[SPEAKER_01]: Hello and welcome to Table Talk, a show where I chat with other creators in the TTRPG space about how they run their tables.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Danger Dancers, the GM and host of D&D Arc, and joining us at the table today is an actor, editor, film enthusiast and player in the monster of the week podcast, Audity Road Show, Shannon Strucci.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, hello.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for having me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for being here to get us started.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your history with the TTRPG community and of course about Auditi Rocho?
[SPEAKER_02]: Totally.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am a professional video editor.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's like what I do for money.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would like to continue doing it, but I used to do video essays, so unlike film theory, film history, and I also used to cut short comedy films for this old, like there used to be in Atlanta, a sketch comedy competition
[SPEAKER_02]: and it was run by three guys and one of them was this guy Joel Ruiz and we became friends and then in 2018 he started an actual play podcast called Critical Bits.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was using masks which is like a power by the apocalypse team superhero system and he put a lot of like
[SPEAKER_02]: political ideas and body horror into it on top of masks, which is doesn't really have that as much and Joel and I became much better friends over time, and Audit Road Show is another show of his that started a two or three years ago when he put me on that as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: Through my video essay work, I used to panel like before I had a full-time job, I paneled a ton of conventions, so I've done some tabletop live shows with authors and dragons, critical bits and 90 road shows, so I've done live actual play performance, which is really fun, and I've done these two shows with Joel, which are both like long running heavily edited.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I mean, there are comedy shows, but they're also like more serious, and there's emotional investment, and I've done a lot of random guest spots on streams.
[SPEAKER_02]: We used to do a lot of charity streams like I helped rent stuff for like make a wish or covenant house Georgia we would do table tops up on that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had played D&D before, but I only really started getting in a tabletop around 2017 with a like a off-lying Dungeons & Dragons campaign that I really enjoyed, but I got into actual play mostly because of Joel, or entirely because of Joel, and then a transition that into something like voice acting work and have just really, really super enjoyed it, and I hadn't really, like I knew I could be a funny editor, but I didn't necessarily consider myself like funny and conversation or funny on mic, and he really believed to me and encouraged me, and I've gotten way better at that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like I've had people cosplay my characters or like write fan fiction or get.
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't have like a huge audience, but we have a very committed audience, which is really awesome, and I never want to take that for granted.
[SPEAKER_02]: Which is interesting, because my video I say work, the thing that I spend the most time on and then most known for was a series on how terrible parasocial relationships are.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, yeah, which is I mean it's fine if it's like with a fictional character not necessarily focused on me Yeah, like getting a vest in the character is fine, but I tried to like have at least somewhat of a barrier there That's like a daily struggle with this this kind of thing and oddity roadshow is the muster of the week series set in the American south So it's like Southern Gothic dark comedy body horror these
[SPEAKER_02]: like young adults graduate college and go on a road trip in a magic van and are kind of discovering themselves and I play like kind of an unhinged gay con man with the beginning of the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to deal with the demon and has six months to live and it's like developing his character arc has been super fun and like trying to give him a fit like spoilers like a face turn and trying to make him a good person and dealing with backsliding has been like super rewarding and the fans seem to enjoy it so it's been a really cool
[SPEAKER_02]: really cool process.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, I love editing, but this has been such a good creative outlet for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because editing is creative, but a lot of what I do is more corporate.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is like super fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's it's a great medium to explore creativity and and like you're saying about how it's really useful for opening yourself up and giving you practice and becoming sharper, quicker, funnier.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the concept of your character, especially for a monster of the week show.
[SPEAKER_01]: It fits that sub genre and niche very, very well.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to pick your brain a little bit about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you go into a little bit more detail about, as much as you are willing to, you don't necessarily have to spoil any major story beats, but your process in developing that, your mindset and how you've approached the character and if it's changed over time.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's been super fun and a lot of stuff for it's like, I could talk about it forever.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if fans of the show, I don't know if things still be interested.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I've always really liked trickster characters, Conmin, characters.
[SPEAKER_02]: Better call Saul is one of my favorite TV shows.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love Reagan from Mob Psycho 100, Incredible Character, very fun and Lupon III.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been a Lupon fan for like 20 something years.
[SPEAKER_02]: The specifically loop on in the movie, Mystery of Mama, was a really big influence on high play, Marlon, my character, over COVID, like over quarantine, I also got really into the music of Will Wood, who is this like, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I mean, I've, uh, my man is my favorite band, and they heavily influence, uh, Will Wood's music, but he, and not saying like, this is like one to one with my character, because I don't experience these things, and I don't want to, like, try to be representing something that I'm not, like, that's not part of my loved
[SPEAKER_02]: From what he said in interviews and in his music, he's either like bipolar, has borling personality disorder and he has a lot of like addiction problems.
[SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of the music is about first like hitting rock bottom and dealing with that and processing it and like am I my actions and my good person and then his more recent album.
[SPEAKER_02]: In case I make it is very much about atoning for that or like figuring it out or being like, hey, I'm only human.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say like, I have my own problems, but my behavior is not a radical.
[SPEAKER_02]: like I'm not a very reactive person.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I wanted to play that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I told Joel, we were developing the character.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like Marlon is someone where if you get a character to like make him angry, he's going to keep their car like immediately.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's going to be extremely reactive to where, because a Kim, the character I played on critical bits, our first show, is much more like me, and just like very level headed, slow to react, hard to get under her skin.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, I want to play the opposite of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And just really have fun with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It makes him so, so petty.
[SPEAKER_02]: and so reactive in a way that I'm not, but also make him tenacious and likely stuns and charming on some level.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's not a totally, especially in something like actual play.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think if I was writing a novel, I would have made him a little bit meaner, or a little bit harder to put in actual play.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I don't think anyone would have like the character played.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like a real-
[SPEAKER_02]: real life calm man and uh something that has been a big part of his arc that can go into a little bit without totally squaring it for people who might want to check out the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it the beginning of the show I had Marlin go off and make phone calls and send a lot of letters and do weird shady things and then I would not explain what he was doing and I think it's episode 31 first watch for the show Evan Brando came on and he was basically a rival con man who um had really hurt
[SPEAKER_02]: like legally filing that he was dead, sending clowns to his mom's funeral, just like doing all of these like really horrible, like weird, I was like Googling revenge plots.
