1 00:00:15,380 --> 00:00:17,460 Hello and welcome to the Weekly Show Podcast. 2 00:00:17,460 --> 00:00:20,380 My name is Ryan and that's all you get today. 3 00:00:20,380 --> 00:00:23,260 No Hunter today, but we do have a special guest that is Clayton 4 00:00:23,260 --> 00:00:24,820 Notes sign. How you doing today Clayton? 5 00:00:25,340 --> 00:00:31,420 I'm doing good, doing good. Yeah, for those who know EEE. 6 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:37,880 For those that don't know you though, Clayton in the TRPG 7 00:00:37,880 --> 00:00:40,640 space like who the heck are you and what might people know you 8 00:00:40,640 --> 00:00:44,160 for? Yeah, so, you know, I am one of 9 00:00:44,160 --> 00:00:47,080 the many nameless people in the role-playing space who's doing 10 00:00:47,080 --> 00:00:49,560 the indie stuff. But I run a website 11 00:00:49,560 --> 00:00:53,320 calledexplorersdesign.com. It's sort of like a, it's a 12 00:00:53,320 --> 00:00:56,720 blog, it's a newsletter, it's a website and it's all about 13 00:00:57,280 --> 00:01:01,000 design, specifically visual design, graphic design, 14 00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:03,440 everything, that product design, all of the parts of design that 15 00:01:03,440 --> 00:01:06,960 aren't game design and how they plug into game design. 16 00:01:07,320 --> 00:01:10,280 So, you know, I'm mostly trying to like, you know, educate. 17 00:01:10,280 --> 00:01:14,880 I, I, I love role-playing games. I also really like graphic 18 00:01:14,880 --> 00:01:16,000 design. So they just sort of came 19 00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:20,040 together and I'm trying to like spread the gospel of like, hey, 20 00:01:20,200 --> 00:01:24,520 good margins, good typography, all these things that only make 21 00:01:24,520 --> 00:01:27,800 the awesome things about everyone's work even better when 22 00:01:27,800 --> 00:01:29,880 you do, when you execute it just a little bit better. 23 00:01:31,360 --> 00:01:37,360 Yeah, and it's funny, for those that don't know, we did this, we 24 00:01:37,360 --> 00:01:39,720 did 15 minutes of this episode already and then found out that 25 00:01:39,720 --> 00:01:42,360 we weren't recording. So we're like retreading things 26 00:01:42,360 --> 00:01:44,000 that we talked about like 15 minutes ago. 27 00:01:44,280 --> 00:01:49,160 But it's it's that's the way that I kind of really started 28 00:01:49,160 --> 00:01:51,240 following you more. As you know, as I said before, 29 00:01:51,840 --> 00:01:58,680 followed you on Twitter, but once you dropped your yeah, 30 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:01,840 that's when I was like, oh shit, this person knows what they're 31 00:02:01,840 --> 00:02:03,360 doing. This website looks great. 32 00:02:03,360 --> 00:02:05,720 The thumbnails look awesome. Definitely got to follow this 33 00:02:05,720 --> 00:02:07,280 little bit more heavily. And that's when I became, you 34 00:02:07,280 --> 00:02:11,440 know, a a fan of your work. Yeah, and I said it before and 35 00:02:11,440 --> 00:02:16,320 I'll say it again, I am still surprised that people liked it. 36 00:02:16,320 --> 00:02:19,360 I mean, I knew, I know that there are people like me out 37 00:02:19,360 --> 00:02:20,840 there. I, but I, when I was making, I 38 00:02:20,840 --> 00:02:23,880 was like, I am a, this is a very specific thing for a very 39 00:02:23,880 --> 00:02:27,960 specific type of sicko. And so the fact that it's still 40 00:02:27,960 --> 00:02:31,120 got legs, it's, it's the tail on this thing's been a lot longer 41 00:02:31,120 --> 00:02:32,680 than I thought it would be is great. 42 00:02:33,480 --> 00:02:35,800 And then the other thing that I love that I really like about it 43 00:02:35,800 --> 00:02:39,520 is that I was worried that when I made this template that maybe 44 00:02:39,760 --> 00:02:42,440 it best case scenario, a bunch of people were going to make 45 00:02:42,440 --> 00:02:44,160 stuff with it. And then I was going to become 46 00:02:44,160 --> 00:02:46,680 the guy where people were like, oh man, he just made everything 47 00:02:46,680 --> 00:02:50,160 look generic because everyone is using the same template. 48 00:02:50,160 --> 00:02:53,320 And I am like astonished that some people have gone taking 49 00:02:53,320 --> 00:02:56,160 that template and made things that look so much better than 50 00:02:56,160 --> 00:02:59,840 anything that I could have made. They're just using me as like a 51 00:02:59,840 --> 00:03:02,400 good like springboard to like save some time. 52 00:03:02,400 --> 00:03:05,520 They're shaving off like 20% of the setup for themselves. 53 00:03:06,120 --> 00:03:09,400 And so if you want to see what that looks like, what the tempo 54 00:03:09,400 --> 00:03:13,640 looks like when it's good, go look at like the realist Ash can 55 00:03:13,640 --> 00:03:16,320 or Eco Mofos or any of these other games. 56 00:03:16,320 --> 00:03:20,040 They they look really great and they don't look anything alike. 57 00:03:20,440 --> 00:03:23,800 So, you know, besides the fact that they both have sidebars, 58 00:03:23,800 --> 00:03:26,840 which is really not enough to say that they all look the same, 59 00:03:26,840 --> 00:03:28,760 right? So it's good. 60 00:03:28,920 --> 00:03:31,200 I mean, I've seen some books with bad sidebars so. 61 00:03:32,080 --> 00:03:35,240 Yeah, and I will say it is possible to make really bad 62 00:03:35,240 --> 00:03:39,520 sidebars with the template. I, I, I tried to explain, I 63 00:03:39,520 --> 00:03:41,600 think in the actual template, because one of the things that 64 00:03:41,600 --> 00:03:44,960 makes it unique is I, you know, I had this thought is like, OK, 65 00:03:44,960 --> 00:03:46,000 people make templates all the time. 66 00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:48,520 But what if the template, all the Lorem ipsum type was 67 00:03:48,520 --> 00:03:51,600 actually like guidance. It was commentary on how to use 68 00:03:51,600 --> 00:03:53,440 it. So it's, it's its own manual 69 00:03:53,440 --> 00:03:56,400 while you're using it. And I made a note in that I was 70 00:03:56,400 --> 00:04:02,200 like, Hey, make sure you don't you want, you want like an ideal 71 00:04:02,200 --> 00:04:05,360 length of words in a line. And we still, there's still 72 00:04:05,360 --> 00:04:07,400 quite a few instances where people have like really big 73 00:04:07,400 --> 00:04:10,520 words in those sidebars and it doesn't look quite right. 74 00:04:10,520 --> 00:04:14,200 Looks a little horsey, to borrow a term from another graphic 75 00:04:14,200 --> 00:04:16,480 designer I know. But that's OK. 76 00:04:16,839 --> 00:04:20,720 It's not the goal was always to, and this is the thing of with 77 00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:24,040 explorers design in general, it's to raise the, the basement 78 00:04:24,240 --> 00:04:27,200 into the crawl space. Not, not, not not much higher 79 00:04:27,280 --> 00:04:29,480 than if they can just raise a couple inches. 80 00:04:30,240 --> 00:04:31,920 It did something and that's good enough for me. 81 00:04:33,040 --> 00:04:35,440 You know, and that, I mean, that's what the indie space 82 00:04:35,720 --> 00:04:39,720 needs, right? The knee space needs, I mean, 83 00:04:39,720 --> 00:04:41,600 guidance is great. A lot of people get into the 84 00:04:41,600 --> 00:04:48,280 space and it's so spread out. I guess like it it, it's the 85 00:04:48,280 --> 00:04:51,920 indie, the TGRPG space in general is, is an umbrella with, 86 00:04:51,920 --> 00:04:53,360 with a million things underneath it. 87 00:04:54,560 --> 00:04:59,160 And finding your niche in it and then finding the resources in 88 00:04:59,160 --> 00:05:00,560 that space is, is really difficult. 89 00:05:01,120 --> 00:05:03,920 You know, I, I wasn't in this space during the G+ era, but, 90 00:05:03,920 --> 00:05:07,440 you know, post G+ shutting down and then post Twitter, 91 00:05:08,440 --> 00:05:11,640 everything has fractured into a million different directions. 92 00:05:12,520 --> 00:05:15,880 So yeah, being able to find the guidance, being able to find 93 00:05:15,880 --> 00:05:19,360 some things like that, you know, there's a million art resources 94 00:05:19,360 --> 00:05:21,400 for people, so you don't need to use fucking AI. 95 00:05:21,880 --> 00:05:24,080 And if you can find those links, that's great. 96 00:05:24,080 --> 00:05:27,400 But it's hard to find that one thing that you really need in 97 00:05:27,400 --> 00:05:30,800 this giant space. So, you know, it's a great thing 98 00:05:30,800 --> 00:05:32,240 to have. You know, it's something that 99 00:05:32,240 --> 00:05:34,960 just gets people going and makes things look more professional 100 00:05:35,960 --> 00:05:38,800 and and readable. You know is is wonderful. 101 00:05:39,280 --> 00:05:41,680 And, and one of the things I learned very, and this is 102 00:05:41,680 --> 00:05:44,360 actually kind of ties into how I found RPGs in the 1st place, but 103 00:05:44,360 --> 00:05:48,800 like the, the problem is weirder than than even just like not 104 00:05:48,800 --> 00:05:50,800 knowing all their like resources. 105 00:05:50,800 --> 00:05:53,280 Sometimes it's just not knowing the name for the things that 106 00:05:53,280 --> 00:05:56,720 you're trying to do right. So funny enough, like a lot of 107 00:05:56,720 --> 00:06:01,520 my, like most popular post that I've ever made on Explorers 108 00:06:01,520 --> 00:06:04,520 design are just like glossaries. They're, they're, they're, 109 00:06:05,440 --> 00:06:06,800 that's all they are. They're just glorified 110 00:06:06,800 --> 00:06:08,720 glossaries being like, this is what a margin is. 111 00:06:08,720 --> 00:06:12,440 This is what gutters are, this is what alleys are, columns, all 112 00:06:12,440 --> 00:06:14,640 that stuff. But the reason why is because 113 00:06:14,640 --> 00:06:17,960 like an RPG space, like we're all, we're all just trying to 114 00:06:17,960 --> 00:06:19,920 like, you know, we're trying to make stuff, we're trying to 115 00:06:19,920 --> 00:06:22,320 express ourselves. And you're off that. 116 00:06:22,320 --> 00:06:24,640 People are often reinventing the wheel and they have to like 117 00:06:24,640 --> 00:06:28,160 rediscover things all the time. You know, that's just, and that 118 00:06:28,160 --> 00:06:31,520 is, that's, that's the system working as intended, right? 119 00:06:31,560 --> 00:06:35,160 That is what an indie space is, but it does kind of become a 120 00:06:35,160 --> 00:06:37,280 situation where you're like, man, your life would be so much 121 00:06:37,280 --> 00:06:41,080 easier if you knew that you can Google this word, you know, 122 00:06:42,320 --> 00:06:47,000 Google what EM is an M and this will help you do all it will 123 00:06:47,000 --> 00:06:49,040 unlock all these other like things. 124 00:06:49,040 --> 00:06:52,320 It tells you where to go for tutorials, where to go to for 125 00:06:52,320 --> 00:06:53,920 books, you know, all that different stuff. 126 00:06:53,920 --> 00:06:57,200 So a lot of it is like just taking like I went to school for 127 00:06:57,560 --> 00:07:00,560 graphic design and copywriting and branding and all that good 128 00:07:00,560 --> 00:07:03,360 stuff and being like, OK, let's let's take like the One O 1 129 00:07:03,360 --> 00:07:06,800 syllabus and just like put it out into the public market and 130 00:07:06,800 --> 00:07:08,640 like, people just have it because all it is. 131 00:07:08,640 --> 00:07:10,760 It's not even like sophisticated things. 132 00:07:10,760 --> 00:07:13,400 It's just knowing like the terminology that everyone else 133 00:07:13,400 --> 00:07:16,120 uses. So yeah, anything to go and 134 00:07:16,120 --> 00:07:18,720 prevent people from having to reinvent the wheel, which is 135 00:07:19,080 --> 00:07:23,760 laborious and not very fun. Yeah, I mean, and that's great 136 00:07:23,760 --> 00:07:26,760 with graphic design because you know, one thing that is good 137 00:07:26,760 --> 00:07:29,760 about graphic design is those words are the words for that 138 00:07:29,760 --> 00:07:31,840 thing, right. So like I'm already there's 139 00:07:31,840 --> 00:07:33,800 always a gutter is always a gutter. 140 00:07:35,280 --> 00:07:37,880 I think one thing you kind of hinted at and then teach RBG 141 00:07:37,880 --> 00:07:44,800 space is this RE, you know, reinventing the wheel. 142 00:07:44,800 --> 00:07:47,320 Like, you know, people, you always find someone that you 143 00:07:47,320 --> 00:07:49,880 realize just discovered like the quote UN quote, the OSR 144 00:07:49,880 --> 00:07:53,320 yesterday and you immediately know that in three months 145 00:07:53,320 --> 00:07:55,680 they're going to be spitting the same stupid bullshit opinions 146 00:07:55,680 --> 00:07:59,280 that people did 20 years ago. And I find that tedious. 147 00:07:59,560 --> 00:08:01,280 I don't like the reinvention of the wheel constantly. 148 00:08:01,280 --> 00:08:04,080 I wish there was a better resource and a better kind of 149 00:08:04,080 --> 00:08:08,560 centralization at least of resources than teach RPG space 150 00:08:08,560 --> 00:08:13,040 because the amount of times that I see people arguing with each 151 00:08:13,040 --> 00:08:16,040 other and both of them are saying the exact same fucking 152 00:08:16,040 --> 00:08:19,040 thing but they use different vertical terms. 153 00:08:19,200 --> 00:08:22,120 Yeah, they're talking beside each other or past each other, 154 00:08:22,360 --> 00:08:24,080 Yeah. And and obviously it's the 155 00:08:24,080 --> 00:08:26,000 Internet, so people have to argue and just be like, well, 156 00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:27,040 no, you're wrong. It's this. 157 00:08:27,040 --> 00:08:29,440 And it's like, it's that thing where someone sees from like a 158 00:08:29,440 --> 00:08:31,000 six from one side of nine from the other. 159 00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:34,280 And it's just like it's, it's, it's tedious. 160 00:08:34,600 --> 00:08:36,600 It's the spider man meme. You know, they're all pointing 161 00:08:36,600 --> 00:08:39,799 at each other. And I, and I, honestly, I, you 162 00:08:39,799 --> 00:08:42,400 said the word Internet and I, for the podcasters out there, I 163 00:08:42,400 --> 00:08:46,560 touched my nose and pointed at the camera because the, the 164 00:08:46,560 --> 00:08:49,600 problem, most of my problems are not even problems, They're just 165 00:08:49,600 --> 00:08:52,680 like frustrations. You know, that, that the things 166 00:08:52,680 --> 00:08:56,400 that rankle my feathers a bit are often times because the 167 00:08:56,400 --> 00:08:58,640 Internet exists. Like, people used to make 168 00:08:58,640 --> 00:09:01,440 mistakes and you never knew about it because they were 169 00:09:01,440 --> 00:09:04,600 working at a drafting table on the third floor of a building 170 00:09:04,600 --> 00:09:08,240 or, you know, they were working on a Xerox printer at, you know, 171 00:09:08,800 --> 00:09:11,040 for a punk concert show, doesn't matter. 172 00:09:11,200 --> 00:09:14,520 But at no point today, then there was no expectation or 173 00:09:14,520 --> 00:09:17,280 ability for them to be like, all right, now you have to go talk 174 00:09:17,280 --> 00:09:20,680 about what you're doing and let everyone know and you better 175 00:09:20,680 --> 00:09:22,720 have an opinion about it. Like that was never part of the 176 00:09:22,720 --> 00:09:26,280 process that the the thing you made was more or less the 177 00:09:26,280 --> 00:09:30,160 statement being made. There wasn't a Twitter or 178 00:09:30,160 --> 00:09:34,160 Facebook or any social media platforms constantly they're 179 00:09:34,320 --> 00:09:37,360 asked, you know, pushing you to go and say more about it before 180 00:09:37,360 --> 00:09:38,840 you have actually formed an opinion. 181 00:09:39,240 --> 00:09:43,880 And God, I'm, I'm kind of happy that Twitter's gone because I, I 182 00:09:43,880 --> 00:09:46,360 really am happy. A lot of my early opinions on 183 00:09:46,360 --> 00:09:49,120 things rotted away so nobody can find them. 184 00:09:49,120 --> 00:09:53,240 That's that's a good thing. Yeah, I mean, you know, the your 185 00:09:53,240 --> 00:09:58,280 your online footprint, you know, it is, it exists. 186 00:09:58,360 --> 00:10:02,560 I, you know, it's an interesting, interesting thing. 187 00:10:02,560 --> 00:10:08,320 I, I'm very much in the camp of man, I just hate a lot of stuff. 188 00:10:08,320 --> 00:10:12,040 So where do I start? I personally think that if you 189 00:10:12,040 --> 00:10:14,520 are creative in the space and you want to be a professional in 190 00:10:14,520 --> 00:10:18,440 the space that you should have a professional profile and a 191 00:10:18,440 --> 00:10:23,280 private profile. Because which in this 192 00:10:23,400 --> 00:10:27,520 extraordinarily parasocial social like algorithmic 193 00:10:27,520 --> 00:10:30,320 environment we live in now is probably not the best for 194 00:10:30,320 --> 00:10:31,880 marketing. Because we honestly, at the end 195 00:10:31,880 --> 00:10:34,600 of the day, a lot of people buy your shit because they buy, 196 00:10:34,600 --> 00:10:38,640 they're buying you. But I, I personally hate that. 197 00:10:38,640 --> 00:10:43,320 And I think that having a public facing professional thing and 198 00:10:43,320 --> 00:10:47,120 keeping your shitty opinions somewhere else would be great 199 00:10:47,120 --> 00:10:50,400 and I wish people did it more. But unfortunately, we do have a 200 00:10:50,400 --> 00:10:53,840 space now, just like every space on the Internet where people are 201 00:10:53,840 --> 00:10:58,480 buying a thing because of a person, maybe not necessarily 202 00:10:58,480 --> 00:10:59,920 for that thing. Once you've made enough of a 203 00:10:59,920 --> 00:11:03,840 name for yourself in TRPGS, you're going to buy something 204 00:11:03,840 --> 00:11:06,920 because someone made it who's popular or because a bunch of 205 00:11:06,920 --> 00:11:09,880 the Internet told you to. I could name up a popular book 206 00:11:09,880 --> 00:11:12,920 right now that half the Internet in the TWG space. 207 00:11:12,920 --> 00:11:16,720 But you know, and I guarantee 70% of them haven't even cracked 208 00:11:16,720 --> 00:11:18,800 the cover yet. But it's a popular book. 209 00:11:18,800 --> 00:11:21,240 Everyone says it's super great. I mean, you definitely got to 210 00:11:21,240 --> 00:11:22,880 have it. And that's. 211 00:11:22,880 --> 00:11:26,000 I don't know, I find that also annoying and tedious. 212 00:11:27,400 --> 00:11:29,960 I don't remember where this tangent came from, but it just. 213 00:11:30,680 --> 00:11:33,320 Comes naturally from the ether. Yeah, the Twitter. 214 00:11:33,720 --> 00:11:36,480 Yeah, the Twitter. To to you know, and I, I don't 215 00:11:36,480 --> 00:11:39,520 100% agree with you, but I am going to say that I think most 216 00:11:39,520 --> 00:11:41,720 people should have probably two different ones because it's just 217 00:11:41,720 --> 00:11:43,520 healthy. It's just a good way to live 1's 218 00:11:43,520 --> 00:11:48,760 life like to, you know, put up what am I to isolate and silo 219 00:11:48,760 --> 00:11:52,200 parts of your life. Now, I, this is ironic because 220 00:11:52,680 --> 00:11:57,040 my persona online is just basically me. 221 00:11:57,040 --> 00:12:02,400 It is a cop is a weird bizarro version of myself who just talks 222 00:12:02,400 --> 00:12:04,240 about RP GS. And the reason why that is is 223 00:12:04,240 --> 00:12:07,400 because I don't want to be on the Internet for anything other 224 00:12:07,400 --> 00:12:09,360 than RP GS. Like I, I don't want to talk 225 00:12:09,360 --> 00:12:13,040 about anything else because there's not enough time. 226 00:12:13,040 --> 00:12:15,560 Like I have to go outside and I have to garden when I'm not 227 00:12:15,560 --> 00:12:18,160 doing this. So you know, or I'm playing, you 228 00:12:18,160 --> 00:12:19,400 know, video games or whatever else. 229 00:12:19,400 --> 00:12:22,000 So, you know, I think it's one of those two things you either, 230 00:12:22,080 --> 00:12:25,760 and this is and now we're talking, see me, I'm going into 231 00:12:25,760 --> 00:12:28,160 the whole like trying to talk to like a beginning designer, 232 00:12:28,680 --> 00:12:31,320 trying to give advice on what was supposed to be a rant. 233 00:12:31,720 --> 00:12:34,280 But it's like you need to choose your own adventure. 234 00:12:34,280 --> 00:12:37,040 And either you're going to silo and it's like, I'm going to have 235 00:12:37,400 --> 00:12:39,680 a version of me that is the professional side. 236 00:12:39,680 --> 00:12:43,040 And then the other part of me that is like slightly private or 237 00:12:43,600 --> 00:12:47,040 just only use the tools, the platforms, the social media, the 238 00:12:47,040 --> 00:12:50,600 Internet for that one thing and then keep the rest of your life 239 00:12:50,600 --> 00:12:53,600 like out of it. Like I, my Co workers, want to 240 00:12:53,600 --> 00:12:56,000 see pictures of me and my wedding. 241 00:12:56,280 --> 00:12:59,040 And I've insisted, Nope, you're not going to see any pictures of 242 00:12:59,040 --> 00:13:00,960 me and my wife. I like my Co workers. 243 00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:04,360 They're rad people, But it's just like, I like having the 244 00:13:04,360 --> 00:13:06,800 fence and being like, you can't see past it. 245 00:13:06,800 --> 00:13:08,120 You know you're not going to see it. 246 00:13:08,280 --> 00:13:12,200 Which is funny because I'm a foot and a half taller than 247 00:13:12,200 --> 00:13:14,600 everyone on the other side of my new family. 248 00:13:14,960 --> 00:13:16,520 So all the pictures are hilarious. 249 00:13:16,520 --> 00:13:19,800 I look like a monster but they don't get to see it because 250 00:13:19,800 --> 00:13:22,160 they're my Co workers. And then as soon as they they 251 00:13:22,160 --> 00:13:24,680 leave to the company, it's like here's your here's your exit 252 00:13:24,680 --> 00:13:26,640 package. You get to see we're now 253 00:13:26,640 --> 00:13:30,040 officially friends without the asterisk next to it. 254 00:13:30,400 --> 00:13:33,240 Yeah, that's, that's so that's funny you say that because I I 255 00:13:33,240 --> 00:13:38,440 don't really have like private social media, right? 256 00:13:38,440 --> 00:13:41,840 Like not like a me one. I have some of their accounts 257 00:13:42,080 --> 00:13:45,480 for other things, like I have like account that I can just 258 00:13:45,480 --> 00:13:47,600 like follow hobby stuff on and things like that. 259 00:13:47,600 --> 00:13:49,680 You know what I mean? But like there's nothing that's 260 00:13:49,680 --> 00:13:51,920 like pictures of me and shit. There's a thing at work going on 261 00:13:51,920 --> 00:13:54,160 right now where like they're putting pictures of everyone up 262 00:13:54,160 --> 00:13:57,000 on the wall and I'm like a fuck that I'm not doing that. 263 00:13:57,160 --> 00:14:00,880 But also BI literally do not have a picture that's like 264 00:14:01,160 --> 00:14:03,560 within eight years, you know what I mean? 265 00:14:05,040 --> 00:14:09,760 But I also. No, I can talk about this 266 00:14:09,760 --> 00:14:11,480 forever, but we don't need. To Oh yeah, one of the things 267 00:14:11,480 --> 00:14:13,400 you said specifically with the Co worker thing is exactly what 268 00:14:13,400 --> 00:14:15,200 I do, but it's probably for a very different reason. 269 00:14:15,200 --> 00:14:18,120 Like I most of the people at work don't know anything about 270 00:14:18,120 --> 00:14:19,360 me. They know my name, they know me 271 00:14:19,360 --> 00:14:22,080 at work, but they don't know anything about my outside life. 272 00:14:23,480 --> 00:14:28,720 And I keep that extremely close to the vest with pretty much 273 00:14:28,720 --> 00:14:31,400 everyone. I, you know, back when I did 274 00:14:31,400 --> 00:14:35,640 have social media like Instagram and stuff like that, when I was 275 00:14:35,640 --> 00:14:38,040 like friends with people, but I moved and we kind of fell out 276 00:14:38,480 --> 00:14:40,840 like, you know, you can go on most of the things and like have 277 00:14:40,840 --> 00:14:44,000 make them unfollow you. And I would do that routinely 278 00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:45,440 with people. I would purge the people that 279 00:14:45,440 --> 00:14:47,640 were following me because I was like, we're not really friends 280 00:14:47,640 --> 00:14:49,760 anymore that I have a private profile. 281 00:14:49,760 --> 00:14:54,280 They don't get access to me when we're not friends, you know what 282 00:14:54,280 --> 00:14:55,480 I mean? And, and that's kind of how I 283 00:14:55,480 --> 00:14:57,320 see it work. And I, I've tried to explain it 284 00:14:57,320 --> 00:14:58,960 to people. People ask me about it too, 285 00:14:58,960 --> 00:15:00,800 because again, most people work don't know anything about me. 286 00:15:00,800 --> 00:15:07,480 And it's because I feel like my, it's not that my, I feel like 287 00:15:07,480 --> 00:15:11,920 that sharing that is, is me. And when I, the more I give it 288 00:15:11,920 --> 00:15:16,120 to somebody, the more I am spread out because, you know, 289 00:15:16,120 --> 00:15:18,240 you're. Yeah, giving information about 290 00:15:18,240 --> 00:15:21,200 myself is, is like, they know this thing about me. 291 00:15:21,200 --> 00:15:25,600 There's this, like tie to them. And I feel like giving too much 292 00:15:25,600 --> 00:15:27,720 of myself to too many people just spreads me too thin. 293 00:15:27,720 --> 00:15:29,280 And it's the same way I feel about friends and stuff. 294 00:15:29,280 --> 00:15:31,600 I have a lot of acquaintances but very few friends because I 295 00:15:31,600 --> 00:15:35,120 feel like the amount of energy that I have, I want to give 100% 296 00:15:35,120 --> 00:15:38,760 to a few people instead of 10% to a lot of people. 297 00:15:39,000 --> 00:15:43,040 So I see my personal information as something that I protect very 298 00:15:43,040 --> 00:15:47,360 close and like really bothers me if people that I don't consider 299 00:15:47,360 --> 00:15:50,360 friends know things about me. It's just interesting. 300 00:15:50,360 --> 00:15:52,480 They brought it up to be like, yeah, my coworkers, you know, 301 00:15:52,600 --> 00:15:54,160 they don't get to see that I'm like, hell yeah. 302 00:15:54,640 --> 00:15:57,400 Like we're work buddies. Like if we've, if I've never 303 00:15:57,400 --> 00:15:59,240 seen you outside of work, you don't know shit about me, you 304 00:15:59,240 --> 00:16:01,200 know? Yeah, I, I learned that early. 305 00:16:01,200 --> 00:16:03,640 I, I learned it the hard way. I think some people, they just 306 00:16:03,640 --> 00:16:06,640 naturally, that's how they live their life, and that's good for 307 00:16:06,640 --> 00:16:08,160 them. My dog's leaving, so I'm going 308 00:16:08,160 --> 00:16:09,240 to wait. Goodbye, Goodbye. 309 00:16:10,040 --> 00:16:13,480 And yeah, no, But like, I had to find out the hard way because I 310 00:16:13,480 --> 00:16:16,560 used to work in an ad agency and AD agencies are these super 311 00:16:16,560 --> 00:16:19,800 toxic places, you know, with lots of personalities, 312 00:16:19,800 --> 00:16:22,160 everything else. And I found out very early on I 313 00:16:22,160 --> 00:16:26,320 was like, oh, OK. So in some parts of the world, 314 00:16:26,320 --> 00:16:30,480 some parts of, you know, just culture, people still think 315 00:16:30,480 --> 00:16:35,240 role-playing games is like akin to leprosy. 316 00:16:35,600 --> 00:16:39,200 So I was like, I'm not going to go ahead and share that I'm a 317 00:16:39,200 --> 00:16:42,360 leper, you know, willingly. I'll, I'll let them figure it 318 00:16:42,360 --> 00:16:44,160 out on their own. It's not very hard. 319 00:16:44,240 --> 00:16:46,880 You know, listen to me talk for a while and you'll be like, OK, 320 00:16:46,880 --> 00:16:51,400 so that guy obviously knows like stat block with a stat block is 321 00:16:51,560 --> 00:16:54,440 you can tell very early. But yeah, so I found out the 322 00:16:54,440 --> 00:16:56,240 hard way. But I, I do think that that's a 323 00:16:56,600 --> 00:16:59,560 generally good policy, especially since we live in a 324 00:16:59,560 --> 00:17:02,360 capitalist, you know, hellscape and so on and so forth. 325 00:17:02,360 --> 00:17:05,400 So probably good just to keep it's, again, it goes back to 326 00:17:05,400 --> 00:17:07,920 what we said at the very top of this earlier is like, it's just 327 00:17:07,920 --> 00:17:10,000 a safety thing. If nothing else, it's safety. 328 00:17:10,119 --> 00:17:12,319 It doesn't have to be like principles or anything else. 329 00:17:12,319 --> 00:17:13,640 It can just be for your own health. 330 00:17:14,480 --> 00:17:17,280 Yeah, I mean, and it's weird. I mean, we live in a weird world 331 00:17:17,280 --> 00:17:18,880 now. I mean, not that it always 332 00:17:18,880 --> 00:17:22,359 wasn't, but I mean, it's extremely parasocial. 333 00:17:22,359 --> 00:17:26,119 And even to the point of people, like, I say this all the time. 334 00:17:26,119 --> 00:17:29,040 I'm like, remember Diaries? Like, remember when people put 335 00:17:29,040 --> 00:17:31,760 their, like, secret thoughts in a book so that no one could see 336 00:17:31,760 --> 00:17:33,000 it? And that was like a whole, like, 337 00:17:33,520 --> 00:17:37,080 that was like a whole fucking trope of like, someone found 338 00:17:37,080 --> 00:17:38,080 your inner thoughts. Oh, no. 339 00:17:38,080 --> 00:17:41,520 And now people put their like everything possible out on the 340 00:17:41,520 --> 00:17:44,120 Internet for people to see. And it's not healthy. 341 00:17:44,120 --> 00:17:46,120 I know people that have been fired because of their Facebook 342 00:17:46,120 --> 00:17:48,480 posts and stuff. So it's like, I don't know, it 343 00:17:48,480 --> 00:17:51,320 is a, it is a huge safety thing. We do live in a capitalist 344 00:17:51,320 --> 00:17:55,240 dystopia that's sliding slid, that is slid into fascism. 345 00:17:55,640 --> 00:18:00,280 And, you know, there is people whose social medias have been 346 00:18:00,280 --> 00:18:02,440 checked at the border to make sure you weren't saying anything 347 00:18:02,440 --> 00:18:04,880 bad about people. And we still got like what, two 348 00:18:04,880 --> 00:18:09,120 to three more years of this? So, you know, it, it is what it 349 00:18:09,120 --> 00:18:10,840 is. But yeah, I, whether there's 350 00:18:10,840 --> 00:18:15,360 social media or not, you know, I, I do think that having a 351 00:18:15,360 --> 00:18:19,040 professional side and having a personal side is not only good 352 00:18:19,040 --> 00:18:22,760 for your professional life, but also good for your personal 353 00:18:22,760 --> 00:18:26,160 life. Like you said, to keep it, to 354 00:18:26,160 --> 00:18:29,080 get to, to have a buffer man, to be able to like turn it off. 355 00:18:29,080 --> 00:18:32,480 If if your personal and your professional is always the same, 356 00:18:32,480 --> 00:18:36,000 then you're always on, you know, And that just seems crazy to me. 357 00:18:37,400 --> 00:18:41,720 Yeah, no, exactly. I just got a message from 358 00:18:41,720 --> 00:18:45,280 someone from the the Emmy Awards so I wonder what they're asking. 359 00:18:45,280 --> 00:18:50,840 Me about interesting so good Segway into the any awards so. 360 00:18:51,200 --> 00:18:53,440 They're asking me about layout. All right, It's it's the same 361 00:18:53,480 --> 00:18:55,080 question I get all the time. There you go. 362 00:18:56,520 --> 00:18:59,480 The layout. Yeah, Take a seat. 363 00:18:59,480 --> 00:19:02,840 Let's talk about it. Yeah, but you were so you were 364 00:19:02,840 --> 00:19:05,640 an innies judge for for these past innies. 