For Once and For All, How Do I Get Into Video Games? with Mischa Stanton and Jasper Cartwright
Our editor Mischa found a Podcaster Stone, so they’re evolving into a guest this episode! They’re joining Eric & Jasper as they advise all the n00bs (appreciative) out there how to get into games, break down the Open Gaming License drama, and rename the Magic cards that should sound cooler.
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Credits
- Host, Producer, & Question Keeper: Eric Silver
- Permanent Guest: Jasper Cartwright
- Editor & Mixer: Mischa Stanton
- Music by: Jeff Brice
- Art by: Jessica Boyd
- Multitude: multitude.productions
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
MISCHA: Michigan keep this as a cold open, but Jasper's wearing the fucking most comfortable ass-looking sweater.
JASPER: Dude, I'm so comfy.
MISCHA: You literally look like Chris Evans from Knives Out.
ERIC: True.
JASPER: Yooo! Mischa, coming in with those compliments that make me feel good on the inside!
MISCHA: Yeah.
JASPER: That was nice. Calling me Chris Evans, any version, but especially cozy Knives Out Chris Evans. Yo, thank you, Mischa, appreciate that.
ERIC: Now, have you considered Ransom Cartwright as your—as your nom de plume?
JASPER: Maybe? As my nom de plume is pretty good.
MISCHA: Jasper Cartwright is doing pretty well in the D&D space. But Ransom Cartwright is writing like philosophical treatises to get published for the next hundred years.
JASPER: Yeah, they're gonna make, they're gonna make a musical about me, written by Lin Manuel's, like third grandchild or something, you know what I mean?
ERIC: Yeah, yeah.
JASPER: It's gonna be awesome.
MISCHA: I take it back. Ransom Cartwright sounds like the whitest guy in the Lin Manuel Miranda musical.
ERIC: He's played by Jonathan Groff. It's really confusing.
JASPER: I would love that so much. I don't know how Jonathan Groff is still around that doing it in over a hundred year’s time, but fair play, fair play. The guy’s timeless.
ERIC: Ransom Cartwright, she has like real Jeremy Strong vibes. Like or Daniel Day-Lewis vibes, like Ransom Cartwright was—was in character for five months.
MISCHA: Yes, yes, a hundred percent.
ERIC: He got an Elvis accent and then he lost it because he didn't like it. Just incredible. Oh, God. Austin Butler who Ransom Cartwright is the new really annoying man. He's the new really annoying man on set. Alright, here we go.
[theme]
ERIC: Hello, gamers, welcome to Games and Feelings, an advice show about playing games, being human, and dealing with the fact that those games will involve other humans. I'm your host and question-keeper, Eric Silver. And the game within a game that I enjoy the most is when I make my players actually do mazes when I'm running a tabletop RPG campaign. Instead of like figuring out a labyrinth, they roll for like survival and then I give them easy to harder mazes, like maze for child in the shape of a bug, to like something that's in the back of a sudoku book. It's very fun. Hey, professional guests, Jasper Cartwright, what's your favorite game within a game?
JASPER: My favorite game within a game, I was literally thinking a very similar thing where I get my party in whenever I play D&D to like play like actual drama games, like at university. And that's quite fun, like getting them to count but they can't overlap. And doing like little improvisational games to figure out puzzles is quite a fun little halfway house between getting them to do actual riddles, because if I get them to do actual riddles, all I get is blank hollow stares back at me, just like we have the clever ones. That's why we're all actors. So can you make this more attainable for us? And I go, “Yes, of course. I apologize.”
ERIC: I roll the 22, so tell me the answer, please.
JASPER: Exactly, that is exactly the vibe. And also I'm like, yeah, I don't want to be here for five hours doing the same riddle. So I'll—we'll do acting games instead.
ERIC: That's fair. Editor and sound designer extraordinaire, especially for Games and Feelings. Mischa Stanton.
MISCHA: Hello.
ERIC: Mischa, what's your favorite game within a game?
MISCHA: My favorite game within a game might be the mini-game from the beginning of Kingdom Hearts two, where you have to do all the jobs to get enough money—
ERIC: [Laughing] You like that part?
MISCHA: When you—when you spend—when you do, like all of the skill upgrades later in the game, and you can just hit that ball a hundred times in a row, a million times in a row, and a crowd gathers around you and cheers you on in Twilight Town. It's the only time in any part of Kingdom Hearts where anybody acknowledges how cool you are.
ERIC: That's fair. No, that's fair.
MISCHA: It's really nice to just be like acknowledged for my talents one time.
JASPER: I’d like to acknowledge your talents right here, right now, Mischa.
ERIC: Yo, check that shit out, this kid's name is Roxas, that's shit wild.
JASPER: It actually reminds me of how much of a stand I am for blitz ball in Final Fantasy X, like—
MISCHA: Oh, can I change my answer? That is actually the right answer.
JASPER: Like I genuinely—like the amount of people that are like do you remember Blitzball, I'm like yeah, I do. It was the best, and everyone looks to me like, I hate you. You— everything that's wrong with Final Fantasy and I'm like, that's fine. But I was incredible at blitz ball, World Champion baby. Let's go.
[Laughter]
JASPER: I'll come with that energy. Let's go, I'm fine with it.
ERIC: That's incredible. Jasper, you're everything that's wrong with this. You like sports and Final Fantasy?
JASPER: Yeah, exactly that like they appeal to an audience of one putting blitz ball in that game and I'm fine with it.
ERIC: Special shout out to Gwent, which I don't know how to play it. But sure does sound funny. Good, man. Good, man.
JASPER: Gwent is good actually. Gwent is— I actually play the Gwent game on my phone.
ERIC: Oh, wow. Yeah, they— I heard they spun it off. But—
JASPER: Yeah.
ERIC: I—as again never played it, I just thought it was neat.
JASPER: It's pretty rad. It's pretty rad. It's fun game.
ERIC: Yeah. I like Gwent, but it's called Marvel Snaps.
MISCHA: Okay, is Gwent just Marvel Snap?
JASPER: I actually have no idea. I've seen pictures of Marvel snaps, it looks—it's insane.
MISCHA: Well, I only play Marvel Snap, because Eric got me into it.
ERIC: It’s really good!
MISCHA: I kept seeing ads, you know, on every single mobile app I could possibly have on my phone. It was like, hey, Marvel Snap. It's here. It's new. Have the whole Multiverse on your phone. Even this big-headed Chevy Galactus guy. And then Eric was like, yo, the meta. And I was like, damn, there's meta. I gotta get in there.
ERIC: That's right, I’d send you articles about the meta. That one's on me. I'll take the L on that.
JASPER: Yeah, that's on you. I think Marvel Snap really quickly moved from—moved into that thing of too many adverts for me. Like where like I was 100% down to play it. And then like I crossed within like two days, there already been too many advert for it. And I was like, Nah, I hate this now. I'm—I'm bored of this already. Because I ju—I feel like it's just in my psyche, and I don't appreciate how strongly this is being advertised to me. Like I downloaded it and then actively refused to click on it.
ERIC: This is what they're spending money on. They're spending money that the big mouse, Disney is shoving Marvel Snap ads into your face, instead of giving more episodes to the final season of the Owl House. That's what it is.
JASPER: Yup.
MISCHA: Listen, they're certainly not paying me to make any more of that Galactus podcast, so they gotta use the money for something.
ERIC: I’ll tell you that much. For sure. I am so happy to have you. This is our first three person episode of the Jasper Cartwright era!
JASPER: Yup, that's right.
ERIC: When the meta changed, Jasper Cartwright got added.
JASPER: Get used to my voice everyone.
ERIC: Jasper, I love you and so does everyone else. I don't know why, just take that. We have three episodes in a row.
MISCHA: Jasper keeps trying to situate himself as the heel of the pod. Meanwhile, everyone just sees him as the face. That's actually a good—that's a good wrestling personas if you think you're the heel, but if you're really a face. Like your persona is like I think I'm a heel and I'm gonna try it, but then you're just like too nice, that's a good wrestling persona.
JASPER: I feel like it's like a— it's like a baby T Rex, you know what I mean? It's just like, you're kind of cute though.
MISCHA: Exactly. Exactly. Everyone would watch that on SmackDown.
ERIC: I would, I would certainly watch that.
JASPER: Hell yeah, baby T Rex on SmackDown, let's go!
