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[0:26] Jason: Hello, I'm Brad.

[0:27] Brad: And I'm Jason.

[0:29] Jason: You are listening to we start our next five interviews tonight.

[0:46] Brad: And this is a very different type of interview in the fact that the creative, the cr the what is created by this group is different than probably almost anything you've ever heard as a gamer.

[1:00] Jason: Yes.

[1:01] Brad: Or a someone who's games.

[1:03] Jason: Guaranteed.

[1:04] Brad: And this one was we don't use last names because we don't want to embarrass other people, but our friend Eric um was the one who um introduced us to this.

[1:19] Jason: And we we appreciate it.

[1:21] Brad: So what are we talking about?

[1:22] Jason: We're talking about Mythic Thunderlute.

[1:26] Brad: And that is not something that's something that I shouldn't be talking about without getting an explicit flag on the podcast.

[1:42] Jason: Go on.

[1:42] Brad: Yeah.

[1:43] Jason: Okay, thank you.

[1:43] Brad: Yeah, you're welcome.

[1:44] Jason: Um, I'm normally the one that has to do that for your jokes.

[1:47] Brad: So it's it's go on.

[1:48] Jason: That's appropriate.

[1:50] Brad: Um sorry, I'm just looking at your coffee mug.

[1:53] Jason: Um so take no, I lost track of what I was gonna say.

[1:59] Brad: Thanks.

[1:59] Jason: Well, okay, let me help you out here.

[2:00] Brad: So no no no no, I know what you're gonna say.

[2:02] Jason: So Mythic Thunderloot is taking the idea of a role-playing game.

[2:08] Brad: And obviously, for many of you, you watch, you know, you've seen some Critical Role and things like that, where there are some very experienced actors and voice actors who can really put on a show.

[2:22] Jason: And if you've watched any um of Box Machina on Box Machina, yeah, yeah, on Amazon Amazon, yeah.

[2:32] Brad: That's that's based off of Critical Roles first in effect, first adventure.

[2:39] Jason: Or point being is is that no I was just gonna say it take that creativity and now turn it into a theatrical performance, including music, and turn it up a big notch.

[2:54] Brad: Yeah, right, because these aren't just the the minds and voices behind Mythic Thunderlute aren't voice actors, these are theater people, right?

[3:08] Jason: These are our professional actors, right?

[3:13] Brad: Yeah.

[3:15] Jason: So based and and how this came to how how we came to find out about it through Eric was that um some of the cast had some connections and did some work at one of the local repertory theaters in the area.

[3:30] Brad: Right.

[3:30] Jason: You know, and they they've been all over the country individually.

[3:34] Brad: Yes, yeah.

[3:35] Jason: And so when you when you listen to this, we'll get them into talking about the production and the work it takes to put it together.

[3:46] Brad: Um.

[3:48] Jason: And what listen to this and then go listen to an episode?

[3:52] Brad: Because you're gonna get hooked.

[3:55] Jason: You won't truly appreciate the work and what they do without listening to an episode.

[4:00] Brad: So we we should specify here that that the subtitle, and you'll hear about this because we talk about it.

[4:08] Jason: It is Mythic Thunderloot Colon, a D podcast musical.

[4:17] Brad: And everything I just said there is intentional.

[4:20] Jason: And they they favored us with an explanation.

[4:23] Brad: As I said to them off air, and I mean this with a great deal of affection, uh, Mythic Thunderlute is the most stupidly creative thing I have ever heard.

[4:37] Jason: And what I mean by that is it is the wildest mashup I have ever encountered.

[4:44] Brad: I don't know how they got there.

[4:47] Jason: And well, I guess we do know now, Brad, because we asked them, how did you possibly connect the dots for something like this?

[4:53] Brad: But like you said, the the acting is hilarious, the music is first rate.

[4:59] Jason: Like I feel like I have more theater in my life because I listen to this podcast.

[5:06] Brad: This is the only podcast, they haven't been that many episodes. They're preparing season two right now.

[5:12] Jason: Um by the time this episode releases, uh, it's our understanding we'll have at least gotten something from them in the interim, all of us, uh, maybe an interim episode of sorts.

[5:25] Brad: Uh, but but it's so wonderfully creative.

[5:29] Jason: This is the only podcast I've ever thought in earnest.

[5:32] Brad: I think I want to start again from the beginning and listen because it was that engrossing and just that much fun.

[5:41] Jason: Um folks, you you know, and and as much I we know a lot of you have wanted to do that very thing with our podcast where you've wanted to go back both of the episodes to which you've listened to.

[5:53] Brad: Yes, and and and all five of you have wanted to listen to them again in order.

[5:57] Jason: Right.

[5:57] Brad: Um, aside on this, this is definitely worth a full listen to.

[6:03] Jason: Oh, yeah.

[6:04] Brad: You will hear you know the personalities of Jake and Michael on the call, and you know, you'll be able to get a feel for for just how dynamic this is.

[6:15] Jason: And again, listen to Jake and Michael, then listen to our outro, obviously, because we want to talk and we and we want you to listen because we spent the time recording it.

[6:25] Brad: But then go and download and listen to the first couple episodes because it is unlike any role-playing stream podcast, vidcast, twitch, whatever.

[6:40] Jason: It's truly unique.

[6:41] Brad: It's it's truly unique.

[6:42] Jason: It's truly unique, it's very narrative-driven.

[6:46] Brad: Honestly, you don't even need to enjoy role-playing or D&D to really enjoy what they're doing, but but if you do, it'll make it all the more interesting.

[6:59] Jason: So with that, let's get into it.

[7:08] Brad: Mythic Thunderlute includes the talented Jake Blouch, Michael Doherty, Lillian Castillo, Leia Cotto, and Steve Goodalunas.

[7:17] Jason: We had the pleasure of speaking with Jake and Michael.

[7:20] Brad: Jake Blouch is a Philly-based actor, songwriter, voiceover artist, and future president of the United States.

[7:26] Jason: He has performed in theaters across the Philadelphia region and even a couple of times in Delaware.

[7:32] Brad: In addition to his career as an actor, his songwriting and musical projects include his parody band Jawbone Junction, which aims to give Southern Rock the Spinal Tap treatment.

[7:41] Jason: His original musical, Something Like a War, was commissioned by 11th Hour Theater Company and received a showcase reading in 2019.

[7:49] Brad: For his turn in their production of See What I Wanna See, he won the Barrymore Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Musical.

[7:56] Jason: He lives in South Philly with his true love, his wife Sophia, and her true love, their dog Teddy, and cats Tobias and Sister Aloicius.

[8:04] Brad: Michael Doherty is an East Coast-based actor, writer, and comedian.

[8:09] Jason: He has participated in nearly 50 theatrical productions across the country, including productions at 59E59 Theaters, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Utah Shakespeare Festival, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Cleveland Play House, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Connecticut Repertory Theatre, the Wilma Theater, and more.

[8:27] Brad: His television pilot, Los Jarochos, won Best Writing at the 2013 Independent TV Festival.

