- My name is Brennan Lee Mulligan, with me are two of our intrepid heroes, Emily Axford and Brian Murphy! - Hi, intrepid heroes!
- Hi, intrepid heroes! - As well as our brilliant
and visionary director, Michael Schaubach! - Hi, intrepid heroes! - Was that your first hi, intrepid heroes? - That's the first time I've ever said it. - Welcome!
- You're actually not allowed to do that.
- Fair enough, fair enough. Fair enough, fair enough. - Brutal.
(Emily laughs) - Wow. - Welcome to Fantasy High: Extra Credit. Our first live talk-back show. We're gonna talk a little
bit about what happened in episodes nine and 10 of Fantasy High. Now, if you're tuning in for
the first time and you're like, what the hell happened to Drawfee? Let me explain. This is now Dropout Live. We're gonna be doing a
bunch of awesome shows. So, if you were subscribing
to Drawfee before, you're gonna get all that
great Drawfee content plus a bunch of Dimension
20 stuff is gonna jump out from behind where Dropout
has been keeping it on our--
- Sneak attack. - A little sneak attack of
some Dimension 20 material is gonna jump out and be available now, here on Dropout Live's Twitch channel. And we just streamed episode nine and 10, which are the episodes past
what's available on YouTube, if you can believe it. But, you will still have your Monday and Friday Drawfee streams, now with this Wednesday live
talk-back show starting. And in another 15 or so minutes. I don't know, whenever we feel... - Ooh, make 'em want it, Daddy! - Saucy.
- Make 'em want it! - [Brennan] Whenever
we feel good and ready. (Emily laughing) - When our bodies are prepared. - [Brennan] When our bodies are prepared. - Yeah, I don't think I'm there yet. - We're gonna make an announcement about something else
that might be happening with this little Twitch endeavor. Murph looks very real-life
nervous right now, which I'm very into.
- We're buying Twitch! We're buying Twitch.
- Yeah! Dropout is buying Twitch. The big merger, tweet about it! (Emily laughing)
- But yes! So make sure to stay
tuned in here for Twitch for all that good, good Dropout stuff, Dimension 20 and Drawfee alike. Your old faves, some new faves, and some borrowed faves and blue faves. As well as checking out
Dimension 20's YouTube channel. You can go over on
Dimension 20 and subscribe, and hit that bell over there for a bunch of great content, Adventuring Academy, et cetera. Guys, how are you all doing? - Great.
- Great. - Good.
- Great to be here. - I love it!
(Emily laughing) We're at a table scattered with dice and some miniature dragons.
- It's really, it's so cruel to put us here, because I know that they're all artfully placed, and I just wanna just go round, roll one of the d20s.
- Roll one! (dice clattering) - I do kinda wanna set them--
- Four, baby! (Brennan laughing) (dice clattering)
- Seven. That's actually my lucky number. - Do you guys wanna see
somebody roll a one? - Yeah. (dice clattering) (all clamoring)
- Rolled a four, which I also did. It's also bullshit, because you've been on a
hot streak rolling lately. - You have.
- Yeah, that's true. - 19, I'll take it!
(others cheering) I love it. I love that your instinct is to roll them. My instinct when I look
at them is, I'm like, (laughing) I wanna organize those. Those are--
(Emily laughing) - I wanna set them to the highest. - [Brennan] Highest possible number! - That they can do. I do that with my dice. - I've started doing that recently and it has not been giving me any luck. I do not believe in it. It is not entering the Emily Axford canon of what I do to give myself good luck. - Good for you. - A friend of mine growing up said something along the lines of, plastic is... You know how they say glass actually is a slow-moving liquid? It melts slowly, you know. They said something along the lines of, if you put the--
- No. - Is that not true?
- I've never heard that. But I believe.
- You've got to be agreeable to keep a conversation going.
- I'm gonna go home and stare at my windows now.
- I literally believe everything you say, so yes.
(Brennan laughing) - I've actually heard
the opposite about glass. (Brennan laughing) - You've heard the opposite about glass! - Yeah, I heard that
it's slowly evaporating. - My father's a glass doctor, so I'm not sure exactly
what you're talking about. - We just never get back to D&D. - I had a minor in glass in college. Just a minor, but... - It's incredible. Guys, we're here talking today about episodes nine and
ten from Fantasy High. For those that tuned in on the stream, you've just watched these episodes, so you know what we're talking about. This is Gorthalax in the diner, this is the field at Aguefort. If you haven't watched episodes nine and ten of Fantasy High, spoiler alert!
- Yeah. - Spoilers are coming.
- Sorry, fair game. - We will do our very level best not to spoil anything past nine and ten. If we do by accident, it is only because memory fails us.
(others laughing) But otherwise, we will
do our very, very best to only refer to episodes nine and ten and things that happened
previously to them. So, episode nine and ten. Gorthalax's girl. This is after the battle
at the mithril factory. - Yeah.
- You guys go to the diner. - I super didn't trust Gorthalax. - Oh, yeah. You were on my dad for a while. - He is a big demon guy.
- Yeah. A bunch of you at the table did not. - Yeah. For good reason.
- For good reasons! - Clearly, the person
to be concerned about is the Barbarian teacher.
- Porter? - Porter!
(Michael laughing) Never had there ever been a
more suspicious character. - I just wanna say that--
- Porter has secrets. - The addition of, so, I knew that Jace and Porter
were these other teachers that I thought were fun
and liked at Aguefort in that very... This is episode three, after the battle with the corn gremlins. - Cuties.
- Cuties. - Cuties. - Well, technically,
they're gremlins, so okay. (Emily laughing)
But after that fight, when the teachers came in, I realized that with Aguefort
being dead at that point, that, and this is no spoiler, trying to give you no spoilers, but basically I was like, oh, I haven't introduced enough characters at the school yet. You know what I mean? I need to get more teachers out here. Because I knew that if you guys started going
down the rabbit hole before there were enough people kind of fleshed out in the setting... So, I threw Porter in there being like, here's another teacher for
them to suspect of foul play. And I was like, maybe they will suspect. And Emily was just on it.
(others laughing) From the word go. This guy's trouble!
(Emily laughing) Porter Cliffbreaker. - But anyways, I can't believe that you would've gone
after my dad like that. - Well, he--
- They were all doing rolls. You were all doing checks.
- Yeah, he was a demon. And I'm trying to remember. There were some bad things
heard about him, right? He was trapped... Do we know, at this point, who trapped him in the gem, in the show? - Yeah, yes.
- We do. Arthur Aguefort trapped him in the-- - Correct. 'Cos he was going buck wild. - He was going buck wild, yeah. He--
- But we don't know enough about Arthur Aguefort to even know that Arthur Aguefort is to be trusted. - He did kill himself to
save two of our friends. - Or, to save face? We don't know.
(Brian laughing) - To save face?
- Somehow. - "Oh, this casts me
in a very poor light." (imitating gunshot)
(others laughing) - The PR release is going to drag me. - Listen, my life is a small price to pay for my reputation.
