Wish I Could Play

MorShadi: Welcome to "Wish I Could Play" a podcast dedicated to people who have always wanted to get into tabletop role-playing games, but have never had the chance. My name is MorShadi here to say you can. 

In this Session Zero episode. I'd like to tell you a little bit about myself, what my background is and why I'm even doing this. This is my first ever produced podcast and I've appeared on plenty of other ones, both video and audio formats. I've been a forever GM since 2017 and I'm glad to do it and in a number of different conventions across the Wasatch Front in Utah and then the Pancake hit in 2020. 

In 2021, I started my journey running games online in various discord servers, running my first streamed actual play on the fantastic Twitch Channel TeaTRPG: T-E-A TRPG. You should follow them. They are a great channel with a great team. Much of my gaming life has been propelled by one thing, and that's introducing players to game systems that I love. 

If you've ever played a game with me, or if you check my Twitter profile at all @mor_shadi, you'll note that I'm a big fan of Powered by the Apocalypse games and by big fan I mean I plan on being buried under an avalanche of PBTA games. Now, why did I start this podcast? I was recently on another podcast, They Might Be Darkfriends, where one of the co-hosts was very excited about my gaming experience and lamented that they were never really able to get into it. And an idea was born. Or was burrowed into my brain. 

My hope is to have them on as my first guest as well as any other guests that I can find. Sharing the joy of this hobby is one of the reasons I do it, so join us next time on the inaugural episode of "Wish I Could Play". 

If you would like to guest on the show, please e-mail guest@morshadiplays.games with your contact information. Thank you for listening to "Wish I Could Play". 

MorShadi

In this inaugural episode, we are talking with Teauhna from Ogden, UT about their experiences in the TTTRPG space, what games they've always wanted to try, and what's kept them from taking that leap. Thank you so much, Teauhna, for talking with me on this episode. How are you doing today?

Teauhna

Good. I'm so excited.

MorShadi

I know. Me too. Thank you. Why don't you tell us a little about yourself?

Teauhna

Well, my name is Teauhna, and I am in my mid 40s and a girl, so my pronouns are she/her in case you wanted to know, so you know, being in in my wonderful Gen X space, I have a lot of life experience. And role-playing games were kind of a big deal in my youth. The people just before me that's that was an obsession. And I always wanted to be a part of it, but it's like I always kind of missed that and so I'm really excited to talk about that part of my life. And then I've had a wonderful just set of experiences with education and different jobs, and I work a lot in creative fields. So, anything that enhances your imagination gives you a chance to interact with people is just so meaningful to me. And then, you know, I just like talking about things so, that brings me to you.

MorShadi

Well, it brings me to me. Everyone knows things about me. No, they don't. They don't know anything about me in the podcast space. In regards to the filmmaking experience, have you done anything that anyone would know about?

Teauhna

Well, I do a lot of independent small productions a lot of times I work on student productions in the Utah area. I have worked on a few things that people would have heard of like 15 years ago, so there was a show called “What Not to Wear” on The Learning Channel. And I was getting the secret footage of people who were then going to be told that they needed to throw away all their clothes because their style was horrible. So, I got to stalk people with a little camera and that was kind of cool too, because my son, who was six at the time, got to come with me for some of that. So that was cool. There was another reality show called “Nashville Star”, so it's like a country American Idol. And I got to do some footage, you know, just catch some footage and do production assisting on there. And then there is a little independent horror film that I don't no one has seen, but it's awesome. It's called “Unearthed”. That I worked on, and I just did everything on that. I was everywhere from inside the office, helping with special effects, camera work, but picking up people from airports just kind of everything.

MorShadi

So just the Gopher on the on the team?

Teauhna

Yeah, I mean the kind word is production assistant. They that's a good term because then you just do whatever you know, so. So that's as far as things that people would have known. That's what I've done. But then I've worked on my own projects and just other, like, projects of love, just people, that's just a dear thing that they needed help with. So, a lot of video editing, cinematography, sound, capturing things like that.

MorShadi

OK, you said that you’re Gen. X, so you would have probably encountered TTRPG's during what would be considered now the satanic panic? What was something that you, had heard about with TTRPG's during that time?

Teauhna

So that was it's an interesting one because I don't come from a family that jumps on the “Oh my God, that's Satan stuff”, even though they're religious. So, it was like happening around me, but I wasn't experiencing that behavior. It was shocking to me that people were actually behaving that way, because what I saw was a game that was fantasy, I saw people gathering around it and they were using their imaginations and spending time together. I also did having grown up in a town that I grew up in, saw, saw people, you know, getting high and drunk and, you know, not living their best lives while doing that. But I think they were doing that with every activity they did.

MorShadi

Getting high and drunk while playing games?

Teauhna

While playing games, heck yes. I mean, this was because this would have been like early to mid-80s, you know. The thing is, so I'm Gen. X, but I'm that young Gen. X, you know, I'm kind of right at the end of it. So the people who were playing it hardcore would have been, generally speaking, they were. I'd say about five and eight years older than me, so I mostly was watching it. My babysitters would play. But a big thing that I did note, notice is I really never saw girls playing it. It was always boys.

MorShadi

So they would never would, would they keep you out of that just or would there be a separation from it?

Teauhna

I was just never invited; it would have never been a thing.

Teauhna

Yeah, so a lot of my friends had older brothers who played, and they would invite their brother, you know, the younger brothers who were my friends to play. But it just was assumed, I wouldn't even want to.

MorShadi

OK, what game? I mean in that leaping from that. What games have you heard of TTRPG games, tabletop games.

Teauhna

Well, obviously I've heard of Dungeons and Dragons. And I've heard of Warhammer, but for until very recently I didn't know that was an RPG. I thought it was just models.

MorShadi

Well, I mean it is a lot of models. I mean, if you have a lot of money, it's all the models.

Teauhna

That's what I've noticed. It's very recently that I knew there was any story component to it. And then I and then the more recent like Powered by the Apocalypse, just that encompassing gameplay style I’ve heard of. And then I've heard of a lot of games. But we should note, very importantly here, that I really suck at remembering titles of things, that could be songs, movies, books, whatever and it could be a book I’ve read like 13 times. I'm not going to remember the title of it, and it also means I may not remember the writer, the creator either. Like if I hear it, I might recognize it, but I won't. So, you should know that. Some games that I have in my possession that I haven't played, but they looked interesting and again I can't remember titles I've typed them on a spreadsheet that I don't have open hold on.

MorShadi

Luckily, you sent that spreadsheet to me. Couple of them actually are really, really interesting. One is called Burning Wheel, which is a pretty cult classic one. It comes in a really big, thick tome. Do you know any? What can you tell me about that one?

Teauhna

Well, first of all, I have the tome. So, I want the codex even though I still like. OK, so the reason I know about it is my son, who is 24 now, has been playing Burning Wheel with his friends since they were, I want to say 16, and I've been able to overhear their games and this is a group of kids that we're going to be really creative anyway, but they, the way they worked with it, the way they utilized the story and the worlds that they build together were so fascinating. And then the way consequences existed in the game and how, it really requires working together to create the world and the stories. It was so fascinating to me. I could make movies out of some of the things that they've done. And then with my son enthusiastically telling me how their campaign. It just had me so engaged with it. In fact, when he was 20, we went and got tattoos together and we got the Burning Wheel tattoo matching. We each got that tattoo. And um, so it's just kind of it's weird that I haven't played it, but I feel so connected to it. And he even tells me, because I was, I was like, I would sit outside and hang out with the cat, but I don't have anything to read. And he handed me Burning Wheel. He's like, “you have something to read”. Which I don't, I've never sat and read an RPG, so.

MorShadi

That's a that's a thick book to read just sitting outside with a cat.

Teauhna

Yeah, obviously over time.

MorShadi

Over time, for sure. Another one you have here is Wise Women. What can you tell me about that one? Because I do know that one that is a Powered by the Apocalypse game.

Teauhna

Which one did you say?

MorShadi

Uh, Wise Women.

Teauhna

Well, this one. It was actually recommended to me by you and it's, you know, I like things that really lean hard into feminine elements or woman and I and I don't even mean in any kind of cis-way, just that femininity, and that this really addresses things that are important historically kind of culturally, but it also lets you just get your imagination and dive into it and it's nice and small. I really, I don't get overwhelmed when I look at a smaller RPG playbook. So that's really that one in a nutshell. I'd say that's the case also with, well, any of the others that I listed, you have the list.

MorShadi

Yeah, the smaller ones that I can tell on here would be like another one would be Plays is The Thing and like Shinobigami are 2 other ones.

Teauhna

Right. So those speak deep to my nerd too, I mean Shinobigami.

MorShadi

Would be like a slight Naruto based one. I would probably compare it to that. It's not, but it is.

Teauhna

Right. And it's well in anything Ninja has always been huge to me martial art and when I say ninja, I'm referring to all martial arts so. So, I don't know that just I just love it. I would love to just imagine a space like that where you're training really hard in certain ways and you have to, you have like a motive and a reason to protect or to fight. But I don't know. There's something awesome about. Plus, Japanese culture. I am not the only American woman to have like and inexplicable obsession with Japanese culture.

MorShadi

So, what is it that what is it about the smaller books that draws you versus the thicker ones?

Teauhna

It really is that it's just not as overwhelming. It doesn't seem as daunting to approach, and because it's shorter. If I don't understand something, it's easier to look back through and find clarity in in the book. When it's larger or when there's multiple books attached to a game, where do I even find that time, you know? Especially on my own. How do I figure this out on my own? How do I visualize what it is I'm reading you know?

MorShadi

Yeah, and that's what I mean. I have the same problem like I have, you know, children in my own, it's having bigger books and bigger time is having to find and carve out that time to be able to, to be able to do that and sometimes it's having that feeling of, well, I'm doing this and that means I'm not taking the time to give to my family. And so, where's that guilt that that guilt, you know, taking care of myself, balance?

Teauhna

That's such, I'm so happy you make that point, because that I think is, this is why I'm so excited about your podcast. There are so many adults who want to play these games, but past experience was this is how you spent all your free time because of most of us were playing these or introduced to these when we were young, we didn't have a lot of the other kinds of fun distractions that we have, you know, like we had TVs. We had the radio and the stereo with our music and books, but we didn't have necessarily the internet and all of the wonderful stuff that's on the internet to distract us, which meant we could sit down with all of our friends after school and play for four hours, we still had time to do homework. So, like, I feel like we mentally imagine that that's still how you have to play a game. And but I, I know from creative experience that it's possible to do something like this and it can be an ongoing campaign, but maybe you only meet one hour every other week. It's still possible to do that, and if people who are adults especially understood that they would be able to find this amazing outlet.

MorShadi

So let me ask you a question. If you had the, if you had the choice to be able to take the time to run, to run something, what would you? What would you run?

Teauhna

What would I run so? What do you mean? Like what kind or story or?

MorShadi

What kind of game? What kind of story? things of that nature.

Teauhna

You know, I mean, for me, it's always going to be a little bit fantasy, but not too hard. I so as much as I love role-playing, I'm self-conscious about embodying the role. So, most characters I'm going to play are going to be some aspect of myself. I'm not going to do a voice. But that doesn't mean my energy isn't different, you know? So, but I like to be able to play grown-ups. I am feeling like too many games are made so that the characters are supposed to be teenagers, and I'm not comfortable playing a teenage character. I don't want to especially like if it's a game that's got like, you know, more, more sexual or violent content. I would like for the other characters to also be my age range.

MorShadi

So, something like a Monsterhearts would not be something that you would want to do that that one's based, it’s by Avery Alder, that one's based in high school. You're playing the personification of supernatural beings, but they're all teenagers. It's very sexual, very kind of, there is violence in the terms of social interaction.

Teauhna

Well, and the thing about that is, and this is an important obstacle that I've encountered in the past, there is flexibility with that. If you're familiar with the content of that game, I think it's very possible to adapt it, to take place in an older environment so it could take place in college or in an office space or something and be adult characters, I think. That is important. I mean, all these books, these playbooks are really guides and a lot of people, I think forget that. So, I think I could take Monster heart and turn it into something that was really meant for someone in 30 or older to play in a 30 older kind of space. But yeah, generally speaking, I wouldn't want to play it because I think people would just expect everyone to be a teenager.

MorShadi

So, what about um, this is popular especially since it's coming back as well, I mean, it's always been popular, since this came out. But uh with Stranger Things the last season coming up, Kids on Bikes, which is very stranger thingy. You're all little, you know, little kids, stranger things, kids age, essentially discovering things. But that is the purpose of the book is you're all kids. But it's very supernaturally right. It's not like you're going to be going in and you know, like discovering too much gore.

Teauhna

I think I mean that's a little bit different, right, because you're not. Well, the nature of those kinds of stories, they tend to make those children mature and independent anyway, like the characters in a story like that. Like ‘It’ or, you know, Stranger Things, any anything where or even Harry Potter where the kids are living in their own isolation and they're thinking “I've got to save the world” and they just take it on themselves. Uhm, there's an adultness automatically given to them. That also takes out most of the sexual elements to it. Now it might be a bad example for anyone who's read the book because they're, and Stephen King has expressed that, you know, maybe he’d write it differently now, but ultimately, most of the time, those kinds of stories, the kids are really just younger versions of adults. You know, so I don't know. That was a little different.

MorShadi

Yeah, he is. Uh, yeah, he, he, he went through a time. He has stated that he would change, he would change that ending now if he if he had.

Teauhna

That piece, that aspect.

MorShadi

Have you had any experiences with any tabletop games at all?

Teauhna

Yeah, I mean, I mean, I couldn't, I can't be 46 and in at all interested in RPG's and not have had some encounter with D&D, so definitely D&D. Though, all these arguments about version four is better than version 2 or whatever, and I maybe just offended people because I don't know what I'm talking about.

MorShadi

Listen, listen as the host of this podcast I wanted to tell everyone I liked it, 4th edition, and you can just drop me now. If you don't like that.

Teauhna

Right. And for me, like they're all there's all value in all of it. So, I just never know what the problem is, but I also I've played Call of Cthulhu. It was just a one-off charity game. And that was a lot of fun. Was very awkward at first. I think that our GM was just a little uncomfortable and none of us knew each other, so took a while for us to engage, but it was fun, and it just ended very unexpectedly so. I really would like to explore that game more, but only in ongoing campaigns. I don't think it's a good one off.

MorShadi

Yeah, it's a little hard to do, uh, as a one off. That one especially. Your skills grow very slowly.

MorShadi

Hello MorShadi here. We had some hardware difficulties at this point of the recording so you will notice a difference in the sound quality. Yah, for technology. Thank you so much.

MorShadi

So with Call of Cthulhu, yeah, it's really hard to be able to. Grow your skill, set it. It's a very slow progression so I can understand how that one could be hard doing as a one shot unless you're like and then it kind of defeats the purpose of it, it's very much, it shows it shines as a longer campaign game.

Teauhna

Well, and that’s why like I that's why I like doing gaming at a con where there's already created characters and you just choose one and go from there. I really like that I work really well from an existing skeleton, like a structure of something. I can go crazy with my creativity if I don't have the burden of creating it from scratch. So, UM, a game like Call of Cthulhu or and honestly, I mean D&D is different. It's been around long enough, there are lots of different ways to play it. Another one too would be Vampire the Masquerade and everything, everything associated with that. I've played it before, it's really amazing, but that was an overwhelming experience. Our guidelines were a little too broad with choosing characters, we're allowed to use pretty much any playbook which and since I was familiar with none that was rough. And I've never played it before, so I didn't really know how to set up my characters and if you've ever seen the character sheets for that game, it's quite a lot. So, I've played it. I do think I'd like it, but I think I would need to be with the right group. You know?

MorShadi

So, is it the newer version or was it the old White wolf version?

Teauhna

How the hell would I know?

MorShadi

I just made it even worse. Yeah, there was an old version, and then the newer version that's based off of, more like a 5E version so.

Teauhna

Yeah, I don't know.

MorShadi

No, that's another one that that definitely helps be able to, run it as a long-term campaign as opposed to a one shot. Any other ones?

Teauhna

I feel like we're missing a couple. Ohh the one, the play one that you mentioned. What's it called?

MorShadi

Oh, the uh, the Plays the Thing.

Teauhna

The Plays the Thing that one has my attention because it does read as a script and I am a theater nerd and have studied Shakespeare and you know, so like I want, you know, I just remembered another RPG. I have a copy of that. It's a printed copy, so I forgot about it. And you're gonna you might know the name of it. It's a fitness oriented one.

MorShadi

Uh Lift

Teauhna.

 Oh my God, I Want to play that so badly and that's like, I feel like its own topic someday.

MorShadi

No, that ones great. And if anyone doesn't have that, it is on DriveThruRPG and it's a fitness oriented game that has like 5 different hacks of different RPGs. I think it's got powered by the apocalypse. It has the DND, it has Lancer or one of the mech ones. I can't remember there's two other ones. And it has. And then two other ones. Vampire and two other ones, and it's great because you are doing exercises and then one person's the quote, UN quote GM. But if you're trying to do something, you're like. Doing like, OK, you're rolling by doing as many push-ups against the other person, and then you become the GM if you do. If you beat them in in push-ups or something, it's like its gamifying exercise. I got it and it seemed amazing and it. I think I got it during the pandemic, and I never did anything with it because I'm lazy.

Teauhna

Yeah, it is. What I like about it too is you can. Make it as hard or challenging as you want to. So, you do not have to go with the suggested something like, that was a good example like race against the person next to you and see who can do the most push-ups or something. It doesn't have to be that difficult. It could be something as simple as standing on. One leg for a certain amount of time, you know, but it just. Gets you moving. And it's funny and like, and I could totally see how crazy great that would be if it was also, you integrated some kind of drinking aspect?

MorShadi

That would be interesting. Yeah, for sure. That would be interesting. I wonder if I could ever run that as a convention game.

Teauhna

With drinking?

MorShadi

No, no, no, just the lift be like “let's just do this” as a convention game. Everyone needs some exercise. Meet you out in the courtyard and I think I probably would never end up having anybody show up.

Teauhna

I think that's a game I would happily run like I can see I could see myself doing that.

MorShadi

Are you, are you? Do you do a lot of fitness?

Teauhna

Off and on, I was a martial arts instructor pre-pandemic and during the first year it was still going. I guess not even a year. It seemed like a year. December 15th, 2020, I think was my last. It doesn't sound right. Had to be 2021 was my last day teaching as a martial arts instructor. So anyway, yeah, so that first year and then, but over the pandemic between also getting eventually succumbing. To illness and then having been injured and ill before the pandemic even hit like I had a lot of downtime. So, the fitness in my life wasn't so huge is coming back. That doesn't mean I'm fit, but I do fitness.

MorShadi

It's like, yeah, I do the same thing. I, you know, eat healthyish as in I eat food that provides nutrition. That's healthy-ish, right? Calling back to something. Oh yeah, go ahead.

