Am I a Terrible Person for Lying While I’m DMing? with the Anime Sickos
There are nine levels of hell in the official D&D setting. That really feels like a ripoff of Dante, who was writing Christianity fan fic, who was ripping off the Torah. The point is, you can do whatever you want in your own TTRPG games and not feel like you’re copying anything. For more advice like this, listen to the episode where Eric and Tom & Joe of the Anime Sickos are just some guys who try to help.
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Credits
- Host, Producer, & Question Keeper: Eric Silver
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About Us
Games and Feelings is an advice podcast about being human and loving all types of games: video games, tabletop games, party games, laser tag, escape rooms, game streams, and anything else that we play for fun. Join Question Keeper Eric Silver and a revolving cast of guests as they answer your questions at the intersection of fun and humanity, since, you know, you gotta play games with other people. Whether you need a game recommendation, need to sort out a dispute at the table, or decide whether an activity is good for a date, we’re your instruction manual. New episodes drop every other Friday.
Transcript
Eric: Hello gamers Welcome to Games and Feelings and advice show about playing games, being human and dealing with the fact that those games involve other humans. I am your host and question keeper Eric Silver. And if I could invent any special branded Monopoly, I would choose Monopoly sandwich edition, because if anyone asks if hotdogs are sandwiches, I can throw them straight in jail.
Joe: I'm gonna go with a Hunter x Hunter themed Monopoly game. That would be ideal for me. All the spaces would have Nen wards on them, that'd be fine. I'm Joe, by the way. [Laughs] I'm an Anime Sicko. I'm, I'm a guest on this show. Very happy to be here. There's another guy from the same show.
Tom: Yeah, I'm the extra, extra, extra - What? - other Anime Sicko. There's two. I’m Tom, I would do a Clue Monopoly where all the spaces are different branded versions of Clue.
Eric: That’s good.
Tom: And the shitty avenues like the purple ones would be like very stupid Clue rebrands, like Fortnite Clue, or possibly the fuckin Maze Runner Clue. And then you would have like Columbo Clue, which I don't think exists, but it really should, on Boardwalk. That's what I'm thinking.
Eric: No, I like that. Can all the different railroads be the different endings of the Clue movie?
Tom: No. How dare you? That's a terr - No, yes, of course. [Laughs]
Eric: Oh, no, I forgot I came up with a good idea. Fuck no, this is supposed to be stupid. [Laughs] Listen, we've done nine episodes of this so far. And I have tried to explain how to do the beginnings as I've introduced it. And I also said, “Hey, we're gonna have Tom do this first then Joe.” But then Joe, you came in so spectacularly like the Kool-Aid Man, and just did whatever the fuck you wanted. And I appreciate that.
Tom: I was doing the millennial pause where I wasn't sure if it was my turn yet. And I was like, I need to make sure it's definitely like it definitely got thrown to me. And then Joe -
Joe: “[Imitating Tom] Hey guys, I'm gonna start talking now. That's really cool. I’m so happy to be here”
Tom: We like talking - folks, the thing about podcasting, and they don't tell you this and in podcasting class at school, is that it's just talking. And you can just do that. Like, it's not hard to do.
Eric: The worst thing that I've discovered now, first, I just learned with a millennial pause was like 10 minutes ago, [Tom laughs] which is the, the pause that you have to make sure that like your technology working is working that apparently young people don't do because they have confidence in technology, which is baffling to me.
Tom: See, that's so dumb. I mean, if it feels like if you've been living your whole life with technology, you should know more acutely than anyone how fucking bad it is.
Joe: How have you not been betrayed by a computer? Like even in a short life?
Eric: Right? Like, are there not enough situations where the essay you had to send into your middle school teacher or your high school teacher, like got corrupted? Or are we so past the point where that's just the truth, and where you, the only time things get corrupted is when you send in a fake corrupted file, because you need 24 more hours to write the essay? Like, we come all the way around that, that the only time things do fuck up is when you're lying about it.
Tom: No, things fuck up all the time. [Eric laughs] Nothing has ever worked is constantly happening to me. I will say okay, I don't know if this is a millennial pause thing. I don't know if someone has a term for this. I need to know the term for this, which is in a video, a front-facing video when it's not - I think maybe this is not a thing anymore, because people are using phones. But it used to be that like people would do a little video. And then they would get to like the end of their script and their face would like go blank, and you would see them like go to push the stop recording button. And it just like - cut that part out! I couldn't see your face turned off from performing mode.
Joe: Got to see the death mask every time.
Tom: Yeah, exactly.
Eric: I think that's the opposite of the millennial pause, because the millennial pauses in the beginning. So this is at the end. This is the millennial death. And I like, it, and now that we all just know how to edit video. I don't know if we have it anymore. TikTok still scares me, I'm like, I should not have the power of an, of iMovie on my phone. That was the whole point of having iMovie was that I could just fuck around with it whenever I wanted.
Joe: I firmly believe posts should only be words or images. I think, I think videos are cheating. Like I know you can like scroll through your feed in TikTok and it's just like one video after another and that's - I don't know I think that is sacreligious, frankly.
Tom: Also, I mean, it feels like one of the biggest sort of cultural, unifiers that we have left is the feeling of like, “Ugh, I can't figure out what to watch” and YouTube is awful as it is still has that, you still are looking at your front page like “nothing's good, no one uploaded anything good. What am I gonna watch? I guess nothing!” And it's like the, that's something that everyone from all age groups is, is, is experiencing, but Tiktok is trying to demolish this and further atomize us. I don't want to say it's a Chinese plot. So I won’t.
Eric: [Laughs] Good. I'm glad that Tom didn't say that. That's for the best that Tom didn’t say that.
Tom: It's wrong. It's clearly not that, so that’s why I didn’t say that.
Eric: We're all unified by the five seconds we have after a YouTube video is finished before it goes to what the algorithm assumes it is, which is one, a compilation of Family Guy one liners, and two, like this the worst far-right propaganda ever, ever delivered onto a video. It's like no, I don't want that no, stop, no, stop.
Tom: One of my greatest achievements is I have been so judicious with the “don't show me this button” that YouTube for years now has not shown me a single piece of Nazi propaganda.
Eric: That's really that's very, very impressive.
Joe: Because it's usually like right after one minecraft video.
Tom: Yeah, it's like you know who invented Minecraft - a Nazi!
Eric: It's so messed up. The first thing I was gonna say is Jesus. [Joe and Tom laugh] So you either get Nazi propaganda or you get Jesus propaganda which honestly is all the same. Yeah, hey, this is Games and Feelings and we're gonna give you advice, I swear. But we have Tom and Joe of the Anime Sickos where we're exploring some of their expertise and we're going to be exploring the gaming and posting expertise later. Honestly, if you're not listening to Anime Sickos, I'm not sure how you keep all of the thoughts you have about being alive in 2022 in your head without someone else to talk to about it, which I really appreciate from your show. And I'm so happy to have both of you come on and give cogent real good advice for regular people as talking about games, I'm really happy y'all are here.
Joe: I mean, we'll try -
Tom: We’ll do our best.
Joe: - usually when people say I love your show, we have to be like yeah, we're real dumb.