[SPEAKER_02]: And also Evan's character Christian is like, he's more handsome than Marlon, he's more charming.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Marlon just like a fixated on him and hated him.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there was also some like tension between the two characters like unresolved feelings or whatever, Evan does come back on later.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it takes like a really interesting form way that that happens, but it was like,
[SPEAKER_02]: This has been a way for Marlin when he's feeling helpless to feeling control and to just like, well, this guy did this one really bad thing to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I get to keep like kneeling at him forever and being confronted about that like reaping and sewing.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was so fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's one of my favorite episodes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Part of Marlin's impetus is a character as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that someone died as a result of one of his cons.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then he can't really fix it or undo it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he feels guilt about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that also makes him more sympathetic that he's not like a monster.
[SPEAKER_02]: because I talked to Joel and I kind of wanted like a need or redemption arc to that and he's like, no, this bad things happen and it's your fault sometimes and you just have to deal with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, okay, that's really interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's also part of the character.
[SPEAKER_02]: But a lot of it, specifically is uh, well, it's music and Lupon stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's also a book I would highly recommend.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a really interesting woman named Maria Kanakova who, um,
[SPEAKER_02]: She decided she wanted to play a professional poker and learn how to do it and then did well at it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But she also wrote about a book called The Confidence Game, which is about the process of Con artist, of the process of the con.
[SPEAKER_02]: My only complaint, it's like very American, you're a centric and I was really interested about Con artist and other cultures because of course what they do is going to be different.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's a really good book and I listen to the audio book and that was also like learning about the process a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was really interesting to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: and then just trying to give that character like some level of emotional depth and having fun with all of his different like aliases and the other two characters on our show are much more naive and like friendly and playing off of that as like the face but the evil face at the beginning is it's been really fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: it's fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a tricky balancing act.
[SPEAKER_01]: An interesting thing that I've found with actual play as a medium is it's really difficult to effectively pull off subtlety.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where more morally ambiguous characters can be tricky to navigate at the table because a lot of like internalization and subtle character work tends to get lost and buried.
[SPEAKER_01]: And where the line is of how much is too much is really hard to decipher sometimes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Especially if it comes at the expense of the other players, it's fascinating when I can see it done effectively.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I really enjoy seeing more nuanced portrayals that land.
[SPEAKER_01]: it's a struggle that we've gone through a little bit with our own show so for context for the general conceit of season one of our show is it's a five-y actual play where the cast of characters are the classic universal monsters the bar of our party was the phantom of the opera and
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes on a series long redemption arc.
[SPEAKER_01]: Early on, his character was a little more polarizing, but he very quickly became one of our most popular characters.
[SPEAKER_01]: It took about five or six episodes before he started playing him more comedic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let some of the wind be taken out of his sails and became a bit more of a punching bag for the team.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it took buying that goodwill for him to eventually go to the darker, more abusive and manipulative places of the character that he wanted to explore from the outset that was real rough.
[SPEAKER_01]: but is some of the best work that we do within our show and he absolutely has a phenomenal arc.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did also not that long ago in my home game.
[SPEAKER_01]: I played an evil character for Tyranny of Dragons
[SPEAKER_01]: an evil character that is selfishly motivated and at odds with the party was fun to a certain extent.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we had to add about the halfway point of the campaign.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had to kind of stop and recalibrate with the group of like, okay, let's redefine where the line is and how to navigate this so that we're not.
[SPEAKER_01]: at odds with each other anymore, because it is just a really tricky balancing act.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I really commend you for taking on that big of a bite going into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's phenomenal when it works.
[SPEAKER_01]: It can be so tricky to maneuver effectively.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think one thing that helps with Marlin is that he's kind of a loser and falls on his face.
[SPEAKER_01]: But like constantly, there it helps so much.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's less like what you were describing is not as much like goofy slapstick.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's just so angry and it's like a Paul Byron is one of my co-hosts and he plays a chosen and he's like a hymbal.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, so handsome and everybody loves him and he's oblivious to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So of course, Marlin is like seething with jealousy all the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a scene where Marlin sees.
[SPEAKER_02]: like a hundred mere universe versions of himself, and immediately he's angry because they're all more handsome than him, but they look just like him.
[SPEAKER_02]: He just perceives him like that's a prison of his own.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's an unpleasant place to be, and we actually had not the opposite problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I remember a fan saying all the characters were cinnamon rolls.
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, or like one just had less icing or something about Marlin, I was thinking, he's a bad guy at this point.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's not.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, I'm glad he comes
[SPEAKER_02]: It is a hard line to walk because you don't want to put people off and that's really interesting what you said about kind of like buying goodwill by making a little bit sillier and then going into those things and I think the way the way I handled it was making him like really pathetic at times or it's like oh you he's really good at counting people but then you feel actually knowing him he's like a very sad.
[SPEAKER_02]: person and by developing real French is like the very shown an enemy like power of friendship by developing these actual relationships and kind of looking out for these other more native characters and figuring out how to navigate what's happening with him and the rival con man and being like oh I can't just keep trying to ruin this guy's life that's really my friends are like looking at me weird when they find out that I did this like oh no this is I need to stop oh yeah I was more fun fun than anything and I think too it's easy for me because I
[SPEAKER_02]: He had done bad things that had really serious consequences like his best friend at the beginning of the show is essentially a super villain and he just kind of ignored all of the killing and like all of the terrible things but Marlin never I wouldn't say he was necessarily like overtly abusive and a realistic way that would have hit more close to home that would have been harder that like and again if I was like writing a novel or telling a more serious story that something I would be willing to explore but in this it was like no there was definitely a line and I stayed on the other side of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, leaning into shortcomings and inadequacies, I think does so, so much Aaron is the player who was the Phantom.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of where the goodwill he bought came from is that he has the worst dice lock of anybody at the table and he's
[SPEAKER_01]: really, really good at playing into and playing up failure.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that went a long way.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fact that he's funny also buys a ton of goodwill.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's interesting how much I found my audience will forgive characters if they're funny.