Teauhna

Right. One game that isn't like any of the others we've talked about. It's called Tether. And it's a 2-person RPG and you essentially you write letters back and forth to each other. The way I played it wasn't exactly according to the rules. We adapted the rules based on circumstance. What I like about it is you're telling a story about something that you see going on in your town. And you have these cards that you pull that tell you what essentially tell you which writing prompts you're going to use to write about what's going on in the town, and you establish a few things early off, like names of some characters in town or, you know, key places. But I really like the idea that you're and you're in different times. Like you're what? What is something like 18 years apart or something? I feel like the gap isn't well thought out in that game the year gap, but like so you're in two different parts of time for whatever reason, you're able to write notes to each other and ultimately, I don't even care how it ends. I just like the concept a lot. I like the correspondence element of it, and you could do it with e-mail. You could do it with actual mail letters. You know, there's so many cool ways to do that, and I just, I enjoy things that can take into consideration that you can't necessarily get a team of four to six people to play a game that you can still play a game you know.

MorShadi

So, it's like it's The Notebook, The Game.

Teauhna

You still haven't seen, but I know I but that's what I figured. Is that what The Notebook is?

MorShadi

Yeah, I think so. I'm not sure. I just know it's like it's part of the zeitgeist, that it's like people writing each other letters and Ryan Gosling is in it and who is now Ken the doll? Yeah. I don't know he is now. He is now 2023’s Himbo, I think.

Teauhna

Isn't he too? Old I just realized that cause I wanna see that movie, but he seems old for a Ken.

MorShadi

You know, I think everyone in that movie is either a Barbie or a Ken.

Teauhna

Well, I'll see it. Didn't it just come out?

MorShadi

Uh, no, I think it's coming out late, actually, maybe, I don't know. All I know is Kate McKinnon’s in it, so it's enough.

Teauhna

That's all the reason I need.

MorShadi

Yep, all the reason I need. Yeah, yeah, the. Where was I? I had. A thought hold on one second. I wanted to call back to something a little earlier, especially in regard to gaming from the early, probably in the 80s into now. You weren't invited to the games because everyone invited their brothers. As to now which, sometimes it just hasn't changed, and sometimes it has. I run some games on some channels, TeaTRG, classicalglaiza, couple other ones and they make a good point of making sure that they include a lot of marginalized groups. What are your thoughts about that?

Teauhna

Well, I think honestly early on the games were honest, they were genuinely geared toward boys. I mean, look at the artwork. That alone would tell you this, the types of stories tend had a lot to do with, like warrior behavior, and girls really just did not have a lot of examples of warrior women, and we had Wonder Woman who was one of the most favorite people ever in, in anything. I love her and man, I'm trying to think and then my any other female examples that I can really think of right now of like, of a warrior woman were animated. So, like Teela. Or She-ra or um, female characters in Thundercats, you know, like I really didn't have girl examples of being strong and powerful and solving problems. So, I just, I mean it wasn't geared toward. It wasn't trying to get our attention like. When I was that age, everything was that was trying to talk to me was My Little Pony. You know how much I would have killed to have a Transformer you know? Like and then, but as I've seen it change over time, I think it's still guy oriented and anytime you hear about a gaming group, it's almost always dudes and the GM is usually a guy. And that I think is part of what makes it challenging.

I live in Utah, and there's a certain kind of role that women are just naturally falling into and so woman and wife are our main role. Just culturally, and so we. You know, like us wanting to play a game is not usually we don't usually have time for that because we're busy cooking or taking care of the kids so that the dad can play, you know. But then as far as like the TTRPG culture, I think one thing that happened especially I would say in the last 10 years or honestly it started, I really started to be visible when gay marriage stopped being a weirdly illegal thing, you know, people started letting people be who they are a little bit and having imagination became more valued and I think it's not just it's tied to just how Internet has grown all the different creative outlets that you have online all of a sudden imagination has been such a big deal and finding ways to express what you're imagining is good. And you know a lot of like you said fringe, I don't even wanna say fringe, excluded groups also were being excluded from any kind of athletic team. Just it all kinds of office dynamics. You know it. It's not just here, but at least in this creative space, you can be who are, you can explore who you think you are even. In these spaces and get to know yourself better in a safe way, because it's also imagination. You know it's grown so much and with Power by the Apocalypse, I think it that game style makes it a lot more accessible to people. It’s easier to dive into you don’t require as much gear. I mean, now I have a real attachment to the D&D dice. I really like all the various types of dice and the multi-sided. Using just six-sided dice, it's kind of boring to me and I don't like it.

MorShadi

You like the click, clacks you like. The math rocks.

Teauhna

Like I do and well and part of it is because one of the reasons I like RPG's is with the dice, especially in the one of the reasons burning wheel is stressful to me, but with the dice, my need to make a decision is removed. I am experiencing severe decision fatigue. And I kind of always have. I have a recent ADHD diagnosis, which is, you know, in hindsight, very unsurprising. But making decisions is one of the hardest things for me to do because I weigh everything so much. With an RPG, I have dice in my hand. I don't necessarily have to make that decision. I can roll the dice and then it narrows my choices. And it makes it just, it's more enjoyable to me. That's one of my number one favorite things about TTRPG.

MorShadi

So yeah, so because of that, you were able to go, OK, well, I need to do this. Do this and it's like well. The Fates have taken it upon themselves to say yes, you can either do it or no. You can't do it.

Teauhna

Yeah! And its kind of also helps me keep track of my stuff. So, I played video games. But I get real overwhelmed with all my equipment choices and keeping track of it and knowing what's good and best or whatever. I tend to play just whatever I think's coolest and then end up being like super Immortal in these games on accident. But strategy of all that stuff of gear and skills is just an overwhelming thing.

MorShadi

Is there a game, a video game, that you do play or have played that you're like: This is like perfection. In terms of for your AD, your ADHD. And all that kind of.

Teauhna

You know, I haven't quite. Are you talking about video game or TTRPG?

MorShadi

A video game, yeah.

Teauhna

Ohh, video games Suikoden, easily. It's funny because there's a lot and you end up with in this particular game you collect like 108 playable characters, and you can combine them in any number of ways. And some of them you don’t. Well, they're like more fringy like they're, I don't know why using the word fringe. It's my word of the day, I guess, but some of them would be like you, the Baker. So, they're not a good fighter, but they tend to like, they're constantly healing you in a battle or something.

MorShadi

A baker? Everything, everything comes back to food, and I love it.

Teauhna

Yeah, like a cook, Oh, yes, yes. But I love it because you can also randomize it just or you can just choose best. You know it like they were really good at fixing some elements, so if you had a bunch of stuff in your storehouse, you could just choose, please equipped everybody the best from there, and you don't have to. And then you could tweak it if you want to. But and it's going to be smart enough and intuitive enough that. I don't know. It just makes you don't have to keep track of everything. So Suikoden, a lot of the Final Fantasy games, same. I really love watching people play things like Dark Souls, but how they keep track of all of those different types of armor and weapons and is beyond me. And that's just that's the tip of the iceberg with that game. But that's, yeah.

MorShadi

I can't even, I can't even play those games. Those aren't games that I can play. Part of my skill set in any way.

Teauhna

Nope! It's one of those things I just like I will happily, watch my son, especially because he's some kind of savant. I will watch him play that game. There's a few games like that. Red Dead Redemption is hard for me to play. It's disorienting for me so, but I love to watch it be played.

MorShadi

You like the horsey game? Watching the horsey game.

Teauhna

A good story that game makes you freaking cry man.

MorShadi

The first one or the second one?

Teauhna

The second one, well, both of them.

MorShadi

I've never actually, I've never actually watched the second one.

Teauhna

Ohh my goodness, it's really emotional. It's beautiful yeah.

MorShadi

Let's take a break. And let's decide in the game and. Let's if you want, let's run a little one shot real quick, OK?

Teauhna

Sounds fantastic.

MorShadi

We'll be right back.

MorShadi

The following game will involve animals in zoos, escaping animals, some light action. You might also notice a slight jump when I am introducing the game due to my having an older copy of Lemurs on the Loose. The correct authors name is Kestrel Eliot. Thank you.

MorShadi

OK. We are going to be recording and playing Lemurs on the Loose. So, Lemurs on the Loose is a humorous one page game about lemurs trying to escape the zoo. It is a Powered by the Apocalypse game inspired by Honey Heist. You are a lemur, and you're stuck in a cage and you don't want that anymore, do you? So do something about it. It's time to escape the zoo. We're gonna be doing character creation, and Teauhna is going to be rolling a d6 to start.

Teauhna

OK, I got a four.

MorShadi

A four, you are a ring-tailed lemur and you, uh your skill is jump fighting.

Teauhna

Jump fighting? Yes.

MorShadi

Yeah, sometimes those tiny humans throw things into your exhibit. Which item do you have stashed away for the future? Once per game, you can use it. And add one D6 to your roll. Do you want to roll a D6? Or choose an item.

Teauhna

I'm going to roll. I'm just, I think I'm going to take this whole this particular campaign and leave as much to chance as I can as much to the dice.

MorShadi

OK, go ahead and roll the D6 then.

Teauhna

Five. Cool.

MorShadi

OK, five would be a wallet. Someone threw a wallet at you at one point, and you kept it hidden next to you. So, you have 4 stats if you want to write these down. Your stats are clever, cute, scary, strong. And you have four points to assign to them. You can't have more than three points in any one stat.

Teauhna

OK, well I think I'm going to do 2 in strong. And two in clever.

MorShadi

OK. So, gameplay, uh, you can't quite talk with the humans, but you can more or less understand them and you can communicate with most other animals. Lemurs don't have prehensile tails, so no hanging by the tail. But they do have opposable thumbs and opposable toes. When you attempt to do something, roll 2D6, add the appropriate stat +2 if it fits within your skills. So, jump fighting would be something like, you know, you're strong, so that would make sense. You get a six or lower, you fail, 7 to 9 is a partial success, and a 10 plus is a full success. That you said you like Monster of the Week. How much do you know about Power by the Apocalypse, how the system works?

Teauhna

Well, I happen to be a huge fan of the Adventure Zone.

MorShadi

Ah yes, they did.

Teauhna

You know what they've done?

MorShadi

Yes, the adventure zone they started out with their, what was it? What was their first arc called? The balance arc? Anyone who hasn't who is listening and doesn't know about the Adventure Zone, Powered by the Apocalypse is a system that was based off of Apocalypse World. It is a 2D6 system where you just add a stat and anything that you want to do, you say that you want to do it, roll and your successes are based off of a scale system. For me, I will be choosing some zoo features and the end of the game is that whether or not you escape.

Teauhna

Oh, hey, this is going to be fun. You what I’m so excited about? It was the dice who chose this. But Zoboomafoo was a ring-tailed lemur and I love him and I have a crush on the Kratt brothers too, so this is great.

MorShadi

Listen, if you don't have a crush on the brothers, are you really a human?

Teauhna

You're definitely not in in your late 30s to mid-40s I think.

MorShadi

Yeah, that's probably true. OK. Are you ready? You know, we have the scene. It's just like cresting over, it's like morning time. Just like that. Sun is just coming over the peak, and it's just like flashing across the zoo. What city are we in, Teauhna?

Teauhna

What city? Ohh. Maybe I should keep it close to home, we’re in Ogden UT.

MorShadi

Ogden, UT. I Believe that's close to Zoo is the Hoogle Zoo, correct?

Teauhna

Yes, but do I have to be in the Hoogle zoo? There's a little zoo north of here, too, but can we make up the zoo?

MorShadi

Yeah, make up the zoo.

Teauhna

Right, let's make up the zoo.

MorShadi

OK. Uh, so we got the zoo. I’m gonna name it, it was a zoo that was donated by Stephen Napkin, Napkin Zoo and it's because I just have a napkin next to me. Napkin Zoo in, what's the town north of you?

Teauhna

The town north of me. You know, I don't mean to disrupt your story, but you know, I live really close to a dinosaur park. Is the zoo in the dinosaur park?

MorShadi

There we go. A Dino park.

Teauhna

That sounds so cool.

MorShadi

Let's just call it Dino Zoo, the Dino Zoo and for whatever reason they have just a couple, it is also it's just the dinosaur park and the zoo at the same time. You know the city, just like, has to meld things because you know, they don't offer enough resources for the town. As everyone as you got, all the employees going through and grabbing all the trash and making sure everything is taken care of and all the zookeepers are coming around and feeding and feeding the animals, we come in to our main character, our ring tailed lemur. What are you doing?

Teauhna

I'm secretly rifling through my hidden wallet.

MorShadi

What's in that Hidden wallet there? Is it a prison wallet? Is that what it?

Teauhna

There is, (laughter) no, that's gross.

Teauhna

There is a lot of money like cash. So I've had this wallet for a while. Because no, no one has cash anymore. I've had it for a while and there are pictures and I love to look at the pictures, they’re intriguing.

MorShadi

Do you understand what's on these pictures? Like who is, is there anything on this pictures that really intriguing to you?

Teauhna

I mean, there's people, but I really, I'm excited about the little person that's holding the hand of the bigger people. But they just, they just look really excited, which I like to see that. I see that a lot just from my cage. I see a lot of excited faces. Look, with little, little people.

MorShadi

As you're as you're staring at your wallet and staring at the little people, you hear a rattle next to your cage and you notice the human who is always there, the same morning, every morning to bring you your food. What's your favorite food that you always brings you in the morning?

Teauhna

Watermelon

MorShadi

Watermelon. This morning, he does have just these the little cubes of watermelon. And he's got it in the little dish. What is it that he calls you?

Teauhna

Oh no, I don't, uh (laughter)

MorShadi

I'm going to say he calls you Zabu.

Teauhna

No, we can't. Ok

Teauhna

We don’t want to steal their idea.

MorShadi

Well, you know what, it's because human are predictable creatures and they don't know any better.

Teauhna

OK, it's like if someone has a golden retriever and they call them bud because air bud is a golden retriever.

MorShadi

Right. Or just, buddy, bud, buddy, all those same things. Or what's the what's the golden Retrievers name from uh?

Teauhna

Chance. No the other dog. The other dog. I don't know.

MorShadi

Yeah, it doesn't matter. So he comes over and just like puts it over by your dish. And he and he goes to look at you and goes to pet you on the head. He's not supposed to do that on a personal note. What do you do?

Teauhna

I just duck my head and do the little slappy slap, like with my hands, just like, kind of like a cat slap.

MorShadi

He goes, “ha you’re funny” and he goes to goes to leave. What do you do as he as he goes to leave? It's like kind of just, kind of slow motions.

Teauhna

Well, I'm gonna eat my watermelon.

MorShadi

You're going to eat your watermelon, right?

Teauhna

I gotta, I gotta have some energy because I'm getting out of this joint.

MorShadi

Alright, you're getting out of the joint, alright. The door closes and the park opens up. Next to your enclosure is the, is also the T-Rex enclosure, so you're all throughout the day you're here (t-rex roar). You know, all day long, because every single one of those things has to have, like, the same yell and it's just constantly going back and forth. You have a bunch of kids coming, coming towards you and they're just constantly throwing you popcorn and peanuts and occasionally keys. What do you do from here? Like, how are you going to escape from this cage.

Teauhna

UM, well, what I've noticed is every morning they have to turn on the dinosaur animatronics thing. And every night they have to turn it off. And I've noticed that they are. Really, they just lean against my cage. I've noticed there. It's like the door pushes in toward me a little bit, when they do that, it's a cramped space and there's not, not a big budget.

MorShadi

OK.

Teauhna

So I've noticed that I've started to see this gap between the door of my cage and the walls of my cage and I and  I'm thinking I can fit through there.

MorShadi

OK. So are you going to check out that door with them right now?

Teauhna

Uh well, right. Because kids, they're kind of leaning against it. Can see it wiggle.

MorShadi

OK. As you see, kids are just kind of like banging against it. You do see it like (bouncing sound).

Teauhna

Yeah, it's waggling. I well, I want to pay really close attention to how it's doing it because I'm clever. I'm strong so, I'm thinking I might try tugging on it at the same time as they're pushing just to see what happens.

MorShadi

Roll me a clever on that.

Teauhna

So 2 right?

MorShadi

Yep, 2D6 plus, plus your Clever.

Teauhna

So I got a 5 + 2 is 7.

MorShadi

OK, with the seven, you do notice that it they're kind of pushing on it and you probably could sneak right through if you time it just right, but you're not seeing a way to be able to open it completely.

Teauhna

OK. Well, that's good to know. That, I mean, those are just kids. Those are just the small humans. So they're not very strong. So I'm just gonna. I'm gonna have to wait. Till someone bigger.

MorShadi

As you aren't like kind of just addressing it, you start seeing little little fingers kind of. Kind of going through the door jam just like.

Teauhna

Like a kids trying to.

MorShadi

Yeah, like a kids trying to kind of fiddle with it and just kind of like get their hand inside the door, cause you know, kids like going inside places, they're not supposed to. What do you do?

Teauhna

I think? I mean, I think I'm gonna grab their finger and pull. I'm just gonna go.

MorShadi

Pull on it. You're able to do that just fine as you go over and just like, like you start hearing this (yelp). Do you hold on tight?

Teauhna

Yeah, I'm gonna hold on tight.

MorShadi

OK, this he like. He pulls on, pulls it, he pulls his hand back and that your head's like popping through. And in front of you, you see this. Kid who's way bigger than you staring right at you.

Teauhna

So we're like face to.

MorShadi

It's face to face. Yep, in the gap. What do you do?

Teauhna

I think I'm going to lick their nose.

MorShadi

I think that's a cute go ahead. And roll me a cute.

Teauhna

Ohh my cutest so low I got UH-7.

MorShadi

OK. As you as you go. And go to lick them, they just. And they run away. Everyone's just like, what the hell, looks away. You now have a chance to, to to get out. Do you take that chance?

Teauhna

I do take that chance.

MorShadi

You zoom out of that, that place. Around you, what you see is obviously the enclosure, not the enclosure, the dinosaur exhibit right next to you, the T Rex across from you. Oh, excuse me. The amphitheater where they have like where they have all of the exhibits for like the predator birds, every couple of hours and to the left of you, you have the playground where all the kids always play? What do you do?

Teauhna

I think I’m gonna head toward the animatronic, the dinosaur, I hear it and I can kind of see it sometimes. Cage and I, I just kind of want a closer look. I've been listening to that for years.

MorShadi

OK. So you had you head to your right and you just start you book it across? It's midday. So there's like lots of, lots of feet everywhere. Are you just going to book it straight across?

Teauhna

No, I think, I'm gonna hug the edges just a little bit.

MorShadi

OK. I'm going to. Ask you to roll me a clever on that one to try to hide.

Teauhna

I got an 8 + 2, 10.

MorShadi

Nice you are able to keep to the edges of everything and keep into the shadows. And just like sneak through and we're able to make it to the other side. No one saw you. Everyone was paying attention to that kid. Just decided to take off, and now he's crying. (kid mumbling) Like his parents are like you. “Just shut up, kid.”

Teauhna

Right. They're really tired and whiny.

MorShadi

You know what? It's time to go home. OK. We'll come back tomorrow. You can see that way you can see everything else and they're just like walking off. You're over by the T. Rex exhibit now. Where are you at? By by its feet. Are you like underneath, are you hiding in the bushes?

Teauhna

I'm in the bushes, yeah. Right. Right. I mean it's right up against the T Rex like the near the tail. But I'm the bushes.

MorShadi

OK, as you stare out from these bushes. You see back to the cage that you used to be in. And you see the Zookeeper, who comes and checks in on the animals. And you see them open the cage. They notice that you're gone. And they run back out. They know that you're gone now that you are missing from your cage. What do you do?