[8:33] Jason: Michael is a published educational researcher in an ongoing collaboration with the University of Denver, studying the thought processes of professional actors.

[8:42] Brad: In 2019, he married fellow actor and best friend Alex Kuyper during preview week for The Nerd at Milwaukee Rep.

[8:55] Jason: I don't even know how best to introduce uh the two gentlemen we have on today because um this was this was a fascinating one.

[9:06] Brad: Eric we you know we were talking a little bit before we hit the record button.

[9:10] Jason: A dear friend of ours, Eric, who actually has listened to one of our episodes because he commented on it.

[9:14] Brad: Yeah, or do we think that was by accident?

[9:16] Jason: Hey, yeah, thanks, Eric.

[9:17] Brad: Yeah, he's he's the one.

[9:19] Jason: Yeah, exactly.

[9:20] Brad: Um he's the one that um mentioned um I'm not gonna I'm gonna say the group here in a second, but mentioned your podcast to us, and so we both jumped on and started listening because it took it was theater, music, D&D all together.

[9:38] Jason: And um, we were hooked.

[9:40] Brad: So thanks to Eric for um introducing us to Mythic Thunderlute.

[9:46] Jason: Best name ever.

[9:47] Brad: Yeah, yeah.

[9:49] Jason: Um based out of the East, but there are some.

[9:52] Brad: I think what caught Eric's attention is there are some Midwest connections because he is a big um theater buff.

[9:58] Jason: So Eric, you have to listen to this episode because it's it's uh we've mentioned your name more than once.

[10:03] Brad: So we have Jake Blouch and Michael Doherty on with us today.

[10:08] Jason: Welcome, gentlemen.

[10:09] Brad: Yeah, this is the first time that we have more than one.

[10:13] Jason: Yes, I'm gonna go.

[10:14] Brad: So we'll have balance.

[10:16] Jason: So we we hope this lets the inh the the uh hilarity may ensue now.

[10:21] Brad: Right.

[10:21] Jason: Sure.

[10:21] Brad: Yeah, yeah.

[10:22] Jason: Oh, we're we're gonna bring it, baby.

[10:24] Brad: Yeah, good.

[10:26] Jason: I've had to listen, I've had to deal with Jason's humor for 30 years, and it's not it's it's not it hasn't gotten better.

[10:31] Brad: Right.

[10:32] Jason: Having having binged your your podcast to your your production, we have a good sense of just how funny you gentlemen and your whole troupe are.

[10:41] Jake Blouch: Oh well, I mean, oh my god. We laugh we laugh a lot, you know. Regardless of how well it translates at times, I think we are always having a good time.

[10:50] Michael Doherty: It certainly sounds like it.

[10:52] Jason: So for those listeners who have the misfortune of not having actually heard Mythic Thunderlute before, how would you describe it?

[11:04] Jake Blouch: Oh Michael, you give a very nice spiel.

[11:06] Michael Doherty: Do you want to spiel?

[11:07] Jake Blouch: Okay, sure.

[11:08] Michael Doherty: Um, so I sort of it's uh our subtitle is a D podcast musical.

[11:16] And the reason we say that and not a musical D&D podcast is because it is a piece of musical theater.

[11:24] Jake Blouch: In that after we record our D&D sessions over Zoom, we then turn it into a musical.

[11:31] Michael Doherty: That is to say the songs uh for the most part are designed to move the plot forward.

[11:37] Jake Blouch: So we take uh three moments in every session and we turn them into songs, and it could be a moment where it's centered around a medieval rock band, it could be a moment where the band is performing a song for uh the entertainment of the other characters, or it could be a musical theater number where uh the characters are not hearing it as a song, but we get the enjoyment of hearing it performed as a musical number, even though it was just an argument or a fight sequence or whatever.

[12:04] Michael Doherty: So we add sound effects, original underscoring, three songs per episode, a special guest that we highlight, usually a performer that wants to promote something, they voice one of the NPCs, and there you have this uh like hour-ish long uh musicalized D&D session.

[12:25] Jake Blouch: Yeah, I was gonna I was gonna nice, yeah.

[12:27] Michael Doherty: Good spiel.

[12:27] Jake Blouch: I was gonna ask you about that because I noticed it's not a musical podcast.

[12:31] Michael Doherty: It it so I was I was wondering if that was intentional.

[12:34] Jake Blouch: Yeah, we we squinted over that for a while.

[12:37] Michael Doherty: Yeah, the placement of that word musical and like what it means to be to be a musical thing and to be a thing that is a musical, you know.

[12:45] Jake Blouch: Right.

[12:46] Michael Doherty: So how long does it uh well I've got a bunch of questions.

[12:50] Jake Blouch: Uh how long does it take you to produce a single episode from start to finish?

[13:02] Michael Doherty: Um I mean it it it takes you we would say it takes about a month, right?

[13:07] Jake Blouch: Well, I would say about a month.

[13:08] Michael Doherty: Yeah, it takes about a month.

[13:09] Jake Blouch: Oh we record everything so far in advance, but once we finally get to what we call post-production, yeah.

[13:16] Michael Doherty: Yeah.

[13:17] Jake Blouch: Yeah, okay. From the moment that we start writing songs, Mike starts his his edit where he takes these sessions, which are usually about I mean what?

[13:27] Michael Doherty: And like 90 minutes.

[13:30] Jake Blouch: Yeah, yeah, and shrinks it down to about 40.

[13:34] Michael Doherty: Yep.

[13:35] Jake Blouch: Um which you add musical numbers into that, it usually bumps it back up to about 50. Um yeah, by the time we've why he's pared everything down in the edit, Alex Kuyper, his wife, and our uh uh our dear friend and uh one of our uh producers at Sound Effects, and then Dan Kazimi and I start writing the um the songs for it. By the time we're done with that, I mean it's it and then we're of course we gotta record the songs. Um takes about a month. We actually just built a new kind of production schedule that actually gives us two months to make each part of a single episode, but each two-month cycle overlaps with the previous one.

[14:17] Michael Doherty: So we're working on so like my month looks like I'm gonna finish the rough cut of the episode and then I'm gonna start my work on episode two at the end of that month, and then finish up at the top of the next month. You know what I mean?

[14:33] Jake Blouch: It's like it's gonna be a lot of that.

[14:35] Michael Doherty: So my oh go ahead.

[14:38] Jake Blouch: I was just gonna ask. So so given the future tense here, we can look forward to another season.

[14:43] Michael Doherty: Oh hell yeah.

[14:44] Jake Blouch: Yeah.

[14:44] Michael Doherty: Okay, good.

[14:45] Jake Blouch: Yeah. I I'm actually writing uh so we we dropped season what we call season one point oh, which is the first half of our first season, uh which is nine episodes. There's another nine coming. I uh started writing episode ten today.

[15:01] Michael Doherty: Oh, okay.

[15:02] Jake Blouch: In proper and not just the series or not just the season Bible, but the actual episode like dialogue from NPCs and that kind of thing.

[15:11] Michael Doherty: And then is this gonna be like season one five?

