Welcome to the final episode of our The One Ring series, everyone! This series we have Stef Midlock and James Pierson from the Athrabeth Podcast joining us to discuss and create characters for The One Ring 2nd Edition, the official Lord of the Rings RPG by Free League Publishing! This episode we discuss the process and get into some really great fanfic!
Welcome to the final episode of our The One Ring series, everyone! This series we have Stef Midlock and James Pierson from the Athrabeth Podcast joining us to discuss and create characters for The One Ring 2nd Edition, the official Lord of the Rings RPG by Free League Publishing! This episode we discuss the process and get into some really great fanfic!
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Ryan Boelter 0:01
Welcome to the final part of our low one Rings series everyone. The discussion in this episode is top notch and we even go a bit deeper into how you can work around. And with the canon story within existing properties like the Lord of the Rings, I thought it was really fascinating. The places we went this discussion, definitely. But before we get to the episode, here's what is coming up in our call to action after the show.
Amelia Antrim 0:33
After the episode join us for our final thoughts about the series will also go over our standard asking for reviews as well as supporting our Patreon, we'll have a sneak peek of another bonus episode coming in our Patreon relatively soon, Ryan has an announcement for some upcoming bonus content headed to the One Shot network secret archive. We do need help in order to cover some of the costs of the show. So you can support us over at patreon.com/character creation cast. If you want to check out what we have in our little archive over there. We've got all kinds of little goodies. So you can head over there while you're listening. You can sign up for things and listen to a podcast at the same time. That's the beauty of smartphones. It's so great, the things that you can do in the year of our Lord 2022. So we're about a third of the way to our goal for each month so every little bit helps. In the meantime, thank you so much for listening everyone I hope you enjoy.
Amelia Antrim 2:07
Welcome back to our discussion episode. Last time we finished our session zero for the One Ring. This episode we will be discussing the character creation process. We are excited to welcome back Steph midblock and James Pearson. Do you want to reintroduce yourselves for everybody and tell us
Unknown Speaker 2:23
a little bit about the characters you made?
Stef Midlock 2:25
Hello, I'm Steph midblock. Thank you for having me. I'm from the afterbirth podcast. And last time on Character Creation Cast. I made a habit of the Shire named Gilly good body. She her pronouns, please. And she is a treasure hunter is my calling. And oh, I didn't ever say my age of about 40 which is sort of like a good just adult Hobbit and I am keen eyed inquisitive and a little bit of a burglar. So you know she's a little bit scrappy. And let's see, I'm very hardy. I've got a short sword. And I also have a headwind proof lantern so stand in my way because I'm gonna see you no matter what. That's Gilly. I don't know. Amazing. Sorry. I'm sorry. Oh, it's
Unknown Speaker 3:15
great. It was perfect. Oh boy. All right, James, how about yourself?
James Pierson 3:22
Hi there. I'm James Pearson. I am I edit the aftermath podcast. And I also have GM a couple of sessions of the One Ring RPG as bonus episodes on that podcast. And the character that I created last time is Teresa daughter of Giesler. She uses she her pronouns. She's a dwarf of Durance folk in her calling his champion. And basically she's a pretty much straightforward, like warrior, not a lot of nuance to her. What as one of the aspects of her calling, she has enemy Lord trolls, which I think denotes in her background, that proof prior to joining the party, she was part of the Dwarven like, tunnel clearing crew that went into tunnels that were kind of, you know, hadn't been used in a while or maybe we're maybe we're being expanded into and was part of the team that like, went in there fought the trolls kicked them out of their holes so that dwarves could move in. And so she's, you know, she's got a hatred for trolls. She's, you know, pretty much not a big not a big thinker, pretty much just a big fighter. And she is best friends with our party's elf person who we I'm sure we'll get into later.
Amelia Antrim 4:34
Yeah, speaking of Ryan, yeah. Tell us about your character.
Ryan Boelter 4:37
So I've got Laura Lynn, she her pronouns and Elsa of Linden. She's 147 years old, and on the ward in calling, wanting to protect the people of this world from the coming shadow that she's kind of been figuring out has been getting More and more prominent as time goes on. She is She has a focus on healing and on singing, songwriting and playing musical instruments and making people happy. She's got a very merry personality. And she likes to spread that mirth whenever she can. Of course, she also has a secret crush on driba, the daughter of a slow because you know the muscles as well as the muscles. But like the she keeps it secret because like her whole life, she she's like in a society where they butt heads against the dwarves, the Elves and the dwarves and she doesn't think that that sort of relationship would work too well in this world, unfortunately, but she can't help her heart feeling what her heart feels so. So Amelia, tell us about knob.
Amelia Antrim 6:12
My character is not Heather toes. knob, I think is probably, let's say a 31 year old who still lives with his mom. My calling is messenger. And I'm, I imagine that that started out as like running to the grocery store. And then just kind of getting swept up and things along the way. I think his parents own an inn and he kind of works there and just refuses to move out. It's just like not, he's the smart but not strong. And he's just like kind of doing his thing. He's very happy to just stay where he's at does not have any desire to go anywhere or do anything. But unfortunately, I don't think that's how this game works. So we're gonna see how this goes for poor knob. I'm guessing now. Well.
Ryan Boelter 7:06
Did we get an age for drift?
James Pierson 7:09
Oh, I don't think I said Yeah, so I think drinka is so dwarves typically live a little over, like probably over 100 years. I think Drupa is on the younger side. I think she's probably like 40 she's, you know, a young, young adult dwarf.
Unknown Speaker 7:23
Wow. Love it.
Ryan Boelter 7:24
We've got some well seasoned folks in our group too. Which is interesting. Now the youngest is what 37 to 131. Yeah, that's not that's not super young. But at least we've all seen some things. I can't wait to for fanfic to see how this goes. Yeah. Well, before we get there, we have to go ahead and dive right into a segment that we're calling in B 20. For your thoughts
Unknown Speaker 7:56
20 for your thoughts,
Amelia Antrim 7:58
a segment that Ryan calls.
Unknown Speaker 8:02
A great title,
Ryan Boelter 8:04
the royal we whenever I say that.
Amelia Antrim 8:09
So in this segment, we like to talk to our guests about their thoughts on character creation process, how it relates to the system to other games. First, we always ask the most cliche question and all of our PG podcasting. How did you get into RPGs?
Stef Midlock 8:24
Sure, I can, I can go first. So it was the year of our Lord 1998. And I actually this is how I met James, which is so cool. We we started gaming with our with a couple of friends in our friend's living room with I believe Vampire the Masquerade was my first ever whatever that means, and I played a gang girl and it was great. And I had no idea what was going on the entire time. I kept thinking like, when does the board come out? amazed that I was too scared to ask because I was in high school and I was a freshman and I was scared of boys. So I Yeah. I still have wondering when the board is coming.
Ryan Boelter 9:13
It's called the Battle man.
Amelia Antrim 9:21
What about you, James?
James Pierson 9:22
Yeah, I mean, my you know, how I got into gaming is pretty much the same story. I think I maybe was into gaming a couple of months before stuff was but again, through our friend, mutual friend, we've started out playing Vampire the Masquerade. And actually, I this was also how I met and became friends with Jude Steffes co hosts on afterbirth. Yeah, and so, you know, we started out playing, you know, I started out as a player playing Vampire the Masquerade. And then we started to branch out into other games and I found the first game that I ever GM successfully was called Cthulhu. And ran you know, I sort of got into But from that aspect, and you know, quickly found out that I preferred being a GM to a player, but you know, yeah, that was so that mean that was quite a long time ago.
Amelia Antrim 10:09
I've heard that you're very good at running horror games. Thank you.
Stef Midlock 10:13
Yeah, he is. He's very spooky. It's very spooky. We have a couple of actual play one ring episodes on afterbirth, which are we they're sort of spooky, and sort of just silly. We call them spooky. There's one from October of 2020. And October 2021, that James has run if you want to check out his spooky gaming, I think you do a really good job of it. And this year, we're going to finish it. It's like a three parter. So it'll be so the exciting conclusion just a very slow
Amelia Antrim 10:43
burn.