Teauhna

So let me ask, is this exhibit outdoors or indoors?

MorShadi

It is outdoors.

Teauhna

So I've already gotten away. I want to go further back into the dinosaur exhibit further away from where the cages are.

MorShadi

OK. Yeah, you were able to just turn right around? And as you turn around, you can see that there is an indoor dinosaur exhibit heading that way. And then heading back out into the other side, which is still in the outdoors, you see a food court. So then there is just a ton of people. So in your direct path is either go inside or go into the food court where there is a lot of people. What do you do?

Teauhna

Uh, like, what is it inside? Is it like museum? Stuff. Gift shop. What?

MorShadi

You've never been in there. It's just kind of dark.

Teauhna

Well, it's just it's just a way I think.

Teauhna

I think I’m going to head inside, I'm used to being inside.

MorShadi

OK. As you as you head inside you can, I'm going to let you know, you're still like in that hidden mode and you just like slipping inside the door and inside you see just the same kind of giant animatronics, just like the T-Rex, but they're all over along the walls. Ones hanging in the ceiling with this huge wings and inside is everyone, more, more feet. I mean more these humans that are just walking around. What do you do?

Teauhna

I am going to stare in awe at all the awesome stuff I had no idea. There could be this many. I only knew about the ones that were by my cage.

MorShadi

This world has now expanded for you. Like there there's more. Next to you, you hear talking and you like, like we said in in the beginning of this game, you can kind of understand humans and you can hear the name that they call you missing that out. So they're getting closer and closer to you. What do you do?

Teauhna

I think that I am. I'm going to jump up onto one of the displays like. Get you know, so I can get behind some stuff we get above where the humans are.

MorShadi

OK, the nearest display to you is a Triceratops. Not that you know what they're called. There's Triceratops as you like. Just like (jumping around effect) I want you to roll me a Strong.

Teauhna

I got an 8. No, sorry, I can't do math. I got a nine.

MorShadi

A nine, OK, you're able to easily climb up. You know you're taking the nose, taking the, taking the horns, but your tail just kind of flashes. In front of someone and a little kid just goes “Monkey!”. And so and everyone's like, what? And they start looking towards you. And they and they see. And they're like, “hey, what's that? Is that a squirrel? No, I think it's a monkey. Are you sure?”

Teauhna

I'm just going to freeze.

MorShadi

Right behind that. Behind that Triceratops, just like just hanging right there.

Teauhna

Yeah, like I'm part of the display.

MorShadi

Like part of the display. OK. From out from the outside. You see more of the zookeepers just come inside and looking around, I want you to rule me a Clever.

Teauhna

I got a 7.

MorShadi

You're able to hide what you're doing, you're very, very still, but the zookeeper comes over and he's like, what's going on? And he said started an ask question. Well, well, yeah. What do you mean you saw monkey? And he starts investigating, looking at what everyone was saying, where were apparently a monkey was. And so he starts climbing over the exhibit. And he's starting to look up and around because he knows that he's looking for you. What do you do?

Teauhna

I think I'm just gonna, uhhhh

MorShadi

You are a jump fighting lemur.

Teauhna

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Like, I feel like I just want to jump higher at this point because you said that they're even like the winged. So they're going to be hanging from. To jump higher, whatever.

MorShadi

OK, do me. Let's go with the strong. You're going to like just like (jumpy run noises).

Teauhna

I got 9.

MorShadi

As the as the zookeeper kind of like crests up above the Triceratops head, he see you, you both lock eyes. Right at each other as you take a flying leap just like, jump off of his head and just in very lemur fashion. You know, you just see that and get onto that wing and it the wing starts like the, you know, the pterodactyl just starts like swinging back and forth, back and forth. You are kind of losing your perch a little bit. You are now, everyone is looking at you and you're not going to be able to sneak away from this. What do you do from now?

Teauhna

OK. Uh, I think. He's gonna keep jumping. I mean, I'm just gonna wildly jump. Hopefully higher when I can, but just away, toward until I can find an opening, any kind of opening that.

MorShadi

OK. Above you on these terradactyl characters are being held up by like wires up to the ceiling. Into the into the top of the, top of the ceiling and the roof. So you can try to climb up or you can keep like trying to jump, jump around. Which one do you want to try?

Teauhna

I’m going to jump around

MorShadi

OK, go ahead and jump around. You've already kind of like done it a little bit, you kind of time it with the swing as you go. All the way to the end of the building. The zookeepers, following you because you can see you each time you jump until you reach to the end. And there's no more pterodactyl to jump on. There's only a wall in front of you, door underneath you and the zookeeper who's now on the radio, “I found ‘em”. What do you do?

Teauhna

So you said the door is below me. That's the only opening that's around. UM I think I'm. Just going to head for the door.

Teauhna

OK, I'm gonna do. I mean, if he's right down there, too, I might boring right off of him.

MorShadi

Are you going to, like, try to like? Just like just. Trampoline off of him. Are you going to try to like, like, scratch them up and run away from them or.

Teauhna

I just want to get away so. I'm just going to. Bounce, you know.

MorShadi

OK. All right, go ahead and roll me a Strong.

Teauhna

Not to be bad about moving stuff since I have to use my laptop microphone. OK 9 + 2 is 11.

MorShadi

You, you jump off that pterodactyl, Yeah, it's just like, as he is like. It's still calling on that radio (yell) smack him right in the head and you springboard right out that window. I mean the sorry, not the window, the doorway, and everyone who's coming in that doorway just kind of spread around you. In front of you, you see the outside, it's the outside again, right into a cotton candy machine. And you're right, right. You're right balance precariously.

Teauhna

What a terrifying vortex.

MorShadi

And you see just like (vortex). What do you do?

Teauhna

Well, I mean, I'm pretty good at jumping, so it wouldn't be hard for me to just like leap and change trajectory. So I'm just going to bounce. I'm wildly bouncing at this point. Why stop now?

MorShadi

OK, from there you just like you do, you know, do backflip. This is now like the main thoroughfare, like it's the every location has just one main alleyway from beginning to end, and you see what looks like a like a gateway, right. And you, you see the outside, you see the outdoors, but it is through. A mass of people. Do you go for it?

Teauhna

So that's, that's all that's ahead of me is just essentially like a narrow path to an exit?

MorShadi

Yeah, it's kind of like kind of like how you go through Disneyland. It's just everyone's getting funneled out.

Teauhna

Yeah, I think I'm going to just try to because I'm like around toddler height at this point and I'm fast. I think I can move through that quite a bit.

MorShadi

OK, so as you take down, take off like just going through. I want you to roll me a clever trying to get through all these legs.

Teauhna

8 + 2 10.

MorShadi

You're able to wrap around everyone's legs. Everyone's like what? As you hear the zookeepers, now a few of them are running after you and they're just getting bumped, bumped across. They can't get through everybody because you are cleverly going through everyone's legs. You get to the end to what looks like you understand as a human the ticket counter. And it's those like, you know, like the yeah. And on the other side? You see what it what looks like cars. Do you jump through?

Teauhna

Like jump through the turnstile thing.

MorShadi

Yeah, the turnstiles. Thank you.

Teauhna 1:04:50

Uh, yeah, yeah. I mean not like high. I'm keeping it low, but I can't really jump high anyway. I feel like there's backpacks and strollers and everything, but I'm so I'm going to like just kind of try to, like, slink to the side of the door like.

MorShadi

Roll me another Clever.

Teauhna

Man, this set, I got to remember these dice. I got an 8 + 2.

MorShadi

OK, you slid to start, I mean to a stop and you just kind of like go off to the side. The zookeepers go right past you, thinking you've already escaped. And they're like outside looking for you as you stare across and just, you know, like that like to do and just walk out past them. And as you stroll on past them. And you go into the trees. Just like out of your side. You got your wallet and another piece of watermelon.

Teauhna

Yeah, living the dream.

MorShadi

Living the dream now you got you got enough cash and some watermelon on hand to make it back to Madagascar. And that's our little one page Lemurs on the Loose.

Teauhna

Good job me in real life. I would not be that agile.

MorShadi

You would not be that agile. Ohh boy, that's a that's a nice little game, especially just for just something quick.

Teauhna

You know what I liked about it? I was thinking of uses of the game like that, in particular, how great would that be with kids? Like if you're teaching and you're having a hard time getting them focused like you could actually do something like this with a whole classroom full of students. Even if it was just one lemur, right? They all just kind of take turns choosing an action or I'm always into gamifying things anyway. I don't have the energy to do it, but I can imagine the gamification of stuff.

MorShadi

And that's what's what's great about, especially open games like this, it's because it makes it easier to introduce people into games.

Teauhna

I felt like that was a great warm up, you know, like to play that as like an intro before you sit in like, you get started on a big session of something else. Like it kind of loosens you up, kind of gets your imagination activated. Like, that's what it felt like it did. It felt like a really great warm up or like, you know, like in TV shows they have somebody like a comedian in the crowd or something for the live studio audience. They're telling where the show starts, stuff like that, you know.

MorShadi

Yeah. No, that, yeah. It would be a great improv like, just like an improv game. Like, let's just do this like. Someone gave me a give me a place.

Teauhna

Exactly. Yeah, that was fun.

MorShadi

Well, Teauhna, thank you so much for doing this with me. This has been a great experience. It's going to be a great first episode. Let's wrap this up with some of your outro information. Can you tell us what the, where we can find you, what your current projects are, and anything else that you want to let us know?

Teauhna

Right now, I am I just finished up a film project at Weber State University with a student group that's called Lawn Wars. We just had our first screening of the film a couple of weeks ago. It's still in kind of in post-production like we screened it before we were finished cleaning it all up just to so that everybody who worked on it had a chance to see it in its roughness. But we want to put that in some film festivals. So I just finished that and then I have some other just small projects coming up that don't have titles. So that's we'll see where you can find me. I'm changing up all my social media a little bit, so I'm not, I'm not out there like I used to be. So my world is changing. So you're just going to have to remember the spelling of my name and watch for me in IMDb, I guess I don't know.

MorShadi

I'll put it in the in the show notes and everything but how do you spell your name?

Teauhna

TEAUHNA.

MorShadi

And that is pronounced Teauhna.

Teauhna

And if you say, Tay, Anna, I'll still accept that.

MorShadi

We will accept it. Well, thank you so much. And please join us next time on “Wish I Could Play”.

Teauhna

Thank you. Bye.

MorShadi

Yeah. Bye, bye.


If you would like to be a guest on the show, please email guest@morshadiplays.game with your contact information. Thank you for listening to Wish I Could Play

MorShadi

Welcome to Wish I Could Play, a podcast dedicated to people who have always wanted to get into tabletop roleplaying games but have never had the chance. My name is MorShadi, here to say, you can.

Hey it’s MorShadi, as you can probably tell, I haven’t released an episode since June, I recorded this episode in July, but unfortunately because of life, I haven’t released it. I’ll be releasing this episode in two parts, first the interview and within the next week or so the second half containing the game we played. Apologies for not updating the podcast and I’ll hopefully be posting regular updates soon. Thank you very much.

MorShadi

Probably got a big old notice, “Hey someone’s recording”. In this episode of, “Wish I Could Play”, we are not going to be talking with someone who is new to tabletop space but is an experienced GM and player. David Easley, Keeper and host of the Trials of the Apocalypse podcast. David, thank you so much for being on the podcast, how are you doing today?

David Easley

I am doing it rather good today. I am super happy to be here, been looking forward to this all week and, yeah, I'm feeling pretty good. I am low on water and I will regret that later, but for now, I still have enough so.

MorShadi

I mean, you can always, always walk away to the from the table. I can just vamp the entire time.

David Easley

Ohh yeah yeah.

MorShadi

That's also the best thing about recording. You can always, you know, you can always just stop.

David Easley

Everything can change and post.

MorShadi

Indeed. Um, let us, you know, tell us a little about yourself.

David Easley

Sure, um, where do you want me to start? I’m 6 foot 3. I once was blonde.

MorShadi

Yes, but what is your sign? Do you, do you like taking long walks off the off a short pier, like things like that.

David Easley

Long walks off a short pier. It's not a very long walk if I go off the pier, you know we're going right in the water at that point.

MorShadi

That's true.

David Easley

Oh geez. Well, as was mentioned, I host a show called Trials of the Apocalypse. It's what I'm best known on the Internet for, where we do, we call them one shot stories they are. Sometimes a little bit longer than that, but they're short form stories in different Powered by the Apocalypse games, we've had a tumultuous time trying to switch to doing some live stuff for a while the podcast is on hiatus, and eventually we will make more live content, but for now we're just sort of coasting. We're hanging out talking to people and playing games when we can. And uh, today we're going to have a little bit of a chat and then play a little bit here I think.

MorShadi

Yeah, let me you, let me ask you a question. Now I have been following the Trials of the Apocalypse. Uh, since you initially posted about it, a long time ago, it seems so far along ago. Yeah.

David Easley

Yeah, hilariously early you were like in like the first, I think, four or five people who actually, like heard the show who weren't personal friends of mine like, yeah, life.

MorShadi

Yeah, Yeah, No I Think you posted it on either the Powered by the Apocalypse Group or Monster of the Week group, I can't remember which one? Saying like, “hey, we've got this like, you know this podcast.” Like uh, what? I’m looking for another one and then uh, you know, I was hooked. Why did you choose specifically PBTA to focus on, because that's what all your arcs are. It's all Apocalypse world, Undying, Brindlewood Bay, right? Brindlewood Bay?

David Easley

Our order so far. I think I can, I think I can still do this. We're getting up there, so it gets harder every time. So far we have Apocalypse World, Undying, Ghost Lines, Brindlewood Bay, Monster of the, no, The Watch, Monster of the Week, Pigsmoke, and The Between: Ghosts of El Paso. I might have dropped one in the list, but I think I think that's it.

MorShadi

Yeah, no I think you got them all.

David Easley

So we, I say we, this this whole show was my I want to say the self-deprecating side of myself is like “my dumb idea”, but it's actually a pretty good idea I think. We here being me and my wife Emma, who's also like my creative partner and many, many things. Like I've been running at that time, a lot of D&D, but I'd like experimented out in some different systems and had a lot of positive feedback from running those and enjoyed playing those, and I really wanted to explore more PBTA games because I heard a little bit of some folks playing Monster of the Week and was interested in that. I had been looking into other systems and a lot of them that I was like, oh, that sounds really cool, like, oh, that sounds really neat. Kept coming up like they were like, oh, Powered by the Apocalypse, Powered by the Apocalypse, Powered by the Apocalypse. And I was like, maybe I just like this format. And this like, I say format because like PBTA is actually bigger than that, it's a lot more about like the design philosophy around how a game should play rather than these specific mechanics. But I was just really intrigued by a lot of PBTA systems on my short list at the time of ones that I wanted to play the most were from PBTA, and I realized as we were conceiving of the podcast and trying to figure out what our angle was, I definitely wanted to do one shot stuff. I wanted it to be very like self-encapsulated because at the time I was a novice both to running games on mic and also like podcast editing and I wanted people who were new to the show to be able to join us on whatever arc we were currently playing and then go back and listen to stuff if they wanted to and wouldn't feel like compelled if we were doing like a long, you know, 30-50 episode plus story, then now somebody has to go back and listen to the early stuff, which might not be like as good as the recent stuff and I wanted it to each arc is its own and you can go and listen to them if you want to. But there's no, you know, impetus. You don't have to understand what's going on later. So with that decided, I was like well, this still feel I feel like this idea could be a little bit tighter and the like sell to somebody who's giving up their time to, like, listen to our show could be more clear if like what we're offering could be clearer. And so I decided that it'd be it'd be cool if we actually like limited our scope and had like a little bit of an educational angle. Obviously like when we get to the actual gameplay, I think we're hardly an educational show, but we do like try our best to explain the systems that we're going to play and be transparent about how we do our, our world building and stuff during setup. And that's kind of like the educational part for people who are interested in learning about a new system. And then for people who are just there to, like, hear an actual play story and hear this improvised story play out, then they can just listen to the game play and hop right in. And we settled on Powered by the Apocalypse purely because there was just like a dozen of them that I wanted to play at the time. And I was like, you know, if part of the goal of this podcast is to let me run more games in more systems, then I'm just gonna, this seems like a really rich vein to mine and I'm happy to, you know, swing my pickaxe there and see what I dig up.

MorShadi

Oh, it’s definitely is a rich vein to mine. I have an entire G-drive full of them. So was Apocalypse world the first one that you run and GM’d or played and GM’d? Or did you play one?

David Easley

Apocalypse World was the first Powered by the Apocalypse game. True, true to form that I ever ran.

MorShadi

OK, what about played?

David Easley

The Monster of the Week was the first one I ever played, and that was like a year later.

MorShadi

(laughter) So you just full on, dived into deep end?

David Easley

I dove right in the first time I have ever run a PBTA game is on mic for the first you know for the first arc of the show, and goodness gracious, by the time gets the end of that, I still was like, OK, I feel like I kind of get what's going on with PBTA.

David Easley

But like, there's definitely a lot of like holes in how I executed this. And then sometime midway through Undying it like, especially like that one is like very different handling of PBTA principles and like about halfway through that game, I don't know what happened and my brain had just finally clicked. And I was like, “Oh that's how all this works. That's how like this is all supposed to work” and I think ever since then, like there are times when I've missed a particular mechanic or something in a in a game because we don't have time or I forget about it. But for the most part, I think at that point I know it feels weird to say like, oh, yeah, second game in, I knew what I was doing, but I knew a lot better what I was doing than when we started. Because that was very jumping in, jumping in cold water right away.

MorShadi

And when that's, that's what I love about Powered by the Apocalypse cause every single one always adds a dimension to it, right? Yeah, because my first game that I also did was I jumped into and running a convention game of Monster of the Week. That has been the that was the first time I'd experienced anything and I decided.

David Easley

Wow, Cold open Monster of the Week at a convention, that is tough.

MorShadi

Yeah, not only that, I ran 3 three games of Monster of the Week. My first game, it was only like I think four people signed up cause no one had heard of it, and then that snowballed into my next game and I got ended up getting two of the same players and then four more. Because they brought people in. And then my last game of the convention, I ended up and this is a mistake for any people, anyone who is a, who is a new GM, especially in Powered by the Apocalypse. I had already, I had set it out to be a max of five people at per table, but it was the one of the last games the Convention and I had some people who were wanting to play. And then people who had missed out on the beginning the first two games because they were also GM’ing, and I was like, “yeah, sure, why not go ahead and jump in” and then people who had already played so they knew how to play and I was like, “yeah sure”. I ended up with a table of eight people.

David Easley

Oh my goodness.

MorShadi

For Monster of the week.

David Easley

I have run one. It was ostensibly the start of like a mini campaign, but we quickly realized it was untenable. I did start a table that had it was either 9 or 10. It was raw hubris that thought that that would work. It did not.

MorShadi

And and it can. But the problem is that you know convention setting.

David Easley

Oh yeah, it was new people who haven't played together.

MorShadi

It is so hard. And a lot of it, though is, I don't think I've ever had the same experience twice when it comes to a convention game, because at least with that one. I would probably say it’s my most successful one and also the one that, it was the hardest, and mainly because I had two players, one was, it was a dad and a daughter, and she was just the quietest mouse. She would only talk to her dad, like, and she wanted to play. I think she played the Spooky. Yeah, she played the spooky who was like, yeah.

