[SPEAKER_07]: Hello and welcome everyone to my first dungeon.
[SPEAKER_07]: This is our talk back for our season of Hellwailers with me today I have my infernal crew starting with Abigail Happworth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I got Meditia Valetti
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, the parent.
[SPEAKER_07]: This guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I see.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see.
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, Brian Flaherty.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was no parent in this adventure.
[SPEAKER_02]: He just said he nods.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's canonically pirated.
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't get to the parent yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also very poorly.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not pirated.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, no.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're bad people on a ship, you're pirated.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're pirated.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or even worse, private tears.
[SPEAKER_07]: Wow, you will say that word in front of me.
[SPEAKER_07]: Disgusting.
[SPEAKER_07]: And speaking of in front of him, we have a little treat for you.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's a little talk back.
[SPEAKER_07]: We have our producer for the season.
[SPEAKER_07]: Elliot, David.
[SPEAKER_07]: Squawk.
[SPEAKER_00]: Squawk.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is this squat up?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the bar.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's the bar.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the bar.
[SPEAKER_01]: The bar.
[SPEAKER_05]: This was a five episode series original.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah, it's saying something but we had to cut something because it's too home.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's just a whole Gertchester field.
[SPEAKER_01]: The parrot.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our series is a wrong team.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I can talk.
[SPEAKER_04]: I can talk about it.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like, you know, as because, you know, I learned what's magic.
[SPEAKER_04]: That was fun.
[SPEAKER_04]: That was a good time.
[SPEAKER_04]: This was real.
[SPEAKER_04]: My first real.
[SPEAKER_04]: It kind of.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I didn't know the reputation.
[SPEAKER_04]: Everyone.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's time.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's time.
[SPEAKER_05]: We're cutting that out.
[SPEAKER_05]: Shenuk, I'm taking over.
[SPEAKER_05]: Cool.
[SPEAKER_05]: Do it.
[SPEAKER_05]: I want to know how you're feeling about Hellwailers after all this.
[SPEAKER_05]: You were pretty nervous.
[SPEAKER_05]: Pretty scary.
[SPEAKER_05]: I had to hold you crying.
[SPEAKER_05]: I was crying.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, sure.
[SPEAKER_05]: No, but you haven't been in the GMC, since season two, and this is season, we don't count them.
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, but it's been a long time.
[SPEAKER_08]: We don't know.
[SPEAKER_05]: How did it feel to be back in the GM share for my first dungeon?
[SPEAKER_05]: Um.
[SPEAKER_07]: It was fine.
[SPEAKER_07]: I, I like, okay, I realized after doing this.
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't think I like GMing.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_07]: I understand that it's a lot of work.
[SPEAKER_07]: It was cool to do.
[SPEAKER_07]: I like being a little chaos engine and being able to do what I want and letting someone else react to it.
[SPEAKER_07]: It felt bad the times like Brian got me from being a little shit.
[SPEAKER_07]: Abby being a peaty and fatty of being a little, lux me shit bag over there.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's like, there's fucking, there's do what I want.
[SPEAKER_07]: Just do what I want you to do, and everyone shut up and have a good time.
[SPEAKER_07]: Like, that's what I want.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's fascinating.
[SPEAKER_07]: Like, it's a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_07]: So you had a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, it was fun to do this with the Scooper people.
[SPEAKER_07]: I thoroughly enjoyed it.
[SPEAKER_07]: And I think, I don't like jamming.
[SPEAKER_07]: And it's not anyone who's full by herself.
[SPEAKER_07]: My own interests.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: We still like you.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a really important lesson.
[SPEAKER_07]: But this game, very good, very good game.
[SPEAKER_04]: Game is fair.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm playing it.
[SPEAKER_07]: I also, I love the, like, like, the medically what the game is doing.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's very fun.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's very fun to create a world with you and, like, talk through ideas and, like, putting it through one shot.
[SPEAKER_07]: I think it was hard just because this game really wants to be longer, which is very cool.
[SPEAKER_07]: But it's like, oh, wow, there's like so much to dive into here, like what is, like, what do like the two or three things that are really compelling that I really want to sink my teeth into for a one shot?
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a lot you can do in this and like, I do think yeah, I'd be extremely cool if you're doing a much longer campaign of like,
[SPEAKER_00]: getting through knots and doing all of those and then like boons and curses and stuff and all the more and like clues and stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, fish.
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't even finish it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just learned how to actually be good at sick bow.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm so mad.
[SPEAKER_07]: Still.