(Emily laughing) - I think all of my characters, behind whatever dressing I give them, are a very grizzled old knight who just wants to do his duty. That's what all of my
characters are behind them. So, when I see somebody like Gorthalax, and there's a bunch of flavor
given to his backstory, almost as like a joke, being like, this is
Gorthalax the Insatiable. He's this crazy demon and everything. In my head, I'm like, that's unforgivable. (others laughing) You should be in a gem
for the rest of your life, despite what you do now. You're too chaotic. We cannot release you on this world. - Fair enough.
- Thank you for the ice-cream. - Get back in the gem. - And how does the old grizzled knight hiding inside of a young
investigative goblin feel about the daughter of that? - Solemn, like he does about everything. - Solemn.
- Just nodding. He doesn't like his life, but he wouldn't have it any other way. (Brennan laughing) - Perfect. - I just wanna say really quick, sorry, Brennan, before you move us along. The conversation between Gorthalax and Fig is one of my most favorite conversations. The first one, after you
come out from the shaft, after you freed him. It was one of my most
favorite things to watch, and also re-film in the minis. You were cornering him in a
very real abandoned child way, of like... But after my horns. After my horns came in. You still didn't wanna reach out to me? And you got out of it by going, can we just put a pin in this? Can we talk about this later?
- Yeah. - In that moment, were you like, I need to get the action going here? Or were you like, I really
don't know what to say? 'Cos you've never been a parent, right? - I've never been a parent.
- Okay. You were put in a real-world
situation right there. - It's very interesting. In that moment where you were
like, "After my horns..." Now, here's what it comes down to. Human motivation, or in this case, devil motivation, is a very complex thing. The idea that we do things because we're motivated
by a reason to do them is kind of overly simplified. Anything we do, we probably
have multiple reasons to do, and maybe some reasons to not do that just get outvoted
by the other reasons internally in your own head, right? - Right.
- People have ways of rationalizing everything, right? So in Gorthalax's head, does he want to send noted creep and human trafficker Johnny Spells to check up on his maiden daughter? Because that's the only person that he can talk to in his trapped state? Does he want to say, hey! My kid should know that I'm out here loving her somewhere. Take you and your creepy-ass bike and meet my family.
(others laughing) - I don't know. I think no-one would have complained about more Johnny Spells.
(Brennan laughing) - Johnny Spells is so funny.
- Johnny Spells... (Emily laughing) Johnny Spells was one of those characters that was introduced, and I was like, this is the guy. We're gonna be after him for a while. (Brennan laughing)
- Yeah! - We just splattered him.
(others laughing) - I mean, I couldn't have imagined... But that's the thing is, there were... I knew that Johnny Spells
was one rung on the ladder as you guys were gonna follow breadcrumbs and kind of keep going
along down the trail. But I didn't know that he
would be out of it that quick. But yeah, taking a crossbow bolt to the back of the head and then-- - Having all of his stuff stolen. We stole his little diary. - You stole his little diary,
(Emily laughing) his switchblade comb. You guys also stole the Hangman, which I was fully not anticipating. - Really?
- That was great. - The Hangman was fully improvised. - Great moment. - The Hangman was such a beautiful, even just rewatching the tenth episode, and just watching the mini of
the motorcycle going around-- - It's so fun.
- It's so beautiful. - In that moment, I was
sitting next to Rick Perry, our art director, and I saw him making a mental note like, oh, time to make a motorcycle, and make a mini with
Fabian on the Hangman. - Yeah.
- So it was two minis that had to be made in very short order. - Yeah.
- Exciting. - We were shooting, what,
four episodes a week? We knew at that point
that wouldn't be needed for the next battle, but it would be needed
for the battle after that. So he had a week turnaround
to get all that stuff done. - Yep.
- Which is crazy. - Yeah.
- Rick is a wizard. He's a true wizard.
- Plain and simple. - I'd say he's a sorcerer. Because his genius seems so innate. - Whoa.
- Wow. - I would say he's a wizard because he works his ass off. - I think he's a multi-class.
(others laughing) - It's super-redundant. - Ultimate mage?
(Emily laughing) I love it. Dude, you're not, it's not optimized! (Emily laughing)
- I tell him that every day. Dude, your build in real
life is not optimized. - Don't let flavor get in
the way of performance. (others laughing) - Oh my god. Going back to your
question with Gorthalax. - [Michael] Yes. - I think the real,
deep-down thing is because when people say reasons why
they didn't do something, often there's an excuse or logistics, but also there's something
else deep down preventing. I think Gorthalax is self-loathing. - Yeah.
- He didn't wanna reach out to a daughter that he didn't
feel he deserved to know. Or that he would, even
after the horns came in, it was like, I'm trapped in this gem, and I... You know, it's this thing of, the force of habit, right? What am I gonna do? I'm gonna call her up to this? Trying to send Johnny Spells to get her to come up here and rescue me so that I'm out of--
- He also could've been like, once I get out of the gem. I should get out of the gem.
- Yeah. - Then I will, you know. - Then I would do. Another excuse, right, yeah. But I think once he came out, it was so clear that the funniest thing for Gorthalax to be was deeply empathetic and respectful. - [Emily] (laughing) Yeah. - Which--
- And have everyone but Fig be completely distrustful,
which is just like, cracks me up. It cracked me up in the moment, and it cracked me up on the re-watch. He's being so kind and polite. Even catching the messages
that Adaine's sending to you. "I just wanna say, I heard that," and still everybody being distrustful, is so funny to me.
- It's also funny because as a DM, people think... When people ask questions like, what do you do if they kill someone? Or, what do you do if they did this? And honestly, there
were two big curve-balls in both these episodes. The scene with Gorthalax was the longest scene in Dimension 20. It's about an hour-long
scene in that diner. And it's the longest scene
in the history of the show, because I gave all of the information you guys needed to Gorthalax, and made him an open book,
and everyone was like, "I don't trust this guy."
(others laughing) And I suddenly was
stymied, and I was like, how do I get the information
they need to know if they won't... I can't make Gorthalax
know stuff he doesn't know, so he won't know to tell them stuff about the Harvestmen or
about perditional contradoxy or X-Y, all this stuff, unless they mine that
information from him. And you guys weren't even
mining information from him, because you were busy
keeping your own cards close to your chest, which was very, very funny. Speaking of curve-balls, let's talk about 1.10 for a second. Again, I don't wanna give any spoilers. I'll say this. There's a moment in 1.10 where, if that's the only
episode you've watched, I will say, it like... You won't even register it as being something that ruined my life. (Michael laughing) There's a moment in 1.10
that fully ruins my life. What do you guys--
- They just saw 1.10, right? - They just saw 1.10 but
they don't know yet what... I guess we can say spoiler-free. Daybreak dying ruins my life. And I won't tell you why, (others laughing)
but it ruined my life. Which is very very exciting. There was a lot of memes on the internet about our players existing on a spectrum of chaos to law, and people would typically put, you know, Ally and Emily on the chaos side, and Murph all the way on the lawful side, and it's like, oh,
they're the play styles. Murph ruined my life.
(others laughing) - I was just, once again. Riz is secretly a grizzled knight who's just like, we need
to clean up our mess here. (grunting)
(others laughing) - Yeah, I mean, you iced that dude. - [Brian] Yeah. - After one of the most brutal, shitting his pants,
getting spit on in the face and dragged by a motorcycle, stabbed to death.