365 00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:07,280 Yeah. And and I was there. 366 00:19:07,280 --> 00:19:08,720 I actually got to go to Gencom this year. 367 00:19:08,720 --> 00:19:14,360 We got to meet once again, proved that, yeah, proved that 368 00:19:14,360 --> 00:19:16,680 everyone in the TJRG space is 6 feet fucking tall. 369 00:19:17,560 --> 00:19:23,720 And and I'm not, but and then I actually went to the innies and 370 00:19:23,720 --> 00:19:26,760 man, anyone that's listened to me ever knows my opinion on 371 00:19:26,760 --> 00:19:28,800 them. So I would love, I would love, 372 00:19:28,800 --> 00:19:31,760 let's just I don't even know. You hit me with just let's just 373 00:19:31,760 --> 00:19:33,960 get going. Yeah, let's let's talk about it 374 00:19:34,360 --> 00:19:37,320 but first I got like a three-point plan of like let's 375 00:19:37,320 --> 00:19:39,600 set the stage let's let's set the table. 376 00:19:39,600 --> 00:19:42,600 I want to get things straight. You know, one I like award 377 00:19:42,600 --> 00:19:47,400 shows, that's that's that's the first thing that needs to be 378 00:19:47,400 --> 00:19:49,200 known. I people are. 379 00:19:49,320 --> 00:19:53,080 So I'm, I'm writing a, you know, some thoughts of post mortem on 380 00:19:53,080 --> 00:19:56,200 my experiences in any judge, because it's such a it's a black 381 00:19:56,200 --> 00:20:00,520 box in our industry. It is, it is bizarre how huge of 382 00:20:00,520 --> 00:20:04,200 a mind share it holds and nobody really knows anything about it 383 00:20:04,200 --> 00:20:08,760 except what they can see in the ceremony every year and the 384 00:20:08,800 --> 00:20:11,840 website, which is, you know, obviously just like a an 385 00:20:11,840 --> 00:20:12,920 announcement and that's about it. 386 00:20:13,320 --> 00:20:16,480 So you know. I'm I'm going to write about 387 00:20:16,480 --> 00:20:19,240 that, but I, you know, I have it at the very top of my post 388 00:20:19,240 --> 00:20:21,080 mortem right now. I'm like, I need to set this 389 00:20:21,080 --> 00:20:24,280 straight. This is not a giant, you know, 390 00:20:24,360 --> 00:20:27,120 thesis on why award show should not exist. 391 00:20:27,520 --> 00:20:30,320 I think there's reasons why most of them shouldn't exist, but 392 00:20:30,320 --> 00:20:31,920 generally I actually quite enjoy them. 393 00:20:31,920 --> 00:20:34,600 I think they're a lot of fun to talk about, especially the ones 394 00:20:34,600 --> 00:20:38,160 that are really well executed. RP GS generally don't have 395 00:20:38,160 --> 00:20:39,480 really well executed award shows. 396 00:20:39,480 --> 00:20:43,520 I think more of the other industries I'm in there are, and 397 00:20:43,520 --> 00:20:47,600 I'm not in movies or film, but you know, obviously they have 398 00:20:47,800 --> 00:20:51,800 dozens of award shows. I'm in design and advertising. 399 00:20:51,800 --> 00:20:54,960 So we have just like, and this is something that maybe people 400 00:20:54,960 --> 00:20:59,000 don't realize, when you are in a industry that makes content, 401 00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:02,200 that makes something that it's full creators, you get a lot of 402 00:21:02,200 --> 00:21:04,440 award shows. It's just part of how the system 403 00:21:04,440 --> 00:21:05,960 works. It's the infrastructure. 404 00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:10,600 And so I have a really like strong like relationship to 405 00:21:10,600 --> 00:21:14,600 award shows from outside of RP GS and that's why I have a huge 406 00:21:14,600 --> 00:21:17,680 opinion of RPG award shows, especially now that I've been a 407 00:21:17,680 --> 00:21:20,240 judge. So top level 1, I actually like 408 00:21:20,240 --> 00:21:22,600 award shows 2. I really liked being in any 409 00:21:22,600 --> 00:21:24,080 judge. I mean, at the end of the day, 410 00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:27,200 as much as I'm, you know, I'm going to talk about all sorts of 411 00:21:27,200 --> 00:21:29,840 different frustrations that maybe had especially in the this 412 00:21:29,840 --> 00:21:32,840 post mortem when I can put it in print and, you know, edit it and 413 00:21:32,840 --> 00:21:34,480 re edit it and all that good stuff. 414 00:21:34,840 --> 00:21:37,760 But at the end of the day, it's hard not to be happy or grateful 415 00:21:37,760 --> 00:21:41,560 that you get to like read like all of this awesome work and 416 00:21:41,560 --> 00:21:45,680 people like sent them to you. So it would put a pin in that. 417 00:21:46,120 --> 00:21:49,560 But I will just say this. If you're making an RP GS send 418 00:21:49,560 --> 00:21:52,920 send stuff to people you like, let them, they they like that. 419 00:21:52,920 --> 00:21:55,480 And then they'll they'll probably do something with it if 420 00:21:55,480 --> 00:21:59,080 you give it to them freely. And then the third thing, you 421 00:21:59,080 --> 00:22:01,120 know that I want to set the straight, you know, in addition 422 00:22:01,120 --> 00:22:05,400 to I actually like award shows. I was grateful being a judge is 423 00:22:05,480 --> 00:22:07,040 3. I know that the Annie's are a 424 00:22:07,040 --> 00:22:10,320 lot of work. They are actually it's, it is 425 00:22:10,320 --> 00:22:14,520 like running a Kickstarter for an entire year, every year until 426 00:22:14,520 --> 00:22:17,160 you die. So it is not, it's not an easy 427 00:22:17,160 --> 00:22:19,360 job. So you know every in this is 428 00:22:19,360 --> 00:22:22,880 what I say all the time in design spaces. 429 00:22:22,880 --> 00:22:25,000 But when you critique something, you're critique in the work. 430 00:22:25,000 --> 00:22:26,240 You're not critiquing the person. 431 00:22:26,920 --> 00:22:29,920 You guys do this all the time where you might critique like a 432 00:22:29,920 --> 00:22:32,600 game, but you're clearly not talking about the individual. 433 00:22:32,760 --> 00:22:35,280 You're not saying like, oh, yeah, this person sucks because 434 00:22:35,280 --> 00:22:38,240 their layout is too, too narrow or small. 435 00:22:38,560 --> 00:22:41,800 You're just saying that the work is not representing that 436 00:22:41,800 --> 00:22:45,040 person's vision or their ideas or their, you know, the best 437 00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:47,560 part of them in the way that it could be, you know, with the 438 00:22:47,640 --> 00:22:50,200 execution. So those are the three things 439 00:22:50,360 --> 00:22:53,600 about the Emmy Awards that I want to make very clear, you 440 00:22:53,600 --> 00:22:57,360 know, So like everything I say has an asterisk next to it. 441 00:22:57,360 --> 00:23:00,560 I'm like, remember, he actually really likes the stuff. 442 00:23:00,560 --> 00:23:01,920 He wants to be super constructive. 443 00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:04,440 I'm not trying to put like a bile into the world. 444 00:23:04,800 --> 00:23:09,480 But yeah, the Annies are really weird, really complicated. 445 00:23:09,720 --> 00:23:12,560 And it's a next to impossible to write about him because every 446 00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:16,400 single sentence that I could say about him has like 1000 caveats 447 00:23:16,400 --> 00:23:19,080 and like footnotes in it where I got to be able to, I feel the 448 00:23:19,240 --> 00:23:23,360 urge to like explain myself and explain the Annies and be like, 449 00:23:23,360 --> 00:23:27,520 it's because it's so complicated and weird and not intuitive, not 450 00:23:27,520 --> 00:23:29,880 even a little bit. And some of that is 451 00:23:29,880 --> 00:23:33,840 self-inflicted by me and some of it's self-inflicted by the any 452 00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:37,720 awards. So that's that my opening sort 453 00:23:37,720 --> 00:23:44,000 of a long not rant, more of a, you know, it's me. 454 00:23:44,120 --> 00:23:46,680 It's me on the defense stand being like, I didn't kill him. 455 00:23:46,680 --> 00:23:49,640 You know, that kind of like that thing in the courtroom, but I 456 00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:52,000 think you got you got to ask me a question and then I can answer 457 00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:53,240 it. I think that's the only way to 458 00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:55,960 like actually get into it. And I and I know you got some 459 00:23:55,960 --> 00:23:58,240 real like spicy ones that you're going to ask me. 460 00:23:58,320 --> 00:24:02,280 Well, I mean, here's I'm I'm an opinion guy, you know what I 461 00:24:02,280 --> 00:24:04,560 mean? Questions just kind of RIP. 462 00:24:04,840 --> 00:24:08,320 I mean, my opinion is well known for anyone that's watched the 463 00:24:08,320 --> 00:24:10,800 show in the innies. I I don't like them. 464 00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:16,120 I think they're bad and and that's one reason I, I mean, I 465 00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:17,840 wanted to talk to you regardless. 466 00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:22,040 Didn't even know you were an Indies judge until like way 467 00:24:22,040 --> 00:24:24,920 until much more recently than than wanting to talk to you. 468 00:24:25,480 --> 00:24:27,880 That was just a bonus to be like, oh shit, now we definitely 469 00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:30,680 have to talk about this. Despite my best efforts, I I 470 00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:32,960 tried to make it clear that I was an Indies judge, not because 471 00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:35,520 I wanted to advertise it, but because I was like, man, it 472 00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:39,480 would be really, really cool if people knew an Indies judge, 473 00:24:40,080 --> 00:24:42,400 yeah. We got one. 474 00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:44,840 We got one. You're hearing one talk. 475 00:24:45,080 --> 00:24:47,440 This may be the first time for a lot of you that you've ever 476 00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:50,160 heard of a person who was an Ennies judge talk about being an 477 00:24:50,160 --> 00:24:51,600 Ennies judge. That's that's. 478 00:24:51,760 --> 00:24:54,240 Really rare because there's a lot of random fucks that get to 479 00:24:54,240 --> 00:24:57,320 be innies judges that like, make no fucking sense to me. 480 00:24:57,320 --> 00:24:59,760 So let's start there. Well, let me get my caveats out 481 00:24:59,760 --> 00:25:00,920 of the way. Let me get my circle. 482 00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:05,720 Let me get my way the ennies. In my opinion, I don't like 483 00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:07,880 award shows for the most part and I think the innies are 484 00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:13,240 incredibly broken and I would love to hear from you about why 485 00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:18,840 The Annie's to me are. It's one of those things where, 486 00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:22,160 man, I'm going to not say what I wanted to say there. 487 00:25:22,840 --> 00:25:26,720 It's one of those things where if your friend gets nominated, 488 00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:29,880 you're happy for them. If they win, you're even happier 489 00:25:29,880 --> 00:25:32,280 for them. But that doesn't mean that you 490 00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:34,200 don't think the thing still sucks, you know what I mean? 491 00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:38,160 Like, I, I think the Andes are terrible, but I'm very proud of 492 00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:41,080 the people that I know that won awards because the recognition 493 00:25:41,080 --> 00:25:42,720 is great. And I understand like the 494 00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:45,240 trickle down from being able to say that you won an Andes is 495 00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:46,960 fantastic for them and for the work that they do. 496 00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:49,400 And that's really, really great. Those things can coexist at the 497 00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:51,000 same time. And I think that's a lot of 498 00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:53,400 people's opinions on the Andes. A lot of people I think are like 499 00:25:53,400 --> 00:25:55,880 fuck the Andes, but if I got one that'd be cool, you know what I 500 00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:58,160 mean? It's the point of being joke or 501 00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:01,120 a meme. Like there's a like I I know 502 00:26:01,120 --> 00:26:05,240 Brad who who won this year for the dream shrine is like, 503 00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:06,600 actually, I think the enemies are great. 504 00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:10,760 Now, you know, being very overt about, you know, just that 505 00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:14,880 knowing how, how, how funny it is that relationship. 506 00:26:15,560 --> 00:26:19,840 Yeah, and and and again, like things can be two things. 507 00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:22,080 Things can coexist. They're not mutually exclusive. 508 00:26:22,080 --> 00:26:24,840 You can think any suck and and still be happy that you want 509 00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:26,920 one. I'm very, again, very happy for 510 00:26:26,920 --> 00:26:31,080 our friends at 11. I think that's my only asterisk. 511 00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:34,560 I mean, I if you want to hear the spiel, go listen to the 512 00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:37,200 cyber plus punk episode. I had a nice one about that. 513 00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:39,840 So let's start. Let's start from the top. 514 00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:46,840 So I actually didn't know for a long time that the judges are 515 00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:48,400 voted on. And I must have seen it before 516 00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:51,040 because I've I've voted in the Indies multiple times, but the 517 00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:53,360 judges are voted on in the Indies and I'm going to keep it 518 00:26:53,360 --> 00:26:57,320 a buck with you. I read every single word of this 519 00:26:57,320 --> 00:27:02,760 current crops for next year and my opinion of the Indies is much 520 00:27:02,760 --> 00:27:07,040 worse now based on those responses because there's about 521 00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:10,400 how many people were were listed, about 20 people, 15 I 522 00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:11,840 feel like. Yeah, I feel like it was like a 523 00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:14,920 a dozen and a half something, a big dozen people minimum. 524 00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:19,600 Crazy amount there's I, I think, I think there were three that I 525 00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:21,440 was like, I would have a conversation with this person 526 00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:26,080 about games and that's about it. Like I thought that the vast 527 00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:29,440 majority of those people should not have anything to do with 528 00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:31,320 winning awards. Some of the questions were 529 00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:33,600 ridiculous and the responses were worked. 530 00:27:33,600 --> 00:27:35,280 No, I actually really liked the questions. 531 00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:39,200 I thought I was surprised at how good the questions were in my 532 00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:43,640 opinion, but the answers were ridiculous things like what are 533 00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:46,880 the last five games you ran? And like 10 other people were 534 00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:52,040 like 05 E and dagger heart and Pathfinder and just literally 535 00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:56,280 like the biggest box most like corporate generic possible games 536 00:27:56,280 --> 00:27:59,840 ever with no mention of anything, anything indie or 537 00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:01,720 creative or anything. And then one of the last 538 00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:04,600 questions is like, what do you think we could improve on? 539 00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:05,680 Innies? Great question. 540 00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:07,120 Innies like not sarcastically at all. 541 00:28:07,120 --> 00:28:09,600 It's a great question. A bunch of people are like a 542 00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:10,840 bunch of people are like nothing. 543 00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:12,600 It's great. And I'm like, you should not be 544 00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:14,200 a fucking judge. What is wrong with you? 545 00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:16,960 Like you're don't be a fucking pick me have a goddamn opinion. 546 00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:19,240 And there were two or three people that had really great 547 00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:22,800 opinions that I that I thought were great. 548 00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:25,040 And 20 bucks says not a single one of those people actually 549 00:28:25,040 --> 00:28:28,200 gets picked or voted in or whatever. 550 00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:30,960 But So what? I guess there's like 10 551 00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:33,400 questions from that. But like I got, I got. 10 things 552 00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:36,240 to say about it already. How would I just hit you with a 553 00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:38,360 topic instead of a question? And we'll just kind of tangent 554 00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:40,840 from there. The any getting to be an Andy's 555 00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:42,560 judge. Let's talk about that that how 556 00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:44,600 that process went and and your thoughts on it. 557 00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:45,960 Yeah. All right. 558 00:28:45,960 --> 00:28:50,240 So let's a lot of what I have to say about the innies is about 559 00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:54,880 systems like the design of the innies and big asterisk on that, 560 00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:58,160 because the Annie's are not designed in the traditional 561 00:28:58,160 --> 00:29:00,960 sense of like designing something. 562 00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:04,320 There's like a good metaphor. And now I'm going on a tangent. 563 00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:07,240 So I'm already failing this the topic, but I'm going to do it 564 00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:10,880 anyway. So, you know, one of the things 565 00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:13,360 I think about is like, so when I first started playing 566 00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:16,880 role-playing games, I got into it through Advanced Dungeons and 567 00:29:16,880 --> 00:29:21,960 Dragons by the Gary Guy Gats not alone in that, but I may be 568 00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:23,800 unique in that. I am way too. 569 00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:26,960 I'm a younger guy. So the fact that I got my hands 570 00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:32,640 on AD and D1 as opposed to two or three or any of the other 571 00:29:32,640 --> 00:29:35,880 versions or maybe Vampire the Masquerade is a little bit of an 572 00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:37,520 anomaly. And there's a whole story about 573 00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:40,000 that involving garage sales and all that stuff. 574 00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:42,440 But point being is that one of the things that's really 575 00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:47,080 interesting about advanced DND is that when you take when you 576 00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:50,640 go and you look at that, then you look at advanced DND 2E and 577 00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:54,920 then you look at 3E, there's a huge shift because in one E it's 578 00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:57,240 cobbled together. It is an iterative game. 579 00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:01,200 Gary Gygax is making shit up. He's laying the track while the 580 00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:05,160 train is moving, trying to codify stuff for a number of 581 00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:06,680 reasons. But at the end of the day, 582 00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:08,560 there's no like clear of one goal. 583 00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:11,840 Like he's got like some ethos, but he's not like this is how 584 00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:14,560 the system is going to work. This is the kernel and we're, 585 00:30:14,600 --> 00:30:18,280 and this is our the core idea and we're going to know when 586 00:30:18,280 --> 00:30:20,400 that thing would come up. He'd be like, all right, let's 587 00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:22,880 make a new system for that. So that's why AD and DS got like 588 00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:26,160 all these like weird subsystems. You're using dice and then like 589 00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:29,520 one day you're using like D6 and then you're using AD 100, even 590 00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:31,200 though they're both percentile and you're like, why are we 591 00:30:31,200 --> 00:30:32,880 doing this? Because they're just making 592 00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:35,920 things as they go. So it's not designed in the 593 00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:39,960 sense that, you know, in in the traditional sense, that designer 594 00:30:39,960 --> 00:30:41,040 would be like, OK, what's my good? 595 00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:42,760 What's my strategy? What's my design goals? 596 00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:45,960 What's the intention that I'm going that's going to guide me 597 00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:48,040 on all these different little decisions. 598 00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:53,320 This exploration touch my nose cause explorer's design is, 599 00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:55,560 that's what it's about. It's about exploring design. 600 00:30:56,640 --> 00:31:02,360 So with that said, when third edition came out, that was the 601 00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:05,400 first edition of DND that was designed where they're like, we 602 00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:07,960 are going to create a core resolution system and everything 603 00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:10,640 is going to be built in a vertical along that system. 604 00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:12,600 We're going to use AD 20. There's going to be it's going 605 00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:15,240 to be plus minus and that's going to be like the core of 606 00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:20,160 just about everything. And what we see with the NES is 607 00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:22,280 more of an AD and D serve approach. 608 00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:26,120 It was inherited somewhere around 20/19. 609 00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:29,440 It was originally started like most RPG things, it's like a 610 00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:35,320 lark or or a bit and then it it's by time and just like 611 00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:38,920 inertia getting a gain momentum, like a snowball going down at a 612 00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:41,080 mountain. It became more than what it was 613 00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:45,360 ever intended to be. And so the the Annie's is just a 614 00:31:45,360 --> 00:31:51,120 cobbled together the vestigial artifacts of years of this thing 615 00:31:51,120 --> 00:31:53,480 changing slightly, ebbing and flowing as it went. 616 00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:57,120 And often times to the question. I, I would imagine I'm, I'm 617 00:31:57,120 --> 00:32:00,560 inserting myself into the shoes of the coordinators is how are 618 00:32:00,560 --> 00:32:04,160 we going to keep at the Annie's running next for next year? 619 00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:06,520 As opposed to the question that I think what more people would 620 00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:08,880 expect them to be asking, which is what do we want the Annie's 621 00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:10,840 to be next year? That's not the question. 622 00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:12,280 The question is how do we keep it running? 623 00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:17,760 So you're, it's Danny's is you know that it's not designed. 624 00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:19,960 That's at the end of the day. And I think if we did design the 625 00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:22,400 innies, it would not be designed this way. 626 00:32:22,400 --> 00:32:25,560 Like if that if we were going to rebuild it from the ground up 627 00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:28,520 starting today, we wouldn't, it wouldn't be designed this way if 628 00:32:28,520 --> 00:32:30,680 it were a game. This is not the game play we 629 00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:35,560 would want. So with that said, the judges, 630 00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:41,360 it's a very interesting system of having the judges be publicly 631 00:32:41,360 --> 00:32:45,680 voted on because it and it creates a system that 632 00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:48,440 automatically favors certain kinds of judges. 633 00:32:48,960 --> 00:32:53,080 If you're, if you don't have to read certain criteria, you're 634 00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:54,560 never going to be a judge in the innings. 635 00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:58,720 I think I had a really weird experience in that I was like 636 00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:04,160 this crazy weird edge case where all the, you know, plants 637 00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:06,520 aligned and I shot the gap and somehow got in. 638 00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:10,000 I had a big enough audience, not a big and not a really big one, 639 00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:12,840 but a big enough audience that I could actually get critical mass 640 00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:15,680 to get voted in. I've probably had like there are 641 00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:19,360 only 5 judges every year. I probably had the fifth most 642 00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:23,640 judge, you know, votes. But I, you know, I ended up in 643 00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:24,920 the innings anyway. So. 644 00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:28,320 And part of the challenge of that is like if you look at the 645 00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:31,920 people who win on a regular basis, it's generally skewed 646 00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:34,920 towards the big box games like Dungeons and Dragons because 647 00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:37,080 they have the bigger audience and because people just 648 00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:38,920 naturally vote for the thing that they understand. 649 00:33:38,920 --> 00:33:44,200 No more so that by wide margin more people play DND than 650 00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:47,400 anything else. Even when DND is doing terrible, 651 00:33:47,720 --> 00:33:51,840 quote UN quote, it's still leagues above any other game 652 00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:55,280 combined usually. So if you say that you play DND, 653 00:33:55,280 --> 00:33:57,520 you get a lot of votes. Like it's just part of like how 654 00:33:57,520 --> 00:33:59,440 it is. It's the same reason why like if 655 00:33:59,440 --> 00:34:04,600 anything has like a big like product name on it, like Lord of 656 00:34:04,600 --> 00:34:08,480 the Rings, it's automatically going to be weighed more heavily 657 00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:11,400 than everything else in its category when it gets to the 658 00:34:11,400 --> 00:34:13,800 time for public voting. So that's the first thing. 659 00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:16,880 And, and, and I think what that really leads to is like, OK, so 660 00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:20,400 you basically every year the, the system automatically favors 661 00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:22,679 not intentionally, just because, again, it's not intentionally 662 00:34:22,679 --> 00:34:27,719 designed, it's just how it is. It automatically favors design. 663 00:34:27,800 --> 00:34:31,639 It favors judges who are into the most tried stuff out there, 664 00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:36,000 the most popular thing that there is, and streamers, content 665 00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:40,960 creators and nobody else. And more specifically, like 666 00:34:41,159 --> 00:34:46,440 content creators who don't make RPGs because one of the rules of 667 00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:50,199 becoming a judge, it's in the the guidelines, it ends up being 668 00:34:50,199 --> 00:34:54,360 part of the NDA is that you can't have made anything for the 669 00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:58,120 innies in the two years leading up to the innies that you want 670 00:34:58,120 --> 00:35:00,120 to be a judge. So don't. 671 00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:02,240 You could, you could not have submitted anything, you could 672 00:35:02,240 --> 00:35:03,800 not have designed a game or anything. 