Welcome to the second episode of series 22, everyone! This episode we actually play a little bit of Questlandia 2 and create a world with Hannah Shaffer and Evan Rowland, designers of the game and hosts of the Design Doc podcast, also part of the One Shot Podcast Network!
Welcome to the second episode of series 22, everyone! This episode we actually play a little bit of Questlandia 2 and create a world with Hannah Shaffer and Evan Rowland, designers of the game and hosts of the Design Doc podcast, also part of the One Shot Podcast Network!
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Evan Rowland @adrawnnovel
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Ryan Boelter 0:01
Welcome to the second episode of series 22 everyone, Academy Khan has come and gone, and many apologies for the late episode this week. But we will be back on schedule at our normal day and time next week. With the conclusion of this series. We had a lot of fun recording with Hannah and Devin and I don't believe there's really any announcements to talk about. And I'm actually pretty sleepy with this heavy hitting con drop. So we just get into the episode. Enjoy
Ryan Boelter 1:10
Last time on Character Creation Cast, we all created unnamed ghosts ready to dive into a fresh new world. Hannah pics, the mischief maker, Evan picks the gardener. Amelia pick the investigator, and I picked the builder. We're picking up right where we left off right now. Enjoy.
Evan Rowland 1:33
Now we're going to make people within. And these people who make people are making people who make
Hannah Shaffer 1:42
people section.
Evan Rowland 1:44
Yes. Maybe some of them will be the people that were made by the people who make people
Amelia Antrim 1:49
oh my gosh, this hurts my brain.
Ryan Boelter 1:56
Then you gotta wonder if those people make people run.
Unknown Speaker 2:02
No more, I can't
Ryan Boelter 2:05
just be safe to see singularity. Oh,
Evan Rowland 2:08
yeah, let's make a place. So let me frame what's about to happen here. This is the point where the game setup is over. And now we're playing. So we're To put it another way from here on, set up in play continue together
Unknown Speaker 2:25
for infinity. On our
Evan Rowland 2:26
turn, though, as ghosts, we are able to introduce new elements of the setting to expand on those elements or connect them together to change what's happening in the kingdom by introducing new troubles or to set scene and bring the specific characters into a scene and get down to a real moment to moment level. And those are all available as a choice every single turn for each one of us from here on in. So, you know, I don't want to play in the game is not normally part Character Creation Cast at this point.
Amelia Antrim 3:03
But this whole known is kind of just creating. So yeah,
Evan Rowland 3:08
yeah, I'm proposing at this point that we don't call for scenes, but that we do begin the process of creating this world and creating the characters within it. And maybe when we feel like we have a good cast, and we feel like we're getting to the point where we would want to call for a scene and start to put things into motion, we can call it there, or even cap things with a advancing of the moon phase, which is another special thing that you can do on your turn. One of the documents that's in the folder that you all received in a clandestine message, but
Amelia Antrim 3:48
will it self destruct
Evan Rowland 3:54
is the phases of the moon your connection to the world this tracks both The events of the world, our connection to it as ghosts, like how much influence we have over the world, waxes and wanes, and also the opening of the ghost passage that would let us leave. At this moment, we are in the waxing phase of this world heading towards the full moon. And by advancing that phase, it brings us closer to both the crisis point of this world and the opening of the ghost passage. If we chose to stay past the ghost passage, the world would undergo a huge transformation. So staying for another round of phases tends to dramatically change the world that you're in for each cycle.
Ryan Boelter 4:42
Cool. Interesting.
Amelia Antrim 4:44
I'm very excited for this. Oh,
Hannah Shaffer 4:48
is this the shortest Character creation you've had on Character Creation Cast?
Amelia Antrim 4:51
I mean, it might be
Unknown Speaker 4:56
Yeah.
Evan Rowland 4:58
So Do you want to just go? Yeah. So just to sort of what it's like to introduce an element, maybe get us started? Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 5:06
Did you ask for? Who did you?
Evan Rowland 5:08
I asked. Okay, I did not.
Hannah Shaffer 5:13
So, yeah, just just a reminder, on your turn, you can introduce a new element, expand on an existing element reveal a new trouble set a scene, which we're not going to do here, advanced the moon phase, which is, you know, advanced maneuvers, maybe will only do at the end, or introduced a touchstone. And then there's little little descriptions of how each of those work, but feel free to ask questions. So I'm going to introduce an element and let's see, what do we know we're an iris. We're building people who build people who build people. I think I'm going to introduce a new NPC. I'm going to say they are a person who has been building And they are like a sort of a baby person, but they are a full grown person but you know, baby and that they are sort of just awakening in some way after their construction. And I'm going to call them it's always the stupidest names that pop into my head. I'm like not blurt. Don't say blurred.
Amelia Antrim 6:30
I have my book. So if we want.
Hannah Shaffer 6:34
Yeah, yep. Give me a name. That would be
Amelia Antrim 6:36
okay. All right. Um, do you have preferred pronouns for this person?
Hannah Shaffer 6:42
Oh, let's say they, they them.