[SPEAKER_04]: I do.
[SPEAKER_04]: I feel like that's maybe the one thing that I I'm sad I didn't really get to do was we only
[SPEAKER_04]: which is why I kind of, I bet it as if like, okay, yeah, well, of course I'm going to go on and I'm going to go into this, but like, the feeling the ramifications of my gambling, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: needing to do it again or like kind of like this concurrent like natural currency of hell as like a like a currency that we have to like save and use um there's loss in one shot yeah totally i'm like i'm curious i want to direct a question at all of you which is like
[SPEAKER_05]: this was like a religious horror game like really dealing with some of these big questions of like can people be saved like I know we have some some raised Catholics on the call um how did we how do we enjoy playing in the religious horror space um and playing with these questions?
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like playing the pious in like a, especially playing the pious in like pious person and hell, it was fun to look at the elements kind of of my set of like having faith, but not having faith of having that it having been part of my upbringing, but not necessarily being part of who I am now.
[SPEAKER_02]: or it's certainly like a lesser part of who I am now and kind of pushing that all the way like I think the reason Matthias is in hell is that like he was raised religious or was like give it like religion was thrust upon him but he never really like accepted it and actually like incorporated that faith into his life and that's the reason he's in hell like he never made the steps on his own
[SPEAKER_02]: So he thinks he did all the things that he was supposed to do of like, he got baptized, he got confirmed, he went to church on Christmas and Easter, but he never actually did the true work of like actually accepting religion and actually believing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think there's some interesting like parallels between that and my own life going into this.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then also just dealing with the religious horror of like, you know, nothingness.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, God's silence in the classic, like, Ingmar Bergman sense.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, totally.
[SPEAKER_07]: And even, like, just being one of the other Catholics of like,
[SPEAKER_07]: playing into like the, all like the, the fear that the Catholic Church tries to instill in you and just being like, yeah, we made up hell to make sure these fuckers didn't even be said and like playing with and like really, this came to such a good job of like,
[SPEAKER_07]: Questioning the realities that we like cut the Catholic Church has like put forward or like Christianity of like this is how it's what it's like like this is in infernal internal the eternal suffering and like the idea of like what is forgiveness and like what how can you be saved and salvation and are you damn forever and like if like if God dams you like if you're God dams you forever like what is that dude that's crazy
[SPEAKER_07]: and the devil and like all these things that you're supposed to be afraid of and it does make it feel really scary and also makes you question of like, why do you believe this?
[SPEAKER_07]: Why?
[SPEAKER_07]: This is a terrible thing to believe it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hmm, I have a question actually since he mentioned it to just how well he's really talking about the devil too much.
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't know if we've really it's like mentioned in some of the Like more yeah, but just lower of it and like the ending prophecy like they mentioned like Lucifer's they mentioned it here and there But but less the fact that the devil is explicitly like written.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, okay
[SPEAKER_05]: little more hell as other people.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, there's just like, it's not hitting me as you're talking about it.
[SPEAKER_04]: That like, that actually feels like a surprising void and in at least my experience of hell willers and thinking about it it's like a very specific cast like hell.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like, oh, we don't really like.
[SPEAKER_04]: The devil wasn't this thing that was looming over us.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was a lot of damning God for doing this to us and a lot of like hell sucks for being a sinner, but I kind of put the devil into the hell well a little bit in my own hands.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the ultimate evil of hell is the hell well.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so like if so facto it must be that it must also be the devil.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, even though that's not in the book at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just it's kind of a thing that I started to put my mind of like if this is the ultimate evil, then it must be the devil.
[SPEAKER_04]: No, it's just like in that like fits, I think that's maybe what happened in my brain as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will also say that as someone who group with no religion and knows embarrassingly little about any religion that there's a lot of this game that just like pop culture or like the world or like knowing very little or have a very little reference or like not, you know, having had deep Catholic experiences or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: There certainly I can tell it takes inspiration and like a lot of as polls from that, but you could still get so much from the game of not having those references or not like Like there's a lot of of this game that I think is still really accessible and You can play on like fear and guilt and like all these universal feelings
[SPEAKER_00]: and make them whatever version of a concept of hell or a concept of like what you should feel guilty about or what sinning is or you know all these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was also gonna say I'll never forget.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to remember what grade I was in.
[SPEAKER_00]: My childhood friend, Brendan, delightful adult man, Lesso is a child, but I remember him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like
[SPEAKER_08]: And I was like, great question.