- Truly brutal. Yeah, I think it is. It's one of those things, too, where much like the gem with Gorthalax, why I didn't trust him, because hearing about
the past and everything. I was being very pragmatic in that moment, where I'm like, this guy
tried to end the world just now.
- Yeah. - If we do not kill him right now, he might kill every single
person ever on earth. I'm like, it's not worth risking it. - It's a good point. - Actually, Riz had... Well, there was a bunch of
clutch moves in that battle. That battle was one of the first battles. Prior to that was the mithril factory, which was a big, close on
either side kind of battle. Prior to that, it was the Black Pit, which was really scary and terrifying. This was the first battle,
I think, in the show, where you guys were cleaning
up from the word go. You guys were doing
extremely, extremely well. There was a moment where the
apocalypse almost happened, 'cos the quarterback
skeleton passed the football, guy grabbed it, was going. You had done Riz's thing that was a traditionally risky move. Because you were like, "I'm
not gonna take an action. "I'm just gonna stay here, "prepare a reaction for if anyone comes "with the ball through here."
- Yep. - Prepared that reaction and were like, can I shoot the ball out of his hand? And I was preparing to be like, yeuch, you're gonna need some pretty... And-- - Adaine.
- Siobhan comes in with Adaine in the clutch move, says
"I give him my nat 20." Doctor Stranges it. Perfect.
- Oh, righteous divination! Right?
- Divinations. - Portent roles. Goddamn, those were nice to have. - They were really. I love divination wizards.
- Yeah. - I think Portent is one
of the coolest abilities. - Portent really is.
- It's really, really cool. Being able to call a nat 20
in a moment where you need it? - It's great.
- Woo. It's very fun. Let's do some other questions here that should go over. We'll also start taking
some questions from the chat in a little bit, I think. Right? Yeah. So, what was your favorite
part of episode 1.09? Which is the roleplay ep. So the first hour of that
is Gorthalax in the diner. And then Schaubach, do you
remember what also happens? Well, start with Schaubach. What's your favorite part of 1.09? - I mean, it has to be the conversation between Gorthalax and Fig. I mean, that to me just felt so... It was so beautiful. And, yeah, having that relationship with being able to re-shoot it with the high-angle, low angle, and seeing you up on the shoulders. Coming up and just seeing your dad, and then getting that, a little bit of a lecture from him, which is like, you shared with him how you're kind of mad
at your mom right now. And Gorthalax is like, look. I don't feel right taking
any credit for anything. I was absent. And that, I think, kinda
turned your attitude towards your mom in that moment, where you started to open up to her. I thought that was so cool.
- I remember-- - It felt so real in that moment. - Yeah, I mean, I, like a huge percentage of Americans, and people in the world, come from a family that
has had multiple divorces in it.
- Yep. - And there was this moment
of Gorthalax saying something that I think is very real, an experience a lot of kids
from divorced families have, which is, he goes, he says basically, you're mad at your mom because she's there every day doing the boring mundane things and putting the work in, and I have all this credit
that I didn't really earn. - Yep.
- Yeah. - Which is a really wild thing for a sixteen-foot-tall demon with a skull on his loincloth-- - Yeah.
- To say. - I also, in general, think that everyone always, I think that dads in D&D get
a lot more worship than moms. So I was, it was really fun for me to play that to the extreme. To kind of then, you know.
- Yeah. - Show, why is everyone's character obsessed with their dad? But everyone's mom is just fine. - Which, that moment for me, then leads to, and I'm not gonna spoil, but leads to one of my
most favorite moments from this season, which has to do with your mom, and a very poignant moment that they will all see.
(Emily laughing) But I did tear up in
that moment, you know. So, anyway. That's out there, and I hope you watch that and enjoy. - Was the doctor scene...?
- Yes. (Emily laughing)
- That's my favorite. I mean, both great. You get the gamut with
Fig in this episode. (Emily laughing)
- Oh, yeah. - That's probably--
- The wildcard. - That's one of the funniest
moments in the season for me. - That was such a wild
thing to experience. Also, just because I feel like you looked at me during that and was just like, okay,
we're going for this. And I was like, all right,
we're going for this. - Here's my thing is this. I am not a... I don't think of myself as a pure law DM, in the traditional sense. I'm not keeping anything on rails. But there are just certain moments where Emily as a player will make choices that I never wanna say no to in a position of like, that's
a little out there, Emily. (others laughing)
That's never what I'm doing. I'm just trying to keep--
- Feel free to, though. That voice sounded real stupid. It'd be funny!
(all laughing) - But it's very funny because whenever I've given any
pushback to a chaotic move, it's never from a position of, nice try, buddy, but not on my watch! It's almost always a more wizardly, hm, if I allow this move,
the balance will be shifted to the twain.
(Emily laughing) It will affect things to come. So any time that I've had to... For example, in the very first episode when I'm starting Dimension 20. My actual play show. College Humor has decided to give me, some guy--
- My dream has come true. - My dream's come true. We've filmed this before Tide CEO, before my first sketch had come out. I was just some dude. And I'm like, god, I hope this goes well. And in the first hour
of the first episode, of a story about a bunch
of kids going to school, (others laughing) Emily says, "I'm not going to school!" - Would that not be what
my character would've done? - And of course, you're the most brilliant role-player in the history of the world. It's exactly what Fig would do! But, you make me dance!
(Emily laughing) You make me work for it! I gotta stay fast! - All right, let's put some
more heat back on Murph, huh? (others laughing) Right, how about when he fucked your life? - What I'm saying is--
- Bad, bad boy! - What I'm saying is, I don't come down. I love that move, in my head. When that happens, I'm going like, god, I love that.
(Emily laughing) That's such a great move on Fig's part. My life is ruined.
(others laughing) - Honestly, though? Honestly, though, you completely
turned it around on me. - You did!
- And made yourself look ten million times better than if you had just had a normal scene bringing me to school.
- I appreciate that. But that's what I'm saying, is actually-- - 'Cos during that, as we were
driving to go meet my dad, I was like, man oh man,
that was pretty easy! I really got away with something! (others laughing)
Fully was like, I got it, I did it.
- I can't believe it. This is from a later episode, I don't want to spoil it too much. There are couple moments there where Fig throws straight-up
pure bolts of chaos at me, and I feel like I never fully
got a shot to the heart. I managed to get out of most of them. My favorite one is the one, no spoilers, but you'll know it's a moment in a later episode in the series, where you claim to have
diplomatic immunity in the same way that Adaine does, and you're like, "I have it too." And I know that your
deception roll is bonkers, so I just have the person go, yeah, what country you from? (all laughing) As you scramble for the
laminated map on the table I go, thought so!
(all laughing) That's what I'm saying is, you're my favorite person
to play with in the world. The six cast members from Dimension 20 are my six best friends. Like, we've all played for years. - Yeah.
- Out of character. But the chaos you provide, and I say this truly from the heart and a place of deep gratitude, makes me do my best work. The challenge provided by
players being in character and doing--
- Huh. - What their characters would truly do. - [Emily] I guess, good to know. - I do think we all have
a very balanced dynamic. - Yeah, oh yeah. The table is very--
- I would like to say, my intention is never to be chaotic. (Brennan laughing)
I'm never like, I'm gonna fuck up Brennan's shit.