Amelia Antrim 6:44
Okay. I'm gonna go and look, there's a specifically a list in here of androgynous or gender neutral names too.
Unknown Speaker 6:51
Awesome.
Amelia Antrim 6:54
Let's see here. How about Camden?
Hannah Shaffer 6:56
I love it. Yeah, so uh, everybody should ask, the way this works is that everybody should just ask me one follow up question about Camden so we can build them out a little bit.
Amelia Antrim 7:10
Okay. And we can ask anything we want anything? Yeah. Okay. Um, I want to know what is what does Camden believe their personal purpose is in this process of building people? Because I assume we're making people that build people. Right? Is that all they do here? No, that's not really about this person. That's a whole other bigger. Wow.
Hannah Shaffer 7:37
Yeah, there's a whole lot of questions to be answered. Um, I think that I think Camden doesn't know their purpose yet. I think that they're sort of waiting, ready to discover it.
Evan Rowland 7:50
Does Camden have any special relationship to their builder?
Hannah Shaffer 7:57
Yeah, I think Camden feels like a A loving affinity for air filter. Cool.
Ryan Boelter 8:04
I'm like, just generally what sort of form does Camden have?
Hannah Shaffer 8:12
I think that Camden is Hmm. I'd like to ask other people if there's something like if you have a visual for Camden if if anything sort of popped into anybody's mind.
Evan Rowland 8:26
I mean to be honest, I'm imagining some extra arm fair I guess if you're gonna build people. Yeah, right. That's like if you get to choose how many arms people have maybe we go with for
Hannah Shaffer 8:37
Ryan was there something you were gonna say? Also?
Ryan Boelter 8:41
For some reason, like as we were talking about people building people building people the first thing that popped into my mind you know, those those were didn't possible like driving. A lot like some kind of looks like
Evan Rowland 8:58
yeah, with four hours. I guess like simplified Joe, I'm super into that body part. Yeah,
Hannah Shaffer 9:03
so they have extra arms, but are sort of you know that that type of wood in simplified shapes.
Amelia Antrim 9:11
I think that like, they slightly resemble the builder. I think of it as like, this is partly an artistic process. And so like, there's a school of thought for each build and you are influenced by like, who built you and then who you build and like down the line, like artists are influenced by like, where they learned their craft and from whom and things like that. I feel like I envisioned it as like a thing that's like continually expanding but you can sort of see the tree of like, where things came from.
Evan Rowland 9:48
Cool. I love that. There's like a trope of, you know, built people all looking very identical. And I like the idea that there's a lot more sort of artistic freedom in the creation. These people and variation between them.
Hannah Shaffer 10:03
Awesome. And I didn't say this before, but I'll say this now that like in this process, safety tools and veto apply, so, like if anybody said something that people want to pivot from, feel free to do that. And you can also use, like expanding on an existing element to sort of bring a conversation in a new direction. So you can be like, I want to expand on this because this idea is like not quite jelling with me yet. So yeah, that's my, that's my agenda. Cool. Yeah. So that's, I'm going to call that my turn.
Ryan Boelter 10:41
Okay. It's really interesting. Nice.
Amelia Antrim 10:43
Yeah, I like that. I Ryan, do you want to go next? Sure. This is usually your jam. I'm gonna let you see what goes
Ryan Boelter 10:55
on. It's really interesting. I'm going to introduce a location. Cool. And I'm going to say it is. It's almost like a, like a museum or a Hall of Fame type deal for historical builders.
Unknown Speaker 11:16
Oh, that's me. Oh, cool. Um, okay, I'm going to ask
Hannah Shaffer 11:22
Are there a lot of builders in the hall of fame or is it a pretty like, you know, exclusive club here.
Ryan Boelter 11:30
Um, I'm going to say there's a tongue. Since it's, since it's a big staple of the society. It almost feels like the the building itself is continually growing, to continue to add newer builders that are doing interesting and new things with the building process of people and even includes The people that are being built that are also building people. So it's there's kind of like generational wings. Oh, that's awesome.
Evan Rowland 12:08
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Um, who is in charge of deciding who ends up in this museum?
Ryan Boelter 12:14
That's a good question. I was gonna say it's kind of like a given if you are recognized as a builder of these people. As long as you create life, then you are allowed to become one of the people featured in this, this building.
Evan Rowland 12:37
So it's somewhat self selected. Yes. Cool.
Amelia Antrim 12:41
Are there reasons that people would specifically opt out of being in this hall of fame?
Ryan Boelter 12:49
I want to I want to say that the only way to opt out is to never reveal that you have built other lives. Society you have to kind of you kind of have to do that work and secret. It's almost like a it's almost like a physical Wikipedia of all the builders.
Hannah Shaffer 13:14
Yeah, I like it.
Amelia Antrim 13:17
I haven't you want to go next year you want me to go or I'm happy to go I have an idea.
Evan Rowland 13:21
Do it then from the way that last conversation with, I'd like to introduce an aspect of this setting, which is camouflaged or mimicking people that are created as a strategy to keep them out of the museum to keep them out of the official records. There is an art to making people who can fold themselves up into a chair or who can become very flat or can somehow hide themselves or camouflage themselves so that they are not picked up. They're not registered. And they can perform actions that are not generally permitted.