[SPEAKER_01]: The only thing stopping you is the threat of hell.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's much more concerning to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: What I don't know, but that's a don't Abby asking that question.
[SPEAKER_03]: I like to make it sound Abby being like, yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: What is it?
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not even one second.
[SPEAKER_01]: Second, third, fourth grade.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't remember how old we were.
[SPEAKER_01]: But even child elementary school Abby was like, what?
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: That question's insane.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I have a deeply similar story that I'll go through quick, where I would remember being seven years old, and this girl I went to school with Emily, can't remember her last name.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, believe it out.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I won't put her on the glass.
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh
[SPEAKER_05]: Wow, like it was like it was like it was like a deeply evil sentence.
[SPEAKER_05]: I remember being said to me like it was like Was a tone like very casual there was it like kind of like it was like a matter of fact You're not religious, so you don't matter Yours is worse
[SPEAKER_05]: Real quick, on product-sorial duties, I did a command F of Lucifer for the book.
[SPEAKER_05]: There is one mention, and it is just the name of a thing.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then every mention of the devil is used in the lower-case D description.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm just saying, okay, it's okay, cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, because I do think that that makes life sense of Brian your right of like putting the concept of the devil into the hell whale, makes the tennis sense, but also it's like that's the big bad.
[SPEAKER_04]: that's the enemy that is is the cause of our strife even if it's not explicitly described necessarily as that it's like this is the answer to everything yeah you wouldn't want players to be like yeah but why go after the hell will we can go after the devil itself and like it pulls right it pulls almost like narrative wait to to include that but then also potentially it like
[SPEAKER_04]: There's just something fun about like, there's not one singular person that has created the hell that you're in.
[SPEAKER_04]: It is all of you.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the thing that I think is even more like terrifying about this type of hell, is that there isn't a single evil entity that is like drawing you in.
[SPEAKER_02]: There isn't someone who is out there like, you know, trying to get you to sin and pulling you into the bad place if you give in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Rather, it's like, you live the bad life or, you know, depending on the answer you get,
[SPEAKER_02]: Because the game has a pretty dim view of like what salvation could be right like you get here And there is no person to defeat.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no one to blame.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just this kind of new bad place that you're in.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's you know it's rolling a six on the table and going to the next worst table Yeah kind of plays into what the game is doing of making you question of like
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, we all Catholics all believe the devil's like this person trying to get you to sin.
[SPEAKER_07]: But what if the devil is everyone around you, including yourself all the time, every year?
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's nothing to beat.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no one to convince.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's no one else to blame.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's either it was your own doing, or this was a place you were always going to end up so it is like all of your laborers are fruitless, all of your labels are mean, which is even more horrific than, oh, I gave into temptation a couple of times and I can blame myself for these specific acts.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, yeah, you can't separate yourself from this.
[SPEAKER_04]: No matter what you do, you are still the worst parts of you, kind of like, um, and that is like what you will be judged on.
[SPEAKER_05]: I really like hell, as I see, because it is, and this at the ending you chose, uh, Shenukh, I thought really drove this home, or it's like,
[SPEAKER_05]: it's presented as like a fucked up natural thing of just like yeah like it being a sea it being a whale it being like again like these other monsters that emerge or something it is not some divine plan or like devilish plan like it's like this is just kind of you you've you've fallen into a world that is hostile like but not because it wants to kill you it just is hostile like it's just kind of like that's
[SPEAKER_02]: landscape functions it's like it's it's it's it's it's natural in a way and making it a whale makes that that sense of like evil and sin feel like a natural force then that you chose was almost more tragic than any of the other endings because it kind of implies that like with the hell so with the hell well gone these other gates open and like worse entities come out
[SPEAKER_02]: So it almost implies like, was the hell well actually a entity ultimately for good in some way?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because it almost describes it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like you could see it one of two ways.
[SPEAKER_02]: One, it's the biggest bad thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And with it gone, everything else is like, find a come out of the darkness.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I kind of read it as this thing was stopping this gate.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now with it gone, that gate opens, so it was almost protecting this already terrible place from these even worse things than itself.
[SPEAKER_02]: So now not only did we not get salvation, we made the world worse by our own hand.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are fully the cause of our own destruction.
[SPEAKER_07]: I think my favorite line from that ending is, these promises were meant for the demons of like, the lower the hell will is completely true.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes, it just wasn't meant for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, this is, oh, yeah, that's yours.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are not the main characters.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
[SPEAKER_00]: What sort of interactions with the whale are written in or expected or is it very much a thing where you and your crew are in pursuit of the whale?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like is there any kind of antagonistic experience or things of like, you know, it attacks your ship or or other sorts of things if you did a long campaign?