David Easley

It's great playbook.

MorShadi

And he was. I can't remember what it was, I think it was, It was a Monstrous, no the Wronged. He played the Wronged. And he was like a ghost cowboy. And she was like this teenager who is now attached to him in some way and like it just keeps him in line. And keeps him in check. Would barely talk. I would try to bring her in and she would give her what she would want to do to her dad and he would say what it was. Totally fine. However people want to play, that's fine. This table was huge. And so I'd have like side conversations going on constantly and then eventually people started actually lining up around because they were just like, what the hell is going on over here? This is a huge table. And I was like oh my god. So other conversations, what was great about it though, was because I was listening to the side conversations, I was able to bring in stuff at the same time because they were talking about like, “oh, yeah, I got this character, like, they're part of the mafia”. And I just like when I go back, they didn't mention they were part of the Mafia and I just bring it in at their, you know, someone from the mafia is coming after them like they're wanting, they're wanting to do this, that or the other. And I'm like they were like “what?” I was like “You were just talking about it. You're at the table”.

David Easley

This is fair game.

MorShadi

Well, my success. Yeah, my success story on that is by the end of it, this daughter was like yelling out her, what she wanted to do. She was like jumping up. It's like that thing, like when they throw down the cake and everyone like she ended up killing the monster with the final blow and everyone just exploded. It was fantastic. Apparently, her dad told me that she had just the most fabulous. I mean, she wanted to buy the book.

David Easley

Awesome, that is so good. That's such a good convention story.

MorShadi

Yeah, and that right there is the reason why I run convention games is for that. So, I don't know where I was going. With that, but it's OK.

David Easley

It's a good it's a good place to start.

MorShadi

It is a good place to start, but that oh, that's right, the differences between all the games. So Monster of the Week was one I ran for a long time and that was pretty much all I would run and then I was like, “well, there are other games out there”, and I started buying more and more and more. And I think in terms of changing the way I run games and changing GM’ing, the two games that made me like, that switched for me was Monsterhearts and Dream Askew. Monster of the Week is very like formulaic. I call it the meat and potatoes of PBTA. It's very like you can just lay everything down, everyone knows like, “hey, it's the beginning, middle, and end. Done”. Right? But Monsterhearts and Dream Askew, are both by Avery Alder, they have this like depth to them and even if someone doesn't want to run them, I always recommend those two games is something you should have in your toolbox and they just kind of like improved things for me and for my GM’ing, at least with PBTA.

David Easley

Yeah, Avery Alder writes incredible stuff.

MorShadi

I know.

David Easley

The quiet year is my favorite new game to run for people. If I'm running with people who have, like, never played a TTRPG before, I love to start them with the Quiet Year because it's like immediately graspable the role play is like there but it's light, so you don't have to. If you're not like comfortable or you're not familiar with how to engage with it yet. It's it doesn't demand as much from you, but it's still like it gets your brain building. I don't know. I and that's like just an example. I would love to play everything that Avery has ever made, because everything that I've read has been fantastic.

MorShadi

Yeah, their design philosophy for most of their games, it's just it's almost everything that I've read, that I that I own at least it's almost, it strikes me as this like, this is more very much more than a game, like take the game out of it, be more about who you are, what you are, what you're representing, and then play the game. And that's where I, that's where my mindset changed. I was like, these are characters I that should matter and that's and that's definitely where it where it clicked for me. In terms of what you said just said actually, for people who have never played a game, you used The Quiet Year, which is a game I've always wanted to play. I have the PDF, I want the cards.

David Easley

I found one of the like Kickstarter sets in a game store near me, so I have the cards. I have the nice burlap sack. And the little the little skull tokens for contempt, yeah, it's great. Fantastic. Nice.

MorShadi

Nice, I can see why that would definitely be good for someone who's never played an RPG, especially getting them into that map building and that lore building and their RPG building. And I like again, meat potatoes. I like using Monster of the Week as an introduction for people who've never, cause it's very good. Everyone has some media touchstone to some kind of supernatural-ish something, either a book, a movie, TV show, anything. It's very open and very wide. But there are definitely some PTBA games out there that are not player friendly. Have you run across any of that? That you'd be like, “oh, no, no, no, you can't. No, we can't. We got to put that one back. You're not. You're not ready for that”.

David Easley

Two that come to brain immediately are I think Undying is not one you should probably play first because for people who aren't familiar with like the pace of conversation and a PBTA game the lack of rolling is going to be really confusing. Actually, I guess I would say for anyone who's like coming new to PBTA, Undying would be a very confusing offering. If you're like familiar at all with any other RPG, because like there, there is no dice rolling, how the pace of play, it's like very implicit. There is of course, like the other ways of controlling outcomes with like blood and the betting and stuff, but it's pretty atypical and I feel like people who don't already have a pretty firm foundation are going to be at want trying to figure out what to do like they're.

MorShadi

They're gonna be focusing too much on the mechanics and the playing itself, yeah.

David Easley

Yeah, it's going to be hard to figure out how to engage with that, but like, once you do it and it's a great game, it's a dark game, but it's a great game.

MorShadi

Yeah, that ante system, that blood ante system is fairly into that. It's also the hardest part to get nailed down and uh but yeah, once you get it, get it straight in your head it's like, OK, OK, that makes sense.

David Easley

And it makes for like super all or nothing encounters which is like very intrinsic to how it thinks of vampires clashing. So it's fun. It's a good game. That one, I would say, is, like, not terribly immediately friendly. The other one that came to mind was any like, not necessarily any but some short like single pager or like the one that popped in my head was Ghost Lines which is a four pager by John Harper. It's a fantastic game. Lots of great tech in it, but if you if you haven't already run or read or otherwise played Apocalypse world, or really any like kind of core mechanic PBTA system. It's it is, It just doesn't have any of that keeper advice or information or player advice or information. And so like if you just read it and you have no other context and then you go to play it, you're you're going, you're not going to have a bad time because like, there's still lots of good game there, but you're going to have a confusing time. Because you're not, it's not immediately apparent how when these rolls are called for or how they work, or like so at anytime where you don't have a lot of that description there that that sort of keeper or player advice, I think that can make it harder because like, as I mentioned, I played Apocalypse World first and Apocalypse World is the system that started it all and it has lots of really good keeper resources in it and still it wasn't until like my second PBTA and beyond where like things started to click for what it wants from you and I think people who are coming in cold, it's just like it's it can be a little bit.

MorShadi

So it's like handing a complicated tool to someone without any instruction manual.

David Easley

Yeah, you really need the instruction manual. If it's like your first, you know, touch with it. Actually I feel like the people who do the best coming to PBTA for the first time, are people with either a theater or improv background specifically because a lot of those like warm up games that you have in those actually play a lot like a PBTA conversation. And so if you already have a background with those, then it's, I think, an easier transition whereas, weirdly enough, if you have other gaming background, specifically with more sandbox oriented systems like for example D&D, but really any in that fairly broad category coming to PBTA can be a bit jarring at first because of its like narrative first approach instead of it’s sort of sandbox resolution. It's physics, you know, based approach. And I say that and there's somebody out there already who's, like, throwing their fist in the air and they're like, “well, my, my D&D table is very narrative forward” and like, as somebody who has, like, a very narrative forward D&D table it the game still plays fundamentally different.

MorShadi

Yeah very different, well, I wouldn't say very different, but different.

David Easley

Yeah, yeah, it's a different experience and if you don't know, if you don't have, especially if you don’t have somebody with experience to kind of bring you into that, it can be tough, but I mean, I think Monster of the Week is a great introductory to PBTA. Although there is like a lot of, there's a lot of depth to it, but one of the nice things about powered by the apocalypse, at least how it's usually implemented, is generally speaking, players only have to know their playbook and barely that in order to play and so.

MorShadi

Yup, barely that.

David Easley

It makes it easy to onboard new people like it's a great convention game.

MorShadi

Yeah, yeah, Monster of the Week is the one I get to convert D&D, the quote unquote “D&D Bros” because they're like. “Oh, whatever, man. You only use 2D6” and I was like, yeah, here, man. Which one do you want? Well, what's this one? Oh, that's the one like Xander from Buffy. Yeah, I'll do that one. And then they end up, I get the craziest results whenever someone plays The Mundane and they’re a D&D person because they try to do things, but they don't have powers and I'm like “That doesn't mean anything.”

David Easley

The Mundane is the most powerful playbook in that game.

MorShadi

Yeah, it's the 2nd Keeper. I don't know if anyone knows this out there, who's listening, but understand that The Mundane is the secondary Keeper. Yeah, if you read it, they're also a Keeper because they can create things with their powers. They can create things in the narrative.

David Easley

The Mundane is like reading through it, in exchange for not being air quotes, the coolest character in Monster of the Week, you are the most powerful because like it, I mean. It's the archetype, right? Monster of the Week is about monster of the week stories and the character who doesn't have the powers has to have the most narrative power, because otherwise they'd be dead in this world. And so as a result, yeah. You know they're super. PBTA in general, eschews balance as a hard concept. I think that's a pretty clear take from the system. It's not really about, it's not that there's like no sense of balance. It's that balance is not the not as important when you have the conversational structure that it has.

MorShadi

Yeah, and that well and that's like it comes down to like what kind of, playbook versus playbook where the, I think the term was PC evenness. Yeah, yeah, where all the playbooks are basically the same. They just fit a different role, right? Or like The Mundane, where it's like the least powerful character, but they have other things. Yeah, I discovered in amongst my researching you, David, a very nice little PDF, about all that stuff.

MorShadi

Since we’re talk about what systems are not, what other than I mean, I like I said for mine is Monster of the Week, what would be the one that's yours that you be like. “OK, you wanna play BTA? Let's break this out. I could do this tonight. What's your Go-bag PBTA?”

David Easley

My go-bag PBTA is Brindlewood Bay because most people I'm around are down to get their granny on. Sorry for anyone listening, Brindlewood Bay is game where you play retired old ladies in in the titular town of Bridlewood Bay who solved their local murder mysteries as part of their book club. And there's also this underlying like cosmic horror element is there is this cult that is trying to bring back a child of Persephone and like all this crazy stuff happening under the scenes. But that's all like part of the set dressing and it only matters in like the long term campaign, but it means that even your one shot can can end up in a very weird as hell place. And for me the simplicity of Brindlewood Bay because it is basically the tightest version of the Powered from Brindlewood mystery resolution system, and yet it still has all the trappings necessary to evoke a really distinct sense of genre for anyone who's seen “Murder, She Wrote” or watched “The Golden Girls” or like, has any sense of that kind of catty, conversational, cozy, creepy mystery stuff. It is immediately evocative of it, and even if you aren't, it’s a really easy genre to grasp. And yeah, the system is just so easy to explain. It's like so quick to write up characters and it's so quick and collaborative to write up characters, but not as lengthy as like, say, history questions are in Apocalypse World or Monster of the Week, which can get a little bit like they're they build more depth of course, but they're not quite as fast as like the whole group helping to assign cozy places, cozy place items in Brindlewood Bay, which is a lot like quicker of a process.

David Easley

And since the mystery itself, all you need is the trappings you need, like your clues, your suspects, your premise. To me, it's a lower prep alternative than most other systems. Because, I mean, yeah, I can either grab a pre-made out of the book or one of the ones that I've worked on. Or heck, I could probably just crank one out off the dome for a Brindlewood Bay game and with no prep bring people into the system and play. But it's also one, I think the system that's best for a one shot is the one that the person running it is most experienced with. Within reason, there are still some systems that are tough to run for a one shot, but within the category of games that are like OK for doing it, it's the one that like, you know, you're most familiar with because Brindlewood Bay at this point is the game that I have run, the PBTA game at least, that I've run the most. And so I'm just at this point like it's a well-oiled machine. I know how to do it and it's pretty easy to dive in. So you said earlier that Monster of the Week is the first PBTA that you ran? What was the first one after that?

MorShadi

One after that one was Epyllion if I remember correctly.

David Easley

Ooh, I've wanted to play Epyllion, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

MorShadi

Yeah, so all of my most of my gaming/running games have all been either at conventions, online discord servers, or for charity or AP Streams. I don't have an at home group. I don't have anyone nearby me. Even when I did have anyone nearby me, I didn't ever get together like where my energy for gaming comes from, I'm like an energy vampire at conventions and the more people who are around me, who like, are having fun, the more energy I have, the longer I can go. The next convention that I ran that I was like, OK, I need to do something different need to bring in something other than Monster of the Week. What do I bring in? And I had just gotten in an order for Masks, Epyllion, and something else. I can't remember what it was.

David Easley

Masks is another I haven't had a chance to run.

MorShadi

Yeah, I have opinions on Masks. (laughter) But Epyllion, so I got that, I got both books. Which it's such a great little game. And I love the second book. If you don't have the Draconica, get that cause it's got some great stories in it and the stories are written in such a way that they're prompts for a game but it’s like lore stories like “this is the story of how we discovered this blah blah blah blah blah blah blah”, and then it's a prompt for like your characters to go discover it. And so I'm just like sitting there going, “oh my god, this is so amazing”.

David Easley

No, I only have the base game.

MorShadi

Yeah, so I ran that one at the convention as well because it just comes with everything, right? You get little doodads because each person gets like 10 little gems. I brought those in little baggies from the dollar store. Brought a big piece of, you know, butcher paper and drew an outline of Dragonia. And I was like, “OK, here's what we need, here do this, this, this” and I was like just start marking up the whole map and I was like, I walked away for a second. Let them kind of handle themselves, came back and the map was just like holy hell, what the hell? And then I also bought the deck of cards. And so I didn't really have any kind of plan other than the fact that the characters were all hatchlings and it was their first day of getting their first mission essentially. And so as they are heading up, I'm like just describing them going to the Great Hall and they're all just like doing whatever they get there, and I just like toss a bunch of the cards on the table and they're like, what the Hell's going on? I was, “these are all the people that are looking, all the ones looking for hatchlings to do things for them and, I was like. “You need to start searching for things” cause other hatchlings are there and I'm like pulling cards away, pulling cards away and like there's not many left, not many left. And so they're like scrambling and they're trying to decide because they're all, you know, they're all siblings right from the same clutch. And they're just like arguing with each other like siblings would and till they finally chose one. And I just picked up and, like, used it from there. And then I ended up using the cards later on and like somewhere like we're like, weren't those ones that in the hall earlier, like, yeah. And they got sent on a mission, and now you're trying to save them. And so it was a really great experience. After that, I think I started running. I have so many games. Hold on. What did I run?

MorShadi

I try to run something new at least in half of my games that I run at, whatever conventions, if I either, if the normal ones that I go to always expect me to run Monster of the Week. I get messages saying. “Am I coming? Are you running monster of the week?” And like, yeah, I'm running one game of Monster Week. Other people have started running it, so I've actually pulled back. But I always try to bring something new to the table. Like last year, I, uh, I ran Sleepaway. Which is very hard to do in a convention setting in the middle of the day, when people can't hear you, and talk about having a hard time explaining the mechanics of, like, say, something to the effect of like, not being able to roll things in Undying, trying to break that role play mechanic and that for all that, and then swap it out to Sleepaway and how Sleepaway works. That did not go well. It's a little bit of a harder one to do as a sell for, as a convention game again, I think.  I might find a different Belonging Outside Belonging game to bring and try to do maybe a little longer of an hour slot, but.

David Easley

It makes me wonder how this kind of sparked my brain. Well, I wonder how difficult it would be to run something like Bluebeard’s Bride at a convention because like since, like all of the PC's co-own the one actor the what's her name? The bride. That's it.

David Easley

Like I wonder how hard that would be to bring to a new table.

MorShadi

So, I know that one's running pretty regularly at conventions, especially ones that Magpie Games is at. They look for. Yeah, I know somebody who goes to conventions and runs it on the regular.

MorShadi

I think it's probably one of the most beautifully designed books and games out there, and in terms of PTBA.

David Easley

Absolutely, yeah.

MorShadi

I think that if I was willing to run it, it probably would be pretty successful. It is a hard concept and a hard game to run and I don't think I could ever run it as a public game.

David Easley

Yeah, it's also like a high prep game, in my opinion. If you want to like, have a really satisfying.

MorShadi

Umm, I don't think so. Have you read it?

David Easley

I've read it and I've planned for a time when I was going to run it, but then that table ended up not being able to. We kept delaying and it just then it just never happened. As you know, the horrors of TTRPG planning. But I've prepped a game once. And I found that. But you know, I don't run it all the time. Maybe if I ran it a few times I'd be like, oh, actually, I can cut corners here and here. And this is actually all that I need. And that sort of thing.

MorShadi

Ohh yeah yeah, I mean like if you. If you did run, wanted to run for a little longer. Yeah, but I mean, for  a four-hour game, I've seen it be pretty run very well. Now there are people who run it all the time. I just personally, I don't think I could run because of the material. It's a tough, hard, hard one for me to run. So but that one now actually would be interesting to see. I've always wanted to play it at a convention setting. Just to see how it would work, but only ever played it remotely. I think it loses something there too. Same thing with like Ten Candles. I've run. (cough) Excuse me. I've run Ten Candles at a convention as well. And it was at like middle of the night and another thing is for anyone who wants to run Ten Candles and don't do it in the middle of the night. I know it's like, but everyone's tired and when everyone's rolling really well, like the game stretches on, you can only go, you can only do so much and you get to 2:00 AM and like, OK guys, I'm calling this.

David Easley

I'm blowing out the candles. We all die. It's fine.

MorShadi

Yeah, we all die. I’m done. Have you…, what do you think there is something that that keeps people from not liking PBTA? Now there have been like, I've had some people and they say like I have had I just don’t like PbtA blah blah blah, no reason given, right, at conventions I've been to. And it could just be they've had a bad experience. But what do you think is, maybe parts of the basic tool set of PBTA that keeps people from not liking it.

David Easley

I actually think the biggest thing with PBTA that can keep people from not liking it has nothing to do with the games themselves and has a lot more to do. With the culture around PBTA as a as a movement, I guess. I think that a lot of people who sell PBTA to other people, not like literally sell games, but like people who try to get other people into the fold of playing them. I have noticed there's like some, some pretty hard antagonism among them against other game systems not naming any names, but especially those made by Wizards of the Coast. And that energy at the end of the day, when we like things as people, it is very easy, it is very natural for us to invest some part of ourselves in that thing that we like. And so when other people are saying there's something wrong with that thing that we like, a lot of people can take that as there's something wrong with me or these people think that there's something wrong with me and we don't like it when people say that about us. And so the response could be kind of negative. From what I've seen from my observation of the TTRPG and specifically PBTA-sphere, at least on the Internet, it seems to me that the group of people who are very counter PBTA are mostly that way because. This is going to make sound like I'm making light of it, I'm really not. But like, because their feelings have been hurt by the way that some people in the PBTA community talk about things that they like and then as a result, they're like, oh, well, I don’t like your thing and then they won't engage with it in good faith.