673 00:35:04,080 --> 00:35:06,840 And you can't have any professional relationship with 674 00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:11,640 any publishers, distributors, anyone that has a relationship. 675 00:35:11,640 --> 00:35:15,080 That could be a conflict of interest, which in our space 676 00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:19,120 basically means effectively designers, game designers are 677 00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:21,200 banned from being judges in the innies. 678 00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:27,960 So that is why the judges are more or less a certain type of 679 00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:32,520 archetypal, you know, people as opposed to the one, maybe the 680 00:35:32,520 --> 00:35:34,800 ones I think we all kind of want to be judges. 681 00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:39,440 You know, I, I, I want, I want designers judging. 682 00:35:39,960 --> 00:35:45,160 So this goes back to me being a in another space that has award 683 00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:51,280 shows in design and advertising. The panel of judges usually is 684 00:35:51,280 --> 00:35:56,000 like known quantity people who are famous in the thing that 685 00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:58,320 they do. So like if you submit something 686 00:35:58,320 --> 00:36:04,160 because you're making, I don't know, amazing videos, all the 687 00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:07,720 judges are directors and videographers that you probably 688 00:36:07,720 --> 00:36:09,720 know because you've seen their work in the wild. 689 00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:13,800 Or if you are something to a category for copywriting, all 690 00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:16,400 the judges are copywriters. And they're not just any 691 00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:18,280 copywriter. They're usually copywriters and 692 00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:22,480 jobs you wish you had or who copiers who wrote something that 693 00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:23,960 you wish you were good enough to write. 694 00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:27,680 So even then it yeah. So it really is just like, 695 00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:30,560 that's the the first part of like what makes the ennies 696 00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:34,040 probably unsatisfying to like most people, me included. 697 00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:40,160 I I want to be judged by a jury of my peers and I, and if not a 698 00:36:40,160 --> 00:36:42,440 jury of my peers, I at least want them to have a so much 699 00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:43,600 clout. It's undeniable. 700 00:36:44,520 --> 00:36:47,640 That's at the end of the day. But I, I really want because 701 00:36:47,640 --> 00:36:51,000 that also informs that you know what their tastes are and you 702 00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:53,080 can kind of trust their taste. Even if you don't agree with 703 00:36:53,080 --> 00:36:54,520 their taste, you kind of know what they are. 704 00:36:57,160 --> 00:37:02,840 Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's what do you, I mean, again, this is the 705 00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:05,560 first time this year that I really sat down and dug into 706 00:37:05,560 --> 00:37:12,480 that process and my immediate like 1 + 1 equals this is, oh, 707 00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:15,560 This is why it's broken. I'm sure there's a million other 708 00:37:15,560 --> 00:37:20,360 reasons, but starting from here, starting from this moment, 709 00:37:20,360 --> 00:37:22,520 because this is the people you're going to pick to be doing 710 00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:24,000 it next year. From this moment. 711 00:37:24,200 --> 00:37:28,200 It's already flawed and broken like there. 712 00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:30,880 You can't fix it from there because like you just said, 713 00:37:31,120 --> 00:37:33,880 you're always going to have the same kind of people with the 714 00:37:33,880 --> 00:37:39,240 same opinions every year. And if nothing else changes, I'm 715 00:37:39,240 --> 00:37:43,360 saying if everything else stayed the same, that in and of itself 716 00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:47,760 would permit would would just rule it out as, in my opinion, 717 00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:50,880 respectable at all. Because yeah, you basically get 718 00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:54,400 a bunch of fucking DND streamers and and and Internet 719 00:37:54,400 --> 00:38:00,600 personalities to to review shit like it just it boggled. 720 00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:03,640 It boggled my mind again, some of the responses. 721 00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:08,320 It was just they, it couldn't have been just more generic pick 722 00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:11,560 me bullshit or people that literally just like, oh, I just 723 00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:14,080 play DND. Like it's like this isn't even 724 00:38:14,080 --> 00:38:15,640 they don't even play the game to play. 725 00:38:15,640 --> 00:38:19,320 It's like, I have no problem with people like just having a 726 00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:20,640 social thing that they do with friends. 727 00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:22,120 Like it's a fucking poker night with their buddies. 728 00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:23,400 They don't give a shit about poker. 729 00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:24,720 They're just hanging out with their buddies. 730 00:38:24,960 --> 00:38:27,960 I don't want to want those people judging like a poker 731 00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:29,080 tournament. You know what I mean? 732 00:38:29,080 --> 00:38:35,320 Like that's, that's crazy to me. So that that I mean step one, 733 00:38:35,960 --> 00:38:39,040 yeah, fix that. Right so so the and here's the 734 00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:41,720 thing and This is why right in the post war room has been such 735 00:38:41,720 --> 00:38:44,840 a pain in the ass. The enemies is filled with 736 00:38:44,840 --> 00:38:47,440 bottlenecks like that where you're like, if this thing 737 00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:51,960 doesn't change, the other changes don't matter. 738 00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:54,640 You could change everything, but if this thing doesn't change, 739 00:38:54,640 --> 00:38:57,760 then it's kind of for nothing. And I mean, the judges 1 is 740 00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:01,320 probably the biggest one because the other thing that I want to 741 00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:04,120 say is that, you know, and I, and I have to be delicate about 742 00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:07,680 this because I don't want to talk about the other judges or 743 00:39:07,680 --> 00:39:10,560 anything like that. But one thing that that is both 744 00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:13,240 a good thing and maybe not a good thing depending on the 745 00:39:13,240 --> 00:39:16,440 circumstances is that the, the coordinators really do entrust 746 00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:20,000 the judges to make a lot of like the, you know, administrative 747 00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:22,440 decisions about things like they self organize. 748 00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:27,400 We figure out how we're going to, you know, select things, 749 00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:30,120 nominate things, how we're going to like communicate about them. 750 00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:34,280 And I have some opinions on that Asterisk, asterisk, asterisk 751 00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:39,960 because yeah, there's some caveats there, but yeah, there's 752 00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:42,520 just like, and there. And I, I will say there were 753 00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:45,560 some people that, you know, even though I didn't know them, which 754 00:39:45,560 --> 00:39:48,480 again, I would like to know more judges just without having to 755 00:39:48,480 --> 00:39:51,520 read their BIOS. There were some people where I 756 00:39:51,520 --> 00:39:54,120 read their responses and I'm like, cool, I like this. 757 00:39:54,120 --> 00:39:56,680 This person seems interesting. I would definitely want to be 758 00:39:56,680 --> 00:40:01,160 like talk to them probably in any normal circumstances because 759 00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:05,600 I, because I, I see curiosity, I see shared kinship in them that 760 00:40:05,600 --> 00:40:08,160 I see in a lot of other people that I play RPG's with or talk 761 00:40:08,320 --> 00:40:12,840 about RPG's with. And 95% of the ones I voted for 762 00:40:12,840 --> 00:40:15,120 did not end up being judges. So it goes to show you that 763 00:40:15,120 --> 00:40:18,320 that's just how it is. And it's not great. 764 00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:20,640 It it sucks. I I don't like it at all. 765 00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:23,080 And next year's going to be really interesting. 766 00:40:23,080 --> 00:40:25,280 I'm not going to, you know, write it off right away. 767 00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:28,520 I think this year, not to toot my own horn, but I think the 768 00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:33,360 variety that the sort of spread of nominations was probably more 769 00:40:33,720 --> 00:40:37,640 strange and like going it was different probably than previous 770 00:40:37,640 --> 00:40:44,120 years because by luck, me and maybe like two other judges were 771 00:40:44,120 --> 00:40:47,520 probably a little off type. You know, the system kind of 772 00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:49,720 broke a little bit and kind of let us breakthrough because we 773 00:40:49,720 --> 00:40:51,480 were like weird, weird fringe cases. 774 00:40:52,120 --> 00:40:54,720 But I, I, I again, I don't want to write off next year, but I do 775 00:40:54,720 --> 00:40:58,400 think it's going to be really hard to see next year's 776 00:40:58,760 --> 00:41:03,280 nominations list and be and and not for it to be what I think 777 00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:07,320 most of the Emmys years are. Because next year is going to be 778 00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:12,920 the year of Dagger Hart draw steel, all the big box games and 779 00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:16,000 their stuff coming out. And all the judges are people I 780 00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:19,320 I both don't know and also based off their answers, probably 781 00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:22,080 don't have a lot in common with me, which is, again, not a 782 00:41:22,080 --> 00:41:25,320 negative thing. But when the innies is and we're 783 00:41:25,320 --> 00:41:28,320 getting to another topic, when the innies is positioned as this 784 00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:34,120 broad church award show for the entire industry, and then its 785 00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:39,360 goal is to award quote UN quote excellence in games, then you're 786 00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:43,760 like, OK, well, we have some sort of obligation to expand our 787 00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:46,800 palate and our eyes and perspective on this thing 788 00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:50,800 because excellence is subjective. 789 00:41:50,800 --> 00:41:55,080 Award shows are subjective, but in order to be but they're not 790 00:41:55,080 --> 00:41:57,320 arbitrary. Subjectivity is not does not 791 00:41:57,320 --> 00:42:01,480 mean arbitrary necessarily. And in order to like be 792 00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:05,200 subjective but not arbitrary, you have to be willing to, you 793 00:42:05,200 --> 00:42:09,200 have to 1 have open curiosity. You have to have some experience 794 00:42:09,200 --> 00:42:11,640 with other games because it makes it easier for you to 795 00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:14,040 actually recognize when a thing is doing something interesting. 796 00:42:14,920 --> 00:42:18,200 And yeah, I lost my train of thought, but like it. 797 00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:20,800 I mean, that's at the end of the day, you need to play something 798 00:42:20,800 --> 00:42:26,080 other than D&D or call Cthulhu to recognize that something by 799 00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:30,240 Adam vast fucking rules. You know, like that's, that's 800 00:42:30,240 --> 00:42:33,200 just how it is. Like, and you know, I, I, and 801 00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:36,160 this is the thing too, is like I've heard, you know, people say 802 00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:38,320 in the past, it's like, well, obviously a word show is about 803 00:42:38,320 --> 00:42:40,960 awarding excellence. Like it can't be anything else. 804 00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:44,160 And it's like, not really like, and this is this is this is the 805 00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:50,920 topic of that I was hinting at what your stated goal of is for 806 00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:55,360 an award show doesn't have to be what it actually is about. 807 00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:59,520 And more often than not, the thing that the the sort of the 808 00:42:59,720 --> 00:43:02,720 quote UN quote metric that you're trying to nominate and 809 00:43:02,720 --> 00:43:06,640 award people for is just a vehicle is just a means to an 810 00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:09,440 end to get to the real thing, which is that you want to go, 811 00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:12,840 you want to shine a spotlight on people, you want to get people 812 00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:15,760 talking about things and you want to like drive the culture 813 00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:19,920 in some direction. And the any awards, I think 814 00:43:19,920 --> 00:43:26,320 struggle sometimes to do that because it's, you know, it's the 815 00:43:26,320 --> 00:43:28,160 winds of yeah, yeah, they're not designed. 816 00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:29,240 They're not designed. They don't have a. 817 00:43:29,240 --> 00:43:31,720 System is what it does. I say this to be a bunch of 818 00:43:31,720 --> 00:43:33,360 times. A system is what it does right? 819 00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:37,480 You can say a thing does a thing as much as you fucking want, but 820 00:43:37,480 --> 00:43:40,520 when you repeatedly see a system do a thing, that is not what you 821 00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:42,120 say it does. Yeah, right. 822 00:43:42,120 --> 00:43:44,360 It is doing what it does. The system is what it does. 823 00:43:44,640 --> 00:43:46,760 And this is one thing that I said earlier this year. 824 00:43:47,720 --> 00:43:50,880 If not even that, like based on the judges, not even that, the 825 00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:53,320 nominations or whatever, But if you get a nomination for the 826 00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:56,320 innings, you fucking won. Because there's a reason the 827 00:43:56,320 --> 00:44:02,600 Oscars are not fan vote, right? Like that's the most even. 828 00:44:02,600 --> 00:44:05,560 Even if you go to something like, I believe, like the Screen 829 00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:08,760 Actors Guild award or something like that, like it's at least 830 00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:12,200 all of your peers voting on the award. 831 00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:17,000 It's not the fucking MTV Music Awards that you text in to to 832 00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:19,120 pick the best one. You can't award. 833 00:44:19,120 --> 00:44:21,920 It's not award an award in any type of excellence whatsoever. 834 00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:23,760 It's a popularity contest. Yeah, yeah. 835 00:44:23,880 --> 00:44:26,600 It's it's, I mean, they say it on their website, but it's not 836 00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:29,920 like the prominent thing of like they are People's Choice Awards 837 00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:33,280 and people like want to think of it like, Oh, this is like the 838 00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:37,080 Academy Awards for RPGs It and I sometimes get that because if 839 00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:39,960 you go to the ceremony, they're trying very hard to be like 840 00:44:39,960 --> 00:44:42,240 this, like big thing. They even have like, you know, 841 00:44:42,240 --> 00:44:45,480 people who like put, put a medal around your head and everything 842 00:44:45,480 --> 00:44:46,920 else, which is very fun and silly. 843 00:44:47,280 --> 00:44:49,760 But but no, at the end of the day, it's more like a 844 00:44:49,760 --> 00:44:52,840 Nickelodeon good Choice Awards than it is Academy Awards. 845 00:44:53,000 --> 00:44:56,760 And that's it's not what I want. Let me put that. 846 00:44:57,000 --> 00:45:00,520 It's not what I want. I want something else, but if 847 00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:03,600 you were candidly like we are a People's Choice Awards and we 848 00:45:03,600 --> 00:45:07,480 are just about celebrating the things that we think are really 849 00:45:07,480 --> 00:45:11,120 fun and these are the things that are the things we want to 850 00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:14,280 elevate to that celebration. I think that would be fine. 851 00:45:14,280 --> 00:45:17,240 I, I, I think that would be, it wouldn't, it probably wouldn't 852 00:45:17,240 --> 00:45:19,920 change the mob's opinion of the Emmy Awards, but it would at 853 00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:22,640 least change my opinion of the Penny Awards, right? 854 00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:24,120 No, I mean, I think it definitely would. 855 00:45:24,120 --> 00:45:26,800 I think there's there. There is this weird kind of like 856 00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:30,240 dichotomy in it where they they want to look professional, same 857 00:45:30,240 --> 00:45:32,360 professional, seem like it's something that should have 858 00:45:32,360 --> 00:45:34,680 importance. But then like you just said, 859 00:45:34,680 --> 00:45:37,720 like it's the fucking kids Choice Awards. 860 00:45:37,720 --> 00:45:40,920 Like you can't have both. Like they try. 861 00:45:40,960 --> 00:45:46,400 And this is one reason why they spectacularly fail is you can't 862 00:45:46,440 --> 00:45:54,080 put yourself up as this like prestigious thing and then give 863 00:45:54,080 --> 00:45:57,840 like the the elbows and the her, her, hers, like as if it fucking 864 00:45:58,080 --> 00:46:02,280 like either either become the professional prestigious thing 865 00:46:02,600 --> 00:46:05,320 or start busting out the GAC. And just like having fucking 866 00:46:05,320 --> 00:46:09,040 skits and shit on stage and stuff like and trying to walk 867 00:46:09,040 --> 00:46:14,000 this line and failing to walk it year after year is a ridiculous 868 00:46:14,000 --> 00:46:15,440 thing. In my opinion. 869 00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:20,560 It's bad for the TRBG space because like there's I can't 870 00:46:22,480 --> 00:46:24,520 it's bad. It's bad, it's bad because what 871 00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:29,880 people want and what the innies is in a position to be is an 872 00:46:29,880 --> 00:46:36,000 Excellence Award, right. But I'm not going to, I'm not 873 00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:42,640 going to, I'm going to try not to say names and name games that 874 00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:46,800 did not deserve the awards that they got and that the other ones 875 00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:50,240 that did deserved more. But it's, it is a popularity 876 00:46:50,240 --> 00:46:51,560 contest. If you have $1,000,000 877 00:46:51,560 --> 00:46:54,000 Kickstarter, you want an any like you don't even need to 878 00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:55,360 wait. Like they might as well just 879 00:46:55,360 --> 00:46:57,120 hand it to you at the end of your Kickstarter because you 880 00:46:57,120 --> 00:46:59,760 know the following year it's going to win a fucking any. 881 00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:01,840 It doesn't matter if it's good. It doesn't matter. 882 00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:04,280 It's the most generic bullshit ever. 883 00:47:04,680 --> 00:47:07,720 If it was popular, it will win an Emmy. 884 00:47:07,800 --> 00:47:11,920 And like that's the bottom line. And very few times is something 885 00:47:11,920 --> 00:47:18,080 both good, excellent, I'm sorry, and popular, you know, because, 886 00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:22,360 and, and that's, and that's the opinion of people who who, who, 887 00:47:22,760 --> 00:47:25,840 who have read more than a couple of books, you know what I mean? 888 00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:31,040 The the I think, I think any award shows really good when it 889 00:47:31,040 --> 00:47:35,600 does one thing, it awards something that is both good and 890 00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:39,200 not popular. Like if you if you see a no name 891 00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:43,240 show up on a list in an award show and it's actually really 892 00:47:43,240 --> 00:47:47,560 great, that award show has done something truly awesome, right? 893 00:47:47,560 --> 00:47:51,440 Like I and it's the whole popularity thing. 894 00:47:53,080 --> 00:47:55,160 We're officially off of topics a little bit. 895 00:47:55,760 --> 00:47:59,240 There's a lot of concerns that judges had on the back end, 896 00:47:59,240 --> 00:48:01,440 things that I specifically had concerns about. 897 00:48:01,440 --> 00:48:03,880 And one of the ones that I haven't, I came up with the term 898 00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:06,640 for it is like sandbagging categories. 899 00:48:07,120 --> 00:48:11,200 And basically the idea being that like we know at the at the 900 00:48:11,200 --> 00:48:13,680 end of the day, the best way to probably treat the Annie Awards, 901 00:48:13,680 --> 00:48:15,880 especially as a judge, I'm saying this now for the judges 902 00:48:15,880 --> 00:48:20,120 who are going to be judges, is like treat the nominations list 903 00:48:20,120 --> 00:48:23,960 like the winners. And, and frankly, everyone 904 00:48:23,960 --> 00:48:26,320 should just do that, treat the nominations list as the winners. 905 00:48:26,840 --> 00:48:29,480 The other thing doesn't really matter as much because it's kind 906 00:48:29,480 --> 00:48:31,760 of, you know, all about marketing inertia and all 907 00:48:32,040 --> 00:48:34,600 impressions and things that we all agree that we don't really 908 00:48:34,600 --> 00:48:37,840 enjoy. But you know, one of the things 909 00:48:37,840 --> 00:48:41,320 that we're constantly doing is like trying to like figure out 910 00:48:41,320 --> 00:48:45,760 and we failed multiple times as you, as you've hinted at in the 911 00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:49,400 different categories. But like trying to figure out 912 00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:54,560 what thing is going to be that crazy popular thing in a month 913 00:48:55,360 --> 00:48:59,280 that isn't popular right now that is just going to steamroll 914 00:48:59,280 --> 00:49:03,520 its way through the categories. And so, you know, there are some 915 00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:06,040 and then the other challenge and there's this is a converging 916 00:49:06,040 --> 00:49:09,560 like number of complexities are coming in on each other. 917 00:49:09,560 --> 00:49:13,760 Is that often times a thing that is good in one category? 918 00:49:13,760 --> 00:49:16,040 More often than not is good in multiple categories because 919 00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:19,800 people who are good at design games are good in a holistic 920 00:49:19,800 --> 00:49:21,560 fashion. They're often times like if they 921 00:49:21,560 --> 00:49:24,000 can get a good writer on, they often have good enough taste to 922 00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:26,960 also get a good artist on. So there are games where like 923 00:49:26,960 --> 00:49:31,440 they have multiple that they're they're justifiably should be 924 00:49:31,440 --> 00:49:33,960 nominated for a lot of categories, but you know not to 925 00:49:33,960 --> 00:49:36,960 nominate them for a lot of categories because by nominating 926 00:49:36,960 --> 00:49:39,760 them for a lot of categories, one, if they're popular, you 927 00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:44,040 might you risk basically getting a goal for like 1 game seven 928 00:49:44,040 --> 00:49:46,080 times. And then the second reason is 929 00:49:46,080 --> 00:49:48,120 because the ennies are so finite. 930 00:49:48,120 --> 00:49:53,960 It is a 0 sum game of you only can give 5 nominations in every 931 00:49:53,960 --> 00:49:57,240 category and there are more than 5 great short adventures, more 932 00:49:57,240 --> 00:50:00,200 than 5, whatever. You're constantly being like, if 933 00:50:00,200 --> 00:50:02,960 I give this game another nomination in this category, 934 00:50:02,960 --> 00:50:05,680 that means I am not giving a nomination to this game. 935 00:50:05,680 --> 00:50:07,800 That's not going to get a nomination in any other category 936 00:50:07,800 --> 00:50:11,200 besides maybe this one. And so you're you're playing 937 00:50:11,200 --> 00:50:15,000 this game with yourself, this 40 chess of like trying to figure 938 00:50:15,000 --> 00:50:16,720 out what the game, which game is popular? 939 00:50:17,040 --> 00:50:19,880 Which games do you think might justifiably get to have more 940 00:50:19,880 --> 00:50:21,680 than one silver award than one gold? 941 00:50:22,720 --> 00:50:28,000 And then also being like, all right, 30 things should probably 942 00:50:28,000 --> 00:50:31,560 win or be nominated for best design and layout this year. 943 00:50:32,280 --> 00:50:34,120 Which five are we going to give it to? 944 00:50:34,800 --> 00:50:38,520 And then you then on top of all that, there are some judges who 945 00:50:38,520 --> 00:50:40,200 are going to disagree with you and they're going to think that 946 00:50:40,200 --> 00:50:42,160 this thing is good and they're going to be wrong. 947 00:50:42,160 --> 00:50:45,200 No, I mean, I say that I think they're going to be wrong. 948 00:50:45,200 --> 00:50:47,520 You know, I like from my perspective and they're going to 949 00:50:47,520 --> 00:50:50,040 look at me with my things and be like, that guy is wrong. 950 00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:52,280 And so you're doing this tug and pull thing where you're like 951 00:50:52,400 --> 00:50:55,360 getting on your soapbox and you're like cap in hand, being 952 00:50:55,360 --> 00:50:59,400 like, I, I think mythic Bastion land is really good. 953 00:50:59,400 --> 00:51:02,080 I think it's better. No one's playing it right now 954 00:51:02,720 --> 00:51:06,760 and but I think this thing is got it's got the juice and I 955 00:51:06,760 --> 00:51:08,520 think it should go into best rules like that. 956 00:51:08,520 --> 00:51:11,920 Like that's like a an instance of like a thing that happened in 957 00:51:11,920 --> 00:51:17,040 the any awards judging already. And you know, solely through 958 00:51:17,560 --> 00:51:21,000 political like it's politics, It's like it's social capital. 959 00:51:21,000 --> 00:51:23,240 You're sitting there trying to like figure out how how hard can 960 00:51:23,240 --> 00:51:27,760 I push like this game or this thing because you don't want to 961 00:51:27,760 --> 00:51:29,720 like, you don't want the winds to turn on you. 962 00:51:30,040 --> 00:51:32,680 And then when it comes to the next category, people are like, 963 00:51:32,680 --> 00:51:35,840 I'm tired. I've already given Clay his pet 964 00:51:35,840 --> 00:51:39,160 thing in one category. It's time for me to get my 965 00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:41,640 things in this category. And again, this sounds 966 00:51:41,640 --> 00:51:46,120 animosity, but it's not. It's this is just how, you know, 967 00:51:46,920 --> 00:51:49,880 collaboration on like, decision making works, right. 968 00:51:51,360 --> 00:51:52,240 But the Iowa. Yeah. 969 00:51:52,240 --> 00:51:54,560 So sandbagging is like a huge thing. 970 00:51:54,560 --> 00:51:58,440 And sometimes we would have categories where it's like, OK, 971 00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:02,200 here's a multiple of really popular games, maybe we can at 972 00:52:02,200 --> 00:52:05,000 least pit them against each other, you know, in the popular 973 00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:06,200 vote. And you're sitting there 974 00:52:06,200 --> 00:52:08,120 thinking that. So I'm thinking, you know, in 975 00:52:08,120 --> 00:52:13,080 one category I was like, surely is Ava's Bed and Breakfast is an 976 00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:16,480 OK one to put in this category if it also has to fight land of 977 00:52:16,640 --> 00:52:23,440 EM and Stu Pot and like another like really popular like these 978 00:52:23,440 --> 00:52:25,600 games that are like everyone talks about all the time. 979 00:52:25,600 --> 00:52:28,840 It's like some people's like favorite games and multiple 980 00:52:28,840 --> 00:52:31,560 discords. It's got tons of videos and 981 00:52:31,560 --> 00:52:34,200 things like that. And so you know this enemies 982 00:52:34,320 --> 00:52:36,200 there was multiple categories where we're like, we were like, 983 00:52:36,200 --> 00:52:38,360 let's put some giants next against each other. 