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't think they're like mechanically built in ways where the will like I mean like there are ways like like if you roll three six Some of the sick robot the will fight in counters like the wheel and kind of starts immediately.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's right.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah They're like things like that but there's no like I'll really yeah like what you you all bet on by the way
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
[SPEAKER_05]: it's like kind of mechanical like there's there's like mechanical options for you can't call the whale until you have a certain number of souls and like it is a lot of souls and like we yeah we didn't play with that restriction but like you can play with that restriction and it can take you know four or five six sessions to to accrue that man it says collect 15 to 20 souls for a single session 30 to 50
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, interesting.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, so you could play it like you're like erred, accruing this over like months on the sea, like on the StyGNC if you wanted to play a long campaign, it's like we just can't get enough souls.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then there's there's also things in this game where like the other thing we didn't really do is fishing, which is really like a mini game that's kind of a prep encounter for the hell-well encounter.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's also like, it's kind of the same thing just at a smaller scale, but that's really cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: But a thing that you're doing with that is you're also gaining food supply.
[SPEAKER_02]: So like there is an element of in a longer game, not only are you having this like gaining and losing souls, but like your ship is taking like small bits of damage and you have to like repair it as you go, you have got to like get enough food each day so that you are able to just survive.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it becomes a much more harrowing experience trying to get to the hell well.
[SPEAKER_02]: So by the time you get to the hell, well, you might have, you know, your ship has already been damaged a certain amount.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've had like just trying to survive one person has died, or one person, or the claim track has already marked up for, and you haven't found enough supplies to like, you know, repair it enough.
[SPEAKER_04]: All right, I'm very intrigued because of...
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, my experience with this game and the pitch of it also is like, you're going after a hell well, but it's like a small adventures in hell that like lead to building up your crew, maybe building up like your relationship with other people and other things.
[SPEAKER_07]: There are like hell-located like locations you could have explored, like,
[SPEAKER_07]: There's a lot to do and just from the book itself.
[SPEAKER_07]: Places to go, potentially making deals with other sailors to hunt the whale together.
[SPEAKER_07]: Like there's a, like in a longer campaign, there's just so much like exploring hell could take you like 10, 20 sessions if you really wanted it to be.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, fascinating.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's like items to find, like there's so much to do.
[SPEAKER_05]: Shen, was there anything in the book that you really wanted to do that we didn't get a chance to?
[SPEAKER_07]: I really wanted, I wished we had more time to explore other locations.
[SPEAKER_07]: I think in my grand scheme of ideas, I wanted to have some port or whatever, and meet Mother Teresa, and the sisters are cheering.
[SPEAKER_07]: Just having more religious figures kind of involve a couple of the popes that were shitty
[SPEAKER_00]: all the Pope.
[SPEAKER_07]: You wanted to do a big sac religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: I wanted to make a commentary on the Catholic religion.
[SPEAKER_07]: Didn't have the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: What have gone fully over my head anyway?
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, but it would have been more for me, but I like there's still like a lot of cool locations that I wish we could have explored and like
[SPEAKER_00]: even done some of the fishing like I wish we got to play sick board sick boy like one or two more times man sick was just like a dicketing because you only get the one per night of like the second we placed all our bets and rolled up sick weight but i want to go again which is what gambling does to a person but that's a great idea to play more sick but i need it
[SPEAKER_05]: It was really fun to watch you guys like because I was got like guiding the tokens on the board and watching the decisions you made and just getting to react on my own off mic.
[SPEAKER_05]: They're not going to win fucking anything.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dang, I have just such a chance of rolling insane odds things.
[SPEAKER_00]: This I do have good odds things.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how math works.
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, you told.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's how math works.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's how math works.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, it's one in six.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is also the thing that, and shit, I don't know how much we did this, but like the sick boatboard, also depending on what you roll, you use that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, so say we roll a 146, you use those numbers to also look at a table of different encounters that will come up over the next day.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's why the fire is right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's why the fire is starting right here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: But also, if you roll doubles or triple, so the things that we were hoping to roll, like someone could fall overboard, there could be a hellish creature not.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a six knot that drops the whale or overboard once, and then one crew member every consequence after.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god, two hellish, like that shit happens if you roll the good odd stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're just all overboard.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone joins PD.