- I think you're just a creative problem-solver.
- I'm always just like okay. Yeah! It always feels like the very much, I guess from my perspective, when I do something, I'm like, this is a really good idea, all right, let's do it. And then everyone looks at me horrified and I'm like...
(Brennan laughing) Whoops.
(all laughing) - No, I love it. I love it. It makes the stories the
best they can possibly be. Who wants to watch a game where everybody does the conservative one move forward at a time? Taking sudden twists and turns in a story is the most gratifying thing. And again, committing
deeply to these characters, that the story would have. That rebel would not go to school. - Well, specifically, also, a rebel who has Disguise Self.
- Yes. - Totally.
- That was why. I was like, duh, I don't wanna go to... - You're good.
- I don't wanna go to school. And I know how to disguise myself, and I probably wanna play with my spells. Let's do this!
- Yeah. A million percent. - And we got to meet Gilear! - And that's how we got to see Gilear. - We got to meet Gilear, so... - Gilear is the greatest NPC of all. - You probably weren't expecting Gilear to be around so much.
(Emily laughing) - Again, I wanna be very clear. I never wanna harp on Emily. But in terms of bringing
chaos to the campaign. The fact that you were like, "No, Brennan. "Gilear's the NPC we'll see the most of." (others laughing)
Could never have anticipated. In my head I'm like, oh. Who are the fun NPCs, like... Arthur Aguefort, and Bill Seacaster.
- Well, Fig's ranger mom! - Yeah, Sandralynn!
- She's a badass! - No, it's the dude who sucks.
(Brennan laughing) - If you had just... Honestly, here's where you went wrong. I think the very first time we met him, there was a yogurt stain on his shirt. - It was beans the first time.
- Oh, beans. - It was beans, yoghurt, yeah.
- But it became yoghurt. And once you're gonna do that? Yeah, we wanna see Yogurt Man again. (Brennan laughing)
Bring back the Yogurt Man! Bring back the Yogurt Man! - I actually realized. I finally analyzed, the improv teacher in me finally analyzed. God, what was it about Gilear? Someone was talking to me
about Gilear the other night, and I literally was like, oh, I know why you guys
liked Gilear so much. And I was like, it's
because he is who he is and has elf voice.
- Yeah. - And elf voice is from Lord of the Rings, and it is the voice of
ultimate superiority. - Opulence.
- Yeah, of like--
- Very fancy. - Eight there are here,
(Emily laughing) but nine set out from Rivendell. - Yeah.
- But instead, it would always just be, eight there are here, but nine Yoplaits.
(all laughing) - Were brought back from the 7-Eleven. Ahh, I see. I have dropped one on the stairs. (Emily laughing)
It's gone everywhere. - They actually have
cheeseburgers at 7-Eleven. It's cheaper than McDonalds.
(others laughing) They don't always keep as well. - Sometimes, I like to just
watch the hot dogs dance. (others laughing) - You just, I think it was the idea. I didn't reckon in my head how much you guys were gonna enjoy the idea of an elf with
that truly elven demeanor really not having a good life. (Emily laughing)
Like, not doing well. But man, it was so joyful. But the doctor scene.
- Yeah. - All of this is to say that those moves that you make are so joyful. And that hospital scene was the first time one
of those moves happened where I went, nothing about
what Emily's trying to do here is getting in the way
of what needs to happen. All of this... There's no reason to be a lawful intercession on the chaos here. We've got time.
- Yeah. - This is advancing the story. And I remember looking at
you and literally being like, oh, you wanna play?
- Yeah! - You wanna play?
- That! I really felt like there was a moment that you were like,
okay, we're doing this. - Because, like, I have
a job to do during these. You don't think I can get crazy? I can get crazy!
(others laughing) Let's get crazy! So it was so beautiful to literally... We totally shifted into soap opera. - Yeah.
- Like, I described non-diagetic soundtrack music. - Did I roll a nat 20 for that? Was that a nat 20 that I got? - I rolled a nat 20--
- He did. - To get the scarabs out of somebody? - Yeah, what happened was, Riz was doing the responsible
grizzled knight thing of stealthing behind you in the hospital as you became this doctor. And I remember you rolled something. It was either a very bad, or very good. I don't think it was a
very bad deception check. So I interpreted. Disguise Self is a spell, so
there's no getting around that. But a bad deception roll means that, I'm like, how do I punish
a bad deception roll in this case where it's still magic? And I was like, oh. Fig's disguised herself as
someone that looks just like someone who actually
works in the hospital. So you walk in and they're like, Dr. Keller! And you're like, urgh! And it's like, you're not just a rando. You're like, oh, you work here. (Emily laughing)
And then all of a sudden, it was getting swept
into this operating room. And I remember the look on your face, which I'm not gonna lie, I relished, (others laughing)
of you being like... It was the look of someone who has raised a ton of money, and had an even bigger stack come back across the table. In terms of like, okay,
let's do this, yeah! You wanna pretend to be a doctor? Cool, pretend to be a doctor here in the operating room!
(Emily laughing) And then Riz hits the nat 20.
- Yeah. - On shooting the scarab out of the middle of
the guy with Mummy Rot. - Yeah.
- What was the worst thing that could've happened in that moment? It all worked out, but where were you gonna take that? - I could've gotten messed up, right? - You could've gotten messed up. But also, 'cos Fig was starting
to be consumed by the mummy, her arm was getting
eaten up by the monster. - Right.
- Was being sucked in. So as a result of that, she could have absolutely
been devoured by the mummy. - If I'd been devoured by the mummy, could I have played the
rest of the campaign as Fig trapped inside a mummy?
(Brian and Michael laughing) - Yes.
- 'Course. - Absolutely.
- Yes. - But honestly, what I
probably would have done would have been to keep
making things worse until you rolled a nat 20. In that moment where I was like, I'm gonna give Fig exactly
what she's asking for, which is a raw, high-octane adventure. Just a straight detour into madness. So if you got eaten by the mummy, I probably would've put you
in some weird purple dusk, Egyptian afterlife, and had you fight jackal demons, and if you got killed by them, pushed through into another afterlife, past that afterlife?
(Michael laughing) And I would've just kept going, until--
- Like a hall of mirrors, but for afterlife?