Ryan Boelter 14:06
Interesting.
Amelia Antrim 14:07
So my question is, what sorts of actions are not permitted?
Evan Rowland 14:11
Well, we have a lot to get in there and exhaust run down.
Amelia Antrim 14:18
But or maybe then like, what I want things are like, are permitted or are accepted. You know, either way,
Evan Rowland 14:26
I think I'm ending the life of somebody else might not be permitted, but possibly with an exception for life that you yourself have created.
Unknown Speaker 14:36
Oh, that's dark. Oh, that is super dark. You know,
Evan Rowland 14:39
we let Uh, yeah, we let an artist have control over their Canvas, even if they want to scrap it and start over.
Ryan Boelter 14:46
Oh, man. So we're really getting into this like, are the sentient creations that we create actually sentient, sort of discussion?
Amelia Antrim 14:56
And like, at what point is your art not yours anymore.
Unknown Speaker 15:00
Yeah, right?
Evan Rowland 15:01
Well, part of what's being forbidden is itself just the act of not having it registered as part of the museum as part of your official creation, so just existing in a way that isn't catalogued and known by satellite by society at large, is forbidden. Hmm.
Amelia Antrim 15:21
I have so many more questions. Oh,
Ryan Boelter 15:26
I've got a question formulating. Um, okay, so people creating camouflage, or people that can mimic other objects to stay hidden. And you can end the life of your own creations that's allowed. Is there ever a point where you are not allowed to end your own creations?
Evan Rowland 15:51
I think that the, the entrance of it into the museum archives is exactly that point. Awesome. Right now it is given the rights of a living being.
Ryan Boelter 16:03
Oh, wow. So with Oh,
Unknown Speaker 16:11
wow. Okay.
Hannah Shaffer 16:13
Yeah. Um, I can I pass on a question careers just like your game
Amelia Antrim 16:23
you make the rules
Hannah Shaffer 16:23
really have. Alright, so I'm going to say that you can pass on a question if you feel like, you know, we've either said enough about this or if there is too much more to say.
Evan Rowland 16:35
Well, yeah, remember that one option is always that you can expand on an element that's already here. So if you wanted to return to this, you could take your whole turned introduce a new part of it that gets its own questions.
Hannah Shaffer 16:48
That's amazing. Yeah, I'm going to pass because I want to just like sit with this for a minute.
Ryan Boelter 16:52
Cool. Yeah, this is really interesting. Wow. Okay.
Amelia Antrim 16:56
I know. Like Where do I go from
Evan Rowland 16:58
here? One thing that you can do, just to throw it up an option if you're not sure about what kind of element you want to introduce, rolling for a trouble is a really simple one. The dice get involved. So there's some randomness, and it will add a new pressure to the setting, huh? But if you have something else cooking, don't let me stop.
Amelia Antrim 17:22
I I kind of do. Although I do I'm we'll get to that maybe. Do you want to see what happens when you randomly roll things? I like doing that. I I think I want to add a location. I think because you have all of these unregistered people, essentially. I imagine that there's some sort of like, cooperative or something where they all congregate. Because I think functioning within society when you're not like part of this You know, like, registered group is probably difficult. imagine it being like, you know, like if you don't have a social security number or something like so you sort of have to, like, make your own portion of this world. And so I think that there's probably somewhere that they all kind of congregate or is like their, their group area. Cool. Interesting.
Hannah Shaffer 18:21
Is it a place that's hidden in plain sight?
Amelia Antrim 18:25
Hmm. I don't think that it's all that hidden. I think it is. Like, like, it's known that these kinds of people exist, that they aren't, you know, like, a registered or whatever, it's just that their ability to, to do things is sort of limited by that factor. So I don't think that like their existence is necessarily like illegal or anything like that. It's just that it is difficult for them to do things. So I think that it's just maybe like kind of toward the edge of this town or area or something like that, but it's not like Hidden or secret or like anything like that? Yeah, and I don't think that there's any sort of like, need for it to be like, I don't think that there's like any kind of like, particularly like discrimination or anything there. It's just that like, they don't have, you know, everybody needs like some kind of name or so like, it's just sort of expected and they don't have that everybody's like, well, I don't know what to do with that.
Evan Rowland 19:21
Cool. What kind of stuff do they do there?
Amelia Antrim 19:25
Um, I'm wondering to these people, like build people of their own or have they decided like, they don't want to be a part of that. I know. I don't get to ask them questions. Totally can
Evan Rowland 19:38
do you actually can completely throw questions back. Yes.
Amelia Antrim 19:41
Okay. I mean, I feel like that's my, my question is like, because if this is where they all, like, live, because I said I mentioned it sort of like a cooperative kind of a thing. Are they continuing to build things?
Evan Rowland 19:54
I think the idea that they're reluctant to embed especially no That, you know, they're sort of off the grid, that they have a harder place in society. It's considered, you know, maybe a little irresponsible to bring somebody into that state create a new life. That's doomed to be in there.