ERIC: There is a wrestler on AEW, who I think is a Tyrannosaurus. I do need to talk to Julia. It might just be a portmanteau of like -asaurus and wrestling. I think it might be Wrestleasaurus. I'm gonna have to ask, but I think that exists guys. We are not coming up with it.
MISCHA: It definitely isn't this, It definitely isn't this. Disclaimer, but the only thing I can picture is Barney coming up behind some dude and flying elbow.
JASPER: Coming out of nowhere. Yeah, I can imagine Barney doing that.
ERIC: Mischa, again, I do not want to say that you're wrong on a podcast you edit, but that was the first commercial for Super Smash Bros. You know the one where the floor—where the big Donkey Kong, Yoshi and Mario, and I think it was Pikachu all fought each other in a field. That did happen, I'm sorry.
MISCHA: That did happen.
ERIC: You dreamed it into existence. It was the hit commercial that everyone remembers about the first Super Smash Brothers. Alright, well, we got it enough bants out—yes, Jasper, I say “bants” now that you're on the pod.
JASPER: Oh, thank you. Makes me feel like I'm at home. I mean I'm at home, but like, you know what I mean?
ERIC: Alright, we're gonna go into games that are giving us feelings. Ordinarily, we were talking about games that are—that we have played recently, that's giving us some sort of feeling. But this is an opportunity for us to talk about something that is relatively in the news. If only because it kind of intersects with something that we recorded a few months ago, our Games and Feelings and Workers’ Rights, as we talked about what is going on with Dungeons & Dragons, and how Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast is dealing with it.
JASPER: Oof.
ERIC: So at that time, it was very funny. We set the table for all of this, which was in December, Hasbro, the parent company of Wizards of the Coast, the company that owns the game Dungeons & Dragons. We're really looking to monetize D&D. That is what the president of Dungeons & Dragons said in a talk to investors, so you know that shit’s real, you know that shit’s fire, and then immediately it started happening in January, as they tried to revoke and change the OGL, which is called the Open Gaming License. We are not lawyers, and neither are many of the people on the internet. So I'm gonna give you a very, very quick summary of this. And I hope that we get to, because you might have seen this all over the internet. And since this is out on February 3, we're kind of in like a stopping period at the moment. So I'm gonna summarize everything really quickly. If you are not aware, the OGL stands for the Open Gaming License, the Open Gaming License was established in 2000, to allow people to make and sell content about Dungeons & Dragons, that the company Wizard of the Coast was in making. For example, new classes, new species, new adventures, new settings, etc. And you could sell it and it was kind of okay and fine.
MISCHA: Well, just very recently, because I listened to every single podcast you make Eric and I don't know if if you've mentioned this anywhere. The release of the OGL one was concurrent with Dungeons & Dragons third edition like it was—it was also bundled into the release of a new edition, which is exactly what's happening here, anyway.
ERIC: Right. This is—it is important because fifth edition is kinda like, has been going for a few years now. It's been out since like 2018, which is truly wild that it's been out for over five years. And this is corresponding with I don't even know the name of it, because I care about it. So little one D&D, which is kind of like the Battle Pass, the freemium game of D&D, they're trying to change it into like a something you pay on a monthly basis that it's constantly changing them, that they will no—not be additions anymore. And also like that the purchase of D&D beyond, which was a separate company for a hive, I remember $150 million.
[Everyone sighs]
ERIC: They're really—Wizards of the Coast is really trying to make this worthwhile, and they're moving a lot of that stuff online. And a lot of this stuff is gonna be based on D&D Beyond, which is weird because I don't play Dungeons & Dragons online. I know a lot of people don't. Yeah, a lot of people do, buddy, so it's kind of wild as a business opportunity. The point is, they're really trying to get the money for this by optimizing D&D Beyond. And by changing the Open Gaming License to really restrict and make the content creators who love the game make their life a living hell.
JASPER: Oof.
ERIC: They release it, had some terrible terms. The community fought back, started unsubscribing, from D&D Beyond.
JASPER: Yup.
ERIC: The Wizard of the Coast started making—started making some caveats. They made a really shitty apology, and then they made a better apology and put a different guy as the face. And right now there is kind of like a commenting period as if this was a unearthed Arcana set.
JASPER: Yup, yup.
ERIC: I know, Mischa is making quotes, and I feel the same way.
[MISCHA laughs]
ERIC: You think on commenting period, it's just ending of two weeks where people can comment on literal legal documents like it is a game system, which again, is wild. And we'll see what is going to be taken into account. This has been really wild and destabilizing for the last few weeks. And I've heard a lot about this stuff from third-party people who got notice of it before the beginning of the year.
MISCHA: Yes. So it's all been I've been thinking about for the last few weeks. And I'm sure that the two of you have as well. I think I think since we're kind of at the tail end here, I think the feeling that I have is a little bit of dread that like the things I love, even the most basic thing, a game of pretend I get to do, is owned by a corporation, and that makes me sad. And, and although I'm a little hopeful, which is another adjective I'll add, that like a community of people can band together until a corporation to fuck off. It still reminds me that like the things I love are owned by corporations, including games.
JASPER: Yes.
MISCHA: Yes. I—I think it's kind of giving me like the reverse feeling that you're having Eric, where, because I've been a longtime Magic the Gathering fan. I don't know if I've mentioned it on this podcast. But I'm a longtime Magic the Gathering fan, I've been playing also since about 2000. Like since the reveal of the first Open Gaming License, which has nothing to do with Magic the Gathering, except that they're both made by Wizards of the Coast. And Wizards of the Coast is a company that was made on the back of Magic The Gathering. So like everything they've been doing to Dungeon Dragons now, is only because they've been doing it to magic for years and years. And they looked over and realized, Oh, we can do this stuff with all of our properties. So I originally was like, not surprised. I was like disappointed but not surprised. And then the community which is not like the Magic the Gathering community at all.
JASPER: Mmhm.
MISCHA: The Magic the Gathering community is much more tied to the corporation that makes their game, like the game and the company are much more intrinsically tied together than they are with Dungeons & Dragons.
JASPER: The monetization side of it is a lot more like accepted, right, within Magic, like in the instance you have to buy the cards and, d’you know what I mean?
MISCHA: The mone—the monetization of it, like wizards also ran the pro circuit for a while, which was the only kind way to become famous and make money doing Magic the Gathering, they stopped doing that a few years ago as part of this overall corporate synergy strategy to get more money out of casual players. They just like straight up and did competitive play entirely across the world, and across the country, it was wild. So like, I have known that like Wizards is not like a great company and doesn't necessarily value their, you know, invested player base. But in Magic, all you can kind of do is go, “Well, I guess rich people are going to beat me in tournaments, I guess I'll just play with my friends at home and not buy cards anymore,” or get into what Wizards is doing.
ERIC and JASPER: Booo!
MISCHA: Because that's the future of the game. In Dungeons & Dragons, most of the game exists in people's imaginations. So people have more ownership, there's a much easier way to play without being, you know, beholden to Wizards of the Coast, the company. And so to see the people rise up and say, no, we don't want this try again, is like uplifting to me to be like, oh, you can fight back against this, you can take ownership of your game.
JASPER: Yeah, I think I'd jump off the back of that and say that, I think the thing for me that really jumped out was like, you know, a lot of this stuff is about messaging. It's about like the way that you go about, you know, it's all about narrative. It's all about if you're going to make a change to something that people enjoy. It's all about how you put that forward, and the reasons why you put that forward. Now, I think, honestly, if Wizards of the Coast had come out and said, “Hey, look, we're worried about being in a situation where, you know, Amazon Prime, and Netflix and stuff like this is gonna go around just making D&D content all the time and making all this money, that’s not going to cycle back into the community and whatever,” I think there might have been a forgiving argument for making changes to the Open Gaming License. I think the community might have said, like, I can kind of get on board with that, like that part of it. And I think that that's something that I've done since heard as a sort of half apologetic, like, “Oh, this is the real reason, is because we want to go for those bigwigs—” Exactly. And you're both shaking your head because I completely it's like that, that's become like the fallback almost the like, oh, guys, you weren't really coming after you kind of thing.
ERIC: Right.
JASPER: And—
ERIC: Just like in the shitty apology, they were like, “No, this was about NFTs guys.”
JASPER: Exactly, “This is about NFTs, get a grip!”