[SPEAKER_01]: Probably the single most hated character in the show is Dorian Gray.
[SPEAKER_01]: The actor who plays him is fantastic and hilarious, and all of the above-table banter with him is great.
[SPEAKER_01]: His character is definitely serious and is reviled.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an interesting discussion I've had behind the scenes with some of the cast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bailey, who plays Dorian, hilarious, they love him, they hate his character, which he did a really great job of immediately making himself detestable.
[SPEAKER_01]: And part of it too is similar to what you're going into with Marlon and the rival con man.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a thing that I as a GM have done multiple times as I will bring in a guest specifically to be a foil to one of my party members who is a similar build with better stats.
[SPEAKER_01]: So far, so much fun and so far, it's been a success every time and it always leads to some really great fun dynamics.
[SPEAKER_01]: it's so interesting navigating that space and it's it's something that I'm going to be working on as a player a little bit more.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's some bonus content that we're doing where I am going to make an effort to play a not necessarily evil character, but a character who backs slides into morally reprehensible territory.
[SPEAKER_01]: So navigating that tightrope is something that
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, and I don't fault anyone if they're just looking for more like morally uncomplicated escapism It's never something I'm interested in playing but on critical beds to the superhero show Joel went through these every year He do the special called spider-day
[SPEAKER_02]: was about like the anniversary of a giant spider attacking the town and the super hero is tried to beat it they all got killed and it got killed by a second larger spider is the whole conceit of it and and one or two of the spider days we played the group of villains and I just I was like I'm playing the arsonist who is an arsonist.
[SPEAKER_02]: And my whole thing was that I would just set stuff on fire and like my worst enemy was a firefighter that I like kidnapped and they were like all these and like an actual show along running show that would be terrible.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it would get old really fast, but in like a two hour thing I was just like trying to maximize the humor and just really have fun with it and that was really fun, but it that's like it's also playing to this space that you have to play around and like a one shot is very different.
[SPEAKER_02]: are like not over the tights like everyone in this is going to die.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I might as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't matter if this person's likable.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just let me have fun get some laughs out of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the change in stakes and doing shorter form content changes so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: It gives you a lot more latitude and it makes it more freeing to make those kind of big swings.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another interesting kind of discussion point that we bring up every once in a while when comedy bits come up behind
[SPEAKER_01]: And stuff that's in the back of my mind that I know is in the back of a couple of players minds that we've brought up is is this a joke that can sustain itself for five minutes or five episodes or five seasons and it's interesting what changing formats will give you the leeway to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely, and I think Kudos to Joel who runs the show, like he had like a really, really rough life when he was a kid, but he was also super into like larking and he did stand up for 10 years and just kind of has a really good instinct for like whether it's NPCs or like what we're doing like a jokes.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are some running gags for sure, but a lot of stuff is like, oh, let's just okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: We did that this episode, then we won't do it anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think we throw stuff away faster just because we're more comfortable and confident in what we're doing, which I think comes with experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're like a lot of our guests are like, I've barely done anything improv, but they're very experienced and providers, and it's like all that easier for them to kind of know like, oh, we don't want to drive any of this into the ground and try to come up with new things.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like at the beginning of the show, too, Marlin had
[SPEAKER_02]: And Jamie is the other main character, she's like a horse girl who's like very naive and she gets possessed by essentially this like creature that looks like a castle where you like a really scary bird so for a while I would have Marlin freak out every time she transformed but I just kind of I don't know if it's like a plot hole I was like this isn't working like it's kind of fun at the beginning but then I was like he doesn't really need to be scared every time or he would get over it so I just like intentionally dropped it
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's one of the benefits with my show is that there are pros and cons who being both the GM and editor of the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a recipe for burnout, but on the plus side of it, because I am also editing the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, as a GM, can clock into really quickly what is working and what isn't working because I'm exposed to it over and over again.
[SPEAKER_01]: And since I'm the one putting it together, I've got a little bit more freedom and latitude to be able to pick and choose and be able to clock and let people know in the moment of like,
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I think we need to approach this differently.
[SPEAKER_01]: We should drop this or he going, I don't tend to edit in real time very often.
[SPEAKER_01]: My group has very good instincts.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm very, very happy with a lot of where they tend to take the stories and it's very rare that I will intervene.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that is one of the prospective things that I get as being editor of the show that helps out a lot with that kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, absolutely, doing this with time, we've gotten better and better at it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've gotten sharper with our improv skills.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we do much more situational comedy than anything else.
[SPEAKER_01]: Running jokes tend to be very organic when they pop up.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't usually outset with jokes in mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if we do, those tend to be the ones that don't work.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: In retrospect, you're like, oh, we shouldn't have done that.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're trying to force it, it tends to fall on its face.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's usually the stuff that comes up in the moment that tends to get a lot more mileage.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if that's just our own personal shortcomings or if that's part of the medium.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I do think the organic nature of stuff that happens in the moment, definitely has that more genuine feel.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's a big part of why some things work and others are less effective.
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, I do want to circle back around to Audity Roadshow.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one of the other aspects that I want to pick your brain about, both because it's interesting and also some selfish reasons.
[SPEAKER_01]: Since your show takes place in a fictionalized version of the United States,
[SPEAKER_01]: How does drawing on the real world locations of the American South influence the show and how is your perspective on those places changed by proxy of doing the show and blending that realism with the more fantastical elements?
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm from Georgia and Joel who is the GM is from Chad Nuga.
[SPEAKER_02]: Joel and I, I think our families are like Southern.