Amelia Antrim 20:15
Say, going back, I'm trying to process this. They are like, unregistered, like people didn't register them as their creations, right? Like, it's not that these people decided not to write rich, okay? I'm just trying to remember how that worked, who were in the line of people had this breakdown. Create the people who create the people.
Ryan Boelter 20:40
We've already established that if these unregistered, created people end up creating people that they register, then the unregistered become recognized and registered today in the archives right?
Amelia Antrim 20:58
Or well, so in the archives are you registered? You are creation or are you registering yourself?
Ryan Boelter 21:02
I think you're registering yourself. If your creation is not a build a builder of people has gone there,
Amelia Antrim 21:11
then like that, so I don't I don't know if that makes sense though, cuz I'm trying to think that like, like, if you register yourself, you could still create things and have them not be in there, then it would be like your own choice to not be. I assumed it was like either like,
Hannah Shaffer 21:25
you can either register your creation or your creation if unregistered can be like, I'm unregistered. Hi, I don't know. It opens up so many questions. It's like if you're
Unknown Speaker 21:40
Yeah, not registered,
Ryan Boelter 21:43
Is there like a stigma of unregistered people creating other people like there may be by the law. Once anybody creates another person, they get into the archive, but they're kind of like snubbed by society I mean I
Amelia Antrim 22:02
like I know that we want to make the world kind of complicated I think for me I'd rather avoid like the sort of like discriminatory aspect of that
Hannah Shaffer 22:13
would one way to handle like to sort of pivot away from that be to make it less about like society discriminating against you know, these like, on registered this like process of unregistered creation and more that it's like sort of a snooty, like a status thing. A little bit like, oh, there's like the rogue artist collective?
Amelia Antrim 22:36
Yes. Yeah. I was like, yeah, that's sort of like, these people have said like, like, with a VO to their social norms. Like we're gonna go like, yes, like we have our anarchist
Unknown Speaker 22:49
cooperative. Yeah, exactly.
Amelia Antrim 22:51
Yeah, I like that. Thank you. Trying to figure out how to do it and like
Hannah Shaffer 22:55
so make it interesting. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 22:57
All together.
Amelia Antrim 22:59
Yeah. Remember like what level of person are we at? So many
Hannah Shaffer 23:04
people deep in this game? Cool. So have we brings us back to great. I'm gonna roll for a trouble then. Oh fun. Yeah, yeah. And other people came to, but I don't want to make anything new without help from the dice. Okay, I rolled. I think that's a diamond. That's diamond. So that would be a trouble related to wealth, desire or resources. That is
Ryan Boelter 23:35
really interesting.
Hannah Shaffer 23:40
Wow, there's so many so many directions that you can go with this. I. Alright, so I'm going to start and then other people can add things or ask questions. I feel like maybe if we're talking about this being like, a little bit of a regulated process of like, You know, this is what you know, this is, this is what level of person you have to create to be entered into the museum. If there's like certain, like materials and like standards you have to meet, like, I wonder if our materials that we consider like life making our somehow limited or running out something is is maybe interrupting the flow of our people making.
Evan Rowland 24:31
I like it what are the consequences of compromising on the materials you make a person out of a,
Hannah Shaffer 24:42
you know, I don't want it to go in a direction of like, Oh, it's like a wacky cologne. You know, like I want every person to sort of be like full and have like self determination. But I think that, you know, maybe it will be
Unknown Speaker 24:58
I don't know
Amelia Antrim 25:00
Do you just need a certain amount of it to even make the thing?
Hannah Shaffer 25:04
Like, let's say bad, I mean, so like you just maybe can't make from that maybe to some extent our reproduction and like the, you know, the continuation of our society relies on this process. Maybe it's not like sinister, but like, yeah, we make people this is the way this is the way we continue our lines.
Amelia Antrim 25:23
And I think I mean, if you have, like, people making people making people like it's exponentially growing, too. So like, there's a, you know, like, there's a continued to strain and then on that resource and so like, yeah, totally, like, clamped down on like, and say like, okay, you can each only create one or two things like you can't, like, oh, man, I don't know how far how much I can keep talking here. Like, I wonder if I wonder if that leads to then people saying like, well, if I can only create one thing, it needs to be a masterpiece, you know, rather than, like, Oh, I can kind of like try things out and See, you know, and like have people have a lot of different nations but like, Is there like, this sudden sort of like school of thought of the thing I create needs to be perfection?
Evan Rowland 26:09
Right?
Ryan Boelter 26:10
Ah, good question. I my, my mind went a little dark. Okay, some reason would this imply that down the line if these creations do not expire normally? Is there like, potential for a kind of a, an underground recycling program?
Amelia Antrim 26:34
Ooh, oh.
Hannah Shaffer 26:40
I'm going to say, you know, for the sake of not I was just watching the purge last night in the back. I was like, This is too much for me. In the background while working on India. I think that what if they do expire? Naturally and like there is and maybe even people have some, some control over. Like, there's this point at which you're like, Oh, I feel like I've, you know, I feel like I've lived my whole life or so. So sort of continuing to send to the issue then on more like a potential shortage of life making materials.