Ryan Boelter 10:47
I think I just realized how much I crave a good horror rpg session. I really been in one for ages. I think my last experience was beyond the supernatural back in the 90s for platinum Polo. And like, even then he's
Amelia Antrim 11:05
ever gotten to do one. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 11:08
Oh, we got a week. James,
Stef Midlock 11:09
you gotta run. I'm inviting us
Ryan Boelter 11:17
do it. Well, what do you to look for in a system as far as character creation goes, like what sort of pieces need to be there for Greek characters to happen for you?
James Pierson 11:28
So, I mean, so as I said, I tend to GM and I tend to prefer jamming to playing. So in a lot of, you know, for, for me in a lot of ways, you know, I don't, I don't intersect necessarily with the character creation process, because typically, when I make NPCs, I don't build them out as Phil full character, she did, you know, characters. But I know that from, you know, I know, from my personal, like, the way that I personally like to play games, I like character creation systems that have a lot of flexibility. Because I like that, you know, I like seeing my players really inspired and coming up with unique, really interesting characters, rather than sort of, you know, limited or set characters that you sort of get out of other systems, like d&d, for instance.
Stef Midlock 12:16
Yeah, I agree. I like systems that invite you to create, like, well rounded characters when it comes to like vices and, and backgrounds and stuff, because that just so much of, because it could because it can, as, as you know, like, launched you even on session one, right? Or session zero, you were already sort of know who you are, if that's part of character creation, that's all. So I really enjoy that, like one of my favorite character creations to do is in Legends of the five rings. Because they ask you so many cool, pointed questions, and I feel like you end up with like a really rich character, right off the get go. And so I think those those pieces that like, where are you? It's not just about like, Hey, I'm really great at these skills. But like, when also like, I've got these vices, and I've got these, this my inner conflict goes against, like what I'm supposed to be doing on the surface. I love that stuff. It's so great. So yeah, anything that promotes that perfect, I feel
Amelia Antrim 13:15
like that always gives GMs a lot of hooks to pull on to like anything that has all of those like story beats and I feel like it's always a really good indicator to a GM of like, these are the things that I'm interested in, like, Please take these things and make them come up in the game. Yeah. I always feel like flaws are where characters start to really come together for me when they don't have flaws. I feel very one dimensional.
Unknown Speaker 13:37
Yeah, that's a great point.
Amelia Antrim 13:39
So we like to look at character sheets, because I think they can tell us kind of a lot about what playing a game is going to be like, what things are important. So what kind of story do you think these character sheets tell us? Like when you're just sitting down to make a character? Like what kind of vibe do you get there?
Stef Midlock 13:59
Yeah, well, I mean, I think like off off the get go, this is not a super, like detailed character sheet. Right? It's not it, it doesn't ask too much of a player. So I think like from that standpoint, it's really good in in that it's not too scary. I think for like newer players to jump into this this character creation process, the sheet itself. We talked about this a little bit in the first section, but the writers were very deliberate in, like the words the vocabulary words that they chose to follow along with what JRR Tolkien would have written himself if he was writing a character. So it feels very inworld. This feels to me like an inworld document, which I really like. And I think like, Yeah, I think I think in a way I almost wish there were like, more more things to add. But maybe that's maybe that's okay, because that stuff come and later and you add that later. I don't know, what do you think, James?
James Pierson 15:02
Yeah, I think that the layout of the character sheet is really interesting to like, if you look at it, it's divided into essentially three main columns with like your attribute at the top, and then the skills that flow from that attribute below it. And so I mean, it really, it really calls everything back to the core mechanics of rolling against the target number that set by your attribute. So like, everything that flows underneath strength, for instance, you're gonna roll against your strength target number. So it's very, like well organized, although I don't know if I necessarily agree how some of these skills like the attribute some of these skills fall under. I don't know if that necessarily makes sense. But I think that it's laid out in a very, like, it all drives back to that core mechanic. Right? Yeah, it's
Ryan Boelter 15:43
really interesting. How it is, is it is easy to read. The thing that that stuck out, stood out to me the most was the design of the sheet. Right? Like, you've got the the Elvish script at the top of the sheet. And then you've got some like, nice, natural, like leafy looking things at the bottom. And it's it's very evocative of like, you're playing in this very fantastical world. And, and like, it feels historical, right? Like you're playing in a historical setting, which is
Amelia Antrim 16:25
really, that was like the book to that, like the arts and that kind of stuff in the book. Feels very evocative, and very reminiscent of the original, like source material. And I feel like the character sheet design goes along with that. Absolutely. Yeah.
James Pierson 16:41
Yeah, totally.
Stef Midlock 16:43
Yeah, we talked about too, that this is such a known, like world for all of us. Like, I thought it would be hard to find anyone who hasn't, who doesn't know what it is, right. And so even if this is a new game to you, this should feel it feels familiar, right? Like Ryan said, with the Tango or Tex, the Elvish up at the top, and, and even the font of like, the One Ring, it looks so much like, you know, what we know from Pete Jackson's movies, and so I think there's something that I think that's nice, and it's kind of disarming, like, it's like, okay, I know. All right. All right. Okay, I got this.
Ryan Boelter 17:12
It's familiar, right?
Amelia Antrim 17:15
I will say that, like when I first sat down to look at it, like there's a lot of boxes. I mean, it turns out that like most of them are, you know, like just boxes that you kind of tick and like tally marks and whatever. But it does look a little bit like it for I was like, Oh, boy. But we haven't gone through it now. It's like, oh, okay, it's very clear what goes where? Yeah. Which is something that I always look for. Because sometimes you sit down to play a game, and you're like, the book is like, so here's this drive stack. And you're like, cool, but like, where does it go? Like there's not a box for it. So we didn't have any of that it was very clear where everything goes. And it does kind of flow in the order of creation and stuff, too.
James Pierson 17:59
Yeah, I think that's actually something that they did a better job of on the fillable PDF than on the character sheet that's in the book. Because the fillable PDF, had your derived set, sort of like write with your attributes and stuff like that. And here Oh, actually, no, I take that back. That's all laid out pretty pretty well here. This sidebar though, that has like your adventure points, skill points, current endurance and stuff like that. It kind of forces you to go back and forth across the sheet. I like having your current values near your max values to make everything really like simplified, which is something I think they did on the the fillable PDF that they didn't do on the sheet. That makes it just a little bit busier and a little hard to harder to use. I didn't
Amelia Antrim 18:40
look yeah, like now that you mentioned it like looking at like, what things go like what skills go with what like why does battle go with heart and craft goes with strength?
James Pierson 18:50
Yeah, that bothers me. Or song with strength, right?
Amelia Antrim 18:53
Yeah, like why song was strength like,
Ryan Boelter 18:55
Yeah, it's interesting. Like, I would put that there. Maybe strength of presence versus strength body or you know, whatever. I
Amelia Antrim 19:04
feel like song should go with heart. Okay, now that you mentioned it, it's gonna bother me. All right, that's
Stef Midlock 19:10
fine. Yeah, I wonder if like song is like the, I don't know, like, like almost like a fortification like it gives you an emotional strength after you hear a rousing song.
Amelia Antrim 19:22
It's actually just breath work that you have to do the breath work Yeah.
Stef Midlock 19:27
Michael memory memories are. Yeah, right. Exactly. I think I think that looking at the descriptions of these in the book are quite helpful because I think I think yeah, they there they don't think there's more to it. Yeah, that's there.
Ryan Boelter 19:47
Plus, I mean, mechanically you have to you have to think while we're doing six, six and six, right so it if you moved all the things that made sense under heart that makes sense to go into heart. You might you might have eight Nine skills there. And now and
Amelia Antrim 20:02
then those would be uneven numbers. And that might be even worse. Yeah, exactly. But
Ryan Boelter 20:05
then I put all my points into heart, then, you know, I can power game a bit, because now I'm good at nine things as opposed to four.
