Episode 86: Weddings, Wizards, and Writing.

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Can a horror movie tradition ignite romance and suspense all at once? Join us on "Deep Space and Dragons" as Richard and Karl usher in October with spine-chilling tales and heartwarming anecdotes. Karl surprises Richard by revealing his passion for horror flicks, a shared tradition with his fiancée that leads them to a spirited discussion on the ageless thrill of "Jaws." This episode is packed with unexpected twists, from Karl’s newfound hobby of painting virtual models to a whimsical exploration of Halloween customs across the globe.

Get ready for laughter and love as karl recounts his meticulously planned engagement proposal, complete with secret ring missions and a memorable Moose Jaw adventure. Richard listens in awe as Karl narrates the romantic escapades, including a touching stay at the Temple Garden Spa Hotel and the challenges of finding the perfect ring size. As they ponder the romantic allure of Moose Jaw, they even imagine what kind of Pokémon gym the town might host, blending romance with a touch of nerdy fun.

Switching gears, Richard shares his behind-the-scenes journey at a recent book festival, shedding light on the mentorship process and his third sci-fi novel. The dynamic duo doesn’t shy away from controversy, discussing the latest frustrations within Magic: The Gathering's Commander format and the nuanced changes in the new Dungeons & Dragons handbook. From card banishments to crafting systems, and even a light-hearted capybara trivia, this episode masterfully weaves together tales of horror, romance, gaming, and creative exploration, offering both hearty laughs and deep insights.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to Richard, the honest and up-going
and doesn't hide secrets fromhis best friend, and Carl.
No comment Present Deep Spaceand Dragons.
I'm Richard.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm not gonna lie, I'm Carl.
Ah, suspicious.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Implied secrecy Amazing, so shady, so mysterious
, impidicious.
Implied secrecy Amazing, soshady, so mysterious.
And welcome to Deep Space andDragons.
Sometimes we talk nerd things.
A lot of times we manifestproducts into existence.
Sometimes Carl successfullymakes a sandblaster, sometimes
With multiverse theory.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Oh, with multiverse theory.
I've done it an infinite numberof times, so I really don't
need to do it again.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Indeed, you're also a snowflake once.
But moving on from that, whatis new in the Carlverse?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Um, well, you know, time for a little mini review Of
Carl.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Just a mini review of Carl in general Because, like
at his peak, it's like 10 out of10, but sometimes oof, like
season 3, there's a bit of aquality drop in Carl.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
No, no.
Now it's officially October, sowe definitely have to watch
horror movies.
There is no evidence they'relistening to this.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
in October this could be Ailey as an alpha satarni
picking this up long after thelast human has turned to dust.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Well, I mean, I'm not going to bother mansplaining
Halloween to aliens.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
No, definitely mansplate Halloween to aliens.
Because, like imagine theancient historian who sees the
Nintendo 64 controllers andthinks we're some kind of
horrifying three-armed nightmarecreature and just do not
understand why we stab pumpkinsin the face and no one recorded
why.
Because everyone just assumedeveryone knew what it was.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Anyways, my girlfriend and I, well, my
fiancé and I, what?

Speaker 1 (01:59):
No way.
This is shocking information,not spoiled by meta at all.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
This is the first time I'm hearing of this in a
fantastic live stream bitanyways, we have a tradition of
watching horror movies as we getinto Halloween and every now
and then I see the image for ahorror movie and it's a classic
and it's like, hmm, I've neverseen that you even paused for me

(02:25):
to say congratulations.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Fine, then, no congrats for you.
Back to the horror movies.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
The horror movies are what's really important here,
obviously.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Good thing your fiancé doesn't listen to our
show.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Well, I'm multitasking here.
I mean not at this exact moment, but throughout the episode.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
No, I like to assume you're doing the proposal in a
hot air balloon right now whilerecording.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Oh, that would have been more romantic.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
It's so expensive.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
After the horror movie, because obviously the
horror movie and the proposalare on the same level of
importance in my daily life.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
You know that's me with a lot of interesting things
, Like I was late for work todaybecause I was painting my
virtual gumpla.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Okay, but so we're scrolling through Netflix and
Jaws pops up.
I'm like you know, I've neveractually seen it, and the only
genre it's categorized as ishorror.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Oh, we need to pause for one moment because I have to
do something.
Using my divine Geass powers,I've just made Baby Shark play
on a loop in every listener'shead of this episode.
You may continue.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
So, anyways, we ended up watching Jaws, the original
Jaws from 1975, I believe.
Apparently it's based on a bookfrom 1974, which I put a hold
on at the library, the e-booklibrary, the Saskatchewan
Library Consortium.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
For the record, we're not sponsored by libraries.
I fully support libraries.
If you're too, if you don'tfeel like buying my book, which
would directly support this, orsending Carl unmarked bags of
catch, which would directlysupport this, go support your
local library and vicariously, Iwill thrive.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
So I'm firstly surprised.
But so firstly I was surprisedSome of these older movies are
actually longer than I expected,because, like when I was
growing up and maybe this wasmostly for, like, kids' movies,
but it was like 90 minutes wasthe runtime for almost all
movies that I remember watching.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Well, when we talk about Marvel, we always sass
them for that.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Well, yeah, but so the Shining was close to two
hours, which was a little bitsurprising.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
And a full hour of that was Ominous Hallways.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
And Jaws was a full two hours.
It was like two hours and eightminutes or something like that.
It was like two hours and eightminutes or something like that.
So it was surprising how longit was, because I didn't realize
people had the same kind ofattention span.
It was like a dip in movielength going into the late 80s,

(05:16):
early 90s.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
There's some kind of joke about there going in a dip
to see Jaws Like it exists.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
I'm just not quite sure of the configuration.
Anyways, all in all, maybe Idon't go out in the ocean enough
, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
You're insubstantial.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
I'm kind of landlocked, so maybe that's my
problem If you're going out intothe ocean more often.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
A the BC real estate market has been fixed by the
ocean.
More often A the BC real estatemarket has been fixed by the
ocean swallowing it right butseriously, if we lost all the
lakefront property in Canada,I'm not really quite sure how

(06:04):
many billionaires we would lose.
It would be a deep tragedy tous all, but please continue.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Well, anyway, tldr, the movie is long and there's
not a lot of action.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Counterpoint.
Tldr would have been a greatname for our podcast.
Yeah, that's pretty much whatwe do is.
Sometimes we'll even come in toreview something that neither
of us have right to be like.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
Well, tldr, it ended mediocrely well.
The ending of jaws was the mostuh exciting part.
Obviously uh, because you knowthey're in the sheriff and the
marine biologist and the randomfisherman hunter that's hunting
jaws for ten thousand dollarscaptain ahab, yes, this wasn't
enough, like ten thousand yeah,captain ahab, I'm for, I'm

(07:00):
familiar anyways, they're all inthe boat, and then, apparently,
the production is famous forhaving an animatronic shark.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
I was going to say it if you didn't.
So I mean I will say it's sohard for CGI to beat practical
effects.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
I was about to ask you.
So what was better?
Is that shark or James Cameroninventing underwater cameras for
underwater green screening?

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Oh see, I think that shark was still better.
I mean the overall concept andthe visuals were a little bit
like because it's from the 70s.
So they have lots of weirdlighting where people are like
they're clearly in the dark inthe night and then there's just

(07:58):
like a spotlight shining on themso the camera can actually
capture them, because thecameras were just old.
So shadows and stuff are kindof weird when it's nighttime in
the movies.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
I mean better than Sharknado CGI-ing the blue sky
gray, but it's still having thelighting effect of a sunny day.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah, but in any event I think it's worth
watching as it's an iconic andclassic film, but it was just
kind of long and boring.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
To be fair, though, Avatar the Way of Water had a
very similar problem.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
I definitely agree.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
It was a little bit long and boring and also for
Avatar, the way of water,because I'm not quite sure why I
decide this is my focal pointfor contrasting Jaws.
It came out way too late afterthe original.
The original wasn't goodbecause of its plot and the

(09:04):
sequel was so far away.
I'm like what even happened inthis movie other than ferngully
kind of like, like the premiseof jaws only worked once and the
jaws sequel, sharknado, reallyis like the only direction you
can go after that is you go fromhorror to slapstick comedy uh,

(09:24):
yeah, I mean I don't know, thereis a Jaws 2, I'm pretty sure
yeah but there shouldn't be.
That's my point is thereshouldn't be a Jaws 2, more Jaws
.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
Yeah, Jaws 2 in 1978.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
But moving along from that one.
So yes, we're talking Jawsmovie.
So that was the Carl Flashfiction review, or is?