Ryan Boelter 27:25
So effectively, society can only grow so big. Yeah, with with whatever materials are available
Hannah Shaffer 27:32
in both directions. Yeah, I think if we're making too many people, there's a research resource shortage. And if there's not enough people, there's a resource shortage. So interesting.
Amelia Antrim 27:44
What else? Is this a new discovery, this shortage? How many questions Do I get to ask and I keep asking.
Hannah Shaffer 27:50
I'm only supposed to ask it if you want to. Yeah, if you want to like wait on it if you can expand on your Okay. All right, this resource shortage Hey, Evan, I can't remember if you ask something or not.
Evan Rowland 28:06
What do you think about this resource being a special kind of wood that comes from a special kind of tree that has to be grown. It takes many years to grow the tree. And the resources limited by that rate, and something has happened that's disrupted our ability to grow the trees or to slow them down. And that's what's creating this new pressure on.
Hannah Shaffer 28:32
I'm into it. Yeah, I like it a to answer some of the most complex questions I had about our sort of self regulating government. I like putting it on trees instead.
Unknown Speaker 28:47
Cool. That's amazing.
Evan Rowland 28:49
Yeah, into this world already.
Unknown Speaker 28:52
Yeah. Who wants to go next.
Amelia Antrim 28:56
I will. If we want. Would you like to roll for me? Oh yes certainly. Cool. like making things complex and like making me
Hannah Shaffer 29:11
Oh yeah, I'm rolling. Why was I waiting for? I was like oh, it's another diamond. Oh no OG a factory so it Yeah, yeah so it tends to compound like it's like there is something right now in the immediate that is shifting our resource shortage to the entire situation.
Amelia Antrim 29:33
Okay, what is the economy of a place that just makes more people? Do they have to go somewhere? Are we making these people for thing? Like it's a good question. Yeah Is this I guess here's a backing up question about like this game in the world and whenever I ask these questions, the answers you tell me but this world that we're in like, are we only seeing a part of the world like is is like one small nation in a country that we're in or like, in a world that we're in, or we like, is this the whole thing?
Evan Rowland 30:07
Generally, there's always more outside of us. And we can talk about how neighboring societies are different from us or what kind of relationships we have with them. Okay, so yeah, to bring that in, I think it makes sense that we're exporting something.
Amelia Antrim 30:25
I have weird I don't know. And weird feelings about like, obviously, like, this society is like built around creating people, but like, I have weird gross feelings about exploiting people.
Hannah Shaffer 30:39
Yeah, same know people.
Evan Rowland 30:41
There is a thing. Like some nations that just have excellent education programs and create certain kinds of professionals that are then you know, popular throughout the world are spread. Like we could be creating people who are just absolutely experts at certain crafts or endeavors, or knowledgeable things, exploiting them as scientists, you know. And it's not so much that the government is like, we're going to send this person there. It's more that the creations can decide where they want to go what they want to do, but there is sort of a tax or a Yeah, melt that they give back to us. Right when they live elsewhere.
Amelia Antrim 31:29
Interesting. And then so then if we are making fewer people then like, there are potentially fewer scientists, fewer doctors, fewer, like, which is a very serious problem. Like worldwide that if there just aren't people too, so not only is our society sort of in trouble because we can't make the things that we make but then other nations or whatever can't do what they do because they don't have people to do it.
Hannah Shaffer 32:00
I like that
Ryan Boelter 32:02
it almost feels like we are on like the society the society is on the cusp of like they're they're growing, growing, growing and then on the cusp of a infinite plateau of sorts. Yeah. Like no more no more progress beyond this point. Perhaps
Hannah Shaffer 32:23
I'm curious Emilio what I following along with this idea what something is that another like, you know, our neighbors sort of rely on us for like, What's something that we've been like? What's a form of knowledge that's been really precious that may be is like we're having a shortage of right now, as we're having a shortage of making more people interesting. trying to think of the idea of like, there being a shortage of knowledge is like hurting my brain.
Ryan Boelter 32:57
Is it like because these creations are choosing not to go into those paths of knowledge. Like,
Amelia Antrim 33:05
well, we do have this like anarchist collective to. So like, Is there an issue with those like that they could have should have would have been doing these things and now aren't to that just makes everything worse.
Evan Rowland 33:21
Oh, I like that. I like the idea that the shortages from people sort of turning away from the expected expertise is expert
Amelia Antrim 33:32
x. So are they like, I wonder then if they're specializing in something else that isn't like maybe considered productive in that same way?
Ryan Boelter 33:41
Well, it's kind of like in our society where like the the contractors, the the plumbers, the the truck drivers, that sort of stuff, those those professions are getting less and less with the newer generations because the newer generations are more about Technology and growing into the like, the idea space and stuff like that where we're all of these, like hands on sort of things are harder to employ for, but still necessary.
Amelia Antrim 34:15
But it's
Evan Rowland 34:16
understanding that you have like, yeah, we have all these philosophers and poets and game designers
Ryan Boelter 34:25
podcasting and
Amelia Antrim 34:26
making game. Yeah, that like that's the thing that I want to do. Like the thing that I want to do doesn't need to be, quote unquote, productive. Like like r1 someone say girl believes is productive.
