So what do you think is going to happen? There's going to be some kind of caper. Yeah, that would be interesting. A Japanese lady caper. Japanese lady caper.

I think that's also a good time to mention because I saw some comments about about it in chat, asking about book club, asking about Glass Cannon Radio Book Club. And of course, of course we look forward to the next book. We're still talking about it. It's going to happen soon. We're not going to go book to book to book to book necessarily in GCR book club because of things like this. We have other books we're reading. I'm actually reading a book right now that I can't wait to tell you all about, pardon me, once I can, because I'm reading it for an as yet unannounced show. So like, you know, that kind of thing is like, we gotta read some other stuff,

but as soon as we're ready to sit down and read the same thing together, we're gonna let you guys know and we'll all do it together on Glass Cannon Radio Book Club. So keep an eye out for it. It's coming back, but we just don't have anything Book Club. So keep an eye out for it. It's coming back, but we just don't have anything yet. Yeah, keep an eye out for it. But if you'd like to, go ahead and stop asking about it.

We would be completely fine with you not asking about it. Oh, come on. Every day. Everybody's excited. People are excited to read. Also, suggestions would be great. Any suggestions? Well, we're getting lots of suggestions,

and I do love those. I do love those. We're going to, we'll part pick from that list. Well, but we will say on the show what the book is when we are ready to announce it. And yeah, we're taking just a little break between book clubs so that it's not like constantly, we don't have constantly something on our, on our table to do. So my final part of my travel log is in Minneapolis, I visited Paisley Park, which is the Graceland of Prince. It is to Elvis's Graceland. Yeah, it is Prince's estate, but not just his

estate, it's the place where he worked and lived. So among other things, three gigantic recording studios. Wow. And I mean, legendary artists in and out of those recording studios, you goddamn name it. They were there. Okay. I mean, it, R E M Stevie wonder, you could keep going, but he roughly, roughly how long ago did he create this, this living space? He created Paisley park in the eighties. Oh my God. So that's when he became famous. You got famous and right away built this place and lived and worked there the rest of his

life. That's right. And he spent a lot of time there. And this guy was what I learned about Prince and I've always loved Prince's music. I don't know that I'd say that I was any kind of fan, but I've always loved the music, but I'm not a fan who's gone through all the albums over and over.

He was a genius and he was prolific. And they say at one point when he was working there, he was recording three new songs a day that have never, no one's ever heard. And he has an archive of thousands of songs in this estate that will never be heard. But you could release an album a week for like a hundred years and you wouldn't cover it all. Wow. That's amazing. That's what they told us.

They have the motorcycle. Oh, go ahead. Can I tell you my Prince story real quick? Yes, please. Sure. Uh, I am also not a big Prince fan. I just know the hits and they're good. You know, that was my relationship with Prince was always like, uh, yeah, I like those songs I kind of grew up listening to.

They were always on the radio or whatever. And like, they're good. I have nothing against them. Um, and then I'm working, uh, as a talent agent. And one of my, uh, actors at the time is like, I'd love to take you, meaning like a group of like six of us agents and assistants, uh, to Madison square garden for the Prince concert. And, uh, I was like, hell yeah. Like free concert.

I'm down. I don't care about Prince, but like I'll go to a free concert and he's a legend. So I'd be happy to see him. I was completely blown away by this guy. I don't think that I've ever, and I've been to a decent amount of concerts, not a crazy amount, but I don't think that I've ever seen charisma like that on a stage, like his ability to completely control an entire arena and I mean, have them on the, and it felt like everything was improvised. It felt like he was just doing everything, whatever he felt like in whatever moment. And it just like people were waiting

on every single thing that he did, including me. I mean, I started, I would just be screaming at the solos that he would do or when he would decide to just like smash or throw a guitar away or like, you know, call somebody up from the audience on stage to dance with him or like, I mean, he was just so engaging. And he would be like, everybody be quiet for a second. He would stop until like everybody was quiet. And then he would like start a song on a piano or something. I mean, just the mood for a whole arena. That's extremely impressive. He could play so many instruments.

He's one of these guys who sort of emerged into the world fully formed. Like he had his own style. He had his artistic integrity and he was a rock star from the moment he debuted. And he really never really wavered in keeping his integrity. You know, a lot of people talk about the time period where he changed his name to a symbol.