[SPEAKER_02]: So like my childhood vacation spots made it into the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: All of the road trip stops were not planned out ahead of time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure Joel had like certain things planned out, but
[SPEAKER_02]: early on, especially we would finish an arc and then he'd be like, okay, here's a list.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of you would choose where to go based on that or pitch things.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there were just like really, really weird places that I don't know if I really still were weird when I was going there as a kid.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like in one of the Carolinas, there's a theme park called Santa's Land.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's like Christmas themed.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that would I would go like in the early 2000s, like 90s or like 2000s.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was super rundown and creepy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like the animatronics were really creepy and there's a zoo where it's like I'm sure it's not the best like the animals are not taking care of the way that they could be And I had an experience where I was like 10 or 12 eating a Sunday and they were feeding the baby bears and one like grab my hand and shoved it and it's mouth It's like like the ice cream off and I'll everybody freaked out but it was fine because it was just a bit like the
[SPEAKER_02]: is weird memories and like this is such an interesting place.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's also a big scene from Ireland in this place called Babyland General, which is in North Georgia that I also grew up going to, which is a cabbage patch doll.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, there's a tree in it where they're burst out of the, this big tree.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like,
[SPEAKER_02]: It's 100% real.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very weird.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we've played a little bit with, like, aspects of Southern culture, like, weird evangelical stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some southern cultural tropes, although Marlin in honor of Maria Conacova, who's book, I love so much the confidence game I made him Russian.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I didn't have him be culturally southern.
[SPEAKER_02]: which it'd be fun to explore in the future, you know, but he's still like grew up like in in the south and like playing on that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or we set the first start in Dalton, Georgia, which has like carpet factories and Joe came up with this thing where they're like evil worms in the carpet factory that are eating people or whatever and people get possessed by worms as they do.
[SPEAKER_02]: As they do, and Dalton is just, that's how it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: Joel had this character, his friend Claudia might have come up with him.
[SPEAKER_02]: We called him the Folg, which stands for Fucked Up Lil' Guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he was essentially a trucker who had been done every kind of drug and been cursed by all sorts of different creatures toward they canceled out, and he was like,
[SPEAKER_02]: basically a mortal so Joel played this like very kind of like manic weird character who marlin it he ends up getting the follow's hand so he'll be like periodically possessed by the follow and he also kind of looks like the old serial mascot that looked really crazy the like the honeycomb the honeycomb creature whatever the hell the honeycomb thing was
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's like a evil Southern trucker man, I think for my perspective, like I said, I don't have a ton of an accent and I work in like film stuff which is not that related to how I grew up, but like my family's like very, very Southern angels Southern accent is very authentic and like the cultural pools are very authentic because we're like
[SPEAKER_02]: we're from here and all this like live in Atlanta as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, uh, that's it was very fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know how much it's changed my perspective on these spots because I had such a history with them.
[SPEAKER_02]: But your question reminded me of on critical bits, um, or first show corn dogs became like a really big plot point.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there was like the daycare was like the evil organization putting something in the corn dogs.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we had a lot of European listeners who were like, what's a corn dog?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, whoa.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't really, I thought, like, everybody knew what a corn dog was, but no, so we would like explain it or like people would are like sonic was a big part of it, sonic drive them and people being like, what that's real.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought that was just in the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was interesting because those things I didn't think were that weird the way that I think like baby land general or sandals land are.
[SPEAKER_02]: So getting an a perspective from outside of my culture on critical bits in particular, but that that was fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was that was really cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whereas in ID road show, the things are kind of like self evidently weird.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's, it's so interesting what you take for granted as like a region specific staple.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got family that live kind of all throughout the country, mostly in either the North East or the Southwest.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really interesting anytime that we are meeting up, either we are going to them or they're going to us and trying to figure out like, okay, what are the little things?
[SPEAKER_01]: For example, I live in California.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a thing that took me by surprise the first time that I went to the east, but that I've clocked now since, as I tried to pay attention to, what is the architecture like in any given area?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because that's one of the big differences when I went to go visit my sister in Chicago recently, I brought my partner with me and she was surprised that everything was brick.
[SPEAKER_01]: In California, we've got everything is, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: more or less Stockholm, and everything is built specifically to withstand earthquakes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So stuff that is meant to withstand wind and water is always a little fascinating to us because we live in a part of California that is not desert but desert adjacent and she grew up in the desert.
[SPEAKER_01]: So completely different types of weather considerations, a lot of regional chains,
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember I win visiting my sister in Chicago for the first time, wanted to stop at a culverse because we don't have that over here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Frozen Custer isn't really a thing in the Southwest.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love Frozen Custer.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was a big important thing and like getting that in cheese curds.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's also non-existent where we are.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's really interesting what stays the same and what changes from place to place.
[SPEAKER_01]: And another thing that we take for granted is we call the freeways and highways by different things.
[SPEAKER_01]: We refer to all of our highways as the blank freeway, the 91 freeway, the 10, the 101.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was a thing that threw me was the difference between that and interstate number.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we are going to I-90, 70, etc.
[SPEAKER_02]: One time, I was, I was panelling at a convention in, like, Baltimore.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was, like, lunchtime and we were getting pre-lunched there, and there were sandwiches, and they were asking if I wanted, like, white bread or wheat bread or potato bread.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said, oh, I like the potato bread, please.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was like, whoa, potato bread, you're not from here.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, I didn't even realize I said that in a way that was like,
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm really aware that because I didn't say potato, I said potato, like just, uh, something like was sonic in critical bits, and um, I did a road show the big like reveal confrontation episode between Marlon and the other con man.
[SPEAKER_02]: we ended up setting it at first watch, which is like a breakfast chain that might be local to the southeast.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't.
[SPEAKER_02]: So like waffle houses obviously like much more known now and very beloved by like Southerners and it's kind of a meme.