Hannah Shaffer 34:38
Yeah. Yeah, like a crisis of self determination that's happening a little bit.
Amelia Antrim 34:46
I don't know that that really answered your question trust, but I like where we ended up. I like
Hannah Shaffer 34:54
I'm cool. Have we asked her enough questions about the trouble? Are there any other questions about that? The escalating trouble,
Evan Rowland 35:02
not for me. Um, I think I haven't taken a turn yet this round. I'd like to introduce a touchstone.
Ryan Boelter 35:14
Interesting. So,
Evan Rowland 35:16
as the gardener, I'm going to plant a tree. Clearly this is going to be a tree, a tree of life. And as we are running low substance as it's becoming more and more hard to obtain, and what's the word when you're only allowed to have a certain amount of something
Amelia Antrim 35:38
limited?
Evan Rowland 35:39
Right? Oh, yeah, I
Hannah Shaffer 35:41
couldn't think Yeah.
Evan Rowland 35:47
This is a valuable seed of a valuable tree, that if it grew to its full height, could end this trouble. It's being planted in a secret place where hopefully it will escape the blight that it's affected the other trees and finding out the fate of this tree and who will sit in its shade will unlock a memory for my ghost if our story gets that far. And do we ask you questions about touchstones? You do one more. You you introduce challenges about why this won't be easy.
Ryan Boelter 36:28
Interesting.
Amelia Antrim 36:30
Okay, I think I have something maybe. Yeah. Because these are, like, so limited because we're running out of these trees. And is there the potential that it could be harvested before it even gets to a point where it can be shade for something?
Evan Rowland 36:51
Absolutely. Yeah, that's like a desperate cut. Taking it while it's, you know, just at a fraction of its potential. It has to be guarded. Coming up
Amelia Antrim 37:00
next I think like if you wait, it can, you know, it's like you have 10 pieces or something like that, but if you do it right away you have one but you can have it quicker.
Ryan Boelter 37:08
Oh, yeah, that idea. Interesting.
Hannah Shaffer 37:11
You had mentioned a blight f1 It seems like another challenge might be just that it's it's there's something environmental that's making it hard for these trees to grow to full to their full potential.
Evan Rowland 37:24
Yeah. So hopefully that sounds great.
Unknown Speaker 37:26
introduced that as a challenge. Okay.
Amelia Antrim 37:32
Sounds like yeah,
Ryan Boelter 37:34
I had I had a thought about the world but it doesn't really apply as a challenge to this tree.
Evan Rowland 37:40
Well, that's okay. Okay, I mean, we can we can end that conversation here. I've got my challenges right. You could take your turn introduce something Yeah, this well.
Ryan Boelter 37:48
What What if we are so we went from sentient like Organic while they're still organic, but it's like flesh and bone creatures that started creating these wood based automatons that have sentience. What if the amount of people in the world like like flesh and blood people is diminishing to the point where the because usually there's the symbiotic relationship of wildlife and whatnot, and carbon dioxide producing and then the plants in take that and then create the oxygen for the people? What if that balance is completely thrown off? Because most of society is now these atomic times?
Unknown Speaker 38:47
Oh, that's really cool. Cool. So the
Evan Rowland 38:49
literal composition of our air and our environment and the natural world is starting to shift away from one that's habitable. Yeah. Cool.
Unknown Speaker 39:00
That's fascinating. Yeah.
Evan Rowland 39:04
Um, that's so cool.
Hannah Shaffer 39:06
Do other, do other societies make people to like, is this a worldwide problem? Or like a planet wide problem for us? Yeah.
Ryan Boelter 39:19
I want to say yes. Yeah. Like, that's why it's gotten so bad. It's because it's expanded worldwide. Cool.
Amelia Antrim 39:27
But like, Are we the only ones? making that like, Is this like our problem to fix or other nations like having issues making people as well, like,
Ryan Boelter 39:36
let's say it's a global crisis, like it's almost akin to global warming, in a way, something that we can see coming and something that we can see. There's probably solutions for it. But for whatever reason, we are continuing down this path of, you know, building to our saturation point.
Evan Rowland 39:59
We Have to build some some people who know how to fix this problem
Hannah Shaffer 40:08
for automaton millennials
Evan Rowland 40:17
is this shift hard on everyone? Or is it making it more habitable to the automatons and less less to the flesh and blood?
Ryan Boelter 40:31
I would say it's it's more hospitable to the the flesh and blood people. Ah ok. Which is why the the process of creating these these people from these trees The trees are not able to grow as well because there's not enough animal life on the planet.
Amelia Antrim 40:58
Okay, so if you think about it like flesh and blood Blood people like we breathe out co2, which is what the, the trees that need to grow, like, turn into oxygen then yeah, it's like if there's like all of it, we're growing these trees like we're doing okay on oxygen, but they're also not enough flesh and blood people to like, I feel like that would be both, right because like if there's not enough people to make co2 then there's not enough.