[15:13] Jake Blouch: Yeah, this will be season one point five, and then it would be seasonal. So it's gonna be like Battlestar Galactica. We'll just have to buy every small star small thing of DVDs and spend three times as much.

[15:22] Michael Doherty: Great, great.

[15:23] Jake Blouch: Yeah. Maybe take a musical and turn it into like nerd TV Battlestar Galactica.

[15:28] Michael Doherty: Oh man, baby.

[15:29] Jake Blouch: Oh no, no, it's yeah. So I'm I'm like the I'm like the guy in Scanners where my head's gonna explode just because I have lots of questions and I'm a nerd, but um not in that order.

[15:39] Michael Doherty: But no, not in that order. Uh Jake, you said you actually you work on doing the writing of the music that I was gonna ask about that. And do you all then record obviously separately than like from the game itself? You record the music, I'm assuming. Do you still do it remotely? Zoom like, or do you do it? How do you do that now?

[15:59] Jake Blouch: Oh, well, uh so usually what will happen at at least from uh from my from my point of view is I'll make like a base, a very, very basic demo track. That's usually like one very basic guitar track, and I'll make sure that everything's in place, um, that it um it fits in with any dialogue that so the four of us will work, the four producers will work together collaboratively to make sure that um the music and the dialogue and everything is in place. Um and so I'll make I'll make a uh a demo track that that leaves space, of course, for the lyrics, but also leaves any space that we need for uh interstitial dialogue. And then usually what we'll do is I or and and Dan basically does this too. Um Dan and or I will sing the each of it everybody's parts in the track, uh and then we'll send it out to our singers so that they can start working on that.

And then as that's happening, I'll start layering in different instruments, and uh we'll also um we'll get Steve who plays Roscoe Chubb, who also actually drums on all the tunes. Uh, we'll get him into the studio uh and uh he'll record drum tracks and then we kind of put everything together and Dan uh masters it and yeah, and adds like uh can I can I curse on this pod?

[17:27] Michael Doherty: Do whatever you want.

[17:28] Jake Blouch: Shit ton, a metric shit ton of layers because like every instrument because Jake does all the guitars, he does guitar, bass, he's done you, he's done mandolin, um, Steve does the drums, and basically we've got some guest musicians who've played like Sarah Gleagle played flute for us, but Dan synthetically records every other instrument, like every orchestral swell you hear, every string instrument, like violin, um, every brass you hear, that's Dan uh synthetically laying in all these instruments, and same with the underscore. That's a pretty many, many layers.

[18:05] Michael Doherty: Dan is a wizard, and like I I don't know how you feel about this, though. He's maybe one of the top ten most impressive people I've ever met in my life.

[18:12] Jake Blouch: Yeah, yeah, no, I often joke around that we would have gotten about three episodes of this out before we would have just collapsed if it hadn't been for Dan.

[18:25] Michael Doherty: Yeah, and it's evolved, you know, even the songwriting process has evolved. Like it used to be like, all right, Jake, you're a songwriter, take it away. Hey, and then like he was doing all the all the demos, and then like I was like, well, maybe I can write harmonies and record the demos for you. And then it's like I started writing some lyrics, and then Alex started writing some lyrics, and then Dan started writing some songs, and now it's like it feels it feels slightly more manageable.

[18:50] Jake Blouch: You guys are not screwing around. I mean, you have such a broad patina of genres that you're throwing at listeners, just totally disparate types of music across the episodes, right? And they sound truly like theater productions. Like, this is not doesn't sound like a podcast, right? It sounds like legitly beautiful, engaging music where all the pieces are there.

[19:14] Michael Doherty: Thanks very good.

[19:16] Jake Blouch: Well, but it's just ridiculous. I think well, you know, it's like it's it's just ridiculous. The audio quality is different than a lot of podcasts for for kind of two reasons. One is that we are we are fully producing musical numbers, some of which sound like radio play when you've got those those songs that the band plays. And then these like musical theater tunes uh that want to sound like you would hear on a cast recording. But then even the the gameplay, like the interplay between us happens at a decibel that you don't hear a lot on podcasts. Like there's the sort of podcaster uh Tambor. And we're we're kind of like, ha! That's crazy! You know, we're just like reacting to things as our energetic selves, and it's a very different you know, audio vibe.

[20:02] Jake Blouch: I'd say a lot of basic and I think we're gonna use Michael going forward. I like his voice better as a partner than yours.

[20:08] Michael Doherty: Yeah, just so I thought you were gonna tell me we're just gonna cut out the ha that's crazy, and that's gonna be in our new intro draft.

[20:14] Jake Blouch: So that yeah, oh that well, that'll work too. So a very related, and I know sorry, but I know you've got a bunch, but before we go farther than this, scripting. I like like you guys put out your scripts, right? With these with these episodes, but I I as I'm listening to these, or as I was listening to them, I got really curious how obviously the numbers are are written, but how scripted are the adventures? I mean, obviously you're you're planning them, but how much is organic versus how much is okay, follow a script?

[20:47] Michael Doherty: Great question. Yeah, I mean, uh it's kind of like it's basically like any old D D session, right? Like Mike the DM has um you know uh NPCs and what they say and descriptions of it everything, and um but then like any dialogue that you hear from the cast is is all just us just messing around, you know.

[21:13] Jake Blouch: That's incredible because it it kind of comes across in a positive way as scripted like it always seems to work.

[21:13] Michael Doherty: That's Doe's edit that's the goal yeah that's the goal in the edit and because we record over Zoom we capture all the audio separately right so we're we're not all in one place like bleeding into each other's audio so yeah right crazy thing happens group reaction I can not only isolate uh really funny line that gets buried but I can like reorder things like I can make it like Roscoe reacts Joe Costa reacts pugface reacts right so there's all that sort of zhuzhing not only like putting out dead air and and like less funny jokes but actually like really fine-tuning the exact sequence we want to be so like I'm sort of I write a script that's kind of like a choose your own adventure thing and then I kind of like make a new script out of the audio we have after we record.

[21:13] Jake Blouch: Okay yeah you very much consider your final edit to be kind of like the last phase of your writing.

[22:48] Jake Blouch: So all honesty, I think I was in episode three before I realized, oh my god, I know what a mythic thunder loot is. Sad but true. It took me three episodes.

[22:51] Michael Doherty: That's exactly right that's exactly and that's that's why I've I'm I've always been attached to the what I call the rough edit you know which we're all more than happy to just like go for it man even with our more more simplistic I I leave all the production to Jason I just again it's pretty simple yeah yeah who who came up with and I can't remember what what was the the genesis of coming up with the name for the podcast itself because I find that extraordinarily creative, both Jason and I did.

[22:57] Michael Doherty: It kind of takes till then story-wise, you know. Um we kind of like we threw we threw a lot of names around.

[23:07] Jake Blouch: We had we had everyone in the group, including the players, including Lillian and Leah and Steve, who you're here on the pod. Um we all came up with what, like five or six different names for the band potentially, and then we all like voted on them.

[23:23] Michael Doherty: Nice.