James Pierson 20:14
That's true.
Stef Midlock 20:16
Yeah. Yeah, that's make sense. See what you're saying?
James Pierson 20:19
I looked, it looked up song, the skill of the song skill in the book, and they specifically call out that it's a strength skill, because you have to have a clear singing voice.
Stef Midlock 20:29
Oh, my gosh. Geez, Louise, you
Amelia Antrim 20:31
do have to worry. My youngest sibling is a singer. And you have to like that, like, you have to work at that. Yeah, that's true.
Ryan Boelter 20:38
Oh, and you get those calluses on your fingers for,
Amelia Antrim 20:44
like, well, and you gotta like, be silent the whole day before you have to do it. And you know, like, drink your lemon water or whatever. Maybe they're just making a big show. But it's really not that big of a deal. Maybe just being dramatic? Because that seems like I think they would do. But there you go. You never know.
Ryan Boelter 21:02
Well, how do we think character creation and the one we want in the One Ring stacks up to other systems that we've played and created characters for?
Stef Midlock 21:12
Good question.
Amelia Antrim 21:13
I feel like it was like, there was enough options happening that like I had enough choices to make, but it was always contained. So there was no like analysis, paralysis, or sort of like that paralyzing feeling of like too many options in front of me, like there was never more than like, you know, six to 10 things or whatever to pick from? Yeah, which I really liked. So there was enough there to feel like there was variety, but not so much that I was like, I don't even know where to start.
Ryan Boelter 21:44
Yeah, I do like that is that most of the things that have options are six options. So really, if you wanted to go through and just roll a random character, you just throw a bunch of D sixes and call it a day and most of your character is defined at that point. Right? Then you have a few choices, you have a few skills to figure out a hey, is this a skill that I favor, and, you know, and then and then you're good from there. I both love that. And felt like it was a little too odd rails for my tastes. Like I still liked the character creation system here. And I feel like we created great characters that we fleshed out pretty well. But, like, if somebody makes the same choices at me as me, it's practically the same person at that point, because there's not too much deviation between an alpha of Linden and a ward. And between who who's who, right. Yeah, right.
Stef Midlock 22:46
Yeah, no, it's true. And I think so that, that sort of asks the player it asks more of the player right to then define yourself further to differentiate yourself. Like if we're both wardens. Okay, then how am I going to do that as an elf versus how would I top it be a warden? Right? That makes a lot of still better
Ryan Boelter 23:05
than d&d, though, in my opinion, yes. d&d, if you're a Paladin, you're a Paladin, period. And like your, your racial choice has very little to do with that. And you have to introduce a lot in d&d to create a unique character from that. Right,
Amelia Antrim 23:29
a lot of it is unwritten non mechanical stuff, which is always my always my problem was, like, check out this cool thing I'm doing and I'm like, but that's you. That's not the game doesn't do that for you. Yeah, that's a great point.
Ryan Boelter 23:42
That's a good this feels like taking that background portion of d&d and blowing it up to something that's more meaningful, right. And, and then you've got the other stuff that that is also meaningful on the other side of the coin for what you can do, quote unquote. And so kind of mushing those together, it's, it's simple, which I like, it's easy to create a character. But yeah, there's something a little more to nudge it in that direction, I think would be great. But then you're making it more complex at the same time. So I'm like, Well, there's a trade off somewhere.
Amelia Antrim 24:20
Right. Right. Yeah, there's somewhere between, like, ease and simplicity and like that, you know, depth that you're looking for, and just find balance. Yeah,
James Pierson 24:32
yeah. Yeah. And I think one of the things that, you know, to use d&d as an example, you know, your, your, like, your race only provides a little bit of context and the majority of your character is derived from your class. Here, they kind of flip the script, the majority of our character was defined through our culture, and then calling which I think is the closest thing you could equate to a class only gives you a couple of extra skills and one more one more feature, which I think makes sense for the setting. You know, a lot of Have the aspects of the character come from the culture they come from rather than the job that they do or the you know, the reason they're out adventuring. But it also sort of feels a little bit like, let's do it this way to differentiate ourselves from d&d, it's probably I'm sure that's not the decision why they made that decision. But it feels like we essentially have to do one thing that's heavier. And one thing that's lighter for d&d, it's class versus race. And here it's culture versus, you know, yeah,
Ryan Boelter 25:25
it's very fitting for the Lord of the Rings world to wear, like, pretty much all the culture is huge. And Lord of the Rings in those individual cultures are like very, you know, where you
Amelia Antrim 25:39
come from determines most of what you're doing. Exactly. Yeah, of course.
Unknown Speaker 25:42
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Ryan Boelter 25:44
So very on brand.
Stef Midlock 25:46
In the first part of this podcast, we made the point that the book sort of asks you to think about your character in relationship to like, where they are in their geography, in the idea that, you know, this is not an informational world, there's not a, you know, you're not someone from, you know, Bri may not have ever seen an elf before. Who knows? Right. So like you Yeah, so that, that is something at character creation. I think maybe that's why, like, the cultures are so important, because you really know your own pretty well, but like, not maybe the others as much as he would. Elsewhere. Yeah, yeah.
James Pierson 26:23
Yeah. Yeah, one thing that I don't think that this system did as well, going back to that conversation, we were having a little bit earlier about how l five Rs character creation gives you a lot of open ended questions that like, basically build your background as part of the character creation. I feel like this one only had a few opportunities to develop what our backgrounds are based on the mechanics of the character creation itself, you know, like, I grabbed on to, like, from my calling, I got that enter enemy lore, like distinctive feature. And so I used like, that hooked something in my brain, I was like, Okay, why do they hate trolls? Okay, well, then they were part of this troll squad, you know, and from that I can, I can know, you know, one thing that I'm personally interested in is like subverting the, you know, like, these characters, like, these great, these cultures are good, these cultures are evil trope. So one thing that I would be interested in for my character is like, seeing if they're seeing if that, you know, her perception of trolls is all evil and needing to be destroyed is incorrect, and, you know, finding sort of a common ground there. But none of that came from the mechanic. You know, right.
Amelia Antrim 27:28
Yeah. Do you feel like we got a lot of these, like, broad categories of things that it's like, you know, like, Messenger, and it's like, okay, that needs to tie in somehow. But I feel like the rest of like, the personality and like, the story of my character was sort of left to me to like, it's like, you have this pile of things. So like, now you make something out of it. Yeah, there wasn't a lot. The game didn't do a lot of that work for you.
Ryan Boelter 27:52
Yeah, I still don't know exactly why my character is here in Bri. Aside from I've met without traveling, I have a calling to protect people from the shadow and somehow that meandered my way here with this group. Yeah. And so so it's it's very high level. Right? Yeah. We don't have the specifics of like, oh, you know, five years ago, I had this altercation with so and so and this person was there to help me with it. And now we're, you know, tie it together.
Amelia Antrim 28:26
Yeah, so the question is, like, I mean, obviously, that leaves a lot to the players and the GM to come up with like, Okay, why are we here. But on the other hand, it probably means you don't end up with a bunch of people who have come in with these very disparate stories that the GM has to like, figure out how to put together which is, you know, something that I think can happen in a lot of games is that you go home, you make your character, and you're like, here's my 12 pages of backstory that don't match anybody else at the table. Whereas when you come in with nothing, then there's more room to sort of work together on that.
Stef Midlock 29:01
That makes sense.
Unknown Speaker 29:03
Well, that isn't good, or ill.
James Pierson 29:07
This game does kind of give the GM the, the cheat code, though, of having the patron. Like, you know, you can always just say, well, Gandalf, comes meets you and tells you, hey, I've got these other people who you'd like, Come Come on a mission with us, you know, right. And
Amelia Antrim 29:20
like I said, you don't say no to gamble. So sort of solves that whole problem right there. As people who have played this game several times, how do you feel like the process of character creation informs what you're going to be doing in the game? Like how does it sort of reinforce the feeling of the game or does it?