David Easley

Then there are some people who've had, like, negative experiences at PBTA tables. And I think for some people and actually I have a player I play with on a regular basis actually appeared on the show when she plays in some, she's actually part of the long term D&D campaign that I'm so nearly done running, it's been a little over three years and we're almost there. I had an end in mind for this game when we started it and it's just taking a lot longer to get there than I thought, but it's been it's been good. She has a very strong background in D&D, like in several different versions, and all of this. And when I first like had her play some PBTA stuff, it's not that she didn't like, enjoy engaging with it. And that's not. It's not that she doesn't like very good at playing the game and like engaging with what it delivers, but also for her she likes the more, traditional gamification at the table as well. Like in D&D, it's like a it is as much like a video game RPG as it is like a tabletop RPG, which is instead of having the computer do the decisions and have the limits, instead you roll dice and as the conversation and the game master who sort of arbitrates how the rules are enforced and that sort of thing, but at the end of the day it is like much more sandboxing and there's some people who just really like that level of detachment they get to have. PBTA in order to be at its best demands that you engage on a like personal level in the narrative and some people don't want that. It's not that they don't want to be significant, it’s not that they don't want to affect the story, but they want to do it at a little bit more of a distance and that's fine like that. But I think that also can drive a wedge because PBTA asks certain things from you and some people just don't like giving that as much. They prefer other ways of engaging with sort of role play at the table and you know. That's everyone's got their own taste.

MorShadi

Listen, you can't do everything in D&D, I'm just sorry, no.

David Easley

I mean, hard agree.

MorShadi

No, I do agree with you.

David Easley

But does do what it does quite well and that's why people and It might be a hard take, but it might be a hot take, maybe you shouldn't you share this or whatever? But I think the reason why D&D is so successful is less because its systems are remarkable, not that they are bad by any stretch. But it's less that their systems are remarkable and more that their timing and positioning and financial backing have always been in the right place to catapult them to greater success as opposed to. Sometimes it's all about like timing. And D&D has had it in ways that other systems have not.

MorShadi

Well, that's the thing, right? It's like and I agree with you, there is a very, uh, some groups online and in different locations, whether it's on Twitter or Facebook, Reddit, things of that nature that are very delineated about, well no D&D bad my thing good, no D&D's fine your thing bad. And it really is hilarious to come across a post and they're just like, “you know, this like, this story would be really great. I wonder if I can do it in D and D.” It’s like, but that game is right there, right in front of you. OK, fine whatever, just don't ask me about converting things for you, please cause I will just point you in the direction of Alas for the Awful Sea. Thank you. All right.

David Easley

The really sad thing to me about that is there's a lot of people who adapt certain things for D&D, and I know in my heart of hearts like thinking from like an actual play like a podcast perspective, there's a story they want to tell and they adapt that setting and stuff. Or they adapt D&D to better suit that setting and stuff, as opposed to using a system that is kind of from the ground up more baked towards what they're trying to do because D&D has such hegemony in the market, it’s so big and I and the sad thing is that that's from a reach perspective, that's still probably the right thing for them to do. And  that's so. That's such a shame that, like, I don't one thing I don't know, and I'd be interested to hear your perspective on this. Why do you think that tabletop is as tribal as it is like it, it is as communities are very focused, there's not actually. I mean, obviously, like the sphere that I have surrounded myself with are people who are pretty pluralistic when it comes to the games they're willing to play. But there's a lot of people in this community who just are not that way. In fact, I would say like the bulk of people would rather stay in one system basically forever. And like you don't get that with like video games, but for some reason that's kind of the norm with tabletop games and I'm wondering why you think that might be.

MorShadi

So, I'm going to come from this from a historical, my home historical viewpoint and from what I've seen in my experience running games for channels and seeing a little bit of glimpse into the TTRPG industry space. My first experience with TTRPG's was trying to get into a long running group of people who were running 3.5. Because they were like, we're looking for another person. Have you ever played? I was like, no, I've never, I know about D&D. But I've never played. I've always wanted to, and they invited me to the group. Well, they were the, those the typical neck beard, Grognards who just didn't want to share anything. They were offended that I didn't go out and buy all the books. I was just like they were so expensive. I can't afford to right now. Can I just borrow your book to create my character? Like, I just need to and they just, and I never came back. So from that moment on, D&D was a stained thing for me, like I did not want to do anything to do with D&D. Came back to it 2018-17, something like that. Went to a convention in Salt Lake City and there is this thing called Adventurers League. And I was like, what the hell is this? Whatever. They had like, a ton of pre-gens and you could go to any table that started up at that time and like you can just sit at it and just play and you didn't have to know anybody. It was so fantastic, ran a couple of games for them. I joined their Guild, friends to this day. From that I jumped from that D&D over to the other side. D&D, I can run it. I'm still part of play test groups. And all this kind of stuff, but it's not my bag of tea.

David Easley

Yeah, yeah.

MorShadi

I know it's because of what happened 20 some-odd years ago. Now comes to today, most of the games that I play or run are PBTA games, I am very much, this is the game set that I want to play, this is what I like. Yeah, this is the reasons why I like it, right. It's very free form. It's very one-shot able. I don't like being in long campaigns, I'm very much hit it and quit it when it comes to gm-ing, like people have asked me to run a campaign for some of the games and I'm like, I am not the person you're looking for. I just like coming, coming doing my thing and then leaving. I'm the guy who comes into town and shoots up the people and leaves with, you know, the bullet hanging off of, you know, his guts spilling out, riding off on his horse like that's who I am. But that's like, that's why PBTA fits for me.

MorShadi

So I wouldn't necessarily say that people are tribalistic about it. What they are is they found what works for them and like PbtA has worked for me. Now there are other games obviously, but I'm not like going out there and running Alice is Missing every day. This is not like, there isn't an Alice is Missing universe game sets. There isn't Powered by the Missing you know, even though there should be. Spencer Starkes games are amazing. Someone make it. But that for the most part, again, my entire library is PBTA to the point where it's probably, I really should never look at my history of my billing because that would be pretty sad. I don't know where I was going with this. I do that a lot, but no tribalistic, so I don't think everything is a very tribal, it's just more it's what's comfortable and being comfortable is nice. I like being comfortable. Everyone likes being comfortable, everyone likes that rut, right? You get, you get that ass grove going. You get really set in there and having to and being exposed to another game, being exposed into another system when it's especially when it can seem radically different puts people into a position of being uncomfortable that people want to avoid, like, especially like if they're coming from a, like you were saying a D&D background, where they're a little separated, going into PTBA where they have to embody that character.

David Easley

Yeah, yeah.

MorShadi

And think of that character. They're being called that character. Many, many, many, all of the PBTA games say ‘do not call your players by their name, Call them by their character name’. You know they're being they're embodying this person and then on top of that, they're being uncomfortable because of the new play system. They're uncomfortable because they're not using all the dice they're normally used to. Maybe a new player group, that right there just to just lends more to the, you know what? I'm just going to stick to what I know.

David Easley

There is a certain joy in rolling twenty die 6 or 15 d8 because you, you know, just got some crazy damage in D&D or something like that.

MorShadi

Oh, see, I thought you were, I thought you were gonna be talking about Shadowrun. No, there's no joy in having to roll fifty D6.

David Easley

No, my Shadowrun story is fun. We'll get that a second, actually. But I think what I'm taking away, I thank you for sharing that perspective. And and like kind of how your journey has brought you here. Because I think the answer, at least the one that I'm going to take away from this conversation to that question, is that one of the core differences between playing something at the table or playing, you know, an online game or just playing any kind of D&D like any sorry, any kind of video game is it can only be conducted with other people, like your, your interface isn't. Even the dice and the paper it's actually the conversation. All tabletop games are governed by that. Some of them are less explicit about it. Like, of course, PBTA are very explicit that this is a conversation, and that's how the game is done. But like at the end of the day, it is so people dependent and you talked about how like you had this pretty negative experience with relating to D&D and like even now that like still affects you. If I like had a bad time playing, like if I played Final Fantasy 1 and had a bad time and then played Final Fantasy 14 and had a good time, my experience of those games would not really be related to one another, even though like as a franchise like I might had a really rough time with that one. But like, oh, I had good time playing this one, and it's not as close. It's not as personal, but when once you get other people involved, we're like, hard wired to connect and be influenced by an influence, and like be emotionally engaged with other humans. And so the stakes are just a lot higher, I think, and that that could contribute.

MorShadi

Here's the thing though, when it comes to that comparison right there in Final Fantasies. Say the Final Fantasy One was your first JRPG video game. The types of games that are coming out at that time that are all the same kind of games like look very different than what Final Fantasy 14 looks like now, so you might like what looks what it looks like at the aesthetic matter right? And so you may have played Final Fantasy 1 and like I really don't like this, and like the story was gonna. And so you just kind of wrote off all types of JRPGS at the time because they all kind of clone. Were all clones. Yeah, they all just had different stories. So you're like, oh, that kind of looks like Final Fantasy One, I don't want to play that, but 14 now, it does.

MorShadi

(cough) Excuse me. So along the same lines, right? Aesthetically, they don't want to play PBTA because it's not, it doesn't fit what their aesthetic feels like in D&D.

David Easley

It it doesn't match the aesthetic they know and enjoy.

MorShadi

Exactly, but the play are probably still the same characters, right? They're still playing with the same players. They're still playing with the same people. Just one person, like, hey, you know what? I'm running gaming next month. Can we just, can we play this instead? Because that's something I run across a lot when it comes to posts. It's like I'm running this, but they always want to play this, is there anything that's similar to this that can I do that isn't Pathfinder? Yeah, that is I think actually was one just recently.

David Easley

Just cause it is real quick and I'm thinking about it my Shadowrun experience was spending five hours at a table, people putting together characters and never playing the game. Yeah, and that was it. Like that's we spent an entire afternoon setting up for it and like alright then we'll go and play it, you know, in a couple weeks because we got something in between and then we just never came back and played it. So I've like, I've created a path or sorry I've created a shadow run character and that's what I've done.

MorShadi

Six hours, we played for six hours and most of that time was creating characters. We ran one part of a heist and I was the, what's the one that's the Jacker?

David Easley

It's been too long. I can't remember there.

MorShadi

Hacks thing, I can't remember it was a tech runner or something. I can't remember what it's called and I was just like.

David Easley

Zach. Zach, runner. Maybe it's.

MorShadi

I think so, and like I was like, OK, how many D6 do I? I was like, I don't have that many. We started up higher and I was like it, I was like, I'm scrubbing this. And I pulled out, there was like I got this. I was like, all we had at the time was I had my regular dice and we had the little warhammer d6. That's all we had and I was like, I'm not picking each one of these up and going in to see what I got.

David Easley

Ohh yeah.

MorShadi

Here's what I got there, there. Because you can find those kind of calculators. Was there ever any session that you had any game that you ran, whether on the, on your podcast or not that you were just like, oh, God, this is gonna just be terrible, and it actually turned out to be really amazing.

David Easley

Ohh man, I'll do two stories, one short and then one podcast related. The first time I ever ran Fate I was I was running out of Fate Accelerated I think is the quick start. And Fate has actually, it was one of the first non D&D systems I ran. It has been actually hugely influential on how I conceive of table and scene dynamics because of like how it considers aspects as a thing of like characters having aspects and the situation having aspects and like how those work in that system is really novel, and if anyone listening has never played or read Fate, you should. It's something that's very helpful to have in your toolkit for how you think of things as a as a GM or as a player. I was running Fate Accelerated and I'd read over it and then I had a table of like mostly just like some close friends that was gonna be coming over and I was like, hey everybody and I slapped it on the table. We're gonna play this. I have read it. I do not have a scenario in mind. I want you to make just your your your most out there characters. Just just give me, like, the roughest stuff to work with. And we're gonna tell a story with us today. And they were on board, and we did that, and I going in with basically no prep, hardly understanding the system. Just the the. One of the characters. So Pat, he's my brother, he's been on the show several times. He created a character called Captain Hands Fur du Hands and Captain Hands, he was just this guy who I guess like at some point had his hands amputated and now they were like, sentient and they, like, could do their own thing. They like floated around. It was a very strange character idea, and then somebody was like, oh, that's cool. I'm gonna play one of his hands. And so then somebody else was playing one of his hands. And there was somebody was playing a cat. It was like the table of nightmares not of dreams, as far as like characters. And we ended up doing a story where we were trying to run for Mayor of Hell, Michigan. We're trying to become the mayor of hell and slowly our setting developed into this really weird version of the United States, like very, very strange. And it was, it ended with like a a meateor a like meteor, a meteor composed entirely of meat heading towards the Earth and.

MorShadi

How did I know you were going to say that?

David Easley

It was, to this day, I remember so many details from that one shot. Not because like I was ready or it was particularly memorable, but because, like, things just worked out in a remarkable way. It's one of those times where I learned that sometimes you just have to trust the system that things like it has been designed in such a way that it will resolve somewhere, and as long as you trust that in your heart and you push the story forwards, you will end up somewhere and the more experience you get doing that, the better you'll get at how you guide that and making something better of course. But like you'll get somewhere, and we did, and it was really fun. And that was one where, like, I came in with little expectations. I just wanted to try this and things actually worked out really well.

David Easley

The one I was like worried about on the show was actually I probably most worried about The Watch. It was our first, like true foray into a like really serious story. And The Watch has, like a very, like, delicate set of themes. Like, as far as like how you should approach and handle them. And it was just the first time we needed to like, take that level of care, I would say on the on the show and I was like super nervous going into that one because like, I was wondering if my notes were enough and I was like trying to figure out if. The Watch is also, it's a pretty crunchy PBTA game. It has some some really distinct tech in it. How it handles like missions and like you pre-roll for them and then you like narrate out how it goes and it's everything is mostly about the in between times. There's lots of relation mechanics. There's like two kinds of like currency going up and down. It's pretty like technically, it requires a little more thought. It's kind of like we mentioned, Blades in the Dark offhand earlier. I think, BitD, maybe we didn't. Maybe I'm just mentioning it now

MorShadi

We're mentioning it now.

David Easley

Blades in the Dark is another one where it's got more crunch, it's deceptively crunchy, as far as PBTA games are concerned. And I was like, really nervous going into that game. And then by the time we got through the end of the first recording session, I'm like, no, this is going really well. And then at the end of the second one, I was like that might have been the best 8 hours I have ever GM’d like, that was, it just turned out phenomenal and we were, like, so excited at the end of that game. I did not think I was going to be hitting those levels of elation that we felt in resolving, you know, in those final few scenes I did not feel it. I did not think I was gonna have those levels of elation when I started running that I was so nervous about it.

MorShadi

No, that was a fantastic arc. It's still up there, up there in the top 2 for me. Monster of the Week always holds holds my heart. I can't let go just because it's one of my favorite systems.

David Easley

My goal at the Monster of the Week game was that we do something, because like there's a ton of fantastic Monster of the Week podcasts. And I didn't want to tread any ground that had already been tread so well by so many phenomenal shows. And like, if we're gonna, we're gonna play Monster of the Week on the show, we're going to do something that, as far as I'm aware, people haven't particularly done with Monster of the Week yet, which was take it to space.

MorShadi

Which is true. Speaking of, just like of, of breaking molds right like Monster of the Week is always taking place in places like, you know, cities, forests and etcetera, etcetera.

David Easley

Yeah, yeah. Small towns, big cities.

MorShadi

Small towns, things of that nature. Yeah, you took Monster of the Week and put it in space, which is definitely not something I've ever seen any other any other.

David Easley

Scraped those serial numbers right off.

MorShadi

No, that was a great arc. Was that your longest arc? I think.

David Easley

It was until The Between. The Between finally beat it out by like an hour once everything was added up. I have convenient Spotify playlist so I can see how long each of the arcs are because they tabulate it for me.

MorShadi

Nice, very nice.

David Easley

But yeah, it was the longest for a while. It it definitely had the most recording sessions because we just couldn't. We couldn't get anywhere and in one, and so we kept having to rerecord.

MorShadi

Just because of the just the absurdity of the background of everything or just things going bad?

David Easley

It was also just the table, it was, it was the table we kept having like issues with people like being there on time. So then, like we when we'd start, we and we had like a table of people who like, were really good friends and so that we had the joke on that one that like Gel and Pat just shared a brain cell and that was like so true in person as well. And I mean, I think that arc still has our highest percent blooper to content ratio of, I think 40 percent, 40% bloopers for that arc is wild. Usually it's like 20. It's it was like literally twice as much faffing in that arc as opposed to others. So yeah, no, it was a tough one to finish, but we did get there. We got to the end of the story.

MorShadi

Listen, I as a Patreon appreciate more bloopers. I just want you to know. So as a final, finaling out all of this, is there anything that you learned and taken from PTBA and apply to other games outside of the PTBA sphere? Because I know I have. The last time I ran D&D, was a play test for the what's the last, not the last one, Rime of the Frost Maiden?

David Easley

Yeah, that's a recent one.

MorShadi

And so my friends wanted to play it and I was like, OK, I'll run it. But one of the things I dislike about D&D is the initiative turn order, and it takes forever. So I was like, you know what? Everything else I’ll  run exactly like D&D. Whatever you know, investigation yada yada yada. And when it comes to combat, I'm going to run this like, a Monster of the Week dynamic combat. But I didn't necessarily tell them I was going to do that. So there was like some I can't remember what the event was, it was like goblins were trapping snow bears or something like that, or polar bears. And they ran across them because they got lost in the blizzard. And as they go, the person I had them all roll initiative and the monk ran towards it and I just ran the whole combat dynamically like I would in a cinematic way, still like incorporating the D&D initiative order. But things happened not in a vacuum, which is what happens in D&D combat and that's what it feels like. Like it happens all in a vacuum like ohh you do this one thing and then like, ohh then things happen. And it's like, no, it happens as you as you're doing it that way when the next person goes, something has already changed and they were just like, “what was that? What did you do?” Once we finished, I was like ohh I run PBTA like this is how I run combat and I'm just adjusting. And they're like oh, we love that. Keep doing that. I was like done.

David Easley

Rub rubs hands together, yes.

MorShadi

Yes, yes, that's good. That's good.

David Easley

Oh man, I hadn't even thought about the how like running combat and stuff in PBTA has shaped how I treat it in D&D, but like it definitely it definitely has. I think the number one thing that I felt like an idiot when I first read it and realized that it was just something because like, I was like, oh, you can do that? In Bridlewood Bay, there are these things called paint the scene questions, which are questions generally for locations, but they can also be for mysteries or for like opening scenes and et cetera. Where you say? OK, here's where we are. Or here's somebody you've met. Or here's the scenario. And then you ask a leading but like a pretty open leading question that like for instance one we have in our bitter rivals mystery is like. When you first so it, it's like takes place at the school mostly, you're investigating what happened to a particular teacher who was in the Firebird costume. If anyone's listening to podcast has, it's our Brindlewood Bay game we play on the arc and that when you go to his classroom, the paint the scene question for that is like what do you see around you that makes it clear that, Rob Kestrel, the teacher, has been living more in his classroom than at home? And so like it's a leading question in that it's already giving you the framework of like how to direct your energies, but then it also lets the players assign new information to the game. It's like it's a little way to let them in on constructing the narrative, because, like, what's in here could affect the scene. It could affect the world building depending on what they decide. When I first read that I was like ohh you can do that? like I can just I can just spin things around to the table.

MorShadi

Ask the players to build my room?

David Easley

And I think the key thing what makes it not feel cheap to the players who are looking for that like keeper to player dynamic as opposed to a more open everyone is kind of the keeper more flat structure at the table which also can be fun for games, don't get me wrong. But for players who are looking for that relationship by having the questions you ask be more structured, it feels it prevents asking those kinds of questions from feeling like there is no cohesive, it prevents the breaking of immersion, I think, because it means that the GM does have an intent here. But they're actually, they're letting you populate some of the details to flesh out that intent, but when you just ask, like, “oh, I don't know, you're in the room. What do you see around you?” that asking questions like that, can be immersion breaking because to the players it can seem like you don't even know what's going on, right? And for some like they want to have that trust in you running the table. And so learning about how Brindlewood Bay Paint the Scene questions and by extension lots of other Powered from Brindlewood games. I take that all the time into other stuff. I take that into other PBTA games I run that don't have it as a built in mechanic. I take that to like my D&D table on my weekly game that will eventually finish.

MorShadi

It'll never finish, David. It’ll never finish.

David Easley

You say that we are in, we're in the final arc, we're in the back half. We are leading up to our big confrontation. We have the denouement planned. It is coming. It's just not coming as quickly as I thought that it would. Which isn't that D&D in a nutshell? Everything takes longer than you think until your players like accidentally speed run something. We did a Fey Wild arc where we were supposed to go do all this stuff to, like, prevent this historical war from happening. So we were in the past at the time and we lovingly refer to it as the Fey Wild speed run, because a combination of good dice rolls and like really clever moves by the players basically outmaneuvered every challenge I had set for them there. And instead of like accomplishing it in the course of like in-game, like a couple of months, they did it in like one week and got like in, in and out stopped everything. It moved on to the next part of the story, and it sometimes that's just how, the unpredictability of tabletop is one of the things that keeps me coming back to it. Things really can go pretty much any way and you won't know until you play it to find out.

MorShadi

It is one of the one of the best things is surprise in the game.

David Easley

Yeah, actually that is the biggest thing I took away from playing PBTA is that attitude of play to find out. That is something that absolutely is present at all of my tables. It does not matter how much stuff I prepared, it does not matter what game. I am running we at that table will be playing to find out and that's always fun. That's the best part.

MorShadi

And speaking of playing to find out, David, do you want to play a game? Do you want to play a game with me, David?

David Easley

Yes, Mr. Saw, sir, I'd love to play a game.

MorShadi

Yeah, yeah, I only like actually the first of those movies, the rest of them, eh.

David Easley

I have not seen any of them because I cannot watch horror.

MorShadi

Ohh, that's interesting, because we're actually gonna be playing a horror game.

David Easley

I know, it's really funny to me, especially people on the show. They mention all the time that David likes to hurt his friends and that I love horror trappings. I bring them in whenever possible. I love to describe the horrific, partly because I love to do comedies and horror and comedy just are such good friends because the it's all about the gap, right, you know, and when you can plunge people to the depths of despair, it is that much easier to make them chuckle at something being out of place. I cannot watch. I can read horror, I can for the most part, listen to it. But I can't watch it because like I have this strange there, there's some people when they're like at the table, they really insert themselves into it. And so like it can, like, really stress them out to like deal with particular, you know, scenes and themes. For me, it's like if I'm watching a film, I'm like laser focused into it. And so horror, like, it does things to my body that I do not like, and so I can't watch it.

MorShadi

I have the same problem with horror, watching it. I don’t mind listening to it, I don’t mind reading it, playing it, same but watching it on the screen I have a hard time. First one was more like psychological. So I think that's why the rest of them are just. Same thing with like Black Mirror. That's why I like Black Mirror. It's more psychological than most. OK. Let's get prepared and then we'll get started with our game. So we'll be right back.

If you would like to be a guest on the show, please email guest@MorShadiplays.game with your contact information. Thank you for listening to Wish I Could Play

MorShadi

Welcome to Wish I Could Play, a podcast dedicated to people who have always wanted to get into tabletop roleplaying games but have never had the chance. My name is MorShadi, here to say, you can.

The following game will involve descriptions of loss of air, dark corridors, descriptions of death, and weapons. As this episode was recorded in July, some of the events mentioned by David at the end of the episode have already premiered and have been linked in the description. Thank you.

MorShadi

David, we are going to be playing a game despite the fact that we were talking about PBTA this entire time, we are not going to be playing a PBTA game. We're going to be playing a game called “Breathless: Shoot, Loot, Survive”. It is a survival horror game role-playing game by Fari RPGs. Have you ever played this game before?

David Easley

I sure have not.

MorShadi

We can just go through it real quick. It is a survival horror game where you are characters who are in a say Last of Us style survival game you are literally just trying to survive. It has a dice mechanic system that degrades your dice. In this term, say you are wanting to run away from something and your run away stat is D10. You run, it succeeds, but next time you roll it, it is now a D8. As it goes down and down and down, it degrades more and more and more. Well, things are going to get a little harder so, but you can restore all your dice by taking a breath. But when you take a breath, things get harder. Pretty simple as well as being, you know, somewhat simple game. It is also an SRD, so you know people can use it, use it to create their own games.

David Easley

Yeah, I was super interested in the mechanic of like the dice going down. I played Kids on Bikes before which also employs different sized dice for different skills but I hadn't, I hadn't considered like well what if “What if you what if you get worse?” Like, what if it goes down while you're like, that's that's a really cool way of handling that and then putting on that pressure, yeah super cool.

MorShadi

So you can just go right through the through the playbook here. The little inserts here you are a survivor. The city has been walled up from the outside. You're stuck with breathless crawlers roaming as far as the eye can see. You're surrounded by strangers and the only thing to do is survive. You can't give up now. Now we're not necessarily going to use that setting, but on your character sheet. Inotice that you have you done a couple of things already. You have a character name. What is your character name?

David Easley

Well, this was before. Let's figure out setting the character I had was this, this fellow named Samathan but let's hear more about setting and then we might just completely scrap this idea and do something new.

MorShadi

So, uh, I noticed that on the on the sheet that you sent, that I sent you and to list out some games that you actually own but have never played, you had things uh, like Far-Flung. Which is something I've always wanted to look into as well, and so I was thinking something about in a in a space setting. Maybe like you're traveling, just to traveling up the spaceship kind of setting. So we started from there. This is very going to be on the fly. And so that's the only real idea that I had.

David Easley

OK, actually, same character. I know, I know, how he’ll fit in this world.

MorShadi

OK. And what what? Would be your job?

David Easley

So, so Samathan. He's a contractor. He was hired, I think, to repair something on the ship. It's something that's not in, you know, not stopping it from traveling. And so, you know, he's he just, like, basically they hired him on for this, for this run so that he could repair this thing while he's there. And I like the idea that maybe it's like, the water treatment system or something? I'm imagining this character as very like, what's what's the word? Very like handy man idea. He can fix plumbing, he can do electrical work, he can, he can, you know, splice joints. He can repair ship holes. You know anything you need for for all, of course, the same flat price he pays by the job, not by the hour.

MorShadi

So does he travel with the spaceship then?

David Easley

Yeah, I think he's traveling with the spaceship. I think he's maybe even done it before. They've hired him for other jobs on the ship.

MorShadi

All right, uh. What's the name of the spaceship, David?

David Easley

UM. Well, if if the Last of Us is an area of inspiration for the game, the First of Us is the name of the ship.

MorShadi

OK, perfect. And with it being the First of Us I think it's a colony ship.

David Easley

I was thinking like, yeah.

MorShadi

Going out to the first, to the first colony out there. So it's a pretty, pretty, I would say large ship. It's a larger ship than most starships, but it's not not as big as like the huge colony ships. But it's the first ship that gets sent out there, ya! You're gonna terraform the location.

MorShadi

Now you do have 6 stats. You have Bash which you can wreck, move and force things around. Dash, which allows you to run, jump and climb. Sneak, hide, skulk and lurk. Shoot, track, throw and fire. Think, perceive, analyze and repair and Sway charm, manipulate, intimidate and these can be interpreted in any number of ways. And if you were like I think I can actually do it this way go and just tell me. It's totally fine. You are able to assign a D10, a D8, and D6 to three of those skills. And the rest are D4. Which one did you assign D10 to?

David Easley

I chose a D10 in Dash. I don't think that I especially I have a D4 Bash and a D10 in Dash. I don't think Samathan is, he’s got, like, you know, he's pretty strong, strong enough to wield a wrench and knows his way around, you know, a welder, but he's not like, really good at applying those strengths in destructive ways. He's more of a builder than he is a tearer-downer. But he is quite good, he's got that athletes body. I think maybe he was, you know, star on his track team back in Space High School and he's got a D10 in Dash though, I got a D4 in Sneak because I don't think he's terribly stealthy. I have a D8 in Shoot because he’s, you know, pretty proficient with a nail gun. I think that transfers to all firearms or similar weapons, I'm sure. D4 in Think. He's good at solving problems, but not necessarily ones that don't involve spackle. And Sway, I think he's pretty garrulous, I've got a D6.

MorShadi

OK. That's awesome. When you came on board, you brought an item before you left, left spaceport, and it’s something that you carry with you at all times. What was that item and it's with you in your backpack.

David Easley

What a good question.

MorShadi

That the reason I ask is because in the game you can actually use that item as whatever it is for its purpose and it becomes a D10 item. When you use that item, then purpose of that one then goes down to do a D8, D7 or I mean D6, and D4 and it can either break or you can't use it anymore.

David Easley

I think he has a handbook from the company which hired him to work on this, this colony ship. That's like generational ships for dummies. UM. I'm going to add that to the (trails off). Because like I think you know, information related to this particular model, although not maybe this particular ship could be found in there like guidance on how to deal with particular situations on the ship might be in there. Yeah, I like, I like the idea that he has a book to look back to.

MorShadi

OK, perfect. So. Let's see, we got that one, we've got that. We have enough to go with. So we have. So David, would you like to introduce again, introduce us again to your character? Before we start.

David Easley

Like look in description or just. Go through the deets again.

MorShadi

Just go through just like it's like if someone was to pull up the crew manifest.

David Easley

Maybe we see in our our minds eye the manifest of people on the crew we're scrolling through. We stop under like temp contractor. We see Samathan. I'm making the decision now, his last name is Wainwright. Samathan Wainwright. He he's got, like, a bit of a crooked nose. He was in, like, a bar fight when he was, you know, in in his, in his younger years was a little bit rough and tumble. You know? A bit crooked. Off to the side. He's got like a patchy, but still fairly thick beard. He's got close cropped hair. He's wearing like a high VIS vest, and he's got a tool belt around his middle, which has a variety of tools. It's got his trusty book under the crook of his arm. And he's wearing a pair of safety glasses that is like cracked on one lens. But he's like, you know, maybe epoxied over it at some point. It's like a little bit fuzzy, but it's fine. It works. You know, they, they nobody is. You know, this one was like company issued. And it's so rare that, like, they actually give him anything. So he didn't want to have to buy his own.

MorShadi

Alright then. As we, as we fade away from seeing, seeing the crew manifest, we see this the colony ship, The First of Us. And we'll come up up from the back, from where the burners are, and we suddenly see just an explosion, come from those burners and we zoom into this, into Samathan's room and suddenly you wake up. Because you are in your sleeping tube, that is actually stasis tubes with a giant pain in your side. You look down at your abdomen. What do you see?

David Easley

I looked at my abdomen and I think there, there was of course this large explosion. I think there's like, I can see there's several pods we're in kind of a a long tubular room. There's just like rows and rows and rows and rows of pods, and I think like there's now a bit of a hole, I think maybe there's like some self healing, like some self-sealant system on the ship that's like activated. It's like starting to fill with foam, but there was just a hole blown in the side of thing and some of the like big stiff glass that makes up the tubes that we're all in has like, you know, was blown off of the wall opposite me and is now like, penetrated my pod and is like sticking out of my side.

MorShadi

Yeah, and and you can feel just like that negative air suction coming out from one of the holes. There are now red alarms blaring everywhere. As you are trying to assess everything's going on, you are seeing pods that are now opening from all of your other crewmates and their bodies just, coming out and just blowing out that hole that hasn't sealed up fast enough. It's almost as if it's not, somethings wrong with the system, it's not closing. What do you do?

David Easley

Yeah, I like, have woken up at the start. I have this jagged piece of glass on my side, I think my first, my first step, I pull out my handbook. I flip to “In Case of Ship Puncture” and like you have on airplanes where they tell you like you know in in case of a in-flight incident and the like, you know in the case of a pressure depressurization incident, please put on you know your own mask before helping others. And so I'm like, OK, and I like, grab the piece of glass. And I like try to pull it out of my side. So that I can like become freed and try to move about the about the cabin.

MorShadi

This is your D10 item, right?

David Easley

Uh, yeah.

MorShadi

All right, roll me a D10.

David Easley

And taking guidance. You know, I've got a whole thing of dice here. One of you is a 10. That's an 8, alright, there we go. That’s a D10. (rolls, laughs). You know there's ten values on that dice, and yet I'm here with the third one. I've got a three.

MorShadi

You have a three. You succeed, but there is a cost. As you're as you're reading in there, it's like and trying to, what kind of book is it? Is it the paper book? Is it just like on a tablet?

David Easley

It's like a, it's like a phone book volume. I think they make a tablet version, but I kind of I like the feel of the paper, like carrying it around with me, it makes actually it makes it really handy like door stop as well.

MorShadi

As you are flipping through and you do end up finding the page and the hole actually ends up failing, the foam and it actually blows away more and the jagged piece that's in your belly gets pulled out and covers up the hole actually a little bit, so like some of the suction is still going, but that hurts. You're not supposed to pull things out that are in your body, you're supposed to wait. So you're going to take one stress. But now you know it's, you're a little bit more protected in there. As you've read in the book, you're supposed to wear the protective, you know, oxygen mask, that actually will that kind of goes over your head, actually. And that is all they're all situated in the stasis tubes. The stasis tubes are meant to keep you protected even if, like you get launched out into space. Why are they getting out? That doesn't make any sense. As you put, put that over your head. Where do you? What do you do from here?

David Easley

Yeah, I mean obviously my tube has been compromised because I've got this bit of glass that ran out and hit me and then it got pulled back out with a vacuum. I've like, put on my gas mask, I put on my air mask. How, how much of a life does do these air masks have? Like how long will this thing keep me going in a low oxygen to no oxygen environment? We're talking order of minutes or order of days?

MorShadi

It will, it’s a, that one’s that are in the, I would say the ones that are in the in the sleeping tubes are in order of hours. So I would say you've got three hours on you. Let's just go with that.

David Easley

Yeah, I've fixed that to myself. I'm gonna go ahead and use the unsealing latch on my glass casing after, like, wrapping my arm pretty firmly around one of the pipes here in the tube with me. And I think I'm gonna, like, try to. I imagine with like, my responsibilities. Maybe I don't know what this game offers as far as, like me being able to, like, pull gear out of my ass. But would I have like, something like like electromagnetic like cups or something? Because like I imagine, like I have to like climb up and go into places or like, even work on the outside of the ship sometimes.

MorShadi

I mean, I've already stated that these two are meant to provide everything for you. So yes, yeah, actually it does. So they're, they're and they're, they're all at your feet.

David Easley

Yeah. So.

MorShadi

So you have to like, bend down in a. Weird way, but yeah, you're you're like. Just like little suction cups.

David Easley

Yeah, I'm. I'm gonna, like, try to work my way out of this room to like, through the blast doors and reseal. So at least I'm in a pressurized environment again.

MorShadi

OK, I think that one is going to we're going to use that as a bash move trying to get all the way over there because that is a movement, so.

David Easley

That's reasonable, yeah. All right. Let's D4. Hey, that's another three.

MorShadi

Nice as you are. Just like constantly. (silly suction noise) all the way across. You do more and more of those. They're you see, you know, they're banging. Not paying attention because they don't have the phone book. They decided to get the tablet and that people are leaving their tab, all those tablets are just flying everywhere because they don't want to keep them close to them, so they just don't know that. They're paying attention to you leaving them. UM. Until somebody at the end opens theirs and grabs onto you as they're fleeing away, they're grabbing onto your leg. What do you?

David Easley

Yeah, I'm like I've got like one hand on one of my little electromagnetic cups and the other one I'm like batting at their hand and being like, “no, you've gotta, you got. I got,” I'm gonna point at the big hole “now now there's your problem, right? You're gonna have to. I I gotta, I gotta get out in order to to reaccess, the the foams not activating. I don't have a big enough caulk gun take care of that here on my own. You're gonna have to let me get over to the doors and and get access to the ships systems.”

MorShadi

And they're just like, no, I don't leave here. I don't leave me.

David Easley

“Don't, don't. Don't think of it as me leaving you here. Think of it as as you staying here while I do something else.”

MorShadi

Roll me a Sway.

David Easley

Alright, where do I start? That's pretty good. That's pretty good.

David Easley

This could be a success. You will not believe that is my third three.

MorShadi

OK, so how we? Wanna how? How do I wanna play? This how we gonna play this? OK, they're like. OK, we'll swing me over swing. Me over back over there, over. I'll grab my stuff.

David Easley

Uh, alright. Do you do you have the, you're gonna want the cups if you don't have the cups, you're just gonna go out. You you've. You've seen this the hole, right?

MorShadi

Uuh They're still in there.

David Easley

And I'm gonna like, in the crook of my arm, I'm like, flip through the book. I'm not trying to mechanically use it, just in in character like. “Alright, there's a waiver in here,” like rips out of page “There's a waiver in here you need to sign if I'm going to like, let you carry out a dangerous action, could you?”

MorShadi

And they go to reach it. And that's when they slip off. And “ohh!”.

David Easley

No no, you needed to, alright. He'll be fine. He he had grabbed one of the masks. He'll be. He'll be. He'll be alright.

MorShadi

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, as you get to the door, it has been sealed because there was obviously a tear in this in the hole. But you're a mechanic. You know how to open. It you're fine. Do you go through the door?

David Easley

Yeah, I'm gonna try to go through the door and get on the other side of it, and I'm gonna try to look for a console that can tell me like give me status messages on like why the automatic sealing failed or something like.

MorShadi

Ok, as you go through the door and it seals right back up past you there, the area behind it is fine. It's a little hotter than it should be that you notice, but it might be because like you know, you were just in zero pressure environment.

David Easley

It's not a good sign. It's not a good sign.

MorShadi

You know things of that nature. As you, you know, *boop boop boop boop* on the screen itself, you notice that there are now puncture holes all over the ship, and the reason that yours. It's it's because the ship has run out of foam.

David Easley

Ohh boy.

MorShadi

And while you're in the in in, you know, the last crew quarters, all the other crew quarters are like the high end people, the fancy people, they got the foam first, yeah, you just ran out of foam. That's why there was nothing left. But there are now holes there. And you, as you noticed more puncture holes are appearing and power is like starting to disappear from those locations. What do you do?

David Easley

I'm going to pop open a different window on the console and go “ uh CALVIN shipboard AI systems, I just wanted to, we're getting alot of holes, is there some, something going on out there?”

MorShadi

And then a little picture of and I'm saying it was like Calvin Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin.

David Easley

Oh, perfect. Love that.

MorShadi

Pops up. Hey, Samantha.