Speaker 2 (09:49):
there an entire episode on.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Jaws somehow Because I did not do the homework.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
No, no, I don't feel like there's enough there.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
I mean, maybe if we were like super analytical about
the characters and whatnot, Imean we could do that YouTube
thing where we do a reactionvideo where we have our talking
heads on web cameras and thefootage playing, but we have to
block out the music that'scopyrighted and have a video
game playing in the bottomwindow to trick the copyright
detector.
It's a whole.
Thing.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
That would be a fun amount of work.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
Because that's what I have right now.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Surplus time, Um.
But so then the other thingthat's new with me is Well, so
last week my then girlfriend andI were in Edmonton.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
I made so much fun of you for not being romantic
enough.
And then this happened.
I'm so happy for this plottwist Because I spent a decent
chunk of our last episode beinglike oh you better make sure
that you leave your girlfriendin the hotel room to go ride
water slides by yourself.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
No, I had water slide buddies.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
That was the thing I made fun of you for,
specifically, was you hadwaterslide buddies who were not,
in fact, your fiance.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
One of them almost chickened out and didn't want to
take the skyscramer drop ofdoom.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
I mean to be fair.
That is terrifying and thatcould have been me, like I can
relate to.
If it wasn't my sheer like needto defeat you, I'd probably
chicken out Like if I didn'thave a rival.
I don't know if I could do it.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
Well, I mean probably check it out, like if I didn't
have a rival, I don't know if Icould do it.
Uh well, I mean, it's a lot offun, but you get going so fast.
Like I think the poster saidyou could get up to like 64
kilometers an hour.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
Gotta go fast.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
Yeah, but you go so fast, at least me personally.
Anyway, I was kind of skippingacross the water when I hit the
bottom and I bruised my one butt, cheek Ha ha that's great.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
That's amazing.
It makes me happy You'veofficially gotten too old for
water slides.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
Oh, no, I'll still take it again.
I'm too old when it bruisesboth my butt, cheeks Plus.
You have a spare, like you'refine.
Yeah, no, I'll still take itagain.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
I'm too old when it bruises both my buttcheeks, Plus
you have a spare like you'refine.
Yeah, exactly that line's somuch less badass when it's not
about eyes.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Okay, so we're in Edmonton.
Well, technically, just outsideof Edmonton there's, like this
outlet mall which I still don't.
Maybe I should look it up, butoutlet malls just seem to be
regular malls.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
Yeah, like it's like we're painting a scenery with
outlet mall.
It's like when I was giving acopy I didn't know forever ago,
where one of my writer friendsused tire T-Y-R-E for a wagon
wheel, and I'm like it's not thewrong word, you use the
historically correct word, butit gives a certain image.
So when you say tire, you thinkrubber, and then you say tire
on a wagon, the wagon looksstupid in the mind's eye.

(12:57):
When you say outlet mall, youmove away from Mall of America
and go oh yeah, the mall I canidentify easily in my brain and
probably has a Sears.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Oddly enough, it did not have a Sears.
It had a Winners, though.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
Eh, close enough, I'll take the win, I think
Because I'm a winner here.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
But so she was shopping at Claire's and I told
her I had to go to the washroom,which was true, but I actually
also snuck away to the jewelrystore and bought a ring.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
Oh wow, this was like a now's the chance, I'm a go
for it, ok, ok.
Because I was good One thing Iwanted to make fun of you for is
years ago Well, probably adecade now when I'm like hey,
carll, can you lend me money soI can buy a cute gift for my
girlfriend for our anniversary.
I'm like I was really hoping,when your engagement came around
, you'd be like hey, vlad, Iknow you have no money, but you

(13:53):
owe me this money.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
So um, but so I I purchased the ring.
I purchased it in a size six.
I had measured one of her otherrings with the calipers.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
All right, you're getting back points here.
There's a little more prep workthan this sounds like initially
.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
Okay, well, I mean, I've.
Actually I proposed to her onher birthday.
That was the whole shtick.
People kept being like, oh,when are you guys going to get
on her birthday?
That was the whole shtick.
People kept being like, oh,when are you guys going to get
married?
Oh.
And she was all like, oh, Idon't know if we're ever going
to get married.
And I'm sitting here, I'm likeman, I've been thinking about
proposing to you on yourbirthday for like six months.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
I thought you were about to say a year, because
that's extremely funny, becauseyou're like oh yeah, next year.
I missed it this year.
Shit, stupid, leap year.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
Ruining your calendar .
But so I sneakily get the ring.
I go back to Claire's andMegan's still shopping.
Her mom is in there.
I sneakily hand the ring off toher mom to put in her purse so
that Megan won't see it.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
Ooh, okay, now this is getting spicy, okay, okay.
You know, I love love, right,right.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
And so I managed to successfully get the ring into
the car and into the centerconsole, which I know that Megan
won't check.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Okay, okay, we got some mind games going on.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yeah, well, I mean that.
I mean, maybe I was gambling,but it paid off.
Well, yeah, the gamble's whatmakes it exciting?

Speaker 1 (15:30):
because, like I hate to break this to you if you just
had a ring box in your pocket,she's not checking your pockets.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
Yeah, except for the ring box is like square and
pointy and would show prettyeasily.
Anyways, anyways.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Suit.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
Best pocket.
Anywho, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
You're right, you've thought of this.
I'm mostly like.
I enjoy testing your thoughtprocess here, because I'm
getting distinct joy from thisexperience.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
So then we we walk past the jewelry store and a
different jewelry store actuallybut uh, she decides that, uh,
she should try on wearing rings.
Uh, and uh, the lady should tryon rings basically told her

(16:26):
that her ring was she should geta size 7 ring and I'm like, oh
well, I thought I had this rightwith the size 6, but whatever.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
Well, it's not like they're supposed to remove that
ring constantly.
Anyway, I'm sure it's fine.
Just break the bone yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
But so then we get back from Edmonton and the day
we go to Moose Jaw with myparents.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
Primo location.
Okay, so like Edmonton I wasalready minusing some points off
you from because like it's acity of oil, like it's where the
poison-type gym would be.
Like now, moose Jaw, mooseJaw's nice.
I can see like an ice type or afairy type gym there, or

(17:12):
actually fire weirdly enough inlike the hot springs.
There's a few ways, even dragon, yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
Yes, I judge how romantic locations are by which
type of Pokemon gym would bethere.
Please come at me for that.
Are you sure it wouldn't belike a Stantler gym Be the
normal type gym, you know?

Speaker 1 (17:23):
my brain was kind of pivoting that direction.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
And it'd be sad if it was the ghost type gym.
Well, apparently there is aghost tour trolley you can take,
you know.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
I think that's enough .

Speaker 2 (17:46):
But yeah, like Moose Jaw's, like Banff level's good,
and then you know, moose Jaw wasfine.
I didn't actually propose inMoose Jaw because Okay, now it's
getting twisty again.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
You mean you didn't take her to the Tragic
Exploitation Tunnel and proposethere, or at the El Capone
restaurant?

Speaker 2 (18:00):
No, we went to the Bunker 24 tour because it's new
and my parents hadn't seen it,hadn't done it yet.
And then we spent the night.
We booked separate rooms.
We spent the night at theTemple Garden Spa Hotel because
the hotel room includes accessto the mineral pool.

(18:23):
Yeah, that's just mineral pool.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:27):
That's just generally awesome.
Yeah, I've actually stayedthere before, fun fact.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah, and they have free parking for hotel guests
and everything else withinwalking distance.
It's just generally a good time.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah, there was a random pub I went to near there
that had a menu that had 13kinds of paralyzer.
For some reason that was theirthing, I don't know why so?

Speaker 2 (18:51):
then we spent the night there.
We woke up, it was the day ofher birthday.
My parents gave her a birthdaycard, paid for breakfast,
because we went out forbreakfast and then basically we
went in the hot spring for alittle while and went back home

(19:12):
and then we drove my parents'car out to Moose Jaw.
So we got back, we had to pickup our car from their house and
on the way home from their houseI was just like, yeah, we're
just gonna go to the mall for asecond here, uh, and we went to
the mall, uh, went to thejewelry store Pandora not
sponsored, but that's, that'sthe store.