Tom: The value add of Anime Sickos the putting it into your life and I, this part I do mean sincerely. Is that like a lot of people don't understand that like being dumb and whining really fucking like it's so good. [Eric laughs] Like so many people don't think that they're allowed to be dumb and whine. It's like no, no, no, no, no, please be dumb and whine. It helps your brain so much.
Joe: We have been brainwashed at a very young age. They're being dumb and whining are like two unenviable traits when obviously they're very great.
Tom: Yeah, it's like making your brain take a shit. It's like you - you hold it in, you're gonna get sick.
Eric: [Laughs] Jesus fucking Christ. Oh my god. So I guess what are the things that y'all haven't touched on? First of all, Anime Sickos is a show about four things and only one of which is anime. And one thing y'all cover is posting and the various things that are on the internet. Have you dove into advice columns in general? Like you, do you see people who give advice like the Dear Prudences and, of the world? Or is that outside of your, of your regular purview? Honestly, I think being a big fucking stupid idiot means you're good at giving advice. And if you think you're smart at it, there's actually, you have a massive blind spot and you're gonna like give the worst advice to someone who need, who definitely needs it.
Tom: You are right on with that assessment. I think. I think that goes for anything. If someone thinks they're smart, they're, anything they say is gonna be - if someone thinks they're smart, they're Malcolm Gladwell. They don't have to be literally him but they are him in every way that matters. So who cares?
Eric: That's a very good point.
Tom: But yeah, to answer your question no we've not looked at the advice columns but we are always looking for fucking things to do episodes about so we don't have to think them up ourselves, so thank you.
Joe: We should do advice columns, I mean, yes.
Eric: I would loveto see both you just open up Slate and being like, What the fuck is, how is, how is this like the one table leg propping up the entire website that is Slate?
Tom: Oh shit, now I really want to look. And every once in a while, like a really bad advice column will go big and I'll be like “that dumb!” But you're telling me that they're being this dumb like, like they're clocking in every day and like “Time to be dumb,” because that's pretty good.
Eric: Yes. 100%. There are so much, I will share with you the deep depths of advice columns and like again, as I said before, thinking, knowing that you're a big dumb idiot and just trying to help others I think is the best person to do advice and that's why we're here on Games and Feelings. Just talking about games and not like your relationship with your parents, because the answer is, talk to a therapist.
Tom: Yeah.
Eric: Don't ask me, talk to a therapist. All right. Well, before we get to giving actual advice, we're going to do our first segment, which is games that give me feelings. Which is where we share a recommendation for a game or of any sort as we cover on Games and Feelings, video games, tabletop, games, board games, laser tag, capture the flag, any games that we're dealing with and a recommendation, something that's making us happy. It doesn't have to be contemporary. You just need to say the game that you're enjoying and talk about it. And then what feeling it's giving you.
Tom: Yeah, I've been playing - and this is something that if you've listened to any fucking podcast guest appearances I've done lately, you will have heard most of the same thing because I have been playing this game for a couple of weeks now. Dragon Quest 6, baby, on my DS, and would you believe - this is gonna, it's gonna shock you. Would you believe that much like Dragon Quests one through five, it's about a fucking Gohan going around and defeating slimes and learning Kasizzle. They did it for a sixth time, folks. A lot of people will criticize a game series by saying it's the same game over and over again. And a lot of these people will, in the very same breath without seeing the contradiction be like, “It's so annoying that Nintendo won't make another F-Zero game just because they can't think up a new innovation to add to the formula. They should just make a new one anyway.” Well, okay, those, those don't shell, but the correct opinion is make the same game a million times if it's good, which Dragon Quest is. Dragon Quest, it feels like a, like a lovely dessert. It feels like a rice pudding, which is like, it's never going to be the flashiest game, but it's always gonna be real nice. It won't make your tummy hurt. You can just have a little bit every once in a while. And the Dragon Quest are never hard. But you know, there are some parts where it's a little, there's a little bit of tension. But - who cares? Like if you die, you know who killed you? A fucking like a rotund little monster man with two Toriyama horns. It's like he's cute! He's a cute guy. That's what I've been playing. The thing that thing about Dragon Quest 6 specifically is that it reintroduces classes. And it's so much fun, because I'm at the part of the game where all my party members have just or are just about to master their first prestige class, which means like, they are now reaching the absolute pinnacle of their strength. And they're so effective at the specific niche they're trying to fulfill. But then once they master it, I immediately go back to the place where you learn your classes. And like, all right now you, you're going to be a goof off now, and you're going to be a merchant, like you, you need more skills, we can't be complacent. So you have to go back to the baby classes. And that's pretty fun. That's what I'm feeling right now.
Eric: I like the idea of that being rice pudding, is like, “oh, no, there's a raisin here. I guess I'm gonna have to deal with that.” And the fact that we're at the point in our lives, where there's so much shit going on, being like, “there's a raisin in my rice pudding is a genuine hurdle I need to get over.” And like that's just the number, of the amount of hurdles I can have for my video games right now. And I appreciate that, that's, that's what you have on your little clamshell DS that you've been hoarding for the last 10 years. Joe, what have you been playing?
Joe: I just got done playing a physical board game for the first time in a while.
Eric: Hell yeah,
Joe: With Tom and two other friends. We played Terra Mystica, which is a game where you're a bunch of fantasy races and every fantasy race has a type of terrain they like. They're like, “Oh, I love mud. I love forest.” And then the game is basically you trying to bend the earth to your will. So you have a hospitable environment and have your cities and towns and every race plays slightly differently. And it's a great game that takes too fucking long -
Eric: Classic.
Joe: - and when you're done, you're like great. I wonder when my interest in that game will return because it is definitely gone for a very long time.
Tom: No, it isn't, still there. [Joe and Eric laugh] I don't, Joe and I have very different things about this kind of game. I could touch cubes every single day in my life. I wouldn't care. I would feel more happy every day. Okay, it does take a very long time. I will say that about Terra Mystica, but it's like a weird sort of paradox where like the game is six rounds, which is not a very long amount of rounds. And you have like most, like five or 6 actions per round. So you're not really doing that much but it does take several fucking hours.
Joe: And the last turn is 90 hours. [Eric laughs]
Tom: It's like half an hour. For me personally, I was going college mode because I, that was a game I played - every board game I played a jillion times in college. And then once I fucking stopped living in a big hovel with like four of my homies, turns out, did you know this? You can't play board games. It's not possible.
Eric: That's why everyone over the age of 28, who likes board games has to like abscond to a cabin in the middle of the woods where they, it's like, undeveloped, no one has ever lived there. [Tom and Joe laugh] Wi-Fi is just a myth that is much like the Baba Yaga. And like they - then you play board games there. Like, that's it. Those are the only choices.
Tom: We did get to play with purple bowls, though. So talk about purple bowls.
Joe: They have a magic system in Terra Mystica. And it's the most satisfying mechanically magic system that I can think of, like so basically how it works. So you got purple - Purple as we know that the most magical color -
Eric: Oh yeah, everyone, everyone knows that.