- Like a hall of mirrors, but for afterlife. Maybe had you fractalize and turn into components of yourself stretched across infinity. And then if that kept going, I would just wait for
somebody to roll a nat 20 and then we'd snap you back. - Awesome. - She wants to get killed by a mummy. (Brennan laughing)
- I want to be in the hall of mirrors of afterlives! (Emily laughing)
- Oh, man. Well, I feel like... Has it been around 15 minutes? Shall we make our big ol' announcement? - [Emily] Yes. - Oh, it's been more than 15 minutes. And we can start putting
questions from the chat up here any time you guys want. We'll start answering them. But big announcement. Starting I believe September 25th, yes. Starting September 25th, here on Dropout Live, Wednesday nights, you will be able to tune
into Dimension 20 Live, the continuing adventures of Fantasy High. (Emily clapping)
- Woo! - We will be returning
to the world of Spire with our intrepid heroes, with the Bad Kids from the
Aguefort Adventuring Academy. And we'll be doing a
livestream game of D&D. We will continue to make full seasons and side-quests of Dimension 20. We're actually shooting... - We're shooting one right now! - I have hung out with these guys the past three nights in a row shooting some of the most
fun D&D we've ever played. - It has been insane. I have been staying up
til 4:00 in the morning because I'm just like
this from adrenaline. - Just too jacked to go to sleep. So there will be more full
seasons coming to Dropout of Dimension 20, which you go to Dropout to see. But we will have a live Twitch game Wednesday nights, 7pm ongoing, starting September 25th. We're going back to Elmville, baby! And not only will we be
going back to Elmville, but as we continue our
adventures in Elmville, it is possible that our brave adventurers at the Aguefort Adventuring Academy might even stumble on worlds beyond that. After all, there are--
- What? - A lot of worlds.
- What kind of worlds Brennan? - I mean, I don't know how many worlds or dimensions we'll end up going to. Maybe around 20 or so.
- Ooh! - Point being, we reserve the right to get up to all kinds of shenanigans, both with the Bad Kids, and maybe with some other heroes that we have already seen, or maybe we have yet to see. So I reserve the right to be as mysterious and cryptic as I'd like. But the point being, y'all gon' see some live Dimension 20, starting September 25th,
7pm, here on Twitch. We can't wait.
- Yeah! - Woo!
- Yeah! - Our first question comes to us from Demerest44. If you could bring any
character, PCs or NPCs, from either Bloodkeep
or The Unsleeping City to the world of Fantasy
High or vice versa, who would you like to see? Remember, we are up right now... So this is spoiler for Unsleeping City! Sorry, spoilers for Unsleeping City. - Yeah. - We're only up to episode seven in Unsleeping City.
- Got it. - Okay.
- So that means that we've just gotten to the beginning of the fight in the subway. Pete did his wild magic surge and got Nod to the subway.
- Yeah, okay. - So, yeah. - Who is the pigeon that... Perry the pigeon?
- Perry the pigeon! - I think Perry the pigeon
would be a good assistant at Aguefort Academy.
(Brennan laughing) - I would love to see
Gilear and Wally hang out. (Brennan laughing)
- Gilear and Wally! - Yes!
- Maybe they could... Maybe Gilear and Wally could
host a sports podcast together. (Emily laughing)
- That's so good. - I like, yeah. Gilear being so much smarter than Wally, but not having any kind
of social standing, where he's just always low status. Somehow, Wally would still
be the domineering... (Brennan laughing) - Wally has a union job! - Yeah, Wally's doing
much better than Gilear. - Yeah.
- I mean, he's got his own... Yeah, place. Paying his bills, and--
- Yeah. - Wait, oh, that's true, though. They both work. One works for the subway, the other works for, yeah. - One works for the subway. That feels very good to me. I would love to see a
Gilear and Wally hangout. How about you, Schaubach? Who would you wanna see? - I was gonna say Wally in that world would be really hilarious. I'm trying to think
about who from Bloodkeep would be a really good mix in there. - Well, it'd be very fun to see... We have the amazing Matt Mercer plays a very fun character in Bloodkeep. - He could come in as a teacher
at the school or something. That would be interesting.
- Yes. That would be very, very fun. I'm trying to think of who... 'Cos they're all very vile villains. - They are. - I'm trying to think of who would get... Honestly--
- But, you know. Hogwarts has its Snape, so, you know. - That's very true.
- Yeah. - Honestly, you know what? Mike Trapp's Sokhbarr--
- Oh, Sokhbarr! - Who just wants big, deadly monsters? He would fit right in as a teacher at the Aguefort Adventuring Academy. - He would, and he'd have all his beasts. He'd be like, what's his name? - Yeah, he'd be Hagrid.
- Hagrid. - He would just be like--
- In the back. Go visit him.
- He would be a Hagrid who would be okay with
some students dying. (Emily laughing)
- Oh, totally. - Yeah, 100%. Sorry, you got too close to the, uh... - That is kinda how Hagrid is, though. - To Jeremy.
- Yeah. It's not too far of a leap.
- Yeah. - It's not too far of a leap. I love that. I think those are amazing. Joshingtugboat4. Will we see more of Hargis? The wonderful Hargis, which is Brian David
Gilbert's guest character in the Bell House show.
- Oh, the Bell House show. - Well, Brian David Gilbert is the sweetest guy in the world. Is incredibly funny. Hargis was such a good character, who jumped right into
the world of Fantasy High effortlessly, this very awkward theater kid. I think Hargis's life is pretty much set. He got the part. He's doing the play with Carie. (others laughing) I think his arc is--
- He had a happy ending! Let him have his happy ending!
- His happy ending! Maybe we'll cut to
small scenes with Hargis just being in a healthy,
stable senior-year relationship in high school, and--
(Emily laughing) Doing more theater. But you know, that's the problem. Everyone says they want to
see sweetness and happiness, but I know the real truth, which is, you wanna see
these people suffer. (Emily laughing) - I don't want that for Hargis. I don't want it for Hargis. - He just wants it for us.
- I just want it for them! They can take it. Not poor Hargis. SpicyCheddar. What was the character
creation process like for Fantasy High and Unsleeping City? What information did Brennan give the cast about the world that
they would be playing in? - Oh, Brennan sends us, Brennan sends us lots of information. He sends us maps, and then we get together. I would say the difference I noticed, in terms of character creation from Fantasy High to Unsleeping City is that Fantasy High, it was
kind of all out in the open. We know everything about
each other's characters. Unsleeping City, we didn't know much about
each other's backstories. We all had little secrets and it will keep happening
throughout the season. We all had little secrets with Brennan that the rest of us didn't know. - Yeah, it was much more... With Unsleeping City, a lot of the point of Unsleeping City was talking about New York. And this was something that... I love New York, and the
campaign is very much a love letter to a place that I'm from and don't live any more, and miss a lot. But of course, the
problem with New York is, any time you're writing
a story about New York, it's deeply arrogant.
- Yeah. - Like, oh, you know New York?
(Emily laughing) And even more so than most cities, there isn't one New York.
- Yeah. - Are you talking about
the financial district? Are you talking about Forest Hills? - Yeah, right.
- You talking about Bay Ridge? Are you talking about Harlem? Are you talking about Riverside? South Bronx, Jamaica? What, Flushing? All of these places are
communities unto themselves with their own rich history. And even within that, you start to web the social circles of New York, where even in the same neighborhood, it's like, oh, there's
two different worlds here, because this neighborhood is... You look at Green Point and you're like, artsy hipsters and old Polish families. And you're like, these people live in the
same apartment buildings, and are in two different universes. - [Emily] Yeah. - So part of what creating the characters for Unsleeping City was about was saying the heroes of New York
can't be homogenous, and they have to bring a lot of baggage that makes coming together harder. The Bad Kids are kind of in it to win it from the end of episode two. With the Unsleeping City, I wanted to represent the fact that adult strangers don't talk
to each other in New York. - Yep.