(19:33):
Uh, they have a pretty goodexchange policy, I think.
Uh, because I just like went inthere, uh, I gave showed them
ring, gave them a receipt, uh,and they're like oh yeah, we'll
exchange this for a size 7 foryou.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
Well, I mean, I assume they're not going to
fight you too much on this,although it would be funny if
you come back and they're likeoof rough story buddy, we got
our Kleenex over on aisle 6.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
No, they had to do a little bit of finagling, because
there's no provincial tax inAlberta but there is in
Saskatchewan.

Speaker 1 (20:14):
Alberta, it's basically space Texas.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
But she was with me this time.
So she sees me like exchangingthis ring.
Uh, she tries it on, she putsit on her ring finger, uh, and
she's like, oh, are you wantingon this finger?
And I'm like, oh, I guess we'llsee um.
And then this is, this is.
I'm gonna lose points here forsure.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah you've already lost a few, but the part where
you're like okay, I gotta getthe rig resized.
Despite my sneakiness, I'lljust bring her into the jewelry
shop and play so Goku level dumb.
What kind of food is marriage?

Speaker 2 (20:57):
When we got out to the car and we started driving
home from the mall, I was like,yeah, I'm proposing to you.
I'm kind of nervous and scared,but that's what I'm doing.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
And then she started crying a little bit and she said
yes, Didn't say if you proposeto me, I'll drive this into a
telephone pole.
So that's a win.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
I mean, I assume you were driving in this scenario,
but still.
That's what's new with me,what's new with you there,
richard.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
Well, I can't top proposal espionage, because you
see, what's really funny is youlisten to the voice tones we
have right, and you think I'd bethe one doing exciting stuff
and you'd be the chill one.
But it's actually weirdlyinversed Like I don't sound
chill, but in factuality I amremarkably chill.
So I went to a book festivalthis weekend where it was a

(21:55):
bunch of street styles withdifferent publishing houses were
all set up and a friend of minehad their magazine.
They're selling issues.
I met up with another friend ofmine, so I went on a book tour
on Saturday.
Ah and yeah, that's pretty muchit.
Work has kept me very.
Between work and writing mythird novel with a mentor.
I have been extremely busy withbeing functional.

(22:19):
Plus I was writing my writingmy essay for law school.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
So your mentor is helping you write your third.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
So I don't know if I can go into full detail on this,
so I'm going to be vague andcryptic as unnecessary but
effectively how it works is.
I'm working on my sci-fi noveland if people have been paying
attention, they kind of have thegist of what I'm going for and
it's like he's taking somewherebetween a line editor role of

(22:51):
each week going over a newchapter, but also because it's a
mentorship, teaching me whatlife is like for a writer,
things about writing fordifferent IPs and stuff and just
overall being a chill dude.
So my Friday meetings are goingover my book, but also going
over his products and things.
And because it's a mentorship,each hour he puts in he's been

(23:12):
stockpiling richard hours he canput me to work doing and I'm
like it'll be some kind ofexciting project, and I don't
know what it'll be yet, but yeah, so I'm gonna be cryptic and
bizarre about it, but it's funbecause it's like oh yeah I
don't have to force this personto read my book and give me
feedback, because the thing is,I have a great support system of

(23:33):
loving people who willabsolutely read a chapter of my
work because they love and careabout me shame.
I'll have written the book bythe time they get back to me.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
Shame.
I'll have written the book bythe time they get back to me.
Sometimes I'm in that category.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
Like I'll be at the book launch signing the books
and you'll be like so, chaptertwo, you had a typo.
I'll be like that would havebeen great knowledge six months
ago.
Oh nope, typo's still there.
Didn't catch it Great.
I've only moved 200 of these.
Actually, at the time of thisrecording, because I was going
to a different writing festivalthis weekend.
That was at one last weekendthe Minuet of Sorcery was a free

(24:12):
ebook and I think it goes tilllike Friday at midnight.
It's free.
So people are going to hearthis and know that they could
have had a free ebook but didn'twin those airs.
I could have had a free e-bookbut didn't win those airs.
Yeah, just the Miduena.
Sorcery, the e-book, for it'sjust straight up free for the
next week.
Because I get a certain numberof free distributions I get to
do and I then use those to climbon the top of the chart.

(24:35):
Plus, it's a fun icebreaker.
So like so-and-so will be likeoh, this is my magazine.
I'm like oh yeah, I'm an author, my book's free for the next
week.
If you want to check it out, Ihand over the business card.
They hand over their businesscard and the haggling's done.
The haggling is done.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
It's better than my other strategy of taking some of
my misprinted test copies andjust hiding them on random
library shelves.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
That's funny well, it's so.
There's a thing in my on mycampus, which is like a take a
book, leave a bookshelf.
I just occasionally put onethere just to see if it
disappears or not well, don'tleave us in suspense oh, they'd
always disappear and I'll neverknow who took this book.
and I'm like, is it one of myenemies who just sees it is so

(25:26):
mad they want to destroy it?
Is it one of my friends beinglike, oh yeah, free book.
Or is it just some randomperson?
Be like, huh, what this?
And I hope it's the third one?
And they just think I'm someactual author.
Well, I am an actual author,but you know what I mean, right,
like, oh, I never read one bythis guy before.
Cool, yes, mystery books aregreat.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
Have you put any sequels in there to see if they
disappear?

Speaker 1 (25:54):
No See, the idea is I give away the first book, so
then people have to buy thesequel, or I give away the
sequel so they have to buy thefirst book Right Like.
This is a business 101, becausethat's what authors do.
We make fat stacks of cash.
Yep, that's what authors arefamous for but yeah, I typically
only put one on sale at a timeto like encourage people to go
get the other one.

Speaker 2 (26:14):
I wrote them with a big enough time skip.

Speaker 1 (26:16):
I was trying to do the dragon ball z dragon ball
thing where if you start at z,you can go back and watch dragon
ball and you don't really loseanything for doing it that way,
right?
I believe the Team Four Starline was weren't you an enemy in
Dragon Ball, piccolo?
No one watched Dragon Ball,right?
But yeah, writing books, goingto lit festivals, working my job

(26:42):
I did have to come, so I wassick with a cold last week and
wednesday is a bunch ofpractical workshop meeting type
things like get up, do somestretches, network, and I'm like
, oh no, it's my second week andI can't do the networking thing
.
I'm legitimately sad, actually,because working remote is

(27:05):
efficient, but I'm a socialbutterfly despite being an
introvert, so I need humans oncein a while.
So, they have this machinecalled an owl.
It's this owl.
You put it on the center of atable and it's a 360-degree
camera that focuses in on peoplewhen they're talking and is
also a speaker, okay, but italso has an owl face on it and

(27:27):
it hoots once in a while to letpeople know it's active.
Huh, so joining the meeting viamagic owl is just awesome,
right Like the audio qualitylike the technology of like.
I don't even want to know howmuch the owl cost and the fact
that it just like links me intoa Zoom meeting, which is going
to be worse than physicallybeing there, but it worked

(27:50):
remarkably well and the noveltyamuses me Because, you see, I'm
not used to jobs that care aboutyou as a human being, right.
So if I have a cold and I'm like, oh, carl, I can't come in and
do pizzas today because I have acold.
You'd be like, oh, carl, Ican't come in and do pizzas
today because I have a cold.
You'd be like, well, someonebetter cover your shift and you
ain't getting paid for this.
And we low-key hate you fordoing the responsible thing of

(28:12):
not spreading a virus, rightright, where these academic jobs
are like, no, don't come in,he'll have tea next to you.
Do not come in, seriously,we'll send you home.
You're ill.
You do not come in, seriously,we'll send you home, you're ill.
You can't work while ill.
And I'm like it's so funny tome because the food job should
never let someone work sick, ifyou think about that

(28:32):
logistically for a single secondoh yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
If you're sick, you should stay home.
I don't really condone the thecapitalistic behavior of the
food service industry.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
But like I honestly believe, government needs to
step up and give set numbers ofsick days to people because
businesses aren't doing that ontheir own Right Cause, and also
I don't mind if someone uses upa sick day to just take a random
personal day.
A lot of food service jobs.
I've worked like to pretendthat it's the fate of the world.
It'll be like oh no, ifRedacted doesn't come in during

(29:09):
this big rush, it's our busiestday.
The store will burn down.
It's like no, what'll happen isyou'll make the food slightly
slower, but the oven already haseight pizzas in it, so you're
capped.
It just means the other fivepeople will have to work
slightly harder because you canphysically only produce food so
fast.
And if you're not producingfood so fast that you're

(29:29):
physically capped, then youreally didn't actually need that
guy that desperately.
And anytime they're like oh,we're only scheduling one person
, there's no one else who couldpossibly work.
My thought isn't oh no, what ajerk for betraying the team.
It's hire another person.
Have two people there have three.