Joe: Right. So you have like these three purple bowls. And how it works is you can spend the purple discs when they're in the third bowl to do like spells or whatever. But you have like a cow's stomach for a brain. So you have to get your purple discs to the third chamber and in the way, and you always move the lowest level disc when you get like a bump. And it is so fucking satisfying. It's like my favorite thing, I wanted to play as - so every like race that has a terrain has like two versions. Like there's like two types of water people, that was the ice maidens, aka the white women, and like -
Eric: [Laughs] Well, I mean, it is, I'm looking it up on Board Game Geek right now. And it is a European game. So I assumed that there was the Anglo-Saxon somewhere out there. The Aryan race is a playable race in this game.
Tom: It was a translation error because the German designer who doesn't speak English very well did a Board Game Geek post where he was like “Hello, everybody. Here is an update on the expansion. Here's a new race I'm designing called the White Women” and everyone had to be like, no, no, no, you mean the ice - the Ice Women. [Eric laughs]
Joe: So the Ice Women are one side of the card and the other card are Yetis, just Yetis.
Eric: Sure, sick.
Joe: And Yetis are really good at using their magical brain pan. [Eric laughs] That's the third thing and like the whole time I was playing, I had a good time, I came in second. But like, every time I moved one of those purple discs, all I could think about, like, if I was a Yeti, this would be so much more fun.
Tom: Terra Mystica is also a great game, because you can tell on the first round that you, that you lost. [Eric laughs] And how do you how do I know that? How do I know that that's true? Well, when we were playing, I was about to take my second turn. And I was just sort of, looked at the board. And I looked at my specific board, you know, with all my specific stuff. And they looked at the main board and I looked down I'm just like, well, I lost. I fucked up I really chose poorly. And like I had fun moving cubes around. I think that's the thing, moving cubes around with your homies. It doesn't even need to be a game, I could just like sit down with my three homies. And we like pour a bag of unrelated cubes out on the table. And like, like now we're each going to make a little pile and like that I could, I could have a good time with that.
Eric: Tom, every once in a while you need to draw a card that says “ ah, the environment’s doing something.” And it doesn't even have to do anything. I just need to know the environment is working without me. And I'm like “ah I’m set. That's perfect, man. That's very good.” [Tom and Joe laugh] I'm also looking at, it says the playing time is between 60 and 150 minutes, which I now understand is because like it's like 30 minutes per player. But I also like the idea that like everyone kind of looks down and mean like, “I don't know, Joe won. I guess we're done playing.” That's why it only takes 60 minutes.
Tom: The reason - the player who did win won because they did an incredible thing, which is they actually utilize their factions special ability that a third, the three of us did not, because we were too stupid to. [Laughs]
Eric: No that's fair, that's definitely fair. I've been playing the new tracks that have come out for Mario Kart 8. So far, this is like the second round of the new tracks, you like, because everything has a goddamn Battle Pass. Apparently, so does Mario Kart 8, a game that has no relation to any of these other games. But here we are, just a way to stave Mario Kart 9 away so that they can put it on the Switch 2, which I guess the, the JoyCons will attach to my brain. And they'll slot in and it'll get stuck a little bit and then I'll be stuck in my beard and it'll be upsetting. But like, I'm enjoying the new tracks. But there are two things that are holding me back. One is the whole Battle Pass thing. And the second is that there are a bunch of tracks that are adapted for Mario Kart Tour, which is a free-to-play version of Mario Kart on phones, which is already weird knowing that like they took something that was like intentionally shoved into a phone and then pulling it back out. But also it's real cities. So like -
Tom: What?!
Eric: One, so one is like New York and one is Sydney that we just got, and like, I live in New York City so like I'm like driving through a Nintendo-fied Central Park as Donkey Kong in an old school like BMW, because that's the relationship they have with Nintendo that those are in the game as well. I can’t remember if it’s only BMW or one of those other fancy car brands. It's Chrysler because they also make Escalade because you can put your Nintendo character in an Escalade.
Joe: Yeah.
Eric: And I'm just like, I don't understand. I love it. And I love playing Mario Kart and I have forever but I'm like, is this everything? Is this every single thing.
Joe: Everything is Fortnite now, everything will be Fortnite, it's you put all your different slop in different shapes. In Mario Karts case, it's the shape of a guy in a car.
Tom: It's just such a big betrayal. Driving sucks. Let's, let's start with that folks. Driving sucks. Especially driving in a city. Actually, driving anywhere sucks, driving outside of the city fucking sucks. Fuck driving. Anyway, Mario Kart, the key to it being enjoyable is that it offers an alternative to this kind of driving that we couldn't actually experience in real life. And then they try to fucking make it more realistic and put it in a real city? No!
Eric: It's, it’s so confusing. And also like, but those tracks are fun, because they go in different directions. It's not like three laps of the same thing. Like you take a right one time, and then take a left on the other time. So the fact that like my brain is on is making me not enjoy Mario Kart, the simplest purest thing that exists for people who had an N64 in the 90s. And I'm like, everything is bad, everything is - I'm just waiting for Pickle Rick to show up. You know what I mean? And like that is the, that's the ultimate thing. And I can't enjoy something I love which I just like bash my head. And also they still cheat, everyone in, all the AI still cheats and Mario Kart, it's not like that it's fixed. You know? So it's like still the problems of the beautiful thing that I had. And now like Pickle Rick is gonna show up and hit me with a red shell at the end, and then I'll come in third.
Tom: Here's another way that Mario Kart has begun to betray me. You know that guy on YouTube who does the history of speedrunning for certain games?
Eric: Yeah, yeah yeah.
Tom: It's cool as hell. It seems like a third of all of his videos now are like, how people got to, found the glitches in this Mario Kart game. Now I tell you what, that was fun the first time, but like, after I've watched like three hours of him explain, like, “they found that you could abuse the checkpoint system.” And I'm like, okay, like before, and then there's a new video is like, “yeah, in Mario Kart Double Dash. No one thought you could abuse the checkpoint system. But then they found out how to abuse the checkpoint system. And here's how they did it for the next 20 tracks.” I'm like, Oh, my God, something new please. There, there was a point in my life, where I never thought I would be criticizing this motherfucker’s videos. And yet here I am now doing it.
Eric: Yeah. Don’t worry. I won't tell him. And, Tom, if you click to the next video, it's going to be Nazi Christian propaganda. Congratulations.
Tom: Aww, No. Oh, no.
Eric: I've also spent so much time not being a car guy. So which is why I'm not playing Grand Turismo, I’m playing god damn Mario Kart, so I had to look this up to make sure I had it correctly. The car was Mercedes-Benz, because I could not remember anything about anything. And the car I was driving is a W25 Silver Arrow, which was a racing car produced during the 1930s by Mercedes-Benz which I was out playing. I had Donkey Kong, a big ape shoved in it. And now I have to say those words and be a car guy, because Mario Kart forced me to do it because of Nintendo's relationship with Mercedes-Benz. And that's a weird place to be in.
Tom: Sure is.
Eric: I do appreciate that I could not come up with a giveaway of the company. And this is the third car company I had to throw out there. All right. Do y'all want to supposedly help some people with their games problems?
Tom: Why not.
Joe: Yeah. You always want to upgrade attack speed first, like attack speed is definitely like the best thing.