984 00:52:39,160 --> 00:52:42,800 But to give a fun like a little this is some something that 985 00:52:42,800 --> 00:52:44,040 nobody knows. So it's going to be for this 986 00:52:44,040 --> 00:52:50,600 podcast before the postmortem goes out is a when we decided 987 00:52:50,600 --> 00:52:53,360 that Mythic bachelor might get nominated for some categories. 988 00:52:54,200 --> 00:52:57,120 And I, you know, I campaigned really hard for it and 989 00:52:57,120 --> 00:53:00,040 specifically best art and best rules. 990 00:53:01,000 --> 00:53:04,440 The Quinn's Quest video did not come out until after we 991 00:53:04,440 --> 00:53:08,840 finalized our nominations. So it was a little bit of like, 992 00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:12,840 I don't think if the Quinn's Quest video didn't come out, I 993 00:53:12,840 --> 00:53:16,200 don't think it would have done as well as it did in the public 994 00:53:16,200 --> 00:53:18,800 vote. But it and we could not have 995 00:53:18,800 --> 00:53:24,840 predicted that Quinn's proclaimed like OSR fantasy RPG 996 00:53:24,840 --> 00:53:28,400 hater was going to come out with was going to make one of his one 997 00:53:28,400 --> 00:53:31,760 of five reviews a year, this one, right? 998 00:53:31,760 --> 00:53:36,520 So yeah, it's just a crapshoot. And some of that is like you 999 00:53:36,520 --> 00:53:38,200 can't actually design against that. 1000 00:53:38,880 --> 00:53:43,080 But it certainly doesn't help that we're doing a 0 sum game 1001 00:53:43,080 --> 00:53:48,120 with a People's Choice Awards, so that so now that those 1002 00:53:48,120 --> 00:53:51,400 challenges become realities that you have to deal with that you 1003 00:53:51,400 --> 00:53:53,800 have to consider while also judging. 1004 00:53:54,360 --> 00:53:57,200 So this is also broken. So we've established that this 1005 00:53:57,200 --> 00:54:01,920 process is fucked. Well, yeah, I mean, like again, 1006 00:54:01,920 --> 00:54:04,440 like it's all about perspective, right? 1007 00:54:04,440 --> 00:54:11,600 Like if you think that that that popularity, like I can see 1008 00:54:11,600 --> 00:54:14,120 someone saying, making an argument that like, Hey, maybe 1009 00:54:14,120 --> 00:54:16,720 award show should codify what is popular in that year. 1010 00:54:17,560 --> 00:54:18,760 Maybe that's maybe they're right. 1011 00:54:19,200 --> 00:54:22,560 But I, I, I, I don't want that to be the award show. 1012 00:54:23,280 --> 00:54:27,160 I don't want to be the like prestige, the the the giant in 1013 00:54:27,160 --> 00:54:28,600 the industry. I would like it to be like some 1014 00:54:28,600 --> 00:54:31,840 other like side thing, right? Well, and and that's the issue. 1015 00:54:31,840 --> 00:54:35,280 That's part of the issue too, right, Is again, the innies has 1016 00:54:35,280 --> 00:54:39,640 is in the position by momentum or by whatever that they can do 1017 00:54:39,640 --> 00:54:43,840 this every year. And part of that is financially 1018 00:54:43,840 --> 00:54:47,480 they can do this. They can't they it would be very 1019 00:54:47,480 --> 00:54:51,920 difficult for someone else, some other group to get to the point 1020 00:54:51,920 --> 00:54:56,680 where they have a three hour long fucking streamed show at 1021 00:54:56,680 --> 00:54:59,600 Gen. Con in fucking Union Station. 1022 00:54:59,600 --> 00:55:01,560 Right? Like that is not going to be a 1023 00:55:01,560 --> 00:55:04,320 thing that's possible next year or the year after the year after 1024 00:55:04,320 --> 00:55:08,080 for anything out there. So this is this is one reason 1025 00:55:08,160 --> 00:55:13,440 that I also despise the innies is because they are the only one 1026 00:55:13,440 --> 00:55:18,880 that could be what the space does need and cannot be because 1027 00:55:18,880 --> 00:55:24,080 of themself, you know, And that that to me, I think is more 1028 00:55:24,080 --> 00:55:26,240 infuriating than anything. There's a reason we don't do an 1029 00:55:26,240 --> 00:55:28,440 award show on the podcast. We review things. 1030 00:55:28,440 --> 00:55:31,560 We even quantify it with fucking numbers, right? 1031 00:55:31,880 --> 00:55:34,920 And there's a reason that we don't do an award show. 1032 00:55:35,120 --> 00:55:40,080 All we do on the show every year is just go back through the 1033 00:55:40,080 --> 00:55:43,520 numbers we already gave and just review the scores we gave, 1034 00:55:43,720 --> 00:55:45,800 right? And then we have like our 1035 00:55:45,800 --> 00:55:48,600 personal favorites that have nothing to do with scores. 1036 00:55:48,600 --> 00:55:51,200 And sometimes our personal favorites aren't even in the top 1037 00:55:51,200 --> 00:55:56,040 scores that were given out on the show because it's, and 1038 00:55:56,040 --> 00:55:58,120 again, that's why we don't do a fucking award show. 1039 00:55:58,120 --> 00:56:02,640 It's just a recap to, to, to not have to do with any of this 1040 00:56:02,640 --> 00:56:07,520 bullshit, right? And I would much rather have 1041 00:56:07,560 --> 00:56:11,720 someone's like post innies. Here's my 5. 1042 00:56:12,160 --> 00:56:16,240 Like the the game that made me jump the highest, you know what 1043 00:56:16,240 --> 00:56:17,880 I mean? Like, Oh yeah, the Superlative 1044 00:56:17,880 --> 00:56:22,520 awards are, yeah. They are, in my opinion, better 1045 00:56:22,520 --> 00:56:26,640 for the space than the Innies has any hope of being. 1046 00:56:26,800 --> 00:56:29,040 You know I. So, you know, I'm not going to 1047 00:56:29,400 --> 00:56:33,440 say too much about what I think would be my ideal award show 1048 00:56:34,040 --> 00:56:38,360 because spoiler alert, I kind of want to shop that idea around 1049 00:56:38,360 --> 00:56:40,920 and get somebody to buy buy it in right. 1050 00:56:40,920 --> 00:56:44,760 Like I want to I want to run an award show and I want to build 1 1051 00:56:45,160 --> 00:56:48,080 it with what I know. But one of the things I did 1052 00:56:48,080 --> 00:56:50,600 think would be I always thought it would be funny with an award 1053 00:56:50,600 --> 00:56:53,280 show is like, OK, yeah, it have your whole like categories and 1054 00:56:53,280 --> 00:56:56,520 everything that's like it's it's set in stone every year, what 1055 00:56:56,520 --> 00:56:58,640 have you. But would it be kind of fun if 1056 00:56:58,640 --> 00:57:02,400 like every year whatever crop of judges just had like 10 1057 00:57:02,400 --> 00:57:06,080 superlative awards every year just to throw it in like, and it 1058 00:57:06,080 --> 00:57:09,040 could be completely random every year like that? 1059 00:57:09,240 --> 00:57:14,800 Because there are some things where like they, they defy 1060 00:57:14,800 --> 00:57:20,320 categorization, but they do not. But they are also 100% the thing 1061 00:57:20,320 --> 00:57:23,080 you want everyone to know about for some reason or another. 1062 00:57:23,800 --> 00:57:26,280 And you want to use the the award shows platform to do it. 1063 00:57:26,560 --> 00:57:30,480 There is a game that was submitted, Congrats to anyone 1064 00:57:30,480 --> 00:57:33,360 who made this because they're going to have someone talk about 1065 00:57:33,360 --> 00:57:36,000 it. It's a game called Green Oaks. 1066 00:57:36,680 --> 00:57:38,400 Now, I don't like the rules of the game. 1067 00:57:38,400 --> 00:57:41,320 I think they're, it suffers from the consequence of like a lot of 1068 00:57:41,320 --> 00:57:44,760 RPGs where they kind of can't commit to like 1 theme because 1069 00:57:44,760 --> 00:57:49,760 they want people to play it. So they're like, oh, it could be 1070 00:57:49,760 --> 00:57:51,080 anything. You know, it ends up being one 1071 00:57:51,080 --> 00:57:53,640 of those kinds of things that it has a lot of caveats in the 1072 00:57:53,640 --> 00:57:55,920 writing of qualifiers of like, or you could do this. 1073 00:57:56,680 --> 00:58:00,760 But there's one thing about this game that rules, which is that 1074 00:58:00,760 --> 00:58:06,280 it looks exactly like a brochure for a old folks home, like an 1075 00:58:06,280 --> 00:58:11,800 elderly like care center. And when I say it looks like it, 1076 00:58:11,800 --> 00:58:14,720 I don't mean like it looks like it in the way that like a lot of 1077 00:58:14,720 --> 00:58:18,560 RP GS ape genre. I mean my wife almost threw it 1078 00:58:18,560 --> 00:58:22,720 out because she thought it was a brochure for a local old folks 1079 00:58:22,720 --> 00:58:27,760 home. And then consistently I would 1080 00:58:27,760 --> 00:58:32,440 constantly forget that it was actually an RPG in the pile of 1081 00:58:32,440 --> 00:58:35,080 all the stuff that I I had like a filing system for the innies. 1082 00:58:35,400 --> 00:58:37,360 And every time I would see it, I'd be like, why is that there? 1083 00:58:37,360 --> 00:58:40,720 Oh, right, that is a game. I forgot that it it uses like 1084 00:58:40,720 --> 00:58:43,600 the most like boring boilerplate like layout. 1085 00:58:44,080 --> 00:58:47,560 It's using photos of like old people, like from a Cialis 1086 00:58:47,560 --> 00:58:50,720 commercial. It's 100% design. 1087 00:58:50,720 --> 00:58:54,520 It like visually designed, the art direction Immaculate. 1088 00:58:54,520 --> 00:58:56,720 It's perfect. It's exactly what because the 1089 00:58:56,720 --> 00:59:01,520 game is about playing elderly people in a mysterious care 1090 00:59:01,520 --> 00:59:04,840 center. So like, is that it? 1091 00:59:04,840 --> 00:59:07,920 Is it the best design, though? No, not, I don't know, not 1092 00:59:07,920 --> 00:59:13,040 really because the execution is like it's bad, but it's also 1093 00:59:13,040 --> 00:59:16,840 exactly the kind of bad that a designer or a person in a 1094 00:59:16,840 --> 00:59:20,040 marketing team would make a brochure at one of these places. 1095 00:59:20,040 --> 00:59:22,640 So it's actually 100% spot on, right? 1096 00:59:22,640 --> 00:59:25,680 Dead center in the bullseye. But it's not got the best 1097 00:59:25,680 --> 00:59:27,080 writing, it's not got the best setting. 1098 00:59:27,080 --> 00:59:30,760 It's all just sort of it's just different in every way, right. 1099 00:59:31,360 --> 00:59:34,640 And I would have loved like a superlative of like the most 1100 00:59:34,640 --> 00:59:39,400 like non RPG looking RPG of the year, you know, and then it gets 1101 00:59:39,400 --> 00:59:42,440 an award and it was like we talked about it. 1102 00:59:42,520 --> 00:59:45,160 It was one of those games where it's like we had a huge 1103 00:59:45,160 --> 00:59:49,480 conversation about the whole time about like, I don't, I kind 1104 00:59:49,480 --> 00:59:50,920 of think it might need to be in a category. 1105 00:59:50,920 --> 00:59:52,560 It might, it might be kind of it might be good. 1106 00:59:52,560 --> 00:59:54,440 It might maybe we put this out there. 1107 00:59:55,320 --> 01:00:02,480 And I, I will say that's one of my if, if anyone liked the the 1108 01:00:02,480 --> 01:00:06,040 crop of a nominees this past year, I think most of that is 1109 01:00:06,720 --> 01:00:11,600 due to the fact that the judges. This year, me specifically, 1110 01:00:11,600 --> 01:00:14,360 because I only want to speak for myself and I want to speak for 1111 01:00:14,360 --> 01:00:18,600 them, is that there's a lot of metrics, execution, creativity, 1112 01:00:18,600 --> 01:00:22,400 originality, context, those things are all very important to 1113 01:00:22,400 --> 01:00:24,000 me. But there's another little 1114 01:00:24,000 --> 01:00:27,160 metric which is a does it? Is it taking a swing? 1115 01:00:27,320 --> 01:00:29,600 Is it taking like a big? The bolder, the more ambitious 1116 01:00:29,600 --> 01:00:31,640 the swing, the more idiosyncratic it is. 1117 01:00:32,400 --> 01:00:37,480 That is not that is not a non 0 number that that is actually a 1118 01:00:37,480 --> 01:00:38,880 puts a thumb on the scale for me. 1119 01:00:38,880 --> 01:00:42,560 So like there's a lot of stuff that like we almost nominate or 1120 01:00:42,560 --> 01:00:46,280 we did nominate where it's like, I don't know if it's good, but 1121 01:00:46,280 --> 01:00:48,520 it's going for it. And I I think that should be 1122 01:00:48,520 --> 01:00:52,480 awarded and it goes. You know, I, I think that would 1123 01:00:52,480 --> 01:00:54,960 be its own award show, like an award show that's just like 1124 01:00:54,960 --> 01:00:57,040 we're going to. And I thought this is what the 1125 01:00:57,280 --> 01:01:01,200 the awards dot games was going to be of like awarding because 1126 01:01:01,200 --> 01:01:04,080 they're like tag lines, like awarding weird shit. 1127 01:01:04,760 --> 01:01:08,440 I thought I, I think they should just like double down on that, 1128 01:01:08,440 --> 01:01:11,760 go all in on weird shit, like the weirder the better. 1129 01:01:11,760 --> 01:01:14,560 And I like cuz I award show where all it is, you just know 1130 01:01:14,560 --> 01:01:16,480 everything on the list is going to be the weirdest thing that 1131 01:01:16,480 --> 01:01:19,320 came out that year or, or at least some of the weirdest stuff 1132 01:01:19,360 --> 01:01:21,520 out here. That would be cool. 1133 01:01:21,560 --> 01:01:23,040 That sounds like a great award show to me. 1134 01:01:24,000 --> 01:01:25,560 Would be cool. That does sound like a great. 1135 01:01:25,560 --> 01:01:28,960 Award show and and that goes and that goes to you know a theme 1136 01:01:29,000 --> 01:01:32,440 generally is that like the award shows that I think everyone 1137 01:01:32,440 --> 01:01:36,360 wants that I think a lot of people like have specificity 1138 01:01:36,360 --> 01:01:39,320 built into them and the the more broad you get the less 1139 01:01:39,320 --> 01:01:42,480 satisfying they become. Like one of the other concerns 1140 01:01:42,480 --> 01:01:44,560 is being a judge is that you know, you have all these 1141 01:01:44,560 --> 01:01:48,120 categories and you only have 5 nominations in each category and 1142 01:01:48,120 --> 01:01:52,320 there are more than 5 sub communities in the design space 1143 01:01:52,320 --> 01:01:56,360 for RPG. So now should we feel obligated 1144 01:01:56,360 --> 01:01:59,520 to give an award to like, let's there was no quota. 1145 01:01:59,520 --> 01:02:01,960 You know, we weren't like, OK, we need one for the triad people 1146 01:02:01,960 --> 01:02:05,480 and one for the story gamers and one for the OSR people and so on 1147 01:02:05,480 --> 01:02:08,040 and so forth. But there was like a 1148 01:02:08,040 --> 01:02:11,280 consideration of like, OK, we got, we got good. 1149 01:02:11,280 --> 01:02:15,200 Like we're representing this community well enough, but can 1150 01:02:15,200 --> 01:02:18,760 we get something that's not part of this community in here that 1151 01:02:18,760 --> 01:02:21,200 because because they are working on different metrics, right? 1152 01:02:21,200 --> 01:02:25,160 Like they are ostensibly fighting for the same award, but 1153 01:02:25,160 --> 01:02:29,800 the way that they get to best writing is different because 1154 01:02:29,800 --> 01:02:33,840 their genre conventions are completely divorced from the 1155 01:02:33,840 --> 01:02:36,320 other groups metrics. Right? 1156 01:02:36,320 --> 01:02:39,120 Like we were talking about this off the call, but like we talk 1157 01:02:39,120 --> 01:02:41,880 about adventures all the time. Adventures have like an 1158 01:02:42,160 --> 01:02:45,600 assertive, like there's like culture of play and design built 1159 01:02:45,600 --> 01:02:50,000 into a lot of them. And what's an adventure to a 1160 01:02:50,000 --> 01:02:54,720 story gamer versus an adventure for an OSR, you know, or NSR or 1161 01:02:54,720 --> 01:02:58,200 whatever, you know, whatever acronym doesn't piss people off, 1162 01:02:58,320 --> 01:03:00,360 you know? Yeah. 1163 01:03:00,360 --> 01:03:05,200 So yeah, that was the, that was one of the other challenges is 1164 01:03:05,200 --> 01:03:06,840 like you're sitting there being like, well, we got to have those 1165 01:03:06,840 --> 01:03:08,480 things. And I there is something that 1166 01:03:08,480 --> 01:03:14,360 one people a complaint or critique that I've heard where I 1167 01:03:14,360 --> 01:03:16,920 don't actually agree with it. And I'll say it right now 1168 01:03:16,920 --> 01:03:19,320 because we got to keep the show kind of spicy because this is 1169 01:03:19,480 --> 01:03:23,120 the weekly scroll is people are a lot of people are like, oh, 1170 01:03:23,120 --> 01:03:26,640 there's too many NSROSR elf games in the adventure 1171 01:03:26,640 --> 01:03:29,160 categories. They're the ones who make 1172 01:03:29,160 --> 01:03:33,840 adventures when you make it when you make an adventure or like a 1173 01:03:33,840 --> 01:03:38,160 campaign frame for like a part by the apocalypse, everyone asks 1174 01:03:38,160 --> 01:03:39,760 you why the fuck did you do that? 1175 01:03:40,680 --> 01:03:43,600 That because most of them they're like that's counter to 1176 01:03:43,600 --> 01:03:45,280 everything that that game stands for. 1177 01:03:45,640 --> 01:03:48,600 And you know, there are there. I'm not saying that there aren't 1178 01:03:48,600 --> 01:03:50,440 those. I mean Jason Lutz has made 1179 01:03:50,440 --> 01:03:55,280 amazing like campaign settings and like adventures for Dungeon 1180 01:03:55,280 --> 01:03:59,480 World style stuff in the past. And there's people will 1181 01:03:59,560 --> 01:04:01,920 occasionally make something for something like Offworlders, 1182 01:04:01,920 --> 01:04:04,960 which is one of my favorite games and I wish they had more 1183 01:04:04,960 --> 01:04:07,800 stuff for it. But ultimately on the grand 1184 01:04:07,800 --> 01:04:11,040 scheme of things, some of some categories do just lean towards 1185 01:04:11,040 --> 01:04:14,520 certain genres or more than others. 1186 01:04:14,520 --> 01:04:18,320 Adventures lean towards game genre based games like horror, 1187 01:04:18,680 --> 01:04:20,360 fantasy, adventure, things like that. 1188 01:04:20,640 --> 01:04:25,560 And writing generally favors a story games in many ways because 1189 01:04:25,920 --> 01:04:30,280 and specifically like the more like literary heads of story 1190 01:04:30,280 --> 01:04:32,240 games because that's the something that they really care 1191 01:04:32,240 --> 01:04:34,400 about. And they don't have to try and 1192 01:04:34,400 --> 01:04:36,720 put stats on anything because it's not part of their game 1193 01:04:36,720 --> 01:04:38,280 design. So they can just they can just 1194 01:04:38,280 --> 01:04:41,680 write, you know, and and have fun with that and take swings. 1195 01:04:44,400 --> 01:04:48,640 Anyway, Ryan, what's your next question or thought I what, what 1196 01:04:48,640 --> 01:04:51,760 are we doing on time? I don't have a time, so I'll go 1197 01:04:51,800 --> 01:04:54,200 as long as you want to go, OK? I'll keep going, yeah. 1198 01:04:54,280 --> 01:04:56,400 Because I got plenty of stuff to go, I think. 1199 01:04:56,400 --> 01:05:00,320 I think let's take a quick, just a couple minute break real quick 1200 01:05:00,320 --> 01:05:02,600 and we're going to get back because and, and remind me so my 1201 01:05:02,680 --> 01:05:04,600 ADHD brain doesn't forget. We're going to talk about 1202 01:05:04,600 --> 01:05:07,200 categories because I would love to talk about categories a 1203 01:05:07,240 --> 01:05:10,480 little bit more in depth. So I'll go back in, just we'll 1204 01:05:10,480 --> 01:05:12,440 be back in this 2 seconds. Sounds good. 1205 01:05:13,360 --> 01:05:18,880 It seems like Amy's is trying to catch up with the Internet I 1206 01:05:18,880 --> 01:05:21,800 think a little bit. And I have no idea how to 1207 01:05:21,800 --> 01:05:25,920 approach actual play and streaming and blogging and and 1208 01:05:25,920 --> 01:05:29,640 all the rest and somehow have this like I couldn't even tell 1209 01:05:29,640 --> 01:05:30,840 you. Like there's, it seems like 1210 01:05:30,840 --> 01:05:34,120 there's like 4 awards where they don't really know what it's for 1211 01:05:34,120 --> 01:05:36,840 and it's some mix of all of that tucked into them. 1212 01:05:36,840 --> 01:05:38,720 So what? So what the heck, What what the 1213 01:05:38,720 --> 01:05:39,440 heck? What the fuck? 1214 01:05:40,360 --> 01:05:42,200 Yeah. Real quick side note, you said 1215 01:05:42,200 --> 01:05:43,920 it's a weekly scroll so you got to get spicy. 1216 01:05:43,920 --> 01:05:46,200 Are we known for being spicy or something? 1217 01:05:47,480 --> 01:05:49,720 Well, Ryan, I'm sorry to tell you this. 1218 01:05:50,040 --> 01:05:54,040 You have opinions and they consistently come out every 1219 01:05:54,040 --> 01:05:55,720 episode. It's one of the reasons why I 1220 01:05:55,720 --> 01:06:00,520 listen to it because you're just sort of like my like my spirit 1221 01:06:00,520 --> 01:06:02,960 animal, you know, kind of like, you know, I don't know, I'm not 1222 01:06:02,960 --> 01:06:06,680 going to say that insensitive, but like you're sort of like, 1223 01:06:06,680 --> 01:06:09,520 you know, this, this thing that, you know, you're saying a lot of 1224 01:06:09,520 --> 01:06:10,840 the things that I think half the time. 1225 01:06:10,840 --> 01:06:15,600 So, you know, I want to be to some degree have that degree of 1226 01:06:15,800 --> 01:06:19,040 that level of candidness in the weekly scroll, because I think 1227 01:06:19,040 --> 01:06:22,080 that's what a lot of people probably listen to this podcast 1228 01:06:22,520 --> 01:06:25,480 is that they want that, right? So I'm not going to I'm not 1229 01:06:26,280 --> 01:06:28,960 going to completely dance around every question you give me. 1230 01:06:29,320 --> 01:06:32,840 I might, I might, I do, I do give quite a few caveats. 1231 01:06:32,840 --> 01:06:36,720 I do know that I know I'm kind of softballing and I'm, but you 1232 01:06:36,720 --> 01:06:39,120 know, at the end of the day, I think I do think there is a lot 1233 01:06:39,120 --> 01:06:41,960 of nuance to this. And I think ultimately, and this 1234 01:06:41,960 --> 01:06:43,560 is where we get back to the categories. 1235 01:06:44,240 --> 01:06:47,040 My complaints with the Annie's categories is that complaint I 1236 01:06:47,040 --> 01:06:50,400 have with like all the award shows in RPG's categories. 1237 01:06:50,600 --> 01:06:55,960 Like I, I think like there's always, almost always on. 1238 01:06:55,960 --> 01:06:57,800 There's a couple award shows where they don't have that many 1239 01:06:57,800 --> 01:07:00,320 categories. I mean, I think of like the 1240 01:07:00,320 --> 01:07:02,680 origin awards, which is not an RPG award show. 1241 01:07:02,680 --> 01:07:04,440 It's like a gaming tabletop award show. 1242 01:07:04,440 --> 01:07:07,560 So they only have like best RPG and best RPG supplement and 1243 01:07:07,560 --> 01:07:09,880 that's it. That is one with an Academy 1244 01:07:09,960 --> 01:07:11,680 attached to it and they're the ones who do the voting. 1245 01:07:12,400 --> 01:07:16,080 And then there's the awards dot games, which also similarly 1246 01:07:16,480 --> 01:07:19,280 they, you know, they don't actually have categories at all. 1247 01:07:19,280 --> 01:07:21,000 They're just like, here are the 10 games for this year. 1248 01:07:21,000 --> 01:07:22,160 Yeah, they pick like 10 to 20 games. 1249 01:07:22,160 --> 01:07:24,120 They just go, we like these. There you go. 1250 01:07:24,800 --> 01:07:28,640 OK. Yeah, again, if there's a little 1251 01:07:28,640 --> 01:07:30,800 bit more specificity, I think that'd be more exciting. 1252 01:07:30,800 --> 01:07:32,480 Like that'd be, that would be totally fine. 1253 01:07:33,200 --> 01:07:35,680 But because it is again, still very broad, it's kind of like 1254 01:07:35,680 --> 01:07:37,920 whatever. And I and that is ultimately my 1255 01:07:37,920 --> 01:07:41,000 biggest complaint with most award shows is that the Annie's 1256 01:07:41,600 --> 01:07:44,960 and the crit awards, they want to be the award show for 1257 01:07:44,960 --> 01:07:48,040 everything like, and that's why there's so many categories. 1258 01:07:48,480 --> 01:07:50,880 And then there's also the thing too with the Annie's of like, 1259 01:07:50,880 --> 01:07:53,400 because it's so much older than a lot of these other award 1260 01:07:53,400 --> 01:07:57,720 shows, they you know, there's clear like they have vestigial 1261 01:07:57,720 --> 01:08:00,480 organs. There's a lot of appendix sort 1262 01:08:00,480 --> 01:08:03,920 of style like categories in here that were probably more relevant 1263 01:08:04,000 --> 01:08:07,280 years ago and they've grown less relevant over time, but they 1264 01:08:07,280 --> 01:08:10,800 haven't been removed or they haven't been like really revised 1265 01:08:10,800 --> 01:08:13,560 a lot because again, every year it's, it's, it's an innovative 1266 01:08:13,560 --> 01:08:16,200 process. It's it's not they they're 1267 01:08:16,200 --> 01:08:18,520 trying to figure out how they're going to make it run again next 1268 01:08:18,520 --> 01:08:19,840 year. It's not about what is it going 1269 01:08:19,840 --> 01:08:23,439 to be next year. So the question is never I 1270 01:08:23,439 --> 01:08:26,319 again, I'm, I'm putting myself in in like Stacy and team's 1271 01:08:26,319 --> 01:08:31,399 shoes a little bit here. So maybe unfairly so, but I, I 1272 01:08:31,399 --> 01:08:34,680 do think there's, it's the question more or less is like, 1273 01:08:36,120 --> 01:08:37,800 how do these categories work this year? 1274 01:08:37,800 --> 01:08:41,399 As opposed to what category should we have in the innies? 1275 01:08:42,520 --> 01:08:45,319 And there's some categories where it's like, and I'm looking 1276 01:08:45,319 --> 01:08:47,120 at the list now off to the side here. 1277 01:08:48,840 --> 01:08:54,160 I like so, you know, I think a best adventure, which I actually 1278 01:08:54,160 --> 01:08:57,960 really like that category. I think it's one that I want to 1279 01:08:57,960 --> 01:09:02,760 see stay, but I do recognize also that that was a much easier 1280 01:09:02,760 --> 01:09:07,800 category when RPG seem to be basically only called Cthulhu 1281 01:09:07,800 --> 01:09:13,600 and D&D back in like 2005. Now in the in the age of the 1282 01:09:13,920 --> 01:09:19,240 itch dot IO story game world and the capsule games and the 1283 01:09:19,720 --> 01:09:24,000 lyrical games and LARP, the Jason games best adventure 1284 01:09:24,319 --> 01:09:26,240 again, it goes back to what we said before the break. 1285 01:09:26,560 --> 01:09:31,720 It leans into it leans towards certain genres of or subcultures 1286 01:09:31,720 --> 01:09:34,880 of play and completely doesn't serve other ones. 1287 01:09:35,120 --> 01:09:37,640 And that could be fine theoretically, but it does. 1288 01:09:37,800 --> 01:09:41,120 It does just it feels it's a little bit of a a thorn in the 1289 01:09:41,120 --> 01:09:42,760 side right when you're sitting there. 1290 01:09:42,760 --> 01:09:44,479 And there's some categories that are just like that. 1291 01:09:45,359 --> 01:09:51,760 But I, you know, I, I voiced, you know, overtly while I was a 1292 01:09:51,760 --> 01:09:57,280 judge to the any awards that I, I think they should just cut a 1293 01:09:57,280 --> 01:09:59,720 bunch of them loose, like just get rid of some categories, I 1294 01:09:59,720 --> 01:10:02,720 think. And it's kind of goes back to a 1295 01:10:02,720 --> 01:10:04,040 little bit of what we were talking. 1296 01:10:04,040 --> 01:10:05,680 I can't remember if it was on stream or not. 1297 01:10:06,040 --> 01:10:09,080 But this idea you said earlier, like you don't like everyone 1298 01:10:09,080 --> 01:10:11,600 knowing everything about you. You like being pride, having 1299 01:10:11,600 --> 01:10:13,600 keeping some things private because you don't want yourself 1300 01:10:13,600 --> 01:10:15,840 spread too thin. It feels like you're being 1301 01:10:15,840 --> 01:10:19,200 spread thin. I think I feel that same way 1302 01:10:19,200 --> 01:10:22,360 about when I'm running a thing or I have like a thing I'm I'm 1303 01:10:22,880 --> 01:10:24,920 I've made an institution or organization. 1304 01:10:25,240 --> 01:10:30,280 I like it to stay as compact as possible because all the 1305 01:10:30,280 --> 01:10:34,400 problems and challenges that I have then are easier to address 1306 01:10:34,400 --> 01:10:36,120 when The thing is small and simple. 1307 01:10:36,480 --> 01:10:41,560 The more like broad and like variable the thing becomes, the 1308 01:10:41,560 --> 01:10:45,040 harder it is for me to like rock it, so to speak. 1309 01:10:45,040 --> 01:10:50,720 So I if I was running the Annie's, I would probably I 1310 01:10:51,120 --> 01:10:56,240 would kill things like product of the year, fans choice for 1311 01:10:56,240 --> 01:11:00,240 best publisher and everything to do with streaming and content 1312 01:11:00,240 --> 01:11:03,400 creation. So let's start go ahead. 1313 01:11:03,400 --> 01:11:05,400 Let's. Start from the top product of 1314 01:11:05,400 --> 01:11:11,640 the year is got to be the most fuck I to me, it's very easy and 1315 01:11:11,640 --> 01:11:13,840 I don't understand. If you look through the list of 1316 01:11:13,840 --> 01:11:18,280 the past number of years, including this year compared to 1317 01:11:18,280 --> 01:11:21,920 other things, it makes no fucking sense to me. 1318 01:11:22,040 --> 01:11:24,520 So what was the what is product of the year? 1319 01:11:24,640 --> 01:11:27,800 What it what what is the criteria for that when you were 1320 01:11:27,800 --> 01:11:31,240 when you guys were picking that? What is the criteria for product 1321 01:11:31,240 --> 01:11:32,680 of the year? Let me Scroll down to that. 1322 01:11:36,120 --> 01:11:39,920 All right. So product of the year is 10 1323 01:11:39,920 --> 01:11:44,080 products will be nominated. So that makes it already a a 1324 01:11:44,080 --> 01:11:46,480 weird fringe case. It is not like the other ones. 1325 01:11:46,520 --> 01:11:48,440 It it doesn't have 5, it has 10 now. 1326 01:11:48,440 --> 01:11:51,640 I think they're, I believe best game is the same way that one 1327 01:11:51,640 --> 01:11:54,840 has 10 in the category. I get that because that's to me, 1328 01:11:54,840 --> 01:11:57,840 that's the capstone like award. I think everyone thinks of that, 1329 01:11:57,840 --> 01:11:59,800 right? Everyone when they watch the 1330 01:11:59,800 --> 01:12:03,080 ceremony, when they think of it, any awards they think of like 1331 01:12:03,080 --> 01:12:06,080 there's a bunch of categories and then the ER category, the 1332 01:12:06,080 --> 01:12:10,400 final best picture nominees is best game. 1333 01:12:11,000 --> 01:12:14,520 I think, I think that is more or less exactly how everyone 1334 01:12:14,800 --> 01:12:19,000 conceives of it in their heads. So the fact that you are at the 1335 01:12:19,000 --> 01:12:23,520 ceremony and it's best game and the big thing get wins or 1336 01:12:23,520 --> 01:12:25,040 whatever. And then there's another 1337 01:12:25,040 --> 01:12:28,120 category after that and it's best product of the year. 1338 01:12:28,560 --> 01:12:32,560 It's just, it's strange. And I, I think in previous 1339 01:12:32,560 --> 01:12:35,840 years, this is where, like, I mean, I don't know how to say 1340 01:12:35,840 --> 01:12:39,600 this without sounding a little bit despairingly, but this is 1341 01:12:39,600 --> 01:12:42,560 the category where you're like, OK, we want to have the best 1342 01:12:42,560 --> 01:12:47,880 picture nominee, but we don't want to leave out the maps, GM 1343 01:12:47,880 --> 01:12:51,720 screens and the plushies and the dice makers. 1344 01:12:51,720 --> 01:12:54,960 So we have this like other secondary competing, uh, 1345 01:12:55,080 --> 01:12:59,280 category, this top category with best game that is for all those, 1346 01:13:00,040 --> 01:13:02,400 all those submitters who are not submitting a game. 1347 01:13:02,840 --> 01:13:05,200 And I just don't think you need to do that. 1348 01:13:05,200 --> 01:13:08,320 I, I think those, those categories exist already. 