(29:49):
Yeah, I know you have to sellan extra pizza an hour to pay
for that third guy, but you knoweveryone would be happier Just
putting some facts out therethat two large pizzas for 40
bucks should probably cover thatthird guy's hourly salary Just
by selling a couple of them.
I'm not actually sure of themarkup in the numbers, but it's

(30:10):
really not that many pizzas perhour to keep a minimum wage
employee on.
That's probably true.
I almost thought you were goingto un-actually me with actual
numbers because you have those,but then I'd have to reveal my
cards.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
I'm all about those secrets.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
Well, I really enjoyed.
One time I was talking to oneof my supervisors working a
student job and I'm like, if myactions stop a student from
dropping out and that onestudent pays the entire tuition
of their time here, whootherwise wouldn't, doesn't that
pay my salary indefinitely,like just one student?

Speaker 2 (30:50):
Save one student.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
Well, it makes them 20 grand.
Yeah, so my minimum wage isn'ttaking 20 grand out of there.
And if I save two students,boom, infinite money.
Glitch.
It's true, if you had eachstudent recruit one other
student in your school, it wouldjust make infinite money.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
Well, so speaking of infinite money?
Not necessarily.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
Actually, great pivot to Wizards of the Coast.
Perfect pivot, no doubts.
So I know you're going to rantabout the commander thing and
I'm going to rant about the 5.5edition thing.
So we're about half hour intothis episode.
We've definitely done theweddings part of the episode, so
now time for the wizards partof the episode, oof.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
Well, I mean, I'm just like a little bit curious,
like, I assume, just like alittle bit curious, I assume you
have at least heard about thecommander bands that they put in
.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
So you know what's wild.
I don't play magic anymore Notreally Right Nor do I have any
friends who are actively playingmagic.
I pretty much pivoted to fleshand blood and then pivoted to
being broke.
So card games are on hiatusuntil I get through this next
semester.
But like they messed up so badthat I'm well aware of this.

(32:13):
Think about this.
I didn't look it up, I didn'tresearch it, I just threw
passive, like existing in socialspaces through my author
connections and my tabletopconnections.
Know that they messed upcommander bands.
Think about that for a second.
That'd be like you're workingat a pizzeria and McDonald's
screwed up so hard.

(32:34):
You're talking about the McRib,yeah, but please recap it,
because there's no way everylistener knows about this, or
maybe they do.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
So, commander, as a magic format, was created by the
community as a way to use theirexcess bulk.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
Yeah, back when it was EDH.
I honestly think a person Iknew in Calgary, a judge named
Gavin, may have been responsiblefor transitioning it into a
real format, but I might just bemisremembering my 12-year-old
days.
So none of that is true, don'tat me.
But also it might be.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
So I mean the community came together and
created a rule, set for adifferent way to play Magic, so
they could use cards that rarelysee play in tournaments.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
To quote a quote I've heard before the stupid dumb
shit.
It was a way to get away withusing a card, no matter how
stupid, good or bad.
Right, Because you're onlyusing one.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
But so then, Wizards of the Coast became aware of
Elder Dragon, Highlander as itwas called at the time.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
And I'm not sure why they decided to transition it to
calling it Commander.
Oh, I know exactly why.
Three reasons why you wouldn'tcall it Elder Dragon Highlander.
First, highlander's a protectedIP.
Second, you don't only useElder Dragons in this one.
In the original one you did.
You had to literally pick oneof the Elder Dragons Right.

(34:19):
And third, commanders soundedlike good branding, so like this
is a marketing departmentnetwork.
But I do think they probablyactually heard the phrase
Highlander and are like, can wedo that?
They didn't want a.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
Palworld situation on their hands didn't want a pal
world situation on their hands,but so wizards officially
recognized the the format byreleasing pre-constructed
commander decks.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
I think I actually got the first cycle of those I
think we might have.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
I'm pretty sure I played with them anyways, with
you and panda.
But so then, as the game rose,as the format rose in popularity
, with them, anyways, with youand Panda.
So then, as the game rose, asthe format rose in popularity
with the community, the Wizardsbegan pushing the format more
and more to the point wherenowadays they release a

(35:11):
commander deck set with everysingle standard set that they
release, even Modern Masters,which was printed directly into
the Modern format.
Instead of giving players aModern deck that they could buy
off the shelf, they gave playersa commander deck with the

(35:34):
Modern Master cards and some ofthese cards.
I don't remember when it wasfirst printed, but one card in
particular, the Jeweled Lotus.
It specifically says right onthe card generates three mana
only for your commander.
And so the rules committee, uh,which is not, which was not

(36:03):
officially affiliated withwizards of the coast, uh, but
the rules committee, uh, they,when the first card was first
printed, apparently, theybasically said hey, like, don't
print this card, it is not goodfor magic, and Wizards went and
printed it anyways.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
They like to do that these days.
Pardon, they like to do thatthese days.
Complexity Creep has been areal problem.
I remember when a 1-2-4-1 wascompletely viable and it was in
fact good.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
But so they really pushed um this one, the jewel
lotus in particular, uh, and themana crypt.
There they um, they made it the, the face card of their
commander master set, which is Idon't know, like maybe a year
old I don't know how old it is.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
Recent enough to really anger people.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
Well, yeah, because people were buying those packs
like crazy because there were somany valuable cards and the
Jeweled Lotus, excuse me, theJeweled Lotus really enabled
people to play the game veryquickly and consistently and it
became a very expensive card.

(37:19):
And same thing with the LostCaverns of Ixalan, with the Mana
Crypt.
They released these neon setsof each of the nine colors of
Mana Crypt in their collectorboosters.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
Which I hate that, by the way.
I hate chase cards, by the way.
I hate chase cards full stopwhen they're like, oh, we should
just make regular cards andthen nicer premium cards.
I'm like, or you could justmake all the cards nice, you
jerks.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
But so then the rules committee.
There was one other card thateither desperately needed to
reprint.
It was called the DocksideExtortionist, and it also just
made a whole bunch of mana andallowed people to make really
big, swingy plays exploding outof nowhere, potentially at the
start of the game, because itwas just cheap and easy, which
is so dumb, by the way.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
So I'm going to call out every commander player right
now.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
So imagine you.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
Will you're adults and you get your four friends
come over for a game of magic?
You're playing a format that has40 life and can take up to 10
turns and people get to play bigstupid creatures.
You get to order a pizza andthen it'll arrive in the middle
of the game and then Dude A islike you know what would be
really funny If I kill one ofthem on the first turn and I'm

(38:38):
like why, dude A?
Why do you need five mana onturn two to make 30 treasure?
The game's supposed to be slow.
That's a person who goes all inon the third round of poker and
you stop inviting them to pokernight.
That's just people's logicconfusing me more than anything.
It's like what format are youplaying this commander in and

(38:59):
are you trying to make yourfriends not want to play Magic
with you?

Speaker 2 (39:03):
Well see, I definitely agree.
There is a place for morecompetitive decks like that.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
I've never seen that place.
They keep saying it exists.
But I'm like where are youbringing your $100,000 commander
deck?

Speaker 2 (39:21):
well.
So from my understanding, umagain, like I don't know, um, I
guess I don't know that manycommander players, but people
who are really dedicated tobuilding the most powerful decks
and the combos and stuff thatthey can they'll find like

(39:41):
Discord servers.
They'll do webcam commander.
So when people really want toplay with that kind of power
level, you find your group toplay with.
But when you come to a casualtable, like you kind of got to
know your group and the guythat's coming with the extremely

(40:03):
powerful Mana Crypt, jeweledLotus, dockside Extortionist,
when they're coming to the tablewith those cards, it's like
does everybody else have thesame level of power?
Because otherwise that's justrude.
But that's not really here.
There I'm not telling peoplehow to have fun, because I am,
we'll do have.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
I'm playing those kinds of games I love telling
people how fun because they'lltie into a later part of this
explanation.
But yes to tldr it.
They banned very powerful cardswithin a year of printing these
cards specifically for thisformat.
So they literally To make anon-magic explanation of why I
am enraged by Jewel Lotus.

(40:41):
It literally only functions inCommander.
It has the word Commander inthe name of the card.
Like you cannot use it in anyother way, which it's a home for
this card and they specificallymade it to sell stuff and then
got rid of it before you coulduse it.

(41:02):
That's why people are furiousis why would you think the
commander card printed forcommander in the commander set
would not be allowed to be usingcommander?
It would be like buying appleheadphones and them having an
apple phone jack and then therebeing no form code on your
bottom of your phone.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
That would just be insane but see, then, the the
other reason that people arereally upset too, um is, uh,
they uh sent out this um mysterybox.
I don't, I don't know if it waslike the mystery boosters,
maybe, um, that's from thetournament where they had
mystery booster two, which wasapparently one of the most

(41:38):
well-received sets ever, if youactually got a chance to go to
the tournament, which you didn't, but anyways.
So they, they're shipping theseuh tournament mystery booster
boxes.
Um, and wouldn't you know it,they come with commander masters
boosters and Lost Caverns ofIxalan boosters, and then they

(42:00):
ship out these premium March ofthe Machine Commander decks.
It's a resale package.
It has two resale promos and,wouldn't you know it, that one
also.
It didn't come with LostCaverns of Ixalan, but it also
came with Commander Masters.
So they have stuff on saleright now that specifically

(42:21):
shipped with Commander Masters.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
That you cannot in fact use in Commander Masters.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
Well, I mean, they only banned one card out of the
set, so I understand a lot ofpeople lost financial value, but
I think the packs are stillfilled with cool cards and
they're worth purchasing.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
So my problem is the ethics, not the cards.
So I don't actually care aboutthe health of Commander.
that much what I do care aboutis creating a premium product,
creating artificial scarcity forthat product, putting that
product on the cover ofsomething and then saying you
can't use this product that youjust bought off us.
That's where I draw the line.

(42:59):
They made something for some.
They made DLC for a game thatdoesn't work with the game.
They literally made a SmashBros downloadable character that
would only work on the DSversion and not the Switch
version, like that's just badbusiness practices.
But Magic, for the last likethree years, has just been

(43:20):
vomiting out IP, vomiting outalternate, special, super hyper,
mega editions that all justcurve in a gentle breeze, by the
way, so they're not actuallygood cardboard.
And the thing is I'm readingthis article they posted about
why they banned these cards.
And the thing is, the playerswho play this game are the ones

(43:41):
upset about this, because it'snot like Commander has
tournaments with prize pools andis played competitively, right,
so they could just listen.

Speaker 2 (43:53):
Well, I mean now, it would be catastrophic for them
to walk back their bands.
I think that'd be worse thansticking to their guns.
Um, but they basically, yeah,they, they banned, uh, jeweled
lotus, mana crypts, dioxideextortionist.
And then one other card thatthey openly admitted to be a

(44:14):
design mistake called naduwinged wisdom yeah, yeah,
apparently that just didn'tfunction correctly.
Just straight up they're likeyeah, that was a design mistake,
it broke the modern format andit's Breaking Commander, so
we're just going to get rid ofit.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
So here's my thoughts on banning cards.
I am fine banning cards that donot function as intended, like
the anti-cards.
Well, I mean they function asintended.
Well, not really.
Like, for example, when I wasplaying Standard a lot a while
back, there was a combo thatinvolved playing a zero-cost

(44:51):
artifact and then a two-costcounter spell called Tibble's
Trickery, which then you'recountering it, but the side
effect of this counter is youlook at your top cards and cheat
a card into play.
The card was written to be usedon your opponent.
And then people are like ooh, Ifound this fun exploit.
Those matches on online matchesand tournaments were just unfun

(45:11):
because your opponent wasrolling dice to see if they oops
, they won and it's like, yeah,I would have banned that
instantly because why would youmake a card that costs two that
gives you a free seven dropoccasionally?
That's not fun for either player.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
Or there was the one land that you can make it into a
creature and then you can put atoken, a counter, on it that
made it so you couldn't lose thegame, and then it stopped being
a creature at the end of theturn, so no one can interact
with it because it's a land.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
Oh, I did that for a while.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
They ended up banning that combo too.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
Yeah, because you should?

Speaker 2 (45:47):
Yeah, but it got banned because it's just not a
fun way to play the game.
It's just annoying.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
Right.
So the game it's just annoying.
So that's my thoughts.
Is banning things that wasteboth players' time or banning
things that feel like a gameexploit.
It'd be like in Smash Bros ifyou had a thing where if you
threw a bomb, caught it anddashed at the right time, it
would glitch you back onto thestage.
That's the kind of thing I'mfine with banning.
Like speedrunner tactics do notfeel like they belong in
competitive play for games,right.

(46:15):
So on to the thing I'mindifferent to slash Wizards of
the Coast will walk back D&Dthings because it seems to be
one of their weak spots.

Speaker 2 (46:26):
Okay, actually there's just one more thing
about the band which I foundinteresting.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
I do not condone people threatening anyone for
any reason online Unless it's us, we would find it kind of funny
.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
We would kind of find it funny.
But apparently there was suchviolent outcry from the well,
probably a very vocal minorityof the fanbase that the Rules
Committee stepped down, theyresigned, and Wizards of the
fanbase that the Rules Committeestepped down, they resigned and
Wizards of the Coast took overthe Rules Committee directly.

(47:03):
And so now, whatever the RulesCommittee says, they are
directly under Wizards of theCoast.
And if Wizards of the Coastsays we can't ban that card
because we want to make money,there's no guardrail, because
now Wizards of the Coast.
And if Wizards of the Coastsays we can't ban that card
because we want to make money,there's no guardrail, because
now Wizards of the Coast ownsthe rules committee.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
Yeah, that's a terrible outcome of this Worst
possible outcome, such a badoutcome.
I'm worried they'dintentionally stage this Like
this feels, like aconspiracy-level.
Worst possible outcome for theplayers.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Well, okay, so they said that they were talking
about Dockside Extortionist inparticular, like conspiracy
level, worst possible outcomefor the players.
Well, okay, so they said thatthey were talking about Dockside
Extortionist in particular forthe past year.
Yeah, but Wizards of the Coastplans their products at least a
year in advance.
So maybe they were planning onbanning Jeweled Lotus and Mana
Crypt a year ago and Wizards ofthe Coast said no, because they
were putting them in theseproducts that are scheduled to

(47:58):
come out in the next year orworse.

Speaker 1 (47:59):
Wizards of the Coast said yes and put them in these
products.
That's the thing that haspeople upset is yeah, if they
knew this was happening and thensold them anyway.
They're evil.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
Well, we already know they're evil.
That's just the one last thingthat I wanted to say.
It was just about the rulescommittee just basically being
absorbed by the parent company,which is most likely not going
to be good for the game.

Speaker 1 (48:30):
I can't imagine it will be so.
Wizards of the Coast is likethey're a weird one, because
nerds are their audience, whopay attention to the terms and
conditions and hold themaccountable, but they're run by
Hasbro, who don't care ifthere's lead in their
Transformers action figures.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
Allegedly Don't sue me.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
Wizards of the Coast, don't sue me.
Hasbro.
I'm sure you can say withconfidence you've never had lead
in any of your toys that you'vebeen making since the 50s.
I'm sure it's fine, I'm sureComplete faith.
So they're announcing their newplayer's handbook, new monster
manual, new this and that, butthey're announcing it like it's
backwards compatible.

(49:08):
And then it's like, oh yeah,it's backwards compatible with
spells If you manually homebrewthem in because it's going to
use the new stuff.
And then the fans are like, no,we will destroy you.
But what's weird to me is howlittle I care about the new
Player's Handbook.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
Okay, so the Player's Handbook that was most recently
published is the newest edition.

Speaker 1 (49:33):
So, this edition came out about a decade ago and now
they're putting out one D&D.
They're calling it because theydon't want to call it newest
edition.
So fifth edition came out abouta decade ago, right, and now
they're putting out one D&D.
They're calling it because theydon't want to call it sixth
edition and that player'shandbook, or the 2024 player's
handbook as they've been callingit, comes out like last week.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
Yeah, because, like I went to Dragon's Den to pick up
commander decks Perfect.
I love casual formats andespecially Ark Enemy.
The newest set of Commanderdecks had all four of them have
Ark Enemy schemes and I was likeI really want those schemes.

(50:15):
So I had to buy all four ofthem and luckily my local game
store had a 20% sale on fortheir own games.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
Hashtag support local game stores.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
So I got these Commander decks at a discount,
which was good.
But I saw a new player'shandbook and I kind of thumbed
through it and I saw it had moreclass options, but I'm not sure
if that's the D&D 1 or ifthat's still D&D 5e.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
So it just says D&D Player's Handbook on it, which
is like it was probably the newone, and that's kind of my
problem with it.
So I played a lot of differentRPGs, not just D&D, and my group
sticks with 5th edition.
So if you look at D&D Beyond,like the old rogue versus the

(50:59):
new rogue, the new rogue's like,yeah, you can reduce your
number of sneak attack dice todo extra damage and you can gain
weapon masteries to do extraeffects.
But it's like such a littleupdate when it's like every
class, now they all get theirsubclass at level 3, for example
.
Okay, and I'm like, oh, if youguys had went one step further

(51:23):
and made it that every subclasswas functional with every class,
that'd be awesome.
Or, like Monk, have switchedfrom key points to focus points.
And you can spend focus pointswhen you use Step of the Wind to
disengage and double your speed.
But like there's a kind ofchanges you would only notice if
you play a lot of dnd andthey're all like balance patch

(51:49):
kind of changes.
Like balder's gate made biggerchanges to like how gameplay
functions than this did.
I think they actually added inthe boulders gate you can use a
potion as a bonus action andthey took out the exploit that
you could use an infinite numberof smites on a turn when you
can only do one smite a turn,now, not one smite and attack.
But they're like.

(52:09):
But we gave the paladin a bunchof other power-ups, but like
it's just weird that I don'tcare, like, but like it's just
weird that I don't care like Ihave a paycheck and a job now I
could just buy this new player'shandbook.
But because it's only a halfupdate where it's like oh so all
my players would then have touse a new handbook and even with

(52:30):
like book sharing, I don'tthink they'd even be bothered to
remake their character rightlike I don't think they'd even
be bothered to remake theircharacter Like.
I don't think they'd updatetheir wizard to the new wizard,
even though it would only takepushing one button and they
would just get more powers,because then they'd have to read
more, because all of theclasses are wordier than they
were before, because they wantedto make it backwards compatible
with all the adventures andda-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
So it's weird to me to be like, um, the new edition
just isn't quite new enough.
Well, yeah, it doesn't evensound like it's a 5.5.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
It's like well, you say it's balance patches and
it's like, like I said, it'sweird because I bought a lot of
D&D books and I'm like all thegames that are blatant D&D 5e
clones that are built on thesame framework.
None of them have grabbed me.
In.
Tales of the Valiant did notgrab me, even though it was very
similar, because, as Imentioned before, switching my

(53:28):
players onto a new anything islike pulling teeth.
They'll only try a new game ifit's in a different genre.
If I want them to try a newgenre of RPG, it has to be like
oh, we're doing Space Marines,so D&D won't work at all.
Or if it's like oh, let's playD&D with different dice
mechanics, I'd be like no.
Or if I'm like, let's playTTRPGZ, the anime punchy one,

(53:53):
it's easier to sell them ondifferent mechanics, but then
they'd want to try it once andthen go back to our D&D campaign
, Right, and it's like they havea new player's handbook, a new
Dungeons Master Guide coming outat some point and then a new
Monster Manual.
It's funny because I've run somuch D&D but I'm so disappointed

(54:15):
with this product because itdoesn't like.
So, as you mentioned, it'd bebad if they walk back their bans
for magic, right?
I kind of wanted bans for D&D.
I kind of want this new editionto just be like no, you can't do
this dumb bullshit anymore,because people are out here
being like oh, this is my roguepaladin multi-class, so I can

(54:38):
use oath of vengeance to getautomatic sneak attack to then
smite my sneak attack to autocrit.
So it's like this isn't a gamewhere a casual balance patch
isn't going to stop people fromimmediately trying to break it
but it's also not a competitivegame so it doesn't really matter
.
So, like I would almost preferif, like it came out with less

(54:59):
subclass and simpler classes, orlike came out sufficiently
different because, like tryingto be like, hey, carl, if I run
a new campaign, you should getthe new player's handbook so you
can be the new barbarian withthe path of the world tree.
I feel like you'd rather justbuy the book that had the path
of the world tree in it than geta full player's handbook.

(55:20):
Yeah, but that's my mini rantis that pure capitalism is by
not calling it an addition andnot rendering anything outdated.
This just tells me that thiswill be out.
And then in four years they'llput out the 28, 20, 28 players
handbook and then digitallyupdate the content on bn beyond,

(55:40):
archive the old content andjust they're trying to turn dnd
into a live service game, andI'm not a fan because it's so
pointless like their big thingis backgrounds.
Now come with an origin feat.
I'm like okay, I could justgive people a feat at level one.
Are the feats new?
They're slightly different.
We made them slightly worsethan regular feats, okay.

(56:05):
Or it's like we took half-elfout because of the implications.
I'm like, oh so, did you put acool crossing races to make
unique races mechanic?
No, we just took half-elf out.
I'm like that's so lame, sodagger heart, critical roles,

(56:25):
new game, actually like solvedthis so beautifully?
So, oh, you have a card that'syour character's race, right,
which has two bullet points onit.
So, so, for example, a dwarfwould have bullet point one,
resistant to poison or whatever.
Bullet point two carry more.
And to make a mixed one, youjust take the first bullet point
of any one card and the secondbullet point of any other card,

(56:50):
right, so you can be your halfdwarf, half fairy nonsense
character you want to be and itfunctions and that makes me
happy.
Plus, like they're all aboutthe community gaming license,
da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
But that's my mini-rant is that,like you're trying to get me to
buy a player's handbook, wouldI have rather have bought

(57:11):
something interesting?
And it's like they tried theirother approach of like gamifying
magic, the gathering sets, andbe like buy the balder's gate,
sorry, buy the ravnica book, orbuy the strixhaven book, but
then they stopped, didn't likeputting content to do with it.
It was the weirdest strategy,because they're like here's a
ravnica book but we didn't put aravnica campaign with it and

(57:34):
I'm like you could have wentravnica player's hand Handbook,
ravnica Dungeon Master's Guideand Ravnica Adventure and then
it would feel different enoughto justify getting the set of
them.
But when you can mix and matcheverything, your flavor kind of
breaks down, a bit Like theyhave their Eberron Guide for how
to make your cool steampunkstuff.
But even that doesn't have a lot.

(57:55):
You can really do with it, likeI found when I ran a ravnica
campaign.
I ended up just fusing it atrandom with water's deep dragon
heist to make it make moresensible sense I mean, I really
enjoyed that campaign.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
It's just uh when your players don't know what
they want.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
It was really hard for me to get player buy-in,
which is part of like I don'twant to blame that I used
Ravnica as a setting, but Ithink part of my problem was I
used Ravnica as a setting, yeah,so I tried to explain it right.
Like oh, you're in a guild andeach of these guilds gets a
thing and they're connected andonly you and the is it player

(58:40):
really actually like leveragedthe setting and everyone else is
like yeah, no, we're gonnabuild an inn and live our best
house domestic lives and I'mlike alright, I'm a DM.
What people want man also?
It's weird that they releasedthe player's handbook and then
they're releasing the DungeonMaster's Guide separately and I

(59:00):
would definitely care more aboutthat to kind of see what
they've done with it.
But it looks like they put inlike bases that level up and
adjusted magical items andthey're like and we fixed
crafting.
I'm like I doubt you fixedcrafting, your crafting was so
broken in 5e that there's no wayyou put in the effort to make

(59:22):
it a good system, because whatthey'd have to do.
And why has no tabletop RPGdone this, carl?
Why do monster stat blocks nothave a drops table?
Can you answer me why?
No one at Wizards of the coasthas played monster hunter and
thought to themselves everyplayer ever is going to harvest

(59:43):
this razzalos.
So we should just list what therazzalos drops and what you can
build from it on the razzalos'ssheet, like if each monster
said like a list of items youcould craft from that monster on
the monster sheet.
Perfect D&D, right, like youkill a zombie.
It's like things you can craftwith the zombie and it's like
bone basket.
Like, especially to give atable.

(01:00:04):
Like you can either get thismany rations or get these claws,
this fang, and it says right onit what you can make with those
parts.
Be awesome and only take fourlines of text per monster.

Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
Well, I mean, it depends how complicated your
crafting system is.

Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
Well, that's the point is you don't want it to be
complicated.
It's D&D.
People are going to say whatthey want to do and then that's
the thing I think Wizardsdoesn't quite understand about
their own game how the actualgameplay works is player says
what they want to do, dm sayshow the player can do it works
is player says what they want todo.
Dm says how the player can doit.

(01:00:40):
Dm rolls dice.
A player rolls dice.
Dm describes thing.
Your players aren't gonna say um, I would like to to use two
months of downtime to spend twocold pieces a day to craft an
uncommon comment magic itemthat's a fire sword, because
that means they're alreadymetagaming too hard for my taste
.
What they're going to say is canI make this dragon into

(01:01:00):
something cool?
It's like they don't want tocraft, they just want to say
that they crafted.
Most players aren't thatcreative.
So, if you like, for our party,for example, which are
relatively artsy people, ifthere's a dead dragon and you've
seen what they do, their firstthought is I want dragon scales

(01:01:21):
for some kind of armor, maybe adragon claw or dragon fang for
some kind of weapon and X numberof rations from it.
So I don't need to give themrules on how they would build a
hang glider.
Rules on how they would build ahang glider.
What I need to is what theweapon does they're going to
make out of it, what the armordoes they're going to make out
of it and how much food they get.

(01:01:41):
And then letting them only pickone of those three options.
And if then the Carl in thegroup's like actually I want to
make a dragon hang glider, likeany good DM I was in look up the
list of magic items for a hangglider, see how much the item
the dragon would normally giveme is worth, and be like yeah,
oh yeah, you could probably makea hang glider, sure?

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
Hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
Uh, the hang glider, because you'd absolutely make a
hang glider.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
Yeah, right, Check yes.

Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
I would, you'd made a stone boat.
I still want to know if that'sactually possible.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
It made sense in my brain.
It made sense in my brain too,although I really didn't think
about that.
You just have to make sure thatthis place has more water than
it weighs.

Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
Right, probably have to be very thin, but this isn't
like a Mythbusters problem, notan Us problem.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
Buster's problem, not an us problem.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
But to recap our episode, because I feel like
doing that at the end now, We'vetalked about the movie Jaws and
how the practical effects arebetter than Sharknado.
Carl did not get left at thealtar yet, but has set himself
up for that story later possibly.
Okay, he managed to sneakilyget measurements and then just
give up and bring her to theshop Then, because all things in

(01:03:05):
Carl's mind are of equalimportance.
We then talked about thecommander band list, how some
players will build things thatare unnecessary, but really it's
the logistics of selling aproduct willingly that you will
not be able to use and having arules committee written
internally.
And then Richard bitched aboutthe new player's handbook, just
not quite having not going farenough to really excite him

(01:03:27):
about it.
Do you have any closingthoughts on these topics before
we pivot to the random questionof the day?

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
No, I think that pretty much covers everything.
Alright, our random questionand even if we Random question
of the day, no, I think thatpretty much covers everything.

Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
All right, our random question, and even if we've
used this one already, we'llprobably have a different answer
, but this feels like a prettyoriginal one Name, one movie you
think needed a sequel.

Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
A movie I think needed a sequel Right.

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
Hmm, it's a good one, right?
Because sequels are usuallylike like a shot in the face,
like I'm trying to think of amovie that's like left things
unanswered enough, I'd want moreright?
Well, because I mean like theso my answer is ironic, given
the speech just gave I reallylike the dnd movie and I want a

(01:04:18):
sequel.
I don't even know if I want thesame characters, I just want a
sequel.
Given the speech just gave, Ireally liked the D&D movie Ooh,
and I want a sequel.
I don't even know if I want thesame characters, I just want a
sequel, like if they just gaveit a different cast every time
and just like kept Jonathan, I'dbe good.
Yeah, like that movie did notdo as well as it should have for
it being the most entertainingfantasy movie I've seen in the
last 20 years.

Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
I mean it was genuinely entertaining.
It just Didn't do much todifferentiate itself From
anything that Marvel was doing.

Speaker 1 (01:04:51):
Well, it did one big thing.
It was actually a fantasy moviethat didn't take itself
seriously, because everythingwent Game of Thrones.
And I'm like oh, a fantasything where someone acknowledges
that you cast a spell to askfive questions Like yeah, no,
this is great.

Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
So yeah, d&d movie, that's a good choice.
Definitely not the PrincessBride, that's a good choice.

Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
Hmm, Definitely not the Princess Bride.
That could not be sequeled well.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
Well, I mean, there is a sequel book about her baby,
about Princess Buttercup's baby.
I have the physical book, andit included the first chapter of
the sequel book.
I never read it though.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
That doesn't bode well if you haven't read it and
you have it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):
No, no, I don't have.
I have the book Princess Brideand it included a bonus chapter.
That was the first chapter ofthe next book, but I never
bothered to actually find thenext book Because there's no
sequel for the movie.

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
Maybe a Shining sequel where they actually make
the Shining a plot point.
No, especially like with.
You know what was weird.
The Top Gun sequel was actuallygood.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
The Top Gun sequel was better than the original.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
Yeah, that's wild.
You cannot understand how lowmy expectations were for that
movie.
For me to be like that waspretty good is like huge prey.
You know what was a really dumbmovie I enjoyed recently?
They actually did a crossovermovie between Ken Ganesh and
Grappler Baki.
I would love a sequel to thatbecause it was just a stupid

(01:06:32):
idea and I liked it.
You took your unrelated punchyanimes and gave them a crossover
.
That made sense.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
See like I'm having trouble thinking of movies that
deserved a sequel that weren'tlike Alita.
Movies that deserved a sequelthat weren't like like Alita.
Battle Angel deserves a sequelbut like a sequel is on the way,
so that's not going to be veryrelevant when the sequel
actually comes out.

Speaker 1 (01:06:58):
Oh, that's funny when you're like, although, to be
fair, we can manifest things, sonow you could just take credit
for it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:05):
I've been.
I've been watching news aboutAlita Battle Angel.
There hasn't been anythingconcrete Because James Cameron
is busy with his Quintilogy ofAvatar movies.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
That's definitely things that don't need more
sequel.
They're good.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
Yeah, but yeah, the sequel to Alita Battle Angel,
that's what I really want to see.
I really hope I see that withinmy lifetime.
I absolutely loved the firstmovie and I absolutely loved the
manga that it's based on.

(01:07:41):
It was so good.
The movie was just such a greatadaptation of three distinct
plot arcs and just kind of madethem happen concurrently and
just they did it well, which istruly impressive I really did
enjoy elita, battle angel, andthen read the, the manga, and I
was like, yeah, that movie was areally good adaptation as I'm

(01:08:02):
just laughing at how ghost inthe shell just looked.

Speaker 1 (01:08:05):
Worse live action in every way than an animated movie
from the 70s by like a lot.
I also want the second gundamhathaway movie to ever get the
come out, but like oh yeahgundam hathaway.

Speaker 2 (01:08:17):
That's that movie.

Speaker 1 (01:08:20):
Didn't really need to be gundam, but it was
interesting but that's probablywhat made it good is it didn't
need to be Gundam.
Like I've watched enough Gundam, I'm not about to come out here
and be like we need more Char'scounterattack.
Yeah, what we need is a ninthUnicorn movie.
Oh, they actually had one, nahHathaway, specifically because
they did something different.
I'd like to see sequeled.

(01:08:41):
Oh man, so many anime moviesare just so notoriously bad.
One last hot take I'm curiousif yours.
Before I wrap up the episode,what do you think's worse?
Anime movies that are just acompletely pointless filler arc,
like tree of might, or animemovies that are just a plot arc
of the show that they took outof the anime and made a show,

(01:09:01):
like demon slayer or the gundamseed well, yeah, I guess the
guam Seed movies.
What's worse?
A movie where you just straightup take a plot arc out of the
manga, or a movie that's afiller arc?

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
Well, I mean so JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
The movies are a superior wayto enjoy the first two seasons.

Speaker 1 (01:09:31):
Oh man, that's a bold claim.
I'm not disagreeing, but it's abold statement.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
Well, and I feel the same about the Dragon Ball Super
movies, where the movies werejust a superior way to enjoy
those first two seasons.

Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
So I was searching on YouTube and I actually found
that someone had edited the nextfew Dragon Ball Super plot arcs
into movie form.

Speaker 2 (01:09:52):
Hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:09:53):
And I'm like, yeah, that's correct.
Absolutely, the Shampatournament could have been a
movie.
The Goku Blackheart could havebeen a movie, the pre-Tournament
of Power less so, but like atwo-parter movie, like you go
pre-Tournament of Power, thenTournament of Power.

Speaker 2 (01:10:09):
So, when done well, I believe that the season turned
into a movie is just generally,the examples I just gave are
like the best-case scenarios.

Speaker 1 (01:10:26):
but most of these, the filler arcs, they don't they
feel like they need somethinglike they feel like they need to
be a little more buffered to becanon, like for Dragon Ball
examples, the history of Trunksand the Bardock ones were good
because they could have beencanon right.

(01:10:46):
So you're like, oh, this is afun side story.
If Naruto had made a Kakashimovie, that probably would have
been pretty good.

Speaker 2 (01:10:54):
But then Naruto made a stupid Rainbow Chakra movie
and it's like it's the perfectexample of everything wrong with
doing that.
Exactly.
I think I've seen moreegregious examples of bad filler
movies than I have of badseason turned into a movie.

Speaker 1 (01:11:15):
I agree.
But it's kind of ironic to say,though, because at least, like
when you write a filler movie,there's writing involved, like
to like throw Inuyasha under thebus for a second.
Indywasha had four movies.
Two of them were pretty goodLike nothing in them really
mattered, but it's like this isthe story of how our dad died

(01:11:37):
and his third sword that makeszombies, and we got new team
attacks.
I'm like, okay, okay, I canvibe on this, because at least
someone had to write this.
But yeah, the best way to watchGundam Seed and Seed Destiny is
the DVD releases in movie form,not the new version they put on
Netflix.
Oh, I don't have time to getinto this or episodes that count

(01:11:57):
, but I'm going to let you in onsomething.
Netflix recently added Seed,seed Destiny and Seed Freedom.
However, I like these seriesdubbed.
They did a new dub for them andchanged names.
What so?
They call Lachis Lacoose.
Okay, so they call LachisLacoose in the movie, and me and

(01:12:21):
my brother are like, why wouldyou?
And then it matched in Seed andSeed Destiny.
They went back and dubbed it tomatch their bad pronunciations
in the movie and they just likechange random iconic lines.
I'm like the problem that I'vewatched enough Gundam Seed to
know that you change this randomthrowaway line.
But it's like there's like whenKira throws a punch at Sai,

(01:12:41):
he's like Kira's like don't eventry and pick a fight with me,
you have no chance.
And the new dub's like Sai, youshouldn't try and attack me.
It's not fair.
And I'm like hey, hey, wait aminute, you took the bite out of
this.
I should not be that familiarwith the show, but I caught you,
or they.
So at the very start of Seed heyells take Kigali, she's a girl

(01:13:07):
.
Right To put it in the escapecapsule.
And then this one, they're liketake her, she's just a kid.
And they pulled the sexism outof taking women in children
first, which was an interestingchoice because I feel like take
the girl is what you do in anemergency shelter.
But apparently we've hit thatpoint of woke where men and
women should die equally inemergencies.

Speaker 2 (01:13:28):
Good job society One more.
We've hit that point of wokewhere men and women should die
equally in emergencies.
Good job society.

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
One more random aside we're doing a double feature
because we haven't done anepisode in a while so Secret
Invasion or whatever the Marvelshow was about Nick Fury oh okay
, was that the correct reaction?
Marvel show about Nick Fury.
Oh, okay, was that the correctreaction.

Speaker 2 (01:13:53):
So in the Infinity War in the movie, when the snap
happens, samuel L Jackson islike mother and then he gets
snapped right Like you do.
Right, but they were sodedicated to character
assassination in the Secret Warsshow they redubbed that line.

Speaker 1 (01:14:20):
The Secret Wars show is the worst thing I've ever
seen.
And the reason it's the worstthing I've ever seen and that's
a bold claim is they had all ofthe money on Earth to make this
and all of the good IP on Earth.
They had Skrulls, shapeshiftingsuperheroes, robert Downey Jr

(01:14:43):
if they wanted him right, thiswas Disney's full budget if they
wanted it.
And they had the shapeshiftingaliens not shapeshift.
They had the power-stealingaliens, not steal powers.
One of the stolen powers wasmagic rings that it used and

(01:15:03):
they didn't have Samuel LJackson cause any noticeable
effect in his story the Raidersof the Lost Ark Tim, where, if
he wasn't in the movie, it wouldhave went the exact same way in
the series.

Speaker 2 (01:15:15):
Oh, I just you were talking about dubs and it just
made me laugh at the fact that,like I say, the whole series is
just insane.
Character assassination of NickFury, and it's just funny that
they went so far as to redub theline when he gets snapped away,
instead of being he's like ohno, and then he just fades away.

Speaker 1 (01:15:37):
It's so bad they took the bite out of it, but yeah.
So they added Olive Seed, whichI've been going through again
because I enjoyed it Not sayingit's good.
Not putting that on the recordon the internet, but I am
enjoying it okay, but, like, thedub is just kind of worse.
But that might just benostalgia, right, it might just
be.
I know it's different and itbugs me, right, right.

(01:15:58):
But like, also, I could justpush a button and switch it to
subtitle and not have thisproblem.

Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
But you, you know, yeah, but sometimes the
translation in the subtitlesdoesn't transfer over to what
you know from the dub either.

Speaker 1 (01:16:12):
Yeah, I'm just too aware of this particular
franchise.
It's a problem.

Speaker 2 (01:16:18):
And Anyways, yeah, we should probably tell people to
self-care hydrate exercise.

Speaker 1 (01:16:25):
Right, like I almost want to give them an arbitrary
instruction just to see if theydo it Like go download some
pictures of capybaras in hotsprings, because I mean that
makes me happy Like I've startedsending my friend capybara
pictures, because they're justawesome.

Speaker 2 (01:16:41):
Capybaras are the ones that just go and chill next
to crocodiles, right.

Speaker 1 (01:16:44):
Yeah, they're the world's largest rodent, with no
natural predators Also they'llknock oranges into hot springs
because it's good for their skinTo take orange baths, just
randomly.

Speaker 2 (01:16:58):
One of my co-workers has said recently that he's
obsessed with capybaras, that hekeeps trying to find capybara
videos.

Speaker 1 (01:17:08):
That's a good habit.
That's a good choice.
Yeah, that's also what I woulddo after I was robbed on shotgun
.
Uh, sawn off shotgun, point.
It's just dive into capybarasfor comfort breaking it back.

Speaker 2 (01:17:18):
You know, I bet I'm pretty sure he was on delivery,
uh, and the whole incident wasdone before he came back from
his delivery.

Speaker 1 (01:17:25):
Oh man, well, it's like I was watching like a
retrospective of dragon ball zabridged recently and they're
talking about how like theytried to write emotional through
lines, through their shows, butin their movies they didn't
have to care as much and I'mjust like man, me and you
working emotional through linesthrough our podcast, like the
idea of there being characterarcs going on in the background
of the story.
Like, yeah, literally, ifsomeone has listened to every

(01:17:47):
one of our episodes all 86, theygot Carl's first date, carl's
new girlfriend, carl'straditions with that movie
nights happening and engagementin the background of this
podcast.
Carl had a whole ass plot arc.
He moved places, toured a lotof Canada, there's a whole thing
and then Richard went to schooland that's just been my through

(01:18:09):
line this entire time.
I'm basically our Vegeta.
Actually no in this situation,you would definitely be Vegeta.
You had a whole ass adventurebetween seasons and now just
have a wife and kids.

Speaker 2 (01:18:26):
And that's where I'm going to end it.

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
Bye, bye.
Yeah, I really didn't mindusing extra runtime, since the
episode we have our full, likethree hours content.