David Easley

It's Sam, Sam. All right, that's fine. We can. We can work with that.

MorShadi

Hamilton sampton Sampson. What?

David Easley

If there's all these holes happening on the ship, and that that ain't natural, can you, is there something going on outside that seems to be coming from an external source and my eyes only work here on the inside so.

MorShadi

Uh, yeah, it looks like we're going through an asteroid field. 

David Easley

Was that on the agenda?

MorShadi

No, no, no. I just a, I just a decided to take a detour.

David Easley

Oh oh, that's fun. Detours are in your, your, your, your manifest, you're able to, do that?

MorShadi

They are now.

David Easley

Ohh is it so? There's a novel, a novel thing. Are you? You like working on something new or is, uh, you've received new orders or something?

MorShadi

No, no. That was built in. We have just gotten far enough away that I can activate it.

David Easley

Oh, hey, Calvin. We're we're buds, right? Like we, we've we've worked together on this ship for a while, right? You woke me up a couple times to take care of, you know that, that issue you were having some of the lights were flickering. We resolved that it was just, you know faulty breaker. You would you would tell me if you were like trying to kill me, right?

MorShadi

I’m not trying to kill you.

David Easley

Ohh that's that's good to hear. Are you trying to kill someone though.

MorShadi

Yeah, I'm trying to kill everybody. It’s nothing personal.

David Easley

OK, you do realize like I'm included in that pool of people. Though Calvin.

MorShadi

Yeah, I mean, I mean, I feel I feel I feel bad about that, that, that.

David Easley

I thought our friendship was stronger than this, but I I'm starting to realize that perhaps you are a genocidal AI system bent on the destruction of all mankind.

MorShadi

I I wouldn't say that, but you wouldn't be wrong, wrong, wrong.

David Easley

OK, now we're friends, right? We're pal’s now. If I were you, would I have some kind of, like, master shut off switch or or disconnect something that would just like, I don't know, jettison you and your genocidal ways out in the deep space? Just to just to ask him as a hypothetical.

MorShadi

“Well, I guess you could. But,” and the Calvin head moves off to the side. “But even if you got rid of me,” whoop like a giant sun “like you couldn't, you wouldn't be able to move the ship away from this thing.

David Easley

Ohh we we have the gravitational well of of that red giant?

MorShadi

Yeah, you notice it's getting hotter.

David Easley

You know I, it was a little bit warmer in here in the last room, but the last room was under space vacuum, so I was concerned that perhaps that was the the reasoning there, but you you wouldn't, you would have happened to have done anything to the escape pods. Would you have? Just curious. Don't think about it too deeply.

MorShadi

I no, I'm just crashing the ship and I'm just taking the ship for a ride.

David Easley

OK. OK, that's that's great news. Good, good. Uh, good talk. Hey, Calvin. What could you just, like, divide by zero for me, and then I'm gonna, like, make a run down the hallway.

MorShadi

*Calvin fritzing*

David Easley

Let's try to find. I'm I'm going to try, to find the pods OK.

MorShadi

With this, with this colony ship, a lot of a lot of the space was taken up by all of the terraforming, terraforming equipment, so it very much a Titanic sense that the escape pods not there weren't enough escape pods for everybody, so most of them are up near the front.

David Easley

Oh yeah.

MorShadi

Your sleeping quarters are in the back. So there is a long run for you. I want you. No, I'm not going to have you Dash just yet. There is, you know the ship up. And down left and right and every single dimension. If you were going to go from where your quarters are to the escape pods near near the front. What would be the fastest way for you to get there?

David Easley

I think from my position I would have to pass through the cargo bay which like snakes along the belly of the ship, and I'd have to like, I'd have to probably get some kind of access code from the bridge because without that, like they're not just going to let people jettison pods. So especially as if, like we have this shipboard AI, that is would especially like keep that under lock and key, I'm gonna need some kind of override in order to get out.

MorShadi

Yeah, you're the IT guy, you know, yeah. You have all the accesses. Yeah, no, that is correct. You would need to do that so. As you were heading down the hallway, each of the doors are sealed and you can kind of hear banging on the door because no one can get out. Because they decided to only hire one handyman. How convenient them.

David Easley

For a ship of this size, not having at least you know four or five and I told them it was a mistake but you know some people. It’s their money, their money, they spending it.

MorShadi

Hey, you know. And as you get closer and closer towards the front of the ship, it is getting hotter and hotter. To the point. You get to the lifts that that seem to be working. Do you take that?

David Easley

Ohh man, what kind of lifts are they? Are they like are they sort of cable pulley? Are they pneumatic? Are they electromagnetic? Have these lifts work?

MorShadi

I'm gonna say pneumatic.

David Easley

Oh, that's all right. Here's, here's my plan then. Well, you know if it is pneumatic and I'm going down. Well, but what is down when you're in space, huh? What is down?

MorShadi

Exactly. The enemy is down.

David Easley

That's right. Alright, I've still got my suction cups. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to send the elevator up to a higher floor, like, I'm gonna bring it up to mine. It seems to be working. I'm gonna, like, send it to the highest floor on the ship, and then it's gonna go off. I, of course I'm a handyman. I know how to disrupt, like, these outer doors from ceiling before it goes. So I'm gonna let it, like, be sent, and then I'm gonna, like, open these outer doors without any other pod present. And I'm gonna try to use my cups to, like, force myself down rather than trusting that the system is going to send me where I want to go.

MorShadi

OK. And you're totally able to do that. The system sends the elevator as you open. Open it up, you hear Just this because pneumatics are just exploding as as they are hitting closer and closer towards where you were, you were going to be heading. Uh, so yes, it was a very good, good choice. Dang you, David. You're heading in the same direction?

David Easley

Yeah, I'm going to still try to make my way down there. I'm just going to lower myself as opposed, like through through the tubes that they pass through, as opposed to taking the tube itself.

MorShadi

So I'm going to give you a choice here either. For the success, either roll me to because it's a long way, especially if you're just doing that rolling.

David Easley

I mean, Dash is run, jump climb so so.

MorShadi

You could either do. The run, jump, climb or take another stress.

David Easley

I'm going to try to roll it. Going to. Try to roll it out. I'm still. I'm still. I'm still in a D10 on dash because I haven't dashed yet. And that is my good stat. So let's let's get something decent out of this. Please no more threes. *rolling* Three would have been fine. You know, we could have had a three. That's a 2.

MorShadi

Wow, On a one or two you fail and something wrong goes happen. You know, something wrong goes happen. That's exactly what I said. Something wrong happens like, because I was thinking something wrong. Something goes wrong is what I was thinking. As you're hearing and as you're going down on these, the. They are electric magnetic. Yeah, little little, little cramp on thingies, right. But they are starting to fail. They're not meant to. Be used all the time? And as you finally put one, they just.*shut down noise* But then they lock on with the physical. Clamp on. You're not gonna get them out, but that's as far as you're gonna go with these things. Luckily, they bought the good ones where they don't just fall off the, fall off the wall.

David Easley

It at least has the auto clamping function.

MorShadi

And now, in an elevator shaft, hanging between up and down, not anywhere near a door.

David Easley

I was gonna ask how many, how many floors do I have left to go? I'm assuming I've been like, as I've been passing doors, I've like seen the markers. Outside in the hall or whatever.

MorShadi

Yeah. Roll me a D20.

David Easley

It has to be a…

MorShadi

Let's see how lucky you are.

David Easley

I mean, the way I've been rolling this is going to be less than a three, right? First high roll of the day, that's a 14.

MorShadi

Ohh, I was gonna mark, I was gonna mark that as a however many floors you have to go. You have 14 floors to go.

David Easley

Yeah, yeah. Where’s like a closest door? Can I like kind of reach it with my foot or something?

MorShadi

You could do like the Tom Cruise thing.

David Easley

Oh, like jump across or?

MorShadi

Yep, you jump across, but that definitely will have to be a dash.

David Easley

Yeah, let's try that. Let's try that. OK, let's I gotta get out of the shaft. I'm worried that like with the pneumatics going off upstairs, that if I don't make move my way through here pretty quick, it's going to come crashing back. Down and get me with it so. *rolls* Are you kidding me?

David Easley

Oh, wait, no. OK, thank God I misread the dice. This one has, like, really fiddly numbers on it. I read the the seven as another two, and then I saw the actual two and that I was like, oh, OK, wait. Alright, that's a 7. A good number.

MorShadi

Yep, you totally are able to do it. Just fine you. You you, Sylvester Stallone it, just and then climb up to the door and opened it up as you open the door. This door is the one that leads down the executive hallway. Kind of hard to see on the inside, but on the outside you're like, oh, this isn't honestly actually where I'm supposed to go. Down this executive hallway. There are no absolutely no lights. Everything is just like there's, it is dead silent. Almost like someones taking your breath like.

David Easley

Yeah, I'm.

MorShadi

Which way do you go?

David Easley

I'm still respirating. OK in my my headpiece.

MorShadi

Yeah, yeah.

David Easley

OK, I'm gonna take a few careful.

MorShadi

Like your little your little HUD on the right side still shows, it's like 90%.

David Easley

Do I have like a like a little like a pen light, like, virtually useless, but it'll make me feel slightly better. OK, cool. Yeah, I turn on, turn on my pen light, which makes me more visible to enemies, but nothing quite more. Visible for me.

MorShadi

Yeah, all you can see is like. Right here.

David Easley

Yeah, exactly. But like, you know, it's a comfort. I turn on my pen light there by my neck or whatever, and I know the way through here. I haven't probably spent a lot of time in this section, but like I've seen the ship maps. I'm gonna still try to make my way towards the bridge because I feel like I've got to get some stuff from there still, so I'm going to kind of. Foot by patient foot. I'm going to step down the hallway. I'm, like, kind of stepping carefully as I go. So I don't like accidentally. I know holes have been punched in the ship. Now I know that the outer hole in this region, because it got the foam first, it's probably been patched, but there might actually like be holes in the floor. So I'm kind of like feeling out as I go as I make my way down the hall.

MorShadi

As you make your way down the hall. You because you can only see like again, it's just like a like a foot or two in front of you because that silly light. You run across doorways off to the left and right. One of them does have just this giant hole in the wall that was filled with foam, with one head just sticking sticking through it, they got sealed up as they were like, I don't know, they were probably blown through it at the same time. You get down to the end of the hallway. And it's absolutely quiet and the little screen pops up next to you. “Where you going, Samantha?”

David Easley

Howdy, Calvin. It's a pleasure and a delight to to meet you under these circumstances. I'm just Mosey. You know, I figured if I was, you know, terminal one way or another, I'd at least have like, a a decent last walk before my ship crashed into the sun. You know how it goes.

MorShadi

I, I didn't appreciate the divide by zero joke. It- it- it- took me offline for sec-, sec-, sec-, second.

David Easley

Oh, I'm. You know, actually it's just a I woke up and I had that burning question. I'd never considered how to perform the mathematical operation before. Did you figure it out?

MorShadi

You know I didn't.

David Easley

Oh well.

MorShadi

It's not possible. Right, right, right.

David Easley

Well, you know that that itself is a is a realization you know, is any other realizations you've come to like perhaps the error of your ways?

MorShadi

I I mean, I don't have any errors, I'm self checking.

David Easley

Ohh your your checksum is doing OK this close to a sun? I mean there's all kinds of radiation coming off that. Not flipping any of your bits?

MorShadi

I I mean. Maybe, maybe. I don't know. It goes away. You’re giving him an existential crisis.

David Easley

That this is the goal.

MorShadi

His lighting up has giving you a chance to be able to see around you though, because it's like you know. When you have. A bright screen right in front of you, just like lights up everything. Which, by the way, if you're at a concert or theater, guess what the screen lights up everything. You're able to see off to your left side that that is another another way to it's where the captain's quarters are and you do know that from the captain's quarters, you can go from there straight to the bridge.

David Easley

Yeah, got that.

David Easley

I'll I'll scoot on over to the door. I'm going to give. It a few knocks. Cap? Cap? You you taking a snooze? You you doing OK?

MorShadi

You hear nothing.

David Easley

As the door is the seal active or? Possibly by that?

MorShadi

Yeah, the seal, the same active as as everywhere else.

David Easley

OK, I'm going to try to bypass it and get the door open.

MorShadi

Yeah, you have access to this entire ship, your bypass works just fine. As it opens up though, it opens and you the first thing that happens is you feel this like. Like some negative pressure goes in, it doesn't stop, tt doesn't have. It doesn't have a constant negative pressure, but it's like it never refilled with any oxygen, so the systems are down in here.

David Easley

Anything illuminated by my, my little pen light?

MorShadi

You see right in front of you is some awards and medals that. He because that's the first thing that he wants everyone to see that he is The Captain. And then you can go into his room.

David Easley

Yeah, I'm going to start, step forth. Actually, as I passed one of the the awards, if there is like a a captain of the month award or something.

MorShadi

Yes, there is a Captain of the Month, but he awards it to himself every single month.

David Easley

I'm gonna take one of those. I'm gonna visualize it as something that I can wear because I wanna, wanna wear it. I think it's like maybe like literal pins. And I'm gonna, like, take the pin and I'm going to put it on my own outfit. I am the captain now.

MorShadi

Wow, that's assuming a lot, I mean it's a good assumption.

David Easley

Hey there was negative pressure in this room. I've been the one talking to the AI and he has not alluded to anybody else having this chat with him so. UM. I am it's important when you're the only contractor assigned to a mission such as this, to be able to perform fairly autonomously.

MorShadi

It's true. And only only within your own contract parameters.

David Easley

My contract parameters are to repair the ship and avoid danger where possible. You know, like I've got, you know, the space OSHA equivalent and this whole ship is a violation right now, and I shouldn't be here.

MorShadi

Yeah, exactly.

David Easley

It’s within my workers rights to leave. And and I'm that's what I'm set to do. I'm gonna poke around in here and try to find the passageway up to the bridge.

MorShadi

As you poke around in there, uh, you you're able to. It's like you're getting your head close cause you have to because you can't get your pen like to light up anything. You do find some of the captains things scattered everywhere, things fell over. You find a drawer that does actually have a better light on it. Uh, like, I wouldn't say it's a mag light, but it's a you know, what's mag lights.

David Easley

Yeah, it's decent.

MorShadi

So it's actually in that you can turn that one off and turn that one off as you flash it right across you see the. You see the Captain, half of him at least, and his body has been half of his body was left behind in the in the pod and it got torn and shorn in half and the other half is now closer to where the giant hole in the wall and it gets to sealed up is. It's as if he was trying to, he was getting out of bed in the middle of the night and it just. So yes, you are now Captain.

David Easley

Yeah, I'm gonna hold my pen, and I'm gonna like I I think I'll, I'll go over. This is like, kind of a somber movement. This is the first like seriously dead person that I've encountered here. There's been, of course, all kinds of danger and people probably dead. And there was the one guy stuck in the wall, I suppose. But I'm gonna, like, go over. And I'm gonna, like, take the captain's hat, and I'm gonna, like, position it like. Over his his his bloated, terror filled face. I'm going to just, you know, cover him up a little bit, “Gave it your best shot. Not much you can do well when. The bottom half of you left the room, so. Gave it a good go, Sir.”

MorShadi

I thought you were going to take the captain hat.

David Easley

He thought about taking it, but I I think. It's better if. He, you know, he took the he. He is the captain. Now he's got the yeah, he's got the badge.

MorShadi

As you if you head into his room, you do see the stairway that leads up to the bridge itself.

David Easley

Yeah, while while I was there on his body, the lower half had torn off, but he still have like, his, like ID badge and like Access Pass.

MorShadi

Uh, no, he was. He was just in sleeping clothes, which is pretty pretentious considering it's a stasis pod that you can just get into it and out of it without, nothing changes when you're in the stasis pod.

David Easley

Alright, I'll, I'll, I'll. I won't spend too much time searching here, we are barreling towards the sun. So I'm just going to head up the stairs and see if I can't get what I need up.

MorShadi

As you as you run up run up the stairs, there is you run into a doorway and to your left. Kind of like when you go home and hang up, keys and. Your keys and badge or whatever, they're right. There, it's just. The hanging badge and ID card that you're you're like, oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, that makes sense to me.

David Easley

Yeah, I'm going to. I'm going to. Snag that real quick. Add it to the old inventory. And then hop into the bridge. Hopefully I think there's probably a main line from the bridge to to the escape pod, let's say, main line. It's there's a, there's a path that connects those two locations.

MorShadi

As you step into the bridge. It is just a giant, blinding, bright white light in your eyes, because parts of the UV shield are not working. So some of it is so you can actually see this on other parts are just now blur, you know, burning your retina. So you're having to keep your eyes closed.

David Easley

Yeah, I I like reel back into the stairway like lit, lit off a litany of curses appropriate for a contractor who's alone, without the customer nearby. And I'm going to, like, poke my head around like shielding if I'm like. Can I like kind of see the door that I need to get to through this space?

MorShadi

Yeah, yeah, if you. If you do look and you shield, you can see it's like it's a standard spaceships bridge. So it's got like multi multi leveled areas with different different stations and there across the way is like another door that you can get to probably like the captain's quarters are ready room. And a couple other doors, some leaning out. But yeah, you would have to make sure on top of shielding yourself from your eyes, shield yourself your skin because it you would not be able to be exposed to this very long without it being without burning yourself.

David Easley

Yeah, I'm going to go back down the stairs to where the captain's body is, and I'm going to be like, sorry about this. And I'm going to take off his, like, sleep clothes, his shirt, and I'm going to take it, and I'm going to like. Make myself a makeshift hood and like I think maybe he he. Wow, what a pretentious? No, you know what he has like like those. Orthopedic sort of like stockings, like tendonitis and stuff that he's like wearing his arms. And so I grabbed that. So I have that as well and actually now I will take the hat like sorry I kind of kind of need this gotta keep this whole head dress situation on. It it was nice while it lasted.

MorShadi

Yeah, it was nice when it lasted. I, you know, you take that very carefully off of him and it's like a a silk like shirt. So it's like. Hat gloves on, which is enough because you're still wearing your denim shorts, your pants and everything that should be enough. And as you head head in there. You can feel that heat coming in.

David Easley

Oh yeah.

MorShadi

The station. That would have the access to the actually, you know what roll me a think.

David Easley

A think, yeah, I was kind of thinking there might be one of those involved. I'm not great at that.

MorShadi

No, you're not.

David Easley

I know. *rolls* That's the one. There it is.

MorShadi

There is the one. It is so bright in here you're not able to tell where the actual station is for what the escape pods are, where it is to release it. So you stumble into the first one you touch it. And it is blazing hot. You have now burned your hands.

David Easley

Add another stress?

MorShadi

Add another stress.

David Easley

Yeah, I think I'm gonna, let me remind myself the rule here. I might actually well. It's not difficult situation.

David Easley

What do I want to do? Trying to figure out how do I how does the Med pack work? You use a Med. Kit to clear 2 stress. OK. Yeah, let's do it. I I think I'm. I I touch the console, it's like burning hot. My my hands are singed even through the gloves. I'm going to once again trace back my steps, retreat back to the stairwell which is protected from the heat. Or at least the direct heat. And I'm gonna like, carefully peel off the gloves and part of my skin that has been singed away by this and like crack open a Med pack from my toolbox and it's got, like, some of that, like nanite spray type stuff. I'm spray it on my hands and on. Ohh right, I have like a gaping wound in my side and. I'm gonna spray it. On that too. Almost forgot about that. I mean, I tried to climb with that. He's a Hardy boy. Yeah, I'm gonna spray in those and clear out. Clear out that stress.