Stef Midlock 29:42
Yeah, we thought about this a little bit. I think one thing I want to call out is the company creation, which is part of character creation. I think that the bringing your party together in in like a formal Big C Company, really enough Horses, the importance of who you have of adventure and traveling and who you're going with, right? as we as we were creating our characters. We kept saying like, Oh, wow, we're so well rounded, we've got all these different, you know, Hero cultures being represented, and we all have different callings, like, wow, that's really that's really cool. And because this is very much, I think, at its core, you know, a game about fellowship, and about coming together. So I think, yeah, coming up with that company stuff, your fellowship, focus, you know, where a place where you guys feel safe. And I think that's also really neat, because you these are opportunities where you can, if you want to interact with cannon things, which, again, I think is quite a thrill for folks who love this material. You know, you're the patrons, at least that you start out with, are are known characters from from the books. And, like, it's likely, or doesn't have to be, but you can choose a canonical location as like we did with the Prancing Pony, for your safe haven. And so this is a great way for these new characters to kind of interact a little bit. It doesn't have to be about these things. You know, it's your Patriot is not the only thing we're going to do. But yeah, we're going to, but it's a great it's a great way for those roads to meet. And I think that's, that's really cool. I think that reinforces the feeling. Definitely.
Unknown Speaker 31:28
Well,
Ryan Boelter 31:29
we talked a bit about some of the flaws of the system in a previous question, but what do you what do you think is one of the biggest flaws
Stef Midlock 31:38
I wonder if like I I don't know you guys can let me know what you think about this but like I think almost the though setting of area door it's not a flaw at all, but I want more from the setting. I really want to be able to go to Fangorn for you know I want to be able to go over the mountains now. Of course as we said, you can do this if you incorporate the first addition as well because those are known things but this game really does want you to focus in area door that's the point of it. And I think that's great, but I do I don't know You know, I feel like people want to go to Mordor and you really are not invited to go to Mordor in this book, right without a little bit of finagling. What do you think, James?
James Pierson 32:27
Yeah, I was that I absolutely agree. One of the so when the second edition first came out, I read a review, I forget which website it was on. It was like polygon or dice breaker or something like that. And one of the things that they explicitly called out is that this system, or at least from their understanding of it is not one where you are going on Epic quests and you know, taking the one ring to Mordor, it's one where it's often times that your character will be you know, helping farmer maggot muck out his stables. I think that was the example that they used, which, at the same time, when I read that review, I've been running this game for Steph Jude and a couple of our friends, where we were on this epic quest doing all this stuff, and I had to think about it for a little bit. And in order to get the epic quest, I had to draw on resources from outside of the main core book, you know, we started in we started in Rohan. So I had to go back to the version, you know, the the first edition book, and then use Tolkien Gateway for all of the, you know, all of the places that aren't covered in the book. So, yeah, I think that the scope of the adventures, as written in the book can be a little bit limited.
Amelia Antrim 33:37
Is that is that a product of the game itself? Or is that a product of like, how much stuff Tolkien has written though? Like is that, you know, a question of like, the Legendarium is so big, that like, at what point do you say like, the book would be too much if we put all of those things in there? You know, and like, you sort of lose some of that accessibility, especially for newer people, the more stuff you put in there.
Stef Midlock 34:03
I think that's a great point. Yeah,
James Pierson 34:05
absolutely. Yep.
Stef Midlock 34:07
I bet that's exactly why they chose
Ryan Boelter 34:09
it's also right for expansions, right, right.
Amelia Antrim 34:12
I mean, there is also money to be made there by like making those supporting books.
Ryan Boelter 34:19
But it does tell me like if I didn't even know the first edition existed, which I didn't until I did research, it was like okay, well, if if this is just one small area of the world, when can I get the rest because I know expansions are coming and those supplements are going to be coming for this because this game is pretty cool. So like then it's just a matter of time of waiting and when you jump into it, but the fact that first edition books are out there already and you can kind of finagle it into this system pretty easily. You know that that kind of keeps that epicness and open Worldliness to it but yeah, if you're coming in with just the core Buck Yeah. It is a little limiting. But that's not to say you can't start the seeds of an epic adventure.
James Pierson 35:08
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think you're totally right. Like it's, you make a starting character, the scope of what they have, the adventures that they get into would be by their nature more limited, you know, although that does kind of fly in the face of the source material, because you know, the first time Frodo leaves the Shire, it's to take the One Ring to Rivendale. And then he ends up going all the way to Mordor. So, yeah. I mean, I know to talking about expansions, I think it was as part of the Kickstarter, they've already released the Rivendale expansion book. So I'm sure there's more. Yeah,
Ryan Boelter 35:44
absolutely. And there's
Stef Midlock 35:45
also one called, like ruins of the last round, which gives you like, yeah, it's just another additional map of other cities and other cool stuff. One thing I wanted to note, that is really cool about this. So because just to follow to kind of dovetail in with this idea of like, yeah, I want my character to be able to go on like bigger, more stuff. There is a really nifty mode that was recently released for this game called Strider mode, which we haven't talked about yet. And it is a mat is a means to do this as a solo game. So you don't need a lore master for this, you can do it all by yourself. And the idea is you can take, you can create your own character for this. Or you could take your pre existing character and give them their own side quest. And there's like new tables that can sort of help to answer like the questions that you might ask to Loremaster, whatever. And like tables that can kind of give you like good stuff and bad stuff that happened to you along the way. But these and it sort of modified, it gives you some additional rules to facilitate that solo play. And so I like that that option. Is there. I don't know if I necessarily would do it just because I don't know, I never do anything with blurb, but it's there if you want to. But again, like Yeah, again, like at just from a character creation standpoint. Yeah, you're not gonna you're not gonna get that you have to go beyond.
Amelia Antrim 37:12
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's been a, there's been a plethora of like solo games and sort of a push for solo games. In recent years. It's something I saw like a lot in the Emmys in the last two years. It's like a lot of solo games. Because I think people are like, pandemic, I'm alone. I want a game to play. And it's been interesting to see the ones that like, because when it started out, it was a lot of just like journaling. And I've seen more and more that are like, no, let's take an actual game with actual mechanics that you can do things. And it's cool to see like some established games starting to make that an option, rather than just an entire game. That is a solo game.
James Pierson 37:54
Yeah, that's super cool.
Ryan Boelter 37:56
I'd be very curious if you could take those rules for a solo game here and expand it to a group and just have a GM this kind of experience, right?
Unknown Speaker 38:05
Oh, oh,
Stef Midlock 38:06
that's a great idea.
Ryan Boelter 38:08
That could be a lot of fun, potentially. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 38:11
Oh, absolutely.
Ryan Boelter 38:13
I don't even need you. Oh, boy.
Unknown Speaker 38:21
Oh, brother.
Amelia Antrim 38:24
It is time for our favorite section. This is where we where we discussed what would happen if we played this game, or as we refer to it our fanfic section? Yes. What? What kind of game would we play in? What do we think would happen? Like what would be? What is Gandalf sending us? Yeah,
Ryan Boelter 38:41
that again, does the X factor here, right? Right. Because I was like, Well, how why are we all together in the first place? It was like, well, it's right. Yeah, I can. I can. I can easily see Gandalf meeting each of us individually. And just being like, on this day at this moon phase, go to the Prancing Pony. There, you will meet three other individuals.
Amelia Antrim 39:07
That's a great impression.
Stef Midlock 39:10
It's great. It's really good. Yeah, like that's the thing like Gandalf, like looks for like not only your like, I mean, I think like, Yeah, his emphasis is not on a high born person. For example, His emphasis is on like the, the strength of one's heart, right. And so
Amelia Antrim 39:30
that's not great either.