[23:24] Jake Blouch: It came down to what? It came down to it came down to m Mythic Thunderlute, obviously, Mythic Thunderlute. Uh which was in the running for a while. Um for a while now. This is Edgar's band from his past life, but for a while we were kicking around of actually calling the band Elf Mother.

[23:44] Michael Doherty: Um which we we didn't do.

[23:47] Jake Blouch: Yeah, we did our earliest demo was called Elf Mother.

[23:50] Michael Doherty: That would limit your audience, but I still really like it.

[23:53] Jake Blouch: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[23:56] Michael Doherty: What else?

[23:57] Jake Blouch: Um you know, uh some some band names you hear on the show Necromantica, uh, were on the table. Two dead kobolds was one. I I laugh out loud at the band names when you just like like they're mentioned in passing. It's like, oh yeah, they're famous.

[24:19] Michael Doherty: Um and we just we vo we voted on it and we kinda it's it's it was a toss-up between mythic and mystic Thunderloot for hot second I we we went with mythic yeah.

[24:30] Jake Blouch: We almost we almost nixed Mythic Thunderlute because we thought that the alliteration was gonna be too much, but ultimately, I think we decided that the Thunderloot itself was in fact more mythical than mystical.

[24:42] Michael Doherty: Yeah.

[24:43] Jake Blouch: It's not not mystical, but the story is a myth. And we we talked a lot about how like what we wanted the title to do. We knew it would the title of the pod was also going to be the name of the band. But uh by also naming it after an object in the world of the show, we could evoke loot, something you play. We get the musical element. Um mythic, we get this sense of like epic epicness, and like Thunderloot is now like then we get fantasy. So like we can like do a lot of storytelling just in uh a couple syllables, you know.

[25:17] Michael Doherty: Yeah, right, right. Did you pick up have you did you expect kind of it to pick up the way it's picked up in terms of people listening and feedback and so on out in the like in the Twitter verse and and everywhere else? You might have.

[25:31] Jake Blouch: I'm not trying to make it sound like I'm not trying to minimize now.

[25:35] Michael Doherty: No, I mean it was certainly we certainly hoped it would. Uh but yeah, no, it's been a real it's been a real joy to have um a real joy, a real real joy to have this crazy little idea that we had that we didn't even know if it would even work, and just like you know, having folks like yourselves just be uh tickled by it and just having fun with it and um it uh bringing joy to someone's day is uh is awesome. It's really and it's such a funny thing because like I I don't know that I had a lot of expectation going in about what the response would be.

[26:10] Michael Doherty: I knew at a certain point in production when I was like, oh, this is really ambitious. This takes a lot of time to make. Like I was like, I really hope someone fucking listens to this. But then in getting the actual feedback, what's cool is like you see a piece of fan art, and I'm like moving to tears. Like that was just an idea we were kicking around, and now that moment is captured in someone's art or like someone did a live tweet of the first episode and like those things are just so meaningful because someone's taking the time to get to know it in a similar way that we were originally engaging with it.

[26:26] Jake Blouch: Before we started recording, we were talking with you just about the kind of the genesis of the why behind this, and you were telling us how you know it started during COVID. I mean, I think we've all— you guys have lived it, the rest of us have read about just how hard some industries, especially areas like theater, were hit and are still being hit by the realities of the pandemic. And I'm just curious, and you had said things are picking up now again as theaters are starting to open, trying to open, but has this project just as professionals helped meet that need personally? I mean, has it helped fill a niche?

[27:08] Michael Doherty: Oh yeah, yeah. I think this at least for me got me through some pretty dark spots in the pandemic and just sort of like who am I, what am I doing? What do we do next? You know, yeah absolutely there's like the financial uncertainty aspect of the pandemic that I think we all feel, but right there is an artistic itch and like an outlet that's required if you consider yourself, you know, a full-time artist, even if not like an always paid artist. And this became that. I mean, more it became a better outlet really than I ever had in my life previous because I got to become not just a performer but a writer and a producer and you know a manager. Like it's been cool wearing all the different hats that have come with it. So I feel like the artistic level up has been huge, you know.

[28:28] Jake Blouch: I said in there with level up. I felt pretty good that I got a D, A, and G chord down in guitar and now you're going to free sourdough starters.

[28:40] Michael Doherty: Yo, D is hard.

[28:42] Jake Blouch: You gotta like scrunch your fingers, it's a really hard like scrunching fingers a little, yeah.

[28:47] Michael Doherty: But I've been told if you know these three chords, you could play almost anything.

[28:50] Jake Blouch: I've learned that that's not true. But they try to get you like that's how they hook you on guitar.

[28:56] Michael Doherty: Have you both and the troupe, as we start to resume— I tell Jason we're in the 26th month of 2020— have you started to see, you know, Jason alluded to this. Are you kind of getting back to normal work and normal production and so on, even outside of the podcast? I know out in the east that's a little different than here in the Midwest. We see our friends going to some of the shows at the rep here in the city, but it's so different everywhere.

[29:32] Jake Blouch: I mean, like Alex, my wife, and I were working over the summer and fall at Utah Shakespeare and it was like one of the only theater companies producing. We're like, theater is back, baby. I feel like there was such a naive optimism early on. They're like, it's done, you know, first line of vaccines, and then we're like, we're good. And then like things start closing again, and work is different for everyone right now.

[29:57] Michael Doherty: Jake D's doing the play right now in Philly, which is I am super excited about.

[30:01] Jake Blouch: Yeah. But I'll tell you, like, I kinda broke up with theater. Uh yeah. I mean, I was kind of like, okay, that, and I'm still not like I don't— yeah, it's still a thing that I'm like, I don't really have— yeah, I'm trying to find the next thing kind of. Uh so it did kind of change things for me in a very permanent way as far as how I kind of like look at myself professionally.

[30:30] Michael Doherty: Um still trying to figure out if anybody knows what the future of theater is. No one knows what the future of theater is. So like theater companies are just as terrified and uncertain as actors right now, so it's like we're all just like, is this a career still? You know, yeah, it kind of remains to be seen.

[30:54] Jake Blouch: Oh, I really hope so. Not to patronize, but if something were to happen like that, that would be a huge loss just from an arts perspective. Yeah, you know, so um I use that as a barometer in some way where I'm like, okay, we're starting to see some sense of normalcy return.

[31:15] Michael Doherty: Yeah. You know this has, you know, for me and for Jason, where we're busy with other things, and we somehow figured it out, figured out that you know, podcasting is not even close to what you're doing, takes a little more time than we thought. Um something like what you've done for us has actually allowed us to step back from normal life and listen and love what we did before, you know, BC— before COVID.

[31:48] Jake Blouch: Right. So yeah. Um man, so I mean we're talking to you guys. Just to switch gears just a bit, but I want to make sure everyone gets their due course here. You want to tell us a little bit about the troupe as a whole? Because it, I mean, you guys seem lovely and Michael is especially handsome, but you got the distinction.

[32:12] Michael Doherty: Right. Well, that was made clear earlier. But there are more. And I went wondering if you want to say anything just about the group as a whole, because it from what we've seen online and then listening, certainly sounds like there's a really interesting mix of backgrounds and specialties. Each one of those characters, right? No one can see my air quotes. Um it's just like it's just so well embodied.

[32:35] Jake Blouch: Yeah, yeah. Jakey, do you want to talk a little bit about like the genesis of like you and Steve?

[32:41] Michael Doherty: Sure.

[32:42] Jake Blouch: So your friendship is like, yeah. So like Steve, who plays Roscoe Chubb and I have been friends for a very long time and had a band together in college that played two gigs. Uh and then we decided, oh, this is gonna destroy our friendships. You know, have always sort of— Steve went off and was in a few bands, and I kind of started doing theater, and we really kind of wanted to reconnect and have a project to work on together. So we had started, oh god, this is probably about three or four years ago at this point, kicking around ideas of making sort of interactive theater pieces based around a band being on stage. We didn't really have like a concrete concept, because that's not really a concrete concept, but um so I had sort of been interested in a while of like creating a live D&D musical where people would like play on stage and it would sort of, you know, they'd go through a certain journey and it would, as they got to different plot points in the D&D adventure, it would trigger different songs depending on what they decided to do.

[34:07] Michael Doherty: Um and we were kind of starting to kick this around and then COVID happened. And so Steve had the idea of what if we do this as a podcast, which um actually he had before the pandemic, and we really latched onto it because it made our concept of what we were trying to do so much more manageable. We didn't have to run out of space, we didn't have to like worry about hiring a sound designer and like all that shit that goes along with making a play. So uh yeah, we decided to do it as a podcast. And then um the world shut down, yeah.

[34:51] Jake Blouch: And then we were like, well, who do we know who can— who's a comedic chameleon who could just do tons of different voices and also likes D&D a little bit? Oh, I know, Doe. And so we're actually like right before the pandemic hit, Steve and Jake had just taught me how to DM. So we all go way back when we went to college together.

[35:14] Michael Doherty: Um so we've always been pals. So it's like, Doe, do you want to be involved in this thing? I'm like, definitely. And we were also collaborating with our buddy Jamie Foreman in the first meeting I had with them. It was Jamie's first and only meeting. And the last thing Jamie said was, I think Doe should like DM this thing. And I was like, okay, I've done literally one session, not even a campaign in my life. I feel a tad underqualified.

[35:39] Jake Blouch: Yeah, you'll be fine.

[35:40] Michael Doherty: So then I spent, you know, months like kind of learning the ins and outs of the game a little bit, and um and sort of casting this thing. So then we went to, you know, two people from who who've been dear to me in my life. One is Leigha, who was a couple years below me at UARTS, um brilliant actor. Uh she was the little red to my jack in Into the Woods we had done together in Philly, and she was just a genius. And um Alex and I, when we got married, we were doing a production of this play called The Nerd, Larry Shue's The Nerd in Milwaukee. And it's a really ridiculous comedy. And uh there was this Chicago actor named Lillian Castillo, um, who played— what was her character's name? Clelia Waldgrave.

And she had this like this weird quirk where anytime she was feeling full of rage, she would just wrap a plate in a napkin and smash it with a knife. And it was some of the funniest physical comedy I've ever seen. And she was a big gamer. She introduced me to all these games, like these card games, and we talked D&D all the time. And I was like, okay, I'll get them in on this too. They're brilliant collaborators, they're great singers. We need people who can bring both. And then we're like, this is our squad.

[37:02] Jake Blouch: And next thing we knew, um, my wife kind of was like a de facto producer because I would just complain about all the shit we had to do. Let me help. Like, let me at least like be a sounding board for the story. And then you got just got more and more involved. And then the last piece of it was Dan Kazimi, uh, who's sort of a music director out at Milwaukee Rep. He does most things out there and is a really innovative— does really innovative things with sound already. Like um in 2013 we did a production of Ragtime at Milwaukee Rep, which was the first time Dan created this thing where he recorded half of the orchestra in his studio.

[37:42] Michael Doherty: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

[37:43] Jake Blouch: And the other half of it was live. So he was constantly cueing things to the live orchestra and with a foot pedal controlling when the rest of the orchestra would come in.

[37:54] Michael Doherty: Yeah.

[37:55] Jake Blouch: Oh, that's crazy. Yeah. So I knew he had like Jake said, wizard-like capabilities. And we very tentatively, Alex and I were like, would you be interested? We need help with like underscoring. Jake's feeling like a little overwhelmed, and like, would you want to maybe come in? He's like, I've been jealous of this from the start. I want in on this thing. And he like joined with a vengeance. He was like, it was gonna be all original underscoring now. He was gonna mix and master each individual one, and he just upped our game.

[38:25] Michael Doherty: Oh yeah, man.

[38:26] Jake Blouch: Like tenfold. I remember the first time I heard an episode or at least part of an episode with Kazimi's underscore, and I just went, holy shit. Like wow.

[38:36] Michael Doherty: That's what there's.

[38:40] Jake Blouch: Yeah. It's so seamless. I mean, it's just I love listening to you guys. You are fully immersed auditorily, right? It's like wherever you are, it's there. It's just— I was gonna say it's like old-time radio, right? But of course, sure, sure. With the— and I because I love that like with but with off-the-chart production value, right? It's just like you are immersed in a story.

[39:03] Michael Doherty: And it's funny, because you guys are very, I think very um not rules light, but mechanics light.

[39:11] Jake Blouch: Sure.

[39:12] Michael Doherty: Right.

[39:12] Jake Blouch: You it's I mean, you really seem to let the narrative drive it. And then just and then just like I'll be listening, like, huh? Are they are are are we is this radio or is it D&D? And then it's like role perception. And it's like, yeah, that it just again just enough so that it has it it's it's still a game.

[39:31] Michael Doherty: Yeah. The early conversations we had, we were very inspired by this thing called HarmonQuest, which was an evolution of Harmon Town, which is Dan Harman's podcast, no longer a thing. They would do D&D sessions occasionally on the show, and then that led to an animated series called Harman Quest, where that group would gather in front of a live studio audience, hour-long session gets edited down to 30 minutes, yeah, and all of their adventures get animated, like hashtag goals, right? In terms of what we're creating, we'd love to bring this to a visual medium. Um but we were like they really one thing they really figured out was simplified mechanics. I mean, they literally can't play D&D, right, for copyright reasons.

Um, right, right. Right. We learned that Wizards of the Coast allows podcasts to use the name D&D as long as there's nothing pornographic or hate speech like involved in it. Which means we had to go we had to we had to wipe all the porn out of it we had to cut a lot of pornography. You know, you know the game.

[40:42] Jake Blouch: Yeah.

[40:44] Michael Doherty: So but the one thing they had done really well was simplify the main mechanics. It's like if you're gonna have a dice roll, it's gotta mean something. It needs to be a moment of theater.

[40:55] Jake Blouch: Yeah. And the way I was able to articulate that in building the sort of mechanics of Thunderloot was listener experience above player experience.