[SPEAKER_07]: We didn't get to even touch like curses and lore either.
[SPEAKER_07]: Like we don't really get to do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, Curses?
[SPEAKER_03]: Wait, what?
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, there are Curses in the game.
[SPEAKER_07]: And also, like, like, lower pieces if you had a longer session going.
[SPEAKER_05]: One of the Curses is in-in-festation, snickering imps, occupy the ship, and additional food spliders appear to each day.
[SPEAKER_05]: That, like, could be a whole session.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's just like, yeah, getting rid of the imps.
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, that's what we're focused on today.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's a Curses broken by setting up poison food.
[SPEAKER_04]: But like we had to poison our food, we have to find some food to deal with this.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: The game of like, I feel like Hellwill is going to look very different depending on doing a one shot, doing a short campaign and doing a long campaign.
[SPEAKER_02]: More so than I think, I'm trying to think of this true, like more so than any other game we've played on my first dungeon, like a lot of other games like the one shot looks relatively similar to a longer campaign.
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like this one looks significantly different.
[SPEAKER_00]: right you're really picking and choosing what you want to highlight of it of like we could have been a world like not done sick bow and like fish and then uh you know done something else but um or yes bent the whole day fighting imps yeah you just do a curse and then and then the whale says up sucks for you the hell whale is also here yeah I guess that's like I think that y'all
[SPEAKER_04]: have to think about in terms of like, what is what do you want to play?
[SPEAKER_04]: What do you want to show?
[SPEAKER_04]: What is like a good one, should I?
[SPEAKER_04]: I guess I'm talking more on like a, well, you're making a podcast about like this is like also a story that you're showing people.
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's it.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's just like an interesting thing.
[SPEAKER_04]: They're like, oh, yeah, you have to, you all have to kind of think about that as well as play the game.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is kind of the conversation about like actual play and this is getting like really meta, but it's like there's the spectrum of when you're in fiction, when you're out of fiction, like the fiction and non-fiction elements of a recording or of an episode, all play into part of the...
[SPEAKER_02]: thing, like, you know, the parts that you are out of character are still part of the story telling the parts we are any character part of the story telling.
[SPEAKER_02]: And also, like, the choices that you make framing that story, like we should, we were doing a one shot of Hellwailers, the thing you got to do is face the Hellwail.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so all of our entire, you know, kind of session of this game was very much based around the Hellwail, less so like the
[SPEAKER_02]: Whereas the short campaign or a long campaign, I think the story would be much less about the encounter of the hell well.
[SPEAKER_02]: Though that would be like an exciting and climactic part, it'd be much more about like survival and the terrors and horrors of like every day.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just getting to the point where maybe you can make a difference in fine salvation.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I'm very curious about that because like, and if not to steer us in one direction, but like the playbooks and like playing these characters like kind of looking at what we have to work with us like the greedy and like what we actually get and what we play with.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a bit of a
[SPEAKER_04]: belonging outside belonging like pro and con is like you are given what you you can you are you you have to use what you're a given and so like in in a one shot there was a lot of like I'm gonna do this I'm gonna do this like I want to like touch all my little my buttons and then I want to like figure it out which sometimes at least for me like with the greedy there were things that
[SPEAKER_04]: I could see in a longer playthrough that I could kind of like work around and like occasionally like dip into my weak moves and more interesting ways.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then like a one shot, I am just, I am a kleptomania.
[SPEAKER_04]: That is just what my buttons are.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I'm doing that all the time.
[SPEAKER_04]: In a way that I was like, I kind of wish I had a little bit more diversity in that, but I also now I'm realizing like,
[SPEAKER_04]: Well in a longer campaign like I do have diversity and just I can exist and I can just narrate what I do and then when I choose to steal something it's like a more like can happen once or twice a session or a little less like aggressively and playing into to to more interesting nuance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah it's the thing that I feel like these playbooks are great of like four one shot or shorter campaign they gave you extremely clear things to latch on to
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if you're playing this character for four hours, like this is who they are, just absolutely boiled down and gives you very clear directive of like, this is a strong move, this is a weak move, like, this is who you are, and then the fun of that as well is that if you were gonna play a much longer campaign, you can explore the nuance and the way those things interact a lot more, but I just, yeah, I really like to having,
[SPEAKER_00]: This sort of boiled into an essence version of who this is so that if you are pressed or rushed or not rushed, but like, if you're pressed to make an action or do something or you're playing a shorter campaign, it gives you some guidance.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do feel like with the weak moves in the strong moves.