- Yeah. - And that they have tragedy and hurt and heartbreak in their backstory, and to me, the idea of having a D&D show where getting to the party cohesion is a big part of the story was something I wanted to explore. - I found it to be very fun because it's not a spoiler to say that my character in
Unsleeping City is a divorcee. That comes out first episode.
(Brennan laughing) But I guess if you want
a spoiler warning, yep. And the fact that it was so hard to connect with other people, that there were so few opportunities to connect with each other, only made it feel even lonelier, and it felt like a very truthful story. - Yeah, it's New York. It's lonely.
- Yeah. - You also lived in Staten Island, right? (Brennan laughing)
- In Staten Island. No-one would... Oh, gosh, darn it!
(Brennan laughing) No-one would come out on the ferry. - Which is true.
- And hang out with me. - In real life.
- That is true in real life! - And the next thing
also, with Fantasy High, we were specifically trying to hit Breakfast Club tropes?
- Yes. - Whereas I feel like Unsleeping City, we were just kind of trying to hit different people around New York, but it was a little bit less archetypical? - Yeah.
- Yeah. - It was interesting thing of being like, what's the D&D class you wanna play? What would that be in New York City? - Yeah. - Or, what's a New York City person you want to be? What kind of class would they be? But there really was
this thing of being like, what would a paladin be in New York? A firefighter! What would a cleric be? An ER nurse!
- Yeah. - There was this element
of the translation of it. So that was very different. Also with Unsleeping City, it was like, New York is a place where
half the cast has lived, so it wasn't like I needed to give you a breakdown.
- Yeah! (laughing) If I want to give you a
campaign setting breakdown, then here's a Wikipedia article on New York City, you know?
- Yeah. - Which was very interesting. - Yeah, I'll say that from
an audience perspective, because I get to watch all of this happen as a viewer, sort of as a passive viewer, I get to watch all this happen. And so just for you at home, the way that happens is that everyone goes over to Brennan's house. For this one, for Unsleeping City, we all went over there.
- Yeah. - You guys had all done your research and he had sent you all
the articles and ideas and all that kind of stuff. It's really fun to just sit there and watch all of the characters start to crystallize and become real. And I remember specifically
Zac's character, that was the first one out of the gate, was the fireman. And it was like, just seeing
that all come together in that moment was really neat. And then seeing it playing out over the season. It's really a cool moment.
- It was really lovely. And I think, too, one thing that we definitely
wanted to do with this was, knowing we were gonna do
multiple seasons of Dimension 20, I just wanna take big swings with seasons. - Yeah. - I wanted to look at
Unsleeping City as like, let's not try to do Fantasy High again. I wanna do something where there is friction and baggage and trauma in the characters, and see if they get to the point the Bad Kids got to.
- Yeah. - You know what I mean?
- Yeah. - Because New York--
- Adult trauma's very, very, very different from teenager trauma. - Yeah, 100%.
- Yep. - And there's an element, too, of, not to get all philosophical about it, but a story about New York being under mystical, arcane threat, and the central thing being like, can different people with wildly different
lives and backgrounds learn to organize and come together? - [Michael] Yep. - And that's, to me, an important and beautiful kind of story. - New York story.
- Yeah, absolutely. What do we share? What do we have in common? A love for each other and this place. - And also, Murph is a rat. - Also, Murph's a rat.
(Emily laughing) - I was almost, my original pitch, I think was for a ranger, who was very good at
hunting rats and stuff. - Yes!
- Because I was gonna do-- - Yes, you had been an exterminator! - I was gonna do the Kugrash voice, but be like--
- Those fuckin' rats. - They're in the walls!
- Yeah. - The pigeons are all over the place. And just be really good at hunting, like be a hunter?
- But it's so much more fun that you--
- To be an actual rat? - You were of the rats.
- So good. - That was the thing too. We already had four humans, and there was part of me that's like, it'd be nice to have one really fantastical... Maybe just have one character hidden behind the umbral arcana. - Yeah.
- Like, one full-stop. You go to the Hellboy thing and you see Abe Sapien up in the glass with the water everywhere, and you go, oh, yeah. This is some magic. Now we're in it. And that's kind of what Kugrash was to me. Has there ever been a prop or dungeon that you decided to not possibly build? - Yeah.
- Yeah. - I'm gonna use this as an opportunity. I remember you guys... So you guys will sometimes play-test the battle spaces, right?
- Mm-hm. - And didn't you say that for the current season that we're filming, that you play-tested one. Didn't you play-test something and you said you had to scrap it? Or does that ever happen? That you'll come up with a battle mechanic and then you guys will play-test it before you actually play it with us, and you...
- This season, we did a full play-test. Others I've done more
casual play-tests on. We rarely have play-tested something we've already built.
- Yeah. - Okay. - But some, there've been
some instances there. - Bloodkeep was, most of the time it's a
decision on path of story. So we go, do we wanna go here, or do we wanna go here? And Bloodkeep for me is
the one that stands out, which was basically the, I mean, it's already been released. So we can say that the sky-ship battle could've been another battle.
- Yes, it could have been. And we ended up cutting one of them because it was just too complex. There was a battle that was planned for Escape from the Bloodkeep which was a fog of war type battle, with the board slowly being revealed in a series of goblin warrens, and it was a really fun idea that maybe someday I'll
use in a different setting. But the idea... I mean, that's the hard
thing about Dimension 20 is, in every battle being like, I can't give these six players a room with bad guys in it. I have to give you
something that is dynamic. Because you guys will understand your powers and the game so well that there will be nothing
challenging about it. So it's like, give a big X factor that adds another level of complexity and decision-making to this. Right?
- Yeah. - So, the goblin warrens is the only one I think we've fully ever scrapped. - Yeah.
- Do they ever say no to you? Do Schaubach and Rick ever say no to you? - No.
- Are you ever like, I wanna do--
- I mean. Just budget. But Rick, I don't think Rick ever says no. - Interactive Corp says
no to me sometimes. (others laughing) - Exactly. We get no from other people, but... Rick Perry's always down.
- Yeah. - And wants to add to it. This and this and this and this. - Have you had pitches
where they're just like, no, that costs $10,000. You absolutely can't do that.
- Yeah. But here's the thing...
- If you were like, what if it was a fight in a bank, and we had real gold?
(Brian and Michael laughing) Right? - I do remember that conversation. - Would you say no to that? Or would you say yes?
- I would say absolutely yes. (Emily laughing) Let's have some real gold! It matters. People will notice the difference between fake gold and real gold-- - They will.
- On camera. - That's what I thought. - I think for the most part... I mean, look. The weird thing about all these sets is, each of these sets is X by X length. You know, two by three. And there are budgetary differences between some things and others, but it's rare to be like... We don't have a special effects budget. Things aren't lighting on fire. - Yeah. - So it's sort of--
- Whoa, whoa! - What if they were, though! - That, I'd probably say no to. - Tune in for season five!
(Emily laughing) - Sorry.
- For season five, in which we all actually physically die! (others laughing) - We should incorporate more, you know when--
- Water. A moat.
- Yeah, little action figure. Any time there'd be an
action figure commercial, they would always have
cool layers and stuff that you don't actually get in real life. But it'd be like, toxic ooze gets poured
in the ninja turtles. Should put some ooze.