[SPEAKER_02]: First watch is definitely more upscale and it just became sort of an end joke and then the episode got titled first watch and then people were like, oh my gosh, I went to first watch from a lot of your roadshow, which is funny because I really like first watch, but it's not like culturally significant to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: It just has like a good
[SPEAKER_02]: like many like the juices are good and we ended up a lot of the episode being like oh yeah the juices are really good here they have so many different types of bacon is like a running joke and then fans uh like that but that one like I said that one is funny especially because it's not like the way I grew up going to waffle house and it's like kind of an equalizer because it's like affordable it's open all the time and I had multiple family members who worked there who had these crazy stories because like a lot of the times waffles would pay in cash so a lot of people who worked there had like I think
[SPEAKER_02]: Or it's first watch, which just like it just became an end joke just in that episode.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or like we mentioned it a little bit, like in the episode where Evan comes back, it comes up a couple times as a joke, but that's another one where it's like we didn't talk about it for a long time.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's funny how those things, how meaning gets attached to things and it's not always in proportion to how much you personally love it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just what's funnier, what works for the characters in the moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's fascinating to see how that kind of stuff changes with context.
[SPEAKER_01]: So using that as a jumping off point of transition to my next question,
[SPEAKER_01]: from your experience doing Audity Road Show and interacting with your fans and in the various capacities that you've played in the TTRPG space, how has this show re-contextualized TTRPGs for you as a whole?
[SPEAKER_01]: And are there any lessons that you've learned
[SPEAKER_01]: from Audity Road Show that you've taken with you into other TTRPG projects, or even beyond the TTRPG space, is there anything that you've learned from the show that you've brought into, like your editing work or other acting endeavors in the like.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I mean the biggest leap up for me was doing critical bits because I had been on Mike a lot as doing voiceover for video essays and being interviewed on podcasts but specifically to talk about video essay topics or to talk about like film theory, horror theory, these sorts of things.
[SPEAKER_02]: And critical bedsters like, oh, acting might be fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had never, I had acted a little bit in short films.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, oh, this might be fun for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then Audity Roach show was like, oh, I can actually really work at this and get a much bigger emotional range out of myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it made me more confident in my acting ability.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, simultaneously with working on Audit Roadshow, I took like a 101 improv class to try to stretch my abilities or whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: When weakness of mine that I have gotten better at is like I said, I'm a pretty like level headed reserve person.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm not like naturally wacky, our spontaneous or like super like if I'm put on the spot.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really hard for me to come up with like a joke, just like that, just like any kind of like wacky goofy like vulnerable silly improv.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't enjoy it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of like scary for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: So like that was my way taking that class.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was trying to come out of my comfort zone.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm still bad at those.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've gotten better, but I'm still bad at like being that kind of like silly vulnerability, but in that class, it was so interesting to me that like any moment that was more character story motivated.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was a lot better than some of the other people there, just because I had so much experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I can immediately get into character and do these things.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like, if I have this logic to base it on, I feel like I'm not just okay at it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I'm pretty good at it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I have so much experience playing these different characters.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I made it a little more comfortable for me, but then I was like, yeah, I hate just straight and pro.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would hate doing this on stage.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or what I have to be like, oh, make up a joke about a lemon.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, everyone's saying all the good ones I'm like, in my own head.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like, when you're at the table,
[SPEAKER_02]: You can pause for a second and that can be edited out or you can try something and if it doesn't work you can redo it or like when I'm doing a live TTRPG show I can be entertaining there, but it's like it's because of the character or what I love to do on the authors and dragons show it's John Hardness would just kind of put me on we were when we were at the same cons even though I'm not an author.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I would always play like a circle of sports druid because I would be like a normal druid for the first 30 or 45 minutes and then be like this disgusting like fungal creature and audience would freak out and it's like you'd only know if you knew and then that like that was really fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think audio rocho has pushed me a little bit both to be more comfortable being emotional on mic.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I've gotten some good.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was stuff with my character and critical bits that fans said they like cried at which was cool, but it wasn't really necessarily me it was more the situation and I think I've gotten a lot stronger at that and we do follow the rules of monster the week, but we got a lot of complaints on critical bits that we didn't follow the rules of masks exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's like what we're trying to tell a story.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know if it's necessarily influenced how you get the mechanics of TTRPG at all, but I think it's helped me get more comfortable in my performance.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I have an off-mic game with my friends where I play like a Colombo rogue and do a clumbo impression.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I would not have been able to do that like five or six years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would have been like, oh, it's embarrassing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now I just have fun with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's fantastic.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I get exactly what you're saying about the, like, particular nature for the rules.
[SPEAKER_01]: I specifically say in our introduction that we are loosely based on whatever system we are running, just because we do incorporate a heavy amount of home brew.
[SPEAKER_01]: We also get rules wrong all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've caught ourselves on it a few times, but there are some things that I didn't notice until
[SPEAKER_01]: And our fans have generally forgiven us for that because we put that little disclaimer at the beginning and They understand that the story and the humor of the moment takes precedent for that But improv training is interesting especially because it is so varied dramatic improv is a very underrepresented field that I think really takes hold a lot in actual play settings and I Much prefer long form improv over short form
[SPEAKER_01]: for a lot of the same reasons and a lot of the draws that TTRPG and actual play tend to have.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have the time to really flesh things out a bit more, things tend to be a little bit more grounded because there isn't the time pressure and you can usually get more depth and mine some more interesting ideas when you've got the proper time to explore them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not to say there's anything wrong with short form, short form is really good for helping make you
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a thing that I saw in an interview the other day.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can see his face, I can't remember his name.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it was a musician and stand up comedian who says that you can actually train yourself to be funnier and quicker on the fly and a thing that he does is he will for a designated amount of time per day sit with an encyclopedia for
[SPEAKER_01]: flip to a random entry, and then free associate until he has something that would be a decent stand-up comedy bit, write it down, and then be done for the day and move on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And doing that repeatedly got faster and faster at those connections come much more readily, tend to get funnier and funnier bits from it, just from practicing that
[SPEAKER_01]: targeted free association.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is interesting and that that is one of the benefits of you work a similar muscle doing short form improv.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is definitely not for everyone.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's better as an art form to do than it is to watch.
[SPEAKER_02]: I lay being on stage and I like performing, but I am an extremely reserved, shy person, I don't like a lot of attention.
[SPEAKER_02]: We did a live show in Atlanta before COVID.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was really cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have for critical bits, which like fans drove a couple of states to come to.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's awesome.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we were...