Tom: Yeah yeah yeah.
Eric: Yeah. Cool. All right. Well, that's our show. [Tome and Joe laugh] So thank you, everybody, show us your social media handles. This is perfect. I actually saved some questions that were very Anime Sickos. I had only alluded to this before, but like the four main things y'all talk about are - and I'm so afraid to say this back to you because they listen to the show.
Tom: Do not be nervous.
Eric: I'm very nervous about saying it, are anime, posting, something, and jobs?
Joe: Gaming!
Eric: Gaming, of course.
Joe: This one, the thing we're here for talking.
Eric: The thing we’re doing. So I'm combining as many of these as possible for you guys. So I have one question from Frost, who is she/they. And also, if they don't come up with a very particularly like corny advice name, like Sleepless in Seattle, we are allowed to come up with names that will fit for them as we answer this question. This is from Frost: “For about two years I've been really into the playing card game Magic: the Gathering” - our world, we all, congratulations Frost. You're part of the human race. “I've spent about $1,200 making decks, buying cool cards and playing matches that feel like a new game every time. However, I'm growing tired of Wizards of the Coast making these tiny pieces of cardboard cost so much money! Help me! What are some other games I can play that will scratch the strategy deckbuilding bug in my head and will feel like a match every time. By the way. I love the podcast so much. Thank you for helping me level up my feelings.” Thank you so much Frost. And this is from “Replayability Really Helps My Life.”
Tom: So I'm hearing the chugga-chugga of a choochoo train.
Joe: Yeah, yeah, you should do sports betting. [Tom laughs]
Eric: Yeah, this episode is sponsored by DraftKings. Joe, thank you for doing our first plug of the episode.
Joe: Play Monster train, it's - I don’t know, the maximum price is when, if it's not on sales, just say $20. Considerably less. You do not get the satisfaction of physical magical cards. But those are, I think, actually a lie and like something that's going to lure you win into sort of a sunk cost fallacy. Monster train is, it's like Magic: The Gathering. But there's three floors and you're putting down guys so they don't reach the top of your train. This is a train that's driving through hell -
Tom: Which is our home.
Joe: - you would, our home yeah, it's like the Meatloaf place.
Tom: The game begins with the cutscene it says “hell - our home” and it's like, okay, we live here.
Joe: But the game’s mechanics are, what really makes the dopamine occur, is that there are I think now six factions. And Magic: the Gathering, like has this thing where it's like, what you spent all this money. Why? Because you want to make a deck that like is very powerful. And it synergizes with itself very much so. The most broken magic deck does not come close to like how nutty this game wants you to be in terms of just like power scale, like, like, the stuff the game wants you to do is just very like, “yeah, please be broken.” It's very fun. There's no human player on the other end of this. You don't feel bad about it. [Laughs]
Tom: Right. Yeah, like you, you will get when you're starting out, you'll get a deck where you are starting to see like exponential scaling. And it's like, “oh shit, like, I'm like, I got thrown out 1000s of damage on this floor. This is -” like, and the enemies have like 100 health max, like 1000s like, oh my god, like am I like to die like, uncover like a glitch. And you feel so badass, you feel you've outsmarted the game. And then when the difficulty counter ticks up, eventually you start to understand like, “oh, I need to have exponential scaling, or I'll lose now” like that's actually necessary, I need to figure out how to do that reliably. And the fucking thing about Monster Train is, it's so fun. So you got your six factions. Yeah? But every run, you actually have two factions, you have to pick a main one and a sub-faction. And also, the main faction comes with a champion, who is like a super fucking guy, like a really strong creature, who you always have in your firsthand, and who always causes zero, there are three possible special effects that that fucking guy can have. So like each champion is really three possible champions. And every one of the six factions actually has two champions. So there's more like six champions, and each champion completely rewrites the whole win condition of that faction. And also one of the factions is goopy Candle men.
Joe: Yeah, it's really good. Like if you liked playing like black Magic, where you're like always reviving guys, it's that. But imagine if the guys are candles, like they're made of wax. So as you continue to mush more guys together, they become bigger and bigger monstrosities that are, they're also dressed like Victorian people.
Tom: Yeah, there's like a little Cockney orphan. And then there's like the big like fluffy dressed Victorian lady, and the card that makes it so that your candle guys don't burn down after a set number of turns is a picture of someone like cutting the top of their head off, so they don't have a wick anymore. And it's like, yeah, that's how you would do it wouldn't it.
Joe: Yeah, it has factions that are going to seem familiar in terms of like Magic colors, like the mechanics and whatnot. I think it'll scratch the itch a little bit. I don't know if you can ever really kick Magic.
Eric: Yeah.
Joe: Because like I haven't played in a long time. But sometimes I look at a card and I'm like, damn, I would - how many Mountains do I need? And so with that being said, I think it'll distract you. I don't think it'll cure you permanently, unfortunately.
Tom: Yeah, no.
Eric: I'm thinking about, I had this similar itch before I was in like the worst, absolute worst job and I'm like, “you know what. I'm gonna get into Hearthstone.” Because like, I played Magic the Gathering as a kid. And then I'm like, “Oh, well, it's all on my phone and on my computer, I can just do that.” But like, you just created the same problems I had, which that you have to buy everything. You're gonna pour all this money into it. And now it's even worse. Because at least - you don't even get the cardboard! You're, it's just a bits and boops.
Tom: Yeah!
Eric: It’s nothing and it's owned by Blizzard which is wild. I want to say just from the from the jump, Monster Train, video game strategy and deck building game with roguelike elements, which I think will scratch that whole thing that you have. And if you don't know what that means, that's fine. It just means it has digital cards and you get to play it over and over and over.
Joe: Lots of replayability, yeah.
Tom: And so, so Monster Train is kind of like the game about getting nutty and having huge numbers. And also the graphics and music are pretty good. For what it is, especially, it's a lot prettier and more sumptuous than it needs to be for just a digital card game. If you are a sort of ascetic, if you are like a follower of the Bushido code, then you gotta play Slay the Spire. We've talked about this to death.
Eric: Oh, of course, of course.
Tom: Slay the Spire is like if you take Monster Train, and you like sent it to like sit under a waterfall for like 100 days. [Eric laughs] It’s like you don't eat, you don't get, you just meditate. And you think about what it takes to be a deck building roguelike card game, it would come out Slay the Spire. It's like, I've, I've shed all of my features, and I'm simply a blade now. That’s Slay the Spire. It's much less, it gives you a lot fewer tasty treats, but it is an incredible card game.
Eric: It's the thing that's the most card, I like when you said that, it's the distilled essence of card game, the only thing that is close, as close to playing Magic: the Gathering with your friend, and it's 2004 and you only have some homework to do and nothing else. You know, it's like it, but you're playing and it's like the weirdness of everything is there. I probably put like, two, three hundred hours into Slay the Spire. And just like it was on my end just on my Switch Lite just fucking going at it.
Joe: Yeah.