Stef Midlock 39:34
Or, at least like the or at least, like there's something in your being that Gandalf, as a patron can see and say that this person will add something to this group that they need, right because it's all about balance. And really at the at the, at the end of the day, where we're all working to fight to fight in some way or at least to push back against the enemies of the free So that is pretty broad, you can do that in lots of different ways. And so, yeah,
James Pierson 40:05
I think the like, the probably the best indicator is to look at our callings because, like, you know, obviously, like for the warden, you know, so we have a warden. And I think that that's, we have a warden, right? Yes. So we hadn't eaten. So obviously, it means that what we're doing should involve protecting some people. You know, and we have a messenger. So, you know, there could be an aspect of needing to travel some distance. And I think the the key also is that we have a treasure hunter. So wherever we're going, it's going to need to be like, in order to have that calling hook into all of this, there needs to be an aspect of finding something that was lost or finding a treasure or something like that. So you can kind of take the columns and use those to sort of point us in a general direction. Based on that.
Unknown Speaker 40:58
Yeah. Oh, nice.
Ryan Boelter 41:00
Oh, I do like that a lot.
James Pierson 41:02
One of the things going back to Gandalf as a patron, one of the things that I've always thought was super cool is like, so in The Hobbit, he shows up, and he's just like, Yeah, you know, I met, I met Thorens. Dad, he told me that there's like a treasure. And he gave me a map. Why don't you dwarves go and like, find the treasure. And it's like, super straightforward, very simple. Just like, hey, dwarves, I'm gonna help you out, go go get your ancestral home back. When you get to the appendices of Lord of the Rings. One of the things that it says in the appendix is that Gandalf was worried that when Sargon came back, he was going to use the dragon smug to fight and destroy the the free people. And so he was like, Okay, I gotta take care of this dragon. And I know these dwarves want to take their home back, I'll tell these dwarves to go get the treasure, and they'll take out the Dragon for me while they're doing it. So involvement as a patron means that he doesn't even need to tell us what exactly we're doing. He could be pointing us in the direction of something way bigger and more tied into the larger metaplot. But we could just think, oh, you know, we got to go find this golden cup of, you know, whomever. In this Barrow. Yeah, yeah. I love that.
Amelia Antrim 42:13
I feel like that would be really fun in a campaign, especially like a long running campaign over time to like, slowly put those pieces together. But also a lot of planning work. So
Ryan Boelter 42:25
yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting, because you could you could make up something like some MacGuffin, that is tied to some big threat that never even mentioned in the movies or the books or anything like that. And just say, Well, we took care of that threat. So that's why it was never mentioned. Yeah. Right. Because it was taken care of in that gap between the stuff there.
James Pierson 42:53
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that you know, one of the things too, you know, in The Lord of the Rings, it's you know, Rohan and gone door fighting against Mordor at the same time. And this has mentioned, I think, in the in like the appendices or the histories or whatever. Up in the north in Mirkwood, the elf King, the vanduul, who's up there, and like the hobbits ran into in The Hobbit, like his forces are fighting surrounds forces in the north to keep them from coming down and joining the battle as well. So it's not even mentioned at all in Lord of the Rings. But there are battles going on all over the place that allow the heroes to be successful in their you know, in the final battle at Mordor.
Ryan Boelter 43:32
A very cool.
Stef Midlock 43:34
So hopefully this should be freeing to people that feel like oh, I don't know, the law. I don't know if I really want to play that game. Like, it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter if you don't know. Like, everything is valid, everything, you know, everything can can mean something in I think that also helps you just jumpstart and just let's just get going like I know Amelia said, oh, you know, you need a lot of pre planning like it configure it out later. Yeah.
Amelia Antrim 43:57
Yeah, no, I think I think that's a really good point. Ryan, though, to say that like, well, you know, the reason that it was never mentioned in any of those books or anything, it's because like, it was taken care of, like, we solved it. So it didn't need to be mentioned in the books because it was already you know, it was already done before anything came out, like we took care of it.
Stef Midlock 44:15
It's true. In the in the we talked about the nerd of the Rings is interview with Francesco net patello the person who made this game, he Francesco said, in the starter box, there are pre made characters and two of them are like photos, parents who we know economically drowned, right? And that is why Frodo over time ends up with Bilbo right and setting our story. He's like, you can reverse that you can play them Why don't you play them and save their life and see how that changes things. So I think it's also okay to mess with cannon if you want to like, depending on everyone in your party feels about Yeah,
Ryan Boelter 44:49
yeah, it's just an alternate history of the of this fantasy world.
James Pierson 44:56
Or you could say, you know, like we know the only thing we know about have, you know Frodo is dad is that there's for those parents that they drowned in a boating accident? Why were they in a boat? Were they on an adventure that Gandalf sent them on to like, go recover something. And on the way back, the boat was attacked by orcs and they drowned, you know, like, even painting around the light, like paint right up to the line, you know, there's already established,
Ryan Boelter 45:19
or did they not drown at all? And then they're just missing and presumed to after
Stef Midlock 45:27
that, yeah,
Amelia Antrim 45:29
some happen. And then yeah, there's a conspiracy created by those trolls.
Ryan Boelter 45:36
So did any of our characters know each other beforehand? Or did we just get Spirited Away by Gandalf to the Prancing Pony? And that was our first time meeting and, and we had to do some mundane thing at first, that seemed innocuous, but maybe set something up down the line?
Amelia Antrim 45:58
Well, I think we said that Gillean knob know each other. Because it's like, I mean, we're pretty close together. And it seems reasonable. But you would have come to when I'm in my parents own that I live in. Exactly. And so you know, we've been friends are friendly. Yeah, but I don't know about anybody else.
Ryan Boelter 46:19
Yeah, cuz, because my character.
Amelia Antrim 46:23
You're not the adventuring type.
Ryan Boelter 46:25
Not really the adventure type. Well, my culture is usually like, just stay in Linden. Stay here and why? Why go out, you know, about 300 years, they're gonna be going to a boat anyway. So, you know, might as well just stick around here. But I can imagine like staying there growing up learning about the shadow, learning about these patterns and, and then starting to go out on my own. And happenstance running into Gandalf. And having this like, you know, buddy cop, sort of scenario with Gandalf for a short period of time, and then like Gandalf was like, you know, hey, if I ever need something, can I can I call on you? And I'd be like, yeah, reassure.
Amelia Antrim 47:21
And that actually Gandalf, like, let me introduce you to the love of your life. Right? Exactly. Like the idea of Gandalf, the matchmaker, right. I'm very into that
Ryan Boelter 47:37
story, forget there, then, I think,
James Pierson 47:40
I mean, maybe this is maybe a little too, like meta, but I think it makes sense for driba, at least, to come in and meet at least to meet Laureline as part of this, this party. Because we know from you know, like, the reason why Legolas and Gimli being best friends is such a big deal is because it's pretty rare. It sort of flies in the face of a lot of you know, a lot of sort of established, like prejudice between those two cultures. So I think that if drifta and Laureline are friends prior to getting into the party, I would go the other way, where they first meet as part of this, this thing and their friendship is built through the lane, maybe they have this this moment where they have a connection, but their friendship and all that is built as part of the game to build on that relationship. So it's not so it remains a sort of a rare thing. You know, I like that.
Stef Midlock 48:32
I think one thing we always say on after Beth is we'd like to point out the importance of fanfiction because talking, you know, is great, and all those things, but also there's a lot of stuff missing from from Tolkien's writings and that and that's okay to talk about those things and to embrace those things and to and to embrace the things that are not great, right, the the, the bad prejudices and all those things that are in that are that are present, we need to embrace those things and, and it's okay that they exist and it's but it's also okay for us to to recreate and to add in places where things are missing things that are important or missing different kinds of relationships. And so I think like that would be the kind of story I would want to do is to like, Look beyond just like a I want to look for the places where we can add add in those things. And so I think like your your example of that friendship and then possibly more would be would be really wonderful and would fill a great need.