[SPEAKER_02]: It was so cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are these really wonderful committed people that we were very lucky to have be a fan of that show.
[SPEAKER_02]: The tone is very different from critical bits, oddity roadshow, so we lost fans, but not in a way where it's like, because it's like critical bits was more like teen superhero is fighting fascism and oddity roadshow is more like murky and adult.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a different genre.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a totally different genre.
[SPEAKER_02]: The tone is different.
[SPEAKER_02]: The performances are different.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're ladies night head show on that sketch show.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mentioned it was like an improv theater in Atlanta called the village theater where we held the life show and we were just kind of like setting up and Joel looked at me and he's like, people are going to start coming in soon.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you want to go hide backstage?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's how like shy I am something that helped me to is very much being put in the deep end Is on both shows I've had the opportunity to work with like really really really skilled Improvizers and kind of see what they're doing like we got on critical bits We had Mark Miron he voiced Commander Shepard.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh awesome, and he also I mean he I went and saw his one man show that was fear and loading and love crafts
[SPEAKER_02]: where he was playing with all these different tropes and he'll do like live D&D shows and Atlanta sometimes he's Canadian.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was like a space sheriff and my character had blown up his jail so he was chasing me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Joel played his like drug addicted space gun.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was being so thrown off the deep end.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did my best but it was like hard to keep up with him.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm also I'm like long time friends with Branson Reese who runs retails of magic.
[SPEAKER_02]: And him coming on and he played like this like chaos monster.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was also very fun and it's like,
[SPEAKER_02]: The most challenging, but the most technically challenging episode of Audi Roadshow for me, that I wish I had done better on, but it was just so outside of my wheelhouse, was we had a improvised musical episode where we had Chris Myers, who is a very wonderful, like, local actor.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's been in, like,
[SPEAKER_02]: Some TV shows and stuff, and he's a part of this, uh, he, I think it did some like musical improv locally.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's also a part of a show in Atlanta called the tipsy zone where a bunch of improv artists like get drunk on stage and improvized twilight zone episodes, which is like amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's so fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I like watching him.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's so good.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're all really good too.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think.
[SPEAKER_02]: I like stand up more than improv for the most part, unless it's really good improv than it's like the best thing ever.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was him and Rachel Frawley, who's a local actor as well, came on and they can both sing and improvise really well.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we did a ton of songs.
[SPEAKER_02]: I forget how many we did and we had like a keyboard artist, theater, hobson, who's awesome.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we just like we're doing improvising entire songs like on this spot, which is so uncomfortable for me and I did okay but it was like watching them do it and how clever they were and how fast
[SPEAKER_02]: It was super fun, and if you're ever in Atlanta and he's on a show you should go see him.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's fantastic, but yeah, that was terrifying, and this is the same kind of anxiety I got when I did the improv class of like just being put on the spot and trying to cope with something creatively.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whereas my process when I do video essays or whatever is so meticulous or editing is inherently it's like sculpture, such a meticulous process of like adding and removing frames and all these adjustments.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you spend 100 hours on something, and then you present it to people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Something my instructor emphasized a lot in the one improv class that I took was like,
[SPEAKER_02]: You're fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nothing bad is going to happen, especially in this classroom.
[SPEAKER_02]: You could fail terribly, and then what's there are no consequences.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's like, but it's still, that's it's just like an aspect of my personality that I don't know if I'll ever be able to fully change to be comfortable with being like really, really wacky.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's definitely a tricky hurdle to get across.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is one of the, when I was doing a proven high school on college, that is like one of the fundamental lessons of improv is being willing to accept
[SPEAKER_01]: the risk of failure is what makes it intriguing and that's why when improv is really good.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a magic trick.
[SPEAKER_01]: The really good improv only comes from the big risks and it's that like high risk, high reward kind of situation that you get the best bits out of.
[SPEAKER_02]: anything specifically with tabletop.
[SPEAKER_02]: You need a really good gym to help that balance, because I've definitely guessed it on shows.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're especially known as like an AFB person.
[SPEAKER_02]: People like talk over me or just like, and it's like, I, if you look at all of our waveforms comparatively, I'm talking not very much because I also don't want to step on toes, but if I'm given that spacer, if I'm comfortable.
[SPEAKER_02]: Something I think I do pretty well on critical bits and on oddity roadshow is like playing the straight man in some situations or generally like setting other people up for good jokes.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think some of that is coming from like having my family is like super loud, super funny, like super outgoing, southern people, and being friends with comics over the years too, it's like,
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I don't have to be like a wallflower or something.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like more fun to like riff and set people up and think of like what would be a good story beat for this character.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember what I was gonna say earlier too.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's so interesting how different stand-up and improv are.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I've never done stand-up and everyone to do stand-up, but there was a period that was very formative for me from like 2015 to 2018 where...
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't have a lot of work or a lot of money, but I had a lot of time, so I was going to like every stand-up show in Atlanta.
[SPEAKER_02]: And to this day, a lot of my best friends are stand-up or X stand-up comics from the city.
[SPEAKER_02]: And something that I observed there that I also observed kind of like growing up online.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when I was young, I'm pretty open about this too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like when I was younger, I'd put some like more edge lority forums.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there was that particular culture, which is very similar to stand-up culture, of kind of like cooler comedy and like individualism.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did a video I say a few years ago about like how to get funnier and what I had observed and what I talked about in the video I say is like if you put yourself in an environment where being funny is rewarded socially or with grades or whatever it is and being unfunny is punished socially you will get funny faster as like a survival mechanism whether that's doing stand up on stage
[SPEAKER_02]: or if it's like socially where like if you tell a joke and it doesn't land.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's like the opposite of improv because improv you want to be able to go with anything regardless and everyone's really nice and everyone's very supportive.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's what makes a bad improv show so excursionating is because it's so sincere and everyone's doing their best and I just can't handle it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like too empathetic or whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whereas like bad stand up it's over in five minutes and it's not there's less on the line it feels like because there's less of an emotional.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean I started going to stand up shows in like
[SPEAKER_02]: And the way that they work and the way that they improve, like, uh, Kevin Williams, who goes by Mandel, we shot a lot of stuff together.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's in a lot of stuff with Joel and he was just on Fallon and he's like, one of the funniest, most like, I mean, and I'm so, I'm like, beside myself, happy for him and like watching how hard he worked.