ERIC: Wha—even worse, even worse than that is they didn't just say that they said it was— it's— it's only about NFTs and getting harmful content out of the game. So it's like trying to say if you don't like this OGL you might as well be a racist. No, we just don't like what you're doing to people!
JASPER: That was wild.
MISCHA: We just don't like what you're doing to people.
JASPER: That was absolutely wild. Like, I mean, just go after TSR if that's what you're worried about, d’you know what I mean? There's—there's ways to do this without going after the Open Gaming License. But anyway, and I think the point that—that I—I'm going to make is that I think that they are—and I think I tweeted something like this, like similar out at the time, but like they're biting the hand that feeds and I think that Hasbro they don't realize it, like they just don't realize it. They don't understand that like, without the content creators, like sure, Stranger Things did bits for Dungeons & Dragons. But let me tell you, no one would still be playing Dungeon and Dragons if it wasn't for Dimension 20. Critical Role, Join the Party, Three Black Halflings, all these many, many, many, many content creators which make the game, which are the lifeblood of this game. And I—that's I think the fundamental dissonance that they have messed up with if—if I if I was in their position, you should be approaching all of these content creators being like, how can I support you? If we give you support, is there a way then that we can tap into this thing that you've made? Because if they— if they were to come to Three Black Halflings and say, will uplift you, we'll give you money for this, or that or whatever. Can we run ads? Or can we be a part of your community? Of course, that would have been a conversation. Now, pfft, they'd have to make me an unbelievable offer for me to say yes, do you know what I mean?
ERIC: Yeah.
JASPER: It's like they're burning those bridges with those big content creators. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a lot of them now just switch over to different systems. I know that we're thinking about it over in Three Black Halflings. And it's just like, I just think that they've fundamentally misunderstood their audience. And I think that for me is like, the almost like the unforgivable sin, d’you know what I mean? It's like you—before you do anything, you have to understand your audience, and you've made a lot of decisions. And what's even more hurtful, I think, is I know, there are incredible people at Wizard the Coast who would have been saying this, like in every single meeting would have been repeating these same points, all three of us have just made in this room, that there would have been people at Wizards who were like, “Guys, you can't do this for x, y, and z reasons.” And clearly, they've just been completely ignored in the hopefully them trying to make some more money.
MISCHA: Well, that's Wizards’ MO is like… I believe the same person who leaked an earlier copy of the OGL also got like some anonymous comments that was like, the employees have been railing against this, that like the executive team came and told us this with 30 minutes worth of like, you know, preamble that like, they were going to release this like, in within the hour they told us about it, and because they knew what we would say, and like they didn't want to listen.
JASPER: Yeah.
ERIC: Yeah. This—this is revealing a ton of stuff that it's all complicated, like the workers who work at a games company just don't have any sort of power to change anything, which is something we've talked about in video games. And I mean, board games have kind of their own thing going on. But tabletop RPGs for sure. I mean, this is not new, right? Wizards of the Coast being not a good company, in terms of their social problems.
JASPER: Yuuuup.
ERIC: I mean, listen, the whole reason, the reason why I ended up finding Three Black Halflings. And I'm like, Is anyone else talking about how ridiculous this shit is. And that's why I found three black halflings, then were talking about it. So it's like, remember all the way back when they were patting themselves on the back for not using the slur for Romani people anymore in Curse of Strahd? That was like five years ago, and they've been doing shit like this going forward, continuing selling Oriental Adventures, just doing a find and replace for the word ‘race’ and ‘species’ and not really changing any of that stuff. I think it all just comes down to money. And especially because the D&D movie is coming out very soon as we're recording this, the trailer came out confirming the enemy, I didn't watch it, and I'm not gonna go see the movie because I don't want to put money in their pocket.
JASPER: I—I would actually just re—I would love to offer real quick counterpoint, I actually genuinely don't think it's just money. I think it's control. I think the thing that Hasbro really hates above all else, is that they just have no idea who is making what and how much money they are getting. Like they don't like—
ERIC: That is true.
JASPER: —the fact that they don't have the control over the content. They don't like the fact that there are people running around, making content doing well, and that they have no kind of influence or say, or, you know, any of this kind of stuff. And, and to that point, you know, there could be people making harmful content and all that kind of stuff. They just have no kind of a grip on it. And I think that that was—and we clearly saw a big corporation, completely wetting the bed and being like panicking, like, “I don't know how to handle this. Let's just shut it all down.” Instead of really doing the work and figuring out what's the best. Because I—because I think that some of those things are problems. I think that you can't be a company like Hasbro and have such little control over a lot of the stuff that you're doing, completely fair. But there's a whole lot of process and action that needed to be taken before you took this step.
MISCHA: Well, and I actually think that this is, like, endemic to how Wizards of the Coast thinks that they want to talk to their audience. Now for years and years, before, before D&D really blew up. Like for years, there has been one Magic the Gathering sort of figurehead spokesperson, and that is Mark Rosewater, the head designer of Magic, like the guy in charge of initially starting the mechanical functions of every new Magic the Gathering set was also the primary spokesperson for the company. And mainly through his Tumblr blog. I'm not joking.
JASPER: Wild.
MISCHA: Yeah, this is—this is how Wizards of the Coast PR was done for many years. And I was an avid follower for a long time. And one thing I would notice is, every time some, like legitimate criticism of how the game was being made, would come up, that Mark Rosewater's response was always like, listen, you guys don't have access to our market research, you don't have access to the numbers that we have. Trust us, the game-changing in this direction is better for you. Be—and then they give like, a token example of like, you know, say, for example, this kind of person wants to buy this kind of card, and now we're making it for them. Isn't that great or something, you know what I mean? But it smacks very much of like, if we don't lock this down, the racists are gonna get in and make bad content. And everyone else who wasn't planning on making racist content, or like harmful content, is saying like, yeah, but the way you've worded it also hurts legitimate people. Can you fix that part of it? And D&D is kind of going like, “But if we don't fix it now, the horrible ghouls are going to get in, and we can't have that.”
JASPER: The horrible ghouls are already here! They're already here!
ERIC: I think that explains— that explains like the real middling social, a social change that happens in the game officially.
MISCHA: Yes.
ERIC: Cause as I said, Republicans buy D&D books too, you know what I mean? And they need the money.
MISCHA: So Wizard is like, this is how they think they can talk to their audience. They think that they can do what they're going to do anyway, point out how it happens to align with what they think their players' value base is, in like a particular way and then move forward saying like, “Okay, so you're good if we do what we're doing, right?” and then they just do it.
ERIC: Right. I unders— I also agree with Mischa on this, and Jasper I ag—on some level, power and money are intertwined.
JASPER: Yeah. I totally agree with that.
ERIC: And I also think that it's out of ignorance, though, like Amanda was looking into some of this stuff, and like the first time that they did us, a customer survey of Dungeons & Dragons was three years ago in the year of our Lord 2020.
MISCHA: I—I will never be— I don't think that's true. I don't— I don't think that's true, because I know that Magic the Gathering has been doing, like constant surveying for the entire time. What I think is that like, the new regime hadn't put out a new survey. And that's the new survey they did.
ERIC: I assume—I think it's the D&D team for fifth edition in this— in this—
MISCHA: Yeah, I have to imagine that like, somebody changed over and then they said, like, “Those numbers, the way we were looking at numbers were bad. Let's get new numbers.” And that's the numbers they're talking about, like, not—not to defend the higher-ups at Wizards of the Coast. They don't need that from me.
[Laughter]
MISCHA: But like, they've been running that game for what, it's almost like 50 years at this point, it would be mind-numbingly stupid to never survey anyone in that entire time.
ERIC: I assume it's an updated survey for the people who have joined because of fifth edition, which is a much different group of people than before fifth edition started. Or even at the beginning of fifth edition, when the only— before the Actual Play boom is what we're—is what we're getting at.
MISCHA: Okay.
ERIC: I think the other thing that we—that we figured out is that they—it is though about money, I think ultimately. Like with the—with the purchase of D&D beyond, with in October, they said, Hasbro said that their quarter three numbers were super down, and everyone were mad about it. The whole thing that happened with the monetizing of D&D conversation that happened to chill people out, when Bank of America said, don't buy the Hasbro stock because they keep printing too many cards, which is something that we talked about in that—in that episode.