1349 01:13:08,320 --> 01:13:10,720 There's the best RPG related product, there's the best 1350 01:13:10,720 --> 01:13:12,800 supplement. I think those things can exist 1351 01:13:12,800 --> 01:13:16,760 in the in those territories. I don't think they need a top 1352 01:13:16,760 --> 01:13:20,680 spot like vote, you know, for like the best of the year. 1353 01:13:21,200 --> 01:13:23,360 Here, here's my here's my take on this. 1354 01:13:23,440 --> 01:13:25,760 I like product of the year, right? 1355 01:13:25,760 --> 01:13:29,160 One of the things that we do on the show, how we try to review 1356 01:13:29,160 --> 01:13:35,160 games is as a consumer of the thing as if we just read the 1357 01:13:35,160 --> 01:13:38,480 thing and this is our our our initial read through and take on 1358 01:13:38,480 --> 01:13:40,760 it. And I like, and that's one of 1359 01:13:40,760 --> 01:13:43,560 the reasons like we don't do we get hit up all the time for 1360 01:13:43,560 --> 01:13:45,840 people like, oh, check out this my game that's coming out. 1361 01:13:45,840 --> 01:13:47,360 If you want to review it. I'm like, it's not out yet. 1362 01:13:47,360 --> 01:13:49,960 Why the fuck would I review it? And if it's going to get a print 1363 01:13:49,960 --> 01:13:52,040 edition, I'm going to wait till I get the print edition because 1364 01:13:52,360 --> 01:13:55,080 I've seen some beautiful PDFs and some shit books. 1365 01:13:55,160 --> 01:13:57,520 So like, why would I like I'm going to wait till I get the 1366 01:13:57,520 --> 01:14:01,040 book I like product of the year. But here's my issue with product 1367 01:14:01,040 --> 01:14:04,160 of the year is one thing you said is it's for the dice 1368 01:14:04,160 --> 01:14:06,040 screens and and the plushies and shit. 1369 01:14:06,120 --> 01:14:07,800 So why the fuck don't those things win? 1370 01:14:07,960 --> 01:14:10,120 So let's look at the category this year and I'll name names. 1371 01:14:10,440 --> 01:14:15,000 We got gold winner, the one ring, Moria through the doors of 1372 01:14:15,000 --> 01:14:17,600 Dern. It's a fucking book, right? 1373 01:14:17,960 --> 01:14:20,320 And then the silver winner, Mythic Bastion land. 1374 01:14:20,400 --> 01:14:24,960 It's a fucking book, right? In the cyberpunk episode, we 1375 01:14:24,960 --> 01:14:28,760 talked about cyberpunk, one of the coolest form factor fucking 1376 01:14:28,760 --> 01:14:32,680 things I've ever picked up. Lost to shadow dark, a black and 1377 01:14:32,680 --> 01:14:35,720 white book, right? But then you have things on the 1378 01:14:35,720 --> 01:14:38,920 list like Doom song, which is a series of books that are 1379 01:14:38,920 --> 01:14:42,160 gorgeous but also come with like hand printed maps and shit. 1380 01:14:42,160 --> 01:14:45,400 All the rest of that stuff. You got Memento Mori deathless 1381 01:14:45,400 --> 01:14:49,480 edition, which is like this fucking box set, but the box is 1382 01:14:49,480 --> 01:14:51,640 like AGM screen and stuff, right? 1383 01:14:51,920 --> 01:14:56,320 You got you got a triangle agency of all the awards that 1384 01:14:56,320 --> 01:14:57,640 they want. They didn't win product of the 1385 01:14:57,640 --> 01:15:00,440 year with the fucking briefcase. One of the coolest. 1386 01:15:00,440 --> 01:15:03,720 Like it's it's this is a a product, right. 1387 01:15:03,720 --> 01:15:06,400 So this is what I don't know. This is what will always get me 1388 01:15:06,400 --> 01:15:10,200 about product of the year is if it's supposed to be for things 1389 01:15:10,200 --> 01:15:13,080 like Revolt, which is like a box set with meatballs and shit in 1390 01:15:13,080 --> 01:15:15,520 it, or even Monty Python, which I could not give less of a shit 1391 01:15:15,520 --> 01:15:18,640 about Monty Python, but it's a giant box of cool shit. 1392 01:15:19,160 --> 01:15:22,960 It is a cool product. How are two of the only just 1393 01:15:22,960 --> 01:15:27,400 plain ass fucking books in the category winning gold and silver 1394 01:15:27,560 --> 01:15:30,920 in product of the year if the point of that category is it's 1395 01:15:30,920 --> 01:15:32,840 kind of supposed to be for the shit that's got bells and 1396 01:15:32,840 --> 01:15:34,440 whistles. Like that's the thing that 1397 01:15:34,440 --> 01:15:37,240 doesn't make fucking sense to me about product of the year. 1398 01:15:37,480 --> 01:15:40,960 It's a it's, it's again, like if that's what the award is 1399 01:15:40,960 --> 01:15:43,200 supposed to be, why don't those things win that award? 1400 01:15:44,040 --> 01:15:46,000 Well, you know, and that's that's just a word. 1401 01:15:46,000 --> 01:15:48,400 The ambiguity doesn't serve it at all, right. 1402 01:15:48,400 --> 01:15:51,400 Because like the product of the year as written is the best 1403 01:15:51,400 --> 01:15:53,320 overall product. All proximated will be 1404 01:15:53,320 --> 01:15:56,080 automatically considered for this category. 10 products will 1405 01:15:56,080 --> 01:16:01,560 be nominated. And you know, a book is a 1406 01:16:01,560 --> 01:16:03,160 product. I I think. 1407 01:16:03,800 --> 01:16:07,280 But here's the thing I see for the podcasters. 1408 01:16:07,280 --> 01:16:11,760 Ryan made a jerk off motion. But now the the product of the 1409 01:16:11,760 --> 01:16:14,720 year is like a weird category because I think it's conceived 1410 01:16:14,720 --> 01:16:17,840 of by the and again, I'm putting my, my, my, I'm going into 1411 01:16:17,840 --> 01:16:22,440 someone else's shoes here. So caveats there, but I think 1412 01:16:22,440 --> 01:16:26,800 they're kind of thinking like that's the actual like top win 1413 01:16:27,160 --> 01:16:28,520 category. I don't think, I don't think 1414 01:16:28,520 --> 01:16:31,880 this is like a duo like thing. Like we get the best picture 1415 01:16:32,520 --> 01:16:34,640 game and then we get the best picture product. 1416 01:16:34,640 --> 01:16:37,280 I think they're thinking like best game is nestled under it 1417 01:16:37,280 --> 01:16:40,240 and that's why best product of the year is at the top of that 1418 01:16:40,240 --> 01:16:42,200 category. And I think it's more broad 1419 01:16:42,480 --> 01:16:45,640 because again, they're trying to like be inclusive that maybe 1420 01:16:45,640 --> 01:16:49,760 possibly something that isn't a game at all might be qualified 1421 01:16:49,760 --> 01:16:52,160 for that category. But then when we get to that 1422 01:16:52,160 --> 01:16:55,280 part of the process as a judge, it is one of the last categories 1423 01:16:55,280 --> 01:16:58,920 that where we we like finalize more often than not. 1424 01:16:58,920 --> 01:17:01,480 I mean, I can't speak for more often, not because I don't have 1425 01:17:01,480 --> 01:17:04,040 the other previous years and I don't know what those judges 1426 01:17:04,040 --> 01:17:07,480 decided on. I don't trust that. 1427 01:17:08,040 --> 01:17:13,080 But I will say that nothing when we when we were putting things 1428 01:17:13,080 --> 01:17:16,000 on the list, I had no point. Did we like think to ourselves? 1429 01:17:17,040 --> 01:17:18,440 At least I didn't think to myself. 1430 01:17:18,440 --> 01:17:24,040 I was like, Oh yeah, there's a there's a non RPG that is as 1431 01:17:24,040 --> 01:17:27,240 good as triangle agency or what have you. 1432 01:17:28,480 --> 01:17:31,520 So yeah, I mean, I can't, I unfortunately, I couldn't tell 1433 01:17:31,520 --> 01:17:35,360 you why some things were omitted off that list and why other 1434 01:17:35,360 --> 01:17:39,880 things got on the list. I think it's just one of those 1435 01:17:39,880 --> 01:17:43,640 things where it really is kind of hard to place what the heck 1436 01:17:43,640 --> 01:17:47,080 it's the categories for. I mean, if I were going to fix 1437 01:17:47,080 --> 01:17:49,240 it, I would first of all put game of the year at the end 1438 01:17:49,240 --> 01:17:51,280 because that is that is the big one. 1439 01:17:51,320 --> 01:17:53,280 It's ridiculous to try to do this dual thing. 1440 01:17:53,600 --> 01:17:56,440 I mean, if you want to leave it 10, sure, drop it to five and 1441 01:17:56,440 --> 01:18:00,040 make it the fucking the weird or the bells and whistles category, 1442 01:18:00,040 --> 01:18:03,960 which is what it should be. To me, product of the year is is 1443 01:18:04,120 --> 01:18:05,720 it's more than just a fucking book. 1444 01:18:05,720 --> 01:18:08,440 It is a it's the multimedia experience, right? 1445 01:18:08,440 --> 01:18:12,320 Like it's the thing that you go, damn right, and you're looking 1446 01:18:12,320 --> 01:18:16,240 at the production of the thing. Yeah, well, there is A and 1447 01:18:16,240 --> 01:18:18,200 that's the other weird thing is there's the best production 1448 01:18:18,240 --> 01:18:20,720 category. Which then get rid of fucking 1449 01:18:20,720 --> 01:18:22,520 product of the year. It's a pointless double 1450 01:18:22,520 --> 01:18:24,960 category. Just like fold it into one thing 1451 01:18:24,960 --> 01:18:27,160 and make it the bells and whistles category and just be 1452 01:18:27,160 --> 01:18:30,360 fucking done with it because I there is a huge fucking 1453 01:18:30,360 --> 01:18:34,560 difference between something like the fucking normal 1454 01:18:34,560 --> 01:18:37,760 briefcase from triangle agency and the one ring Moria. 1455 01:18:37,760 --> 01:18:40,320 It's a fucking book versus unexperienced. 1456 01:18:40,320 --> 01:18:43,720 Realistically, like when you open this thing up like the all 1457 01:18:43,720 --> 01:18:46,920 that you get from it without even ever cracking open the book 1458 01:18:46,920 --> 01:18:52,080 itself is a completely different category than than just a book 1459 01:18:52,080 --> 01:18:54,760 sitting next to it. In my opinion, if you're gonna, 1460 01:18:55,320 --> 01:18:58,920 if you're gonna have those things, just get rid of 1 and 1461 01:18:58,920 --> 01:19:01,200 double that into, like I said, get there shouldn't be anything 1462 01:19:01,200 --> 01:19:03,880 that's just a plain book, unless that book is the most insane 1463 01:19:03,880 --> 01:19:07,160 shape you've ever seen with like holes punched in it and like 1464 01:19:07,160 --> 01:19:10,400 it's backwards somehow when it breaks space-time or something. 1465 01:19:10,680 --> 01:19:12,640 Like that's the only way it should be in there. 1466 01:19:12,640 --> 01:19:16,200 And that's why, you know, again, cuz we, we, we, we talk about 1467 01:19:16,200 --> 01:19:20,400 things on the show, like like value and, and like rules is one 1468 01:19:20,400 --> 01:19:23,080 of five things that we review. You know, there's a bunch of 1469 01:19:23,080 --> 01:19:26,320 other stuff that goes into it and and that's, that's a big 1470 01:19:26,320 --> 01:19:28,880 part of it, like actually having a thing in your hands because 1471 01:19:29,480 --> 01:19:33,880 you can like anyone that's played to teach RBG. 1472 01:19:33,880 --> 01:19:37,000 If you're handed a black and white 2 column book and you're 1473 01:19:37,000 --> 01:19:41,680 handed something like the the normal briefcase, the vibes are 1474 01:19:41,680 --> 01:19:44,120 going to be a little different. Like there is something to say 1475 01:19:44,120 --> 01:19:47,560 about the production value, the way it's presented that the 1476 01:19:47,560 --> 01:19:49,080 immersion that that thing can give you. 1477 01:19:49,080 --> 01:19:50,680 That is a completely different experience. 1478 01:19:50,680 --> 01:19:52,440 So anyway, but that's product of the year. 1479 01:19:52,440 --> 01:19:54,640 But I interrupted you. You said two other things. 1480 01:19:56,120 --> 01:19:58,160 I wanted to get that. I wanted to get that rant out. 1481 01:19:58,200 --> 01:19:58,880 I had to get. Oh man. 1482 01:19:59,640 --> 01:20:00,880 No, no, yeah, it's good. It's good. 1483 01:20:00,880 --> 01:20:04,200 I'm trying to. And again, I, I, I'm not going 1484 01:20:04,200 --> 01:20:08,080 to, I'm not going to invalidate anything you said because I 1485 01:20:08,080 --> 01:20:09,880 think it is just, it's really challenging. 1486 01:20:09,880 --> 01:20:12,440 Like some of these categories weirdly overlap with each other 1487 01:20:12,440 --> 01:20:14,920 and some of them it's like, what is it actually for? 1488 01:20:14,960 --> 01:20:17,920 Like it's really hard to say. And then there's this other 1489 01:20:17,920 --> 01:20:21,400 thing too that. So you know how we were talking 1490 01:20:21,400 --> 01:20:24,520 earlier about sandbagging, like you're, you're trying to do the 1491 01:20:24,520 --> 01:20:27,440 math in your head that you're, you're you're trying to read the 1492 01:20:27,600 --> 01:20:32,000 projective projection maps of like how popular is this thing 1493 01:20:32,000 --> 01:20:33,840 going to be when it gets to the public voting? 1494 01:20:34,160 --> 01:20:40,800 The other thing that you're thinking about is like how much 1495 01:20:40,800 --> 01:20:47,480 does dumping budget into the this thing give it an advantage 1496 01:20:47,480 --> 01:20:51,840 over everything else? Or like how much does quantity 1497 01:20:52,160 --> 01:20:55,800 beat or play a role just in general in the thing? 1498 01:20:56,120 --> 01:20:59,200 And like, so, you know, in my mind, like I and again, this is 1499 01:20:59,200 --> 01:21:03,600 goes to show that like every year, the any awards, because 1500 01:21:03,600 --> 01:21:07,480 it's so broad, when you see any variability at all in it, where 1501 01:21:07,480 --> 01:21:09,480 you're like, there's something weird happening here that is 1502 01:21:09,480 --> 01:21:11,360 inconsistent with the previous years. 1503 01:21:12,280 --> 01:21:14,720 And again, the consistent thing of most years is that it's just 1504 01:21:14,720 --> 01:21:16,840 going to be the things you expect to win at the end. 1505 01:21:16,840 --> 01:21:20,000 He's get a win and nominate. So when you see like a weird, 1506 01:21:20,000 --> 01:21:23,560 like fringe case on more often than that, that's showing a 1507 01:21:23,560 --> 01:21:25,840 betray, that's betraying the fact that maybe some of the 1508 01:21:25,840 --> 01:21:30,320 judges have like an idea or a thought or like an opinion or in 1509 01:21:30,320 --> 01:21:31,680 it. I'm not I don't want to use the 1510 01:21:31,680 --> 01:21:33,720 word agenda because people will think that means something 1511 01:21:33,720 --> 01:21:36,000 negative. But like one of the things that 1512 01:21:36,000 --> 01:21:40,040 like I'm constantly, you know, worried about is that I want the 1513 01:21:40,040 --> 01:21:44,120 any awards to be awarding more indie people than not. 1514 01:21:44,920 --> 01:21:51,760 And I want it to be not an automatic like cheat code that 1515 01:21:51,760 --> 01:21:56,920 you had the million multi $1,000,000 Kickstarter when you 1516 01:21:56,920 --> 01:21:59,520 went into this thing. So like there were instances 1517 01:21:59,520 --> 01:22:02,880 where like, and again, this is probably unfair of me, but it 1518 01:22:02,880 --> 01:22:05,360 is, it's just the natural reality because again, I can 1519 01:22:05,360 --> 01:22:08,160 only, we can only nominate 5 things where like I would be 1520 01:22:08,160 --> 01:22:10,960 like, OK, yeah, Triangle Agency is really good. 1521 01:22:11,520 --> 01:22:15,680 It's really interesting. But does it automatically end up 1522 01:22:15,680 --> 01:22:19,520 on this list? Partly because it's just also a 1523 01:22:19,520 --> 01:22:21,320 really good game. That's more of game. 1524 01:22:21,640 --> 01:22:23,800 There's more game than there is in this other thing. 1525 01:22:24,240 --> 01:22:27,680 So and I guess in a way that's kind of nice thing about the 1526 01:22:27,680 --> 01:22:30,720 production value is it kind of becomes this like heat sink for 1527 01:22:30,720 --> 01:22:34,240 like the money category. Like more often than not, 1528 01:22:34,760 --> 01:22:36,960 everything that was in the best production values was probably 1529 01:22:36,960 --> 01:22:38,960 something that made a butt load of money somehow. 1530 01:22:39,440 --> 01:22:43,760 Landavine Mothership, Tides of rod rule, you know, but. 1531 01:22:44,120 --> 01:22:46,680 Which is fine, then get rid of product of the year and just 1532 01:22:46,680 --> 01:22:47,880 make that the fucking. Again. 1533 01:22:47,880 --> 01:22:49,680 Yeah, yeah. Make that the money sync one, 1534 01:22:49,680 --> 01:22:53,040 then I that's fine. Like someone I just said, like, 1535 01:22:53,400 --> 01:22:55,360 if you're getting a collectible thing, it should look like a 1536 01:22:55,360 --> 01:22:58,680 collectible fucking thing. And it's okay to reward that, to 1537 01:22:58,720 --> 01:23:03,320 award that. And I mean, especially if you 1538 01:23:03,320 --> 01:23:05,320 can award some of the shit, some of that we're we'll, we'll go 1539 01:23:05,320 --> 01:23:07,280 through this entire fucking last, but like some of the stuff 1540 01:23:07,280 --> 01:23:09,920 that gets awarded on here and and it's fine to award the thing 1541 01:23:09,920 --> 01:23:12,400 that is a cool fucking thing because it's a cool thing. 1542 01:23:14,320 --> 01:23:16,560 God, I had a thought. And This is why I need to keep 1543 01:23:16,560 --> 01:23:18,160 posting notes so I can write stuff down. 1544 01:23:18,680 --> 01:23:22,320 But I got a piece of paper with notes here just to do the same 1545 01:23:22,320 --> 01:23:25,560 thing. It's, it's, it's, I don't know. 1546 01:23:25,640 --> 01:23:29,680 It's, it is what it is. But we're, we're going to, we're 1547 01:23:29,680 --> 01:23:33,160 going to keep going through it. So do you, do you want to, do 1548 01:23:33,160 --> 01:23:35,880 you want to go top to bottom and just be like keep it, toss it, 1549 01:23:35,880 --> 01:23:37,280 keep it, toss it. How do you want to go through 1550 01:23:37,280 --> 01:23:40,240 this? I, you know, I probably 1551 01:23:40,240 --> 01:23:44,040 shouldn't go keep it, toss it on this thing because that would 1552 01:23:44,040 --> 01:23:48,560 then get into me explaining to you which things I hated that 1553 01:23:48,560 --> 01:23:50,440 ended up on the list and I don't want to do that. 1554 01:23:50,640 --> 01:23:54,400 I could all I can do that then though, I'll tell you what I 1555 01:23:54,440 --> 01:23:56,200 hate. Let's get let's let's just go 1556 01:23:56,200 --> 01:23:58,160 with what I hate, OK? Great. 1557 01:24:00,920 --> 01:24:07,360 Best online content gone. Best streaming content gone. 1558 01:24:07,360 --> 01:24:09,840 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Individual things. 1559 01:24:09,840 --> 01:24:11,040 I thought we were talking about individual. 1560 01:24:11,040 --> 01:24:13,960 Things it's like I'm not gonna. Drown No, no, no, no, no. 1561 01:24:14,280 --> 01:24:16,280 One thing I wanted to say. One thing I wanted to say is I, 1562 01:24:16,360 --> 01:24:17,800 I and I understand that that's really difficult. 1563 01:24:17,800 --> 01:24:20,680 There's something that we actually struggled with on the 1564 01:24:20,680 --> 01:24:24,280 show for a long time because we we talked about Zenes for a long 1565 01:24:24,280 --> 01:24:27,120 time, but didn't rate Zenes in the way that we do our metrics 1566 01:24:27,120 --> 01:24:30,000 for a long time because we didn't feel that there it it 1567 01:24:30,000 --> 01:24:32,560 didn't. There is a very different having 1568 01:24:32,560 --> 01:24:38,760 like a 16 page Zine and a 200 page book and to try to hold 1569 01:24:38,760 --> 01:24:40,640 them to the same metrics. We were like you can't, you 1570 01:24:40,640 --> 01:24:42,520 can't do that. And it took us a long time to 1571 01:24:42,520 --> 01:24:45,400 choose a different set of metrics specifically for zines. 1572 01:24:45,920 --> 01:24:49,200 Yeah. So there's so yeah. 1573 01:24:49,200 --> 01:24:51,320 OK. Can I, can I interrupt there so 1574 01:24:52,640 --> 01:24:54,640 I can use an actual example here? 1575 01:24:55,320 --> 01:24:59,600 There is no delineation between size like length or scope of 1576 01:24:59,600 --> 01:25:02,120 product project in the categories. 1577 01:25:02,720 --> 01:25:05,960 And so again, here's an example of where you could see some 1578 01:25:05,960 --> 01:25:09,320 judges, myself included. We're thinking like, how do what 1579 01:25:09,320 --> 01:25:11,040 do we do? Here's a weird thing that we're 1580 01:25:11,040 --> 01:25:12,800 going to do and best family game. 1581 01:25:13,000 --> 01:25:18,960 You have land of Eame huge book. You got stupot classic book 1582 01:25:19,040 --> 01:25:22,120 Isabus, which is a door stopper. It's thick. 1583 01:25:22,200 --> 01:25:24,320 Anyone who doesn't know it is a big book. 1584 01:25:24,880 --> 01:25:27,720 And then Dungeon Cats is a tiny little Zine that's about, I 1585 01:25:27,720 --> 01:25:30,640 think 16 pages. And if it's pocket sized, it's 1586 01:25:30,640 --> 01:25:35,600 it's no, it's very tiny. And we like Dungeon cats. 1587 01:25:35,600 --> 01:25:38,840 Like we were like, and there's a whole conversation about it. 1588 01:25:38,840 --> 01:25:41,160 And again, I can't get it. I'm not going to name names of 1589 01:25:41,160 --> 01:25:44,520 the design, you know, the other judges, but like a couple of us 1590 01:25:44,520 --> 01:25:47,680 were like, it's good, It's really good. 1591 01:25:47,680 --> 01:25:51,080 It it doesn't need to be longer to to be nominated for this 1592 01:25:51,080 --> 01:25:53,880 category. And there is a whole debate 1593 01:25:53,880 --> 01:25:57,120 about like, we'll should something bigger or longer go in 1594 01:25:57,120 --> 01:25:58,840 that category because it's more game. 1595 01:25:59,200 --> 01:26:02,000 And so it's like it's kind of harder to execute something that 1596 01:26:02,000 --> 01:26:04,840 is very big in some ways than something that's a little bit 1597 01:26:04,840 --> 01:26:06,080 smaller. And then at the end of the day, 1598 01:26:06,080 --> 01:26:07,400 it was just like, no, not really. 1599 01:26:07,400 --> 01:26:10,560 Because actually, you know, the Mark Twain quote of like, if I 1600 01:26:10,560 --> 01:26:13,000 had more time, it would be shorter kind of thing plays a 1601 01:26:13,000 --> 01:26:16,920 big role. So yeah, we you had that problem 1602 01:26:16,920 --> 01:26:19,800 on this on this show. I remember, you know, the the 1603 01:26:19,800 --> 01:26:21,720 scenes kind of having its own metric system. 1604 01:26:22,280 --> 01:26:24,600 It does, yeah. They they get 3 metric versus 1605 01:26:24,640 --> 01:26:29,280 versus 5. And now we kind of go over all 1606 01:26:29,280 --> 01:26:32,600 of that combined during the episode and then just pick and 1607 01:26:32,600 --> 01:26:34,280 then just throw those scores in at the end. 1608 01:26:34,600 --> 01:26:37,400 So, you know, now we'll talk about vibes for books and not 1609 01:26:37,400 --> 01:26:41,920 just scenes and stuff, but but also then when you look at our 1610 01:26:41,920 --> 01:26:44,120 favorites at the end of the year, even though we go over 1611 01:26:44,120 --> 01:26:47,360 things that are both 100 page books or scenes, it's a lot. 1612 01:26:47,360 --> 01:26:52,760 I mean, we unapologetically hate big books and. 1613 01:26:54,640 --> 01:26:56,160 I'm still here. I don't know what's going. 1614 01:26:56,680 --> 01:26:59,640 On we unapologetically hate big books, so we don't go over as 1615 01:26:59,640 --> 01:27:00,880 many. We might go over more now with 1616 01:27:00,880 --> 01:27:02,960 the new metric, but like I understand that it's difficult, 1617 01:27:02,960 --> 01:27:05,880 but at the same time like no, like we we might use a different 1618 01:27:05,880 --> 01:27:09,400 metric, but at the end of the day, I can hold up a 300 page 1619 01:27:09,400 --> 01:27:11,600 book and a 30 page scene and tell you which one I like and 1620 01:27:11,600 --> 01:27:12,920 which one I think is better. You know what I mean? 1621 01:27:12,920 --> 01:27:16,520 That's that's true that so it's you don't. 1622 01:27:16,760 --> 01:27:18,960 I mean, the fact that dungeon cats was in there compared to 1623 01:27:18,960 --> 01:27:21,600 the others is sometimes it's a lot. 1624 01:27:21,600 --> 01:27:25,320 It's harder to put something into different challenges for 1625 01:27:25,320 --> 01:27:28,280 different things, right? Bigger books can be difficult 1626 01:27:28,280 --> 01:27:31,360 because the the more you make a thing, the more spread it has, 1627 01:27:31,360 --> 01:27:34,200 the more scope it has, the more creep it has, the more it kind 1628 01:27:34,200 --> 01:27:36,920 of has to sing with itself. But it also gives you more room 1629 01:27:37,000 --> 01:27:40,160 to make more game. Right when you make a yeah. 1630 01:27:40,440 --> 01:27:42,680 When you make a smaller game, you have a limited amount of 1631 01:27:42,680 --> 01:27:48,240 space to, to express what you want to say to get the rules in 1632 01:27:48,240 --> 01:27:49,840 there. But one of the things that we 1633 01:27:49,840 --> 01:27:55,280 that that makes us choose Zenes more than others is when you 1634 01:27:55,280 --> 01:27:58,360 have that smaller size, all of the things work together better, 1635 01:27:58,360 --> 01:28:01,800 right When the art and the layout and the rules all sing. 1636 01:28:02,240 --> 01:28:04,600 It's more important when you have a smaller Zen, I think, 1637 01:28:04,600 --> 01:28:09,200 than in a bigger book because it's much more noticeable when 1638 01:28:09,200 --> 01:28:11,320 you have a much smaller size to deal with. 1639 01:28:11,360 --> 01:28:14,120 Like if something, if one chapter in a giant book is kind 1640 01:28:14,120 --> 01:28:18,080 of off, it can hide. But when you know a couple of 1641 01:28:18,080 --> 01:28:20,880 pages of a 12 page Zine is a little bit off, it can't. 1642 01:28:21,080 --> 01:28:23,200 So there's gives and takes to it. 1643 01:28:23,680 --> 01:28:25,880 I can't remember which writer is, but the theory of 1644 01:28:25,880 --> 01:28:28,440 composition really applies to RPGs as well. 1645 01:28:28,440 --> 01:28:30,800 This idea that when you're working in something like a 1646 01:28:30,960 --> 01:28:36,120 short story, every word has to serve the thing right. 1647 01:28:36,520 --> 01:28:38,520 And the and the bigger, the bigger you get. 1648 01:28:38,520 --> 01:28:40,600 It's like a it's a conservation of energy. 1649 01:28:40,600 --> 01:28:44,560 The bigger the thing gets, the less potential or energy is in 1650 01:28:44,760 --> 01:28:47,240 each individual part because there's just so many more parts. 1651 01:28:47,240 --> 01:28:48,440 So you can kind of spread it out. 1652 01:28:48,800 --> 01:28:52,400 But when you're working with like a tiny Zine, yeah, you kind 1653 01:28:52,400 --> 01:28:54,720 of want every single part of that Zine to be like really 1654 01:28:54,720 --> 01:28:59,720 firing on all cylinders. And so now I'm going to get we 1655 01:28:59,720 --> 01:29:02,000 should have a whole category of conversation. 1656 01:29:02,000 --> 01:29:05,920 We just talked about some little observations for anyone who 1657 01:29:05,920 --> 01:29:09,000 wants to submit to the ennies and once or once like to win. 1658 01:29:10,360 --> 01:29:15,440 But I will say that when a short game is bad, it's merciful. 1659 01:29:15,680 --> 01:29:18,120 It's like, OK, it's not great. It's fine. 1660 01:29:18,440 --> 01:29:21,880 When a big game is bad, it's excruciating. 1661 01:29:21,960 --> 01:29:24,760 It sucks. I it is a miserable thing 1662 01:29:24,760 --> 01:29:27,000 because like again, I'm, I'm reading through these things 1663 01:29:27,000 --> 01:29:29,400 like I'm not like I I don't want to. 1664 01:29:29,680 --> 01:29:34,200 I feel obligated to give everyone a fair chance at bat. 1665 01:29:34,560 --> 01:29:38,720 So when your, your Zen is like 16 pages, I read front to back. 1666 01:29:38,720 --> 01:29:40,080 No, there's no question about it. 1667 01:29:40,280 --> 01:29:42,880 It requires no work whatsoever to do that. 1668 01:29:43,520 --> 01:29:46,920 When your book is 300 pages. I'm reading at least 50. 1669 01:29:47,760 --> 01:29:51,000 And there's a lot of books where you're like, you know, right 1670 01:29:51,000 --> 01:29:54,120 away from like page 5, you're like, this thing's probably not 1671 01:29:54,120 --> 01:29:57,480 going to get much better, is it? And then you get to page like 20 1672 01:29:57,480 --> 01:29:58,760 and you're like, it's still not there. 1673 01:29:58,760 --> 01:30:00,280 What's happening? When's it going? 1674 01:30:01,400 --> 01:30:08,360 And here's just a tip for everybody get get to it as soon 1675 01:30:08,360 --> 01:30:11,080 as possible. Like there are too many books. 1676 01:30:11,080 --> 01:30:15,480 And this is a this is a problem with the 5 E trad D&DRPG culture 1677 01:30:15,480 --> 01:30:20,480 and like the call Cthulhu sort of adjacent world, because I 1678 01:30:20,480 --> 01:30:23,880 know that trad players don't consider themselves trad, right? 1679 01:30:23,880 --> 01:30:27,400 That's that's like a category that the outsiders give those 1680 01:30:27,400 --> 01:30:31,120 communities, but there are too many of these books where it's 1681 01:30:31,120 --> 01:30:34,120 like it takes 15 pages to get to. 1682 01:30:34,440 --> 01:30:38,080 So what is this thing about like what is actually the game? 1683 01:30:38,080 --> 01:30:40,800 Yeah, I've gotten the lore, I've gotten the thank you page, I've 1684 01:30:40,800 --> 01:30:44,360 gotten the safety tools, I've gotten the credits, I've gotten 1685 01:30:44,360 --> 01:30:45,960 some art. I got the maps. 1686 01:30:46,480 --> 01:30:50,240 I'm already 6 pages in. When does the game get brought 1687 01:30:50,240 --> 01:30:51,920 up? Then there's the forward about 1688 01:30:51,920 --> 01:30:53,280 what it was like making the game. 1689 01:30:53,280 --> 01:30:56,360 And then there's the the commentary from someone from the 1690 01:30:56,360 --> 01:30:59,920 actual designer. And you're to get to the point 1691 01:30:59,920 --> 01:31:01,360 where it's like, OK, where's the game? 1692 01:31:01,520 --> 01:31:04,080 Just tell me what the game is. I can't keep doing this. 1693 01:31:04,480 --> 01:31:06,840 So just get to the point. And I have a blog post about 1694 01:31:06,840 --> 01:31:08,400 this. It says stop hiding your apes. 1695 01:31:08,640 --> 01:31:11,520 But it's yeah, it's just like, please just tell me, show me the 1696 01:31:11,520 --> 01:31:16,320 cool thing as soon as possible. Things any RPG or any submitter 1697 01:31:16,320 --> 01:31:19,680 where like it was immediately obvious what the thing was 1698 01:31:20,640 --> 01:31:24,160 automatically had an advantage in the in the any awards. 1699 01:31:24,160 --> 01:31:26,640 And I think this probably applies to all award shows. 1700 01:31:26,840 --> 01:31:29,840 If you want to want to win an award show, your thing should be 1701 01:31:29,840 --> 01:31:32,560 able to show what it is right away. 1702 01:31:33,880 --> 01:31:36,280 Anyway, I can now go down in the categories and tell you what I 1703 01:31:36,280 --> 01:31:37,640 think we should keep and what we should get rid of. 1704 01:31:38,160 --> 01:31:41,320 All right, best adventure, long form, short form. 1705 01:31:41,320 --> 01:31:43,080 We talked about this a little bit before. 1706 01:31:45,240 --> 01:31:48,640 I mean would would adventure is going to be in there adventure? 1707 01:31:48,640 --> 01:31:51,280 Is what I think. So I I think it's the it's one 1708 01:31:51,280 --> 01:31:54,800 of the pavers of the entire industry. 1709 01:31:55,160 --> 01:31:58,400 It's obviously not as prominent as it used to be in many ways 1710 01:31:58,400 --> 01:32:00,000 because there's some cultures that don't exist. 1711 01:32:00,280 --> 01:32:03,000 But this is I mean, the best adventure categories are kind of 1712 01:32:03,000 --> 01:32:07,040 like, again, they're scratching at that that bruise at the of 1713 01:32:07,040 --> 01:32:09,760 the Ennis of being like, man, the broader with this, this 1714 01:32:10,280 --> 01:32:13,240 industry gets the worst this category feels. 