[SPEAKER_02]: I like Matthias fell into like one or two of each of those.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I ended up using sin as all men do and cascade yourself for other for mortal failings.
[SPEAKER_02]: And on my strong moves, I mostly use strike with righteous fervor.
[SPEAKER_02]: Use all I am.
[SPEAKER_02]: But like it is very much like one note of this character.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whereas like videos you're like saying you're kind of spamming that button because it makes the most sense because you're kind of living in like one day in this character's life.
[SPEAKER_02]: But there's also a world where the journey of my character couldn't be going from, you know, in my week, we've seen this all men must do all the way to like turn away from the light.
[SPEAKER_02]: went or take the easy way out like it could go from sitting and doing something bad to taking the easy way out like going or going more towards cowardice like develop it like having different ways of seeing that character throughout a campaign.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, there's strong moves, weak moves, and then there's regular moves on all your sheets.
[SPEAKER_05]: Did any of you use your regular moves?
[SPEAKER_05]: I think I used to regularly move like once.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if I used them out loud, but they are, they inform kind of like what I should be doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I similarly, it was like, this helps me flesh out who I think this person is a little bit more and how they would behave.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't know that I called any of them out explicitly, but I definitely,
[SPEAKER_00]: Though mine are very funny because my first two regular moves are put others before yourself and put yourself before others.
[SPEAKER_04]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I love that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's really funny.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: I feel like that it was like the all three of your characters were a real clear example of like two things that are true of one shots of like you got to just lean into them a canx.
[SPEAKER_05]: You don't have time to take a breath away from them and that's like not a bad thing but it's like, you know, that's where you fall back on and two you all drove them like you stole them and nobody, nobody more than Abigail have worth too fast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Big swings, baby.
[SPEAKER_07]: They look like that.
[SPEAKER_07]: That move could have been so many things in your sheet.
[SPEAKER_07]: Like, fix something.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's dried to fix something that isn't yours to fix.
[SPEAKER_07]: Punish yourself.
[SPEAKER_07]: Take the blame.
[SPEAKER_07]: But it's really all put on others before yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you had some help that's very funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, doing a big move.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to do it knowing fully that there will be consequences and you have to embrace them in their entirety I'm curious if anyone else feels the same way I do that
[SPEAKER_02]: I, because we've just played on this show and like in my personal, I played less games like this that are blowing inside belonging or like token based compared to a dice system, which ultimately has kind of like a binary success failure mechanic.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, like, if you boil a dice down, it's generally like, did you do it or did you not do it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Or maybe did you do it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you do it with complication?
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you not do it?
[SPEAKER_02]: This is much more interpretive and it's like this like token based mechanic is blowing inside the long thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel so much less fluent in it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, like in the way that I always talk about systems like languages, like I'm trying to use
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think it's just a lack of experience or a lack of practice that I came it kind of like ended up hindering me in a few moments here and there trying to like figure out how to express this with the mechanics that were in front of me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not being as used to this type of mechanic as I am to roll a dice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it yes or is it no?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, I always say like blowing it's a blowing, you know, dice no master is this is it's a difficult system like people I think because there's no dice involved there's like very little like there's actually very little that you're looking out or like there's not really numbers under that.
[SPEAKER_04]: it could be easily perceived as like this is easy role play, but actually it's difficult role play.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's like what I always kind of like, because I played a good amount of them or at least I've played a handful of them and yeah, I struggle with them also in a way because it's like
[SPEAKER_04]: This is like, this is like what you can do and like, you have to drive something within the framework of this sentence.
[SPEAKER_04]: Or like, this is like your action is laid out for you.
[SPEAKER_04]: And also funny enough like the token economy also incentivizes certain things and you can't do something without having done something before.
[SPEAKER_04]: And like that's all intentional in its design loop, but it's like difficult.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's how I always think about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: it feels to me the way that like different languages construct sentences like in certain like we put adjectives before a word before a noun or after a noun but there's some languages where like every adjective will go before the noun and it's just like
[SPEAKER_02]: As you're trying to express a thought, you're just getting caught up in trying to say it in a language or fluent in, but having to translate it in your head and then express a thought in this new thing.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not pros.
[SPEAKER_05]: I guess kind of in that vein, I want to as we round this to a close flip it back over to you, Shenukh, because you had a character in this game as the as the GM, the captain.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, we're also, you know, using moves and everything.
[SPEAKER_05]: And how did it feel playing the captain?
[SPEAKER_05]: How did that feel kind of as a device for USGM?