MISCHA: Oh, I'm gonna have to like, just, uh, you don't even need to be there. I just need to like sit in front of a microphone and rant for an hour about everything they've been doing to Magic the Gathering in the past 10 years, truly, since 2015. It's been a spiral.
ERIC: Right. So like, if they're trying to make money back on this—on this property, which they're saying that they want to turn it into a four quadrant IP, like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, is, I agree, they just don't understand what they have on their hands.
JASPER: No.
ERIC: You can't—there's no story here. And when I said that, I'm like, I don't know what they're turning this movie into when Dungeons & Dragons inherently is just kind of like a fantasy pastiche. And people were like, “Oh, no, it's gonna be about the Forgotten Realms, or it's gonna be about Everon.” I'm like, that's not a story, that's a place!
MISCHA: Yeah, actually. And that's what gets me as Magic Correspondent is—so they've been trying to do the same thing with Magic the Gathering for many years. I want to say, like, yeah, 2018, 2019 right around the time of Avengers Infinity War, they started pulling together like a main cast and sort of standardizing the plot and getting rid of plot elements, and like, paving the way to four-quadrant the story of Magic The Gathering. And to be quite honest, that probably we're gonna work better because Magic the Gathering at least has had a linear story and consistent characters the whole time, as opposed to Dungeons & Dragons, a game system, which has no story to it. But like, and they like attached the Russo brothers to produce a, like a series for Netflix, and it never went anywhere. And like they had been do—Wizards has been doing this constantly. And you mentioned this Eric in like a previous episode that like they even had a previous D&D movie, that was bad.
ERIC: Yeah, the one in the early 2000s.
MISCHA: Yeah, the four quadrant thing is like not a new phenomenon, but they for some reason, like tripled down on it now.
JASPER: Ugh.
ERIC: Yup. I think the thing that I want to get at ultimately is the thing that confuses me. Well, there are two things that I really want to touch on. There's one that there still isn't like a journalism or like critic class or group of people around this whole situation. This has been very nicely reported by Linda Codega over at Gizmodo.
MISCHA: Shout out to Linda.
ERIC: Shout out to Linda, who with their they/them pronouns is always saying, “No, that's me, they're talking about me in this— in these PR releases,” which is very funny to me. But like, you know, the people who've just been kind of saying things about the leaks, and then are making it harder for Wizards of the Coast employees to like, live their life. You know, like, that's not journalism, like saying that you hear—you publishing, you heard one thing, that's not journalism, and it's dangerous, and it only cheapens the cause of the people who are pushing to make sure that this company is held accountable. That's one thing that worries me and scares me.
MISCHA: Yes.
ERIC: And the other thing is, like, I still don't know how this is gonna shake out.
JASPER: No.
ERIC: Like, Listen, I don't— I don't care about what Wizards of the Coast does. I don't remember the last time that I spend money on a D&D product. Like because like, the game is the game, and the game is mine. And a company doesn't get to tell me what I do or what I don't do. And when I do at my table is the thing that I want to see in the world, and like, I'm not going to give them their money, which—which is what ultimately, a corporation needs to thrive. I'm not going to put blood into the machine, but at the same time, is that at any point they can up end people's lives and make this thing bad, make it not fun to do. And I think that's wild that the thing that like in the pit in my stomach and as much as we're fighting, and I am so happy for the signatures that came in from the open letter at, at #OpenDND that I helped organize and I help, right. It was wonderful. And Mike, Mike Holik over at Mage Hand Press is awesome. It's still just like, it's sad remembering, in so many things in the 21st century that like, things that I enjoy are still owned by people who can try to just like fuck with it, which is how I similarly feel about Twitter. Like, I know, it's terrible, but like, this thing I liked is now bad and on its last legs and weird. So it's just like, he was kind of shaking me to my core a little bit, reminding me of how fleeting some of these things that I like are.
MISCHA: Well, I hear that, and I agree, but also like, this solution that the community has come up with is the exact same solution that like political activists are coming up with for a solution to like our nation, which is to like build dual power where you are, like, if you—you want a world where a corporation can't dictate to you the fun you can have with a game. Got to make your own system with your friends at home, you got it, you gotta like get together with your community.
ERIC: I know. It's just the phrase, the fracturing, it's a fracturing of all that stuff. And now, now, it's like Star Wars where I gotta convince Saul Guerrero, who would do what I want. But he hasn't gotten to my head. I'm like, I just want to play a game, Saul. Can we just do it with Forest Whitaker? Is that okay?
JASPER: No, I agree. Because I also do think that there is something dangerous about the loss of community. I think that you know, we—we got asked, I remember so many times because we complain about what's the coast center block conference all the time. And everyone, all our community was like, why did you plan on the system? Why you took one of the system? And I'm like, because you wouldn't be here if we didn't— if we didn't talk about another system.
MISCHA: Yeah.
JASPER: Because, you know, like, and I do worry that if everyone leaves wizards, there won't be a uniform kind of, alright, we're all going over here. So you know, as a content creator, it's hard to find, then that audience or as a person looking for a community, it might be hard to find the community that you want. I think that's what has made D&D so unique, is the fact that it has been such a great catch-all, you know, for so like many different kinds of people, it's so easy for you to find your community, your people.
MISCHA: You know what—you know, what occurs to me only now listening to you talk Jasper, is that this moment is exactly like the Tower of Babel, is everyone was talking to each other, and building great monuments on their own. And God got mad and said, now you have to all talk different languages to each other.
ERIC: Yeah, I mean, that's how I feel. I'm like, I don't want to play Matt Kobold's new game he's making up. I know that's gonna be like a D&D like, that has five abilities that he renamed and one of them is a combination of charisma and intelligence. Like, I don't want to play that.
MISCHA: Charismatelligence.
ERIC: D&d is also a specific game. I think that there's a tweet going around right now that's like, finally, we can all play fish blade, which is…
JASPER: Oh so funny.
ERIC: Where a table controls a fish with a blade, and I'm like, yeah, you're— I want to play the game that lets me throw bombs at people and explode. Like I—there are times and places for all different types of games. And there's also a time and place for Dungeons & Dragons. And I think that it's allowing a lot of the destabilization is like, I don't want to have to learn Greek. That fucking sucks.
JASPER: Yeah. Yeah. I think the—the plus side though, I think is, as Mischa said very eloquently earlier, which is just like, you know, the reaction of the community has just been incredible. And I don't think that we can understate that, like, you know, as a content creator, I felt so incredibly supported in this last couple of weeks, where it would have been super easy to just feel like the world was imploding around this thing that I love so much, you know what I mean? And I do think that like, look, we do have power in this situation. Like, if it's something that it does, if it does piss you off, then like, there is things that you can do. There are so many people that are kind of offering up their time to make sure we kind of further this in a way that benefits all of us, rather than just like a couple of people. And honestly, I think that Hasbro are hedging their bets on this D&D movie thinking that it's going to bring in a whole new group of people, who won't care about the Open Gaming License, and all they're going to find out is that those people will play Dungeons Dragons for about 10 minutes, and then all leave because critical role is now playing Pathfinder. So—like—like it's like that's, that's what's gonna happen.
ERIC: Oh man.
MISCHA: And maybe this is very elitist of me. So like, come at me in the comments. But people who love tentpole blockbusters, I feel like personally in my daily life, don't like math enough to play Dungeons & Dragons.
ERIC: That's yeah, that's a good point.
JASPER: I would—I push back on this purely because I am the biggest like simp for tentpole blockbusters you'll ever find. Like, flashy-explodey, cool actors saying dope lines. I'm 100% in and I love it so much, but I also enjoy the thrill of rolling a nat 20 and doubling my damage.
MISCHA: I got nothing against the thrill of rolling a nat 20. What I have uh—never mind, I just spent like a week analyzing Gaussian distribution curves about Magic the Gathering. Maybe I'm in a little deep, maybe I need to like chill out for a second.
JASPER: How about this, how about this, when you come watch—when you can watch a Marvel movie with me, and then we'll chat all over again.
MISCHA: I think I would like that.
ERIC: There are so many heist movies I'll show to you that are made well, that have good explosions. I think it's like that. I think that that's what Mischa is getting at. Is like, the people who want a movie that is a fantasy pastiche, that has a name brand slapped onto it are not also necessarily the people that like to spend four hours in a row making pretend with their friends.