[SPEAKER_02]: He did seem like someone who is naturally funny, but the way that he worked at it is like so cool and so admirable.
[SPEAKER_02]: But, yeah, I just, um, Improv and stand up are both comedy, but they could not be more different.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I took, I think taking a lot of lessons from hanging out with standups, help my performance too, but it's almost like the opposite lessons that you learn.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's a lot cooler, I don't know, but that makes it less painful to watch.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, improv being largely group-based and having a team to fall back on, changes a lot of the dynamics.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like for example, you bring up that one of your big strength is in setting people up and being a straight man.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is invaluable in a group setting.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have nothing but the biggest admiration for the people that can fall into that nation.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's something that I try to strive for.
[SPEAKER_01]: I tend to have more success as a GM than as a player and part that's just structurally that you can spotlight people better.
[SPEAKER_01]: And make sure that people are getting the appropriate amount of attention and are set up for success.
[SPEAKER_01]: But being able to clock that and assist your fellow performers is the best skill you can possibly have in this medium.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I commend you for that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just felt fortunate that it was kind of my place socially anyway, because I had so many like funny friends and stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: So to circle back around again one more time to Auditi Rojo and to throw critical bits into this, what do you consider the best starting point for anyone wanting to check out your work?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there a particular effort?
[SPEAKER_01]: episode that stands out above the others is there a good arc to jump through to this one project more so than the other better represent you.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want something really short or relatively short, Joel did like a video mini series called Average Hotel and I'm in what there's it's just like three episodes.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're like a couple hours each.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's about this like haunted hotel.
[SPEAKER_02]: He played killer ratings, which is a really fun TTRPG and I play
[SPEAKER_02]: That one I played a much more like ethical character.
[SPEAKER_02]: I usually play in Conman and like cowards and stuff I played a much more ethical character although he was a disgraced professor because he was obsessed with ghosts and he got caught Gravorabbing and is like trying to find a new lease on life doing a ghost hunting show on it It is like really terribly for him, but that's really short and you there's a video aspect of it So you can see me and everyone else like her facial performances, which I think can add a lot to it
[SPEAKER_02]: Especially certain things in that and I think Audity Roadshow on the whole is better than critical bits Just because we're more experienced performers although we did have one She'll be leafed not because of anything bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: She just decides she don't want to make content anymore, which is like good for her Very fair
[SPEAKER_02]: But also critical bits, like I said, it's more like, there's still a little humor and adult elements, but it is very much like we're teen superheroes and we're going to fight fascism and we're going to overcome this and it's like finding your way as a teen and we like a lot of those types of tropes and our characters, I think we're more just based on us as people, which is a trap that I will not fall into again, emotionally, you know, it helped in some ways in other ways, I was like, oh, I shouldn't have done this.
[SPEAKER_02]: An oddity road show is much more.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like adult, there are a lot more like sexual situations in humor which we avoided playing teenagers and it like we were pretty open.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, please don't sexualize the 17 year old I'm playing based on myself or whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, this weird.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whereas in this show it's fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's much more than aspect of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a lot darker and it's a lot more about the characters kind of like individual struggles with themselves and with their environment and it's a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is more like a supernatural or an ex files versus like a teen titans.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like those that's how it would
[SPEAKER_02]: And for critical bits, my favorite episode was Hogi Allen, Branson Reese came on.
[SPEAKER_02]: His character's whole thing was a witch cursed him and until he learned his lesson, he would still be cursed and he refused to ever learn anything and he was trying to kill Paul's character.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was so a Branson is just like an incredible comedic mind and so fun to play with.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's also an idie roadshow as part of this ghost hunting group called the Hellblockers.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think my personal favorite ID road show episodes are the ones where my friend Evan came on is the rival command.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that would be episode 31 first watch.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you just want to skip ahead it's episode 58 or 59 the episode's called edging.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the one way for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, resolve that flatline.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like, I really, you're going to get a lot of spoilers and stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think playing with like,
[SPEAKER_02]: different tropes in the emotional resonance of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think is strong.
[SPEAKER_02]: The music episode, I forget which one, but it should be easy to find.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought was pretty impressive.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we have an episode called Rubby Falls, which is set in Ruby Falls, which is like a tourist trap in Tennessee that I like recording it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Fine, but I was surprised like fans put that as like one of their favorites a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: So those are the ones I would recommend.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, Hogi Allen is crazy in the stuff that the character work I got to do with, especially we became much better friends in between those episodes.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think we wouldn't have been that's something too that I learned is that I always want to try to be able to perform with whoever, but like having a foundation of like knowing someone well and trusting them made it a completely different.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I was friends with them only did the first one, but like we hung out way more in between.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think it's the fall-up episode was stronger.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree with that 100%.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's something to knowing the strengths of the people that you are performing with so that you can more adequately set each other up for success that really helps with time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I strive for that with every group that I play with to try to really get to know and form a good connection with the people that I'm playing with for that same purpose.
[SPEAKER_02]: And also knowing someone well enough, like obviously stuff like safety tools like lines and bells are really important, but if you really know someone's like pain points, or someone that you know well enough to talk to after if something upset you, I think it makes me feel way more safe than like a stranger I'm playing with, who is really good about safety tools, but I'm like on paper, it's not the same as direct interactions.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard not to be more guarded with somebody that you're not well acquainted with.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I care so much about when I'm playing like not ever upsetting anyone or say are being able to explore these like darker topics in a way that's not going to be triggering for anybody or you know, there
[SPEAKER_02]: There was an episode of Critical Bits where Paul's character had lied.
[SPEAKER_02]: And my character got really, really upset, but like, quietly upset.