[SPEAKER_07]: I really enjoyed playing the captain in that like, it feels like the very natural piece helped push the characters forward of like, oh, you guys just sitting around doing nothing.
[SPEAKER_07]: Like, here's the captain causing chaos.
[SPEAKER_07]: And like,
[SPEAKER_07]: I think that was the one fun part or like not one fun part but like the very like chaos engine in me was like always a little thing I can do here of like yeah, let's just light the heart on fire and let let these people deal with it, but in the way of like when I do that I have to deal with it because I'm the fucking GM So if they'll react and then I've to also then decide like what the outcomes are and the consequence of that are so it's like oh I'm I'm shooting myself in the foot by doing this
[SPEAKER_07]: But like fun in the way of like I can still do whatever I want and like Bryant can say actually we're not doing that like it's like oh, I know I have to now justify this in some capacity Yeah, and it was fun to just see how like Lex me PD and Matthias all like reacted like had different relationships to the captain of like Matthias and it up being like very questioning and attacking and antagonistic which was like very much
[SPEAKER_07]: kind of fitment, my thighs is profile of like I don't belong here.
[SPEAKER_07]: I know what's I know how to get out of here.
[SPEAKER_07]: Why are you following me and then like, Lux me being like, I'm just going to rob the cadmese.
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't even talk about this place.
[SPEAKER_07]: Like I'm like kind of above it, but like also just like, I don't know, I'm just trying to do me.
[SPEAKER_07]: And then PD being like, well, I suck.
[SPEAKER_07]: So I should listen to this person and this person's good right?
[SPEAKER_07]: So yeah, so it was all very like different relationships that
[SPEAKER_07]: build upon them like having other tools to like push the narrative forward like the whale and sick well and stuff but the captain being the driving one was uh was a very fun touch.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a question about the captain that we didn't have a chance to get to but you described their clothing as like tattered bishops.
[SPEAKER_00]: Robes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you have like a concept of who they were in life or or how they got here or or those sorts of things?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I feel like we never really got to dive into the captain's backstory that much.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I mean, I think in my head, the captain had these like catarobes of like, I think like in this world, like captains of ships use like clergy, outfits as a like a status symbol, so like the higher the level of like clergy clothing, the higher status, which is why I thought was really fun that my thighs was wearing priest.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that would kiss off the couch because he's a little more like, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if there's like a comment or sort of like a, well, I don't bring it near or whatever that is in the Navy.
[SPEAKER_07]: But like yeah, like first mate would be Matthias or something or whatever, but like funny, like yeah, if you're trying to like captain your own ship, you wear your own like you wear some type of clergy attire to signal that.
[SPEAKER_07]: Like you can find it, you can steal it from another cat like whatever it may be.
[SPEAKER_07]: So like this captain got it from.
[SPEAKER_07]: either finding Bishop attire or in my hand murdered the a captain before her and I love that that's very cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I dig that
[SPEAKER_04]: I kind of have a question for Shenukh about GMing.
[SPEAKER_04]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_04]: With kind of hearing, you talk about all this.
[SPEAKER_04]: And like we've, you've GMed like a deathmechanon game yes, before like, uh, off-mic and off-mic.
[SPEAKER_08]: What was fun?
[SPEAKER_07]: Which was fun.
[SPEAKER_07]: Off-mic?
[SPEAKER_07]: So I guess I do like GMing.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm wrong.
[SPEAKER_04]: But, but I guess I maybe I'm kind of curious about like, because even that, I want to see you GM something that doesn't have like an ending.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, doesn't have a thing that it is like that you have to give to that building because I think like maybe the way you're describing all this stuff and like how you like all these levers and you want to be a chaos goblin also but you are also like fuck I have to deal with the consequences of this because like there might be some wrangling I wonder like what it would be like if it even like let's say in hell will hell will there's like you got to do like a smaller thing where it's like
[SPEAKER_04]: where does this go like you don't really know where it's got you just you're also along for the ride of the chaos and like just need to like tap and push us in direction or you get to press your buttons and let us deal with it and it's not like how fucked do you gotta get to the hell hell well now like they've screwed themselves for the hell well and counter it like I'm I'm curious like maybe you'd enjoy that kind of g mn instead
[SPEAKER_07]: I guess like jamming a longer thing so I have more time to play with the toys and I mean maybe that's what it is of like there's so many toys this game gives you and I'm like I want to play with all of them but now I have to choose just like one or two and that's stressful to be fair there is like and this is again kind of getting into the meta a little bit of like there is the box of hellwill hellwill has this very clear
[SPEAKER_02]: end goal and then there's a box around that that is we're doing a one shot and this box around that that we're doing this is an actual play recording and there's like some additional considerations for that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So especially for you, Shinnock being, you know, chaos, gremlin and wanting to do crazy stuff being boxed in in so many different ways is like I could see you fighting up against it
[SPEAKER_00]: I know behind the curtain you had all sorts of fun like sicko ideas that we had to rain in just for sure sicko Yeah, we did we we pulled back a lot of stuff We're just gonna have to play again We're gonna just have to play again Disgusting sailors yeah, maybe we'll break back the parrot
[SPEAKER_07]: Bring back the parent.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bring back the parent costs.