Evan Rowland 41:23
Yeah, it loops back around.
Ryan Boelter 41:24
Yeah eventually would loop it back around.
Amelia Antrim 41:28
right because like we're not breathing out enough for trees to breathe in and if there's not enough trees we're not breathing in.
Evan Rowland 41:35
But we're at that point in the cycle right now the trees are dominating the population. And yeah, that's a glimpse of what's down the line for us for sure. Oh, that's so cool. Um, I feel like I I feel like it's not my turn.
Amelia Antrim 41:52
I don't know whose turn it is anymore.
Hannah Shaffer 41:55
So I think we've done two rounds, two full rounds. Think so. Um, so, I mean, this is a, it's like a good point to decide how much more we want to introduce to this world you know, before calling it and yeah, I mean if we were playing a normal game of India, which again the game is unfinished but like this may be a point where somebody was like I'm going to call for a scene like you know we only have one I guess we have one one in world to Character created right? But like would maybe call for a scene or maybe not or maybe make another NPC so
Amelia Antrim 42:41
I don't know. I feel like this is a good kind of like cliffhanger point to leave that
Hannah Shaffer 42:46
kind of feeling that
Amelia Antrim 42:48
Yeah, I'd rather like not add more to it.
Evan Rowland 42:50
Great. Well, I want to but
Amelia Antrim 42:55
Right, right, but that's because you want this game now Ryan, which is good. This is always the part like I this is the thing that we were we were so stupid we were so full of like, we have these really great characters and it's really cool like setting like we've made. Okay, and we're done. Like
Hannah Shaffer 43:19
every Evan I guess. Do you want to like to sort of wrap up? Do you want to show what it would look like to do a face change? Because I don't actually know I think we just made that up.
Evan Rowland 43:30
Oh yeah, well let's do a phase change. Let's do it cool to you, and our visit in the world of Iris. So the phase change chart, which looks like a chart of moon phases. We are at the waxing phase where it is growing towards full. And if I were to call for the face to change, we would roll a new trouble and this trouble would come with a terrible and strange event. Oh, that shakes up
Unknown Speaker 44:02
this a roll of trouble. Yes.
Amelia Antrim 44:05
Always the
Hannah Shaffer 44:08
ladies. All right, it is and our glass. Oh, I was just haven't had that one. Okay, so let me open up my symbol reader again, that is connected to what does that say? It's a little smaller my screen
Evan Rowland 44:23
patient promises and foresight.
Hannah Shaffer 44:26
Oh, I mean, it feels like it fits right into this turning point that we're out of these tree, you know, this, this imbalance of our ecosystem having a crisis. And, yeah, I mean, maybe there's some sort of division in who you know, people saying that they have the answer. People convinced that they don't.
Unknown Speaker 44:54
I think
Amelia Antrim 44:55
like the patience and the foresight kind of play into each other Right, like they're probably people that are like, oh, let's, let's like wait a little bit longer, like maybe we can get these trees to grow. Maybe we can just like if we just keep it where it's at, we can see what happens. And then if there are people that are like no looking forward, this is really bad. We have to do something about it. We have to fix it now even if we're not sure that it will fix it, we have to try things.
Ryan Boelter 45:22
So if this is a trouble with patients and foresight and whatnot, is it that society is is not patient enough with the trees?
Hannah Shaffer 45:35
Well, also, it looks like also part of the world connection of rolling this trouble is describing a terrible and strange event. Yeah. So yeah, it's like, is it are people starting to cut down trees too early? What
Evan Rowland 45:51
What is the, I mean, I'm imagining a, I'm imagining the museum on fire OOD
Amelia Antrim 46:00
I mean the other. The other thing, I guess you can finish Go ahead.
Evan Rowland 46:08
I'm imagining a movement to stop the creation to halt it, saying it's bringing about this catastrophe. And the answer has always just been well, we'll just make the right kind of people who will be able to avert the catastrophe. And a movement that are the growing discontent has been rising and rising. And one day The museum is in flames burning a lot of the sort of treasured records of how to create our greatest creations, our greatest people and threatening the entire system of registering these people and you know, the sort of order that society has been going on. We don't have to know who's responsible yet.
Ryan Boelter 46:54
So if people just forgotten how to make people the old fashioned way
Evan Rowland 47:03
you've ever seen anybody without you know corn piping there is Willingham
Hannah Shaffer 47:09
the new people killing the people making industry.
Amelia Antrim 47:17
So now, there's not enough trees. People are people are ruining industries. Wasn't there? Like, didn't we introduce some sort of something that was like, like an environmental factor that was ruining these trees to or did we already covered last
Evan Rowland 47:33
light or it's sickness that's hitting? Yeah. Either that or the sort of composition of the atmosphere itself?
Amelia Antrim 47:40
Yeah, I mean, definitely the composition of the two
Evan Rowland 47:43
I'd be the contribution is letting a fungus thrive, for instance, right or a certain path,
Ryan Boelter 47:49
or the trees can't get big enough. Right. Like they get to a certain point and they just stopped. Oh,
Hannah Shaffer 47:55
yeah. Tiny trees. Yeah.