And when they talk about when Prince changed his name to that symbol, they're like, what a kook, what a lunatic, so eccentric, what an excessive thing to do. But the reason he did that, that was called his emancipation period. His recording contract with Warner Brothers, they had copyrighted his name Prince. And that is truly his God given name. He really was named Prince. His father's stage name was Prince and they named their son Prince. They had copyrighted his name. They owned all of his masters and he wanted emancipation. So he decided to stop

playing under that name that Warner Brothers had, had, had taken from him. And when that recording contract with Warner Brothers ran out, he became Prince again, so, um, that's what that period's all about, but if you ever get a chance to go to Paisley park, I really recommend it. I got to sit on a replica motorcycle from the motorcycle of purple rain. I got to see his kitchen where he would serve pancakes to people after all night parties. He was famous for serving pancakes all the time. And this is true. I learned little things like, did you know he could record what was happening in any room in the house?

Wow. He could record audio of any room in the house. And the reason he did this is because the ideas were just coming to him all the time. And if he was in an upstairs bedroom and not down in his recording studio, he would go and click on record. You would grab one of his six bedroom guitars? Uh-huh, that's right. Yeah, exactly. That's just amazing. Oh, I got to see his guitars?

Yeah, go ahead, Chillie. Chillie on Discord chat said, and I wholeheartedly agree with this, the best Super Bowl halftime ever. And I agree. That show was... I have not liked any Super Bowl halftime shows, basically. That one absolutely blew me away. It's just phenomenal.

Yeah. So if you get a chance, I recommend, if you're in Minneapolis, I recommend checking out Paisley Park. The only thing I'll say is it's a bit expensive. I did the VIP tour and it was over $100. So, um, you know, it's not really kind of a free, a free show, but, uh, but you also, they, they put your cell phone in a case and lock it and you can't, they don't let you take pictures. That's great. I think that's the best. Because it's so freeing. You can just actually be there and experience stuff instead of worrying about what should I capture here? What do I need to remember here? Just enjoy yourself. Enjoy the photo ops. There are photo ops. They have their own picture taking machines that text it to you. So you will get your photo op, but I, you know, putting that phone

in that little case, that was kind of an interesting part of it. So, uh, and that is my travel log for Madison and Minneapolis. I am in Chicago this weekend. So maybe I'll come back, you know, Chicago, I lived in for five years. So maybe I'll come back with some, some nerd recs for Chicago. I'm going to be there. That I'll come back with some some nerd recs for Chicago I'm gonna be there. I would love some nerd recs for Chicago. We got a great show on tap for next week Brian Holland of chaosium is gonna join us on glass can radio next week We're gonna do a whole special on pen dragon next week as our pen dragon re airs Come to an end after tonight tonight is part three a remaster of last year's three episode Pendragon that we did.

But starting next Wednesday, March 19th, we're going to be airing new episodes, a continuing story of those characters we introduced a year ago. Skid, who's in chat right now, Skid, myself, Paula Deming, and Nora Ibrahim playing with Brian Holland, the marketing director at Chaosium as GM. He's going to come on Glass Cannon Radio next week with us and talk all about Pendragon, among other things. Brian Holland is getting up, I believe, at three o'clock in the morning in order to be on that show with us because he's in Australia.

And so he said, well, if I'm up anyway, I might as well hang out for a while and talk about some nerd stuff. So we're going to have a great show with him next week. You'll be able to call in, talk to Brian, give him your questions. That should be really awesome. And then of course, we'll have some other great stuff to talk about as well. So we look forward to seeing you all again next week. Thanks everybody for hanging out as always.

Thanks for tuning in live. Thanks to those of you that subscribe and join us on Discord. I'm telling you, it means the world to us to be able to hang out with you and get your calls and get your takes and all this stuff. So let's keep it going. We love you. Have my baby. Pardon me.

I'm losing my voice. Thanks everybody. Have a good one and we'll see you next week. Bye. Bye. It's time to make your membership official. Start your 30 day free trial today and become an official member of the Naish at JoinTheNaish.com with the promo code GCN30. That's JoinTheNaish.com and use code GCN30 to gain access to exclusive podcasts, ad-free episodes, and content you

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