Eric: 100%. I think the thing that is closest to card, because I don't even think we're going from like Hearthstone necessarily or like - what's a game with a ton of replayability, we're literally going from Magic: the Gathering, the “oh look at all these monsters I have in my hands. Look at these guys. I love being a wizard who's, who conjures monsters,” and I feel like Slay the Spire is the only thing that like scratches that really like, “I have weird shit in my hand that's going to do 1000 damage when I put it together in the right place, in the right way.”
Tom: And I think if you're interested in the meta game of the deck building and like having, I have to have these cards, Slay the Spire does that a lot. Because especially if you listen to like high level players talk about it. They're very clear like the game is not when you're playing the cards, the game is choosing what card to put in the deck. Like that's like when they, when you watch like a high level player play Slay the Spire, when they actually are playing the card game. It's like, tch-tch-tch-tch, they're not even looking at the cards. They're just playing things like on muscle memory. And then when they get offered like a choice of what card to put in the deck. That's when they're like, “all right,” and they sit and they just like look for 20 minutes totally silent thinking, because like that's the game. And if that sort of like high level strategy analysis is what you want. That's that no game does it better.
Eric: There is nothing that I love more than envisioning a guy sitting while, like his stream. He has his like fingers steepled and pressed against his lips. And he's just looking at Slay the Spire screen for like 10 minutes while his chat is going nuts, like on the side and be like, “yooo he’s gonna take the left one!” just for 10 minutes. I wouldn't watch that over and over and over again.
Tom: I swear to God, like when I was first starting to play and I was like, this is a good game, but I don't, I'm not good at it yet. How do we get better? I looked up “how you get better at Slay the Spire,” and someone was like you should watch this video for newbies. This is a guy playing high level, watch what he does. And like when you play you're very likely to on like the first like five or so rounds, get a shop. And he gets to the shop and no fucking joke. He's on the shop for like half an hour. He says like, “All right, folks, I always, as I always say, the card game isn't hard. Shops are hard.” And he's just like looking at every single thing. Like he opens up a spreadsheet that has like, the relative values of all the, like AOE, card draw, scaling, it's like “what, what, what do I have like, what do I need more of and what would this card give me relative to the cost that it has in gold coins?” And it's like, like, this is how good you can get at it. Like you said you played it for two, three hundred hours. I probably played it for 500 hours. I know that I'm like not good at it.
Eric: Yeah, for sure.
Tom: And yet I also know that like I could be good at it, like that's the thing is it takes a really well designed game to be extremely bad at it but understand what it means to be good at it, because I'm bad at a lot of games. And I'm just like, it's impossible to be good at this. I'm never gonna play it again. See all fighting games, but fucking, Slay the Spire...
Eric: I love it. I think, I think those two choices are really going to help this person in terms of figuring out their card game stuff without putting the only thing you put in is time. That's the real currency when you think about it.
Joe: Yeah, I mean Magic is both time and money. So you're saving 50% at least.
Eric: [Laughs] That math baby, you don’t need to bring up a spreadsheet, Joe just knew that.
Joe: Yeah.
Eric: I think I just want to say one last thing about this, but like, I think this is a really good time for you to get out of Magic: the Gathering as someone who loves or who got really into Dungeons and Dragons over the last few years and has just watched whatever the hell Wizards of the coast is doing like, you want to get out before you need to spend actual money on like Fortnite cards you know what I mean? Like, like, like I said, it's all just becoming Fortnite and you want to get out before you spend $200 on the necessary Pickled Rick card, be, so that for you to have a viable red-black deck, you know what I mean? [Tom laughs] So like I think that this is a good, I'm glad you've recognized it, Frost, and that you're you're coming out of it and you're not gonna put any more money into it. Some of those cards are so goofy man, they, they drive me wild, there was like, there's like a Street Fighter deck coming out?
Tom: Like for the game…?
Eric: Like the, the integrations of the Dungeons and Dragons. The ones with the dungeon cards where you got to go through the dungeon card, are, there's, it's just silly. It's just like, hey, you like this? Let me shove it in your face. You idiot. You're gonna give me money for it.
Joe: There’s Godzilla, right? Like Godzilla is Magic.
Eric: You're - Joe you could truly tell me anything is in, is in Magic: the Gathering and I would believe you. So I'm just like, yeah, for sure. 100%
Tom: They put Naruto in. They put Naruto in Fortnite. When I saw Naruto doing the dance. There was a fucking the emote of the person like doing basketball dribble and tricks and he made Sasuke do it. I’m just like “Sasuke doesn’t know about basketball, what are you talking about.” [Eric laughs]
Eric: Sasuke doesn’t know - Rock Lee does not know how to floss. Don’t tell him that. Don't make him do that.
[Segment Transition Music]
Eric: Hey, it's Eric. I picked up some snacks for Games and Feelings. I got everyone bacon wrapped hot dogs. They're delicious. And they have, their, it's extra meaty, because it's two meats but it's like all wrapped up and then you can put on whatever. I'm not even going to judge you for what you put on your hot dog, you just do you, It's fine. I think you should be a part of the Patreon for Games and Feelings at patreon.com/gamesandfeelings. I am recording this mid roll ahead of time because it is the back end of August, where everyone and their therapists are on vacation. So please continue to become new patrons and I promise I'm going to read your name. I hope you're all loving the DLC. So you get twice as much podcast for only the price of a Starbucks seasonal drink a month. It's like an additional advice column. But it's also a show about Amanda and my experiences with work, relationships, money, all that good and gory stuff. 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For anyone who grew up watching classic sitcoms, there is nothing more comforting in times of stress and upheaval which apparently is all the time. Though Next Stop is solidly a 21st-century sitcom that gives audience something to laugh about without punching down. Written and created by - let me, let me check this - oh, by me, Eric Silver, directed and edited by Brandon Grugle executive produced by Amanda McLoughlin, and casted and directed by Julia Schifini. All your favorite folks worked on this. I think it's wonderful. And people are always finding the show which makes me super happy. Season One is out now. Just search for Next Stop and your podcast app or go to nextstopshow.com We are sponsored this week by the podcast First Encounter. First Encounter was born out of a 20 year long best friendship between Haney and Chris. Haney did not play Chris's favorite game Final Fantasy 7 for 20 years during their friendship. So Chris did the only natural thing and forced Haney to experience it on mic for the first time to share with folks who missed being able to experience their favorite games for the first time. Every season of First Encounter one of them picks a beloved video game of the other hasn't played before. The host who has played the game guides the newcomer through their first journey. Season One covers Haney’s experience through Final Fantasy 7, season two which is out now is covering Chris's first experience through the Legend of Zelda: Majora Mask, I also deeply trust this podcast because once Haney traded me Super Mario Sunshine when I was looking for GameCube games, and anyone that would part with the most innovative Mario game ever is a very good person in my book. Just for me. You can find all of their socials and contact info at firstencounterpodcast.com. But you can listen to it on any and all podcast platforms you would ever want. That is First Encounter. 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[Chiptune Chirp]
Eric: Oh Jesus Christ. All right. Do you want to do another question? [Laughs]
Joe: Yeah.
Tom: Yeah.
Eric: This is from The Frank, who is ‘they’ pronouns. “I made a mistake. I created an emotionless stoic character for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign intended to go on for many, many years. I love him and his personal story dearly. However, he is very difficult to play in a group. What advice do you have for balancing in-character choices when these choices are anti-party, but no other choice stays true to the character?”