[41:07] Michael Doherty: Yeah. Yeah, sure. That's cool, you know.

[41:09] Jake Blouch: Yeah.

[41:10] Michael Doherty: An event.

[41:11] Jake Blouch: Yeah. I think I think you've kidded. I think you can I think you can do like the live audience thing, you know. You all sit up there and generate your own game and we'll sit in the audience.

[41:21] Michael Doherty: We I meant that would be actually a very cool thing, you know, almost like a script read, a live script read that you'll see on some of the shows. So just as an aside, our you know, our production value is so professional.

[41:33] Jake Blouch: I get I get text from Jason. Turn down your game.

[41:35] Michael Doherty: Yeah, well, that's that's our production value.

[41:39] Jake Blouch: It's better than saying it over the well, in all seriousness, to go back to porn for a sec. Um actually to get a little philosophical, it's funny you bring that up because in all seriousness, and I think this is endemic to the D community, and I think this is endemic to the TTRPG community, and obviously has been. I say this as an outsider, right? I like going to theater, but no one would ever let me act. They made that mistake once in high school. Uh I think obviously endemic to the theater community for so long. The podcast, it's the story, the backstory, the dialogue, the characters, it's all so progressive. It's so inclusive. And to me, that really comes through. Um, I just think in the in in the loveliest way, like you listen to these dynamics, subtle and overt, and it's like that is it's just so cool. It's such a nice counterpoint to the BS that we have to deal with these days in real society.

[42:39] Michael Doherty: Yeah, sure. Well, that's so that's so great, man. Thank you. Um, yeah, it was important. It was important for us to uh to make sure that it wasn't just first and foremost, it wasn't just a bunch of dudes.

[42:50] Jake Blouch: Right.

[42:51] Michael Doherty: Um, you know, and uh it wasn't just a bunch of white dudes.

[42:53] Jake Blouch: Yep.

[42:54] Michael Doherty: Um I have no idea what that's like. I know that's I say this the poor wind. Um but yeah.

[43:03] Jake Blouch: Yeah.

[43:01] Michael Doherty: Yeah. Yeah.

[43:04] Jake Blouch: There's there's a goal.

[43:13] Michael Doherty: Sorry, Michael. I was I talked right over.

[43:15] Michael Doherty: No, and and and just like how how we how we have a conversation about things happening today without talking directly about it, right? Like, how can we put the things in a blender and be like, they'll all be a part of this world, but like we don't know exactly how they'll show up, and like our story will be totally unique, and it's like we don't need to make a D&D satire like of modern events, but like we can also like acknowledge that there's like a lot of pain right now and a lot of and a lot of struggles, and like spread joy while acknowledging our truths, you know what I mean?

[43:54] Jake Blouch: Right.

[43:55] Michael Doherty: I would I would hope just wizards would if they haven't already have you on the radar in a positive way. I hope they would, just because you bring something to the table. And it's it's funny how mainstream, because we you've talked matter of factly just about, you know, Michael, you even said you learned a DM before you started doing this. So you all must have been playing, obviously in some form or another, even before you decided to do the podcast.

[44:20] Jake Blouch: Oh yeah. Yeah, we had played actually, if I may say, Michael.

[44:26] Michael Doherty: Please.

[44:26] Jake Blouch: I think we we had played with our friend Scott, who DM'd a campaign that Mike and Alex, his wife who's one of our producers. We've said that a number of times. Um part of the contract, yeah. Um I was one of the producers, but award-winning actor. This is maybe a campaign. This campaign was maybe back in like 2013, I want to say.

[44:56] Michael Doherty: Yeah, around.

[44:57] Jake Blouch: But like there was a number of times in which Mike's character who you were playing, like, what were you playing?

[45:02] Michael Doherty: Galapagil of Galgar.

[45:04] Jake Blouch: All right, noble dwarf of the mountains. And she was like, Wait, was she a dragonborn?

[45:10] Michael Doherty: She was a dragonborn, yeah.

[45:12] Jake Blouch: Well, Galafagil and uh uh Julius and Julius were teaming up a lot and like sneaking off in the campaign, and we weirdly had to like pretend to be husband and wife sometimes, like like there was just our our group was such a shit show, and like and like we were like always in voice of reason mode, so it just like brought us together. So, like when when Alex and I started dating, everyone's like, We could tell because of Julius and Galaf again.

[45:38] Michael Doherty: Yeah, you know what I mean.

[45:41] Jake Blouch: The characters gave it away.

[45:42] Michael Doherty: Life imitates ours, yeah.

[45:44] Jake Blouch: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And we played in a number of campaigns together subsequently. I had a little homebrew that I was doing. I had a little Curse of Strahd campaign going for a little bit that you played in. So right before the pandemic. And um everyone's pretty experienced, except Leah's first campaign, which is pretty mind-blowing.

[46:04] Michael Doherty: Yeah.

[46:04] Jake Blouch: She is who plays Pug Face. And Dan Kazimi, our that fantastic composer we've been talking about, no D&D experience, loves fantasy.

[46:15] Michael Doherty: We gotta change that.

[46:16] Jake Blouch: We gotta change that.

[46:17] Michael Doherty: Yeah, we do, we do. We we got we gotta have some we we'll do a little session just. Don't worry, he's not listening over here. You can say whatever you want.

[46:22] Jake Blouch: You'll just just know that that after after this episode, you will probably get another five five listeners.

[46:32] Michael Doherty: Hell yeah, bring them.

[46:36] Jake Blouch: Come on, baby. Look, we can assure you they're not our wives.

[46:40] Michael Doherty: Wow.

[46:41] Jake Blouch: Okay. But are your wives producers?

[46:45] Michael Doherty: Uh we have an NDA assay.

[46:53] Jake Blouch: So okay, I uh not trying to ask for spoilers or anything like that, so let me be up front. But like what what can you or might you tell us about what we can expect with season one five?

[47:05] Michael Doherty: Ooh. No, I'm gonna give Doe that one because he's the DM and I play, and so I don't really know.

[47:11] Jake Blouch: Did you plug ears?

[47:12] Michael Doherty: Yeah, yeah, earmuffs.

[47:15] Jake Blouch: What can you say that won't give it away to Jake, then?

[47:17] Michael Doherty: Yeah, exactly. This is the perfect challenge. Um, I can say, you know, in we we hit some things in our mid-season finale. Um, we've got a pretty wild cliffhanger that I won't say for people who haven't listened yet, um, that has to be pretty immediately dealt with. And there's a big problem. It's a big problem. Jake's pretty upset about it.

[47:39] Jake Blouch: I'm pretty pissed off.

[47:40] Michael Doherty: Player and character pretty player and character are both pretty pissed off about what's happening. Um I was just writing different versions of that very scene today. And uh and beyond that, there's a sort of like new quest that sort of gets um proposed in in episode nine through it through the second song of the three songs in the episode. Um this this new journey that they're uh sort of like embarking on as they as they move through it, and like other things happening in in the in the season that are like uh again the in in the finale of the episode, there's like talk of uh of a plan. The episode is called the plan, and um there's allusions to something that may happen down in the road. So you've got like the you've got a quest, you've got this immediate problem, you've got something that's been talked off like in the distance that that you can imagine will all sort of like come come into play.

[48:43] Jake Blouch: Can't wait.

[48:44] Michael Doherty: Yes, it's good honestly. I I'm very tempted on listening just again through.

[48:52] Jake Blouch: Yeah.

[48:53] Michael Doherty: Just for the fun, yeah.

[48:54] Jake Blouch: Yeah, just for the fun of it leading up, just especially once once it looks like one five has come out. It's like, okay, let's just do this again. Let's get let's take it right back there. We built this uh in a way like we've already said, we're so different from so many podcasts, but like re-listenability was very much at the forefront of our minds, unlike like most even actual play pods where like we're not gonna just show you like all of our bullshitting around like we're gonna we're gonna like edit this tight so that you're listening to a little mini audio movie that has like these songs and we're also gonna drop an album um in between seasons two of season one point oh songs we've got 30 songs on this.

[49:00] Michael Doherty: Are you really?

[49:01] Jake Blouch: Yeah, yeah so that can be available on on Apple Music on I will buy that in a heartbeat amazing yeah oh my gosh hashtag take my money yeah seriously seriously I I go around I listen to an episode and I go around humming yeah yeah yeah and and I'll just I'm gonna write anywhere I've almost spit on my coffee on multiple occasions when you get to this line I'm like how are they gonna resolve this and it's like I can't believe they did it like you actually went there it's so much fun so great guys thank you so much for spending time with us this is oh my god actually my play when you when you launch 1.5 we have to have you back if you don't mind we got yeah man yeah yeah we would love to heck yeah cool awesome because again neither of us are neither of us are it listening to you all talk about this you know like Jason said one theater I my theater experience was 1776 30 years ago who'd who'd you play I was Lewis Morris New York Abstains Curtis that was my last time in 30 years brought it out of the cobwebs who did something did Steve play that part when they did that reading in college.

[50:47] Michael Doherty: Oh my gosh, he may have.

[50:49] Jake Blouch: That's amazing.

[50:51] Michael Doherty: Did Steve play?

[50:52] Jake Blouch: He might have. Steve might have played that part.

[50:54] Michael Doherty: Let's say Steve played that part.

[50:55] Jake Blouch: Yeah, I have that. Were you in that powdered wig picture somewhere that I didn've hidden hilarious?

[51:00] Michael Doherty: Well, gentlemen, thank you so much. Again, uh, just ongoing success. It is just it's such a fun ride to listen to it and be part of this theater audience for you guys, and to talk to you and and hear about how it's done and a bit of its genesis, truly enlightening. Makes makes us want to. I mean, definite fans makes us want to just be there all the more present for the rest. Super cool. And you need to looking for something unique to listen to, or something listening to at all, I listen to it in the family room. And and to help them be well, right? Right, dispel some of the darkness right now. This is a perfect antidote to COVID.

[51:34] Jake Blouch: Oh, that's correct.

[51:35] Michael Doherty: Mean different worlds. Seriously. Gentlemen, thank you. Be well. Uh and and may theater open well and safely and soon.

[51:43] Jake Blouch: Thanks.

[51:44] Michael Doherty: Appreciate it.

[51:51] Jake Blouch: Hopefully um you heard how dynamic uh Jake and Michael are. Um and and just really lovely people too.

[52:02] Michael Doherty: Oh, yeah.

[52:03] Jake Blouch: Yeah, and this was one of those. I mean, with this this fit into our other interviews where um if we hadn't uh put our big boy pants on and said enough, we have to stop this.

[52:19] Brad: Um, we could have talked with them for hours upon hours.

[52:24] Jason: Just for clarification, Brad.

[52:25] Brad: So 20, 20, 27 months into the pandemic, you're still wearing pants.

[52:35] Jason: Well, I they're running pants, really.

[52:38] Brad: I just was telling Angie the other night, I don't think I've worn a pair of jeans in two years.

[52:42] Jason: Because of all of your running.

[52:44] Brad: Yeah.

[52:45] Jason: Okay.

[52:46] Brad: Yeah.

[52:46] Jason: Everybody, Brad is a huge runner.

[52:48] Brad: Big up, big time runner.

[52:49] Jason: Yeah.

[52:49] Brad: Yeah.

[52:50] Jason: I run.

[52:50] Brad: Yeah.

[52:50] Jason: The running joke is I run away from cops and two buffets.

[52:54] Brad: Yeah.

[52:55] Jason: So half of that is correct.

[52:57] Brad: Yes.

[52:58] Jason: Yeah.

[52:59] Brad: So you picked the half.

[53:00] Jason: But first of all, I cannot believe we didn't ask Jake about running for president because I think we could have probably helped him.

[53:08] Brad: Jake, if you need help, we're happy to help you come up with a slogan.

[53:12] Jason: Um, and I'd vote for you.

[53:14] Brad: And Michael, I wish I would have asked about your research because now I'm even more intrigued.

[53:20] Jason: But I think we're gonna have to, and they said, you know, they said they would come back and again demonstrating their poor judgment.

[53:28] Brad: Yes.

[53:29] Jason: Yes.

[53:29] Brad: By the time this drops, there should probably be some sort of intermediary reunion type of episode or something like you heard them talking about.

[53:38] Jason: And once season two has released or begun to release, then we will try to get these gentlemen back to talk about and just to geek out about what they've done.

[53:49] Brad: We have no idea, but if the production value is even half as good as season one, oh man.

[53:56] Jason: Well, and let's, you know, I, we didn't hit on this before the interview. This is the first time you and I have interviewed more than one person in an interview.

[54:05] Brad: So having Jake and Michael together, that's the first time we've interviewed two or more people at the same time.

[54:11] Jason: Yeah, they really didn't either of us there.

[54:13] Brad: Yeah, no, they, that's what I was gonna say is we could have probably said, Gentlemen, welcome aboard and have at it, and then just gone on mute, and you would have probably had a much better and happier experience than listening with us.

[54:24] Jason: Yeah, I think you're so, so that being said, um, gee, I'm corner.

[54:29] Brad: Yeah, let's walk over.

[54:31] Jason: What's been, uh, what's been on your either virtual bookshelf, a real bookshelf, or electric?

[54:31] Brad: Well, interestingly enough, earlier today.

[54:47] Jason: Oh, there we go.

[54:47] Brad: Earlier today, um, it's kind of both. I have it on my bookshelf, but I was looking at a PDF of it.

[54:54] Jason: Earlier today, did you get your copy of the Star Trek player's guide yet?

[54:58] Brad: I should hang up on you right now.

[55:00] Jason: Okay, just wanted to remember.

[55:01] Brad: Okay, just wanted to ask. Go ahead.

[55:02] Jason: All right, thanks for that. Now let me just pull the knife out of my heart and oh, okay. Now we're better.

[55:07] Brad: Earlier today, I was digitally flipping through the um, the West End Games Star Wars Game Master's Guide, second edition.

[55:20] Jason: I wanted to reacquaint myself with the dice mechanic.

[55:27] Brad: So, uh, as you know, obviously, because we've been talking about it, uh, just well, just yesterday is as we record this, uh, Jim Johnson at Modiphius was kind enough to send us uh the URL to a video in which Chris Birch and some of the developers, the dice mechanic developers from Modiphius, back when they when Star Trek Adventures was fairly new, they were at a panel, uh, I think DragonCon in London, but don't quote me on that.

[55:58] Jason: And they, they talk good.

[56:00] Brad: They talked about the history of the 2D20 dice mechanic. And that was, I finally watched that this morning. I had to find some time. And then later today, it just got me thinking about dice mechanics, and I remember loving the old Star Wars system. So I pulled digitally the game master's guide, and two things stood out to me, Brad.

[56:24] Jason: One, I had to search carefully to find the dice mechanic, because back in the back in the rarefied antiquated days of 1991, um, there was so or thereabouts, there was very little they had to write about it.

[56:43] Brad: They didn't get taken, you know, carried away. And so this, you know, this the D6 mechanic, I forgot how simple and elegant it was and how effective it was. And what really got me going, what jazzed me was, uh, reviewing the specific rules around the wild die, which is still one of my favorite mechanics.

[57:08] Jason: You have, you've talked about your gold, the gold die you keep on your desk there, which is your wild die.

[57:14] Brad: Yeah, yeah, which inspired that idea, but just the actual mechanic behind the original. So that's, that's what I was doing, if you will, in the GM corner, uh, this week. Uh, it was fun to revisit to be reminded of just how well that system worked with its multiple D6 and its pips, and honestly the wild die, which, um, which made it just so, so fertile for play, and to go back and see wow, how many other mechanics of different dice types clearly were inspired, like actually being able to go to that system and then think about, uh, about Jay Little's narrative dice system now with Genesis and see, oh, you know what for the first time I clearly see the evolution, the connection.

[57:25] Jason: Um, yeah, how about you?

[57:25] Brad: Yeah, so, um, what's funny is, is that we were talking with Jim about this and he brought up an interesting point because originally we were looking at, and you've heard us talk about doing Star Trek in Genesis. Well, the more we dug into the Modiphius system, um, the more we realized we didn't really need a Genesis port for it. Um, I'll get back to Genesis in a minute, yep, but rather than rebuild, um, you know, especially with you, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say the dice mechanics really grown on you. I didn't necessarily have as big of an issue, but for you and you, you mentioned this when we were chatting with him in messaging between him and us is it was, you know, it was another dice mechanic for you, but as we've talked and gone through this and obviously we are company agnostic but we're big fans of the product, you know that, um, that's another reason he sent us that video and let's remember the D2D20 mechanic comes from the same person who, you know, the original inventor as the FFG narrative mechanic and I love the narrative mechanic. The only thing that that I'm not as big of a fan of is the proprietary dice, um, you know, for me having, uh, being able to use standardized dice, I bought my first metal dice set recently.

[59:40] Jason: Um, that to us, um, you know, so ultimately getting back to the point of Star Trek. So ultimately, we want to put effort instead of building another RPG game around Star Trek. We don't need to, right? We have no need to. We had decided this, Jim. No disrespect, but we had kind of decided this before, but we appreciate the conversation, and we weren't trying to do that to offend anyone at Modiphius or anything, but um, we talked about this, I think, in one of our previous episodes, real briefly. We are going to be looking at writing, um, Star Trek Adventures duets, yeah.

[1:00:25] Brad: So, in other words, yes, as mission briefs, what for one game master, one player. We've been talking about lately. Our focus has been where do we want them? Where in the universe, a Star Trek universe, do we want that? And I think we've narrowed it down. Um, Jason, you're a little bit busy writing, so this is one of our longer term projects that will take some time because just like the first thought process with Genesis. We've been talking about this for what, half a year or more, yeah.

[1:00:57] Jason: And then we just, we self-crashed on that one, right?

[1:01:02] Brad: Um, but you and I talk, so getting back to the GM corner, I still would love to try something with Genesis. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. But I was joking the other night, we were talking about Firefly on um, on text, and I'm like, well, it would be fun. We, there are Firefly and Serenity RPGs, but what if it would it be fun to not recreate a Firefly RPG, but have an RPG where you are a captain or trader or something on the edge of galactic civilization just trying to survive and not have it within a Star Wars or Star Trek universe or another one, just a standard universe we would build.

[1:01:47] Jason: So that's something that's on our docket as well.

[1:01:50] Brad: We always tend to, we talk a lot about things and we bite off. I'm known for biting off more than I can shoot, but first that's just one of our another future project. We have a couple lists of them. The one we would like to get to as time permits for both of us is the duets.

[1:02:08] Jason: Yes.

[1:02:09] Brad: Um, because we have so much material, and I think you know, you're gonna come to find out in future episodes. The player's guide and the game master's guides that Modiphius has come out with that I actually have in my hands at home here by my table.

[1:02:27] Jason: Yeah, next so I can look at them and take a picture of it and send it to you and say I have it, and you don't yet, as you sometimes do.

[1:02:33] Brad: Yep.

[1:02:34] Jason: Um, there is great, but you have a PDF. You bought it with the oh, yeah, so you've looked through it. So funny aside, oh, yeah. Oh my god, there is so much material in those things that we can use and leverage to build adventures. Um, it literally turns folks the material in the players' handbook and the game master's book. It create it makes Star Trek the sandbox that you've been looking for.

[1:02:59] Brad: Oh man, yeah, yeah.

[1:03:01] Jason: So, and we've already started writing the first one, the first two lets.

[1:03:05] Brad: So I should say that first mission brief, yeah.

[1:03:07] Jason: Yeah, and that's really what that's really where my focus has been. Uh, game wise, it's been a little bit leaner week, but this idea of us doing duets. And we're gonna have more to say about duet adventuring here in the future.

[1:03:20] Brad: Oh yes, quite soon.

[1:03:22] Jason: Yeah, whether it's Star Trek or other.

[1:03:24] Brad: Yep.

[1:03:24] Jason: But the idea of us, um, trying to find some time to do some writing together. Jason's written for years with colleagues and all that. Because I, because I work in a different arena. In is a psychotherapist and a leadership professor. There hasn't been a much of a reason for us to cross professionally to write. So we have found a way to write creatively together. So this will be an interesting experiment because I haven't, this is something that's, we've known each other 30 years, but we've never gone down this path. So it'll be an interesting adventure. And, and, you know, we'll keep you all updated and, uh, obviously and, um, as perhaps our first set of three of these mission briefs, uh, is ready. Uh, we'll link it to the show notes. We'll do an initial rollout. Um, you know, just through the podcast and ask for feedback and see what you all think.

[1:04:23] Brad: So what on that note, as always, we, uh, we trust you enjoyed the interview with Mythic Thunderlute. Hopefully you enjoyed it half as much as we did, because those gentlemen were awesome and funny.

[1:04:37] Jason: Uh, be well, stay well. We will see you next week.