JASPER & MISCHA: Yes.
ERIC: Because I love explosions. And I love really well-made action movies.
JASPER: Yeah.
ERIC: I will watch all three John Wicks in a row with you right now. But like, it's that—it's the Marvel TV show that they're giving me, it's like the pablum, the name brand pablum. They're giving me
MISCHA: Thank you for like eloquently stating what I was flippantly trying to say with a pithy comment.
JASPER: No, no, I will actually—I will actually second this because I think that I do agree that like, I'm the kind of guy that goes to watch the Marvel movie and digs into like, the filmmaking and like, why this is actually a legitimately incredible movie. Like, yeah, fair enough. Like those people, most people who will watch those movies aren't doing that. They're just coming out being like, cool.
ERIC: No, I'm with you. I'm just like, wow, the CGI was really bad. And I think it's because they gave the effects people half as much time and resources as they deserve.
JASPER: Yeah.
ERIC: I'm with you. We're all in agreement.
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ERIC: Hello, this is Eric in the present, I did not think this would happen, or I would have such good news. But just as a cap on the Open Gaming License story, Dungeons & Dragons/Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro, totally backed off, the OGL is going to stay the way it is, and they're going to put the fifth edition rules into Creative Commons. You know, you're gonna have to look into exactly what that means. I don't know off the top of my head. And again, I'm not a lawyer. But this is a massive win for the Dungeon and Dragons, and tabletop RPG community. That Wizards totally backed off. And again, they wanted us to go see the movie. And we kept saying we didn't want to see the movie and didn't want to use their D&D beyond thing. Is a massive win, and I'm so happy in the—the collective, you know, demonstration that we're all doing. This is like what we talked about in Games and Feelings and workers' rights. This is like union organizing, it's awesome. The thing is, is like the company still bad, they're gonna continue to be bad. And I don't know what's going to happen once one D&D actually gets going, which is like, as I said, it's like Fortnite it has a Battle Pass. It's a game as a service. And it's going to totally change what we understand as Dungeons & Dragons right now. So we have to stay vigilant and continue to put pressure on Wizards of the Coast and also play other games at the same time while still treasuring what we love about D&D, and play fifth edition and not give them any money for it. So good a cap to this story. But, you know, the fight continues. And, you know, we'll keep playing games.
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ERIC: Hey, it's Eric. And I picked up some snacks for Games and Feelings, listeners. I got black and white milkshakes for everybody, with extra even on that metal thing, who wants it, to you, one for you, and one for you. I think you should be part of the Patreon at patreon.com/gamesand feelings. It's the best place to learn about advice on the internet. And we can use the $5, there's 25 of you, you're all strong, but I would love to get up to 100 so that I can go to the UK and bother Jasper at his house, and make content out of it. I also definitely just want to see Jasper in his beautiful house in the Northern United Kingdom, which would be tight as hell. And some of you are coming up on that, such as new patron Amanda Mazzeo, and shout out to our producer-level patrons. Polly Burrage, Kelsey Duffy, and Megan Moon, who sends you links to drama and your games hobby, and it makes you feel like they really understand you. That they're thinking about you throughout the day and that's nice. Once again patreon.com/gamesandfeelings. I think you should check out the other shows that are part of the Multitude collective such as Join the Party that I'm the DM for the best GM in podcasting, so you should check it out. Join the Party actual play podcasts are tangible worlds, genre-pushing storytelling, and collaborators who are making each other laugh every single week. We are currently just started our campaign three, a pirate story set in a world of plant and bug folk, It is awesome, or check out our other completed stories like the campaign, a Monster the Week game set at a weird summer camp, campaign two for a modern superhero story or campaign one for high fantasy story. I think you're really going to like it, pull up a chair and Join the Party. Search for Join the Party in your podcast player or go to jointhepartypod.com We are sponsored today by Brilliant. If you really want to own your friends, by explaining the logic of dice rolls, probability, and statistics, and be really cool and fun to be around, you gotta go to brilliant.org Brilliant is the best way to learn math, science, and computer science interactively. They have thousands of lessons with new ones added every month. Brilliant, brilliant, visual interactive approach is engaging and make stem actually stick in your brain. If I were you, you should go to the probability fundamentals, which is the first course in the stats learning path. You know how getting heads on a coin toss a bunch of times in a row, doesn't change the probability on your next coin toss? That's probability. Same thing, I can't explain why Brandon rolls so badly at dice probability baby, it's just math. To get started for free, visit brilliant.org/gamesand feelings, or click on the link in the description. The first 200 of you will get 20% off brilliants annual premium subscription. And now back to the games.
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ERIC: Alright, because this is an advice podcast, obviously, we haven't done any advice questions. I want to do one advice question, which is a little broad. And then we're gonna play a little game at the end, alright?
JASPER: Cool.
ERIC: Alright folks, we've had a lot of questions about like, how do I get into video games? And I want to use this question because I think it's very, like well put together and I think that like we can give some, like surface-level advice, you know, to that, or at least encouraging. Like, you don't have to be totally in the weeds so far to get there. This is from the newest noob, and then they included is that even how you spell noob, crying laughing face. They spell with O's instead of zeros.
MISCHA: I love it.
ERIC: I think their pronouns are she/her. Hi, I was wondering if you could give some advice on how to get into video games as an adult. If you've ever played one before. I am a fem, and I grew up with my family was very strict on video games for boys. Fucking boo. That's me. I said fucking boo.
JASPER: Big boo. Big boo.
ERIC: Big boo. Now, I'm 24. And I'm too intimidated by the world of video games to get started. They sound so fun, and I love listening to you and the other people talk about the games they enjoy. But I get overwhelmed thinking about dropping hundreds of dollars on a console. I may not like our sifting through various types of games. I cozy, first-person, world-building, were action, story-based, etc to find the style that I like. I would love any advice you could give. Thank you so much for making this wonderful podcast and the other shows you do on Multitude. And I assume that that's thinking Mischa for editing all th— all the shows.
MISCHA: Yes, yeah. What am I up to like six or seven now?
ERIC: It's a lot. Okay, so let's start. Let's do some surface-level stuff. How do you get into video games? Do you mind if I start?
JASPER: Please.
MISCHA: Please.
ERIC: If you need to get a console just buy Nintendo Switch. I would say don't—don't invest in the— in the Xbox and the PlayStation, or a—unless you already have a good Windows computer. Just buy a switch. I think that it might have the widest range of things you want. It's pretty cost-effective. You should also buy a pro controller so you don't have to deal with—with the dreaded drift.
MISCHA: But y'all heard about the new— the new updates to joy con drift drama. Have you heard about this?
ERIC: No, what's this?
MISCHA: Some third party invented a new type of joystick that plugs into the Joy-cons motherboard, that instead of using a sensor that—that is physically abrasive, which is why Joy-cons drfits have happened, is that the sensor gets worn down overuse. The new one— I think it's called the whole joystick. It uses magnets and so it never touches each other.
JASPER: Woaah.
MISCHA: And so— it is— purported to be the cure to joy con drift, and there's a new like it's just coming out to third-party controllers now. There's one that's like shaped like a GameCube controller, you split in half and put on either side. And it's the first third-party controller to use these new joysticks. And it's like, hey if you get this, we guarantee you will not experience joy con drift.
ERIC: Okay, so make sure you're gonna send me the link to that. See, this is what I was saying about getting too deep, service journalism.
MISCHA: So sorry, I got into the weeds, you're right, I got into the weeds almost immediately. I—
ERIC: Mischa, was on the baseball field, and then when look in the woods…
MISCHA: Surface level I completely understand not wanting to throw hundreds of dollars at a thing you might not enjoy. That is absolutely the biggest barrier to entry to video games. Is that like even—even the Nintendo Switch is like $300. And that's a lot of money. If you're not sure you're—you're even gonna like these things.
JASPER: Yeah.
MISCHA: I mean, my biggest piece of advice, how do you get into video games, find a friend who's really into a video game, and play couch co-op with them. Even if it's a single-player game just like play with them. Ask for a turn and see if you like it. Like for example, my wife Erin was—couldn't play video games for a long time. She's an only child and also only has use of one hand. So for a long time, she like couldn't play video games because she didn't have consoles, because she'd didn't have like brothers and sisters who had consoles, and she couldn't physically use the controller. Now there are a ton of adaptive controllers, we actually got one recently that is, like mini, it's a mini controller for a Nintendo Switch. It's like this. It's— it's not a visual medium. But like it—she—she can reach every single button that you need for a Nintendo Switch on one hand now, and she like puts it on her leg and she just uses one hand and it's great. So like there are a lot of barriers to entry to seeing if you like them. So if you have friends who like them, ask the—ask them like, hey, you know, do you have any games you might think I would like these are, you know, TV shows, books, movies that I kind of enjoy. This is the vibe I want to go with. You know, hopefully, you have a friend who can curate an experience for you such that you will like what they put in front of you. Now, I would also say caveat to that like find a friend whose recommendations you trust. Some people can recommend things because they think you will like them, and some people recommend things because they like them. And there are two different recommendations. Some— somebody being like I love this, I had a great time, is different than saying, I played this and I think you would like it because of this, this, this.
JASPER: Nice.
ERIC: Jasper, what do you think?
JASPER: Okay, so I'm going to say I completely agree with all of those things. I think if you bite the bullet and you do get yourself a console of any description, or you get some, you get Steam and you download a couple of cheap games, they always have like a bajillion sales on, and stuff like that so you can pick up like some very, very cheap games that probably aren't too taxing on a PC either. You've probably played them on like a half-decent laptop as well.
ERIC: Ooh good point, good point.
MISCHA: I think most PCs, Macs, and anything can play Portal now.
JASPER: Yeah, exactly. There you go. Like you can get—there's a good—there's a good handful of games I think that you can get. The biggest things I would say for me narrative, get yourself like narrative games, like they've all escaped my mind. Of course, they have Telltale Games stuff like that, which are just like super kind of narrative heavy, you know, not kind of huge on controls. It's effectively just like playing like your favorite like TV show, or film or something. That's a great kind of like entryway, I think what you'd have to get too bogged down on like, oh, looking down, looking up, looking down, looking up. And then the other—the other biggest thing that I would say, is easy mode. Just—just be friendly with easy mode.
ERIC: Yeah dude.
JASPER: Don't feel this weird pressure to like jump in and be good at video games, because you're like, oh, I'm an adult, and I've seen like my four-year-old cousin play this game on like Impossible Mega Hard. You know what I mean? Like you can go in and have a great time. I play most of my games on like a normal or easy, you know what I mean? Because I don't really care much for dying a lot in games. Like it doesn't— it doesn't entertain me in any way shape, or form. I'm here for the narrative. I will turn the Death of Z up if I think it like it furthers my enjoyment of the narrative. You know what I mean? If I feel like it being harder makes me feel like more of a badass and therefore I enjoy the game more, like then I'll turn it on. But generally just like find easy mode, like it's so—it's right there. It's available and this is weird pressure to like, not use it because like, oh games are supposed to be hard. Not at all, it’s supposed to be enjoyable.
MISCHA: Well, and a lot more modern games allow you to switch difficulty halfway.
JASPER: Yeah.
MISCHA: I remember in you know, back to Kingdom Hearts II, back in 2005. Like you had to set the difficulty before you started the game, and then couldn't change it for the 50-hour run of that game.
JASPER: It's rough, it's really rough.
MISCHA: Now you can just go into the options, click the different difficulty. Like if it's too hard, set it easier, if you start playing it on easy, and you find you're actually better than video games than you expected because I don't know you play basketball and have hand-eye coordination or something. Like you can turn it up and that's good too.
ERIC: Yeah, the other problem with Kingdom Hearts is that when you turn it from normal to easy, goofy goes [in Goofy voice], “Gosh, you gotta get good!”
MISCHA: Yeah, that's the only problem with Kingdom Hearts II. That's the only one, there's only one problem with it. Sure. That's the only one problem.
JASPER: I agree. I love Kingdom Hearts, It's also— that game, oh, man, I love that game so much.
ERIC: [Does Goofy impression]
JASPER: The other one that I was just gonna throw out, advice is just find some—find some streams.
ERIC: Yes, oh my god.
JASPER: And some content creators. Like go out and just watch people play the games. Like I—I love Ark Survival Evolved. I've like really got into this game recently, but I suck. So fucking hard at this game. It is unreal. I die all the time. I have no idea what I'm doing. And I derive huge amounts of pleasure just watching other people, do be awesome at it. And then I occasionally will go, oh, great. And I'll jump back into the game and like I'll have learned a new thing, and be like yeah, look at the thing that I did. And then like some T Rex will come and smoosh my bass that I made, but it's fine because I made it and that's what counts. So like find some creators, Is it's also a really good way to kind of trial the game. You don't get like a hands-on feel, but if you watch enough like content and stuff, you get a pretty good feel whether like the game is your vibe or not. Because I also agree, there's nothing worse than buyer's remorse when you've dropped like 50, 60, 70, whatever it is, of your local currencies on a game and you hate it, you know what I mean?
MISCHA: I'll throw one last thing out for a person who has never been able to play video games before. As someone who— I wouldn't say I'm not a gamer. I wouldn't say that I never was a gamer. But I'll say that, like, my gaming is like slow-paced. I'm not like an intense gamer. If you've never played a video game before, it might distress you when you die in a video game. Death in video games can be a jarring experience because I don't know if you know this, most humans don't die regularly.
ERIC: Yeah.
JASPER: Yeah.
MISCHA: So like, as advice to a new—a person newly trying to get into video games, don't stress about dying, allow yourself to die.
ERIC: Ooh yeah.
MISCHA: You know, and this is a problem I particularly have with first-person shooters. I have some structural differences in my brain that make me really bad at like 2d spatial mapping. So I don't always—I'm like bad with directions. I don't always know where I am, especially from a first-person perspective in space. And so like, when I shoot in the wrong direction, I stress out, I overcorrect, I'm missing, I stress out and then I'm dead. And like the noisy chemicals in my brain start going off. And like if you've never played a video game before, be aware that like, that's gonna happen, and it's okay. Like, it's just pixels changing on your screen. It's not that death in in games is going to happen. And in fact, it's there specifically to teach you like, hey, that thing you did probably don't do that. And like that's all it is.
ERIC: Yeah.
MISCHA: Maybe—like maybe try something else next time. And that's all dying is like don't stress about dying.
JASPER: Yes.
ERIC: I want to double down on that because I rem—Amanda has gotten into video games. And there's so much stuff that we don't realize as gamers are like lingua franca to us. It's just like, oh, when there's a pit, jump over it, when there is a waterfall look behind it. When there is like something else that you can go—when there are two paths take both because one will have a secret. It's, to double down on what Mischa is saying, if you are confused by something that's happening, ask someone a question. This is games, the artistic expression coming trying to talk to you.
MISCHA: Yes.
JASPER: Yeah.
ERIC: And if you don't know the language, you don't know what you're supposed to do.
JASPER: Absolutely. I just don't like— I just— I know I kind of already said this, we've all kind of all three of us have said this in our own way. But just don't let anyone else tell you how you're supposed to play games. Enjoy your games. If you like using cheat codes, use cheat codes, if you'd like, do you know what I mean? Like if you like enjoy breaking the game, and you enjoy bugs, if you enjoy a bang all the traffic laws in Grand Theft Auto or Cyberpunk or whatever, just do— that's fine! Do that, like if that's what you enjoy doing, absolutely go for it.
MISCHA: Yeah, I mean in regards to cheats like if the people who made the game didn't want you to do that, they wouldn't have put a cheat system in.
JASPER: They wouldn't be there!
MISCHA: If they didn't want you to play on easy, they wouldn't have put it in there. Stuff like that. Like it's in there, play your game.
ERIC: Heads are made to be embiggened! That’s why they’re there!
JASPER: Oh, Spyro.
MISCHA: When is—the Last of Us Part Two with big head mode come in.
JASPER: No, can we actually wait no sorry PSA right here. We—can we not mention The Last Of Us in this podcast, because I am—
MISCHA: Sure.
JASPER: I like this game a lot. And I am on the verge right now because I'm watching the TV show, of buying the first fucking game for the third time.
ERIC: Stay strong.
JASPER: It's—I can't do it, Eric.
ERIC: Stay strong.
JASPER: I have to— I have to play it. I bought the original, I played through the whole thing three times. I bought the remaster and played through it twice. And now I am on the verge of buying friggin Last of Us Part One. They changed the name. I'm so angry.
ERIC: Shh, I'm petting you like a horse. Shh. Shh.
JASPER: I can't, like honestly, I'm so— I'm so vexed and I don't know what to do.
MISCHA: I'll go back and retake the joke. Uhh, uhh, when are we getting Red Dead Redemption two with big-head mode?
ERIC: There it is.
JASPER: Thank you. There we go. Okay.
MISCHA: You got it.
JASPER: Phew. Genuinely felt something rise up in me then. I feel like the principal from like the, have you seen the Community when the principal comes in dresses a peanut butter bar, like goes into a rap?
ERIC: Yes
JASPER: That's genuinely what I felt like it happened. I'm like, I don't know what that was. I don't know what that was.
MISCHA: [Singing] “Criminals, Wall Street takin' the pie!”
ERIC: Alright, to save Jasper and to keep him save his humanity, let's go to our final segment, which is a game within a game. This is when I have a game for our friends to play. Sometimes it's competitive and mostly it's just to say fun things in a podcast. Yeah?
JASPER: Yeah.
ERIC: Alright. This game is called ‘What's in a Name.’ Would a Magic card be as cool. I am going to give you either the name of a Magic card, and you will have to tell me what it does, or like or come up what you think it should do because the name is cool and dope, or I will tell you what the magic card does, and you need to give me a cool name for what it should be, probably cooler than the name of the actual card. These are all real cards.
MISCHA: This, Eric, I don't know if you know this, but you base this game within the game on the design process at Wizards of the Coast. Sometimes they cancel a card from a set, but the art has already been conditioned. So they have to make a new card that fits the art, that fits that slot in the set, and there's like really strict for it. So they have to design cards based on the art all the time.
ERIC: I did not know that, this is just based on like the language of what it does.
MISCHA: Incredible. You're so great.
JASPER: I—I feel so confident about winning this game, given the answer that Mischa just gave to a question that you didn't even post. You know what I mean?
MISCHA: Jasper, Jasper, you can just go into the options of this mini-game, and turn my difficulty settings down, it would be fun. Play your game.
JASPER: You know turns out this game is Dark Souls.
ERIC: Ahh it was turned to master, let me turn that down. Hold on, sorry about that. Okay, here's the first—here's the first one. I'll—giving the name of this card, what do you think the name should be? “Each player sacrifices all colored permanence, he or she controls.” So all players need to sacrifice, all like the permanent cards they have. What would a cool name for this card be?
JASPER: Colored permanence?
MISCHA: I don't like the way you're trying to get—make us get rid of all the colored things, Eric.
ERIC: Listen that's why—It just means—it just means that it's— it's not—not colorless. That means it’s not like an artifact.
JASPER: Okay. Okay. I'm— I'm gonna avoid the low-hanging fruit here.
ERIC: Sure. Sure.
JASPER: I'm gonna say this should be cooled, Tie-Dye. That's it.
MISCHA: That's a good one.
ERIC: Yeah. I like it.
MISCHA: You have to—each player sacrifices all the color permanence they control. I'm gonna call it Desaturate.
ERIC: Oh, these are both good. I'm giving you both a point because the other one was called—the real card is called All is Dust.
JASPER: All is Dust. Okay, well, Desaturate is better.
MISCHA: It's got a big like Cthuluoid lord monster, sort of like scouring an entire field.
JASPER: Okay, nice. Yeah.
ERIC: Alright, here—here's a fun—here's a fun card name. Tell me what this card does, or it should do. This card is called Rain of Gore.
JASPER: Wow, Rain of Gore. Rain of Gore is going to, or should at least, make all of the colored cards, because I guess that's the—I don't know.
ERIC: [Laughs] They should have just called it ‘cards’!
JASPER: Yeah, but some of them might be magic. I don't know. Make them slip up in viscera and roll a dexterity saving throw.
MISCHA: Yeah.
ERIC: Great.
JASPER: I'm just going back to home base. Back to where I know!
MISCHA: Rain of Gore. Okay, I think you should sacrifice a creature. And then deal one damage to a number of targets equal to the sacrificed creature’s power.
ERIC: That's pretty cool.
MISCHA: So you—so you like shred a guy, and you throw all the little bits at all the other players.
JASPER: Nice.
ERIC: Oh, that's very creative, I'm going to give you both a point, because this one says, “If a spell or ability would cause its controller to gain life. That player loses that much life instead.” Instead of healing it's—it's destructive. But since Jasper said viscera and Mischa came up with an actual good game mechanic, I'm gonna give you both a point.
MISCHA: Yay.
JASPER: Hell yeah.
ERIC: Alright—Alright, how about Feast of the Unicorn? What is Feast of the Unicorn? What does that card do?
JASPER: Feast of the Unicorn?
ERIC: Yeah.
JASPER: Okay, well, I'm a flip this one on what I think it's going for, and I'm going to say that you can sacrifice a core, a card to our unicorn overlords. And if you do that, the unicorn overlord doubles in size and immediately tramples everything on the opposition side, equal to the power level of the card that you sacrificed.
MISCHA: Yeah.
ERIC: That is some Hearthstone mechanics. That's some real C'Thun shit. I like that.
MISCHA: I love that.
Eric: Yeah.
MISCHA: Yeah. Feast of the unicorn, I don't know if I can come up with something that quality. Feast of the unicorn. Okay, feast of the unicorn is an enchantment when it enters the battlefield, you make three food tokens, which sounds like a thing I just made up, but it's a real Magic the Gathering.
JASPER: Incredible.
MISCHA: And then yeah, and then it allows you to sacrifice foods to pump up all creatures on your side of the battlefield.
ERIC: That's very cool.
JASPER: Nice.
ERIC: Both—both of your things are better than what this was. So I'm gonna give you both a point. Feasts of the unicorn, you just give a creature +4 just to their attack, which is so boring.
JASPER: Yeah, rubbish.
MISCHA: That's nothing.
ERIC: And like the—the painting—the painting on the card is just the head of a unicorn. It's like what are we doing here? Can we be trying?
MISCHA: So like I was saying that was probably a different card in development. They canceled the card, had a unicorn painting, and needed to design a card based around the fact that the art was the head of a unicorn.
MISCHA: Yikes.
ERIC: I know.
MISCHA: Yikes.
ERIC: That's a barely—that's like an apertif of a unicorn!
[Laughter]
ERIC: Okay, how about this card until the end of turn, target creature loses all abilities and becomes a Blue Frog with base power top and toughness of one-one. You get turned into a frog, what is the name of this card?
JASPER: Ummm. Mischa, feel free to jump in if you want to go first. Because I realize I bulldozed my way in there.
MISCHA: I really can't, because I know exactly which card this is.
ERIC: Maybe it's not. Mischa, again the point is to make up a better name for this card.
MISCHA: I know, but it's hard because the name for this one is really good, and is the name I would come up with!
JASPER: Okay, I have it, it's “Lick a Lot of Toad.” That's the name of this card.
MISCHA: Nice.
ERIC: Nice.
JASPER: Yeah.
MISCHA: Yeah, so—so I am having trouble because I really am having trouble coming up with a better name than Frog-a-fi, which I'm pretty sure is the name of this card.
ERIC: Frog-a-fi is good. I would have said Frogification, but the name of this card is just Turn to Frog. So you both get a point.
JASPER: Oh boo. Boo.
MISCHA: I'm pretty sure there is a card called Frog-a-fi that does that.
ERIC: There might be another one but I'm looking— I was looking at some older ones than just—that was a little bit more basic. Okay, what do you think that the card Chaos Orb does? Chaos Orb.
JASPER: Chaos orb. Okay, so Chaos Orb, basically, sort of everything—everything everywhere all at once’s you through the multiverses of different franchises. This is like a recent thing since Hasbro took over. That is just other Hasbro stuff. So you go through like— the like you're the table becomes monopoly for a second. Then it becomes like a Cluedo. Just like other random board games that Hasbro publishes.
MISCHA: It's like that one shot and Thor The Dark World for they just go hop between portals from different board games.
JASPER: That's exactly it. That's exactly it. I'm like, if any of your cards just like it, they're like, you know what I mean, If you have a card that just likes Monopoly, for some reason, they stay there.
MISCHA: Yeah.
ERIC: I like it, it's good.
MISCHA: Really good.