Joe: I'll take this one, off the bat. I know what the solution that as we know, the greatest games ever made Dragon Quest is the main character ever speak fucking words? No,
Eric: No.
Joe: Never. He has the, he always has head trauma. And he is always just like politely nodding. And like, I think you got to lean into it more. I think you have to make the character more of a JRPG guy.
Eric: Yeah, I love that.
Tom: Does, does the fact that the Dragon Quest protagonist has no Broca's area and fundamentally does not understand the concept of language. Does that hurt him? Does that cause a problem? No. Everyone is like, “Wow, you are my best friend. And I am inspired. And you are clearly the chosen one who will save the world.” The real answer, I feel like to every single tabletop RPG question is talk about it with the group.
Eric: Just talk about it.
Tom: Be like, “Hey, here's an issue. I'm having this. What do you guys think?”
Joe: Yeah, it is all, after all, fake and not real.
Tom: Yeah, it's just fucking talking and shit. Like we do another podcast Shuffle Quest, where we play RPGs. And when I say “play RPGs” there's huge quotes around that, because we found out very quickly that what our group actually likes, and what actually makes the show fun and listenable. It's just us kind of riffing. And goofing.
Eric: Right.
Tom: And none of us like combat. And the combat in the show is the worst part. Like what do we actually want this system to do? We want it to be so that like, when the riffs run out, I can be like, “so what do I do now? Fucking this, Yeah.” And then that seeds, a bunch of riffs, like I, Who cares about the game? I don't care. It's all just like, we know what fucking words to say, in our little circle that makes us go hee hee hee hee. And like, that's what it all is, like, I have zero respect for any of the games. Well, I have a respect for the game sort of having been written, but like, I will cede no authority to them. They are a tool I'm using as, at my pleasure. And so like if they're gonna get in the way of us saying the funny words we like, I will simply ignore it.
Eric: I am 100% on, in on what you're saying, Tom, and I want to address what you're saying. And I want to put a pin in this specific question from The Frank, who I'm going to now name, “Dot Dot Dot,” like everything that Link says is in most of the Legend of Zelda games. [Tom laughs] Is that I wonder if there's something, people always forget this, that you can just talk to each other about this stuff, because they're consuming tabletop RPG media, where it seems like everything is perfect on the way that it is. It's like, “oh, well, they're making a movie, this media, I'm watching a video, or I'm listening to a podcast of them play, and they're just doing it,” but they don't really like. It's hard to keep in mind that they probably edited out a lot of stuff that you didn't hear, or they did it off microphone because you're not hearing it. You're only hearing the polished version of it. So like, do you as people who also make it a tabletop RPG show, do you forget that you can actually just like talk about stuff not on the microphone?
Tom: No, we, we -
Joe: We’re cheaters. Big time.
Tom: We are lying to you. If you think the show is extemporaneous. You have been tricked.
Joe: We detest improv, if, they should have wrote those jokes before they got on stage, that's my take. [Eric laughs]
Tom: If you ever feel like wow, how did they, how did they like have that scene work so well? How did they, you know, have that whole arc pay off? It's because I said, “All right, folks, what's the next scene.” We determine what the next scene is, and then we do it. Occasionally, our little outline will take into account that there will be dice rolls, and it won't be exactly this, but we fucking know what we're gonna do in advance. And it's more fun, folks. I think it may be less fun for some groups. But for us, it's more fun.
Eric: Right. But you just talk, you just talk about it and you do the thing that's fun for you. Which makes sense. Also, I need to address Joe what you said and say, Upright Citizens Brigade? More like Dishonorable Citizens Brigade. Fuck you and your improv.
Joe: Yeah, I can - My understanding is it’s a big scam. I was not cool enough to get scammed firsthand. [Tom laughs] Right. But yeah.
Tom: The big arts scam that I got suckered into was LiveLit, which -
Eric: Oh, boy.
Tom: Didn't pay off at all much like how improv doesn't, but it also doesn't cost anything. So.
Eric: As someone who got scammed in college of, went to slam poetry, I'm a real fucking idiot. And that didn't do anything for me. I, that did not turn into literally anything, so I have nothing to show for it. Other than YouTube videos I don't want to share to anybody else.
Tom: Oh, of course. It would be insane to do, even if they were good.
Eric: Even if they were good! I think they were pretty good. We won a bunch of slams. But I don't want to show you a video of it, I'm not making, letting you do that. No.
Joe: Here’s a video, take this power over me. [Eric and Tom laugh]
Tom: Okay, have you ever seen this? Have you seen this video, this is some, someone who's like two or three degrees separated from us, post this video every like year or so to remind people, and it is a video he took of some sketch group at a festival.
Joe: It’s the worst thing.
Tom: And he has edited such that the only thing in the video are the scene transitions between sketch to sketch, which should be short. But what they do is that they do a little dance party to an almost full length pop song, they don't do a clip, almost the entire thing. And there's dancing between every single sketch, and this is one show. The video only shows the scene transitions and it's like 20 minutes long.
Eric: [Laughs] And you're like, “Those are people, those are real people who are in that video and they're doing something right now.”
Tom: It’s a hostage situation.
Eric: [Laughs] I want to come back to some of the, to what “Dot Dot Dot” said, I really like the idea of, well first talk about it. But second, you can be a silent anime protagonist. Here is, I think where the issue is. They give additional context. “We're all given a mission to go to a specific place. I wanted to go one way and after two hours of discussing it, my character just got up and walked out the front door, and ended up in this party split so deep. We were playing two separate games for over a year.”
Joe: Ooooh.
Eric: Here's the issue, you didn't like, you didn't have to talk for two hours in-character. You could have just been like, “Hey, this is what my character would do. Can we figure out a way to not split the party?” And the other thing I think, related to what you said about being an anime protagonist, the silent anime protagonist is also like, pretty genial, and just kind of vibes. Because whenever there's an issue, he'll just blast it with a hadoken or something related, right?
Tom: Yeah.
Eric: So I feel like what they're also saying is like they're stoic, but it also seems like they're not genial or agreeable. If this, if this happened.
Tom: Or maybe it was like there was just a disagreement that their stoicism prevented them from, in-character, being able to discuss deeply. Well it feels like the time has passed to prevent this from happening if they have had two separate games for a year, but I feel like this is the perfect time to start discussing with the group. This is the other thing, spoiler culture is harmful to good RPGs, because you don't want to spoil anything. And surely there are some surprises you want to keep hidden like, but, it doesn't matter if people know what's going to happen. In most of the time. So like, be like, “Hey, we've been playing two separate games for a year. Let's discuss how my guy gets back with the group and what the reaction is going to be” because like it should, this could be like the the fucking where Zuko joins the Avatar crew, and it's like, “wow, they're there together! Aaaah! All the buildup has paid off” like, sure. This is regrettable. But you can even turn this into a positive by like, now we get to have the reuniting. And like, there's going to be big emotions. Maybe your stoic person finally shows some emotion when they see their friends again? I don't know,
Eric: I really wish we had been able to give at - did no one bring up after a year. They're like, “Hey, I don't like his splitting the party for a year?” Like, did you just say you have to ignore it for fiction reasons?