Amelia Antrim 49:35
I feel like that's one thing that I love about role playing games in like, you know, like other like intellectual properties is like the ability to sort of do that like the fixit Fick of your own game and to be able to say, like, I wish it would have gone this way. I'm gonna make it go this way. Like I'm gonna solve that problem that like there isn't representation for this thing or that this part of the story is bad or Whatever. And to be able to say like at my table, we're gonna fix that. Yep. Yeah, absolutely love that. That's so great. All right, should we get into our advancement segment today, the new move? Do we want to take it up a level, level level. In this segment, we cover what character advancement and character growth looks like in the system. So let's start with how do characters level up mechanically in this game? And what you know, what do they change as they do that.
James Pierson 50:41
So, at the end of each session, every player gets three adventure points and three skill points, like it's set per session, this is the this is the number that you get. You accumulate these points over the course of the adventuring phase. And then when you get to the fellowship phase, which if you remember, the game is broken up into two essentially two phases, the adventuring phase, which is where you're out in the world, doing your thing. And then the fellowship phase, which is where you return to a place of safety, your home base or someplace safe. And it's the downtime phase where you rest, you recover, you do undertakings, which are things like, you know, studying maps, or reading songs, things like that. And the fellowship phase is also where you can spend those points to raise your skills and your and to gain virtue to gain valor and wisdom.
Ryan Boelter 51:30
Okay. And does does that have like any? Is there any narrative impact? Like there's a reason why this stuff's increasing versus this other thing? Or is it just now that the adventure is over? We have time to reflect and now we've got extra abilities, extra skills?
Stef Midlock 51:51
Yeah, I think I think that's advancement is tied to the fellowship phase. So we talked about the two phases of this game that alternate, the the adventure, Fae, adventuring, phase three out in the world doing stuff, and then the fellowship phase, which is a more introspective phase, you're resting in a safe haven or something. And you're, yeah, kind of thinking about what has just happened and telling your story. So the fellowship phase, you know, you it's sort of, in a way, I mean, it's not mechanical, I don't think, but you can kind of choose your advancements based on what you just did in your adventure. And because and because it happens, like, you know, two or three sessions, and then a fellowship, phase two or three sessions you you have, it sort of grows naturally, which I really like. It's not just like, oh, okay, I went back to school and figured this out. It's, I was I was just hanging out with a bunch of rangers. And so I, they taught, they were kind enough to teach me some some tricks with the bow and arrow, and now all of a sudden, so now I'm going to knock up my arrow, my proficiency in arrows, or bows up. And so I think like, yeah, it's really beautifully done that way. In the fellowship face,
James Pierson 53:06
yeah, I don't think yeah, like you said, I don't think it's strictly required. But I think it, it sort of guides you towards using what you just did, to, to guide, you know, like to guide what you're what you're increasing, you know, and also with the valor and wisdom, if you're, we discussed this in the first section, but so valor is sort of your reputation in the world. And wisdom is the sort of knowledge that you gained through your experiences, you can kind of look and say, Okay, well, in these last sessions, we saved a town and we became the heroes of this town, I'm gonna increase my value, it makes sense to do that. Or, you know, you know, wisdom, like, you know, we learned some, some key lore, and now I have a better understanding of the history of Middle Earth, I'm gonna raise my wisdom, it, you know, done right, I think it all flows out of what we were just doing.
Amelia Antrim 53:53
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah.
Ryan Boelter 53:55
I know, one of the examples is we went through a dungeon and now we know more about sailing.
Amelia Antrim 54:01
So when I always hate when games like you level up, and it's like, it has nothing to do with, you know, with the, like, Okay, I spent a lot of time in in a cave and sailing skill
Ryan Boelter 54:14
up here, right? Like I can, I can justify it if you're if you're leveling up during the fellowship phase, you're like, I just spent the last like five weeks in a dungeon. I want to learn about something that's the exact opposite of a dungeon to kind of cleanse my palate. So I learned about sailing during this time.
Amelia Antrim 54:34
book about wide open spaces.
Ryan Boelter 54:39
Exactly. So yeah. So you could just by the numbers, so I want to increase my hunting just because even though we didn't do any hunting, but maybe it'll be good down the line. Because, you know, you're, I mean, you're hunting while you're traveling. You're doing all this stuff. So yeah, it makes sense that you'll just pick up on things here and there.
Amelia Antrim 55:00
I also feel like looking at these skills that like, I can't imagine that there are very many of them that like, you wouldn't have reason to level up. Like, I feel like when I think about the things that you would do in a game, there aren't a lot of them that like, would not be applicable. Very
Ryan Boelter 55:19
specific. Right.
Unknown Speaker 55:20
Right, right. Yeah,
James Pierson 55:22
I don't think there's even a sailing skill on here. No, no,
Ryan Boelter 55:25
there's not I checked before I said that.
Stef Midlock 55:30
You know, add character creation, you have yet to go through an adventuring phase in which you have to do a journey. And so I think like you, unless you've read the whole book, like as a player, which I don't always do, when I'm curating a character, I have no idea what's in store for me. And so I think those first fellowship phases where you those first few times, where you're adding some points in to sort of make it so you can make it through a journey and it not take 20 days, right to get a little hex on a map. I think that's, I think that of course, comes with experience. Yes. But yeah,
James Pierson 56:05
well, and also, you know, the fellowship phase has in the book, the fellowship phase has a minimum duration, it has to be at least a week that your characters are resting, it has no maximum duration. So it could even be, you know, we returned to the Shire after our adventure. And for the next year, I trained myself on the sword, because just the next time we're going out in the world, I need to be better with the sword, you know, so depending on what the GM says to them, you know, you could even just do it that
Stef Midlock 56:31
way. And that when you think about if you're playing a company of elves, like, you know, you can take 20 years to become a really good sailor that is an eye blink to an L 1000s. You know what I mean? Like, so that really changes things a lot. And you can I feel like you could really, you know, while you whilst you may not have like the points for it, you can, you can also save points to that's the other important thing, like, you don't have to spend them all and so and so then if you do take like a big longer break, and you really want to upgrade, you can do a big one. Yeah, I think that would be really neat to reexamine someone, you know, or even like a company like ours, that's very mixed, right? We have a human, we have a hobbit, those are going to live a certain amount of time. We have a dwarf who's going to live a little longer, but then we have an elf, like what is like, we come back, right. And my and like, Amelia and I are like, elderly. And you and Ryan is still in the spring of you know, of Laura Lynn's life. Like, how would that change? You know, the status? Yeah, what a what a wonderful thing to think about, like, that would be so
Amelia Antrim 57:40
cool. I
Ryan Boelter 57:41
could easily see a campaign of this being like one character is an elf, and then it's multigenerational for the other characters. Yeah. Like, yeah, like you play different people throughout this one else life. And you're skipping 2030 years, but I just got but then the fellowship points are like, Okay, I've got the RV got three adventure three skill points to divide, but that's going to the next character.
James Pierson 58:12
Well, yeah, and this is that's actually like, so in that interview that we watched with Francesco no patella, one of the things that he did specifically call out is that the game is intended is intended to be generational. And there's a mechanic that's part of advancement, which so you have your normal fellowship phase. And then once a year, you have what's called the Yule fellowship phase, which is essentially Christmas. There are certain things that you can only do during the UIL fellowship phase. It's meant to be like a big milestone, you know, I would think it would be something that you would do at the end of a campaign rather than at the end of just an adventuring session. And one of the things that you do during your is, is an undertaking cold raising and air, where you literally spend your points to create a pool of points that you use to create to give to views to generate the next character. Oh, that's really cool. And like if your character dies, without having raised an heir, the book tells you okay, well roll up a new character. But if you die after raising an heir, then you just seamlessly pick up as your your air character. So it's like Bilbo. And Frodo, you know, below, raised Frodo as his heir. And Frodo is there for the journey after he after Bilbo retires.
Unknown Speaker 59:26
All right, like that. That's really cool. Absolutely, really on
Stef Midlock 59:30
that. And that's a great example of using it like a first edition character. No more or even like, yes, setting your game farther in the past and then bringing them forward. That's, I just think that's lovely. And very fascinating. Yeah.