1715 01:32:13,720 --> 01:32:16,440 But I do think it's really good categories to have still. 1716 01:32:16,640 --> 01:32:18,920 How would you? Would you, would you delineate 1717 01:32:18,920 --> 01:32:20,880 it in a different way or or what would you do? 1718 01:32:21,160 --> 01:32:23,480 No, I don't know this one I've thought about a lot. 1719 01:32:23,480 --> 01:32:27,240 I think this is really what this really this category makes me 1720 01:32:27,240 --> 01:32:31,760 think of is like maybe the the elf games OSR dungeon crawling. 1721 01:32:31,760 --> 01:32:36,320 Like game culture should just have their own award show an. 1722 01:32:36,400 --> 01:32:38,960 OSR award show. Yeah, like an OSR. 1723 01:32:38,960 --> 01:32:42,400 Award show which which of the 20 different branches of the OSR is 1724 01:32:42,400 --> 01:32:43,720 is going to. Run the award show well, so 1725 01:32:43,720 --> 01:32:46,360 here's here's the thing about award shows too that's really 1726 01:32:46,360 --> 01:32:50,040 important about them. And this is specifically comes 1727 01:32:50,040 --> 01:32:54,960 from both knowledge of how it works in movies and in design 1728 01:32:54,960 --> 01:32:57,480 and advertising. One thing that award shows also 1729 01:32:57,480 --> 01:33:02,000 do is they codify who is the thing and who isn't the thing. 1730 01:33:02,280 --> 01:33:05,560 So if you had an OSR award show that was run by people who 1731 01:33:05,560 --> 01:33:10,040 fucking hate Nazis, they get to go and basically tell the world 1732 01:33:10,040 --> 01:33:13,840 and set the set in stone. They are not in this. 1733 01:33:14,240 --> 01:33:16,760 They can claim they are, but they're not in the award show 1734 01:33:16,760 --> 01:33:18,520 for the category. So are they really? 1735 01:33:18,520 --> 01:33:21,240 Like that's kind of part of like the setting, the culture and 1736 01:33:21,240 --> 01:33:24,960 driving the culture. Like, if an award show is, you 1737 01:33:24,960 --> 01:33:27,800 know, it codifies and sets in stone certain, like, norms or 1738 01:33:27,800 --> 01:33:33,040 expectations of a category or genre, which is why I like it 1739 01:33:33,440 --> 01:33:35,360 has its negative off effects too. 1740 01:33:35,360 --> 01:33:38,560 Like, that's why I like Oscar bait is like a category in and 1741 01:33:38,560 --> 01:33:41,120 of itself because the Oscars have established that, like, 1742 01:33:41,440 --> 01:33:45,960 real drama is going to be this period piece about, you know, 1743 01:33:46,680 --> 01:33:49,160 racism and a white woman doing something cool. 1744 01:33:49,480 --> 01:33:53,760 So yeah, it's not good. It's not great, but it's not bad 1745 01:33:53,800 --> 01:33:55,680 at the same time. Yeah. 1746 01:33:55,720 --> 01:33:58,040 But then you're going to get, I mean, I mean. 1747 01:33:58,280 --> 01:34:00,840 But this goes back to the thing though, like if you're playing, 1748 01:34:00,840 --> 01:34:04,480 if you are, it goes back to the judges thing of like if you're 1749 01:34:04,480 --> 01:34:07,320 going to have like judges that everyone knows, well, it's 1750 01:34:07,320 --> 01:34:10,120 probably you're going to probably need judges that are of 1751 01:34:10,120 --> 01:34:13,840 certain play culture. So like it would if I was only 1752 01:34:13,840 --> 01:34:18,040 an OSR person and not also a story game lyric, game freak 1753 01:34:18,040 --> 01:34:24,240 that I am, I think I would want all the judges to be from my so 1754 01:34:24,480 --> 01:34:27,800 broadly from the category I, I am in, even the ones where I 1755 01:34:27,800 --> 01:34:30,240 would be like, I don't know if they're part of me, but 1756 01:34:30,640 --> 01:34:33,920 certainly they're close. I think a lot of people probably 1757 01:34:33,920 --> 01:34:37,080 want that It's. Funny you're you're I feel like 1758 01:34:37,200 --> 01:34:43,520 we feel so we're so similar in so many things, but the you're 1759 01:34:43,520 --> 01:34:48,320 like a story lyric game person and I'm very much like more in 1760 01:34:48,320 --> 01:34:52,160 the OSR sphere, especially like however far from leer a game I 1761 01:34:52,160 --> 01:34:55,240 can get, which I just think is really interesting that we have 1762 01:34:55,240 --> 01:34:59,040 so many similar opinions and yet what we want in in games is they 1763 01:34:59,040 --> 01:35:00,560 somehow presented differently. I'm. 1764 01:35:00,800 --> 01:35:04,640 I'm, here's the thing with OSR stuff, I probably would only 1765 01:35:04,640 --> 01:35:07,400 want to make that if I was making games. 1766 01:35:07,400 --> 01:35:10,920 I would only make, you know, fantasy sci-fi stuff. 1767 01:35:10,920 --> 01:35:14,920 I wouldn't be making like a game about any of the stuff that most 1768 01:35:14,920 --> 01:35:19,360 story games are about. I mean the problem too though is 1769 01:35:19,440 --> 01:35:22,880 depending on who gets to pick. I mean, I saw a recent OSR panel 1770 01:35:23,280 --> 01:35:29,720 and I'm not going to name names. I'll we'll end on this Shadow 1771 01:35:29,720 --> 01:35:36,320 darks, not OSR best aid accessory digital, non digital. 1772 01:35:36,320 --> 01:35:38,240 I like this. I think this is interesting. 1773 01:35:38,720 --> 01:35:42,600 Yeah, I think it's interesting. It's interesting too that some 1774 01:35:42,600 --> 01:35:45,520 of these categories are more competitive than others and some 1775 01:35:45,600 --> 01:35:47,080 some years are not competitive at all. 1776 01:35:47,080 --> 01:35:51,440 So I think this is AI think these I I like these two 1777 01:35:51,440 --> 01:35:54,400 categories and I also like that by having them exist, it kind of 1778 01:35:54,400 --> 01:35:55,880 encourages more people to make them. 1779 01:35:56,560 --> 01:35:57,640 Yeah, which which I think is great. 1780 01:35:57,640 --> 01:36:00,680 I mean, things like the Mothership companion app is is 1781 01:36:00,680 --> 01:36:01,440 great. It's great. 1782 01:36:01,800 --> 01:36:03,440 Yeah. I was so happy that Dungeon 1783 01:36:03,440 --> 01:36:06,040 Scrawl got something because I love Dungeon Scrawl. 1784 01:36:06,040 --> 01:36:07,200 I think it's an incredible resource. 1785 01:36:07,240 --> 01:36:10,880 I run entire games in Dungeon Scrawl because I can just 1786 01:36:10,880 --> 01:36:12,960 literally build the map as I play instead of having to like 1787 01:36:12,960 --> 01:36:16,480 hide it and then you can just drag tokens in from the side to 1788 01:36:16,480 --> 01:36:18,360 do a whole thing. I mean, a lot of these are 1789 01:36:18,360 --> 01:36:19,760 really, really incredible resources. 1790 01:36:19,760 --> 01:36:22,040 And it's really interesting the difference between the digital 1791 01:36:22,040 --> 01:36:24,120 versions and the non digital versions, because the digital 1792 01:36:24,120 --> 01:36:26,360 ones are pretty much all like this is going to help you play a 1793 01:36:26,360 --> 01:36:29,440 game. And the non digital ones are for 1794 01:36:29,440 --> 01:36:31,640 the most part, these are parts of games. 1795 01:36:31,680 --> 01:36:34,280 When you look at like, you know, the tin candles one or the money 1796 01:36:34,280 --> 01:36:38,480 Python 1 and things like that, It it's it's more of like this 1797 01:36:38,480 --> 01:36:41,320 is an add on to a game that exists as opposed to that, I 1798 01:36:41,360 --> 01:36:43,640 mean. It's like, it's like almost like 1799 01:36:43,640 --> 01:36:46,400 it's making a deluxe version of the experience as opposed to 1800 01:36:46,400 --> 01:36:48,160 like making the core experience better. 1801 01:36:48,160 --> 01:36:51,360 I I could see that for sure. I certainly the 10 candles tea 1802 01:36:51,360 --> 01:36:53,680 light thing is that right where it's like, let's let's add a 1803 01:36:53,680 --> 01:36:55,680 little deluxe little flair onto the. 1804 01:36:56,160 --> 01:36:57,880 Deluxe tea light. I mean, whatever. 1805 01:36:57,880 --> 01:36:59,920 I like 10 candles. I don't know what the tea light 1806 01:36:59,920 --> 01:37:02,000 collection is, but you know, it's whatever. 1807 01:37:02,040 --> 01:37:05,360 It's scented candles that are themed around certain 10 candles 1808 01:37:05,640 --> 01:37:07,440 scenario. So like, some of them smell like 1809 01:37:08,400 --> 01:37:10,600 campfire smoke and things like that, and then, you know, 1810 01:37:10,600 --> 01:37:13,280 whatever the upsetting thing is. That's definitely the accessory 1811 01:37:13,280 --> 01:37:15,000 part of the best aid in accessory. 1812 01:37:15,240 --> 01:37:19,440 I, you know, I, I, I wouldn't mind this instead of going 1813 01:37:19,440 --> 01:37:22,160 digital, non digital, having a best aid and a best accessory 1814 01:37:22,160 --> 01:37:25,120 one, because the OP the, the, the difference between something 1815 01:37:25,120 --> 01:37:27,840 like dungeon scrawl and something like scented tea 1816 01:37:27,840 --> 01:37:32,080 lights is massive to me. But you know, it is what it is, 1817 01:37:33,000 --> 01:37:34,280 obviously. I would have to think on that 1818 01:37:34,280 --> 01:37:34,840 one. I don't know. 1819 01:37:35,760 --> 01:37:37,640 Yeah. I mean, yeah, interesting. 1820 01:37:37,680 --> 01:37:40,000 Idea, yeah. Yeah, there's just a big 1821 01:37:40,000 --> 01:37:41,680 difference between the thing that helps you and the thing 1822 01:37:41,680 --> 01:37:43,880 that just like you said, is just like a little bit of a deluxe 1823 01:37:43,880 --> 01:37:45,760 bonus for you, a thing that smells nice. 1824 01:37:46,400 --> 01:37:48,760 But I think both are valid. I mean, I used to burn fucking 1825 01:37:48,760 --> 01:37:51,040 scented candles. I my can't trip candles and 1826 01:37:51,040 --> 01:37:52,400 stuff. I loved being like, all right, 1827 01:37:52,400 --> 01:37:54,320 we're in a dungeon tonight. Let's light the dungeon candle. 1828 01:37:56,880 --> 01:38:00,120 Best cover art, I mean, and best into your art too. 1829 01:38:00,120 --> 01:38:01,720 I I think you have to have these. 1830 01:38:01,880 --> 01:38:04,720 I mean, I wouldn't want to get rid of them. 1831 01:38:05,920 --> 01:38:08,400 I mean, best cartography, we're basically saying like here's 1832 01:38:08,400 --> 01:38:11,920 here's the art awards and an artist are a massive part of the 1833 01:38:11,920 --> 01:38:12,840 teacher. Virginia community. 1834 01:38:13,080 --> 01:38:16,560 Art sells books and let's be 100% honest, cover art sells 1835 01:38:16,560 --> 01:38:19,640 books. I have bought a lot of games 1836 01:38:19,880 --> 01:38:23,320 that are bad, but they had beautiful cover art and I bought 1837 01:38:23,320 --> 01:38:27,200 them, you know? Well, and some people will be 1838 01:38:27,200 --> 01:38:28,480 like, oh, the cover doesn't matter. 1839 01:38:28,480 --> 01:38:30,080 And it's like then why do they exist? 1840 01:38:30,480 --> 01:38:32,520 No, that's couldn't be. Farther. 1841 01:38:33,120 --> 01:38:34,440 It couldn't be farther from the fucking truth. 1842 01:38:34,440 --> 01:38:38,800 If you any budget whatsoever, do a cover art, that's it and 1843 01:38:38,800 --> 01:38:42,120 you're going to sell more games. Yeah, yes, exactly. 1844 01:38:42,120 --> 01:38:48,040 And you can't amputate cover from the the thing because it's 1845 01:38:48,040 --> 01:38:50,600 part of the thing. Like I, I think looking at games 1846 01:38:50,600 --> 01:38:53,520 and products and things more holistically, you find out that 1847 01:38:53,520 --> 01:38:56,120 everything is more essential than you probably then some 1848 01:38:56,120 --> 01:38:57,720 people would want you to believe. 1849 01:38:58,440 --> 01:39:01,680 I got a tiny note that's actually has nothing to do with 1850 01:39:01,680 --> 01:39:04,440 these two categories. It has to do with the fact that, 1851 01:39:05,120 --> 01:39:07,080 and this is again, this is a little bit of a complaint, like 1852 01:39:07,080 --> 01:39:09,120 if I could change something, if I could, you know, do it right 1853 01:39:09,120 --> 01:39:13,280 now, I would just change the way some of these categories are 1854 01:39:13,280 --> 01:39:15,160 written. Like just call, you just call, 1855 01:39:15,160 --> 01:39:17,840 you describe it as best cover art, but it's not best cover 1856 01:39:17,840 --> 01:39:20,720 art. It's best art, comma cover, best 1857 01:39:20,720 --> 01:39:24,600 art, comma interior. I would just I would spell it 1858 01:39:24,600 --> 01:39:27,560 and write it as it is said colloquially. 1859 01:39:28,120 --> 01:39:29,280 And I think there's just something about that. 1860 01:39:29,280 --> 01:39:32,800 It's like clean like instead of saying best aid slash accessory 1861 01:39:32,800 --> 01:39:37,120 dash non dash digital, I would just say best if I was going to 1862 01:39:37,120 --> 01:39:40,560 keep that category best non digital aid or accessory. 1863 01:39:41,120 --> 01:39:43,680 Yeah, I mean, there's no reason to basically write it in such 1864 01:39:43,680 --> 01:39:45,920 way. So it stays in alphabetical 1865 01:39:45,920 --> 01:39:47,720 order versus just saying this just if it. 1866 01:39:47,880 --> 01:39:49,120 We say this all the time about games. 1867 01:39:49,120 --> 01:39:50,720 If a thing is a thing, just call it a thing. 1868 01:39:50,920 --> 01:39:53,240 Like you don't have to come up with new ways to say the thing. 1869 01:39:53,240 --> 01:39:55,160 If it if it's hit points, it's called fucking hit points. 1870 01:39:55,160 --> 01:39:57,640 Like you know and. The other thing, yeah, and 1871 01:39:57,640 --> 01:40:00,120 another thing too is why is it doesn't have to be alphabetical. 1872 01:40:00,120 --> 01:40:02,000 In fact, it probably shouldn't be alphabetical. 1873 01:40:02,400 --> 01:40:04,880 I wouldn't have put these things alphabetical the product. 1874 01:40:04,880 --> 01:40:08,160 Of the year is not alphabetical. Yeah, alphabetical exactly. 1875 01:40:08,480 --> 01:40:11,480 Yeah, right. I completely agree. 1876 01:40:11,680 --> 01:40:14,200 It shouldn't be best art cover. It should just be best cover 1877 01:40:14,200 --> 01:40:17,080 art, best interior art. The interesting the thing about 1878 01:40:17,200 --> 01:40:19,960 the best art categories and best cartography category is that 1879 01:40:19,960 --> 01:40:25,040 they are, they're showing how the any awards are in a really 1880 01:40:25,040 --> 01:40:28,240 weird spot of being both a People's Choice Awards and also 1881 01:40:28,520 --> 01:40:30,760 behaving a lot like a craft industry award. 1882 01:40:31,360 --> 01:40:36,160 Because if you go to industry awards, this is the I'm going to 1883 01:40:36,160 --> 01:40:41,520 use, you know, a comparison. We will always talk about how in 1884 01:40:41,520 --> 01:40:46,640 the Academy Awards, how the production side of the award 1885 01:40:46,640 --> 01:40:49,880 show gets less and less screen time at the award show, Like 1886 01:40:49,960 --> 01:40:53,400 best cinematographer, best like wardrobe, like they're always 1887 01:40:53,400 --> 01:40:55,600 like, it seems like they're always trying to get rid of one 1888 01:40:55,600 --> 01:40:58,480 of those best special effects, things like that best sound 1889 01:40:58,480 --> 01:41:02,520 design. And and that's because the 1890 01:41:02,600 --> 01:41:05,920 Academy Awards in many ways are moving more towards a broad 1891 01:41:05,920 --> 01:41:08,400 audience. They're not they're moving away 1892 01:41:08,400 --> 01:41:11,120 from being an industry award because an industry award would 1893 01:41:11,120 --> 01:41:13,880 care more about those things. So it's kind of it's kind of a 1894 01:41:13,880 --> 01:41:18,240 weird category because it is like clearly like something that 1895 01:41:18,240 --> 01:41:22,200 if the judges were all like experts in their field, this 1896 01:41:22,200 --> 01:41:25,160 category makes a lot of sense. But because it's, you know, 1897 01:41:25,160 --> 01:41:28,880 generally people who don't have an opinion on art besides 1898 01:41:28,880 --> 01:41:31,360 whether or not they like it or not, this it becomes a weird 1899 01:41:31,360 --> 01:41:33,000 category. So there's things that are going 1900 01:41:33,000 --> 01:41:35,920 to be in these categories that any, any category that leans 1901 01:41:35,920 --> 01:41:38,320 craft. I think you'll notice that there 1902 01:41:38,320 --> 01:41:40,200 are things where you're like, wow, why did that get in there? 1903 01:41:40,200 --> 01:41:43,880 And the answer is because through the process of trying to 1904 01:41:43,880 --> 01:41:47,000 come with nominations, judge some judges who don't have an 1905 01:41:48,480 --> 01:41:51,760 opinion really strongly on the category, but have an opinion on 1906 01:41:51,760 --> 01:41:54,000 what should win get nominations in there. 1907 01:41:56,200 --> 01:41:59,640 One weird thing about best cartography, I interpret 1908 01:41:59,640 --> 01:42:03,800 cartography in a completely different way then I think 1909 01:42:04,320 --> 01:42:08,960 probably most people do. And I think that probably led to 1910 01:42:09,160 --> 01:42:12,160 all being unsatisfied with cartography. 1911 01:42:12,560 --> 01:42:15,400 I thought of cartography in a more holistic fashion of like, 1912 01:42:15,400 --> 01:42:22,160 it's not just the art, it is the art usability and how it plays 1913 01:42:22,160 --> 01:42:24,720 into the overall experience of, of the game. 1914 01:42:24,720 --> 01:42:27,960 Like play tone, theme, what have you. 1915 01:42:28,280 --> 01:42:31,120 So like Pendragon map of King Arthur's Britain. 1916 01:42:31,280 --> 01:42:33,760 If you've seen it in real life, you know exactly why it won. 1917 01:42:33,760 --> 01:42:36,200 It's a gorgeous looking map. It is. 1918 01:42:36,200 --> 01:42:39,520 It's really well made. It feels like it's like really 1919 01:42:39,520 --> 01:42:42,280 sets tone. But then like if you look at 1920 01:42:42,280 --> 01:42:46,480 like, say, Wonderland, a fancy role-playing setting, that map 1921 01:42:46,480 --> 01:42:50,520 is all about like experimental functionality. 1922 01:42:50,520 --> 01:42:54,720 It's a Tetramino style map that shifts and it's got all these 1923 01:42:54,720 --> 01:42:56,920 like different parts and pieces and you move it around. 1924 01:42:56,920 --> 01:43:00,240 And if it's playing into the Wonderland aspect, because the 1925 01:43:00,280 --> 01:43:02,800 whole idea of like Alice in Wonderland is that when she goes 1926 01:43:02,800 --> 01:43:06,280 into, it's like a non Euclidean space that constantly morphing. 1927 01:43:06,640 --> 01:43:12,120 So the cartography functions mechanically like Wonderland 1928 01:43:12,240 --> 01:43:14,280 where it's shifts every time you enter it. 1929 01:43:14,800 --> 01:43:18,720 So that's why one of the reasons why I liked it for the category, 1930 01:43:18,960 --> 01:43:23,400 but it's not artistically at the same, it's not on the same 1931 01:43:23,440 --> 01:43:26,920 territory as say, Pendragon as far as like art is concerned. 1932 01:43:28,040 --> 01:43:30,320 Well, I mean, and then then yeah, that that comes down to 1933 01:43:30,560 --> 01:43:32,640 it. Need like more definition of the 1934 01:43:32,640 --> 01:43:34,800 category. Because to me, I mean, there's a 1935 01:43:34,800 --> 01:43:36,720 reason that usability is one of our metrics. 1936 01:43:36,720 --> 01:43:39,400 Like it is a reason that like we're known for being the people 1937 01:43:39,400 --> 01:43:41,600 that bitch about hyperlinks and shit because like actually being 1938 01:43:41,600 --> 01:43:44,400 able to use the game at the tables a little bit more 1939 01:43:44,400 --> 01:43:47,120 important than how pretty it is when you're actually playing in 1940 01:43:47,120 --> 01:43:49,000 the game. If you just want to sell copies, 1941 01:43:49,000 --> 01:43:50,720 sure, prettier is always going to be better. 1942 01:43:50,720 --> 01:43:53,040 If you want to actually play the game, usability always going to 1943 01:43:53,040 --> 01:43:54,720 go out. So for me, usability would win 1944 01:43:55,160 --> 01:43:57,520 hands down on this category because it's a map. 1945 01:43:57,680 --> 01:44:01,200 Map is supposed to be, I mean, and that therein is it supposed 1946 01:44:01,200 --> 01:44:02,760 to be anything? Is it supposed to just be 1947 01:44:02,760 --> 01:44:04,680 dressing in the front or is it supposed to be usable? 1948 01:44:05,000 --> 01:44:08,000 I guess that's, that's up to, that's up to debate, You know, 1949 01:44:08,040 --> 01:44:11,120 each, each year, I guess it's there's no definition. 1950 01:44:11,800 --> 01:44:15,960 Again, if they if the award show had more specificity, it would 1951 01:44:15,960 --> 01:44:17,800 naturally probably lean one way or the other. 1952 01:44:20,040 --> 01:44:22,840 Best community content? I don't understand what does 1953 01:44:22,840 --> 01:44:25,160 that mean? I don't understand this category 1954 01:44:25,160 --> 01:44:27,880 either. I I was the most I was the 1955 01:44:27,880 --> 01:44:31,520 probably the most annoying person for a whole year to the 1956 01:44:31,520 --> 01:44:34,440 coordinators and I apologize to them for it, but I asked over 1957 01:44:34,440 --> 01:44:36,480 and over again what is the best community content? 1958 01:44:36,840 --> 01:44:40,880 I constantly asked like challenged the the 1959 01:44:40,880 --> 01:44:46,040 interpretation of it because if you read the actual thing, which 1960 01:44:46,040 --> 01:44:48,640 I'll read aloud right now because that happens on this 1961 01:44:48,640 --> 01:44:50,760 podcast. So I feel empowered to do so. 1962 01:44:51,480 --> 01:44:54,040 Formerly known as best organized play. 1963 01:44:54,240 --> 01:44:57,960 So right away it's this thing that is from previous years, 1964 01:44:57,960 --> 01:44:59,960 right? So it is it is morphed and 1965 01:44:59,960 --> 01:45:03,840 changed as the industry has changed, which is probably why 1966 01:45:03,840 --> 01:45:05,280 it feels unsatisfying in some ways. 1967 01:45:05,280 --> 01:45:08,800 For me, this category is a word to the best adventures created 1968 01:45:08,800 --> 01:45:12,440 to support community content programs such as organized play 1969 01:45:13,400 --> 01:45:16,360 either by the company owning the intellectual property or those 1970 01:45:16,360 --> 01:45:19,840 given open permission to do so by said company community 1971 01:45:19,840 --> 01:45:23,480 content programs or by or by a third party Commission to do so. 1972 01:45:23,880 --> 01:45:28,480 So my question immediately was, does that mean any third party 1973 01:45:28,480 --> 01:45:33,400 community content program product is eligible for this 1974 01:45:33,400 --> 01:45:37,720 category? Is the Mork Bork third party 1975 01:45:37,720 --> 01:45:40,320 like community content license every SRD? 1976 01:45:41,200 --> 01:45:43,160 Yeah. Are are those all like eligible? 1977 01:45:43,160 --> 01:45:44,840 Because. And the reason why I was asking 1978 01:45:44,840 --> 01:45:48,000 this is because there was a lot of great stuff that was that 1979 01:45:48,000 --> 01:45:50,760 would fit in this category on that basis alone. 1980 01:45:50,760 --> 01:45:53,120 There's a people are making amazing stuff for mothership, 1981 01:45:53,360 --> 01:45:56,640 amazing stuff for Mork Borg, amazing stuff for Liminal 1982 01:45:56,640 --> 01:45:58,880 horror. Obviously like all these 1983 01:45:58,880 --> 01:46:01,800 different things is like I, I want to know if I can put some 1984 01:46:01,800 --> 01:46:03,400 of those people into this category. 1985 01:46:03,880 --> 01:46:08,840 And it's in this weird space where best community created 1986 01:46:08,840 --> 01:46:13,960 content is specifically speaking to the style community content 1987 01:46:14,320 --> 01:46:18,200 of that like was set forth by like Dungeons and Dragons in 1988 01:46:18,200 --> 01:46:22,120 store play. And so it's more like DMS Guild 1989 01:46:22,400 --> 01:46:26,320 stuff and like Miskatonic University by called Kathua 1990 01:46:26,320 --> 01:46:30,960 Chaosium stuff and Pendragon. Like there's only like a few 1991 01:46:30,960 --> 01:46:34,440 like things that are more or less ordained in that category. 1992 01:46:34,440 --> 01:46:37,200 Everything every because the industry has abandoned that that 1993 01:46:37,200 --> 01:46:40,000 model, right? Like the, the industry is like 1994 01:46:40,000 --> 01:46:43,280 we are not going to do like all the indie creators out there. 1995 01:46:43,280 --> 01:46:47,080 Like why would we be that like regimented in this? 1996 01:46:47,080 --> 01:46:50,800 We're just going to freely give out like the rights to use this 1997 01:46:50,800 --> 01:46:53,480 game so long as you credit it and you'll be in this content 1998 01:46:53,480 --> 01:46:55,600 program and all that. I mean, even like, don't you 1999 01:46:55,600 --> 01:46:58,160 would think just by this definition, from age alone, 2000 01:46:58,160 --> 01:47:01,600 Dungeon Crawl Classics would be eligible because Dungeon, 2001 01:47:01,760 --> 01:47:07,520 because Goodman Games runs a huge content program in in 2002 01:47:07,520 --> 01:47:09,680 stores. They have the judges Guild, they 2003 01:47:09,680 --> 01:47:12,280 run games, everything else. But because none of those 2004 01:47:12,280 --> 01:47:17,720 adventures are designed strictly for organized play in stores, 2005 01:47:17,960 --> 01:47:19,880 none of them are eligible theoretically. 2006 01:47:20,160 --> 01:47:22,320 Yeah, this is fucking stupid and this needs to go. 2007 01:47:22,480 --> 01:47:24,520 Yeah, this category, it's weird, Yeah. 2008 01:47:24,520 --> 01:47:27,360 Miskatonic Repository, Miskatonic Repository, 2009 01:47:27,360 --> 01:47:31,480 Miskatonic Repository, Pyzo, Dungeon Masters Guild, come the 2010 01:47:31,480 --> 01:47:33,280 fuck on. This is dumb. 2011 01:47:33,280 --> 01:47:36,400 Get rid of this fucking category that like you said, maybe 2012 01:47:36,400 --> 01:47:40,040 fucking 6-7 years ago when adventures league and all that 2013 01:47:40,040 --> 01:47:43,560 shit was like something that anyone cared at all about, maybe 2014 01:47:43,560 --> 01:47:47,000 this would be viable. These are adventures or whatever 2015 01:47:47,000 --> 01:47:49,520 they are. They are then eligible for 2016 01:47:49,560 --> 01:47:51,400 whatever category they can be in. 2017 01:47:51,400 --> 01:47:54,320 It's dumb as shit to put to to somehow segmented to just be 2018 01:47:54,320 --> 01:47:57,360 like these are corporate sponsored games. 2019 01:47:57,360 --> 01:48:00,200 Like we don't. There does not need to be a 2020 01:48:00,200 --> 01:48:02,200 corporate sponsored content category. 2021 01:48:02,720 --> 01:48:04,480 Come the fuck on. That's stupid. 2022 01:48:04,840 --> 01:48:06,560 Yeah. And so, you know, I want one 2023 01:48:06,560 --> 01:48:11,600 last note everything in this, this is nothing to say about the 2024 01:48:11,600 --> 01:48:12,880 nominees in this. No, not at all. 2025 01:48:13,000 --> 01:48:15,360 Not at all. It's about the category itself, 2026 01:48:15,960 --> 01:48:17,960 the nominees. Like there's something special 2027 01:48:17,960 --> 01:48:22,000 about all of them, including the fact that they include, you 2028 01:48:22,000 --> 01:48:24,560 know, the mountain in my home, my home state right now. 2029 01:48:24,560 --> 01:48:26,640 So that's great. But yeah, no, it's just about 2030 01:48:26,640 --> 01:48:29,840 the content it or the category. It's not about the actual 2031 01:48:29,920 --> 01:48:32,080 nominees. I will very rarely talk shit 2032 01:48:32,080 --> 01:48:34,160 about specific games on here except. 2033 01:48:34,160 --> 01:48:35,440 There's some really good stuff in there. 2034 01:48:35,920 --> 01:48:38,720 Man, we should have a blades counter in the in the in the in 2035 01:48:38,720 --> 01:48:42,440 the chat. Best family game or products. 2036 01:48:42,600 --> 01:48:45,440 Fine whatever. I don't care to even. 2037 01:48:45,600 --> 01:48:47,560 Like can I pull? Can I pull out a soapbox real 2038 01:48:47,560 --> 01:48:48,800 quick on this? Please do. 2039 01:48:48,920 --> 01:48:53,000 Please do. I am coming to you all cap and 2040 01:48:53,000 --> 01:48:57,680 hand to say that best family game or family friendly game is 2041 01:48:57,680 --> 01:49:02,760 not the same as the kiddie game. The best like game for kids. 2042 01:49:04,000 --> 01:49:06,760 I think a lot of people think like they get a lot of people 2043 01:49:06,760 --> 01:49:10,160 get angry when their game gets put into this category where 2044 01:49:10,160 --> 01:49:13,520 they're like my game is not kid childish. 2045 01:49:13,560 --> 01:49:17,520 It is a serious game. And I think that is under the 2046 01:49:17,520 --> 01:49:22,760 assumption that kids only get childish crap. 2047 01:49:23,880 --> 01:49:27,680 But that's not at all with this category is was interpreted this 2048 01:49:27,720 --> 01:49:30,000 year, this past year. We interpreted it as like any 2049 01:49:30,000 --> 01:49:34,600 like amazing game that felt like it could also be played family 2050 01:49:34,600 --> 01:49:38,560 friendly with any community, any like group of people, whether it 2051 01:49:38,560 --> 01:49:40,800 is your actual family or a found family. 2052 01:49:41,200 --> 01:49:44,640 So everything in there is really good and some of it is for kids 2053 01:49:44,640 --> 01:49:48,480 of younger age, but ultimately most of it is just like, is this 2054 01:49:48,480 --> 01:49:52,840 game really good and could you play it with younger people? 2055 01:49:52,840 --> 01:49:54,800 Possibly. If the answer is yes, then you 2056 01:49:54,800 --> 01:49:57,320 might qualify for this. It's funny, I had I had a 2057 01:49:57,320 --> 01:49:59,960 discussion with somebody literally about this at the 2058 01:49:59,960 --> 01:50:06,240 innies where mouse shooter came up, and I think mouse shooter is 2059 01:50:06,240 --> 01:50:09,520 an incredible the fact that it one family game is it should it 2060 01:50:09,520 --> 01:50:10,680 should every. A million times. 2061 01:50:10,680 --> 01:50:12,800 It's great. It's great for families, yeah. 2062 01:50:12,800 --> 01:50:15,240 Because but what's 1 of the things I love? 2063 01:50:15,280 --> 01:50:16,360 I've said this over and over again. 2064 01:50:16,360 --> 01:50:18,720 Like I have a short list of games that if no one's, if 2065 01:50:18,720 --> 01:50:20,440 people have never heard of a teacher, but you have never 2066 01:50:20,440 --> 01:50:23,880 played one, a short list of what I would play with them. 2067 01:50:24,120 --> 01:50:27,280 And the number one game that I would always pick 100% of the 2068 01:50:27,280 --> 01:50:29,640 time is Mouse shutter. If you've never played a TTRPG, 2069 01:50:29,720 --> 01:50:32,240 you're gonna play Mouse shutter. And one of the things that's 2070 01:50:32,240 --> 01:50:35,920 great about it and why I think it's such a great family game is 2071 01:50:35,920 --> 01:50:40,320 because the way it's designed, it is extremely helpful for 2072 01:50:40,320 --> 01:50:43,880 accessibility stuff for younger. Like the not only is the 2073 01:50:43,880 --> 01:50:46,520 inventory thing fucking awesome, it's going to be super helpful 2074 01:50:46,520 --> 01:50:48,160 for kids to keep that organized, right? 2075 01:50:48,200 --> 01:50:50,440 Yep, but is also going to be great for people in 50s, 2076 01:50:50,440 --> 01:50:52,600 sixties, seventies, 80s of any age. 2077 01:50:52,920 --> 01:50:56,360 And it's deadly enough that it's going to be fun for the people 2078 01:50:56,360 --> 01:51:03,120 that want that, but also like of a genre to like still fit kids 2079 01:51:03,120 --> 01:51:06,680 wanting to play mice and stuff. I it's it's, it's in my opinion, 2080 01:51:06,680 --> 01:51:10,000 if you had to say what is a family game, you would just hold 2081 01:51:10,000 --> 01:51:12,440 off the master box and be like, this is this, just define it 2082 01:51:12,440 --> 01:51:14,240 based on this. And it would be perfect from 2083 01:51:14,240 --> 01:51:15,600 there. And I won them over because they 2084 01:51:15,600 --> 01:51:17,600 said it wasn't a family game because the mice die and shit. 2085 01:51:17,600 --> 01:51:21,600 I'm like, I watched where the red Fern grows to go into 4th 2086 01:51:21,600 --> 01:51:23,080 grade because it's time to grow up. 2087 01:51:23,080 --> 01:51:24,440 You know what I mean? Like old yellow. 