- If we ever had a water battle--
- Get some ooze! - And there was actual water, I just think throughout the entire battle I'd just be like... Just touch it.
- Just touch it. - Well, actually, in the early stage of the alligator battle, of the rat king battle in Unsleeping City, I did have a, what was it? A question for Rick, which was like, now, if we were to hydro-proof
the set and the minis... (others laughing) - Could we use the flight extenders to actually have them underwater? And I'll just pour a pitcher and raise the levels up that way. - [Emily] Oh! - That, I got a hard shut-down on. That, no-one would--
- I would love to see Rick just give you a big fat no.
(Brennan laughing) "No way, man." Just look at you like
you're an absolute idiot. - We were shooting that battle, and I think I might've said, god, I wish we could do water. Because we're recreating it. Why not? And Rick was in the shop just behind us and I could hear him on the other side go, no water!
(Emily laughing) He was listening. But I was like, to Santi, I was like, maybe we could do
just a little water in this? (Emily laughing)
No water! - We could just get a spray bottle. - Yeah, yeah.
- And whoever's character is underwater, we spray them.
- Yeah, exactly. (Emily laughing)
No water. It's great.
- Brittacus, thank you! Thank you, Brittacus, for your question. - Brittacus has been
chatting a lot tonight. Thank you, Brittacus, for that. Thanks for being an active member. - Who were your favorite characters to have one-on-one scenes with as an RPer? - Is that for us or you? - Guess the roleplayer would be us. - Yeah.
- Role-player... It's just everyone. I don't do superlatives. Just everyone.
- Yeah. I think as far as--
- Oh wait, oh wait. A NPCs.
- I would say definitely, with Kugrash and Wally.
- Yeah. - I like any time I can talk to my... - Can we just get a
little Wally right now? I miss him. - Hey, you're tuning into Wally and Gilear in the morning! (Emily laughing)
I'm Wally! - Oh my god.
- I'm Gilear Faeth. This morning, we talk about the humiliating defeat...
(Emily laughing) - He would take his sports
team losing so personally. - He would. - He'd be a Cleveland Browns fan. - Just weave into the narrative. - Oh, Browns...
(Emily laughing) Another devastating season. - You hate to see it, folks. Hudol Hellions win another match. Oh, jeez!
(others laughing) - And I think Wally would probably just accidentally be a front-runner. Just start rooting for high scores. - I just love the Patriots!
- Happy! - I just love to see everybody play ball and have a good time!
(Emily laughing) - If you think about it, gotta be a win every time. - I just really needed a win last year. (all laughing) - There you go.
- Cool. So, Wally`s Kugrash.
- Oh, well, I... - You're probably...
- Obviously, Gilear, yeah. Gilear's probably my favorite. Yeah, I don't know. That's a really hard... I've just gotta say everyone. - We had some good--
- Kug and Sophie. - I like Kug and Sophie, is really fun. - Kug and Sophie was really fun. - And the art that is coming
from the fans on that, I don't know if you've seen it. - Yeah.
- It's so beautiful. - Yeah.
- It's really good. - Sophie passed out.
- Sophie styling up... - And then, oh yeah, styling up. - Kug.
- Kugrash cloaked as a little watching figure. That to me is... To everyone that creates the fan-art, we cannot thank you enough. - It, yeah.
- It's literally... I'm gonna show my phone screen right now. - It's how we get to relive it, also. - And it's like, you watch it, because you're in your
head and you're like, why doesn't New York ever get-- All these European countries get-- - This is my phone, this is
my home-screen right now. - Yes!
- If you can see it. - Oh, that's Laser Lazuli! Laser, awesome, Lucas, yes. - This is Sophie and--
- Sophie and La Gran Gata. (speaking foreign language)
(Emily laughing) - So it's a part of our lives. We love it. It motivates us, too, as we continue to create new seasons. We just love it. Before it was La Gran Gata, it was Bill Seacaster for a long time. - It was Bill Seacaster on my phone, yeah. - Who I love.
- Who I miss! - Yeah! - Can I get a little Bill Seacaster? Just a little bit?
- My darling boy. (Emily laughing) - I have some news. Can I tell you?
- You've gotta stop pimping him in to whatever...
- I don't know. I wanna call you up every now and then. Just get some advice.
(Brennan laughing) - [Brennan] I love that you
want advice from Bill Seacaster. - Absolutely.
- Who would not give... - No, 'cos I consider
myself a very kind person, so I think it would be nice to have sort of a counselor who would give me a little bit of that other side of advice. - Other thing you need to do is, when you're missing them, you just text Brennan, and he can send you a little voice memo. 'Cos I have a friend who was doing a little New Zealander accent, and it was so foreign to me that I would sometimes be like, I wonder how that
character would say this? And I would just be like, how would you say nieces and nephews? And then he would just
send it back to me-- - Nice.
- As a little voice memo. - Nieces and nephews.
- Yeah. (Brennan laughing)
- That's great. - I love that. Ratcheeseits. Hey, rat fam! Get in the comments, you rats. What was y'alls favorite interaction you've ever seen between
fans on Discord or IRL? - Well, you guys had all
that live show stuff. - Yeah.
- Oh, yeah. - What was that like? What was that like at the Bell House? - Bell House or RTX?
- Or RTX. - What's that like going
to a room full of people that are just like...? - There was a character. Actually, I don't think
it's a spoiler to say that in Fantasy High, you will
someday meet Adaine's sister, and there is someone who does
cosplay for Adaine's sister. And it's some of the most dynamite cosplay I've ever seen! - Persephone, I believe--
- Yes. - Did cosplay. And she had the catchphrase
on the shirt, Aelwyn. - Yes. Yes.
- It was unbelievable. - What is the catchphrase? I always forget that catchphrase. What is it?
- Hasn't come yet. Hasn't come yet, spoilers!
- Twitch has been very kind in featuring us on their
home page and they have some very strong rules
(others laughing) about which words you can say. - Some strong rules that I have already broke twice. (Michael laughing)
So I think we can not afford a third strike.
- Okay, fair enough. - On a personal and moral level, I may or may not agree with these rules, but the important thing is, we're here to play ball.
(others laughing) - Here To Play Ball is the name of Wally and Gilear's...
- Oh, no! - Oh, great.
- Here To Play Ball in the morning with Wally and Gilear!
(others laughing) First up, Captain Fabian Seacaster with another MVP.
- Oh, my god. - He's my best friend.
(Emily laughing) - At RTX, Gilear pretending to be Fabian got a big reaction. And I always think it's really fun when things that are... They're almost inside jokes. Fabian's vanity being like, he would never, ever wanna be Gilear. You really need to know that character for that to be funny, and for that to get a big reaction is just like, oh, this is so cool. We're all playing together.
- Yeah. I mean, that's the thing
about those live shows that's been so incredible, is that there's an element of performing to an audience that wants the deep cuts. - Right, yeah, yeah.
- Yeah. - It's rare for a musician to go on stage and have people be like, "Play something off the B-side!" You know?
(Emily laughing) It's a very cool feeling.
- Play your new album for us! We really wanna hear it!