Amelia Antrim 59:43
Oh, that's so neat. Yeah, that would be really fun.
Ryan Boelter 59:46
150 years past the start date, Frodo still hasn't taken the rain because he lost it.
Stef Midlock 59:54
Oops. Right, exactly. Sitting down somewhere. Nobody
Ryan Boelter 1:00:00
knows where it is. Keep your secret. Keep it safe. It's a little too safe. Gandalf. I don't know where
Unknown Speaker 1:00:06
it is. Oh,
Ryan Boelter 1:00:13
well, is there anything else that we want to say before we close off? This is this was a lot of fun.
Stef Midlock 1:00:21
This was great. It was so fun. You know, we've played this game a lot. But going back in and really getting into like, Why? Why? I just really liked it, your show asks us to look just beyond the numbers and like really looking at like, why the character sheet is set up that way? And what are they thinking about? And how does that actually relate to the game? I think, I think because we've said a few times now like the writers were so intentional with everything in this game. It's all about world building. I think like when you really focus on the character creation part of it, like it launches you directly into Tolkien's world, which is like, the best thing in the whole. It's the best. It's great. Yeah, it's such a fascinating game. I hope everyone plays it.
Amelia Antrim 1:01:05
I really want to play it at some point.
James Pierson 1:01:07
I know, we were a little critical of the character creation process being maybe a little bit too on rails or not sort of giving us the flexibility. I do want to say this is a lovely game. Like this is such like when you actually get to the playing of this game. It is such a lovely, interesting, deeply Tolkien like game that it's it's wonderful. I love this game.
Ryan Boelter 1:01:27
Yeah, I am so much wanting to play this game, or these characters. I love them and want to see their shenanigans. Ya
Amelia Antrim 1:01:38
know, like I said, when I when I first read through it, too, it's like you can tell that it's very lovingly crafted that it is you know that it comes from someone who cares very deeply about this. It's not just like, oh, media tie in. Hurray. You know, like, there's a lot of thought put into it. So
Ryan Boelter 1:01:54
that's very cool. Well, Stephen James, thank you both so much for joining us to talk about the wondering.
Stef Midlock 1:02:01
Oh, thank you for having us. Thank you so much. This has been awesome. You guys are the best.
Amelia Antrim 1:02:12
In so long, because we've been gone and done anything or gone to any convention. So it was nice to catch up. Oh, it
Ryan Boelter 1:02:19
was great. Well, can you to remind everyone where they can find you online and what sorts of things you have going on?
Unknown Speaker 1:02:24
Sure.
Stef Midlock 1:02:25
So again, I've been Stephanie midblock. And you can find me on the ather best podcast with my co host, Jude vase. We are on the web@podcast.afterbirth.com and you can find us on Twitter and Instagram at afterbirth underscore cast. And you can find me at the North for on Twitter and Instagram and Judas arithmetic Jude. So if you want to learn any more about talking, we try to break things down and make it fun and silly and like a little raunchy. And, you know, it's, it's a lot, but it's it's a fun show. So we invite all of you to come and take a listen.
Ryan Boelter 1:03:00
It's a very fascinating podcast I really like. Yeah,
Stef Midlock 1:03:04
thank you.
James Pierson 1:03:06
And, James, what about you? I'm thanks. And I'm James Pearson. I can be found editing the afterbirth podcast. And if you stay tuned in October, I think we should be releasing the third and final part of our Hobbit wean the One Ring actual play adventure as a bonus episode on the afterbirth pocket. I can be found on twitter at J. Pearson And keep an eye on that space for possibly some other RPG projects in the future. Very cool. Thank
Amelia Antrim 1:03:35
you both again for sitting down with us and thank you everyone for tuning in. Call to yeah like that. First of all, I'm really glad that we got to have Stefan James on I love them. They're wonderful people normally they are part of my convention experience. Yes. And so I've really missed them over the last couple of years. So it's been it's been a bummer to like not see people Yeah, it was good to catch up obviously like I we're all in that boat but it was very nice to catch up with people that I've I've missed a lot and so I'm really glad that they could they could take the time to do this and like the timing was perfect with the show one
Ryan Boelter 1:04:18
absolutely yeah, I really liked that this came out at the same time as the the new Lord of the Rings series, the Rings of Power. I'm enjoying the show and it's it is really interesting seeing kind of like the similarities between all the different character types that you're seeing in the show and like what you can play in the game itself.
Amelia Antrim 1:04:41
Yeah, after having just gone through and like made characters and everything. It's very interesting like watching the show jumping like okay, yeah, I see where you're coming from.
Ryan Boelter 1:04:49
You can tell that that a really good game system that actually did capture
Amelia Antrim 1:04:56
a ride that you really got that feel a feeling.
Ryan Boelter 1:04:59
Yeah, Exactly so I thought that was really cool. And then like, it's making me also want like a, you know, whatever again Delve and company are as playable characters, but I think that might be a little too Opie. Yeah, so I assume that's why that's not an option. But you know, give me give me those stats. Yeah,
Amelia Antrim 1:05:25
I'm enjoying it because I've been watching it with the kids. Cuz Dawn Friday nights and yeah, Nate is now in middle school and that is when I read Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. So like he's at about the same age that I was at. And so this is one of my favorite things about parenting generally is just like sharing the things that I love, like taking my kids to see Star Wars kind of stuff. So I've been enjoying that. I think he's like, not quite as like, into it as I am by
Ryan Boelter 1:05:53
usually the case and you can't push them because goodness then like, the
Amelia Antrim 1:05:58
more you the more they're like.
Ryan Boelter 1:06:01
Force a nerd. Right.
Amelia Antrim 1:06:05
Right. I will say for people who have listened to the series now and really enjoyed these episodes, I do know that over on Athabasca they just finished recording their third segment of their hub between episodes they do every October. So there, there are episodes in their feed from the last two years, and then they will have one for this year as well that I know, James rents the game for a group of a group of friends. So if you want to hear the game played, you can certainly head over to the aftermath feed and hear some of them.
Ryan Boelter 1:06:43
Absolutely. Ah, so good. And stay for the amazing, like deep dives into the Lord of the Rings lore, which is just so fascinating, like the different facets of everything that you don't get just by reading the main books or watching you know, the the series or the the movies or anything like that.
Amelia Antrim 1:07:07
It's definitely one of those like, Oh, these are people that have had like a lot of time to think about this. You know, it's like we all have our thing. And like, that's, you know, is the thing I loved about making garbage the five rings to is just like I love people unapologetically be into things. And that's that's what they're doing over there. It's great. It's great
Ryan Boelter 1:07:26
slowly. Yeah. Well, having said all of that, before we let you go for the week, we do have some calls to action. First up our review, Ben is still pretty empty at the moment. But we would love to hear what you think about the show. We do see reviews from all countries on Apple podcasts. So no worries about us not catching it. You can also leave reviews on podcast addict if you're on Android, or pod chaser for pretty much any device with a browser. You can also leave a rating on Spotify. If you listen to us on Spotify. I think that's like all the places that really matter. You
Amelia Antrim 1:08:10
have our Facebook page. So if you wanted to leave a review on Facebook, you certainly could to
Ryan Boelter 1:08:16
anybody really looks at those.
Amelia Antrim 1:08:17
Not my favorite place. But if you put one there we will read it.
Ryan Boelter 1:08:21
We will definitely read it if you put one there absolutely. Every review does help us out. And regardless of whether or not it helps us out algorithmically it really makes our day whenever we come across Yeah, the letter
Amelia Antrim 1:08:38
Wisconsin in its fall now so we're gonna we're gonna need that heartwarming people. Yeah, exactly is what do you think of the podcasters
Ryan Boelter 1:08:49
for one review, ever hurts
Amelia Antrim 1:08:57
the price of just one star a day.