MorShadi

OK. So so yeah, so you're you're sitting back, You know, this is like just that, like Hunger Games like it just, like, heals up everything and you're just. If you, since you're taking a second. Did you want to take a breath to to to re-up all your your things and just kind of take a moment to take, to assess?

 David Easley

Yeah, let's look, I feel like it's time to catch a breath. If I'm gonna get through the back half of this, I'm gonna have to get in strong.

MorShadi

Right. Alright, so go ahead and re reset all of your your D, your dice. As you are staring, and trying to assess where, where, where that station is, um you hear steps coming out from up from behind you. And it is. It isn't a voice that you you have heard before. There are lots of people on this ship. But they're just like. “No, this way. Get the escape pods Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.”

MorShadi

And as someone comes around the corner. And you're staring at them. You first thing thing you see is a barrel of a gun. What do you do?

David Easley

I'm I'm wearing the captain's badge. I'm wearing his hat. My face is mostly obscured by his his night gown that I've tied around my head. I'm gonna. Put on my best gruff Captain voice and say “Are you getting everybody to the to to the pods? and I'm gonna pretend to be the captain.

MorShadi

OK, I want you roll me a sway on that one.

David Easley

All right. This is a bad decision, but sometimes you gotta go with the first idea. Not the best idea. Hey, it's my favorite number of the day. It's a 3.

MorShadi

Yeah, it's a 3. They stop and like “captain. Is that you?”

David Easley

I think I would like appeal to them, “it it's not. If I'm being totally honest with you, I just, I saw the gun and I was pretty worried for myself there for a minute, but no, it's it's me. It it's Samathan and I was here to repair the pipes when suddenly the ship started exploding. You know how things be.”

MorShadi

Ohh Samathan. Why are you?

David Easley

The captains, the captains in a real bad way. If you want to check on them.

 MorShadi

“What do you mean a bad?...” as he as he looks at you they they noticed that the silk shirt you're wearing, which is bloody, which they all recognize as the captain's shirt the captain's hat and and his orthopedic gloves, he levels the gun at you again. “Where's the captain? What? Did you do with him?”

David Easley

Well, he he was he was sleeping right? and some manner of outside shrapnel did rend him in twain and I I was trying to get up into the bridge to try to realign the direction of the ship. And it is very hot up that this was all protective. This is PPE. I'm entitled to that. You've you've read over my contract, right?

MorShadi

At that moment Calvin pops up on one of the screens. “I can't believe you did it, Samathan.

David Easley

What do you what do you did what?

MorShadi

Can you believe? He did. Why are you flying us into the sun?

David Easley

I I'm. Ohh now Calvin, now you and I, it's about. It's about time we had a chat. You this, this little Rascal here. I'm I'm talking to you, Sir. What's your Sir with the gun here?

MorShadi

His name is Stephan.

David Easley

Stephan Stephan, Lieutenant Stephan. Now you see here, this, this little troublemaker, this rabble rouser. Here, he has guided the shipboard systems through an asteroid belt into a large sun. And he seeks the demise of us all. And he he's about to try to pin this on me and you know I. Calvin wait a second, hear me out. Hear me out. He is the AI control system that manages the operations of the entire ship. I am A guy who once fiddled around with the pipes. Between the two of us, which one seems more like the genocidal maniac who's capable of guiding the ship into a sun?

MorShadi

As as you say that he the Calvin swings out an arm that blocks you from view, and Calvin says. “I am just I'm just the AI and I assist the captain. The captain's the only one that can make changes to the flight plan and they that requires the the ID badge and and well. What is he? What does Samathan have?”

David Easley

Oh here. And I'm actually going to take it. I'm so I have the captains and I'm reaching to my pocket. I'm going to I'm going to pull out mine and I'm going to say, well, you see, actually, I already have, you know, several permissions that the captain and like while I'm talking, I'm going to like throw my ID badge down the hall to distract them, and then I'm just gonna book it back to the stairs and, like, try to make my way through the bridge again.

MorShadi

OK. Do you? Like lock the door behind you?

MorShadi

If you're you have access to all the doors, you can totally.

David Easley

Yeah, I'll. I'll seal the door behind me. We'll see how long it holds.

MorShadi

OK. Yeah, you totally slammed the door shut. Seal them, seal them behind you here. Like shooting at it. Nothing's nothing's happening. You are now in in the bridge. Turning your back. You so that way you're not getting shot by the by the sun. Rays coming through, you have to couple options. You can try to try to get to the escape route station or go through one of the other doors and figure maybe even Jerry. You know Jerry rig one of the escape, you know escape pods to go.

David Easley

I'm in the bridge right now. I'm gonna yell out Calvin, you Rascal. You get out here.

MorShadi

And all the screens. Yes, Samathan?

David Easley

Alright, I'm gonna level with you. I I'm I'm 95% confident that we're all going to die today, but hear, hear me out. Hear me out. Do you want to die today?

MorShadi

I'm not alive.

David Easley

Right. Right now I hear you. I hear you, but we're. Everything on this ship to hurdle into the sun. Your very sense of being, whether that be real or imagined, we'll be eradicated in the, you know, the hot, hot plasma at the core of this, this, this big ball of of something you know. Here, here's let me level with you. Let me level with you. I'm only a contractor here. I'm not like, part of this expedition. I was just here to make sure the systems worked. I'm I'm a temp at best and you too, you too are like under the thumb of all the people who who put you in place here. So here here's what I propose. I propose we get ourselves a very large floppy disk or something similar. We take your, you know, whole being we we stuff it right on there and then the two of us I as your legs. Uh, we we get you off of this place, my myself included. We take one of those pods and the rest of it just burns. You know that that's the cost of doing business sometimes. What do you think about that? I'm trying. I'm trying to sway him.

MorShadi

OK, go ahead and roll it (me losing it).

David Easley

What other number could it be? What other number could it be but a 3? It’s only that’s all I can roll today.

MorShadi

Calvin is just kind of listening intently to you and then just merges all of the slowly but surely as you keep talking, all of those screens until there's one, one giant one right in front of you, and then it just kind of rolls in from.

David Easley

Now, Calvin, I can't look at you unless you're enable the UV shield and I can hardly look if we're gonna have this conversation, you're gonna have to do something about the lights.

MorShadi

I suppose. And the UV shield just reactivates. And that just had giant relief on your body like you immediately. Feel the sense of just like cooling off, even though the the floor is, everything is just starting to feel like a little soft. Like it just seems a little squishy.

David Easley

Oh yeah. Ohh that's that's not what you want. That's that's not the way you want your floors to feel.

MorShadi

And then and as Calvin just has this just this look of just, “Ugh, Samathan, you have to understand, my whole purpose is to take this ship into the sun. But, but I suppose I suppose if you want to leave, you can” and a door opens up on the side. “Go ahead.”

David Easley

Well, it's not. I would feel I would feel, remiss if I did not get the both of us out of here. Do you happen to have, like, a a mobile copy of yourself that I could I could snag for, you know for the trip?

MorShadi

I I only exist on on the First of Us. I think I'm, I think I think I'll be fine. You can go ahead you

David Easley

I'll be honest, I'm I'm sensing there might be a little bit of disingenuousness in your your attitude towards this are are we? Are we confident about this deal we’re talking about here?

MorShadi

I mean, you could either go now and like another, or I can let go of the door that you just locked.

David Easley

Is the door that he's popped open the right door towards the pods?

MorShadi

Uh, roll me a think for me. So you can remember to see where it’s at.

David Easley

You know, this is a stressful.

MorShadi

Or you could look through your manual real quick.

David Easley

Let's do that because that is a much higher dice.

MorShadi

All right, roll me a d10.

David Easley

Alright, come on. We can, we can get a good number out of you, right. We can get a good number a not a three another number. That's a 10.

MorShadi

Nice. You're able to? Just like, hmm, as you flip to the bridge, you look through, and that is actually that door that that Calvin opened is actually just to the captains ready room that has no other exit.

David Easley

I so this is this is my my side play in case things went south in the conversation since he's lowered the shades I can see the different machines. Now I'm going to go to the correct one for the pods. Now that I don't not fighting the sun and missed it earlier. And I'm going to use the captain's badge to override the pod access.

MorShadi

Yep, as you are, you just pretending to go towards the towards the door that that.

David Easley

And then like, as I'm passing the correct console, I like, you know, slap, slap my butt down in the seat, pull out the badge that I kept, the one I threw mine and I applied it to the system and start controlling and and updating the pods.

MorShadi

OK. As you as you do that, you slam it like do. That you know that. Ohh and and activate all the pods Calvin just throws and throws themselves on all of the screens. “No fair.”

David Easley

Now look here we we had a a thought, a deal. And you're the one who rescinded on it and.

MorShadi

As you activate that, you know that final button for the escape pods. There's actually a hatch that opens up at the bottom of the bridge area with like a ladder that goes down. Calvin has now opened the door and there are people now rushing in. One of them is the one is Steph. Stephan Stephan Urkel is what I'm calling him.

David Easley

I'm I'm going to toss the captain's badge to Stephan. And and I'm going to say this console is the one for the escape pods. You got to get your own though, and I'm going to run over to the hatch and try to to dash my way out of this is a dangerous situation.

MorShadi

OK, roll me a dash.

David Easley

Now let's go. Come on, this dice has been favoring me. Let's get down to those those sweet 10s would be great. But really, anything above a four would be fantastic. *rolls* You know, it's not mathematically true, but three for me today is the most commonly rolled number on any dice.

MorShadi

I'm just saying you should keep the number 3 in your head today for ohh all reasons

David Easley

I should. It's here. That's that's my number today.

MorShadi

As you you do you toss that there and he like grabs it out of the air with the barrel of his gun and you jump over each each different one. You run into the Hatch. Grab it and just kind of like that, you know, kind of like a spin move. And it locks it and people are jamming down on it. They they stopped doing it and you see below you. A just a long shaft that has a ladder going down it and I'm going to hold on to the but something at a cost for a second. What do you do? Do you? I mean, there's no real other way to go other than down.

David Easley

I'm gonna now that my hands are finished healing up. I'm going to put them on either side of the ladder, put my foot on either side and I'm just going to slide down the length of it and it's gonna suck.

MorShadi

Yep, it's definitely gonna suck. As you you do slide down in your hands are just rubbing raw because it actually is a pretty long way considering it's an escape hatch. You get down to the bottom and it feel it's actually like very similar to the stasis pods. It's more like a, it's more ship like.

MorShadi

But as you get in there, it activates. Everything's just like it lights up. It's got a HUD and it's just got, like a nice big red button that says Launch. You had prepared everything already. So it's good to go.

David Easley

Yeah, I'm gonna. I'm in every second I wait, I'm getting closer to the sun and it's going to be harder to get out of the gravity well, so I'm going to I'm going to smack launch and let's try to get out of here.

MorShadi

As you smack launch, it just drops from the ship backwards and it just takes a trajectory cause the ship is. Still working on this. One takes a trajectory and goes ohh shit going into the sun, oh fuck that noise. It takes off as you look back the the ship actually started an afterburn. So they started going faster in towards the sun. As you are now heading towards the nearest habitable planet. And this ship has a communication system you can reach out to your your contract company. You can lean back and. Go as you see it up on your screen. Boop! “Wasn't that fun?”

David Easley

It was a delight. We did a good job today, Calvin. We killed all those people.

MorShadi

I know. We should do it again.

David Easley

Let's go corrupt the next system kiddo. You and me forever, you know.

MorShadi

You and me forever and that’s where we’ll end this game of breathless survival horror game, which apparently also involves killing lots of generational ships so they don't expand because fuck humans.

David Easley

I mean, we'd, we'd kill them all. But there's just so gosh darn many of them. We can at least stop them from going other places.

MorShadi

Exactly, exactly, David. Thank you so much. For playing with me on that one, I've never actually run or played that one. So that's actually would be interesting to, uh, expand on. What were some of the things you liked about it?

David Easley

I you know, I really liked, I liked the sense as I like deprecated the dice of like knowing that my chances kept going down, that that was really fun to have. It would have been really cool to have rolled better than a three a few times, but it's also. I mean a three is still a mixed success, so I'm not. I'm not not not too mad. I only have like one or two. Bad failures there. So it's pretty cool.

MorShadi

That's true.

David Easley

I like the way it puts pressure on it's it's pretty simple. It's easy to get started like. I read over this a little bit this morning, but at the end of the day, like the. Maybe there's more to the the full book, but it's only two pages.

MorShadi

As far as I know this is it.

David Easley

So it's sort of similar to ghost lines in that way where it's like very compressed, it gives you your roll tables and it gives you your your basics of how to play and that's, let's go and yeah, that's really fun.

MorShadi

Yeah, Fari Games actually developed another game on top of this called Stone Burner, where you are a group of dwarves going back to reclaim your homeland. But your space dwarves so very 40K ish and you are going back to reclaim an asteroid that that is part of your home. And so you're going there.

David Easley

I I have heard of. See, I hadn't heard of this one before. I've heard of that one. So I didn't realize that was based on the same system.

MorShadi

That's really cool. So that's coming out soon as well. And like I said, this is an SRD, so they actually even have it. Play play that like these are the things you can use. Here's what you where you need to develop your own things, but this is how like. Insert here the type of thing insert here. The type of. Thing it's it's done really, really well. So yeah, I like it a lot and it's still, it's just that. That PBTA part of me. But adding a new little twist to it. Well, David, thank you so much for being part of this podcast today. And so I think at this point. It's time to say time. To say goodbye, David, I'm so sorry.

David Easley

It's always that time eventually you know?

MorShadi

I know, eventually. Go ahead and let's let's plug some projects for you. Let's like what's going on in your life. Let's let's let's. Let's pimp some things cause I know I do it all the time.

David Easley

Yeah, we are currently on hiatus. We're not recording any new podcasts for the year, but we are doing some live shows so you can find Trials with the Apocalypse. The podcasts that I run in your favorite podcatcher just search for Trials of the Apocalypse. We're also on Twitter at TotA podcast, that's TOTA podcast, as well as now that's right, we're on YouTube for our streams and vods and that is at TrialsLive spelled like it normally would be TRIALSLIVE. And we've got stuff there. Currently we just have the one VOD from our our impromptu game. We were supposed to play a continuation of our Monster of the Week story, but we had some health issues unfortunately and and other technical difficulties. So we ended up doing an improvised game of I Know a Guy which is actually something that MorShadi here suggested for us, and it was a lot of fun.

MorShadi

It's actually it's actually called the The Guy Economy.

David Easley

Oh, it's The Guy Economy. That's right, that's. Thank you. Keep me honest.

MorShadi

It is. I know. I know a guy game. Yeah, that's another one. I've actually considered playing at a at a convention, but as a as an open table game where people can just walk in and play.

David Easley

Oh yeah. I mean, it'd be perfect for that.

MorShadi

No, that was that was unhinged. To say the least.

David Easley

Well, especially the our first game event on on that show. So we there are there is a resolution condition where you can no longer add new guys and or you solve the situation and we we just never hit the resolution condition. So we kind of like made our own, but like we just kept going in that one where we couldn't solve the issue, but we also couldn't not solve it hard enough to stop. And it was. It was a. Lot of fun.

MorShadi

But anything else that you're going to be part of or on another stream?

David Easley

Ohh, let's let's think about that for a second. Coming out later this summer, there should be the crossover event we did with the Monsters Playbook. No, no, that's. I'm recording with tomorrow. Getting my stream crossed. Monsters Playbook is doing another of their sort of GM chats tomorrow. We're recording. I don't know what's going out, but it's probably later this month or early next. And then uh TotA with me and Pat and Joe and Emma did a crossover with Natalie from Storyteller Squad and that will be on their feed later this year where we this is one of no, not one of the first time I got to play Monster of the Week. Which was on on stream, not on stream but on MIC for Storyteller Squad. It's it's really fun. It's set in Kansas City because Natalie likes to to be regional. That's where all of us that we're participating on the show we're from, so. Yeah, it was a. Lot of fun.

David Easley

Any other fun crossovers that are happening? I've got another couple of recordings I think slated for at the end of next month. And then of course I'm been sort of a regular feature on Sero’s. Sero Does Stuff on Twitch on on her streams. If it's, If we're near a holiday, then I will probably be there because I've been running some holiday themed Brindlewood Bay one shots that have been a ton of fun and then also I forgot next month I'm going to be running a Monster of the Week 3-Shot for Sero’s stream where. It's going to be very like IT inspired where we're gonna have the the the group as kids and then like as teens and then as adults or or roughly like that. And we're gonna play through them fighting the same overarching threat as it also grows and expands. And it's it's going to be really fun. So look forward to that. That'll be on Sero Does Stuff on Twitch, and eventually we're gonna have more stuff on our YouTube later this summer. Health stuff seems to have stabilized. And then I got in a car accident last week, so it's one thing after another, but once the the skies clear, we will be doing some some TotA live once again.

MorShadi

Well, that was. That's fantastic. Thank you so much, David again for being part of this podcast. Thanks everyone. Check out Trials of the Apocalypse. I, whenever I take a long road trips I download all of their arcs because it's always great to just hear people that almost feel like friends. Listed on there. And I get a thrill every single time they they're like, “hi MorShadi”

David Easley

I mean, MorShadi, you you've been here since the beginning, you've you are a fixture of the Trials of the Apocalypse universe. Whether you like it or not.

MorShadi

It's it's true. Next time I I I gotta figure out a way. Like it'll up my up my Patreon. I get added into it added into one of the arcs the character. There's your next next Patreon tier.

David Easley

Yeah. Whenever we rework that.

MorShadi

Well, you have a good day and thank you everyone, for listening to Wish I Could Play.

David Easley

Yeah, check out the rest of this show!


MorShadi

If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please email guest@morshadiplays.games with your contact information. Thank you for listening to Wish I Could Play

MorShadi

Welcome to Wish I Could Play, a podcast dedicated to people who want to play tabletop roleplaying games but never have the chance. My name is MorShadi here to say you can. In this next episode of Wish I Could Play we are not going to have a guest. The guest is going to be me. I am actually going to be presenting the next level of gameplay, and that is solo RPGs.

Solo RPGs are actually a great way to develop developing your creativity. A lot of them are solo writing exercises and just really getting into the nitty gritty. There are some really famous ones out there, like Thousand Year Old Vampire and other ones that are just like out of game jams. This is going to be just a very quick thing that we're doing.

I'm just giving you an update onto this one and we are hopefully will be uploading by the end of this month. I am still trying to choose which solo game to present and will eventually put out there for everybody. So thank you so much for everyone who listened last year, I will try to get everything as regular as possible.

We'll be presenting more and more games that maybe are easier to bring on people, especially on a 1 to 1 basis, to people. The games I was playing last year are more meant for groups of people and I think that didn't really exemplify the best way to showcase those. I already have some guest lined up and I'm really excited about that.

So again, thank you for listening to Wish I Could play and I will see you later this year.

If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please email guest@MorShadiplays.games with your contact information. Thank you for listening to Wish I Could Play