2088 01:51:24,480 --> 01:51:26,960 It's a kids movie, you know. A metaphor. 2089 01:51:27,080 --> 01:51:29,680 A lot of people think of Pez Family Game as the Coco Melon 2090 01:51:29,680 --> 01:51:30,760 category. It's not. 2091 01:51:30,760 --> 01:51:34,840 It's the Pixar category. Yeah, it is the one that can be 2092 01:51:34,840 --> 01:51:38,520 for kids, but is clearly written by adults for adults because of 2093 01:51:38,520 --> 01:51:40,160 the shit that the kids are not going to get until they're 2094 01:51:40,160 --> 01:51:42,480 older. And then they go, oh, I get 2095 01:51:42,480 --> 01:51:44,040 Wally now. I get it. 2096 01:51:44,040 --> 01:51:46,760 It's not just cute robots. Yeah, the themes are not dumbed 2097 01:51:46,760 --> 01:51:49,080 down. Kids are way more intelligent 2098 01:51:49,080 --> 01:51:50,320 than people give them credit for. 2099 01:51:50,640 --> 01:51:54,800 And yeah, putting a soapbox on top of the soapbox. 2100 01:51:55,240 --> 01:51:57,440 Let's scare kids again. Let's give them back to being 2101 01:51:57,440 --> 01:51:59,600 scarred. Like, let's get, let's give them 2102 01:51:59,600 --> 01:52:02,360 the scar. Throwing your father into the 2103 01:52:02,360 --> 01:52:05,040 Stampede of wildebeest. I think that more kids need to 2104 01:52:05,040 --> 01:52:08,040 grow up with the with the, the tragedies and the nightmares and 2105 01:52:08,040 --> 01:52:10,520 all that good stuff. Yeah, I don't disagree at 2106 01:52:10,520 --> 01:52:13,480 helicopter parents and and all of these like wrapped in these 2107 01:52:13,480 --> 01:52:15,280 bubble wrap kids, come on, come on. 2108 01:52:15,440 --> 01:52:18,880 I mean, I mean in the same vein with a really quick tiny little 2109 01:52:18,880 --> 01:52:20,760 tangent. When we take away kids ability 2110 01:52:20,760 --> 01:52:22,800 to go outside and play and take away every 3rd space where they 2111 01:52:22,800 --> 01:52:27,000 could actually go develop themselves so and earn scars and 2112 01:52:27,000 --> 01:52:29,280 earn a little bit of meat on their fucking emotional bones. 2113 01:52:29,640 --> 01:52:31,560 Where, where are they supposed to go do that though? 2114 01:52:31,560 --> 01:52:33,600 You know what I mean? Like, you know, we've taken, 2115 01:52:33,640 --> 01:52:37,440 we've taken all those spaces away and, and and and, and not 2116 01:52:37,440 --> 01:52:42,400 only that politicized protect the kids as, as another, like, 2117 01:52:42,880 --> 01:52:46,440 you know, Rod to beat down anything that a certain segment 2118 01:52:46,440 --> 01:52:50,240 of society doesn't like. So, you know, fuck fascism. 2119 01:52:51,160 --> 01:52:55,360 But yeah, I'm permanently out of Zobox, so I don't need to 2120 01:52:55,360 --> 01:52:59,000 preface that. Yeah, best free gamer product. 2121 01:52:59,080 --> 01:53:01,440 Fine. Like, I don't understand why it 2122 01:53:01,440 --> 01:53:05,200 necessarily like, I mean, I'm, I'm of a mind that all PDFs 2123 01:53:05,200 --> 01:53:09,880 should be free, but you know, I I don't really like, OK, fine, 2124 01:53:09,880 --> 01:53:11,920 whatever. I think this is just a category 2125 01:53:11,960 --> 01:53:14,240 in my opinion, that's kind of unnecessary. 2126 01:53:14,320 --> 01:53:16,040 It's an adventure just like everything else is, right? 2127 01:53:16,880 --> 01:53:19,520 Yeah, I It doesn't have to be an adventure. 2128 01:53:19,520 --> 01:53:22,080 It can be a game or. It's it's, it's supplement, it's 2129 01:53:22,080 --> 01:53:23,480 a product, it's whatever, Yeah. Right. 2130 01:53:23,640 --> 01:53:27,320 Yeah. Ultimately, when I was judge, I 2131 01:53:27,320 --> 01:53:30,240 was happy to have any category that allowed me to spread the 2132 01:53:30,240 --> 01:53:32,000 love around. And there were a couple things 2133 01:53:32,000 --> 01:53:35,720 that got to be like nominated here that probably wouldn't have 2134 01:53:35,720 --> 01:53:37,080 gotten nominated in any other category. 2135 01:53:37,080 --> 01:53:38,800 A bunch. And I think this is so fucking 2136 01:53:38,800 --> 01:53:42,200 dumb that this whole idea that like, let's not put the best 2137 01:53:42,200 --> 01:53:45,960 thing in the category. Let's I'll compromise with you 2138 01:53:45,960 --> 01:53:48,000 so I can get this thing that I like tucked in this other 2139 01:53:48,000 --> 01:53:49,720 category. So they didn't actually like 2140 01:53:49,720 --> 01:53:52,040 that just seems like so broken. Like instead of just being like, 2141 01:53:52,040 --> 01:53:55,680 these are the best, we're going to like finagle and I'm going to 2142 01:53:55,680 --> 01:53:58,320 whip votes and do like a whole politics thing so that I can get 2143 01:53:58,320 --> 01:54:00,520 this other thing and this other thing that feels so broken. 2144 01:54:01,160 --> 01:54:05,480 Well, the problem with that thinking is that like what is 2145 01:54:05,480 --> 01:54:09,600 best of anything like on it, it'll change from day-to-day 2146 01:54:09,600 --> 01:54:11,680 too. So like, honestly, it's just 2147 01:54:11,680 --> 01:54:13,440 like one of those things where it's like, oh, great, like I can 2148 01:54:13,440 --> 01:54:17,760 give you know, I'm just going to name one like Grim wild can 2149 01:54:17,760 --> 01:54:21,840 become nominated for something and I don't have to then feel 2150 01:54:21,840 --> 01:54:24,360 obligated necessarily to nominate for also best game 2151 01:54:24,360 --> 01:54:27,040 that's not free, which is the category after this one. 2152 01:54:27,480 --> 01:54:30,560 My, my opinion really about the best free game is that, you 2153 01:54:30,560 --> 01:54:34,520 know, it kind of remind, it reminds me of drive through RPG 2154 01:54:34,840 --> 01:54:38,560 of like the whole conversation that always happens in the RPGs 2155 01:54:38,560 --> 01:54:43,040 where people will accuse you of being like greedy if you charge 2156 01:54:43,040 --> 01:54:45,600 any amount of money for something that some people 2157 01:54:45,600 --> 01:54:48,840 presume should be free. So, you know, I'm, I'm kind of 2158 01:54:48,840 --> 01:54:51,640 on the side of like, if it weren't for the fact that there 2159 01:54:51,640 --> 01:54:54,080 are some really great things that probably deserve 2160 01:54:54,080 --> 01:54:57,160 recognition. I don't like any sort of 2161 01:54:58,880 --> 01:55:03,280 societal encouragement that games should be free or that we 2162 01:55:03,280 --> 01:55:08,320 should be putting extra juice into anything just because it's 2163 01:55:08,320 --> 01:55:11,720 free. But you know, I I don't feel too 2164 01:55:11,720 --> 01:55:14,000 strongly about this category either otherwise. 2165 01:55:15,840 --> 01:55:17,800 You are. You definitely made me. 2166 01:55:18,680 --> 01:55:21,080 You know what is best in life? The Conan quote definitely 2167 01:55:21,080 --> 01:55:23,120 jumped into my brain there. If I could, if I could have 2168 01:55:23,120 --> 01:55:24,840 remembered it word for word, I would have ripped that out. 2169 01:55:24,840 --> 01:55:26,840 But I didn't. No, I just saw they driven 2170 01:55:26,840 --> 01:55:29,000 before you and the limitations of their women. 2171 01:55:29,000 --> 01:55:31,320 Crush your enemies limitations of your women and all that kind 2172 01:55:31,320 --> 01:55:34,640 of stuff Yeah yeah fine. Whatever best game OK so explain 2173 01:55:34,640 --> 01:55:37,200 look so so let's So what is the difference between best game 2174 01:55:37,880 --> 01:55:39,920 game of the year and apparently product of the year? 2175 01:55:40,160 --> 01:55:41,840 Like why we already? Talked about it. 2176 01:55:41,840 --> 01:55:44,520 We don't know. There's best game and game of 2177 01:55:44,520 --> 01:55:45,800 the year. What is the difference between 2178 01:55:45,800 --> 01:55:50,040 best gaming game of the year? Is it best? 2179 01:55:50,200 --> 01:55:53,520 I don't know game of the year and game of the year like like 2180 01:55:53,520 --> 01:55:56,720 runner up like it makes no sense that you have best game and game 2181 01:55:56,720 --> 01:55:58,640 of the year because you don't have best rules and rules of the 2182 01:55:58,680 --> 01:55:59,400 year. There's no. 2183 01:55:59,600 --> 01:56:01,640 Is there a game of the year? No, it's product of the year. 2184 01:56:02,840 --> 01:56:06,720 That's what you meant, right? So best game is best game. 2185 01:56:06,720 --> 01:56:07,920 Best game. OK, never mind. 2186 01:56:07,960 --> 01:56:10,920 OK, then, never mind. I'm I'm I'm arguing with myself 2187 01:56:10,920 --> 01:56:13,800 about nothing. So best game is best game. 2188 01:56:13,880 --> 01:56:17,160 Obviously this should be the this should be the this should 2189 01:56:17,160 --> 01:56:20,040 be the end of the award thing. Like that's the point. 2190 01:56:20,040 --> 01:56:23,160 It's a games award, right? Like let's let's make it a games 2191 01:56:23,160 --> 01:56:25,760 award and it should be game of the year and whatever. 2192 01:56:25,880 --> 01:56:30,920 What like it is what it is. I mean, I again, make what you 2193 01:56:30,920 --> 01:56:32,800 will. I'm glad the gold got the gold. 2194 01:56:34,480 --> 01:56:37,720 No, I agree with that one. Best layout in design. 2195 01:56:37,720 --> 01:56:41,840 So someone to chat asked what the fuck does that mean? 2196 01:56:42,080 --> 01:56:46,080 And we we we talk about art and layout on the show, right. 2197 01:56:46,400 --> 01:56:51,040 And I mean, I'm a I'm a keep it a whole buck. 2198 01:56:56,620 --> 01:56:58,380 Mythic bastion lands layout is not good. 2199 01:56:59,620 --> 01:57:01,940 I think it's art is fantastic, but I think it's layout is not 2200 01:57:01,940 --> 01:57:03,580 good. The first thing I thought when I 2201 01:57:03,580 --> 01:57:06,100 got the PDF was damn, should have hired a layout artist. 2202 01:57:06,560 --> 01:57:11,840 The fact that I won a gold Emmy is literally one of the biggest 2203 01:57:11,840 --> 01:57:14,920 proofs this year that it is just a popularity contest. 2204 01:57:15,200 --> 01:57:18,600 This award, they, they got layout on here because of 2205 01:57:18,600 --> 01:57:21,680 Quinn's video and just because it was in a category, it got a 2206 01:57:21,680 --> 01:57:24,880 bunch of votes. I, I think it's serviceable. 2207 01:57:25,160 --> 01:57:27,800 I think it's crowded. I think it's inconsistent. 2208 01:57:28,000 --> 01:57:30,040 I think the whole book would have been better with half as 2209 01:57:30,040 --> 01:57:32,320 many, you know, legends or whatever at the end with more 2210 01:57:32,320 --> 01:57:33,800 pages and and more breathing room. 2211 01:57:34,080 --> 01:57:35,520 Again, I think the art is beautiful. 2212 01:57:36,560 --> 01:57:40,480 Explain to me best layout and design category. 2213 01:57:41,080 --> 01:57:44,800 I told you already no comment on that. 2214 01:57:44,920 --> 01:57:49,400 I, but I think if you were to rewind this reason, you know, 2215 01:57:49,400 --> 01:57:53,800 this whole chat we had in the podcast, I, I, I let slip what 2216 01:57:53,800 --> 01:57:59,440 categories I campaigned with the bastion land to be in and it 2217 01:57:59,440 --> 01:58:04,080 wasn't this category. I don't, I, I, I clocked, I 2218 01:58:04,080 --> 01:58:08,600 clocked. You know, we'll move on from 2219 01:58:08,600 --> 01:58:09,640 there. This has to be here. 2220 01:58:09,680 --> 01:58:14,480 Layout, layout. Both layout and design are again 2221 01:58:14,480 --> 01:58:17,920 just as intrinsic to TRPTS as R is it? 2222 01:58:17,920 --> 01:58:20,920 You can't not have this. It's one of the, it's one of the 2223 01:58:20,920 --> 01:58:25,880 weird categories in that it is one of the most RPG categories 2224 01:58:26,160 --> 01:58:27,720 of all time. Like there's no other. 2225 01:58:27,720 --> 01:58:31,000 Like even in design and advertising, like there's not a 2226 01:58:31,840 --> 01:58:34,440 layout category at most award shows. 2227 01:58:34,520 --> 01:58:37,960 Like there's a, there's other ones for like best, you know, 2228 01:58:39,000 --> 01:58:41,280 graphic design, best print product, whatever. 2229 01:58:41,280 --> 01:58:44,280 But there's never like a best layout thing. 2230 01:58:44,320 --> 01:58:48,600 Layout is like a, a specific obsession within RPGs, 2231 01:58:48,920 --> 01:58:53,600 justifiably so, because our information architecture takes a 2232 01:58:53,600 --> 01:58:57,440 outsize role in the entire experience and whatnot. 2233 01:58:57,440 --> 01:58:59,320 So. I personally wish that more 2234 01:58:59,320 --> 01:59:05,400 people would view their TTRPGS as the instruction manuals that 2235 01:59:05,400 --> 01:59:11,240 they are, but again, I come from a different side than the lyric 2236 01:59:11,240 --> 01:59:13,480 and the story and whatever and stuff. 2237 01:59:14,120 --> 01:59:19,440 So the another thing we can talk about here is First off, 2238 01:59:19,640 --> 01:59:21,400 actually I got a bunch of things I want to see. 2239 01:59:21,400 --> 01:59:23,800 This is why it's so hard to write the postmortem, because I 2240 01:59:23,800 --> 01:59:25,240 want to say 1000 things about. Everything. 2241 01:59:25,240 --> 01:59:27,440 You run this back and just be like a good one. 2242 01:59:27,560 --> 01:59:29,120 That was a bad one, yeah. So. 2243 01:59:29,160 --> 01:59:32,400 You know, the first thing that's challenging about best layout 2244 01:59:32,400 --> 01:59:37,960 and design is that it really does. 2245 01:59:37,960 --> 01:59:41,640 You really hope the judges know anything about those categories 2246 01:59:41,640 --> 01:59:45,400 that those things. And if they're coming from DND 2247 01:59:45,400 --> 01:59:49,600 5, they don't. That's just Simply put, like D&D 2248 01:59:49,760 --> 01:59:53,640 does not have like it has good art direction, but it doesn't 2249 01:59:53,640 --> 01:59:55,200 have good like quote UN quote design. 2250 01:59:55,440 --> 01:59:58,120 And I say good art direction in a very like technical sense. 2251 01:59:58,120 --> 02:00:00,600 Let's not talk about like the rest of it, right? 2252 02:00:00,840 --> 02:00:02,240 I don't like it, but it whatever. 2253 02:00:03,600 --> 02:00:05,520 So that's the first thing I want to say about best layout and 2254 02:00:05,520 --> 02:00:07,160 design. So it's already kind of like a 2255 02:00:07,160 --> 02:00:09,920 really challenging category that will almost always disappoint 2256 02:00:09,920 --> 02:00:14,440 everybody every year, especially previous years when I wasn't on 2257 02:00:14,440 --> 02:00:17,800 there because I am the. Known layout freak. 2258 02:00:19,800 --> 02:00:22,640 The other thing is you, you said earlier like you want games to 2259 02:00:22,640 --> 02:00:25,000 be rule books. I think there are some arguments 2260 02:00:25,000 --> 02:00:29,280 that can be made depending on what culture you're in about how 2261 02:00:29,280 --> 02:00:32,120 true that needs to be. But I will say one thing that 2262 02:00:32,120 --> 02:00:34,640 when A, and this is not necessarily saying you should 2263 02:00:34,640 --> 02:00:37,760 design your game like this, but if you are running, you're 2264 02:00:37,760 --> 02:00:41,440 submitting your game to the any awards this will be this will 2265 02:00:41,440 --> 02:00:45,560 come up. We read 1000 entries. 2266 02:00:45,680 --> 02:00:49,440 I've read something like 20 games, sometimes a day, you 2267 02:00:49,440 --> 02:00:52,680 know, for a whole year basically. 2268 02:00:53,440 --> 02:01:00,120 And getting there are some you, you're nobody's setting was as 2269 02:01:00,120 --> 02:01:02,640 unique as they thought they're setting was. 2270 02:01:03,520 --> 02:01:06,680 And their lore was never as unique as they think their lore 2271 02:01:06,680 --> 02:01:09,200 is. So there were multiple instances 2272 02:01:09,240 --> 02:01:11,200 while judging where it's like, OK, great. 2273 02:01:11,440 --> 02:01:13,680 You've told me what the what the setting is. 2274 02:01:13,880 --> 02:01:16,200 You've told me what the lore is. I know the story, I know the 2275 02:01:16,200 --> 02:01:19,800 themes, I know the tone. I know all that stuff. 100 pages 2276 02:01:19,800 --> 02:01:21,280 in. What are the rules? 2277 02:01:21,400 --> 02:01:23,040 I've been wanting to know what the rules are. 2278 02:01:23,040 --> 02:01:27,320 Because at the end of the day, as you said before, what your 2279 02:01:27,320 --> 02:01:29,840 system does is what your your game is. 2280 02:01:30,600 --> 02:01:34,840 And a lot of the entries and the, and this is just natural. 2281 02:01:34,840 --> 02:01:36,840 This doesn't even have to do with the any awards. 2282 02:01:36,840 --> 02:01:39,600 This could just be any award show and just RPGs in general. 2283 02:01:39,880 --> 02:01:43,120 A lot of games will say their one thing and then their rules 2284 02:01:43,120 --> 02:01:47,680 are just 5th edition rules and they have basically nothing to 2285 02:01:47,680 --> 02:01:51,720 do at all with the the thing that was promised. 2286 02:01:51,960 --> 02:01:54,360 It's yeah, they just toss on like a torch timer and call it 2287 02:01:54,360 --> 02:01:55,640 something new. Yeah. 2288 02:01:55,640 --> 02:01:58,680 So I'm not going to bring that up. 2289 02:01:59,080 --> 02:02:04,040 But anyway, point being, yeah. So if you're if you're again, if 2290 02:02:04,040 --> 02:02:07,560 you're submitting to the any awards, we can debate all we 2291 02:02:07,560 --> 02:02:10,040 want about whether or not your rules should come first in the 2292 02:02:10,040 --> 02:02:14,280 rule book before character creation or lore or setting or 2293 02:02:14,280 --> 02:02:17,480 any of that other stuff. But it it does give you an 2294 02:02:17,480 --> 02:02:19,480 advantage in probably award shows. 2295 02:02:19,480 --> 02:02:23,400 Because when I read a bunch of books, I'm always asking myself, 2296 02:02:23,400 --> 02:02:25,520 OK, but what are the rules? Like that's going to decide 2297 02:02:25,520 --> 02:02:29,080 whether or not your thing delivers on the thing that it's 2298 02:02:29,080 --> 02:02:31,120 doing. So we, we have come to a 2299 02:02:31,120 --> 02:02:35,240 consensus here on the show that the best way to put a, in our 2300 02:02:35,240 --> 02:02:39,800 opinion, the best way to put a book together is to start with 2301 02:02:40,520 --> 02:02:44,200 the basic, the most basic rules of the system. 2302 02:02:44,200 --> 02:02:47,800 So tell me what the game is. Tell me the basic resolution 2303 02:02:47,800 --> 02:02:51,720 mechanic and the goals the characters have and then do 2304 02:02:51,720 --> 02:02:55,960 character creation and then do all of the rest of the rules 2305 02:02:55,960 --> 02:02:59,960 that people need to go because that's that. 2306 02:02:59,960 --> 02:03:02,120 That's just that our opinion that has come to be the best 2307 02:03:02,120 --> 02:03:03,160 one. If you just do character 2308 02:03:03,160 --> 02:03:04,800 creation first, you're going to have people reading through it, 2309 02:03:04,800 --> 02:03:06,920 not understanding. If you just do all the rules 2310 02:03:06,920 --> 02:03:08,800 first, you're going to have a lot of stuff before they 2311 02:03:08,800 --> 02:03:10,360 understand like why they're using it. 2312 02:03:10,560 --> 02:03:14,120 So to kind of give you a brief, then the characters, then the 2313 02:03:14,120 --> 02:03:16,960 rest of the rules, in our opinion is the is the best way 2314 02:03:16,960 --> 02:03:18,560 to do it. I don't remember why we got on 2315 02:03:18,560 --> 02:03:20,080 that tangent. That's the take away. 2316 02:03:20,120 --> 02:03:22,160 That's take away, yeah. All right, best monster 2317 02:03:22,160 --> 02:03:23,160 adversary. Fucking point. 2318 02:03:23,360 --> 02:03:24,440 Do we even need to talk about this? 2319 02:03:24,440 --> 02:03:27,080 It's in a fucking supplement. Just nominate the supplement. 2320 02:03:27,280 --> 02:03:28,760 Get rid of that shit. That's terrible. 2321 02:03:29,280 --> 02:03:30,520 Yeah, it's not my favorite category. 2322 02:03:31,000 --> 02:03:33,320 Best online content? What the fuck does that mean? 2323 02:03:34,520 --> 02:03:39,000 It means blogs, generally best blogs, generally best blogs. 2324 02:03:39,080 --> 02:03:45,200 Of course it's blogs and like other, which is why A1 Page RPG 2325 02:03:45,200 --> 02:03:48,440 Jam is also in there. Then that's pointless. 2326 02:03:48,720 --> 02:03:50,760 Let's we'll skip around a little bit here. 2327 02:03:50,840 --> 02:03:54,440 Then this goes this goes back to the thing of like I and we 2328 02:03:54,720 --> 02:03:56,920 talked about it briefly, but I think the Annie Awards and 2329 02:03:56,920 --> 02:04:00,480 again, this is just my opinion. I don't think I think the Annie 2330 02:04:00,480 --> 02:04:02,760 Awards would make itself its life a lot easier and then it'd 2331 02:04:02,800 --> 02:04:06,200 be a lot more focused if it just bowed out. 2332 02:04:06,200 --> 02:04:14,360 It's seeded the desire to try to judge online content get rid. 2333 02:04:14,840 --> 02:04:18,800 Of all of that, that's that. Like, don't even get me started 2334 02:04:19,120 --> 02:04:22,200 on the current blogosphere or any aspect of APS, because I 2335 02:04:22,200 --> 02:04:24,560 don't want to piss everyone. Actually, I don't give a fuck. 2336 02:04:24,600 --> 02:04:25,880 But I'm not going to talk about it here. 2337 02:04:27,120 --> 02:04:28,080 Why? Why? 2338 02:04:28,080 --> 02:04:30,480 Why Best blogs for what? Because we've already, we've 2339 02:04:30,480 --> 02:04:33,400 already said repeatedly, this is not an indie award show. 2340 02:04:33,480 --> 02:04:35,800 It's never going to be. It's always going to be a big 2341 02:04:35,800 --> 02:04:37,760 box game show that occasionally awards indie people. 2342 02:04:38,240 --> 02:04:40,680 You're not getting a lot of like 5 E blogs. 2343 02:04:40,680 --> 02:04:42,880 You know what I mean though, that's for YouTube. 2344 02:04:43,280 --> 02:04:46,040 That's for, you know, the clicks and the bait and all that kind 2345 02:04:46,040 --> 02:04:47,200 of stuff. But you're not getting a ton of 2346 02:04:47,200 --> 02:04:49,840 like 5 E blogs. Most of these people, things 2347 02:04:49,840 --> 02:04:52,800 like playful void or Prismatic Wasteland, they're they're 2348 02:04:53,000 --> 02:04:55,240 they're indie blogs. Why is it an award that is 2349 02:04:55,240 --> 02:05:00,360 clearly not an indie award show. This is this is basically feels 2350 02:05:00,360 --> 02:05:02,200 like it's tossing crumbs and it's pointless. 2351 02:05:02,200 --> 02:05:04,680 Get rid of that. I couldn't agree more. 2352 02:05:04,920 --> 02:05:07,160 Let's jump down real quick to some of the other stuff. 2353 02:05:07,440 --> 02:05:09,120 Best streaming content get rid of that. 2354 02:05:09,120 --> 02:05:13,520 I don't care like they're if the APS want to be as professional 2355 02:05:13,520 --> 02:05:16,960 as they want to be, create your own award show get there's 2356 02:05:16,960 --> 02:05:19,200 already like Webfest and all corners shit like that. 2357 02:05:19,320 --> 02:05:20,400 It doesn't need to be at the enemies. 2358 02:05:20,400 --> 02:05:23,280 It's pointless. Is that so? 2359 02:05:23,280 --> 02:05:28,400 Those two, in my opinion, Possum literally the the other issue 2360 02:05:28,400 --> 02:05:33,840 with that too, is how obviously slowly this thing adapts to the 2361 02:05:33,840 --> 02:05:36,840 current sphere, right? Like we, we still have the 2362 02:05:36,840 --> 02:05:41,560 community content, AKA the, the fucking DMS Guild award, right? 2363 02:05:42,240 --> 02:05:47,120 The online space is going to rapidly every year change and 2364 02:05:47,120 --> 02:05:49,800 change and change, whether it's blogs or APS or that you're 2365 02:05:49,800 --> 02:05:52,160 never going to keep up. So you're always going to look 2366 02:05:52,160 --> 02:05:54,160 ridiculous trying to reward those kind of things. 2367 02:05:54,200 --> 02:05:56,960 Like especially in two categories that only have 5 2368 02:05:56,960 --> 02:05:59,280 nominations each and you're trying to cover the entire 2369 02:05:59,280 --> 02:06:02,640 Internet of like basically like opinion. 2370 02:06:02,760 --> 02:06:05,520 That's those are ridiculous. Category and performance 2371 02:06:06,120 --> 02:06:08,440 ridiculous. Get rid of them, toss them, 2372 02:06:09,160 --> 02:06:10,800 don't even bother with them at all. 2373 02:06:11,200 --> 02:06:14,520 Well, and I think one way of putting it too is like if you 2374 02:06:14,600 --> 02:06:18,200 are a content creator, if you're a Blogger, you are being I, I 2375 02:06:18,240 --> 02:06:21,480 don't think you're getting the the award show you deserve by 2376 02:06:21,480 --> 02:06:23,880 having it rolled into the any awards. 2377 02:06:23,880 --> 02:06:25,360 I think it should be its own thing. 2378 02:06:25,360 --> 02:06:27,200 Like you want. You should have. 2379 02:06:27,720 --> 02:06:28,280 You should. Yeah. 2380 02:06:29,200 --> 02:06:31,440 The webbies. Yeah. the OR the, there's the 2381 02:06:31,440 --> 02:06:32,000 bloggies. Yeah. 2382 02:06:32,000 --> 02:06:33,880 I'm about to run that, so be nice to me. 2383 02:06:36,480 --> 02:06:39,000 But yeah, No, no, it's all right. 2384 02:06:39,000 --> 02:06:41,960 I don't think you're going to be, but yeah, No. 2385 02:06:41,960 --> 02:06:44,560 So, you know, it's just one of those things where it's, it's 2386 02:06:44,560 --> 02:06:50,760 not equipped to cover that community, those communities at 2387 02:06:50,760 --> 02:06:52,760 all. Not well, not well enough. 2388 02:06:54,320 --> 02:06:56,400 And I had to make sure my dog was all right. 2389 02:06:58,000 --> 02:07:01,920 So, yeah, I, I, I think this is like, if you wanted to, if, if I 2390 02:07:01,920 --> 02:07:04,600 were running the Annies and I wanted to, you know, not spread 2391 02:07:04,600 --> 02:07:07,440 myself as thin, I would consolidate down. 2392 02:07:07,440 --> 02:07:11,480 And I, you would have to spend the next like year just eating 2393 02:07:11,600 --> 02:07:15,120 all, which I could do. But you just have to take all 2394 02:07:15,120 --> 02:07:17,440 the, like, the brunt of people being like, but why isn't it in 2395 02:07:17,440 --> 02:07:18,920 the Annies? And it's like, because we're not 2396 02:07:18,920 --> 02:07:22,960 good at it. Like we, we think he should go, 2397 02:07:22,960 --> 02:07:25,080 go go talk to people to create awards. 2398 02:07:25,080 --> 02:07:29,920 They are way. More into it like you will never 2399 02:07:29,920 --> 02:07:33,240 make everyone happy, so do the thing that you it's the 2400 02:07:33,280 --> 02:07:34,400 Internet. Like you're never gonna make 2401 02:07:34,600 --> 02:07:38,920 everyone happy like so. I mean, if this became perfect, 2402 02:07:38,920 --> 02:07:41,880 in my opinion, it would piss off 1000 different people, you know 2403 02:07:41,880 --> 02:07:44,040 what I mean? So it doesn't matter. 2404 02:07:44,040 --> 02:07:46,640 Just do be the best at what you want to do and stop trying to 2405 02:07:46,680 --> 02:07:49,160 you think people aren't going to like tune into the innies? 2406 02:07:49,160 --> 02:07:53,120 You think that like the the you know 150 people like Jenka that 2407 02:07:53,120 --> 02:07:55,560 want to show up to sit in the seats that are way too fucking 2408 02:07:55,560 --> 02:07:58,640 close together when half of it's empty? 2409 02:07:58,640 --> 02:08:00,680 Like why are we sitting on each others laps? 2410 02:08:00,680 --> 02:08:05,640 Come on. If you're a judge, you get more 2411 02:08:05,640 --> 02:08:07,600 space. You can sit round table. 2412 02:08:07,600 --> 02:08:09,040 So think. About I better be a judge. 2413 02:08:09,640 --> 02:08:11,320 Okay, We've already talked about breast production value. 2414 02:08:11,480 --> 02:08:13,720 Considering that almost every single one of these is also in 2415 02:08:13,720 --> 02:08:16,320 product of the year. We we we've discussed this 2416 02:08:16,320 --> 02:08:17,680 already. That's it's a ridiculous thing. 2417 02:08:18,160 --> 02:08:20,080 There's no point to have product of the year and best production 2418 02:08:20,080 --> 02:08:23,400 values if you're gonna like just combine it into one and if you 2419 02:08:23,400 --> 02:08:25,120 want to have 10 do 10 or whatever. 2420 02:08:25,440 --> 02:08:28,120 But it like this should be the bells and whistles category. 2421 02:08:28,120 --> 02:08:30,000 We talked about it already and if you look at the best 2422 02:08:30,000 --> 02:08:32,240 production values, that's what this is. 2423 02:08:32,360 --> 02:08:34,520 You know, it's a vinyl. I don't to frog nightmares is a 2424 02:08:34,520 --> 02:08:37,640 beautiful book, but like I don't like just because it got this 2425 02:08:37,640 --> 02:08:39,680 black on the side and you got to crack it does not mean it 2426 02:08:39,680 --> 02:08:41,160 belongs in the best production values. 2427 02:08:41,400 --> 02:08:42,920 But like all the rest of it for sure. 2428 02:08:43,120 --> 02:08:46,200 It's just it's ridiculous to have this and product of the 2429 02:08:46,200 --> 02:08:49,040 year and product of the year shouldn't be like the the the 2430 02:08:49,040 --> 02:08:52,840 highlight category anyway. Best RPG related product. 2431 02:08:52,840 --> 02:08:54,360 So we're not even talking about RPGs anymore. 2432 02:08:54,360 --> 02:08:56,200 We're talking about RPG related stuff. 2433 02:08:56,200 --> 02:09:02,520 Come on. Yeah, I, I, I earlier said 2434 02:09:02,520 --> 02:09:04,280 mentioned things. Yeah. 2435 02:09:04,840 --> 02:09:07,640 I love, I love, I love what we nominated in that this category. 2436 02:09:07,640 --> 02:09:08,360 I love what? Yeah, I'm. 2437 02:09:08,480 --> 02:09:09,760 Playing at the World is fantastic. 2438 02:09:09,840 --> 02:09:10,840 I think it's a great book. Check it out. 2439 02:09:10,840 --> 02:09:13,240 I'm. I'm, I'm, I'm happy to have, you 2440 02:09:13,240 --> 02:09:16,640 know, put people on a stage for some of this stuff, so. 2441 02:09:16,640 --> 02:09:18,840 But HP Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness for 2442 02:09:18,840 --> 02:09:22,360 beginning readers. I mean, he's been dead a long 2443 02:09:22,360 --> 02:09:25,080 time, but he was a racist piece of shit, so let's give it to our 2444 02:09:25,080 --> 02:09:29,080 kindergarteners. Like come on, best rules sure, 2445 02:09:29,080 --> 02:09:31,160 yes, of course, like don't need to argue. 2446 02:09:31,160 --> 02:09:33,480 It has to be there. Best setting sure, of course. 2447 02:09:33,480 --> 02:09:36,200 I don't think that there there there's anything that that says 2448 02:09:36,200 --> 02:09:38,760 that shouldn't be there. Stop me if you have anything to 2449 02:09:38,760 --> 02:09:40,440 say Best streaming continent. We've already talked about it. 2450 02:09:40,440 --> 02:09:42,360 Cut the shit. It's only going to continuously 2451 02:09:42,360 --> 02:09:43,440 evolve. You're never going to keep up 2452 02:09:43,440 --> 02:09:44,720 and it's always going to look ridiculous. 