[SPEAKER_02]: And afterwards, Paul was like, are you mad at me?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, no, I'm sorry, I'm not mad at him.
[SPEAKER_02]: I promise I'm not mad at just the character.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I'm not, and I wasn't screaming or anything, but I think it was intense enough to where he wanted to check in.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, no, I promise it's okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sorry, I need to, and it got me more in the habit of like, before after shows being like, hey, this is just the character.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not, we can stop because I hadn't even thought, like, oh, it would be intense enough for him to be like,
[SPEAKER_01]: that makes me think of for me with our show.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a bit near the end of the show where the main antagonist is pushed a little bit too far and blows up and goes ballistic on the team.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as I was in the middle of having that meltdown as the character, I was typing into our discord chat, oh god, is everybody okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I cross any lines please?
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't let me go too far here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, that more or less comes to the end of my questions, before we wrap up, are there any other miscellaneous things that you want to add?
[SPEAKER_01]: Any topics that we didn't cover that you want to make sure get addressed?
[SPEAKER_02]: There's not a lot I can think of.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes on BlueSky, I'll do threads where I ask if anyone wants to talk about her once advice on actual play, podcasting, so if anyone wants to look those up and ask me, like, at the part from obviously like, inappropriate personal questions, ask me anything about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really like talking about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: because I feel very, very fortunate to have like a creative career.
[SPEAKER_02]: And most people who know me are going to know me from video essays.
[SPEAKER_02]: And from like a much more serious academic like instructional standpoint.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think a lot of them are like, why did Shannon talk to you about actual play again?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't like it.
[SPEAKER_02]: but then the people who really like it ask really interesting questions and I have so much fun talking about it and it's my little like not little but like my creative thing and I want to say to anyone else who's doing actual play it can be so disheartening because it is such a saturated market and I know that like what we're making is good.
[SPEAKER_02]: We work really, really hard at Joel, really heavily at it.
[SPEAKER_02]: He pays for like custom music and like spend so much time on sound effects and editing things down.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I put so much into like researching characters and planning emotional things.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we do have like a steady, the patron I think covers rent for his studio, which is awesome, but it's like, man, I wish it's so hard to get it to people.
[SPEAKER_02]: And to get like whatever, nothing, that's what I'm entitled to a bigger audience.
[SPEAKER_02]: But versus YouTube, it didn't feel as much of like a fight for me or these other things so like don't lose hope and try to find joy and the act of of making it versus because I see a lot of people get this heartened and a lot of people have trouble because they kind of have a mindset going into it of like all record this fun game with my friends and maybe we'll get famous off of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like you got to do one of the other.
[SPEAKER_02]: got to either make your art that your self expression thing that you love, are you trying to make money and get famous?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because if you're trying to do both, you're going to and we're trying to ride that line, the focusing more on the art aspect of it and it's been not necessarily a struggle, but it gets so disheartening and so frustrating.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's just like stick in there, or find a different reason to do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, it takes so long to build momentum in this medium and so much of it is based on word of mouth.
[SPEAKER_01]: You absolutely have to do it for the love of the game.
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, you will either burn out or make a subpar product or both.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you want to actually finish it, it has to be something that you are doing out of enjoyment for the thing itself.
[SPEAKER_02]: are like be really tactical in how you approach it and not burning out because I think we spend so much work and so much time on it in the hopes of like getting bigger.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think if especially Joel is so driven and what he's doing, I think he's been doing this for seven years, you know, if he was doing something more like palatable or more like if we played the endier, if we only got like if we tried to get the most famous people as possible on all the time, then maybe that would have been something else, but yeah, I think you have to love what
[SPEAKER_02]: join it because I quit doing YouTube because I couldn't pay rent off of it and now I'm want to get back into it but it's like a side hobby which is crazy because it's like something I felt like I was like I was very meaningful in a lot of people but it's like it didn't like I was like living with relatives when I was 30 and I was like I hate this so don't fall into that trap.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah absolutely we'll go ahead and close things out there as we're going can you drop any social links and like anything you want to promote.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you validate as Joel's podcast network?
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you follow that on, he left Twitter for reasons, but that anyone can guess probably.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's on Blue Sky and on YouTube and stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you just Google I did a road show or critical bits, you know, I didn't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: where you get your podcasts.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can find those.
[SPEAKER_02]: The musical episode is like, there's a full video edit of all of us sitting around singing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everest Hotel is also very easy to find on Google.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you look up on YouTube, streamed to movies, STR, UCCI, you can find mail video essays.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did one on D&D a long time ago in the comedy one and other ones that I've done.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would highly recommend Ruitels of Magic.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bunch of the Ruitels people have been on, but especially Carly Tim and Branson have
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm also, I'm working, I record a voiceover for an upcoming game called Blank Sword, which is going to be super cool RPG about like angels and like, I don't know, the Google Blank Sword and you can find it.
[SPEAKER_02]: All this stuff should be very easy to find.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm on Blue Sky if you just type in Strucci, STRUCCI.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's either I'm talking about like getting migraines or vegan food or actual play podcasting or usually are the things I don't get embroiled in like arguments with people or follow that much stuff, but that's what's fun for me to talk about.
[SPEAKER_02]: So,
[SPEAKER_01]: Alright, well, thank you for all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will be putting those links in the description, so uh, thank you again for coming by and chatting with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was a ton of fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, thanks for having me on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And thank all of you for listening.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one more time, everyone.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Danger Dangerous, the GM and host of Dien Dark.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been chatting with Shannon Strucci, and this has been Table Talk.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I hope you enjoyed what we brought to the table.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Table Talk, and created hosted and edited by myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Danger Dan Jers, with artwork by Jordan Nelson.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our guest this episode was Shannon Strucci, links to our work can be found in the episode description.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're interested in being a guest on the show, reach out to us at dndarkpodcast at gmail.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our theme song in Outro was created by Jeremy Volucci.
[SPEAKER_01]: Check out more of his works on Instagram at Jeremy Volucci Under Score, Wreck of Time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time we have a gas take a seat at the table.