ERIC: It's good. It's good.
MISCHA: Okay, Chaos Orb. Okay, so this is a problem because this is a very famous card, and I know exactly what it does again, but uh.
ERIC: Mischa, I don't like what this card does, you gotta come up with a better one.
MISCHA: I have a great story for you about what this card does afterward. But I'm going to come up with a new one. I think Chaos Orb, you throw it down, and every player has to stand up and move to the—to the seat on the left of that, or like clockwise. And now everybody has everyone else's battlefields in their hands and graveyards and stuff.
ERIC: Oh I like that.
JASPER: Beautiful.
MISCHA: You just stand up and move.
JASPER: Yeah.
ERIC: That's better.
JASPER: And you keep it permanently, so hope you haven't invested too much in your deck.
ERIC: Okay, Chaos Orb is kind of goofy. Basically, you need to pick up the literal card. You got to hold it at least one foot above the table. You have to flip it hand over and so it goes flip flipping and flying. And if it touches any cards, they get destroyed and then you destroy Chaos Orb.
JASPER: I honestly thought mine was dumb. This is—that's no—that's—what, that's not a thing.
MISCHA: Chaos Orb is super dumb, all of the physical dexterity. There are like a handful of cards in Magic the Gathering that require physical dexterity challenges, like, like this. This is the most prime example of one. Here's the fun story, at a tournament once, somebody had a Chaos Orb it was trying to play it and they said, okay, we flip it from above the table. Anything that's touching a part of Chaos Orb is destroyed, right? So he ripped up the chaos orb into pieces and sprinkled them on the battlefield and destroyed everything that was touching the card.
JASPER: Well—
ERIC: There's nothing in the rulebook that says…
MISCHA: There's nothing in the rule that says you can't rip your cards into little pieces.
JASPER: Wow. Wow. That's a—that's a move. That's giving me a feeling, that's a game that's giving me feelings. And let me tell you, it's not good feelings. No good because you let down—that's on—that's on Magic, that's on you guys.
MISCHA: Like yeah, it is.
JASPER: You know what I mean? And I hate you for it.
ERIC: I feel like if you're going to Airbud a situation, you better make sure a dog is involved. Because if you don't do that, everyone's gonna think you're an asshole.
JASPER: Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Make the dog rip it up like a cute way, like a little Daschund and just rips it up. Then suddenly everyone's fine with this.
MISCHA: Okay, you're at PAX, you sit down across the table from a golden retriever. You go. “This is weird, judge?” and then the Magic the Gathering level five-judge comes over and just looks through the rules enforcement guide and goes, “There’s nothing in the rules that says a dog can't play Magic the Gathering.”
ERIC: That's it.
JASPER: Sorry.
ERIC: It's like, oh, no, I'm gonna be on Kotaku. Alright, final—final one. Oh, both you get a point. But Mischa, you lose a point because you told me a story from a Magic the Gathering tournament. Jasper is ahead by one final—final question. This card makes you trade your number of life points with the opponents. What should this card be called?
MISCHA: You're being forced into a trade last minute?
ERIC: Yes.
MISCHA: I think the card should be called, my mom just came to the game store.
ERIC: Nice. Nice. [Laughs]
JASPER: I think it should be called, there's a knock at the door, it's Hasbro's lawyers.
ERIC: [Laughs] That’s good. I would have said—I would have said oh it's my girlfriend calling, tell her I'm winning. Those are much better, I'm gonna give you both points. Oh, the card is called Mirror Universe. I think that's kind of a basic, like if you're gonna have the card Mirror Universe, it's gonna be the one that Jasper said before this for Chaos Orb.
MISCHA: Yeah.
JASPER: Yeah, surely.
MISCHA: Mirror—Mirror Universe should get everyone on the—at the table, token copies of everything, everyone else has.
ERIC: That's—that would be you know, you
MISCHA: You know you get like a reflection of that—of the other player. And then they get your reflection too. And it's like, well, you know, and then—you know I'm not gonna get into it. I've already lost one point for actually enjoying this game. I don't want to lose any more points.
ERIC: It's the third inning, and the batter Mischa Stanton is in the woods frolicking.
MISCHA: It's so nice in the woods, you guys look there's a butterfly.
ERIC: I also really like the art of Mirror Universe. I can send it to y'all later. But it's like someone is opening a door, and it's themselves standing in the door with like white light behind them. And they look jacked and pissed. And I'm like, what did I do to my alternate universe self?!
JASPER: That's amazing. I think that yeah, it should just be— it should be that you see—everything you're currently seeing, but it's just a little bit hard. Like 10% Harder. That's what Mirror Universe should be.
ERIC: That's pretty good. You have like a side shave.
JASPER: Yeah, exactly.
MISCHA: For sure.
ERIC: Jasper has won! What is in the name, well, what a magic card be as cool. Honestly, I was gonna have you both tie because you—because this my creative exercise.
MISCHA: Listen, I've been a fan of this dumb game for over 20 years. Jasper won, It's well deserved. Well earned, my friend.
JASPER: This game for like zero days, minutes or hours. But that's also, that's fine. I accept this graciously whilst flipping the bird. Just like yeah, that's right, I'm a winner baby. Haha!
ERIC: Jasper, doing lewd hand gestures I've never seen before.
MISCHA: Yeah.
ERIC: It's crazy.
JASPER: Inventing new ones, they're all from Magic the Gathering I think.
[Laughter]
MISCHA: How do your fingers even do that?
ERIC: I didn't even know you had that many fingers.
MISCHA: Are they like clipping into each other, what is that?
ERIC: That's true. You get a third hand that was inside of his body the whole time that only comes out for lewd hand gestures.
JASPER: Just for lewd hand gestures. That’s the only move I know, yeah.
ERIC: Well, Mischa, because you lost I will give you the consolation prize of being able to plug whatever you want. First, where can people find you, If they like hearing you say this stuff and do this stuff?
MISCHA: Thank you so much. I truly after the loss of Twitter, I am set adrift among the social media scenes. I'm not really posting much of anywhere except at my website, mischastanton.com. Where I have all of my projects, including most of the Multitude shows and several other podcasts that I make, because you literally can't stop me. I wish you could, please. Oh, God help me.
[Laughter]
ERIC: Hey, permanent guest Jasper, where can people find you, when you're not being the permanent guest at Games and Feelings?
JASPER: Hello, yeah, you can find me at jw_cartwright and all of the social media. Again, not that I post there a whole lot. But sometimes they do, and sometimes it's cool. And you can also find the other show that I do, which is sort of like halflings. You can find us there at the number 3 black halflings, so 3 black halflings. And I do various other shows and guesting on a bunch of stuff at the moment, which is very, very cool. And I'm excited to talk about that. But I'll get to that in a later episode. But for now, just thank you for having me, and hope you're used to our voice now.
ERIC: Everyone loves it. It's been jammed into their head four to five episodes.
JASPER: I got a really lovely message the other day from someone saying we love your voice and I’m glad you’re on Games and Feelings, it’s so nice, thank you so much.
ERIC: Multitude listeners, you're wonderful. You can check me out on Twitter because I am riding that goddamn social media account like it's the rocket of Dr. Strangelove. You can find me on Twitter at el_sIlvero. EL _ S I L V E R O. And the show is games N feelings. That's the end like linens N things. We're also on Instagram. Regularly spelled I think. I can't remember. The best place to submit questions though, is to go to our website, gamesandfeelings.com/questions. We always need more, I am looking at them I promise. And you can support the show at patreon.com/gamesandfeelings and see the links in the episode description. That money goes to all three of these boys right here. So, and they're also spelled boy/boi in the various ways to accommodate all of our gender presentations.
MISCHA: Bless you.
ERIC: So please do that. And you can check out the links in the episode description. Thank you, Mischa. Thank you, Jasper. You're the best.
JASPER: Thank you, Eric.
ERIC: And remember the instruction manual doesn't have anything about feelings. Byee.
MISCHA: Byee.
JASPER: Byee.
[theme]
ERIC: Games and Feelings produced by Eric Silver, and edited and mixed by Mischa Stanton. The theme music is returned to French toast Castle by Jeff Bryce. And the art was created by Jessica Boy. Find transcripts for this episode, and all episodes at our website, gamesandfeelings.com. Until next time, press X to enjoy the podcast.
Transcriptionist: KA
Editor: KM