2453 02:09:44,960 --> 02:09:47,680 Give them their own awards. Best supplement sure I 2454 02:09:47,880 --> 02:09:52,280 supplements are there are more supplements and there are games 2455 02:09:52,360 --> 02:09:55,960 like it's huge. I mean, I think there needs to 2456 02:09:55,960 --> 02:10:02,120 be some more specificity, like you said, between what the fuck 2457 02:10:02,120 --> 02:10:03,680 is a supplement? You know what I mean? 2458 02:10:03,880 --> 02:10:07,520 Yeah, it certainly was. Part of the challenge of trying 2459 02:10:07,520 --> 02:10:09,360 to get this category figured out. 2460 02:10:09,800 --> 02:10:12,000 If it's just an adventure, then show, throw an adventure, like 2461 02:10:12,000 --> 02:10:14,760 define what a supplement is. Best writing, of course, have to 2462 02:10:14,760 --> 02:10:16,760 have best writing, right? And then product of the year 2463 02:10:16,760 --> 02:10:19,840 we've already talked about chop it, cut it, don't have to. 2464 02:10:20,080 --> 02:10:21,520 There you go. That's our award show. 2465 02:10:22,360 --> 02:10:26,280 Yep. So with that said, a lot of 2466 02:10:26,280 --> 02:10:28,280 things that you know, the categories are really strange. 2467 02:10:28,280 --> 02:10:31,720 So what's I don't know how I I only have a few more minutes 2468 02:10:31,720 --> 02:10:35,440 like 20 minutes maybe. So I want to tell everybody some 2469 02:10:35,440 --> 02:10:38,560 things that maybe will help them win the any awards if they want 2470 02:10:38,560 --> 02:10:44,480 to get nominated. So First off, like submit with a 2471 02:10:44,480 --> 02:10:47,440 category in mind. You do any awards are strange. 2472 02:10:47,440 --> 02:10:49,440 You don't submit to individual categories. 2473 02:10:49,680 --> 02:10:51,480 Actually, this is an RPG thing in general. 2474 02:10:51,480 --> 02:10:54,280 That's strange is that RPG awards kind of just have you be 2475 02:10:54,280 --> 02:10:55,880 a generalist in a lot of categories. 2476 02:10:57,120 --> 02:11:00,040 Other award shows usually have you submit to a specific 2477 02:11:00,040 --> 02:11:02,480 category. So you don't get to choose the 2478 02:11:02,480 --> 02:11:05,120 category which you should probably be submitting with an 2479 02:11:05,120 --> 02:11:07,760 intention of what you think that category might be. 2480 02:11:08,680 --> 02:11:10,920 And there are some categories that are less competitive than 2481 02:11:10,920 --> 02:11:12,520 others. You can always tell when a 2482 02:11:12,520 --> 02:11:16,640 category is uncompetitive because there's a page on the 2483 02:11:16,640 --> 02:11:19,520 Annie's website that tells you what's been submitted already. 2484 02:11:19,800 --> 02:11:24,160 That was put there specifically to kind of keep like a, a 2485 02:11:24,160 --> 02:11:28,440 receipt of what they've received so that people can say one thing 2486 02:11:28,440 --> 02:11:30,520 or another about, you know, they can double check it. 2487 02:11:30,960 --> 02:11:33,520 But it's also a great way for you to go and be like, Hey, I I 2488 02:11:33,520 --> 02:11:36,720 think I'm really good. So long as Luke Gehring doesn't 2489 02:11:36,720 --> 02:11:38,920 submit anything this year. And then you look and you see 2490 02:11:38,920 --> 02:11:41,760 that he submitted 2 things that he he didn't, by the way, he 2491 02:11:41,760 --> 02:11:46,960 doesn't submit to the Andy's. Did I did I want the the latest 2492 02:11:46,960 --> 02:11:49,840 thing that he made Swivers. Swivers. 2493 02:11:49,840 --> 02:11:51,880 Yeah, I wanted that. It did not. 2494 02:11:52,000 --> 02:11:54,080 He did not submit it. So that's why it didn't end up 2495 02:11:54,080 --> 02:11:57,600 in the any categories. But anyway, so you should submit 2496 02:11:57,600 --> 02:12:01,800 with categories in mind. You should make sure that the 2497 02:12:01,800 --> 02:12:05,560 thing that the game is is front and center right away. 2498 02:12:06,240 --> 02:12:09,280 Make sure you send it whichever way you like. 2499 02:12:09,280 --> 02:12:13,360 There's no actual preference between PDF and print. 2500 02:12:13,360 --> 02:12:16,360 Most years, or at least the last the year I was judged. 2501 02:12:16,720 --> 02:12:19,120 Maybe it will change because again, we don't know how the 2502 02:12:19,200 --> 02:12:24,440 judges work, but they are told repeatedly, like you have to 2503 02:12:24,440 --> 02:12:27,640 check these things. And we have a system where you 2504 02:12:27,640 --> 02:12:30,720 have to mark when you receive things, when you read them, all 2505 02:12:30,720 --> 02:12:33,120 that stuff. Every single thing gets dated 2506 02:12:33,400 --> 02:12:36,640 and postmarked. So your thing's going to be 2507 02:12:36,640 --> 02:12:38,280 looked at. You just have to make sure that 2508 02:12:38,280 --> 02:12:42,160 you submit it and make sure it gets to the people in the right 2509 02:12:42,160 --> 02:12:44,760 way, which is what gets to another thing where like if you 2510 02:12:44,760 --> 02:12:47,840 send APDF, it should say the name of the game. 2511 02:12:47,880 --> 02:12:51,640 Like the PDF can't be some acronym or whatever else. 2512 02:12:51,800 --> 02:12:55,200 Make it very obvious that you what The thing is that is in the 2513 02:12:55,200 --> 02:12:57,360 awards. If you send a physical product, 2514 02:12:57,760 --> 02:13:02,640 if it probably should be a book. If it's not a book, I don't you 2515 02:13:02,640 --> 02:13:05,240 guys, you got to go and make you just got to package it so that I 2516 02:13:05,240 --> 02:13:08,280 I know what it has to have wrapper, a wrapper on it and a 2517 02:13:08,280 --> 02:13:10,240 label on it. And if that means you have to 2518 02:13:10,280 --> 02:13:12,600 submit a little slip that says, like this is a game. 2519 02:13:12,920 --> 02:13:14,560 These are all little pieces to the game. 2520 02:13:14,560 --> 02:13:16,240 It's a keepsake game. Do it. 2521 02:13:16,440 --> 02:13:18,280 You know, there's no rules that say you can't do that. 2522 02:13:18,840 --> 02:13:20,240 And then little, tiny little things. 2523 02:13:24,360 --> 02:13:28,160 Now a single judge. My year prefers glossy pages 2524 02:13:28,160 --> 02:13:31,160 over Matt pages. Who does? 2525 02:13:31,320 --> 02:13:35,120 Who does? I I, so I will tell you the one 2526 02:13:35,120 --> 02:13:37,480 instance where I think, yeah, I do glossy pages. 2527 02:13:38,000 --> 02:13:42,680 If you were making a superhero themed RPG and it's in the shape 2528 02:13:42,680 --> 02:13:46,680 of a comic book, have it be this exact same gloss pages as a 2529 02:13:46,680 --> 02:13:49,200 comic book. If it's not, if it's not, yeah. 2530 02:13:49,200 --> 02:13:53,600 If it's not for the conceptual idea, then do then just do map 2531 02:13:53,600 --> 02:13:55,520 pages. They're oftentimes cheaper 2532 02:13:55,520 --> 02:13:58,160 anyway. So, you know, there you go. 2533 02:13:58,160 --> 02:13:59,920 There's there's like a little tiny like thing. 2534 02:13:59,920 --> 02:14:02,280 It's not even like it's not going to change whether or not 2535 02:14:02,280 --> 02:14:04,160 you're a winner or not. But if we're trying to like do 2536 02:14:04,160 --> 02:14:08,160 edge cases, that's one way you can, you know, edge yourself out 2537 02:14:08,160 --> 02:14:10,840 a little bit. Weird phrasing. 2538 02:14:11,080 --> 02:14:17,120 The second thing is as far as like submissions, I would just 2539 02:14:17,120 --> 02:14:19,400 urge people like don't just submit just to submit. 2540 02:14:19,560 --> 02:14:22,920 I think you should submit the thing that is your best work 2541 02:14:22,920 --> 02:14:27,000 when you think it's at its best. There are a lot of people submit 2542 02:14:27,000 --> 02:14:29,040 things. I I guess under the assumption 2543 02:14:29,040 --> 02:14:32,400 that maybe all the judges will be collectively drunk and they 2544 02:14:32,400 --> 02:14:36,560 will nominate you. We won't, probably not. 2545 02:14:38,200 --> 02:14:41,680 So, you know, generally you have to be pretty good in at least 2546 02:14:41,680 --> 02:14:44,240 one category to be considered at all. 2547 02:14:45,720 --> 02:14:48,000 So that's that. Those are those are all the tips 2548 02:14:48,000 --> 02:14:51,400 I know off the top of my head that we're getting to the part 2549 02:14:51,400 --> 02:14:53,400 of where I don't have my postmortem written. 2550 02:14:54,800 --> 02:14:57,960 Hey, this is research, this is this is thought, this is 2551 02:14:57,960 --> 02:15:01,040 exercise for you. This is again, you know, you can 2552 02:15:01,040 --> 02:15:03,200 read this, you can listen to this back and be like, that was 2553 02:15:03,200 --> 02:15:05,440 a good point. That was a bad point, you know. 2554 02:15:05,720 --> 02:15:08,360 We'll we'll get there. Here's here's another one, and 2555 02:15:08,360 --> 02:15:10,760 this one is probably going to be not something people want to 2556 02:15:10,760 --> 02:15:16,040 hear, but it's true. Don't submit just to the Ennis. 2557 02:15:16,760 --> 02:15:20,760 Honestly, the ideal scenario is that you submit sometime in the 2558 02:15:20,760 --> 02:15:25,200 middle of the submission window around January, and you should 2559 02:15:25,200 --> 02:15:28,960 have probably already like sent the game to every YouTube, you 2560 02:15:28,960 --> 02:15:32,720 know, every podcast, every friend, every fellow designer 2561 02:15:33,240 --> 02:15:36,760 weeks before you ever submitted to the Annie's play the ground 2562 02:15:36,760 --> 02:15:38,400 game. This is this is a People's 2563 02:15:38,400 --> 02:15:42,680 Choice Awards. You want a Quinn's to write 2564 02:15:42,680 --> 02:15:45,680 about your game. So just do the thing that and 2565 02:15:45,680 --> 02:15:48,280 and don't and don't do the thing where you beg people to, you 2566 02:15:48,280 --> 02:15:51,920 know, review your game. Just go and be like, hey, I love 2567 02:15:51,920 --> 02:15:53,800 your podcast, I love your YouTube channel. 2568 02:15:54,440 --> 02:15:57,760 I made this game. Thank you so much for making 2569 02:15:57,760 --> 02:15:59,800 this good stuff, no strings attached. 2570 02:16:00,680 --> 02:16:04,960 Hope you enjoy it done perfect. Everyone loves that. 2571 02:16:05,000 --> 02:16:07,440 It always feels good and never feels bad when people do that. 2572 02:16:08,000 --> 02:16:10,720 I was I was literally going to if you didn't say that my I was 2573 02:16:10,720 --> 02:16:12,520 literally going to be like, Hey, I don't remember if we talked 2574 02:16:12,520 --> 02:16:16,280 about this on show or off, but please give give how people 2575 02:16:16,280 --> 02:16:21,040 should fucking e-mail because you people e-mail badly, so 2576 02:16:21,040 --> 02:16:24,360 badly like be. Concise be be just quick. 2577 02:16:24,360 --> 02:16:25,920 It's so. It's not even about quick and 2578 02:16:25,920 --> 02:16:26,880 concise for me. For you. 2579 02:16:26,880 --> 02:16:30,280 Let me find if you write me a book, I'll fucking read it if it 2580 02:16:30,280 --> 02:16:34,520 sounds like you've ever watched my fucking podcast, like if it's 2581 02:16:34,559 --> 02:16:38,320 immediately obvious that it is a bot, it is AI written or that 2582 02:16:38,320 --> 02:16:43,040 you just did like find replace for the 10 other ones, right? 2583 02:16:43,200 --> 02:16:45,400 If you're submitting to people, it sucks if there's a ton of 2584 02:16:45,400 --> 02:16:48,080 them, right for each one individually, even if you see 2585 02:16:48,080 --> 02:16:49,920 the same shit, it's going to be a little bit different. 2586 02:16:50,200 --> 02:16:53,840 But again, like if you, I know that marketing is a huge thing, 2587 02:16:53,879 --> 02:16:55,959 right? But I can tell you right now, if 2588 02:16:55,959 --> 02:16:59,200 I have, if I'm going to do I genuinely, we have we basically 2589 02:16:59,200 --> 02:17:02,719 stopped doing interviews this week or two that we're doing. 2590 02:17:02,719 --> 02:17:05,360 We're we're punching a bunch in and then we're we're very rarely 2591 02:17:05,360 --> 02:17:08,440 going to do them again. But I can tell you right now if 2592 02:17:08,440 --> 02:17:14,120 there's if I have two emails and 1 sounds like they have ever 2593 02:17:14,280 --> 02:17:17,240 listened to the show when 1 doesn't, I'm not even like don't 2594 02:17:17,320 --> 02:17:20,600 like it's I'm not even going to respond Like if you're just some 2595 02:17:20,600 --> 02:17:23,840 bot bullshit like I'm just not going to so and please do 2596 02:17:23,879 --> 02:17:25,559 exactly what Clayton said. Exactly. 2597 02:17:25,559 --> 02:17:28,760 And and pretend, pretend that you're at like a convention or 2598 02:17:28,760 --> 02:17:30,080 something and this is what you're doing. 2599 02:17:30,080 --> 02:17:32,360 If you were walking up to the person, because that usually 2600 02:17:32,360 --> 02:17:35,240 changes the way people do things, if you write it as 2601 02:17:35,240 --> 02:17:38,240 though you were going to do it in person, you would write it in 2602 02:17:38,240 --> 02:17:41,240 a much different way than if you were like doing an e-mail blast. 2603 02:17:41,520 --> 02:17:43,600 And I think another way of looking at this is a lot of 2604 02:17:43,600 --> 02:17:45,280 people feel icky about this. They're like, oh, it's 2605 02:17:45,280 --> 02:17:48,480 marketing. It's not marketing If you do it 2606 02:17:49,120 --> 02:17:51,160 this way. It's just called mutualism. 2607 02:17:51,160 --> 02:17:54,559 It's called community. Like I watch your thing. 2608 02:17:54,559 --> 02:17:58,719 I think it's really great. I made this thing, thank you for 2609 02:17:58,719 --> 02:18:01,879 being whatever that that is not marketing in the way that people 2610 02:18:01,879 --> 02:18:04,160 think market because marketing is purely transactional. 2611 02:18:04,440 --> 02:18:07,120 But this is like under the guy this the assumption that maybe 2612 02:18:07,120 --> 02:18:11,200 there will be no back and forth and I will and now I have never 2613 02:18:11,200 --> 02:18:14,160 stepped out the soapbox. There's this thing that's talked 2614 02:18:14,160 --> 02:18:17,360 about in Indies of like, oh, we're all just passing the $10 2615 02:18:17,360 --> 02:18:23,000 around the the same $20 bill. That's called an economy. 2616 02:18:23,680 --> 02:18:25,600 That is literally how the economy works. 2617 02:18:25,680 --> 02:18:27,719 People pass around the same amount of money. 2618 02:18:27,719 --> 02:18:30,520 The fact that it's only like $20.00 or $50 doesn't make it 2619 02:18:30,520 --> 02:18:32,760 less of 1. So don't worry about it. 2620 02:18:32,760 --> 02:18:36,480 Just just make your thing that is like 100% yours that you love 2621 02:18:36,799 --> 02:18:38,840 and share it with people who make stuff you love. 2622 02:18:39,000 --> 02:18:42,959 And it will if it if it resonates, it works out and if 2623 02:18:42,959 --> 02:18:44,879 it doesn't, that's fine. Just keep making stuff because 2624 02:18:44,920 --> 02:18:47,240 you know, it's all about reps You just keep making and 2625 02:18:47,240 --> 02:18:49,680 eventually you get something to make better and better stuff. 2626 02:18:49,920 --> 02:18:54,160 And the any awards you submit it on a lark if it actually gets 2627 02:18:54,160 --> 02:18:57,120 nominated. Bonus if it wins, Extra bonus if 2628 02:18:57,120 --> 02:18:58,719 it gets nothing. It means nothing. 2629 02:19:00,040 --> 02:19:04,920 You know, what's funny is I've you quantified or really, really 2630 02:19:05,000 --> 02:19:08,639 defined a feeling that I've had for a long time on the show. 2631 02:19:08,639 --> 02:19:11,760 And that is like the difference between some of the emails and 2632 02:19:11,760 --> 02:19:13,160 some of the people that reach out and get stuff. 2633 02:19:13,160 --> 02:19:15,480 Because for a very, very long time, the show until extremely 2634 02:19:15,480 --> 02:19:19,600 recently, we did not accept review copies or any free 2635 02:19:19,600 --> 02:19:23,360 product at all on the show. And if anyone sent us stuff, we 2636 02:19:23,360 --> 02:19:25,480 would do a giveaway or I'd give it to a local library or 2637 02:19:25,480 --> 02:19:29,639 something like that. And we've recently kind of 2638 02:19:29,639 --> 02:19:32,559 acquiesced to to recepting review copies. 2639 02:19:32,559 --> 02:19:36,320 And one of the reasons is specifically because of the 2640 02:19:36,320 --> 02:19:38,200 second group of people. You talked about it when it's 2641 02:19:38,200 --> 02:19:40,120 not, when it feels like marketing, I hate it and I don't 2642 02:19:40,120 --> 02:19:43,120 want it when it feels like mutualism, when it feels like 2643 02:19:43,120 --> 02:19:45,879 someone saying, hey, I like what you do. 2644 02:19:46,200 --> 02:19:48,960 Like that's really cool. I want to give you my game. 2645 02:19:48,960 --> 02:19:52,240 Maybe you'll like it, but it's kind of like a for you, I think 2646 02:19:52,240 --> 02:19:54,440 you might like it. That's a very different thing. 2647 02:19:54,440 --> 02:19:56,600 And when we weren't accepting review copies, that was 2648 02:19:56,600 --> 02:19:58,240 sometimes hard where people reached out. 2649 02:19:58,240 --> 02:20:00,320 And it's like, I think you're cool, but like we just don't. 2650 02:20:00,840 --> 02:20:04,320 Versus the people who it's very easy to say no to because I 2651 02:20:04,320 --> 02:20:05,560 didn't want to do the marketing thing. 2652 02:20:05,560 --> 02:20:08,000 And one of the reason, one of the biggest reasons that we have 2653 02:20:08,000 --> 02:20:12,120 excited to accept review copies is because at one point, like I 2654 02:20:12,480 --> 02:20:15,560 like had a thing that I wanted to like give to somebody. 2655 02:20:15,920 --> 02:20:20,000 And in my head, as I did it, I had this thing where I was like, 2656 02:20:20,000 --> 02:20:23,000 oh, I just think it's cool and I want to give it to you. 2657 02:20:23,800 --> 02:20:26,400 And this is how people feel when they want to give it to me just 2658 02:20:26,400 --> 02:20:28,800 because they think it's cool. And now I kind of feel like an 2659 02:20:28,800 --> 02:20:30,720 asshole. A lot of the times they said no 2660 02:20:31,400 --> 02:20:35,000 because it was the mutualism ones, not the marketing ones. 2661 02:20:35,240 --> 02:20:38,120 That felt good and felt like, OK, sure. 2662 02:20:38,120 --> 02:20:42,280 Yeah, absolutely. And, and that those kind of 2663 02:20:42,280 --> 02:20:45,520 people are the people that we have decided to start accepting 2664 02:20:45,520 --> 02:20:49,960 review copies like in general for, because we do want 2665 02:20:49,960 --> 02:20:54,080 relationships with those people instead of being like, you know, 2666 02:20:54,080 --> 02:20:58,160 basically fuck off. And, and you know, versus the, 2667 02:20:58,200 --> 02:21:00,200 the marketing 1. So I appreciate you defining 2668 02:21:00,200 --> 02:21:02,320 that a little bit more because that's how I felt. 2669 02:21:02,360 --> 02:21:04,080 But it's nice the way that you worded it. 2670 02:21:05,080 --> 02:21:08,080 So if you, if you want us to actually respond to your emails, 2671 02:21:08,320 --> 02:21:11,240 write like we're real people. Write, write like real people. 2672 02:21:11,240 --> 02:21:12,960 Just be a person. Because at the end of the day, 2673 02:21:12,960 --> 02:21:14,400 that's what people want to talk to anyway. 2674 02:21:14,400 --> 02:21:16,160 They don't want to talk to a corporation or company. 2675 02:21:16,240 --> 02:21:20,040 I think it should if people are going to look at my stuff, 2676 02:21:20,120 --> 02:21:23,000 Explorers design, which is all about teaching like design and a 2677 02:21:23,000 --> 02:21:26,080 little bit about teaching the business of RP GS a little bit 2678 02:21:26,080 --> 02:21:28,200 and branding and marketing. There's a little bit of that in 2679 02:21:28,200 --> 02:21:31,240 there in the DNA. There's a reason why Despite 2680 02:21:31,240 --> 02:21:35,280 that my, all my social stuff is not my logo. 2681 02:21:35,400 --> 02:21:39,160 Even though I have all the branding materials around, I I 2682 02:21:39,160 --> 02:21:42,640 still keep a face as my profile picture on everything I do 2683 02:21:42,640 --> 02:21:45,360 because I want people to talk to me like a person. 2684 02:21:45,600 --> 02:21:48,640 I don't want to do the I don't want to run a a talk as a 2685 02:21:48,640 --> 02:21:52,160 company to people talking to a company because I already do 2686 02:21:52,160 --> 02:21:57,040 that at my day job. It's funny we we don't have a 2687 02:21:57,040 --> 02:22:00,320 person as a picture because there's two of us, but that is 2688 02:22:00,320 --> 02:22:03,480 the reason we have both of our pictures as like the pinned on 2689 02:22:03,480 --> 02:22:05,640 any of the things we can pin is for that exact reason. 2690 02:22:06,040 --> 02:22:08,560 And, and this goes back to the thing we I don't know if we 2691 02:22:08,560 --> 02:22:11,680 talked about it on the stream or if it was in the before that, 2692 02:22:11,680 --> 02:22:15,520 but like you get to choose your, you, you choose your, you choose 2693 02:22:15,520 --> 02:22:19,880 your own adventure. Do you, are you going to silo 2694 02:22:20,920 --> 02:22:23,720 your personal life from your gaming stuff? 2695 02:22:24,000 --> 02:22:26,800 Are you going to basically have a company and then have your you 2696 02:22:26,800 --> 02:22:29,840 be you or you can have different versions of you that are like 2697 02:22:30,160 --> 02:22:33,560 safe to like market around? Like as I've said, I'm, I'm only 2698 02:22:33,560 --> 02:22:36,160 on social for RPGs. I'm not on social for anything 2699 02:22:36,160 --> 02:22:38,280 else. The occasionally I'll say 2700 02:22:38,280 --> 02:22:41,080 something negative about a cop or something on my blue sky, but 2701 02:22:41,080 --> 02:22:44,080 that's just to go. And like remind any possible 2702 02:22:44,080 --> 02:22:46,280 fascist this don't follow me, right. 2703 02:22:46,280 --> 02:22:47,880 He's gotta drop one out. Yeah. 2704 02:22:48,200 --> 02:22:51,760 Yeah, every now. So anyway, with that said, thank 2705 02:22:51,760 --> 02:22:53,840 you so much for having me on the podcast. 2706 02:22:54,560 --> 02:22:56,800 I'm I'm a long time listener, first time call. 2707 02:22:56,800 --> 02:22:58,480 Appreciate it. You know, it's it's one of those 2708 02:22:58,480 --> 02:23:00,600 things so like I'll never believe that anyone listens to 2709 02:23:00,640 --> 02:23:03,600 it, but but it's always nice to hear, especially from again, 2710 02:23:03,600 --> 02:23:06,680 someone who God, I'm glad you're so cool. 2711 02:23:06,840 --> 02:23:09,280 Like it's the number of people. That teach. 2712 02:23:09,440 --> 02:23:13,320 PG space, like it's very much of this mixed bag of like don't 2713 02:23:13,320 --> 02:23:15,440 meet your heroes because I've met some incredibly awesome 2714 02:23:15,440 --> 02:23:18,240 people and I've met some people that fucking suck in this space. 2715 02:23:18,480 --> 02:23:21,000 And whenever I can meet someone who I really like and respect 2716 02:23:21,680 --> 02:23:26,360 before I meet them and then they are as good as that or better is 2717 02:23:26,480 --> 02:23:30,960 really, really fantastic and and you are clearly in in that I 2718 02:23:31,000 --> 02:23:32,880 can. Already tell that you were as 2719 02:23:32,880 --> 02:23:34,880 equally shell shocked as I was then at Gen. 2720 02:23:34,880 --> 02:23:36,040 Con. I'm not sure if you've been to 2721 02:23:36,040 --> 02:23:37,360 Gen. Con multiple years in the this 2722 02:23:37,360 --> 02:23:39,200 is my first one. Probably my last one, yeah. 2723 02:23:39,720 --> 02:23:41,200 Yeah, same here, probably my last one. 2724 02:23:41,200 --> 02:23:43,800 And they, there are so many designers where I was like, oh 2725 02:23:43,800 --> 02:23:47,800 man, you're not only are you awesome, just as awesome as you 2726 02:23:47,800 --> 02:23:49,400 were online, you're also a sweetheart. 2727 02:23:49,480 --> 02:23:51,560 You know, like there's a lot of sweethearts in the space and a 2728 02:23:51,560 --> 02:23:53,440 lot of them are weirdly over 6 foot tall. 2729 02:23:53,720 --> 02:23:55,640 There's a lot of tall these motherfuckers. 2730 02:23:55,640 --> 02:23:58,160 Giants, yeah. I said this already, people 2731 02:23:58,160 --> 02:24:00,040 like, like you fucking Will Yost. 2732 02:24:00,040 --> 02:24:02,920 I mean, all the Swedes, they're all fucking 1,000,000 feet. 2733 02:24:02,920 --> 02:24:05,960 Tall Swedes are always tall. Yeah, it's funny because in the 2734 02:24:05,960 --> 02:24:08,000 pictures they look, they look more goblin esque. 2735 02:24:08,000 --> 02:24:09,200 And they're not. Not even no. 2736 02:24:09,200 --> 02:24:11,720 They're just scrawny. They're they're gangly, you 2737 02:24:11,760 --> 02:24:11,960 know? Yeah. 2738 02:24:11,960 --> 02:24:15,800 They're slender men, yeah, but is this the part where we do 2739 02:24:15,800 --> 02:24:18,240 pluggables? Yes, I was just going to say, is 2740 02:24:18,240 --> 02:24:21,120 there Explorers design? Where can people find it? 2741 02:24:21,120 --> 02:24:24,600 What can people find there? Give the whole spiel and then 2742 02:24:24,600 --> 02:24:26,920 and then we'll we'll get on out. Yeah. 2743 02:24:26,920 --> 02:24:29,200 All right. So I'm going to say real 2744 02:24:29,200 --> 02:24:32,200 quickly, my pluggable is explorersdesign.com, 2745 02:24:32,200 --> 02:24:36,720 www.explorersdesign.com. You'll find everything there. 2746 02:24:37,160 --> 02:24:40,280 I got itch, all that good stuff. I actually want to plug other 2747 02:24:40,280 --> 02:24:42,840 people. I feel like we need more people. 2748 02:24:42,880 --> 02:24:45,000 I don't know if that's terms of service, but I guess we can. 2749 02:24:46,000 --> 02:24:51,080 OK, so I want to plug if you haven't played anything by Adam 2750 02:24:51,080 --> 02:24:54,440 Vas, go play things by Adam Vas. If you haven't played an Adam 2751 02:24:54,440 --> 02:24:56,920 Vas Stand podcast, we've said it a million times. 2752 02:24:56,920 --> 02:24:58,920 Couldn't agree more. Yeah, if you haven't played 2753 02:24:58,920 --> 02:25:03,240 anything by Will Yost or Spencer Campbell, go play their stuff. 2754 02:25:03,240 --> 02:25:06,080 These are all designers. Designers like every designer 2755 02:25:06,080 --> 02:25:09,360 that you like. They probably like these 2756 02:25:09,360 --> 02:25:10,680 designers. Go look at don't. 2757 02:25:11,120 --> 02:25:13,320 Forget, I'm sorry real quick. Don't forget Set Pines too. 2758 02:25:13,320 --> 02:25:15,200 Works with will yobs over there and good luck. 2759 02:25:15,200 --> 02:25:18,440 So yeah, absolutely. And then possible world games as 2760 02:25:18,440 --> 02:25:20,240 well. Go, go look at all those folks 2761 02:25:20,240 --> 02:25:23,640 and what they're making. And they're, you know, they're, 2762 02:25:23,680 --> 02:25:25,320 they're the David Lynch's of our space. 2763 02:25:25,360 --> 02:25:26,760 They're, they're super influential. 2764 02:25:26,760 --> 02:25:29,160 And you've probably interacted with stuff that they've made in 2765 02:25:29,160 --> 02:25:31,240 some fashion form, what have you. 2766 02:25:32,120 --> 02:25:34,400 So yeah, I just want to plug them because why not plug them 2767 02:25:34,600 --> 02:25:38,400 as often as possible? And then I'm and I'm omitting 2768 02:25:38,400 --> 02:25:41,800 like dozens of other people, but you'll, you'll see them on my 2769 02:25:41,800 --> 02:25:43,240 website. I talk about just about 2770 02:25:43,240 --> 02:25:45,240 everybody at some point. I'm going to talk about a lot 2771 02:25:45,240 --> 02:25:47,560 more of them now that I can, because I'm not a judge in the 2772 02:25:47,560 --> 02:25:48,960 innies. There you go. 2773 02:25:49,480 --> 02:25:50,840 Yeah, we got to get. We got to get Will on the show 2774 02:25:50,840 --> 02:25:52,280 at some point. I think we've had everyone on 2775 02:25:52,280 --> 02:25:55,120 the show that you just named except for, except for Will and 2776 02:25:55,120 --> 02:25:56,080 Seb. So we're going to have to get 2777 02:25:56,080 --> 02:25:57,720 good luck on the show. Yeah, that'd be great. 2778 02:25:57,720 --> 02:25:59,960 Sooner than later, maybe they they gave me a copy of 2779 02:25:59,960 --> 02:26:01,200 Plasmatics at Gen. Con. 2780 02:26:01,200 --> 02:26:04,840 So I would, I'm, I'm sure they would, they would come on for 2781 02:26:04,920 --> 02:26:07,240 I'm talking about. For Plasmonics I got a copy of 2782 02:26:07,240 --> 02:26:11,160 Plasmonics as well and this is the part where I I mock the the 2783 02:26:11,160 --> 02:26:13,640 viewers because they probably don't have a copy of plasmonics 2784 02:26:13,760 --> 02:26:15,000 but. They don't, but we do. 2785 02:26:15,320 --> 02:26:18,240 But we do, so it's great. You should be excited for it. 2786 02:26:18,240 --> 02:26:21,000 I want to make adventures for it or do something for it. 2787 02:26:21,000 --> 02:26:22,760 I don't know what, but it's really cool. 2788 02:26:23,360 --> 02:26:26,920 Yeah, it's very cool. Thank you for plugging other 2789 02:26:26,920 --> 02:26:29,400 people. We will continue to plug Clayton 2790 02:26:29,400 --> 02:26:32,440 here on the show and we will definitely have you back for the 2791 02:26:32,440 --> 02:26:35,240 full the Full Monty with me and Hunter. 2792 02:26:35,240 --> 02:26:38,160 We can, we can talk about anything, anything going forward 2793 02:26:38,160 --> 02:26:39,560 that's. We'll figure it out. 2794 02:26:39,920 --> 02:26:40,920 Yeah, we'll figure something out. 2795 02:26:40,920 --> 02:26:43,200 That's how we do it on the show, though, is what like we, we, 2796 02:26:43,240 --> 02:26:45,800 we're we trying to stop doing interviews and then we meet cool 2797 02:26:45,800 --> 02:26:47,680 people that we have to talk to and then once we talk to you, 2798 02:26:47,680 --> 02:26:51,000 once you got to come on again. So that's how it's going to be, 2799 02:26:51,000 --> 02:26:52,280 but I will make. Sure. 2800 02:26:52,320 --> 02:26:55,160 So it's all right, Yeah. Well, thanks, you know, you know 2801 02:26:55,160 --> 02:26:57,560 why we don't do interviews for three seconds? 2802 02:26:57,560 --> 02:27:01,840 It's the fucking, it's the dance of death around scheduling that 2803 02:27:01,840 --> 02:27:04,840 just burns me out so bad. You know, because with between 2804 02:27:04,840 --> 02:27:07,840 me and Hunter, even just getting one episode a week between us is 2805 02:27:07,840 --> 02:27:09,240 tough with night shift and everything. 2806 02:27:09,240 --> 02:27:11,640 At least he's in the same time zone as me now, which is great. 2807 02:27:11,960 --> 02:27:15,800 But the East Coast people trying to be like, how does 10 AM on a 2808 02:27:15,800 --> 02:27:17,800 Wednesday work for you? You know, it's rough. 2809 02:27:18,480 --> 02:27:20,440 Yeah, trying. To remember which one I just 2810 02:27:20,440 --> 02:27:23,000 listened to that you guys had. Oh yeah, Kobayashi. 2811 02:27:23,240 --> 02:27:25,040 I like that one. Yeah, Kobayashi is incredible. 2812 02:27:25,040 --> 02:27:27,000 I'm not even done with it yet. I was listening to it this 2813 02:27:27,000 --> 02:27:28,720 morning. Well, you'll get Logan Dean. 2814 02:27:28,800 --> 02:27:31,920 You'll get Logan Dean next. Yeah, go back, go back into the 2815 02:27:32,280 --> 02:27:36,120 your favorite app and listen to that pop that episode. 2816 02:27:36,120 --> 02:27:37,360 Whatever. I was going to say something. 2817 02:27:37,360 --> 02:27:39,480 I've stumbled all over it. Oh well, you're plugging. 2818 02:27:39,520 --> 02:27:42,560 Us on our show, which is great. Yeah, yeah. 2819 02:27:43,160 --> 02:27:43,760 Yeah. OK. 2820 02:27:44,000 --> 02:27:45,240 Clayton, thank you so much for being here again. 2821 02:27:45,240 --> 02:27:46,240 You're going to be here in the future. 2822 02:27:46,240 --> 02:27:49,040 We'll make sure all the ways you can reach Clayton are down below 2823 02:27:49,200 --> 02:27:51,440 where the Internet puts things. And. 2824 02:27:51,560 --> 02:27:53,440 Yeah, thanks. Seriously, that was thank you. 2825 02:27:53,880 --> 02:27:56,480 Almost a three hour talk. And it's been a long time since 2826 02:27:56,480 --> 02:27:58,880 we did a episode that long, so it was great. 2827 02:27:58,880 --> 02:28:00,080 Yeah. Awesome, cool. 2828 02:28:00,200 --> 02:28:01,480 Thank you so much. All right, we'll. 2829 02:28:01,480 --> 02:28:02,600 Catch y'all later everybody, Bye.