Joe: That's a lot of work for GM. Do you have two planning sessions basically?
Eric: And like, what are you going to get the other people go and watch reruns while you're doing stuff. I wish someone had said, “Hey, let's figure this out. And just like time warp forward a year,” because that's fun. But you could, but like, someone just needs to say, “Can we hit the fast forward button.” And like you can, the only point of playing games is, is fun. And I - this is what I was saying before is like, because the way that you can see, you participate in tabletop RPGs outside of the game you play is media, where it seems like it's a story and you got to tell a story. But it's like, Nah, man, we're not, you don't have to tell a story if you're not having, if you don't have a microphone in front of you. You're just doing it to be fun. If you're not having fun, or someone else said this in your party is not having fun. I really wish someone said, “can we make, do something in-fiction to make sure that this is fun, and that you get to still play your character?” Because like, wouldn't it be so funny if you walked off on your own and then a year passed, and that's, went to the next session. Like that's so funny.
Joe: That's a good time skip in between. That's really good.
Tom: Also, I just, when you said, what's the rest of the player is doing when the other players on their solo mission, I had a flashback to when in Shuffle Quest, we had to introduce a new main party character. And we did two sort of prequel episodes that were like introducing her prior to having joined the crew. And some like, well, what am I going to have Gwen and Joe do? Ah, I will, I will solve my problem of always having too many NPCs to play and I would just write down NPC names, and like two or three characteristics. And I'd be like, ah, Fia, you go into this place, and you meet - and I just like slide a card to Joe and like, that guy. And then Joe is that guy.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah.
Tom: That was super fun. That's always fun. And what's the, what’s the other players sort of getting money.
Eric: I love that. I think that there's something about like, what is the thing I'm going to do outside of game to facilitate the story we're doing? Which is like, Oh, I'm gonna change classes, or oh, I want to play a new character, or oh, we're gonna have a time skip. But like, you can do that the other way around, is like, “well, I want to have fun. So what are we going to do in the story to fix that?” And there's like, Oh, I'm going to make some other people NPCs or I'm going to do all that other character.
Tom: Yeah.
Eric: I want to ask one more short question. We're, because we'd spent like, 10 minutes talking about millennial pauses, I think. I think it's enough to, to go past our final segment. I would really love to ask, to answer one more question. And I really, I really liked this one. And I wanted to save it for both you guys because I feel like you're gonna give this person a straightforward answer that they're really going to need. This is from A Dishonest Panda. He/They. “I primarily GM for Pathfinder. And while trying to tell captivating stories that have satisfying surprises, and occasional big plot twists, I have to not just hide the truth, but sometimes flat out lie to my friends.” So very similar to what we just talked about, right? “I've discovered that I'm both very good at it, and much more comfortable lying to my players than any other DM I know. One, how do you justify lying as a DM, but two, how do you apologize to your players afterwards? And three, am I a terrible person?”
Tom: How do you, how do you justify lying as a GM? Easily! [Eric laughs]
Joe: It's showmanship. It's showmanship. It's, it's circus shit, right?
Tom: Yeah. That's like, like how - it's like imagine you're a stage magician and you go backstage and you start crying and like “how can I trick them into thinking I knew where their card was?”
Joe: “All those people think I cut that lady in half.”
Tom: It’s fun! Like, here's how you justify it. Did they like it? Then it's fine. If you're lying to them and they get mad, well then you got something just to worry about, and if you still have this wing on you're conscious, be like “hey guys, for the purposes of showmanship and, and revealing things that will surprise you. Occasionally, I will throw in some white lies, if it ever gets to be too much be sure to let me know.” But it's all for the benefit of the fucking group. Yeah, this is like what we're talking about. It's all like, “I need to make the perfect story and I need to like, I need to do it the right way.” There's no fucking right way, I guarantee that all these shows you're listening to that sound perfect are doing the shit we're doing, which is cheating, which is we fucking figured out what was going to happen before. And then we do that. You know why? Because it's fun.
Joe: Or they say something that's like 80% there and they just were like, I'm now just going to repeat it correctly. [Eric laughs] Then they do. And then they like the shitty one gets cut out.
Tom: Yeah. Yeah yeah.
Joe: We do that, and then we’re done. Right. So like when there's other people - “Critical Role people are smart. They get paid.” Yeah, they know like how to get dollar. So like, I think there is a I don't know what else to call it. But like this weird obsession with doing it fresh or like live or something, as if, more authentic as if like, I don't know, if I have to choose between an extemporaneous version of an idea and one where like, all the shitty parts were cut out. I'm gonna go with the second one. In fact, I would much rather do the second one as a person who makes things.
Eric: Yeah, I, it has something to do, I think with like, the people thinking that like improv skills are the thing you need to rely on. And like, that's what makes good games. Like, No, we're just all messing. We're just all messing around. And like, I really liked what y'all said about like, justifying is like, No, we're just trying to have a good time. And obviously, you're not a bad person. And you don't have to apologize if everyone is having a good time. And if someone's not having a good time, they'll tell you, and then it's fine.
Tom: Yeah and like, obviously, I mean, I'm thinking it's very likely that the lies are not stuff like “your character is not going to be killed next session by an unavoidable attack,” right?
Joe: I’m sure it’s playful misdirection.
Tom: There's a - oh, here's one that I did. So this is, I did a Curse of Strahd session for some homies, including Joe, that fizzled out halfway through as most D&D campaigns do.
Eric: Classic Strahd.
Tom: For the sort of intro thing, the intro, like the Death House, I wanted it to be, I wanted there to be some indication, some real fear, you know? It didn't actually come across, but I wanted to be, I wanted to seem as though things could happen. And so like, I took one of the players aside, like, secret, and I'm like, “hey, yeah, I know, you've built your character, please, like build a second character that you don't care about.” And that was the one that they started with, so that they could be -
Eric: Perfect!
Tom: - hilariously murdered by Strahd in front of everybody. And then the other guy showed up and was like, “whoa, whoa, my friend’s got murdered by Strahd!,” and then he joined the crew.
Eric: That's, that's absolutely perfect. Just talk about it. I want to really address what something that this person said, A Dishonest Panda. But also, I'm gonna say that their name is “DM Stands For Dishonest Man,” which is their actual name that they wrote into this advice show about, “am I terrible person?” I think about this stuff. Well, especially when people talk about like, imposter syndrome, and how it's like a catch all term for when people are like, I don't know if I'm good enough about what I'm doing. And then of course, like you, they kind of cast it out from there, is like, do you know the fact that you care if you're good at the thing you do? Or that you are, you are assessing whether or not lying to your friends, even if it's for fun, is a bad thing? Like, of course you're not, you, if you, you're worried you're bad at what you do, it means that you're a conscientious person, and you're definitely not bad at it. Because it means you're thinking about it, right? There are so many worse people that are delusional and go out there like they, they are the fucking greatest people in the entire world and lie to themselves, and then just barrel forward because that's just, they, people are like, “well, this person knows what it is. I'm gonna agree with them.” The fact that you've, you're concerned that you're not a good person means that you're definitely a good person. Don't let this weigh on yourself. But then don't do the thing that Joe said, which is lie to their faces about obvious things and then ruin their night. You know? Like, you're like you got to ruin their night at the end of the lie. It's, which, is not the lie. It's the thing you did by dropping a bunch of rocks on a character that was standing there.
Tom: It, especially if you, if you follow any RPG Twitter people, you cannot go a day without seeing some new drama about how some fucking prominent guy was running a game on stream and like, dropped in a bunch of fucking assaults themes, unwarned about and it's like, “well, I've just, it's just a little bit of an edgy game.” It's like, you didn't fucking clear this with anyone before? Like that's the kind of guy who is not thinking about “am I doing this right? Am I a good person?” That's the person's like, “well, I'm an expert and I know about mature themes. So I'm telling a very strong story.” It's like no, no fuck you go to hell, just talk to the people, just talk to the people. It's all talking. See I said at the beginning, podcasts are just talking. They don't tell you about that in podcast school, but it's just talking. You can talk, easily.
Eric: When Ira Glass came to our houses and touched us on the head with his magical wand and said “you're allowed to be a podcaster” he never told us it was just talking. He just said, “I, uhhh, this is how it's gonna be.”
Tom: He did do that.
Eric: Man. Yeah, if the lie you're telling is, “there's not going to be sexual assault as a plot point in our game,” and then that's what your lie is, then you're a bad person. But, again, but nothing. I can't think of anything that you would be lying about explicitly. And also if you're a good liar, congratulations. You're, you're a good DM. Good job.
Tom: Yeah, I mean, the lying is a show, as we sort of alluded to, lying is carny shit. It's like carny games. And like, that takes skill to do. And also, people like the carnival.
Eric: [Laughs] If there’s one thing to take away, people like the carnival.
Joe: The carnival is a winning brand. It's a great place to get a goldfish that dies, or to meet a clown.
Tom: The carnival has been around for over 15 years. It's clearly a keeper.
Eric: “The tilt-a-whirl definitely works and won't hurt anyone.” That's a bad lie. I don't think that's a lie you're telling.
Tom: But like, come, come see, like an amazing freak animal, magical beast, and it's just like a rat with some stuff taped to it. It's like - it's a lie.
Joe: Still pretty cool.
Tom: Taped some stuff to rat. That's kind of fun. [Joe laughs]
Eric: I like the razzle dazzle you did to this rat. Like I didn't, I didn't think it was a jackalope, but I still applaud what you're doing. It's pretty, I don't even know where you got that grease paint, like congratulations. That's awesome. Well, thank you so much guys. I really appreciate you helping everyone out. I think that we have a lot of new samurai who are going to sit underneath a waterfall and please Slay the Spire and we're going to help out a lot of these people. Where can people find you on the internet and listen to your wonderful show Anime Sickos?
Tom: You can listen to it on the fucking - so this is a conundrum that I've run into is where can you find the show? It's like well, if you're hearing this you know about podcasts. So here! Like wherever here is, we're also there.
Joe: The cool thing to say now is “wherever podcasts are heard,” right? And I think that's like the catch-all casual term. We've moved past the thing where you say like “Stitcher, iHeart Radio,” and like eight other things.
Eric: Can we all go around and say one podcast app that definitely exists that people definitely listen to?
Tom: No.
Eric: I'm gonna - [Tom and Joe laugh] I'm gonna say Weezer, is that one?
Tom: I don't know.
Eric: That might be one.
Joe: Uh, Groovler?
Eric: That's a good one. And that one definitely exists, Joe, you nailed it.
Joe: Yeah.
Tom: Uuh, Earlit.
Eric: Ooh, I like Earlit because it remembers where I leave my, when I stop, it always remembers where my podcast ends.
Tom: Yeah yeah yeah. No, we can find us anywhere. If you look at Anime Sickos online if you look us up, we're the top one. There's no other Anime Sickos. AnimeSickos.com also. Also we're Anime Sickos on Twitter.
Joe: I am ShariaUncle on Twitter. Basically, I've just been posting lately about 20 Minutes Till Dawn.
Eric: Hell yeah.
Joe: Which is a nice top down shooter where you pick your goth and then you pick a gun. Yeah. And then my cat sometimes.
Tom: Yeah. I'm TomHarrison19. So named because when I started my account, there were 18 other TomHarrison's that were on the site. The first thing I ever did when I was on Twitter, these posts are so far buried. No one saw them was I went to Tom Harrison's null through 18 and reported back what they did on Twitter. Most dead accounts, some soccer fandom only, others porn accounts. Not that they're posting porn, but it's the account they use to follow and like porn.
Eric: Got it.
Tom: And then the Tom Harrison straight up like the guy who got it originally with no numbers at the end. He seems like a nice guy. He's just like, “I like to code.” Like that guy's cool.
Eric: Are you worried that TomHarrison14 Is Tom Harrison prime's porn Twitter account?
Tom: That's not my place to… [Eric laughs] I’m nnot gonna pry.
Eric: No, that's fair.
Tom: But yeah, that's my, that's my personal account. I'm mostly reply to infuriating news with like, “fuck youuuuuuuuuuu.”
Joe: Yeah, real constructive stuff. [Eric and Tom laugh] Maybe “eat shit” to a news story. And that's always good.
Tom: I've stopped saying that because there's a account called “the Eat shit bot” that retweets eat shit’s that I always get a notification. I'm like, I wonder what that is. And then I’m like, Oh it’s the eat shit bot.
Eric: Tom only tweets that the carnival’s in town and it's a good place to be.
Tom: Yeah, they'll juggle. A lot of things, wow!
Eric: “They're lying but I love it. It's for my benefit and I really appreciate that.” Well, you can also follow me at el_silvero, e l underscore S I L V E R O, my name if I was a lucha libre wrestler, and you can follow the show at Games N Feelings, it's an N like Linens N Things. TThe best place to submit questions is to go to our website gamesandfeelings.com/questions and you can always support the show at patreon.com/gamesandfeelings were Amanda my partner and I answer all the games questions that has come up on like different advice columns over the years. So like Dear Abby is like “my, my boyfriend showed me his Xbox over me should I break up with them?” And, and Dear Abby is like “I don't know what that is!” And we're enjoying that doing that quite a lot. That's the DLC you got to sign up for Patreon for that.
Tom: We really need to talk about advice cons that I didn't know they were all prospector affairs.
Eric: The oldest, the oldest ones are but now the new ones are some real Neolib shit, you guys are really gonna love that. And you can find the links for everything in the episode description. Thank you, once again to our advice givers Tom and Joe the Anime Sickos. Also you could listen to some episodes of their shows that event guests from Games and Feelings on there. Casey Tony's been on there. Taylor Moore has been on there. Marquez has been on there, incred - just the synergy. It's perfect.
Tom: Wonderful people, all. Those episodes are killers. There's no, there's no duds in the bunch. Well, there's, there's no duds in the entire show. But those three guests. Guest shows are especially not duds. They're very funny.
Eric: “Notably not Duds,” says local podcaster. We’re just here talking man? And remember the instruction manual doesn't have anything to say about feelings.
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