Evan Rowland 47:58
I like
Amelia Antrim 47:58
Yeah, but like There's not enough like there's not enough they're either they're too small to even use
Evan Rowland 48:05
yeah things are grim in the kingdom yes
Hannah Shaffer 48:12
yeah so bad I guess that would I am phase change
Ryan Boelter 48:16
yeah that's that sounds pretty significant
Unknown Speaker 48:20
yeah that sounds like we should be
Amelia Antrim 48:29
I don't know we don't need that air I don't think I'll know we're as ghosts will only ones that can save it because we don't need to breathe the air.
Unknown Speaker 48:37
Oh, Justin.
Ryan Boelter 48:42
Okay, enough picture in a world that doesn't have a big oceans at all.
Hannah Shaffer 48:47
Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. I didn't picture any water either. Yeah, a lot of water.
Ryan Boelter 48:54
Like maybe some fresh water for or whatever but maybe those maybe the supplies are going in Creating people
Amelia Antrim 49:02
man this is grim. What? Very sorry.
Hannah Shaffer 49:08
So that's that's what we're working on with crystal India to. Obviously there's a ton to do still, but the hope is that it's just kind of this process that like blends, you know that the character creation never ends. Yeah, yeah. Well we made sure yeah,
Ryan Boelter 49:32
it was so much fun I can easily see this just going on and on and and until you're at a point where like, wow, I mean, this girl, this world is just yeah, we can't be here anymore. It's just too sad.
Hannah Shaffer 49:48
Yeah, and I've seen since do a lot to sort of break up the pace of like, you know, this like, kind of intense like, mental pie, you know, where you're like, oh, like we're thinking about this world and making it and you No scenes get the role play and like change the pace, which is nice and can be refreshing. But, you know, that's not part of Character Creation Cast.
Amelia Antrim 50:12
Now we don't fix the problems we make.
Ryan Boelter 50:15
Yes. Awesome. Alright, well, thank you both so much for joining us for our end to Character creation. This was a lot of fun. FAD want to remind people where they can find you online?
Evan Rowland 50:29
Probably their best bet is to go on to Twitter. My username is a Tron novel, which I thought I was being clever with an anagram and now I just get to say that mouthful.
Unknown Speaker 50:43
It's an anagram of your name. Yeah. Oh, wow.
Ryan Boelter 50:48
That is clever. That makes a lot of sense now.
Evan Rowland 50:51
Yeah. It's a it's limited, as a strategy for choosing
Amelia Antrim 51:00
choice I made. All right, and Hannah, what about you? Where can people find you?
Hannah Shaffer 51:06
People can find me on Twitter at hand banded. I also have a Patreon at hand bandit where I do some of my own small games and also post death logs and updates for India too. And of course, if people want to listen to design Doc, that is our bi weekly show. Where we are redesigning India live, you know, for everybody to see. It's really good and extremely relaxing to listen. I have to say, that's really that's really nice. Other people have said that too. And that I just take that as a compliment.
Amelia Antrim 51:48
Oh, yeah, I love when people say that about like, they'll say it about ours occasion which especially our opening because we have like soft piano music under opening. Like it's just so relaxing. There's not a Enough.
Ryan Boelter 52:02
Awesome. Well and thank you everyone else for listening. Please join us on the next episode for our discussion block.
Ryan Boelter 52:21
Character Creation Cast is a production of the one shot Podcast Network and can be found online at www Character Creation Cast calm, head to the website to get more information on our hosts this show and even our press kit. Character Creation Cast can also be found on Twitter at Creation Cast or on our Discord server at discord Character Creation cast.com I am one of your hosts, Ryan bolter, and I can be found on twitter at Lord Neptune or online at Lord Neptune calm. Our other host Emily Antrim can be found on twitter at ginger reckoning music for this episode. used with a Creative Commons license, or with permission from the podcast they originated from. Further information can be found within the show notes. Our main theme music is hero remix by Steve combs, and it's used with a Creative Commons license. This podcast is owned by us under Creative Commons. This episode was edited by Ryan bolter. Further information for the game systems used and today's guests can be found in the show notes. If you'd like to leave us a rating or review. We have links to various preview platforms out there including Apple podcasts in our show notes. Also, check the show notes for links to our other projects. Thanks for joining us. And remember, we find that the best part of any role playing game is character creation. So go out there and create some amazing people. We will see you next time.
Unknown Speaker 54:07
We gotta read some show blurbs
Unknown Speaker 54:09
show blurbs
Unknown Speaker 54:10
show show,
Unknown Speaker 54:12
show blurbs.
Ryan Boelter 54:15
Character Creation Cast is hosted by the one shot Podcast Network. If you enjoyed our show, visit one shot podcast.com where you will find other great shows like all my fantasy children.
Amelia Antrim 54:27
Each week Aaron Qataris is and Jeff Strummer, take a listener submitted prompt and using some of their favorite tabletop RPG is creating original fantasy character. Along the way they share laughs stories, verbal hugs, and populate a shared universe one story at a time.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai