53: The Geekenders: Mark Hulmes Answers Our LARP Questions!!

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Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

Go on, scream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a follow, number one, geek podcast, without a doubt.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Geekenders.

Featuring a ghost.

No, just just us.

Oh, yes, just us.

Just the living.

Just the living.

Yeah, no ghosts.

Yeah, unfortunately.

Actually featuring the lovely lovely Mark Hulms.

Oh, that's me.

Hello.

It's me.

That's my name.

Yes.

Hello.

Lovely to be here.

You were telling me before we got going that this is actually your first time meeting Jesse properly.

It is.

It is.

We have a lot of mutuals who overlap and people that know each other, but

I've never met Mr.

Cox before, but it's very exciting.

They've been keeping us apart.

That's it.

I think that they have.

The power of two bearded men in glasses was too strong, and they had to keep us apart.

Otherwise, we'd be too powerful.

So

I've never seen two men with bearded glasses on the snow.

No, God, no.

Can you imagine?

If ever a collection of bearded glasses-wearing men got together, it might be some sort of convention or something terrible.

Who knows?

Oh, God.

Can you imagine?

God, that would be the worst.

Oh,

so many games.

But it's one of those weird things where I feel like we've got so many overlapping interests and like spheres and friends and things like that.

And I've got a few people I have that within sort of you know my circle that I know of, um, like Brendan Lee Mulligan's another one where we have like so many friends and we've even been at the same events together and just never cross paths and never actually directly communicate to one another.

So I'm very excited.

I'm very excited to be here.

I feel like, kind of like how we were saying that all of us have been doing something adjacent to like gaming, nerd culture, whatever for you know, like 13 or more years.

Um, at a certain point, you're like, everybody else who's also been doing this for a long time, I've probably met them,

you know, but not necessarily.

So, I've met enough of them that the little gaps are

surrounded by people I know.

Yeah, that's it.

It's just like the little mortar fillings of like, oh yeah, there's like a little hole here that I've not filled in.

But yeah, everyone around all the other bricks are connected.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, exactly.

Mark, I'm so excited that you're typically such a, such a, a busy patootie.

And

to my understanding, you've been, you've been trying to give yourself some more room to breathe and

just chill, yeah?

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm trying to.

It's one of those, you know, I'm sure you guys know this of like,

you desperately try to like take a break and not do as much.

And then somebody be like, hey, do you want to do this?

Do you want to do this?

And you're like, like, yeah, I do want to do that.

I want to be involved.

And then you forget that, no, no, I'm supposed to be resting right now.

The like creepy FOMO part of your brain is like, but if I say no,

I'll probably never get the opportunity to do this again.

So exactly.

And also not like wanting to let people down.

And like, you're genuinely excited to do cool stuff.

So, yeah.

So I'm trying to kind of get back on top of things.

Like life's been a bit of a big shift around this year and stuff like that.

So I'm trying to get back into doing a little bit of streaming, doing a little bit of bits and bobs.

All All the D ⁇ D stuff is still going on as regular.

That's like still my main jam that I do.

But yeah, trying to like slowly eke back into a bunch of cool things.

And yeah, it's that weird thing of always feeling like you're busy, but then some days you just like disassociate and you're just like, I've wasted the whole day doing nothing, but I'm so busy and I should have been doing this.

Yeah, so there's a lot of that going on, basically.

But yeah, yeah,

that's me at the minute.

But I'm super excited we can make this happen.

Yeah, me too.

Yeah.

I feel like last time that you and I chatted, it was about LARPing stuff.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cause there was a little of interest.

There was a nugget of interest.

There's still interest, dude.

There's still interest.

Good, good.

But yes, I mean, I guess for Jesse's benefit, yeah,

I'm a regular LARPer here in the UK.

And

I was showing lots of exciting photos to dudes.

And there was a lot of sort of like, I look so good.

I want to go.

Let me ask you some questions about like the LARP.

So, in my mind, when I think of LARPing, I think of like, you know, the way it's either portrayed in media or things I've seen clips of that aren't like,

you know, the goofier versions of it.

I'm talking about like just people gathering somewhere and putting it on kind of spur of the moment-y, but there's probably planning, you know what I mean?

Like, it looks,

you're rolling up in your car and it's like, all right, we're going to do a battlefield thing.

But I also hear tales of like, we set up camps where people cooked meals in the style of the like that.

So what is the average?

Because in my mind, I want it to be the thing that Dodger and I went to many, many years ago for Witcher 3 that was like in a fort and you had to make your own stuff and there was a bread lady.

If you wanted bread, you had to make your bread.

The only way to spend, like you get coins for working, but all they could buy you was either merchandise or booze.

And since I had all the merch, I was like, Guess I'm getting drunk tonight.

Guess I'm getting some mead in me.

And it was a great experience.

The best part about it was Dodger

The whole.

I love to tell this story.

Oh, because it shows your devious nature.

Everyone here is like, in order, like, you got to work if you want to eat.

Like, that was the vibe.

Except Dodger snuck around like a halfling rogue and stole coins off of tables.

Yeah,

the minute I detected this, I was like, I want it.

You can buy my silence.

You give me a cut of what you make and I'll be silent.

That's what happened.

That was really fine.

That's what I imagine it should be, but what is it generally?

Yeah, well, I think it depends, right?

So I so I go to a big LARP here in the UK called Empire, which is like 3,000, 3,500 people now.

It started off about, when I started going to it, it was about 1,500, but now it's about 3,000, 3,500.

And it's much more like that.

It's basically like a big field in the UK.

Everybody, it's divided into different nations or groups that have their own like little visual aesthetic differences and cultural differences and law and stuff like that.

But everyone makes these camps and you've got like in-character tents and people will set up a little tavern or they'll set up a place where they can sell bits and pieces.

In the group that I'm in, we have like a big,

we call it the Glory Square and it's where we hold tournaments and challenges and things like that.

It's very sort of Arthurian-themed, um, and people have all of that stuff, but then you also have like the out-of-character area where you can go and buy burgers and chips and fizzy drinks and stuff like that.

You can kind of go to that little bit area.

Um, but there is like there's real like in-character money, and people will trade it.

People buy booze.

One of the worst times I've ever been drunk was I bought homemade moonshine cider that was like 30% proof in a wine bottle.

No, just drank two of those,

Just drank two of those because I forgot I drunk one

and just was very bad.

And so you're like drinking the moonshine.

People are buying like you, and then there's the game element to it, right?

It is still like a, it's a role-playing game.

Like Madly went to one this year, which was in Helsinki.

And it was a, it was a hundred people.

And they took a Finnish high school and they turned it into a Battlestar Galactica style spaceship.

And a hundred of us, you were given a character, like you kind of basically they cast you as a role and it was 48 hours in this school meals served three times a day in like the mess of the ship

and it was like so intense it was like 48 hours in character the whole time

and there were people that had like you had like specifically written relationships and connections to the other players

there were like scenes that were triggered at certain points by the game team so it was a little bit more like a theater interactive experience but then combined with a role-playing game and an environment but like the the empire one which i think Dodgers, the one that, like, you kind of saw me go to and the photos and that from, that's that kind of medieval camp, like people going around, and like, you've got thieves going around stealing coins off table

or like robbing people's coin pouches when they're not looking.

You've got people doing assassinations of political characters who are trying to maneuver in the political realm and stuff like that.

And then you've got these big battles, which are like, I would say probably about a thousand people aside,

where you do one battle one day as your character and then the battle the next day as one of the bad guys.

So you play both sides basically.

And they're pretty amazing.

Like, they're pretty crazy.

So, when it comes to the kingdoms, the nations, and everything that's there, is it all kind of like

that's the nation of

Glorbastan, and it's

like Steve, Mike, Phil, like a bunch of guys over there.

Oh, and that is the kingdom of cocks, and it's just Jesse and his stupid friends.

Or is it like

that is the dark hold, and the lich king rules from that?

Or is like the people roll up dressed in green?

Are there, what's the, or is it just people, people?

No, so it's like, yeah, you get like different mixtures, right?

So the one that we do in this empire, the nations have got like these strong, they're kind of influenced by real world cultures, but then they're fantasy-fied as well.

But the idea is because they're quite massive, within that nation, you might get the house of, so like my house, House Mortaire.

That's Mark and his mates, right?

And we have a little group within a nation.

But the nations, I think, so like ours is called Dawn.

It's very like Camelot, Arthurian, over the top.

But then you have the Imperial Orcs, and they've got these guys are wearing like orc masks and they have like completely different culture.

They have like a little camp out in the woods.

We're all working together against the bad guys, but we're also kind of competing for like resources and politics and stuff like that.

But yeah, people rock up and you get like like a costume guide for each one.

Like, okay, this nation has these elements that you should try and keep in mind.

So everyone looks quite uniform.

That's so cool.

Everyone's individualized at the same time, right?

Like, you know, everyone's got their own unique look.

So, like, my group that we did, the theme of it was I wanted to do Camelot, but the Adams family in Camelot.

So we're very gothic, we're all necromancers.

You know, we're all into like winter magic, which is all about like necromancy in the dead.

We're all very like vampire coded in the way that we look or Adams family coded.

And that's kind of like our gimmick that we make our thing that like we're known for and we're known about.

Do the different, if I'm rolling up as an orc, am I getting, am I sitting there with like a spare rib and like drinking gross?

What is

my culture?

Is my culture like

question that?

I mean, if you're saying, yeah.

All right.

I show up next time it happens.

Yeah.

I'm in green and I brought like 20 giant Amazonian women with me all in green.

and wear like the man-stealer orcs.

And I send them in the middle of the night to capture men and steal them from different camps.

Right?

Right, because then the armies of man

to make sure that people know that they're not actually in danger.

Yeah, correctly.

Yeah, there's like elements of that.

But then, no, knowing what LARPAs are like, if they had some like, you know, six-foot-tall muscle mommies dressed as orcs, they would be like, I'm not resisting.

Take me, take me.

I would know.

Oh, no, don't.

You would be king you would you would very quickly you'd be like a senator the emperor they'd be like vote vote this guy in you know you could build a campaign on like a make me the emperor yeah yeah but then who are the bad guys then if the bad guys are a separate thing Yes, they're a separate thing.

So the story team kind of controls, so there's like a team that run the whole ARP and they create, you know, they, they come up with what the bad guys are up to, what all the plans are.

And then they have like a team who plays those guys.

But it's a very, what I would call like a political PvP game where the idea is that as players, we're all kind of competing with each other for like resources and titles and prestige and stuff like that.

And then when we do the big battles, like I said, one of them you do is your character.

And then the next one, you go out as one of the bad guys to fill out the numbers, basically.

And you're basically, when you're playing the monsters, your job is to make it fun for the players who are killing you.

You're like,

it's one of my favorite things to do is to play one of the bad, like bad guys, whether it's like an undead or an orc or a barbarian or something like that, because you really go ham on it.

Like, somebody hits you and you're like, oh, my God!

And you're like throwing yourself all around.

And they feel like a

lot of people.

Exactly.

Like, I did it once with my character where, you know, I play a mage and, you know, running in, and I did this big mass effect, like, mass spell, which like affects loads of people.

And all of the players playing orcs were just terrified.

And they're like screaming their heads off, like, ah, like a mass fear kind of spell.

And they're all just fleeing for their lives, like screaming in terror.

Um, and that it makes you feel awesome when they do stuff like that.

So, yeah, it's a lot of fun.

And you sometimes, like, because it's so big, like, they'll build like monsters and stuff for you to fight.

So, there'll be these guys on like stilts in like football shoulder pads and these big latex suits playing like giants.

Or we've had these war rhinos, which are like portable things that chase you around the field, like kind of these like palaquin-like things that are dressed up to be like a war beast and stuff like that.

It's really fun.

This is, it's quite intense, but yeah.

What is the feasibility of me joining as Grimkey the Barkeep?

And I'm sitting there all day just pouring drinks for days and days.

Like, how long does this last usually?

It's three days.

So it starts like Friday.

You do all day Saturday and then you finish about Sunday afternoon.

Can I show up as Grimke the Barkeep?

Go spend two days barkeeping, being like, oh, you kids, you're damn wars.

I swore I'd never fight after the great purgeoning, right?

And then, and then the last day, it's like, we need you, Grimkey.

We're low on men.

Like, don't worry, boys, I'll join you.

But then I die in combat, and you all feel terrible because you got Grimkey killed.

Dude, absolutely.

You can do that.

Hell yeah.

Like, the bar closes, though.

Yeah.

No more bar.

Yeah, you could totally come in, set up like a little bar,

get everybody to love you.

Oh, what a sweet old man oh we love him we went and had lovely drinks he told loads of stories and then you go into battle with us and honestly like i do this you know i go in there quite intense and i've got these mates and one time we had a battle go really badly and two of my friends who've been playing for a long time their characters had just got married they were in love they're they were husband and wife in real life so they were like you know they did this whole romance play they go out there they die together and we managed to bring their bodies back from the battle we laid them out in the middle of the square They've got like the shield, you know, next to each other.

They've got, they're covered in flowers as people come and pay their respects.

I genuinely, and I'm an emotional person anyway, when I came out and saw them, I just burst.

I was like in floods of tears.

And they're like, they're lying there.

They're crying because they're like, oh my God, this is so emotional.

But we all know they're fine.

But you get so overwhelmed.

It's so real sometimes.

It's very intense, but very fun.

So you could absolutely come and play the barkeep and

make everyone love you.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's like every good DD campaign, right?

But wait.

Do things from one year

transfer to the next?

Yes.

Yeah, it's persistent.

So it's ongoing, right?

So, but you could come in.

Yeah, go on, please.

Yeah.

Can I be Grimpke the barkeep?

Yeah.

Murdered season one.

Yep.

But

season two.

Weird missives are found throughout camp.

Strange,

you know, callings of a dark one.

Right?

And nothing happens, though.

Everyone's like, that's so weird.

Like, nothing happened.

But season three, though,

people start showing up in robes at camp and, like, they're walking around and they're giving people like,

join us at this hour.

And then Grimkey returns as the Lich King.

I don't think you can become, you can return as the Lich King.

Like, this is like a very organized thing, right?

So I think one shouldn't be able to death.

But what you could do, you could play somebody pretending to be Grimke who has returned to life and you could absolutely play it up as like a thing now because this is like a very established world there are actual you know there are laws and crimes and that might be considered a heresy to pretend to be the dead and stuff like that but that's a fun game that's the kind of thing of because it's so big there's so many people like I often tell people that come along you've got to make your own fun and that's exactly the kind of thing of like you create this false rumor and a cult around your character and then you come back as a pretender pretending to be them you could totally do all of that and you would make some fun game for everybody to like go in and check out and have a blast with basically

that'd be a good dude we should we should make we should make

a brother and sister hold on a brother and sister yes

except

we are like uh thieves who steal from people right okay

but what they don't know yeah is that we're actually not brother and sister.

We're just like caught up in some Ocean's 11 scheme where we have to work together and call ourselves brother or sister.

We've been calling each other brother and sister for so long.

Right.

Yeah.

Right, right, right.

And everyone's going to be like, whoa, they were brother and sister?

It's going to be very good.

Listen, you can absolutely be doing that.

I love it.

And you should definitely come along.

It's a good fight.

It's a good time.

What I was going to ask you, Mark, is if you've gone to the one, I want to go to this so bad because it seems like such a chill, like first

thing to do.

Yeah,

have you been to the LARP in the UK that's literally just an evening with hobbits, and everybody shows up dressed up as a hobbit?

I haven't been to it, but I know the guys who run it.

They're all like good friends of mine.

Uh, the Hobbits and LARP second breakfast, I think it's called.

I want to go to the bottom.

That looks like a ton of fun, and I've heard so many fun stories from it.

I'm hoping I'm going to be able to go next year, but I know that they had a giant goose that was, they had a dire goose that was like, because it's a no-combat thing, right?

So it's like you are playing Hobbits and the driving force of the game is the mayor of the town is coming.

You're putting on a party, but all the Hobbit families want to show off and show how they're the best or like make an impression on the mayor.

So they're all playing pranks on each other.

And then things like the dire goose comes along and it wrecks the picnic area.

And people are like chasing the goose off with like LARP rolling pins and LARP pots and pans.

Like, get off your goose.

You go, you blasted goose, get out of here.

And they're like chasing them around.

I want to do it so badly.

I think it would be so fun.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I really want to go too.

Yeah, no, second breakfast is a ton of fun.

And those guys that run that are a lovely bunch of guys as well.

Lovely, lovely group of people that go along to that.

So, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

We need to get you.

We need to get you along, Jesse.

Absolutely.

We need to bring you along because I think you would have a blast with it.

Jesse just winds up in England like a couple times a year anyway.

Exactly.

I'll send you the dates and then we can make it happen.

I am, I'm very, it's very weird for me.

LARPing, I've done it exactly one time for a show.

So it was barely real, but like, enjoyed every minute of it.

But for some reason, Ren Fairs, I'm like,

not your thing.

I feel like.

I think I would be the same because like whenever I've seen like the videos of the Ren Fairs, and it's just everything.

It's just a mishmash of like, there's pirates, there's samurais, there's like elves, there's fairies, there's like everything going on.

And I'm just like, nah, I need something more than that.

Like, I kind of want more than this.

You know what I mean?

It looks fine.

I like a good Ren Fair watch, though.

I will say, I like going.

Going to a Ren Fair to just people watch.

That's good.

People watching.

Yeah.

That's good.

You get yourself a bucket of weird mushrooms or a big leg of some type of meat.

Yeah.

And just watch.

Watch some old men wrestle in the mud.

Oh, yeah.

Good old mud brothers.

Love those guys.

They're great.

Yeah.

I just realized, actually, should I um should for the discord should I show Jesse my character?

Because you've seen my character, right, uh, Dojo.

Like, I have.

Should I upload a picture so Jesse can see?

I would love to see your character.

Just because

in my mind, I'm thinking like lurch.

Okay.

Well, it's a little different.

It's a little different to that.

I'll

not do an Adam's family kind of thing.

Oh, no, I am.

You'll see.

Go back.

Put it in the Discord.

Oh, my.

Amazing.

Stop.

Amazing.

So good.

So, this is

the Marie Morrigan.

Yeah.

Here's the real truth about this.

This character is basically every character Dodger's husband has ever played ever in DD.

That's true.

I must stress this.

I think Sam and I have very similar, like very similar mindsets when it comes to Samsung.

I must stress this.

Everyone, every person who if you're wondering like wow what's mark's outfit look like what's the costume again

sam stripping literally in any single dnd thing ever is what you should imagine i you know there's a reason that white hair yeah like the whole the whole look large chest yeah it's yeah strong mommy vibes yeah yeah

she's she is known as goth like that character is known as goth mommy in the game like people will generally know that.

And it's very fun to lean into.

Yeah, Sam and I, I think, have very,

very similar minds when it comes to

certain things.

But yeah, no, this is my alter ego.

It's a ton of fun.

I love it.

I just want to dress up like a ghoul.

I just really want to be like a gross man.

Yeah, I want to, I want to, you know how there's probably like a campground area?

I want to set up a wood shack in the woods somewhere and be like, welcome.

What?

Potions and yes, come in, come in.

And I'll sell weird shit in a shack to people and they'll all come to me in the middle of the night and I'll be like, yes, something for your love.

Yes, come in, come in.

I do, I do feel like

because I was looking into one of the, one of the ones that you sent me information about a while back, Mark.

I was looking into like, because there's a whole class system and everything.

Like in terms of like, what do you want your job to be?

Yeah, the octetype kind of thing.

yeah yeah yeah yeah and i was like i think out of everything this is what would overwhelm me the most is like

you know understanding if if you decided that you wanted to be like a certain archetype of character and like then like follow the rules that way like oh it It's so much.

It's definitely like whenever I've brought new friends into it, like the first time they go, it's very overwhelming because like this game's been going on like easily over 10 years.

And there's so much lore to the world.

And like there's there's a religion, and there's all these like names and nations.

But the nice thing with it being a bit of a game, like I always tell people, it's like you can just play a character who's like, I've lived in the forest all my life, and I don't understand what any of this means.

Please, could you tell me, wise one?

And you ask a player, be like, what is it like to be a blur?

And they'll just be like, great, because now their character gets to tell you all about their cool thing that they do.

And they love that shit.

Yeah.

It's like, basically, it's, it's the, hi, I'm new.

Please yap at me about your character.

and they're like

yeah they love it they love to

yeah so it is but it can be very overwhelming because there's a ton of stuff going on and you know but i always just say as well like you don't have to do the fighting you don't have like you can just come and vibes if you just want to come and like vibes and walk around i know people that are bards they go around and they just do music and they make coin people that run bars people that just want to you know run around and just like meet people but you can also do all this crazy stuff as well if you want to is when I'm man, I'm just so happy you're here.

I have so many questions and I'm just glad I can direct it at someone.

Okay, hold on.

You said there's a religion.

Yeah.

Is there a church?

Is there some, can you like, is there a group pretending to be the church in this religious world?

So the idea is, because it's an empire, right?

We're all of the same empire.

So the religion is like a universal across everybody.

And people set up like they might have a shrine in their camp for their tent, but there's not a centralized one because the idea is that we all follow the same thing, basically.

Now, if I, but like, if I rolled in,

if I rolled in and investments and I was, and I had like a huge, like, you know, in that scene in Kingdom of Heaven where like the dudes in the distance, you see, like, the sparkling jewels.

Yeah, that's what, that's what I want for me when I show up.

Now, could I do that and be like,

I am the grand pope of your religion.

I demand tithes from all.

Like, could I, could I, like,

goons walk around and be like, you owe the church money.

You know, you can absolutely do that.

Whether anybody, nobody will, because officially that won't be true because there's like an actual role in the game for that.

But you could certainly go around and claim it and send people like, oh, we have the high priest of the blur here and blah, blah, blah.

Very quickly, people will be like, no.

But you can.

Hold on, hold on, hold on.

Could I

show up and be like, I am the arbiter of a new religion.

Yours is the false one.

I bring it from the east.

Our lands have, like, oh, could I set up a hole like, there is an empire far to the east.

We have been watching your lands.

I am, and I'll be just like the messenger.

And then you guys can kick me in a hole in the end.

Look, all I want is to be a bad guy and to get kicked in the hole.

I was going to say, I don't want that you just refuse to just be a dude.

I don't want to be a dude.

Who wants to be a

I have to be the guy.

Yeah, I want to be the guy.

Everyone kicks into a hole.

That's not true.

I'm fine being

in a forest in a little tiny hunt all three days

and just having like, come, come.

And when you come into my little forest, they like open a cooler.

I'm like, yes, Red Bull I have.

Yes.

What'd you do?

Right?

Into like little glass vials, like little shots of Red Bull.

You can totally, like that, you can totally do.

I would love to do that yeah

would you be would you go be in a creep we could be old witches together yeah get Sam and three of us can be old three witches and we share one eye yeah like in a Hercules yeah

come come

perfect yeah yeah you could totally do that the the with the relig with the religion thing you could do that but the game the game that i play in endpoint like it's very like it's not a it's not a good guy religion and so like if you come in and be like i am a priest of another god you will probably get executed for heresy by the end of that weekend.

Wouldn't that be amazing?

That'd be amazing.

That'd be amazing.

Yeah, absolutely.

And that's the fun thing of like these kind of, you know, player-driven narratives, but also having a world with very established rules, because you'll get, but what you might get is you might get a bunch of players to come up to you and be like, yeah, we actually hate the way and we love the sound of what you're selling.

We want to be, we want to be cultists of like whatever, or we want to be like followers of your religion, but we need to be quiet about it.

But then you might get like the religious like heretic bun like chasing you around the field but obviously because it's still a game like they want you to still have a fun weekend so like you get to have like a bit of time to play around with it and stuff yeah so it's a ton of fun you can definitely do stuff like that but the hags thing 100 like the witches like in the wood like you can absolutely set up like a little tent with like a little and be like come in come in oh yes we shall tell your fortunes

red born you can totally do all that stuff absolutely like if i was if I was filthy rich, I would spend money doing stuff like this.

I would get fog machines, put them in those woods.

I would get, like, when I was like,

put it in the trees.

I'd have, I'd pay actors to roam the woods like

ghouls and cra and then, yeah, and then I'd be like, ah, you've come, come, come.

I think like you can also, so the other thing you could do is like you could join the NPC crew and you actually join the stuff and be like the NPCs running around doing the NPC rule.

That would be fun to like learn how the game works.

Yeah, absolutely.

But then also just, it sounds like just you want to run your own lob.

You should just do that.

Just get a bunch of people, invite them out into the woods, and be a weird witch for them.

I mean, if I had to run my own, I would do like a

control or a SCP one where we're all investigators.

Like, we got to hunt down this monster because it escaped.

That would be an SCP.

That would be so cool.

That would be very cool.

You go find like an old, like, industrial complex or like an old abandoned office building and you set it all up in there that would be pretty rad that would be like a weird backroom situation yeah i would love i would love that and it's like you have to find this thing before and then you could have you know npc people on your team who just like die advanced

yeah that reminds me i remember uh matt uh mercury sorry for one of his birthdays uh birthdays he hired out like a big mansion in la and then him and a bunch of friends for his other this is for his own birthday he ran a call of cthulhu up where he jury-rigged the house with like you know, ghosts and projectors and sound machines and all that around.

And he basically, all of all of his friends, he sent them like a character, like, you are going to play this character, come in this attire.

They all turned up, and then he was like the master of the house.

He very quickly got murdered.

They had to like investigate it, and then he was doing all this weird Cthulhu LARP stuff all around it at the same time.

And like, that is just like the pinnacle of like being a nerdy, like house party friend, you know, just being able to do stuff like that sounds so cool.

Yeah, again if i had a ludicrous sum of money i would spend it in the goofiest ways doing the coolest stuff right absolutely i'd be like yeah that's you know what let's get a mansion set up we're gonna i'm gonna hire a special effects team we're gonna come in we're gonna just rig this thing out

and i want all of you to be scared yep yeah i'd love it i'd go i'd pay i'd be there 100

amazing

i love how like i've come on and like, I'm so used to being like the DD guy talking all about my DD stuff.

And you guys are like, tell us about this love stuff.

I love that.

I love that immensely.

I'm a big fan.

I'm super interested.

Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, it's been like a really, I've been doing it for about 10 years now.

Um, and it's been amazing.

And like this character that I'm playing now, Lady Morrigan, I've been playing her for three years, and I've got like my own group.

There's like 13, like 12, 13 of us that are just in my group.

And then we're all part of the bigger nation.

And it's just the memories out of of it and the stories that come out of it are just nuts like and it's really unlike anything else any other kind of experience larping like i love my role playing i love theater but it kind of merges all of those things together and you get this just wonderful weird stories that come out of it um

yeah

And one, one, actually, one thing that's come up since I last spoke to you about it, Dodge, as well.

The guys from Hat Films, like Trot and Smith and all those guys, they've actually financed their own LARP that they're starting next year.

So it's a brand new fancy LARP in the UK called Menez Fate, and they've financed it.

They've hired like a team to run it all for them.

And they've developed into it.

Yeah, because they ran into it.

So that's going to be like a from the ground level.

And I think with that one, that's one way you could totally come and be like, I am a priest of a new religion.

I'm going to start a brand new religion because it's like so fresh and new in the world.

Yeah.

So you can totally do stuff like that as well.

I think I'm going to be doing like MPC queering for that one.

So I'll be playing a lot of the like merchants, or maybe like they go to the fairy realm and they need someone to play the fairy queen and I'll be, I'll play them and, you know, do something else, or maybe like I'll be an awful magician vizier who comes along to be a villain in something.

So I'm looking forward to doing that because it'll playing the same character all the time.

I'm not used to it.

I'm used to DMing, so I'm used to jumping around.

So I want to, you know, I'll probably be bringing those skills up.

Oh, that'll be so fun.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's next year.

So that's going to be a fresh, brand new, brand new, whole new thing.

Time to hit up the hat films, boys.

Yeah, yeah.

I can put you in touch.

Yeah, if you want to come along.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah,

Part of me wants to roll so deep up to that thing with like the new empire and have like giant flags and a huge, like, just take over a massive area and, and then, like, just be.

I know you shouldn't, but, like, just be the meanest assholes there

and, like, push people out of the way, and like, have our, my soldiers walk down the street and just, like, knock dudes over.

And just be like, look, I just want to be a villain.

I just want to get my comeuppance.

And then it's like, see you next year for something even more wacky.

Dude, if you can pull it off, because I think that that's one thing where, like, because it's real people, a lot of people are afraid to be villains because they don't want to, like, they're like, oh, I don't want to be mean to people.

And so, if you feel, if you're somebody who can do that comfortably, I think it adds so much to the game.

Like, I think it really adds a lot.

Like, my one of my future characters that I want to play at Empire is like a full-on like Warhammer style Inquisitor who is just like, you're a heretic and like just accuse people and like try and get them done in for like, you know, you know, they say the what the wrong thing once and I'm like, heretic, like kill them.

Like, you know, I really want to lean into it and also be a villain, go up to people and be like, hey, out of character, if you want me to come after you and be a villain for you, like I'm all in.

Like let's let's chat about it kind of thing.

Cause I think that kind of good collaboration is always very good to do as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's why I like doing more DME stuff more than being one character.

character.

Because the character is like, well, I gotta be, I probably have to be a good guy.

And all I want to do is get offed at the end of the seat.

I just want to be like, oh, no, you beat me.

Like, I just,

I want that.

Because it's always fun.

I like watching other people get that win and be like, yeah.

Yeah.

I did it.

I'm like, yeah, that's pretty good.

It's a good feeling.

It's a great feeling.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I love being like whenever I DMing, villains are my favorite thing to do.

Like, I love playing a good villain.

Like, a devil that's made a bargain, and then the players find a sneaky way out of it, and you're like, No, you've escaped my clutches.

That's it's the best feeling, like that kind of stuff.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I'm bad at playing mean anything.

A lot of people are like, so many people, it's a real struggle, right?

Like, it's really hard to do

because you just feel bad.

It's like, oh, they're sad now.

Yeah, I think I also struggle with, like,

if I, if I am putting together a character, say I'm a player, and I'm like, I really want there to be like a dickish element to this character, right?

I struggle with seeing the line of

because you don't want to impact the fun that everybody else is having, right?

So, like, how do I be

an asshole, but not

ruin the vibes?

Does that make sense?

Big time.

Yeah, and that's the hardest thing.

And I think that's why, like, those like session zeros and communications need to be established so early on.

Like, hey, my character is actually going to be, I don't know, like you pick a thing of like, he's going to be really rude, like just like socially really rude to people because he's super defensive, but there's a good reason.

And like, if people speak to him, I can start to die.

You can have those kind of conversations of like, yeah, if people are nice to him, I'll, I can be nice to them back, but he might come across as a bit of a dick.

Well, I did it once.

We did like a sponsored game where I got to be a player for a few episodes and I played a lawful evil necromancer character, very much like my LARP character, very based on.

But I wanted to show that you could play an evil character in a good party and still get on with everybody and still not be disruptive to the overall like game and everything else and use it as a bit of an example.

And for that, I was just like, well, she has rules.

Like she follows generally good rules of like, she's not going to kill innocent people for no reason.

She's not going to do this.

She's not going to betray people that she, you know, works with and trusts because she wants to, you know, develop those relationships and rely on these people so i kind of came up with these rules but then when it was like the bad guys i would be like oh yeah i'm gonna like animate their bodies and rip their skeletons out of their bodies and things like that and be horrible but to the only the bad guys so that you're still showing that kind of evil side um and that seemed to work really well but yeah it's it's very tricky to find that line and that balance of like this is the character this is you know i don't want to make this uncomfortable i don't want to ruin the vibes i don't want to you know step on anybody's toes that kind of thing it's really tricky yeah yeah i've i've been in a couple of groups before where there's been like a character argument

and then afterwards it's been really beneficial to have the hey are we all good conversation you know because everybody was like well

we're gonna have this conversation or this argument in character and it's you know it's like aftercare right like afterwards we all need to be absolutely we're good everything's fine Yeah.

You know, how did you feel about that?

Was it, you know, did it?

Was there any points where I stepped over the line?

Is there anything I could do better next time?

You know, all that kind of check-in stuff is all so important and so good as well, so healthy for the game.

I think you have better games if you do that kind of stuff, you know, moving forward and things.

Just because everybody's then on the same page and everybody feels happy and comfortable.

So, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think that's honestly why I try to do a goofy voice for every character I'm playing.

Because I feel like if you're doing goofy voice and yelling at someone, when it's over they aren't associating it with you the person because i'll get like dodger and i playing tend to have yelled at like we've had actual but it's like it's the characters it's not us yeah but yeah i always feel like all right i gotta set up a thing where people know it's 100 not me because i will go in on you as a character Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's so funny because, like, relating it back to the LARP stuff, I found that when the very first time I started LARPing, I just did like a dude character.

He was very much like just bass like me.

And it's so easy to like lose that line, right?

But with playing my new character with Morgan, because she's so physically different, like there is a physical transformation.

And I changed my voice and I changed my body language.

Nobody ever associates that with me.

So everybody knows that that is the character and that's the role playing, right?

Because there's such a big distinction between the two of us.

And like, I know people that have said that, like, if they wear masks or if they, you know, have like costume that covers their face, things that like help break that line.

And I think you're right, just like that voice also does that, right?

Like, if you have the voice and it's so drastically different, it's a very clear indicator of I am saying this in character, not as myself.

And this isn't a real argument.

This is our characters mucking about with it.

Yeah, it's a very, yeah, it's, it's, it's, I think that's super helpful.

We haven't done it in a couple of years now, I guess, but uh, I was in a VR LARP for

okay, okay,

which was absolutely that same sort of a vibe of like, I literally am a, like, like a digital, completely different person.

Well, I'm here, you know?

Like, I at times would completely forget like who was playing the character that I was talking to because it's, you know, like a weird VR chat cat girl.

And I'm like, I don't remember who this is, you know, like, but currently you're a, you're a, a cat, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It does absolutely help.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I love that.

That's, That's it.

Yeah, it's, isn't that the dream just to be able to be like,

and now I'm this thing?

It's the big mood, big mood.

Cool.

Yeah, no, that's awesome.

Yeah, absolutely.

Have to get you along to some stuff at some point.

Yes.

I'm going to come and at the very least eat a bunch of food.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or that's, man, like, that's the other thing is like people have started doing now where they'll like cook real food and they sell it for the in-game money as well.

So like you make the in-game money, you buy real-world real food with it, and stuff like that.

And people do some good, good food.

There's like people that bring like pizza ovens and they like decorate their pizza oven so it looks like in character, and they're cooking up fresh, like fresh, fresh czar, and you're just like, This is amazing.

I love that, yeah.

Oh my god, I

oh, I need to do this.

What, what if I roll up in like a big old camper thing,

but but it's uh

I'm a lich, but I make sandwiches.

They call me they call them lich witches and I sell lich witches to everyone, but I'm like really mean about it.

I'm like bring it over to here meat sack

I thought you were gonna call them sand liches.

I also thought sand liches

are so good

This is why I had to do everything by committee.

You're right.

I gotta we got a workshop

Yeah, sandlich is better a single lich a lich needs his attendance, you know?

Yeah, right, right, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sandlich, yeah.

And yeah, you get yourself, and he has all sorts of sandwiches.

And, yeah.

And then you just come up to it and you order.

But then, you know, all the people making the food have like robes.

They're all like undead, like with skeleton masks.

And they're like, yes, master, salami, and lettuce come right.

And then they slide it down.

Yeah.

Yeah, but they're not put together very well.

They're like a little lopsided.

Yeah, that's the joy of it is it's made by the undead.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love that.

I love it.

I'm a big fan.

Yeah.

The sandwich tent and you just go and get your sandwiches.

But if the lich doesn't like you, no sandwich for you.

No, oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Do they pay with money or do they pay with I don't know their soul?

Oh man.

Do you slorp sandwiches?

I will always provide sandwiches.

Everyone gets a sandwich no matter what.

But if you don't have money, you have to work at my store and wear a zombie mask for the rest of the day so you can eat all you want but you got to work for me to become part of my undead legion

i love that that's a big mood big mood i love that yeah it's um like well like when when when i do stuff it's like very i loved it because it's quite political so it's a lot of like favor exchanging of like people be like oh we really need this thing i'll be like well we can help get that for you but uh can you pay for it well i don't have the money well that's all right we'll we'll sort out something at a later date and you do like lots right of course there's a lot of this kind of going

like you know, yeah, well, that's it, yeah, that's it.

It's like I, the character I play, she's very nice, like outwardly, everyone just thinks she's this lovely, caring, very motherly character.

But there is this kind of like political savvy leader kind of like mindset going on as well of like lots of promises, but never promising anything too specific.

Lots of like, yes, of course, we'd love to help you with that, and like, blah, blah, blah.

Of course, you would extend us the favor in return, and lots of sort of deal making.

There's a lot of that stuff going on.

How does, how does so,

this is thinking about what you just said, the idea of if you make a character that is outwardly very nice and kind and welcoming, but you know, it's secretly up to no good.

How do you handle that as a reveal in a LARP situation?

Because in like a D and D thing, there's, you know, it's a team that's going down a path and you can reveal stuff over time.

When it comes to a LARP, there's so many people.

And if you have your little crew, but your crew knows, you're up to no good.

But the whole point is no one else should know that.

Then how do you reveal the fun, cool parts of your character when really in the real version of this, you would never reveal it to anyone?

Cause that's the whole point of doing it.

Right.

Well, I think that that's you, there's for me, it's the, you have to have that mentality of like, you're playing this, like, like, yeah, obviously, logically, you would never do things to give things away, but you find reasons for your character to like slip up or make mistakes and i i think i've got a good because i've got a an actual example my character at the moment that i'm playing she has this weird thing going on with her that nobody else knows about i did some spooky deal with a spooky power that i definitely shouldn't have been speaking to and as part of that i have like a lingering effect on my character which is slowly making her more cruel and selfish and a bit more evil and so i've been like every now and then like, I go to battle, and it's like a different side of her takes over, and I'm like screeching about like things and you know, butchering the enemies and like letting it leak through.

And then people be like, That was kind of weird.

And then you get back to camp and you kind of hand wave it, oh, that was just because of this, or because of this spell I was using, or blah, blah, blah.

And then it's like the next time when everyone's having a big gathering, and you know, you coming in with the wild eyes, and it's very much the body language, or you say something a little off, and people

was that was that was a bit out of character, that was a bit weird for her wasn't it and then people build and build on it and then also all the other players are like built but they know that you're you're slowly building up to something so they'll start going around and they're like i'm a bit worried about lady morrigan shouldn't we look into this and they're like yeah yeah yeah and then out of character they'll come up and be like we don't want to step on your toes do you do you want us to like look into this i'm like you can look into it if you like you can you can ask some questions around town and maybe somebody knows something and then you kind of see the little things around um

but it is quite hard to do i think like you have to think of it, you're only revealing it to the sphere of people that know who you are, right?

If you're a very well-known character, then more and more people will pick up and like start asking questions.

If you're maybe not as well-known character, then maybe it's just to your group or like your friends that are in the game.

And stuff like that, really.

So I think for me, it's like that slow seeding, like here and there, dropping in the big hints of behavioral changes, mainly, or like, you know, or you make a mistake, like you do things like you leave documents, documents, right?

Like, I hire this assassin to go and kill blah, blah, blah.

Contract signed by blah.

And obviously, you would never leave something like that out, but maybe, oh, you leave it out on the tent on the desk for somebody to come in and be like, what's this?

I should look at that.

Or, like, oh, maybe I'll keep that as something else, you know.

And so, I think like you have to kind of play into that a little bit, like, play to play to make the story the best it can be rather than to play to the win, basically.

Um,

I guess also just like

remembering that

you aren't the main character yeah that like everybody is their own main character right so like whatever is going on with you will affect the group around you yeah it doesn't necessarily need a big reveal no yeah absolutely yeah uh like sharing that spotlight as well like that exactly like nobody no one person is the main character so it's also like if you think that somebody else is doing a thing you get involved and be like hey how can i help you do this thing?

Or how can I support you do this thing?

Do you need me to do this?

Do you need me to do that?

But yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

I really want a

hut in the woods and I want to be like,

come out in.

I got God's potions for you.

That's like the best stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You can absolutely do that.

I'll help make that a reality.

The worst part is imagining the fact that like,

yeah, it'd be fun for maybe a couple hours, but then if people start doing things and they don't come to the woods, I just like get a generator and set up a laptop.

They still in costume, just like, hold, hold on.

Come on in.

Yes, hello.

Oh, hello.

Ignore the laptop.

Yeah.

Or you can do the thing like, I know with like ours, like, you can have your little tent on your little cabin.

And then, like, maybe you'd like get the traveling version, right?

You get, like, a satchel and you go around and you start like creeping in on other people's business.

Oh, does anyone in here need a love potion?

Like, you start, people love that kind of stuff.

They love interacting with that.

Because also, they'll think you're an NPC.

They'll totally think that you're like some special NPC who's got a quest.

And they'll be like, yes, come in.

Yes, we'd love.

Tell us about this.

And you can just make up anything you want at that point.

And then people will be like, oh, yeah, good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They'll love that.

Love it.

Yeah, it's not a laptop.

It's a scrying mirror.

Like, you can have like,

what was it?

Sometimes I get like my phone out to check the time, and I'll be like, oh, let me just check my meteor slate, my magic slate of runes.

Oh, yeah, it's four o'clock.

You know, you can just do stuff like that.

It's the thing is, is like there are some people that take it really desperately seriously, and they just are like, no, I mean character, I'm not gonna make any anachronisms.

And then you get the people who will like totally make like stupid jokes and like anachronisms and like, you know,

drop out a character to have a chat about stuff as well.

Like, it depends on what you want to do, really.

So I was honestly, again, when I was doing the VR thing, I was really relieved when like it became apparent to me that you could just be like RP card down and just say something because I kept being like, I don't, I have a thing to tell you and I don't know how to tell it to you in the context of the world we're in.

Right.

And I finally was playing with somebody who was like a very seasoned character in it.

And she's like, RP'd card down.

This thing just showed up.

I don't know.

Like, oh, okay, great.

Wait, thank you so much.

Yeah, that's perfect.

Yep.

And then back in character, yeah, you can totally do stuff like that.

It's very useful for stuff like that as well.

Like, so, like, there have been times, like, like, when we've had, like, I'm, you know, there was a couple, I think, last year where it was like nearly 40 degrees, and I'm in the silicon chest thing.

I've got the wig, the draft, and I just would literally, like, somebody was talking to me, and I had to be like, sorry, out of character.

I need to go lie down and just drink water and not be in the sun.

Goodbye.

And I just had to like lay.

And I was just like, I'm so sorry.

I'll come back to this like in like a couple of hours.

Just let me go sit in the shade for a bit.

And you just go and do that.

Because

it's human first, right?

It's like game second, human first.

So you can totally do that kind of stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But yeah, a lot of fun, a lot of fun stuff.

And like I said, there's different things.

Like I did this one in Helsinki, this like sci-fi one.

I did a Call of Cthulhu-esque one recently.

It was like a kind of 1920s Call of Cthulhu where I basically played Sean Connery from Indiana Jones.

I played as Henry Jones, Henry Mason, in fact.

And I was going around as I grayed my beard and grayed my hair.

And I was like, oh, yes, I'm an old researcher.

Very nice to meet you.

And I was doing a lot of this.

Turned out I was actually a secret communist the whole time and I betrayed everybody.

And that was great.

Oh, my goodness.

Yeah, it was, that was good fun.

Like they had like this beautiful kind of like expedition researchers tent and any artifacts and like research and clues we found were being assembled there.

And I was dodgering old Sean Connery.

I just like go around.

I put my paper over documents, pick pick up my paper with the documents, put them in my bag, walk away.

People would then be like, Where are the, we've lost them.

And I'd be like, Where could they be?

It's very much a lot of that.

Um, it's great fun, very good fun.

Oh, yeah,

yeah,

there's a lot of different that's what I want to do.

The one that you just described is the chaos I would like to cause at any given moment in anything I'm a part of.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so much fun.

It doesn't even need to be bad, guy, just

someone.

Oh, is it getting weird in here?

Everything's going missing?

Just turn up the dial just a little bit.

Yeah.

Just a little bit of chaos energy.

Yeah, a bit of gremlin energy.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love that.

I actually think it'd be really funny to have a group of people show up at a LARP as gremlins and just like steal things or break things or like just do random mischief.

It'd be insane.

People would hate them.

It'd be great.

people would hate them it'd be great yeah

i am i became friends with uh somebody who runs a group of reenactors okay um and he was describing it to me and

because i

know more larpers than i do reenactors i was like oh this sounds a lot like larp and he did not like that

it turns out the they don't like that.

No, the reenactor.

I think the reenactors from the few I know, they're very much just like, it's not up.

No, it's not like that.

It's nothing like that.

What are you talking about?

Yeah.

So.

Amazing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, so I feel like I've got an idea of what kind of character Jesse would play if he came along to like a lot.

What about you, Dodger, though?

Like, what's your kind of go-to?

What would you think would be something you'd be interested in doing?

The

character that I was, because I was trying to to be realistic about it.

Like, I'm probably going to feel a little gun-shy about involving myself.

Like, I want to, you know, have a character that's like, yeah, that can just kind of chill if I feel like I want to observe more than like.

So, I started looking into, I don't remember which one it was that you sent me, but I started looking into like, how do you become like an alchemist?

Yeah.

And so I was like, trying to, I was trying to develop like this, this really like weird little earthy, like, like snuffkin-esque character that just like, kind of walked around and like made weird shit.

And, you know, it's a good way to do it.

I feel like any, like, your first time going into anything like that, having a character that can be a little bit on the sidelines and just observe, and then you can see what takes your interest and, like, jump into that with more aplomb, you know, in the future, can be like, oh, okay, I really, actually, really like that.

I want to do more of that.

You know, yeah, for sure.

And I like the idea of

being the character you showed up as, and then being like, I'm going to be an enemy today.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm going to go be a bad guy and be part of the war TM, you know?

So, there's one of my favorite stories I love to tell about LARP is playing the bad guys, getting to play the bad guys in the battle.

And we had a big group of us, I think it was like 12 of us in our group.

We all went together.

We were all playing orcs.

We had these like orc masks on.

And some people had gone in armor.

Some people were being like archers.

And I didn't really feel like doing like fighting that day.

So I just went in as like a mage.

So I had like a mage robe and a staff.

And I was going to be the group, the healer for my little group of orcs.

And we decided we were all going to call each other, we were going to be the bots.

And we were all like something bought.

So it was like tall bought, small bought, fancy bought.

I was old bought.

And

everybody's doing like the Shadow of Mordor voices.

Everyone's doing silly voices for their orc.

And I was playing old bought and I just made him sound like this is old bought.

And we go out into the battle and these battles are very chaotic.

And immediately I lose all of my guys.

It's like all my borts are missing.

So I'm wandering around going like, where are my bots?

I can't find my bots.

Where are they?

And like all of the other orcs are like, shut up, old man.

Go find them.

We don't know where they are.

And they'd like me like, heal me, heal me.

And I'd be like, oh, but you were bought.

I can't heal you if you're not a bot.

And then I would be like, okay, well, you're ugly bought.

And then I would heal them and then they would become a bort.

And then as the battle happened, something happened where all of us got pushed back into like the woods and the forest, but I sort of just slipped off to the side.

And so I'm like on the edge.

And all the player characters, all the heroes like push past.

And one of the player heroes comes up to me and he's like, Are you with the Imperial orcs, which are the good orc faction in our group?

And I was like, I'm an orc.

And he was like, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Well, all they're over that way.

Are you a healer?

And I was like, I'm a healer.

And they were like, okay, all of our healers are over there.

Go over there and help them.

And they just thought I was a good player.

So I'm like, oh, are my bots there?

And they're like, well, yeah, maybe.

Go over there.

And I was like, okay.

So I walk over and I go over to like a group of like play heroes who are like healing like the wounded um and I'm like are you are you healers and they were like yeah are you hurt and I was like you're imperials and they were like yes I was like okay and I pull a knife out and I start shanking all of the healers I like down a bunch of them and then I wander I just wander off I literally just like amble around put my knife away amble off I end up behind another group of players and the whole time all the players were just like they just thought I was a good guy the whole time they were just like go find your guys At the very end of the battle, as all the players are leaving the battlefield,

the Imperial Orcs come over, and some player is like, Yeah, this guy's been really weird.

He's just following us around.

He's talking about the bots.

Like, do you know him?

And they're like, We don't know him.

He's

he's not one of us.

And I was like, Oh, and then I just run, I just like run across the battlefield, being chased by all these guys.

And all of my guys are like, Come on, old board, come on.

And I'm like,

and they thought I was a good guy the whole time.

And I was just like wandering around, like, oh, where are my bots?

My bots.

So much fun.

So much fun.

To just do weird stuff like that.

We got to play cultists of like some like sea wrath goddess.

And like we would just like in the middle of battle, we would just get on our knees and start like praying and chanting at the sky and like calling like begging for rain.

Like, please, goddess, bless us with your rains.

Like in the middle of the battlefield, just give up fighting, sacrifice ourselves to like these shark monsters that were there.

We'd be like, eat me, take me to the goddess, like let them like destroy us basically.

It's good fun.

Good bit of laugh.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Get you all onto it.

Get you all onto it next year.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, make it happen.

I've already committed to doing a marathon next year.

Great.

Oh, that's true.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A running marathon.

And

I might as well also LARP.

Yeah.

Next year is going to be crazy for old dudes.

You got a bunch of people.

You know, some folks I can introduce you.

I can give you some hints and stuff like that.

So, and then if Jesse happens to be in England at the same time, well, just have to come along and get

in here.

I will

don't, don't test me.

I'll do it.

I will roll up.

Don't test me.

I will roll up and I will set up a woods-based cabin.

Yep.

And I will just hand out flyers and tell like, come,

great potions of power I have for you.

and then show them the woods and it would just be it would just be like energy drinks yeah

it's just like one of those like

like blow-up houses

yes yes it's a and then you just kind of like throw some moss and twigs on top and you're like it's my cabin come come bounce with me yes come

like awful yoda with with red bull in the woods i love that i love it big mood big mood that's That's all I want.

It's just, oh, I could just go fool Yoda.

Yeah.

And like,

carry me on your back, you will.

He'll be like, no, please no.

Come, come, good training.

Take me.

Good training, it is.

Training, you will be.

That's right.

Yeah, we'll do the whole, I'll do the whole laugh.

Yeah, it'll be great.

Yeah, I love it.

I'm a big fan.

Perfect.

Absolutely.

I think we got a good plan here.

Nice.

I'm a big fan.

I didn't expect us to talk about LARP for that long, but I'm delighted about it.

Yeah, it's, I, I, you know, I did warn you before we got onto this.

I was like, you get me onto a topic that I like talking about, and I'm not going to shut up about it.

Dude,

so many people.

I told you I love a yapper, so

it's good.

We're all aligned.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm trying to, it's like, yeah, like, normally it's like, I talk about like the DD stuff or like, uh, you know, we talk about like, yeah, the cosplay and the, the, you know, dressing up and stuff like that.

But yeah, I love to, I love to yap about a good lap, a LARP.

uh that's the thing

have i told you before probably not um i my degree is in like costume crafts oh shit no i did not know that that's i haven't i haven't made a costume like properly made a costume in years

but i love the idea of having a reason to make one you know right and i think that with larp as well it's a little bit different because you're not necessarily making costume you have to make something that's like hard wearing it's gonna like last for like a full weekend you can move around in that you can potentially fight in and stuff like that as well it can't be something that's going to break constantly yeah so like and it but it means that you're working with like and it's it a lot of it's like historical inspired as well so you're like looking up like old historical patterns like oh but how can i modify that to do like a more fancy version of it oh oh I want to make a cloak.

What should I make it out of in case it rains?

Or like, you know, there's a lot of that kind of stuff because it is England.

So it does get wet and muddy.

So there's a lot of that stuff as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, it's some of the costumes people make are just absolutely stunning.

I'm sure.

Yeah.

like i uh people i know as well like and it's just their hobby and they just you know crack these amazing movie movie quality costumes out so i think you'd have a blast doing that because there's enough of a framework there to give you ideas but then you there's a lot of freedom to be like how you decorate it and how you like make it your own as well so like you can really go to town with stuff like that yeah yeah that's pretty cool yeah and uh and it's also a thing like with families as well and stuff like that like i know a lot of people like you know bring their husbands and wives but also there's a thing for kids which i think is really sweet empire so like there's this thing called the academy where people that want to come with their families the kids get to go off and do their own little adventures where they're like collecting like things out in the woods and they're taught lessons about the history of the world and you know they have to like earn like uh not like merit badges but they like get awards at the end of the weekend for like oh and the person who did the best on the the the combat quest is timmy or like whatever his character name is and they were and it's all in character it's all done like as you know they're treated just as another player which is really sweet um and I know a couple of folks who, you know, they couldn't come because they were like, well, I've got kids, and then they found out about this, and then they were like, oh, great.

And then it also means the adults get to go off and do their own thing for a bit because it's kind of like sending the kids off to school, right?

So it's just like, oh, great, you know, nice, yeah.

And my friend of mine, Steve, he plays a lot of NPCs.

And one of his favorite things is he does all the academy quests.

So the kids get taken off in a big group out into the woods or into like these like custom little maid encounters.

And like he'll play like the beastiery keeper.

And he's like, oh, all the skitterlings have got out, kids.

We've got to go and get all the skitterlings.' And so, like, like, they're all and there's all these like little things hung up in the trees, and the kids have got nets, and they're trying to like fish them out and stuff like that.

It's really fun, it's really sweet.

That's so cute.

I love that,

yeah, it's a good time, it's a good time.

Yeah, I like that episode of Geekenders where they talked about LARP the whole time.

I love that.

You would be surprised.

I'm going to let you know there's going to be a lot of people who are like, My surprise episode.

Let's have that.

100%.

Absolutely.

Oh, my goodness.

Well,

what have you been up to this week, Jesse?

Hey,

since it's the most recent thing, I played a bunch of Indiana Jones and the Golden Circle last night.

It is officially out today, but I played, oh, I'm sorry, the Great Circle.

I don't know why I say golden.

I played

a bunch of it, and

it is,

without a doubt, the Indiana Jones experience.

It feels like it.

It looks like it.

The best part about it is

I'm very curious what the general consensus will be when, you know, a few weeks from now.

But the game, it's a machine games game.

So you're thinking like Wolfenstein, you're going to run on Blast Dudes.

It has the look, but it is not not the feel.

When they drop you in at the beginning, you're literally doing the intro to

Raiders.

So like, that's the tutorial.

You're learning, like, that's like, that's how it's setting you up.

And

it's, you're looking around, you're exploring things.

You're learning to use the whip.

The first stage is you go to the Vatican.

And it is, so, like, the way I describe it is, there's the main story, a main quest.

Like, you have a whole quest list and everything.

There's the main quest, and it's one that I will not spoil.

And you're you go to the Vatican to meet a contact.

And when you're there, my mind is: okay,

go into the Vatican.

We're going to sneak in.

We're going to take out some of these

Italian fascist dudes.

We're going to punch them.

They're going to run through the thing.

And we'll get to the end.

No, false.

It is

there's like a part one where you sneak into the Vatican.

Then part two is, I have a priest's outfit.

I'm in the Vatican.

Now I can look around for stuff.

And so you are solving mysteries.

You are finding clues and the clues lead you to go discover another mystery.

You go, I am six hours in and I am still in the Vatican.

And I have

I found an underground boxing ring where I had to dress up like a like a black shirt and sneak in.

I um there's like uh riddles and clues and mysteries to solve.

There's like find these hidden plaques and do this thing.

And if you do this, then the whole reason to do all this instead of just plowing through is you'll find books and the books will give you skills.

And some of those skills are like you punch 20% harder or you have another life bar.

And in order to get those, you need to find hidden items or complete quests.

in order to get adventure points.

Then you spend the adventure points to unlock the power of the books.

And now you're a stronger, better adventurer, or you climb faster, or you see different things that you wouldn't have seen before.

That kind of stuff.

And so you're running around.

You're, you're, you're like underneath the Vatican.

You're up above.

You're running on the rooftop.

It'd be crazy to see a priest do any of that, but it's hilarious that it's, you can do that and get caught up in all of the Indiana Jones-ness of it.

Um,

should I binge all of Indiana Jones I see in chat?

I will say this game takes place after the first movie.

Okay.

So there's, you would have to know some of the first movie in order to appreciate some of what's going on because there is like a little bit of Indiana Jones backstory.

There's 100% a callback to stuff happening in the first movie.

And so also Marcus is in it.

And so you would have to know like who Marcus Brody is.

But you don't really need to.

But it's.

It's an Indiana Jones adventure through and through.

The voice acting, awesome.

It's so, so very good.

And gameplay-wise,

you are,

you can sneak.

You can start just punching dudes in the face.

You can also do, if you can time it, you can press V to like block their punch and then clock them.

Or you can just put your hands up.

You can do, or you can get weapons.

And if you sneak up behind someone, you can hit them with weapons.

The best part is they've coded in achievements for certain weapons.

So at one point, I got a fly swatter because I thought it'd be hilarious to hit a guy with a fly swatter.

I hit him and an achievement popped up and I was like, yeah.

Or I hit one guy, I think it was with a guitar and it gave me an achievement.

That kind of stuff, which I think is very funny.

But there's so many things to hit people with.

You can pick up pretty much anything.

I threw a statue at a man once.

Great.

Loved it.

But

you could do that or you can just pull out a gun or take a gun from someone and just blast people.

However, it makes noise and so guards will come running.

Of course.

People will check you out.

But also,

at one point, I hot gates a bunch of guards and they kept coming through the door and I would just pop them.

And eventually they were all dead.

And I was like,

Indiana Jones.

And so there's different ways to do it.

The best way I would describe the game is kind of like if Dishonored and Uncharted had a baby.

Oh my God.

Oh, that sounds so good.

It's very, very fun.

If you're into Indiana Jones,

it's very fun.

There's like one of the first puzzles literally is find out where to put these things on pedestals

and

sure you could go for the clues or if you just know the flags of nations you can solve it instantly it's like oh this one is from syria and there's literally a flag there you're like oh okay you just put it down and now you know so it has that sort of if you know a thing you're probably gonna have an easier time playing this game interesting i love that I love that.

That sounds so good.

I love indie movies

very unironically.

I love that kind of pulp adventure.

Like uncharted is like one of my favorite game series i'm really looking forward to it i've been waiting for it to come out and it's just oh that sold me a hundred percent the only negative i have so far is the map i think is like how dare they it's awesome because it's it he has a journal that he carries with him throughout the story and Whenever you use the map, you press J and he just brings it up like this in front of his face.

And you can walk around with it and you can look and do stuff.

But the map itself, even though it gives you little ping points on your screen so you can follow it,

the map is a top-down of wherever you're at.

And in the Vatican, for example, there's so many crypts and things above and below things.

It's not featured on the map.

So it's kind of like playing the Unringed DLC where the map doesn't seem all that big, but then you realize, oh my God, there's like 12 layers to this shit.

Same thing.

It'll be like, no, it's below you.

I'm like.

How do I get below me?

And then when you realize that certain things don't open until the story progresses

so you can't just plow through side quests and which is what i was doing at first and then i found a bunch of doors that literally were like locked i was like well how do i open it usually if it's locked it tells me what the key is that i need to find to get it open nah just locked and i was like okay

So finally, frustrated, I started just doing the story.

I was like, oh, I'm just going to go to bed.

Like, I'm so, like, I can't figure out what I'm doing.

Like, I think I've just been streaming too long.

And then I was like, all right, we're just going to finish the story.

I turned in the quest and then it was like, Oh, now you can go in.

I was like, Oh, this is what we're doing, okay.

And once I figured that out, it was fine, but yeah, that's just my one tip: is the map will drive you crazy, so don't stress it.

And two,

just do the main story a little bit, and stuff will unlock for you, right?

Good time, yeah.

I'm glad that it's fun,

it's a blast, it's so much fun.

Indiana Joe comes out in two days,

yeah, comes out on the 9th.

Yeah, no, I'm excited about that one.

That one's like been on my list, watch list for a while.

Very keen.

And also, oh, go on, sorry.

No, continue.

I was going to say, the person in chat who was asking, Do you need to watch?

You should watch the movie.

You should watch one and three.

You should watch Raise of the Lost Ark and Last Crusade.

Like, Temple of Doom is okay, but watch those three because I feel like the first, the one and three are like the quintessential indie experience of like this is what

I'm doing.

It's my first favorite when I was younger.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

But that's also the first one, technically, right?

So, true.

I mean, like,

I will say, even though there haven't been any real major Temple of Doom things in this, there are like some Easter eggs for the indie mythos that if you know stuff, you're like, oh, I know what that is, but that's really it.

Yeah, I love that.

I was going to say that I've continued to be sick all week, and the only

new thing that I've played this week, are you ready?

Is A-Ram, League of Legends.

Hold on.

Did you get got because of Arcane?

Yeah.

Yeah.

100%.

Yeah.

And I knew it's a trap.

It's a freaking trap.

And I know that.

But like, my FYP is ruined now.

And

like everything that's showing up is just like,

Cool edits because arcane editors just can't be normal.

They have to be cinematic masterpieces.

So I've just been like watching so many.

And I got to this point where I was in the kitchen with Sam and I was like,

Should I play League?

And he was like, no.

And I was like, if I wanted to play League, would you play with me?

And he was like, no, we will get divorced.

And I was like, okay.

So I went to Summer and I was like, Summer, will you play League with me?

And Summer was like, oh my God.

Yes.

Oh my God.

Yes.

Oh my God.

Should we play today?

Should we play right now?

I'm free whenever.

So we played A-Ram

because

apparently it's like the most overwhelming version of League, but is also in some ways the simplest because it stands for all random all-mid.

So there's not lanes.

There's just one lane and your character is randomized.

So people can't be mad at you for picking a bad character.

Like it's it's whatever.

I

did terrible every single time, but it was fun.

I don't know.

Maybe that's bad.

It seems very low pressure compared to normal league.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's just like fun, right?

It's just jump in,

get used to like how the spells and abilities and stuff work and get a random character.

It seems, yeah.

I don't know how to use any of the characters.

So no matter who it gave me, I was like, I'll just figure it out.

I'll buy that.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'd love to.

It's one of those games.

League's one of those games.

I had the same thing of after watching Arcane.

I was like, should I get back into, should I play League again?

Because I don't don't think I've touched it like in years, years and years and years and years.

And I don't, I just don't like none of my friends want to play it.

Like, none of the High Rollers gang.

No, nobody's friendly doing that.

Good, good friends trying to keep you away from that drug.

Really?

Okay, that's it.

Maybe that's the way.

You need a summer, Mark.

Yeah, that's it.

I do.

I do need a summer.

I need to be like, hey, like, you know, indulge me, help enable me, enable me, please.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For sure.

Well, hey, if you uh, if you want to play sometimes,

I was thinking, I was thinking, I'm gonna shoot you a DM on Discord.

I'm gonna be like, next time you and Summer are playing league, do you wanna just like let me know?

Because also, I'm gonna be awful, right?

So, I don't want to play with people that know what they're doing because I just feel bad that I'm like terrible.

Whereas, like, if you guys,

yeah, exactly, right?

If you're new as well, I feel like I can be a new baby with you, and then we can just be like, we're bad, lol.

Yes,

we're bad.

Exactly, it'll be great.

My favorite part about this is knowing people who really play league like crazy.

And

shameless plug for Cox and Crendor.

But on that show, I don't know if it was last week or the week before, we were talking about Arcane and how much I enjoy it.

And Crendor was like,

I hate that show.

I'm like, why?

What's the matter?

He's like, they want me to care about the worst characters in the game.

I ban Echo every time because he's too overpowered.

I'm like, what do you mean?

He's like, he's too overpowered.

How could I like his story if he's so overpowered?

And I'm like, that's your issue?

He's like, oh, God,

it's just piltover.

It's just, it's just attractive humans.

Where's the Yordles?

Where's my boy, Timo?

And I'm like, what?

He's like, where's Sticks?

Where's the Sticks?

They're like, you just wanted a different show.

And he's like, I hate when they do humans.

It's just like in the game because everyone, they just try to make sexy anime characters to sell packs with.

And I'm like, yeah.

Yeah, dude.

Yeah.

What's the problem?

I don't see the problem with this.

Oh, it's so, it's one of the fun.

It might be the funniest rant because it's, it's clearly, it's what I think people hear when they hear like Star Wars fans or Marvel fans when they like say something like, that's, that's the hell you're going to tell me on this.

That's the problem about this.

Yeah.

It's really funny.

So I must stress, there's a part of the community.

A great example is they changed some of the characters because of Arcane.

And watching people get really upset, I was like,

I'm so glad I'm out of like that level of fandom for things because my God,

from the outside, you're like, why is this affecting you the way it is?

It shouldn't.

Like, this is really not a big deal, guys.

Like, you like, you can like a thing.

You don't have to like it to this level, right?

Like,

this is scary.

That's, I think, the thing, right?

Is like,

it's, it's totally understandable to be like, oh man, I'm really going to miss how that thing was.

Or, like, I have a lot of like, you know, fondness for that thing before, right?

but to be like i'm starting a petition to roll back the changes

i'm never gonna play this game again unless they change victor back uh because they've made him like a twink now and i don't like it it's just like buddy just calm down like it's fine like

like what's crazy

character to play or whatever yeah what's crazy is i i i first of all spoil the thing but i was about to be like If you watch the show, you have to appreciate the Victor reskin.

It's like cool as hell.

it's very interesting.

Super cool, but I completely understand people being upset about something that they've been a part of.

You know, it's the reason why I was like upset with WoW because they're like, We're changing this story again.

I'm like,

guys, I can't, I can't do this anymore.

But

I feel like

I don't know, there was barely a story to begin with, so I don't know why you're really upset about the story of Amoba,

but oh, don't say that.

No, I know.

Look, I was about to, I was about to, I was about to clarify, Yeah.

But I get it.

They, if, because he's like, Jesse, there's so many comics and there's so many lore and there's so much.

Don't

say that.

No, but that's what I was going to say is, but because Riot made lore,

then it's something that they should, you know, if they're going to make a lore for a thing and people are getting invested, you know, you have to respect it a little bit.

So

I don't know, but it feels like Arcane was their attempt to create an actual codified universe instead of we wrote 80 short stories and figure out how they fit together.

And also, like, yeah, there's just so much more opportunity to explore those characters.

You can't,

you know, there is nothing for Ramoba to do with that, right?

You can't, you could publish like maybe like short stories or comics or whatever, but like a TV show is being able, and also just introduce it to people that have no idea what this thing is.

And I think that like they've engineered those characters to be much more understandable and presented in a way like I didn't know the league lore, I could could watch Arcane and be like, I'm so invested now.

I care about like

these fucking characters were except for Jinx.

Yeah.

When I started watching Arcane, I was like, I don't know.

I have no idea what's going on.

And like,

you know, big reveals for league fans would happen in the show and Sam would be like clutching his pearls and I'd go, I don't know.

I don't know what that means.

I don't know what's happening, but I'm still in.

I'm still having a great time.

So whatever.

They, they did it, you know?

Yeah.

I think like they struck that good balance.

Like that, like, I don't know a lot, but there was a couple of things where I was like, oh, is that a reference to this?

I remember that character.

And like, there was things like that.

But then there was, you know, I've got friends of mine who watched it for the first time.

And they were still just as excited because the way the storytelling is done is they often build those reveals into a very natural narrative high point anyway, where you'd be like, oh, is that blur?

And then they tied it all together in an exciting way for non-fans and fans alike.

I think they captured something that like there's they found this happy middle ground where you look at a lot of video game movies and TV shows and properties where for some reason the inclination of the team, the showrunner, whoever, is let's retell something that already exists because people will love that.

When in reality, what they should be doing, which is kind of what, you know, Fallout did and Edge Runners did, which is it's the universe.

It's that world.

We're just going to tell a story in it so that if there's an Easter egg or something, people who play the game will love it.

But you don't need to have known about the game to love it.

We're establishing the rules of this universe through the eyes of new characters.

And for some reason, our came was like, We're going to use characters that exist, but we're going to do the thing that is telling a story in a universe,

but it's not a story you've ever heard before, so it counts as something new.

It's they like threaded a perfect needle and it's awesome.

Like, they nailed it, and it's very hard to do, to be honest.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Fully agree.

Sadly, we've we've got to wrap up.

But Jessup, do we have news?

Can you super slam us some news?

I would love to super slam you some news.

First off, the best news that I can give anyone, since I assume a lot of you on here right now are watching

probably with some sort of Amazon Prime thing.

Amazon Prime Gaming is just giving away a bunch of games this month, and I'm no fool.

I'll tell you to get free games any day of the week.

They're GOG codes, which are great.

So that's like a permanent game, wink wink.

So pick that up.

But Star Wars Bounty Hunter, Tomb Raider, Underworld, Overcook 2, Call of War as Gunslinger, Dredge,

Quake 2, Disney Pixars, Wally,

Planet Lana,

Heroes Hour, the Kama Recut or Coma Recut, Electrician Simulator, Redrawn the Painted Tower, Nine Witches, Predator Hunting Grounds, Aces of Luftwaffe, Simulacros, Christmas Fables, The Town of Light, and then just today,

we get a bunch more with Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition, Baldurgate 2 Enhanced Edition, Necromunda Higher Gun, Neverwinter Knights Enhanced Edition, Outer World, Spacehawk Death Wing, Spelunky, Warhammer 40k Dawn of War, Warhammer 40k Space Marine, Warhammer 40k Dawn of War 2.

So get those.

And literally, I think if you're watching on Twitch right now, you can just straight up go to the little thing at the top of the screen and get your games.

So

that's a whole thing.

Free games, kids.

Pick them up.

Make that happen in your life.

God.

Obviously, also, Indian Jones is coming out.

So brace yourself for that.

Super farming.

Fall Exile is coming out.

That's true.

Yep.

Poe is coming out.

I think you'll see a lot of our friends playing that this weekend.

And then we also got new Mighty Morphins Power Rangers.

Read as Rewind came out.

Monument Valley 3 only on Netflix for some reason.

We also have,

again,

there were some from last week I didn't get to and I just because, you know, stuck at home, but Fantasian Neo Dimension is out.

It's the Apple game that the two OGs

of Final Fantasy created way back when, and now it's finally being released off of Apple and it looks great.

All the backgrounds are like...

Diorama looking, very cool.

Has a great function if you're an RPG player where like if you run through a dungeon, instead of having random battles the entire time, you can do the entire dungeon, save up all the battles and then afterwards fight them one after another love that big fan of that um enigma of fear was a pixel art 3d style investigation game uh it's literally the most dodger coded thing i've ever seen my entire life it looks awesome yeah i think you would like it enigma of fear and uh yeah i'm trying to think of what else uh we got obviously marvel rivals um dropped a lot of stuff this week and most of it was people horned up for squirrel girl which i get i'm not even gonna fight you on it she cute and uh

shark a lot that's all i know yes and a lot of people are really impressed with the uh like end of like game play play of the game animations thing like that look very cool um

but the funniest thing i saw was there's definitely a bias where people are like wow These prices for skins are really affordable.

It's like the exact same price as Overwatch, which says a lot about your brand.

If people are like, like, Overwatch is too expensive.

It's like, okay, you've saturated that market, gang.

So we will see what people think when more people start to play, but it's looking pretty good.

They're putting some money into Marvel Rivals.

Yeah.

And

it's fun.

It's fun one.

That is the news for you.

Fantastic.

Look at us.

Yay.

Yay.

I couldn't tell if you were doing this or this.

So I was waiting to see if it was a one moment.

It's a big cheesy thumbs up.

Fantastic.

Really quickly, Mark, I'm going to put you on the spot.

If you could give chat homework, something that you think more people should take the time to read, watch,

play,

whatever, what would your homework be?

God.

It can be anything I want just because I want it.

Anything.

I'm not going to plug myself because that would be very selfish of me.

You had someone do that before.

No, I'm not going to do that.

I'm not like, that's genius.

I'm going to suggest there is one of my favorite authors has got a brand new book coming out literally today, the Brand Sanson Stormlight Archive stuff.

It was the stuff that got me back into fantasy.

So, as homework, if you would like a lovely fantasy book to read, go check out the Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanson or Mistborn is the other one as well.

The first book of the Mistborn series.

Those are like my homework.

So you go read it.

In fact, just read a lovely book.

Like, take some time, get away from the screen, take a bit of downtime, get a book, get a comfy chair, and read a book for a few hours.

There you go.

There's my homework this week.

Just go read a lovely book.

I love books.

Mark, why don't you tell everybody who you are, where they can find you, and what you're up to.

Thank you very much.

My name is Mark Humes, also known as Sherlock Humes.

Online, you'll find me pretty much everywhere on the internet under Sherlock Humes.

Sometimes there's an underscore in the middle, sometimes there's an underscore at the end.

It's a little puzzle that you can find, you can play to figure out i am the dungeon master for a dnd show called high rollers uh we stream every sunday on twitch and youtube Some people jokingly call us Britical Roll because it's that kind of style of AP.

Nice cameras, nice audio.

We've been doing it for about 10 years now.

We're currently in our third campaign.

It's a really, really good time.

And we're just about to start a brand new arc.

It's going to be like a really fresh start in the new year.

So if people want to come and check us out, I think it's going to be a really good time to jump in on that for High Rollers.

And that's, yeah, that's kind of my whole jam.

Follow me on social medias.

If you'd like to see me looking like a beautiful lady, you can follow me on social media.

And I like to post that from time to time, talk about my LARP adventures and things like that.

But yeah, that's me.

Fantastic.

Thank you so much for joining us, Mark.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, Jesse, what have you got going on?

Boy, oh boy, probably gonna

play some POE2,

trying to get a certain

person

who I'm looking at right now now to join Crendor and I for some shenanigans, but we'll see.

And

then, yeah, I'm going to play more Indiana Jones.

I've got still Metaphor Refontasio to do.

Just caught up in it.

A lot of games.

And thankfully, word is on the street that I guess there's some sort of

Twitch thing end of December where it's like something I don't know with subs.

So expect me to, I got no work happening then, so I'm just going to stream constantly.

Just know the last two weeks of December are going to be like, you're never getting rid of me, haters.

Fantastic.

I love it.

I love that energy.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm Dodger, and I haven't been doing shit aside from dipping into league, which we all know is a mistake.

So

come watch my Descent into Madness.

If you enjoyed Geek Enders today, you can find all of the previous Geek Enders

on youtube.com slash jessecox uh we're also on all the podcasty things yeah we've done a fair number of these how many of these have we done now

almost 52 because it will have been a full year since we started oh my gosh look at that that's amazing yeah so yeah if you if you enjoy geek enders go listen to it give us a review all that stuff helps yeah That's it for us, I believe.

Have a fantastic day.

This is episode 52.

Look at that, Mike.

Look at that.

Boom.

Have a fantastic weekend, everybody.

We will see you next Friday.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Yeah, yeah, you know what time it is.

It's time for the geek in this podcast.

Mega Rand, Jesse, and Dodger.

What up?

Let's go.

Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

Go on, stream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a follow and see what the geekiners are all about.

Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

Go on, stream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a follow, number one, geek podcast without a doubt.

Yo, another end of another long week.

Got a job and a kid, I know that you all beat.

So take a second, grab a drink, and vibe.

While we catch you up in just a matter of time on gaming, comics, whatever you're doing.

If you're nerdy like us, then you know you should tune in.

Thank you for sharing our world with us.

Now follow, subscribe, and turn this up.

Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to get out.

Let it be kid.

Go on, stream a shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a file.

A number one geek podcast without a doubt.

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