- We really wanna hear it! - Oh, it's great. EmRiley16. Does Brennan ever worry
about getting the characters to their set combat for the next episode? Was it ever hard to ensure the characters took the right path? - Interesting.
- Good question. - Yeah.
- It's a great question. Thanks, Em.
- I'll take this one. Thank you.
(Michael laughing) - No, I don't get worried about it. The reason I don't get
worried about it is that there is a tremendous balance between... There's this weird paradox here, right? We'll call the paradox, how do you balance between
not wanting to railroad people and how do you balance between, your company has spent a
tremendous amount of money producing the best sets in the history of filmed actual play? - And you can't do six
episodes in a hospital. - And you can't do six
episodes in a hospital. (Michael laughing)
- And, also, you have to get everyone everywhere in two hour increments every time. And also, the amount of
episodes you're gonna shoot is fixed before you even start. It's fun and challenging. - Sounds easy.
(Brennan laughing) Sounds super easy! - But also I feel like
railroading isn't really a thing? - Yeah, I kind of agree. - If you don't care about the quest, if you're not trying to do the thing, then you're not playing. I guess you are playing. You should be playing right. You should be working. No, but--
- My answer is Murph. Murph gets us to the next fight. (others laughing) That's my answer.
- But when you play D&D, if you don't wanna save the world, if you don't wanna fix
whatever the problem is, if you're just like, my character would actually
just hang out at the tavern. - Right.
- It's just like, okay. Then sit in a room by yourself, and you can imagine what
it would be like to... - Murph is also a DM, and when he DMs, because I'm his wife, we are married.
(Brennan laughing) What is it, going on...?
- Five years. - Five years.
- How many years is it, hon? - Wow.
- I feel as though I have a secret superpower, which is that I can read your subtle cues. So sometimes I'll feel like, oh, this actually is maybe something Murph really wants us to do, and I can kind of... If it seems like it.
- Very kind of you. - Maybe you don't care about that help. - Super care.
- And I would say, too. In the venn diagram of
things that need to happen, right? And then total player agency. There is a thin overlap, and that thin overlap
is my ability to predict what the PCs will want to do and also the PCs being my
friends and good players that know that these
episodes are also two hours, and know that fights have to happen. If they really wanted to throw me off, they could, and they don't. Because they are also
master storytellers, right? They are people that know
the game and love it, and want the next thing to happen. The other thing also is, really it's not about
what happens at the table. My work should happen ahead of time. Fantasy High was always effortless to get you to the next fight, not because I'm some
mastermind railroader, nor because you guys were like, "Well, Brennan wants us
to go to this next thing." It's a mystery.
- Right. So that's the next step.
- The clues go to the next place.
- Right. - So a lot of it is just about structuring your story cleverly to go... Honestly, the biggest tool I use to get me to the next fight is not, how do I trick them
to go where I need them to go? It's more about time and pacing, and just making sure, we have x amount of roleplaying
scenes to go through, so let's get through those roleplay scenes in enough time that we get to where the next moment's gonna happen. So I think it's a little
bit of magic on all parts and we end up somewhere in the middle between total chaos and
complete strict railroading. - Right. And we killed Daybreak.
- Yeah. - All those things. I feel like it's about players solving problems their own
way and affecting the world. It's not about, just
put them in the world, and there's just a bulletin board that they can go catch
some orcs if they want, or they can go shopping. It's just like, okay.
- Yeah. - That doesn't sound super
fun to watch or listen to. - Yeah.
- Uh, hard disagree. Shopping in D&D is one of
the great joys of life. (Michael laughing)
- This is a big thing, because there are people that
I deeply love and respect who are very into shopping, and I am all about that and support that. I have a hard time
running shopping as a DM. - [Brian] And people
don't wanna listen to it. - And that's the thing is,
(Emily laughing) also I have a hard time, because I'm so steeped in
old pagan, Celtic lore, and it's never like, the hero Cahoulan raised his blade aloft. He had bought it that morning for 20 gold pieces. (Emily laughing)
- Yeah! - All I wanna do, it's not even... I'm not going shopping for new... I just am always like, oh, sweet. What if my character had a cool vest? I'd like to buy a cool vest.
(Emily laughing) - Here's the thing.
- I can go shopping... - You can buy a cool vest right now. - Yeah!
- In real life, yeah. But I'd have to use my
real dollars for it. I'd much rather use fantasy bucks! On a fantasy vest. - I love it.
- Fantasy vest! - Before we go to the next one. I have to give a shout-out to
the artist of this t-shirt. - Yes.
- Is that okay? - Oh, yeah!
- Okay, so, this is a custom-made t-shirt, made by Justin Klett, last
named spelled K-L-E-T-T. Jklettdesigns.com. He made this shirt for me. I found it on Reddit
and he made this for me, and handed it to Brennan
in a very clandestine way at C2E2.
- Why clandestine? - Because it was sort of a money under the table and all that, and this is not a sanctioned design, and I'm glad it's not, because It's a one of a kind, and I really appreciate you, so thank you so much, and thank you to all the fans that create all the art.
- Yeah, it's dope. - Echoing that, our awesome
fans are incredible. We have time for one more question here on the stream. Zaravicks. Brennan, which is the
most difficult NPC voice for you to keep up for
long periods of time? Gorthalax.
- Oh, yeah. - Gorthalax is the hardest. And I got to do a one-hour scene with him. (others laughing) Which brings me back to
when I was talking about the episode 1.09! Yeah, I loved it. I'm sitting there going like, (grunting) Yeah, um,
I have a lot of clues. (others laughing) If you just wanna ask me
about them. (coughing) - I actually have, like, ten
paragraphs I need to tell you. So if you could ask one question so I don't have to keep
telling you to trust me. - Yeah, if we can wrap it up... - I was trying to help you. It was all them.
- Yes, actually! That's very true. Fig was actually keeping
us on the rails that time. - Yeah.
- Ooh, well, well, well. - How the turn tables!
- Well, well, well! - Can Riz join the basketball team? (Brennan laughing) - I love it. - And now, newest addition
to the basketball team... - Riz! And watch me play
basketball for 45 minutes. - I love it. Guys, merch is now available on the store. You can check out,
Dropout has its own store. We've got tons of merch available. You can head on over to YouTube to Dimension 20 and
subscribe and hit that bell to get notifications, please. We'll get you new stuff, stat. You can sign up for Dropout, to watch episodes of the Unsleeping City and the rest of Fantasy
High, everything else. And you can stay tuned for Twitch, where we got Drawfee and
Dimension 20 coming at you. We got another couple of
weeks of Extra Credit. We're gonna be doing
talk-backs as we preview and show live the episodes of Fantasy High that you might have missed. - And I'm gonna start DMing
a purely shopping campaign. (others laughing) - In the Dropout store, you can only buy Fantasy High
and Unsleeping City merch. And guys, stay tuned for our
big live Twitch D&D show, Dimension 20 Expanded Universe, coming September 25th. We'll see you guys there. Thanks for tuning in!
- Bye! (Brennan laughing) - Dice! Guys, that's all for this
chapter of Dimension 20. But wait. More full episodes call out to you from the realms beyond Dropout.tv! Will you come to their aid and sign up for your free trial today?