[SPEAKER_07]: We'll release the parent reference it now.
[SPEAKER_02]: We got to leave that point when we get to 1,000 patrons will release the parent cut.
[SPEAKER_02]: The parent cuts coming.
[SPEAKER_04]: We released five hour.
[SPEAKER_04]: All right, Kelly, it's just.
[SPEAKER_03]: Allie, it's interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: It'll just be three hours per unit post-diving in parent talk.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a whole parent's side story with different characters.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_05]: The pit I want to do that I'm not gonna is that this period is like a crazy conspiracy thing.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's just a drop like that's why the parrots in hell never learn how to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to be the parry it thinks that all birds have been replaced with drones.
[SPEAKER_06]: Why do you think I'm here?
[SPEAKER_03]: What are you doing here?
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, make it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm telling you, I didn't see it coming.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's can only mean one thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: The CIA.
[SPEAKER_07]: Honestly, what a missed opportunity to have a parrot, and then freaking... Oh, he shut off.
[SPEAKER_07]: Gotta go.
[SPEAKER_07]: Get out of there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Season two.
[SPEAKER_05]: We're, you're getting the squawk cut for season two.
[SPEAKER_00]: any uh... any final thoughts that we don't anybody would like to leave our audience with on how well i i feel like well now because i was going to say for anybody who's listed to all of this at this point you know all the things that would be like spoilers but i think that this experience i was going to suggest for anyone who's playing as a player to not really read much of the book so that things don't get spoiled for you because i think there's some very cool stuff that can happen that like i had
[SPEAKER_00]: Hope for and then those hopes got dashed, but in an extremely fun way, but I think this experience also has made me for like other games too, because I do very often really like to read the whole thing and have a very comprehensive idea of like what a game is as a whole, and now I'm like, ooh, but it's uh, there is something really fun about being like, I don't know what's possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what the beats are, what is
[SPEAKER_00]: going to happen how you can get into or out of a thing and having the surprise of like maybe it maybe you can't.
[SPEAKER_07]: If you're GM in this game, like, please do what up.
[SPEAKER_07]: He's like encourage your players to not just like kind of look at what they need to look at because the satisfaction of seeing their faces as you read.
[SPEAKER_07]: like ending whatever like ending you pick for the for the session is so good and like they're they're like if you like you'll see how upset they are that this is all for us and that is very good for you it makes it so much more fun
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I do think over over the course of a longer game that could be even more satisfying I'm just being able to like seed so much over and over to them Like this is a fruitless endeavor like kind of no matter what and then getting to the point of Because ultimately like being the hell wells a great moment of triumph and then having the realization that It was all for not it's very much like what this game wants to talk about But can be a really satisfying conclusion for your players even though it's They succeed and they get nothing they want Yeah, yeah, yeah
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, play with your Bible study.
[SPEAKER_04]: My thought on out is, you should play in teeth in your health.
[SPEAKER_06]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
[SPEAKER_06]: I love tea and it's all tea.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have tea.
[SPEAKER_02]: No more tea, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm a dinosaur.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nice tea.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a good mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is a great moment that's slightly lost in the episode where it's there, but it happens very quickly.
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't respond to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Shinnik, you start describing the hell world's teeth.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if it's time for a minute to just go to teeth.
[SPEAKER_01]: What?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think we in the recording didn't hear it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's only in the editing and afterwards that I noticed that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, that's very, very deep.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that is all for this season of my first dungeon, Hellwailers.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much to plus one EXP for sponsoring this season.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want to grab your own copy of Hellwailers, you can use the promo code MFD10 to get 10% off your entire order at plus one EXP.com.
[SPEAKER_07]: And as always, remember, if you're having fun, you're already doing it right, even in hell.