Ryan Boelter 1:09:02
Five stars, five stars or five stars.
Amelia Antrim 1:09:06
Former podcast guest on Character Creation Cast and person who is also my son Nathan started middle school this month and is already working on his first fundraiser because, gosh darn it, do we not fund our public schools here? No. His music department is raising funds to buy new instruments. They want to give students scholarships for music summer camps, which I think is really cool. They would like to fund some field trips this year and possibly even get T shirts for everybody. They are selling some cookie dough Christmas wrapping paper, weird random Christmas decor and honestly all kinds of other random stuff that you would find in a middle school fundraiser look like we've all been there. The sale is going on through September 26 that you can shop online and have it shipped to you if you want And I made him a little bit ly link with his gamertag. So you can find Nate's fundraiser if you would like to support his weird wrapping paper, cookie sale at BIT dot L y slash badger fish seven.
Ryan Boelter 1:10:16
There you go. In other news, I just finished editing a couple of episodes of a new bonus actual play that is coming to the One Shot network secret archive sometime very soon. It might actually already be there. It's not there as of the time of this recording. But James D'Amato let me edit these episodes and throw some beautiful synth music into the actual play portion of the show. That choice of music will make sense once you know what the show is all about. But I don't know exactly what details James is throwing out there. So I'm being as vague as possible right now.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:58
Super secret podcast time. Yeah.
Ryan Boelter 1:11:00
But if you are a fan of campaign sky, Jax, this does have a very similar energy to it. And my sides were splitting while editing this was just lost it as somebody
Unknown Speaker 1:11:16
sunk.
Ryan Boelter 1:11:18
But definitely keep an eye out for that. If you do have an extra $5 to spare. For the one shot network Patreon at patreon.com/bunchof podcast, you'll get all of these episodes. And if you like what you hear, please tell James and company that you'd liked it. Because then I can potentially, you know, edit more episodes in the future.
Amelia Antrim 1:11:42
You did like way too much equivocating on that. Everyone. If you listen to the episodes, and you like what you hear, please tell James so that he can hire Ryan again. And yeah, I can do more of a great job and he can get paid money to do things that are fun for him.
Ryan Boelter 1:11:57
Exactly. And then I can, you know, support my family and, and Christmas is coming up. It's nice. Exactly. So thank you, for everybody that does listen, and, you know, thank you for telling James that you liked it.
Amelia Antrim 1:12:15
Other ways that you can help us out. We are in need of some more listeners to help out if you're able to by backing us on Patreon. Coming soon to our side quest patron levels and above, or it might be in the feed already, by the time this episode actually comes out will be a fun actual play that Ryan and I did of the game a summer break. There will also be early release episodes with just the episode content whenever those are edited. As soon as Ryan gets them done, he throws them in there. Great. You also get bonus outtakes for every series at all of the levels, including the $1 level, and maybe even special patient only events at certain times throughout the year at certain levels. So please absolutely check out check out the Patreon at patreon.com/character creation cast if you have the ability to spare a little bit towards helping us afford making this show for all of you. One of the additional perks though, is we will thank you personally, right here and our calls to action. And we'd love to add more names to this list because you're all amazing and we would really love the opportunity to just say all of your names. Absolutely. We will start as always, Lieutenant. Thank you so much.
Ryan Boelter 1:13:34
David aka Tyrannosaurus thanks.
Amelia Antrim 1:13:37
Thank you so much to you Eric bots.
Ryan Boelter 1:13:41
Matt Newton you rock I think you
Amelia Antrim 1:13:44
should him cabal you also rock Thank you.
Ryan Boelter 1:13:49
Many thanks to Daryl Holliday the second
Amelia Antrim 1:13:53
be shyest barbarian we appreciate your support and all of your interaction on our Discord. Honestly, you are like one of the most active people in there so much fun. Talking to you.
Ryan Boelter 1:14:04
Thank you, Benjamin Sweeney. I am gonna say you also rock. Thank you.
Amelia Antrim 1:14:10
We appreciate your support lurking McGinnis. Thank you,
Ryan Boelter 1:14:13
Rob Fletcher thinks,
Amelia Antrim 1:14:16
and thank you to you, Kevin Brown, and thank you
Ryan Boelter 1:14:19
to all of our future patrons. We wouldn't be able to make this show as easily without your assistance. And we truly appreciate your generosity.
Amelia Antrim 1:14:28
We absolutely do. i We have so much more cool stuff that we want to do with this show. So I'm looking forward to everything that we can do with all of your support. Absolutely. That is all we have for today's episode. Next week. We have the week off maybe eventually, someday whatever we won't have a week off. That'd be that'd be fun. But we will be back in October with a delightfully spooky game that I'm very excited for. Until then, stay safe everyone drink some water, relax your shoulders. Take some deep breaths and keep making those amazing people. We'll see you next time.
Ryan Boelter 1:15:27
Character Creation Cast is a production of the oneshot Podcast Network and can be found online at www dot character creation cast.com until 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 dot character creation cast.com. I one of your hosts Ryan boelter and I can be found on twitter at Lord Neptune or online at Lord neptune.com or other hosts Amelia Antrim can be found on twitter at ginger recommend. Music for this episode is used with a Creative Commons license, or with permission from the podcast they returned either from further information can be found within the shownotes our main theme music is hero remixed by Steve combs and is used with a Creative Commons license. This podcast is owned by us under Creative Commons. This episode was edited by Ryan boelter. Further information for the game systems use and today's guests can also be found in the shownotes. If you'd like to support our show, find us on Patreon. Get access to bonus episode, extra outtakes and much more at patreon.com/character creation cast. Thanks for joining us. And remember, we find the best part of any role playing game is character creation. So go out there and create some amazing people. We'll see you next time. Now we got to
Unknown Speaker 1:17:13
read some show blurbs show blurbs show show show blurbs.
Ryan Boelter 1:17:20
Character Creation Cast is hosted by the oneshot Podcast Network. If you enjoyed our show, visit one shot podcast.com where you will find other great shows like Sky Jack's careers call
Amelia Antrim 1:17:34
and all ages fantasy actual play podcast set in the world of sphere. Sky Jack's careers call follows three teens as they set out as new apprentices aboard an airship with the Swift well courier service, bringing mail and adventure across the world featuring drew MERS yassky Palumbi Pratap Aaron Caetano saya is an ally Grauer and using the cortex prime system this show is perfect for anyone just getting started in listening to actual plays or veterans of the tabletop genre like join clever but anxious Kieran bold fast talking CC and loyal strong June aboard the red adran ship as they sort and deliver mail encounter powerful magic and learn the proper skill of an airliner along the way, right wrongs do Mercy's and take flight now live? Yeah,
Ryan Boelter 1:18:27
all right. waveforms are waving. Looks good. All right. Perfect.
James Pierson 1:18:35
stuff do you want to go over the ones that are in the book?
Unknown Speaker 1:18:38
Ah, no,
Stef Midlock 1:18:39
you you go with the ones I'm just scrolling to the bottom scrolling so sorry.
Ryan Boelter 1:18:50
I had a child intrusion
Stef Midlock 1:18:55
okay, they want to come to die. No. Come on the adventure.
Ryan Boelter 1:19:01
All right, we can we can stop our stopper devices that are recording these these things.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:08
Okay, I'm gonna press up. He nailed it. Got it?
Ryan Boelter 1:19:14
I think I was. I think it was a little too late and releasing.
Amelia Antrim 1:19:17
You messed it up. You run the whole thing. Fine. I'll fix it. Forever. Forget it. We quit the podcast. No.
Ryan Boelter 1:19:25
Failed. My mission. There we go.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:30
We did it. Yeah.
Stef Midlock 1:19:34
That was so cool. So it made a thing. This was the best. Thank you so much. Yeah,
James Pierson 1:19:39
thank you.
Stef Midlock 1:19:41
Oh, do you should we stop the recording now?
Unknown Speaker 1:19:45
Yes. Okay. Okay.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai